Alley Urchin Read online

  When Emma came close enough to see the strong profile of the man she loved, and even sense the utter despair which was so evident in his manner, all the determination and courage she had mustered drained away. She must not go any further, for she loved him too much. She was married, committed to a life which had been shaped for her here, so how could she bring herself to cause this man any more pain, which, if he still loved her, she would certainly do. In all of her life, Emma had been called upon to make many painful sacrifices, but none of them . . . none of them was ever so painful as the one she must make now, as slowly and reluctantly she turned away. She had seen him, almost touched him. It was another poignant memory to carry her through the years. And yet . . . and yet.

  Lost in thoughts of Emma, and agonising over their cruel destinies, Marlow felt the deepest despair. But then, of a sudden and for no reason that he could ever recall later, every instinct within urged him to turn his head to look over his shoulder in the direction of the small narrow beach path which over the years many footsteps had trod. What he saw there was the very image which had flooded his mind this past hour, which had brought him both joy and torment, and which was now hurrying away. After all this time, he couldn’t really be sure, but something in his heart told him that it was Emma! Not a girl any more. Not young. But his lovely Emma all the same.

  In the same moment when Emma heard the soft, rushing footsteps coming up behind her, she heard also the sound of her name, soft and caressing like the breeze, and filled with such longing that it made her heart turn over. ‘Emma.’ It was Marlow’s voice, and it struck at her like the blade of a knife, bringing shock, surprise and a sense of something awful. Yet at the same time, it was something else entirely, rippling through her being with delicious urgency and making her want to cry.

  When she stopped and the hand touched her shoulder, she shivered, afraid to turn round, yet compelled to do so. Lowering her head and keeping her gaze to the ground, she moved her body until it was facing his. She saw the long, black-clad legs, and the boots on his feet all spattered with sand; she felt the warmth and presence of his body, and her heart reeled beneath the gentle touch of his hand on her shoulder. Yet she kept her gaze to the ground, because, however much she longed to look up and see again that strong, handsome face that she knew so well, she dared not, for though she was exhilarated, she was also afraid, and that fear betrayed itself in the trembling of her hands which now Marlow took tenderly in his own. ‘Look at me, Emma,’ he softly urged, and the voice that she had remembered was just the same. It touched her heart so deeply that, without her even being aware of it, the tears ran from her eyes and spilled down her face. Still she dared not lift her gaze to his.

  Now he moved her hand until the long, lean fingers of his own were wrapped about both of her small fists; then, lifting his free hand to her face, he tenderly wiped away the tears, afterwards cupping his fingers beneath her chin and slowly raising her head.

  When, in a moment, her heart pounding fearfully inside her, Emma’s gaze was brought to mingle with Marlow’s, she thought that never again in the whole of her life would she experience anything so beautiful, so astonishing. It was as though, in that precious moment when they gazed on each other, the whole world stood still. It was she and Marlow, just as they had been fifteen years ago. They were both older, perhaps wiser, and the flush of youth was long past. But now, in this moment of time, none of that mattered. What really mattered was the youth and joy in their hearts. Their love had not changed with the passing of time. It had only grown stronger. Emma thought that if ever it were possible to choose the moment when she might depart this earth, it would be in this split second when she and Marlow were united, not only in the flesh, but in their very souls, each being the essence of the other.

  When, with a broken cry, Marlow caught her to him, and buried his head in the curve of her neck, Emma felt the warm, sticky wetness of his tears against her skin, and she knew beyond all doubt that he loved her with all his heart, as she did him. Lost in each other’s arms, they found such contentment as neither had known in many a long, long year. The moment was too deep, too precious for words, so, keeping one arm about each other, they walked together to the small cliff where Marlow had been sitting. There, in a deep recess which gave them privacy, they rekindled a love that had been forbidden when they were very young, that had driven them both to despair and forced them apart. A love that had conceived a child, now lost to them, and that had spanned longer than fifteen years, not suppressed by those years, nor by the great distance between them . . . only growing stronger, and more dangerous.

  Emma was not afraid, nor would she sacrifice this precious time with Marlow. When eagerly, yet with the softest touch, Marlow unclothed her, and took her into his own magnificent nakedness, Emma was ready. When she felt the warmth of his skin mingling with her own and saw how his dark eyes burned as they roved over her body, she was proud. When she heard him murmur in the most tender of voices, ‘I love you, Emma . . . adore you,’ she knew the feelings that were stirring within him, because those same feelings stirred within herself. When his warm eager mouth covered hers and he slid on top of her, oh, she wanted him so desperately that everything which had governed her life until then was as nothing. She clung to him and coveted him. She caressed him, kissed him with a passion that frightened her and when, with a fierceness to match her own, he entered her, Emma experienced a tide of exquisite pleasure that forced her to cry out. It was like a dam had burst open inside her, a huge rolling wave surged through her emotions, taking with it all the loneliness, the heartache and the pain she had ever known. She arched herself into Marlow’s demanding nakedness and she gave of herself without reservation, but she took also, drawing both strength and passion from her man. There was a rhythm between them, like pulsating music which enveloped them both and pushed their pleasure senses to the limit.

