The Miller's Daughter (47 page)

Emma folded her arms under her bosom and moved to the kitchen window. Her glance roamed over the mill, the sails were idle today. There was not only no wind, there was also very little work.

‘Do you think there’ll be much of a milling business to leave the lad, when the time comes?’ she asked suddenly. ‘He loves this mill, you know. That’s what all this
running away from home is all about, isn’t it?’

William came to stand beside her, his arm resting casually about her. He sighed heavily and, answering her first question, said, ‘The way things are looking there won’t be much of a
business left, no, if I’m honest.’

Her glance followed the sweep of the sails, the stark black outline of the mill, the tiny white-painted windows.

‘I don’t suppose—’ she began and then stopped, bending forward, squinting up at the mill. ‘Why, the young scallywag!’

‘What? What is it? What have you seen? I can’t see anything.’

She was laughing with relief and pointing. ‘Look, look at the window on the granary floor, the small one right at the top above the bin floor. The young monkey’s hiding up there. He
knows we rarely go up on to that floor.’ She giggled mischievously. ‘I reckon we ought to play the little rascal at his own game. We’ll leave him up there for the
night.’

‘Are you sure you saw him?’

‘Oh, I saw him right enough. He’s there, all right.’ She chuckled again. Now she knew the boy was safe, she was enjoying Boydie’s escapade as much as he was.
‘I’ll ring Micky.’

Minutes later, when she had reassured the boy’s father that he was hiding in the mill and told him of her plan, she came back to stand beside William.

‘Maybe by the time he’s spent a night up there in the cold and with mice and spiders for company, he won’t be so keen to run away again.’

William said nothing but his glance out of the corner of his eye told her that he did not quite agree with her.

The following morning, from her kitchen window, Emma watched for Boydie to appear. He emerged from the white double doors and, to her surprise, sauntered jauntily across the
yard whistling loudly.

‘Well, I’ll be . . .’ she began and, behind her, William chuckled.

‘You know, Em, I think even you’ve underestimated that lad this time.’

The back door opened. ‘Morning, Gran.’ The grin was stretched across his mouth and his eyes challenged her. A flop of curly, black hair fell untidily across his forehead and he
flicked it back expertly. ‘Any breakfast going?’

‘Well,’ she said and, ‘well, I never.’ And then she was laughing and scooping him against her in such a bear-hug that the young boy wriggled with embarrassment.

She stood him back at arms’ length. ‘Let’s have a look at you. My, you’ve grown. Come on, sit down. It’s all ready.’

The boy’s eyes widened. ‘You knew I was here?’

Now it was Emma’s turn to tease him. ‘Oh yes, I saw you up there last night.’

‘Well, I’ll be . . .’ he began and then the three of them laughed together.

‘So, what are we going to do with you, Boydie?’

They were gathered around the table in the sitting room on the following Sunday afternoon. Emma, William, Boydie and Micky, who had arrived on the Friday night to stay the weekend.

‘We can’t go on like this you know,’ Micky continued.

There was no anger now, just a loving concern for his boy’s welfare. As if he felt this, Boydie acted with a maturity far older than his eleven years.

‘Dad, I hate the city. Why can’t we move back here, to Marsh Thorpe?’

Micky sighed. ‘My job’s there and besides,’ he shot an awkward glance towards Emma and took a deep breath, ‘I hope this won’t hurt you,’ he began, ‘but
I’ve met someone who could become very important to me – to us. Her name’s Angela.’

Emma reached across the table swiftly and took Micky’s hand in hers. ‘We’re glad. We wouldn’t expect you to spend the rest of your life alone.’

The relief was written on Micky’s face. ‘Thank you,’ he said briefly, but then their attention came back to the boy.

Gently, Emma said, ‘Don’t you like Angela, Boydie? Is that the trouble?’

The boy shrugged. ‘No. She’s all right.’ Then he grinned broadly. ‘Well, better than all right, really. No, it’s just that I want to live here, in Marsh Thorpe,
near my mill.’

William and Micky said in unison. ‘
Your
mill?’

The boy looked from one to the other of them, his expression genuinely innocent. ‘Well, isn’t it? I mean, won’t it be? One day? It’s what Gran’s always told me, so
I want to come back here to the mill. And to you, Gran, of course,’ he added, but it was obvious to them all that his grandparents were secondary in his boyish list of priorities.

