The Emma Harte 7-Book Collection: A Woman of Substance, Hold the Dream, To Be the Best, Emma’s Secret, Unexpected Blessings, Just Rewards, Breaking the Rules. Barbara Taylor BradfordЧитать онлайн книгу.
Elizabeth stirred restlessly. Jack turned back to her quickly and sponged her face again, and with tenderness. ‘Thee can come over ter the bed, Emma. But don’t make a noise. Thee mam must rest quiet like,’ Jack said, his voice low and sorrowing. He stepped back, so Emma could sit on the small stool, and he touched her shoulder gently. ‘Thee mam’s been asking for thee,’ he murmured.
Emma took hold of her mother’s wasted hand. It was icy and lifeless. Elizabeth opened her eyes slowly, as if the effort to lift her lids was almost too enormous. She stared blankly at Emma. ‘Mam, it’s me,’ Emma said quietly, tears brimming into her eyes. Her mother’s face was utterly without colour and there was a peculiar sheen to it. Faint purple smudges stained the skin around her eyes, and her delicate lips were as white as the bedsheet. She continued to look at Emma dazedly. Emma clutched her mother’s hand more tightly and fear rose in her like a fierce wave. She said again, and more insistently, ‘Mam! Mam! It’s me, Emma.’
Elizabeth smiled faintly and recognition illuminated her eyes, which suddenly lost their cloudiness and became more comprehending. ‘Emma luv,’ she said weakly. She attempted to touch her daughter’s face, but she was too exhausted and her hand dropped limply on to the bed. ‘I waited for yer ter come, Emma.’ Her voice was a fluttering whisper. Her breath came in small, rapid pants, and she shivered under the blankets.
‘Mam! Mam! Yer’ll be all right, won’t yer?’ Emma said, her voice urgent with apprehension. ‘Yer’ll get better, won’t yer, Mam?’
‘I am better, luv,’ Elizabeth said. A gentle smile played around her lips. She sighed deeply. ‘Yer a good lass, Emma.’ She paused and her breathing became belaboured. ‘Promise me yer’ll look after Winston and Frank. And yer dad.’ Her voice was now so faint it was hardly audible.
‘Don’t talk like that, Mam,’ cried Emma, her voice quavering.
‘Promise me!’ Elizabeth’s eyes stretched wide with mute appeal.
‘Yes, I promise, Mam,’ Emma said chokingly. The tears rolled down her cheeks silently. She leaned forward and touched her mother’s dwindled face and kissed her lips, and laid her face next to her mother’s. ‘Fetch yer dad,’ cried Elizabeth, with a little panting gasp, and the last of her rapidly diminishing strength.
Emma turned and motioned to her father, who was standing by the window. He strode over to the bed and sat down, and took Elizabeth in his arms and held her to him desperately. He felt as if a scythe was ripping at his insides, tearing out his heart. He did not know how he could endure the pain, the agony of her dying. She lay back on the pillows. Her face was waxy and turning grey. She opened her eyes and he saw they were filled with a new and radiant light. She tried to clutch his arm, but she was far too weak and her hand fell away, trembling. He bent towards her. She whispered to him and he nodded, unable to speak in his searing grief.
Jack pulled back the bedclothes and lifted Elizabeth in his strong arms, carrying her carefully to the window. She was so light, as light as a fallen leaf, and she barely stirred in his arms. The window was open and the curtains billowed out in the evening breeze, and her dark hair was blown around her face. He looked down at her. She had the most rapturous expression on her face and her eyes were shining. She breathed deeply of the fresh air, and he felt her whole body stretch tautly in his arms as she lifted her head and looked out longingly towards the moors.
‘The Top of the World,’ she said, and her voice was so clear and so strong and so young at that moment, he was momentarily startled. It echoed around the room with a vibrancy that was almost abnormal. She fell back in his arms. A tender smile flickered briefly on her lips. She sighed several times, long deep sighs that rippled through her whole body. And then she was still.