  As the waves of sensation washed over Emma time and time again, she thought she couldn’t bear it, because in the pleasure and the fulfilment, there was also pain. Yet, it wasn’t a physical pain, but a suffering that came from deep within herself. It was the pain of the heart, and which was both destroyed and created by love itself. Because of it, she clung all the more tightly to her lover, being fiercely loath to let him go.

  Later, when the urgent passion had subsided, and all that remained was the different passion of a deep, abiding love, Emma was content to lie in Marlow’s reassuring arms, and together they talked of all the things that were in their hearts. Emma explained the tragic events which had brought her to Australia. She told him everything, how Gregory had died and not by her hand. She outlined the reasons for her marriage to Roland Thomas, and told him of the unfortunate Nelly, who had been a staunch friend, and whom she considered to be just as much her responsibility as was her crippled husband. She assured him of the great love she would always feel for him. All the things which had befallen her she told him; all but one, and that being the one which still haunted her dreams. She did not reveal that he had been a father, or that the child was lost, because she knew that he would suffer the same guilt and anguish which she had suffered ever since. At least she could spare him that. And so she did. Neither did she tell him of her suspicions regarding Caleb Crowther, for that would serve no purpose. Besides which, she herself must deal with that, when the time came.

  ‘You’ve been through so much, Emma. If only I’d known . . . if only I had stayed.’ Marlow saw the guilt and failing in himself, and was angered by it.

  ‘You couldn’t have changed anything,’ she told him. ‘Please believe that.’

  ‘All the same, I should never have deserted you.’

  ‘I sent you away,’ she reminded him, and he could not deny it.

  Of a sudden, he sat up straight, and taking Emma by the shoulders, he swept her to her feet, standing before her and looking with sudden determination into those strikingly beautiful grey eyes. ‘I must go back,’ he said with a surge of enthusiasm, ‘back to England. To
my sister, Sal . . . because, even though I left to seek my fortune and make a better life for her, it seems to me that I deserted her also!’

  ‘No.’ Emma could see that he was unjustly punishing himself. ‘You never deserted anybody, my darling. You’re not capable of that. Everything you did was with others in mind.’

  ‘All the same, Emma . . . I must go home, and seek another kind of “fortune” there. It’s strange, I think, how you come to realise what good fortune really is. It isn’t gold or material things . . . it’s having a family who needs you . . . it’s enjoying good health and contentment. And it’s having the hands and strength to toil for a living.’ Here he paused and his gaze lingered on her face awhile, seeming to search for something there, yet knowing he could not find it. ‘Most of all, my darling,’ he went on, ‘good fortune is loving someone until your heart sings . . . and having your love returned. I know you love me, Emma . . . I’ve always known that, and if I never hold you in my arms again, you’ve given me the greatest joy a man could ever know.’

  ‘Don’t, Marlow . . . please.’ Emma was close to tears.

  Now, he gazed at her long and hard, stroking the palm of his hand down her tumbled auburn hair; then, as he looked on that fine and lovely face and those grey eyes that smiled at him so, he thought how fresh and youthful she was, how still like the girl of fifteen he had first met by the canal. The years in between had taken nothing from her beauty, only enhanced it.

  ‘I can’t bear to let you go again, Emma,’ he told her, gripping her shoulders more tightly, ‘yet I can’t stay here knowing you’re married, loving you as I do.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, the sadness rising in her eyes. She was aware of the impossibility of it all and, as she looked at this man who had matured and grown even more handsome with the years, she was sorely tempted. But it could not be. There were too many entanglements, too many people to be hurt, and how could she live with her conscience if she chose the way he would have her go? She began to explain, but he put his hand to her mouth and afterwards pulled her to him, leaning forward and tenderly kissing the top of her head. ‘Forgive me, Emma . . . but I want to take you here and now, from this place. I’m afraid that if I don’t, I’ll never see you again, and I couldn’t bear that. I couldn’t!’ He held her more tightly, for only a moment, before easing her away from him. ‘I asked you once before to come away with me. I’ll never regret that. But I won’t ask you this time, Emma, because you know in your heart what I think and feel. Whatever you decide to do, I must wait for that decision and I promise you, my love . . . I will abide by it. I don’t want to cause you pain, or to put you in an impossible situation.’ He put his two hands one either side of her face and tilted it up towards him. ‘You do know that, don’t you, Emma?’ When she gave no reply, instead turning her sorry eyes away, he told her, ‘The Stirling leaves for England on the morrow. If the cap’n will sign me on, I’ll be aboard and headed home. Unless, Emma . . . unless you ask me to do otherwise. I’ll look for you, my love . . . before she sets sail and, if you’re not there, I’ll understand.’

  When Emma brought her gaze back to look on his face, and he saw the tears in her eyes, Marlow’s heart turned somersaults inside him. Dear God above, how he loved this woman! How he needed her!