It amused, rather that distressed Emma but, with a supreme effort, she managed to say, ‘That rather depends on your father.’

And all eyes were turned on Micky.

He sighed and spread his hands, palms upwards. ‘All right, you win. All of you,’ but he was smiling as he said it. ‘Boydie can come and live here.’

The words were scarcely out of his mouth before the boy gave a loud yelp of joy, jumped up from the table and was hurtling down the stairs and outside. Moving to the window, Emma watched him as
he raced across the yard, not, as she had imagined, towards the mill but into the orchard. She could just see him as he darted amongst the trees and came to a halt in front of the hives.

She laughed and turning back, said, ‘You’ll never guess what. He’s gone to tell the bees!’

At eleven, Boydie was tall for his age, but sturdy and strong too, so that he looked much older. Even more of the lovable rogue than Sarah had once predicted, he walked with an
air of supreme self-confidence, yet without conceit. He was ever cheerful, a wide grin stretched across his face and his dark blue eyes dancing with merriment.

‘He’s going to be a real heartbreaker when he grows up,’ Emma said, leaning her chin on her hands as she sat at the kitchen table watching him walk across the yard towards the
mill, her fond gaze following him.

William gave a heavy sigh and sat down, pulling the mug of tea towards him. ‘I’m not so sure he’s isn’t now. Did you see him leaning over the yard gate last night talking
to two young girls? Giggling and laughing they were, the two young lasses. Flirting, I’d have called it. But at eleven years old! I don’t know what the world’s coming to, really I
don’t.’ But he was laughing as he spoke.

Emma said nothing. She could well remember being eleven. Even then she would watch the road for a glimpse of Jamie.

Suddenly, her eyes widened. ‘William, what’s he doing?’

Boydie had stood for a moment watching the mill sails turning, then he had gone towards the engine shed and shinnied up a drain pipe. Now he was balancing himself on the end of the roof,
standing in the guttering. He inched himself sideways towards where the sails swooped past the slope of the roof within a foot or so.

‘The silly little . . .’ William muttered, beginning to rise out of his chair, but before either of them could move to the door and out into the yard, they saw Boydie take a flying
leap. He caught hold of the tip of the sail and was carried round in the wide circle.

‘Oh – my – God!’ Emma breathed and rushed to the door.

‘Emma! Don’t shout at him. Don’t startle him,’ William put a warning hand on her arm to stop her rushing headlong out and yelling up at the boy.

They stepped into the yard and stood watching as the sail swept him up, hanging by his arms, his legs dangling against the sky. Pictures from the past flashed before Emma’s horror-stricken
eyes. Pictures of her grandfather high on the side of the mill, turning to wave to her standing below in the yard, slipping, grasping desperately at thin air and then falling, falling on to the
yard below.

‘Grandpa Charlie,’ she murmured. ‘Oh no, not again.’

He was at the very top of the arc now, nimbly changing his grasp as the length of his lithe body stretched down the sail. So small, it seemed, and so high up. Then, as the sail came round again,
Boydie shifted his grasp, glanced over his shoulder and, as the tip passed close to the roof, he leapt back on to the slates. He landed on all fours like a cat, slithering down until his feet
lodged in the guttering. He turned an engaging, mischievous grin upon his grandparents, but for once Emma was not amused by his daring antics.

‘Get down here, you little devil!’ she shouted, shaking her fist at him. ‘I’ll skelp the livin’ daylights out of you.’

He jumped from the edge of the roof landing lightly on his feet on the yard. ‘Don’t be cross, Gran. It was great.’

Her hand was raised above his head, ready to strike him, but when their gaze met and locked and he stood unflinchingly before her, her hand fell away without the blow being delivered. Instead
she leant towards him and said, ‘You trying to give me or your Grandad a heart attack? Don’t you ever do that again, you hear me?’

The boy grinned roguishly. ‘Well, maybe not for a week or two.’ Then, as he saw her hands trembling, he said swiftly, ‘All right, Gran. I promise. But,’ his bright eyes
so like her own, sparked mischief, ‘it was fun.’

‘Oh, you young scamp.’ And suddenly she swept him into a tight embrace until the boy wriggled and said, ‘Leave off, Gran. Someone might see.’

Later, she saw William with his hand on the child’s shoulder talking earnestly to him. She was too far away to hear what they were saying or even to read the expressions on their faces,
but from their stance, it was a serious conversation.

