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  Outcast

  JOSEPHINE COX

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  Copyright © 1991 Josephine Cox

  The right of Josephine Cox to be identified as the Author of

  the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2012.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious

  and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,

  is purely coincidental.

  eISBN : 978 0 7553 8453 2

  Cover images © H. Matthew Howarth/

  Getty Images (canal and boats)

  and Elisabeth Ansley/Arcangel Images (girl)

  This Ebook produced by Jouve Digitalisation des Informations.

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Author

  Praise for Josephine Cox

  Also by Josephine Cox

  About the Book

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Part One - 1860

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Part Two - June 1862

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  The story of Josephine Cox is as extraordinary as anything in her novels. Born in a cotton-mill house in Blackburn, she was one of ten children. Her parents, she says, brought out the worst in each other, and life was full of tragedy and hardship – but not without love and laughter. At the age of sixteen, Josephine met and married ‘a caring and wonderful man’, and had two sons. When the boys started school, she decided to go to college and eventually gained a place at Cambridge University, though was unable to take this up as it would have meant living away from home. However, she did go into teaching, while at the same time helping to renovate the derelict council house that was their home, coping with the problems caused by her mother’s unhappy home life – and writing her first full-length novel. Not surprisingly, she then won the ‘Superwoman of Great Britain’ Award, for which her family had secretly entered her, and this coincided with the acceptance of her novel for publication.

  Josephine gave up teaching in order to write full time. She says ‘I love writing, both recreating scenes and characters from my past, together with new storylines which mingle naturally with the old. I could never imagine a single day without writing, and it’s been that way since as far back as I can remember.’

  Praise for Josephine Cox:

  ‘Cox’s talent as a storyteller never lets you escape the spell’ Daily Mail

  ‘Driven and passionate’ The Sunday Times

  ‘One of the country’s best-loved storytellers’ Prima

  ‘Compelling and very powerful’ Daily Express

  ‘Bestselling author Josephine Cox has penned another winner’ Bookshelf

  ‘Guaranteed to tug at the heartstrings of all hopeless romantics’ Sunday Post

  ‘Another masterpiece . . .’ Best

  ‘Another beautifully spun family epic’ Scottish Daily Echo

  ‘A born storyteller’ Bedfordshire Times

  ‘Another hit for Josephine Cox’ Sunday Express

  ‘Written from the heart’ Daily Mail

  By Josephine Cox and available from Headline

  The Emma Grady Trilogy

  Outcast

  Alley Urchin

  Vagabonds

  Queenie’s Story

  Her Father’s Sins

  Let Loose The Tigers

  Angels Cry Sometimes

  Take This Woman

  Whistledown Woman

  A Little Badness

  Don’t Cry Alone

  Jessica’s Girl

  Nobody’s Darling

  Born to Serve

  More Than Riches

  Living A Lie

  The Devil You Know

  A Time For Us

  Cradle Of Thorns

  Miss You Forever

  Love Me Or Leave Me

  Tomorrow The World

  The Gilded Cage

  Somewhere, Someday

  Rainbow Days

  Looking Back

  Let It Shine

  The Woman Who Left

  Jinnie

  Bad Boy Jack

  About the Book

  On a fateful night in 1860, Thadius Grady realises, too late, that he has made a grave mistake. In blind faith he has put himself and his daughter Emma at the mercy of his sister and her conniving husband, Caleb Crowther – for he has entrusted to them his entire fortune and the daughter he adores. With his dying breath he pleads to see his daughter one last time – but Caleb’s heart is made of stone.

  A feared Lancashire Justice, Caleb Crowther is a womaniser and a gambler, and now the inheritance due to Emma is as much in his hands as is the beautiful Emma Grady herself. But Caleb lives in fear of the past, for how did Emma’s mother mysteriously die? And what made Thadius and Caleb hate the river people so intensely? History seems likely to repeat itself when Emma falls helplessly in love with Marlow Tanner, a young bargee. For Marlow and Emma, it is an impossible love – a love made in Heaven, but which could carry them both to Hell . . .

  Like all mothers everywhere, I have children who instil in me constant feelings of inadequacy, frustration and helplessness – not to mention anger and utter despair at times! But overriding all of these are the rewarding emotions such as joy, gratitude and shameless, bursting pride in their every achievement. I thank God for giving my husband Ken and me two wonderful sons, Spencer and Wayne, who I pray will always face with strength and courage whatever obstacles life may put in their way.

  This book is also for Elsie May, who befriended and loved me when I lost my own dear mother. Goodbye, Elsie. We’ll never forget you, sweetheart.

  Foreword

  My apologies to those historians who are familiar with convict transportation to Australia in the 1880s. Although I am aware that most of those transported to Western Australia were male, for the purpose of this story I have introduced female convicts, bearing in mind that countless numbers of women were made to suffer the same fate as their male counterparts when being transported to other coasts during earlier days.

  Many of these wretches had committed crimes no more offensive than being hungry and ragged. There were many who were branded ruffian and murderers although they were innocent. But in the hearts of each and every one, there was always hope. There must always be hope.