‘Elizabeth!’ Jack cried, his voice raw with emotion, and he cradled her body in his arms, rocking her to him, and his tears drenched her face.
‘Me mam!’ Emma screamed, and flew across the room. Jack turned and looked at Emma blindly, tears coursing down his cheeks. He shook his head. ‘She’s gone, lass,’ he said, and he carried Elizabeth back to the bed and covered her body with the bedclothes. He crossed her hands on her breasts and smoothed her hair away from her face, so tranquil in death, and touched her eyelids. He bent down and kissed her icy lips, and his own shook with his pain and despair.
Emma was sobbing by his side. ‘Dad, oh, Dad,’ she cried, clinging to him. He straightened up and looked down into her streaming face. Then he put his arms around her and pulled her to him comfortingly. ‘She’s free now, Emma. Free at last of the terrible suffering.’ He choked back his own sobs and held Emma closer to him. He stroked her hair and consoled her, and they were locked together for a long time in their mutual anguish.
At last Jack said, ‘It’s God’s will,’ and he sighed.
Emma moved away from him and lifted her tear-stained face. ‘God’s will!’ she repeated slowly, and her young voice was excessively harsh and unremitting. ‘There’s no such thing as God!’ she cried, her eyes blazing. ‘I knows that now. Because if there was a God, He wouldn’t have let me mam suffer all these years, and He wouldn’t have let her die!’
Jack stared at her aghast and before he could respond she was running out of the bedroom. He heard her feet hammering on the stairs and the front door banging behind her. He turned wearily, his great body sagging, and he looked down at his dead wife and a sob rose in him again, and he was engulfed by a terrible darkness. He stumbled like a sleepwalker to the window and looked out. Dimly, through his pain, he saw Emma running up Top Fold towards the moors. The sky was saffron bleeding into scarlet as the sun fluttered down below the bleak hills. Its last shimmering rays were streaking across Ramsden Crags, just visible in the gloaming.
‘If Elizabeth is anywhere, that’s where she is now,’ he said. ‘At the Top of the World.’
When Adam Fairley returned from Worksop, early on Sunday evening, he found Olivia sitting alone in the library. He hurried over to her, smiling with delight, his eyes lighting up with love. He was still overwhelmed by the emotions of the night before, and this showed in his glowing face, which had lost its ascetic gauntness, in the buoyancy of his step, in the joyfulness of his whole demeanour.
But when Olivia looked up at him, he drew in his breath sharply and stared at her, his intelligent eyes sweeping over her face swiftly. She was excessively pale and she seemed burdened by a certain weariness, and he saw at once, and to his enormous dismay, that she was greatly disturbed.
Adam took hold of her hands and pulled her up from the Chesterfield, without speaking. He kissed her cheek and took her into his arms, embracing her warmly. She clung to him and buried her head on his shoulder, and he felt her body trembling against his own. After a few seconds she drew away gently, and looked up at him. Her gaze was penetrating, and in her lovely aquamarine eyes Adam detected confusion and misery.
‘What is it, Olivia?’ he asked softly. ‘You are troubled and that sorely grieves me.’
Olivia shook her head and sat down. Her face was etched with sadness and her shoulders drooped dejectedly. She folded her hands in her lap, staring at them studiously, and still she did not speak. Adam joined her on the sofa and picked up one of her hands. He held it tightly in both of his own, pressing it lovingly.
‘Come, come, my dear, this won’t do,’ he exclaimed in a falsely cheerful voice. ‘Did something happen to upset you?’ Adam knew, as he spoke, that this was the most ridiculous question. She was obviously disturbed about the development in their relationship, and this both alarmed and frightened him.
Olivia cleared her throat and finally lifted her head slowly. Her eyes shone with tears. ‘I think I must leave here, Adam. At once. Tomorrow, in fact.’
Adam’s heart sank into the pit of his stomach and he was filled with dread. ‘But why?’ he cried, leaning closer. He tightened his grip on her hand.
‘You