Pit Bank Wench Read Free Page B

to give you, Emma Price, but had I riches a-plenty I could not give you anything that will be of more use to you in the days that lie afore you.’
    ‘I don’t want anything, Mrs Paget.’
    ‘I knows that.’ Jerusha nodded. ‘What you have done for me and my man been offered from the kindness of your heart; you have shared what little you have and now I am doing the same.’
    ‘No.’ Embarrassed, Emma took a step away. ‘I can’t . . . I won’t. That is your wedding ring.’
    ‘Arrh, that’s what it be.’ Jerusha stared down at the circle of gold held between thumb and forefinger. ‘That be the ring Jacob Paget set on my finger forty years ago and one I vowed would not leave it until the day him and me were parted.’
    ‘Then you must keep it.’ Emma felt relieved. She could not accept payment for a few pies, hard as it had been for her to stretch the housekeeping so as to give them.
    ‘Until the day him and me were parted.’ Jerusha’s tired eyes lifted, and in the slant of the evening sun Emma could see the pain in their depths. ‘That day be here. By the dawn Jacob will be with the Lord and I will have no further need of this.’
    ‘Please, Mrs Paget, you must not think like that.’ Emma pushed the ring away. ‘Your husband will . . .’
    ‘Be with the Lord.’ Jerusha smiled, a brief sad smile that accepted life as it had been set out for her. ‘I know what I know and that be part of it. But I also know that you will have need of this ring, and of the protection it can afford.’
    Grabbing Emma’s wrist, she pulled her hand free of the shawl. Pressing the ring into the girl’s palm, she folded each finger firmly over it.
    ‘Take it, Emma Price,’ she murmured. ‘Take my gift to you and remember Jerusha Paget when the time comes for you to wear it.’
    Emma usually enjoyed the two-mile walk from Plovers Croft to Doe Bank even though it always meant hurrying to reach the house before her father got home from work. Caleb’s pretended piety did not extend to the giving away of anything, he would not take kindly to her taking food to the Pagets.
    But this evening she found no pleasure in the clover and the kingcups, their mauve and gold glinting among the greens of gorse and purple of ling; nor did her gaze appreciate the strange beauty of furnace stacks and colliery winding houses, their ebony silhouettes etched in gold against the pearly colours of the evening sky.
    She was aware only of the ring. Pushed deep into the pocket of her skirt, it seemed to weigh heavy against her leg. Why had Jerusha Paget insisted she take it? What had she meant when she’d said Emma would need the protection it could afford?
    Hitching the basket higher on her arm, her skirts brushing the wild flowers that on any other evening she would have gathered, Emma could not rid herself of the fear those words had brought to her heart; a sudden cold touch that chilled it still.
    But it was stupid to feel afraid, nothing could harm her. Lifting her face to the last rays of the sun she slipped the shawl from about her head, freeing her hair to the breeze. Soon she would be Paul’s wife and would have a wedding ring of her own. What need could she possibly have of the one in her pocket?
    Poor Jerusha. Emma felt a rush of pity for the woman her mother had often called upon for help in times of sickness, as did all the women of Doe Bank. There was no talk of payment then. It was accepted that a kindness was not done in hope of reward, one woman helped another in any way she could, it was the only way to survive in the coalfields. She would return it on her next visit. Yes, she would give the ring back to Jerusha when next they met.
    A short distance ahead the coppice adjoining the grounds of Felton Hall rose like a dark island from the heath. Emma hesitated, eyes lifting to the tops of the trees. They were so beautiful, cloaked in lush greens, their tips crowned by the sunset. Beautiful but forbidding somehow, their leafy