  Such hope, and the memories of those who had loved or betrayed her, kept alive Emma’s belief that the day must come when she would seek out those who had loved her, and she would come face to face once again with her betrayers.

  Part One

  1860

  Bad Blood

  ‘ – These wretches, who ne’er lived, went on in nakedness, and sorely stung by wasps and hornets, which bedew’d their cheeks with blood, that, mix'd with tears, dropp’d to their feet . . .’

  (Vision
of) HELL, Dante

  Chapter One

  ‘Emma Grady, you’re on the road to damnation! You have it in you to become a woman of the streets. A harlot! And as God is my judge, I will not have such a low creature under my roof!’ Here the woman paused and a man’s voice intervened, addressing the bowed head of the girl in low and trembling tones.

  ‘Your good aunt sees in you what I have always feared and you will do well to heed her words. I believe the day must surely come when you sink beneath the evil bred in you – unless, by God’s hand, you mend your ways. If you do not, you will be banished from this house! Disowned! Struck from our lives as though you never existed!’ Caleb Crowther was a man of enormous physique – tall, with large ungainly bones. His movements were slow and methodical and his tone of voice – honed by his duties in the Law Courts – was deliberate and authoritative.

  That same unenviable office yielded Caleb Crowther considerable status both within the sizeable community of Blackburn and throughout Lancashire, in whose courtrooms he regularly presided over the trials and tribulations of hapless law-breakers. There was many a petty thief or villain who had been unfortunate enough to have Caleb Crowther scowl down upon them. One condemning look from those piercing blue eyes was enough to render strong men weak. His features were altogether fearsome, close-together blue eyes above wide high cheekbones, a broad pale expanse of forehead, and a dark tangled mass of beard and whiskers. He could shrink the spirit of a man, but he could not diminish that of Emma Grady, his niece and ward, and such knowledge only served to infuriate him. As he drew himself up to continue his onslaught, a more gentle voice spoke out.

  ‘Please, Caleb, don’t be too harsh on the child.’ This feeble-looking man had risen from his sick-bed and struggled down to the drawing-room where he now defended Emma – this beloved girl who had been raised wrongly believing herself to be his daughter. The truth of her parentage would go with him to the grave – leaving only one other holding the grim shameful secret. ‘She’s young,’ he continued, leaning against the door-jamb for support, ‘the lass is only fifteen, and can’t help her high spirits.’

  ‘Fifteen or fifty, the devil takes no mind!’ thundered Caleb Crowther as he turned to glare at the intruder. Then, upon a sly warning glance from his wife Agnes, he tempered his tone with a little gentleness as he further addressed the other man. ‘Thadius, I know how great your affection is for your only child. But think, man! Think to the child’s mother, passed on these many years. Have you forgotten the anguish she caused you? Don’t you see her bad blood rising in this daughter of hers?’ Seeing the other man momentarily falter beneath his cruel words, he stepped forward gesturing for his wife to do the same. When, instinctively, Emma also ventured to assist her papa, Caleb Crowther lifted his hand, and in a forbidding voice told her, ‘Stay where you are!’ Then, returning his attention to Thadius Grady, he said, ‘Agnes will see you safely back to your room.’

  The tall dark-haired woman allowed her fragile brother to lean his weight against her arm. Without reassurance or word of comfort, she led him out of the drawing-room and into the spacious wood-panelled hallway. On painful steps, he went with her reluctantly. Their destination was a large room at the rear of the great house, a room from which, even though it was flooded with sunshine on a summer’s day such as this, Thadius Grady would never again emerge a fit and healthy man. The lung disease which had struck him down was relentlessly draining away his life.

  In the distance, he could still hear the condemning voice of his brother-in-law, Caleb Crowther, and his heart went out to that dear affectionate girl, made to suffer such a biting tongue. It grieved him that he could do nothing to ease her burden. It grieved him deeper still knowing that it was his own misguided weakness and blind trust that had placed both Emma and himself at the mercy of these two pompous devils.

  For a long time after her darling papa had gone, Emma stood before her uncle, his torrent of accusations crushing her ears, but never bruising her heart; for she believed, most fervently, that of the two of them, he was the sinner. His wickedness was inherent in his dark thoughts, in that relentless voice which spewed them out, and in the way he brought his narrow penetrating eyes to bear on her. She wondered if, in the whole of his being, there had ever been one kind or loving thought, one gentle inclination or a breath of compassion for those less fortunate than himself. She believed not. Yet, Emma pitied him, for she had never seen his serious eyes light up with joy; never heard his laughter – only his condemnation that laughter was frivolous and a sure example of a worthless character; she had never seen him raise his face indulgently to the sun or pause for a moment to enjoy a blossom-scented breeze against his skin; not once had she witnessed his fingers reaching out to touch another person in genuine love or friendship. To her, all of these things were heaven-sent and because she treasured them – because it lifted her own spirits to laugh, to sing and to join hands with another of her own age while they ran freely beneath God’s blue sky – she was condemned to stand before him like a sinner, while he poured scorn and damnation down on her head. But he would not make her feel like a sinner. Never! For, she was not, and, even if only her darling papa and her own heart believed that innocence, it was enough.