As she was laying the table for tea, Boydie came up behind her and put his arms about her waist, a waist that was no longer slim and shapely as it had once been. ‘Gran, I’m so sorry.
I didn’t know about your Grandpa Charlie falling off the mill. I’d never have done it if I’d known it was going to frighten you so much.’ She turned and hugged him to her,
tears smarting the back of her throat so that she could not speak. ‘Grandad’s just told me about it. I won’t do it again, I promise, but – ’ he leant back a little
away from her so that he could look at her and there was the cheeky grin on his face once more, ‘but
my
mill would never hurt me.’ And suddenly they were laughing together.

Over the next five years, there was less and less work for the mill.

‘You’re burying your head in the sand, Mother,’ Micky would try to tell her when he visited every other weekend. ‘And beside, Dad’s getting too old to be climbing
up and down those ladders. If you’re not careful . . .’

Emma put her hands over her ears. ‘I won’t listen. I don’t want to hear it. The mill is for Boydie.’

Micky leant closer. Gently he tried to explain. ‘There’s nothing to give Boydie now, Mother, just a heap of bricks and wood that won’t ever earn him a living.’

‘Micky, don’t you dare speak of Forrest’s Mill like that. Why, if my Grandpa Charlie could hear you . . .’

‘Mother, dear, stop living in the past. Grandpa Charlie’s been dead over sixty years. This is a new generation, a new age. Windmills are dead. The best thing you could do would be to
sell the mill and the yard. Keep the house and the shop. There’s enough coming in from the post office and the shop to give the two of you a living. But any profit you make now in the shop is
being poured back into the mill. Mother, you’ve eaten into your savings just to live, haven’t you, and now you’ve scarcely anything left?’

Emma glared at him. ‘You’ve no business prying into our private affairs, just because you work in the same bank. I could have you dismissed for that.’

Micky sighed and shook his head. ‘But you won’t, will you?’ he said wearily. ‘Because you know it’s only that I’m worried about what’s happening.
Worried for you. You know it’s no more than the truth.’

‘Micky Smith, I never thought I’d hear myself say it, but you’re beginning to sound like your father. He always wanted me to sell the mill. But he was always just after one
thing. The money!’ She was silent a moment and then, belligerently, she said, ‘Besides, who’d want to buy it? Who could make a better living out of it than we can? Answer me
that?’

‘Well . . .’ he began slowly, aware that what he was about to say would cause a storm to break about his head, ‘if you sold the mill, the yard and the orchard, there would be
just under an acre of land and building land is fetching quite a good price at the moment.’

Deep in their conversation, neither of them heard the back door open.

‘Building land?’ Emma was frowning already, even though she still did not fully understand exactly what it was Micky was suggesting. ‘How can anyone build anything in the yard,
there wouldn’t be room enough—’ Her eyes widened in horror as realization slowly began to seep into her reluctant mind. ‘You don’t mean – pull down the
mill?’

They heard a slight movement and looked round to see Boydie standing in the doorway, his face ghostly white, a stricken look in his eyes. Stiffly, he moved forward to stand facing them both
across the kitchen table.

‘Gran? What are you saying? What are you thinking of? Don’t listen to him!’ The boy’s voice rose until he was shouting. He stabbed his forefinger towards her, punctuating
every word. ‘Don’t – you – dare – even
think
– of pulling my mill down!’

Micky was on his feet. ‘That’s enough. How dare you speak to your grandmother like that?’

The young man, his blue eyes flashing fire, turned on his father. ‘And how dare
you
interfere?’

‘Boydie, it’s not a viable proposition. There’s no work—’

‘Don’t give me your “banking talk”, Dad. I’m not interested in “viable propositions”. That mill,’ Boydie said slowly and deliberately, leaning
towards his father and pointing out of the window as he spoke, ‘has been in the Forrest family ever since her grandpa built it. And it’s
staying
in the Forrest family.’

‘Then what are you proposing to do with it?’ Sarcasm lined Micky’s tone. ‘How are you going to keep it running with nothing to grind? Gran’s money’s –
all her life savings – have all but gone. She’s hanging on to a worthless heap of bricks and wood just so she can hand it on to you.’ His tone softened and he shook his head
sadly. ‘Just think a minute, Boydie, please. Is that fair on your grandparents?’