  As Marlow reached down to kiss her, Emma was filled with sadness at their predicament, and she knew there could be only one ending to their glorious reunion this night. She raised her lips to his, she put her arms about his neck and clung to him as though she would never let him go. When, after a long and exquisitely painful moment, he released her, she put her hand up to stroke his face tenderly, that strong and familiar face that, even if she were to die a very old woman, she would never forget.

  No more words were spoken between them then, before Emma tore her gaze from the dark pained eyes that never left her face for even a second. Then, with scalding tears running down her face, she turned away and left him standing there. The interlude was over, the dream was short-lived, and the future just as uncertain as it was before.

  Marlow watched her go and his heart went with her, but he made no move to stop her. Instead, he waited until she was out of sight, before turning to trudge along the beach to the other side, where he knew the Stirling to be berthed. He felt certain that Captain Trent would sign him on, and yet he prayed that he would not sail for England with her on the morrow. He would return home, yes, but he hoped above all else that when he did, it would be because Emma had made him a happier man. Yet even as he dwelt on the possibility, he realised how impossible it was. All the same, he would keep watch before the tide carried him out to sea. He could never give up even the slimmest hope.

  As the Stirling got underway, Marlow kept his eyes peeled towards the shore for signs of Emma. But she never came, and he was a man lost. He could not have known how, in the hour when she knew that he would be gone from these shores and from her life, perhaps for ever, Emma sat in her study with the door locked against the outside world, quietly sobbing.

  After a while, she got to her feet, wiped her eyes and composed herself. Then, with her small, straight shoulders set in a stiff, upright stance, and wearing the expression of a woman with a purpose, she threw open the curtains, telling herself in a firm voice, ‘Come on, my girl! There’s a business to be run!’ She had learned the art of making the head rule the heart. She had learned it well.

  Chapter Nine

  Emma suspected that she was pregnant! These past two months and more, since she and Marlow had made love, had proved to be one of the most difficult times in her life. Not only was she plagued by the physical consequences, such as nausea and a general feeling of being unwell, but she was haunted also. Here she was, a woman past the age of thirty, and carrying a child that was not her husband’s. She would not be able to hide that fact for very much longer, because once the outward signs of her pregnancy became evident, it would also betray the truth, that she had been unfaithful to Roland Thomas, because how could a man who was paralysed from the waist down father a child? There would be questions, Emma knew, and gossip of a spiteful nature; yet for all that, Emma was filled with a great happiness and every day had taken on a new meaning. It struck her how curious and condemning it was, that she should have been married to two different men, yet the children she had conceived were not fathered by either of them. It did seem as though, in spite of the many obstacles put in their way, her and Marlow’s paths were meant to cross. Emma nurtured and cherished the tiny life that was forming inside her, and she wanted to believe with all her heart, that it was the Lord’s way of compensating for the child she had so cruelly lost. But then, she reminded herself, what she and Marlow had done was wrong. No amount of soul searching could change that. Emma knew that she should be tormented with guilt and a sense of shame, but she was not. What had happened was the culmination of a wonderful love, which she could never deny, whatever the consequences.

  At seven o’clock on a balmy October evening, Emma stood by the jetty, with the keen warm breeze blowing about her skirts and lifting the hem of her dress into a gentle arc which whipped the air and revealed the layers of her cream-coloured petticoats. She had slipped off her bonnet, leaving it fastened about her neck and resting on her shoulders, and, as the breeze teased both the long strands of her rich auburn hair and the flowing blue ribbons of her bonnet, she made a strikingly lovely figure, with the evening sky silhouetting her still slim and shapely form.

  The torment that countered Emma’s joy showed in her eyes, those strong grey eyes that so vividly reflected her every mood. Now there was a sadness in them, as she gazed out across the sea towards the horizon, her thoughts dwelling on Marlow, and the way in which their love had been beset by insurmountable problems all these years. How wonderful it would be, she thought, if things were different and Marlow could share the miracle of this little life already beating within her. Why is it, she asked herself, that bearing his children must be painful and forbidden Emma did not know the answer, only that it
was so.

  For a long time Emma kept her eyes fixed to the horizon, wondering where Marlow might be at this very minute. There was a strange calmness in her heart as she thought more deeply about this man whom fate seemed determined to keep from her, and Emma marvelled at the peace she felt. It was as though some quiet instinct told her that, when Marlow had instilled in her that most precious seed of life, there had also been created a hope for their future. Even though Emma could see no possible way in which she and Marlow might be together always, the murmurings of optimism would not be denied.

  Chiding herself for being foolish enough ever to believe that her future lay with Marlow, Emma turned from the ocean which had taken him from her, and sighing deeply, began her way towards Cliff Street and the warehouse. Marsh Williams was back with the waggon train which did the regular run into the outback and she must have his report firsthand. Besides which, there was news of a pearl-lugger having been lost, taking with it a deal of shell which was destined for the Thomas Trading Company, and some twenty-five men were reported to have lost their lives. The cargo was extremely valuable, but it was to the unfortunate men and their loved ones that Emma’s heart went out.