  ‘You are a disgrace! Your brazen behaviour brings shame to this family, and I will not have it! Do you hear me, Emma Grady? I will not have it!’ As he continued to glower at her, Emma felt the temptation to protest that she had not meant any harm nor seen any shame in her actions. But it would have been to no avail, for her uncle was not a man to listen nor was he a man who forgave easily. She would be punished, she was sure, just as she had been time and time again just for being young, for daring to laugh out loud and for being so shameful as to talk to those who had the misfortune of being ‘born beneath’ her. And the crime was all the more wretched if that unfortunate happened to be a boy, for then she was branded a hussy of the worst order!

  ‘Out of my sight!’ came the instruction now. ‘Go to your room at once. Your aunt and I must consider this latest incident and see what must be done!’ That said, he turned from her holding his back stiff and straight. With the slightest curtsy, Emma took her leave from the room, thinking that he must have read her mind when his voice sailed after her, ‘You will not call in on your papa. Go straight to your room . . . at once!’ She might well have disobeyed him and stolen into her papa’s room for a forbidden kiss, but, as she hurried down the hall, with her gaze anxiously intent on the narrow corridor, which led to her papa’s room, the tall upright figure of Agnes emerged, her boots kicking out the hem of her long taffeta skirt and creating an impressive echo as they tapped the ceramic floor tiles. At once, she swept towards Emma, coming to a halt only when they were face to face.

  ‘You’re a great heartache to your papa,’ accused the older woman, her hand resting elegantly against her skirt for a moment and her dark eyes riveted to the strong youthful features. ‘You’ll be the death of him yet – mark my words!’ If she expected the girl before her to flinch and cower in the wake of such vicious taunts, Agnes Crowther was disappointed. For when Emma brought her gaze to rest on that overbearing countenance, it was not fear or guilt that was reflected in her warm animated eyes, but strength – the kind of challenging strength which only served to infuriate those who tried to belittle her. She looked a moment longer at that stiff and forbidding figure, at the staunch manly face and the dark hair coiled like a snake above each ear. She noted the two most impressive characteristics of her papa’s sour-faced sister: the manner in which she held her head back, as though something distasteful had just presented itself to her, causing her to look down her nose in a most uncomfortable fashion; and her peculiar habit of joining her hands together and pressing them close to her breast as if she were praying.

  As Emma momentarily regarded the woman before her, Agnes simultaneously contemplated her. She actively disliked this blatantly defiant child of her own kith and kin, for the girl possessed such a rebellious spirit, was far
too imaginative, too talented and too temptingly attractive and there was too much of a blossoming woman in the gentle round curves of her small winsome figure. Those exquisite oviform eyes, which always seemed to be secretly smiling, were a shade too grey, too striking and too bold, and her rich thick hair was too velvety, and abounding with deep, undisciplined waves.

  Agnes Crowther found herself mentally comparing the attributes of this wayward girl to those of her own nondescript and friendless daughter, Martha. A tide of jealousy surged within her, and her tongue lashed out all the sharper to disguise her bitter feelings. ‘Unless you need to feel the sting of my cane against your knuckles, you will remove that insolent expression from your face this instant.’ She trembled to control her voice.

  Painfully aware that they were not very far from her papa’s room, Emma slowly lowered her gaze. The figure before her gave a long audible shudder, followed by the curt enquiry, ‘I take it you have been ordered to your room, while your uncle and I decide on a suitable punishment?’ She waited for Emma’s nod. Upon its receipt, she issued the impatient instruction, ‘You may go. Do not leave your room until you are sent for!’ Agnes Crowther stood her ground, while her scornful eyes watched the girl move out of sight.

  At the top of the staircase Emma turned left, passing beneath the endless array of impressive portraits depicting Caleb Crowther’s ancestors. Each wore the same arrogant smile; each held a stance that spoke of self-importance; and each was encased in elaborate and magnificent golden frames of immense proportion. Emma recalled how, on the day of her arrival in this grand house some twelve long months before, there had been no portraits; only grey spaces on the wall, where they had once hung. Soon afterwards, they had reappeared – no doubt having been purchased back from the person who had secured them against a debt. But, these portraits – re-hung amid great fuss and ceremony – did not impress Emma. ‘Sour-faced and comical,’ she called them. Emma was not unaware of the circumstances under which her papa had brought her to this house for she had overheard the servants discussing it and she was of the same opinion as them – that her papa had been used. Like all of God’s creatures he had a weak and vulnerable flaw in his character – his was that he could never see the greed in others. But this just caused Emma to love him even more. She knew deep in her heart that whatever he had done – however disastrous the consequences might be – he had done it for her with the best intentions and fondest love. Before his pained and watchful eyes, she was always careful to make him believe she was happy in this awful house, when, if the truth were to be told, she was far more content out of it. She would go on pretending for as long as necessary, for Emma didn’t intend to be the cause of her papa leaving this world a sadder man.