The Buffer Girls Read Free Page B

your name was up there too?’
    Josh blinked. Now, there was no more need to pretend ignorance. ‘You mean you want me to go and work in Sheffield?’
    ‘We’ll all go. We’llmove there. Emily will soon find a job of some sort.’ Emily was amused to hear how she was brushed aside as if she were of little or no importance.
‘And your dad will be nearer a hospital, so it’d be better for him.’ This was something Emily had not heard before; her mother must have come up with that persuasive argument
since they’d spoken in the garden. But it was all designed to bend Josh toher bidding. ‘And I’m sure I could find cleaning work to keep us going until you earn a proper wage. I
expect there’ll be some sort of apprenticeship you’ll have to do.’
    ‘Aye, about seven years, I shouldn’t wonder, and an apprentice lad’s wage would be paltry, Mam. It would be years before I could hope to earn decent money.’
    ‘But it’d be worth it.’ Martha leaned across the table, pressinghome her point. ‘In the end. Don’t you see?’
    Josh shook his head. ‘No, I don’t. We’re doing all right here. I’d rather be a big fish in a little pond than a sprat in a river. I’m a country bumpkin, Mam, not a
streetwise city lad. I’d be eaten alive.’
    Martha sighed and shook her head in exasperation. ‘No ambition, that’s your trouble, Josh.’
    ‘It’s hard work, Trip was telling me thelast time he was home for a weekend.’
    Emily wiped her father’s dribbling mouth as she remembered that glorious June Sunday when the four of them had walked from Ashford following the river’s twists and turns until they
had come to Monsal Dale and, this time, had walked beneath the viaduct to watch the fast-flowing water tumbling over the weir. They’d laughed and joked and had such fun. Thathad been a few
weeks ago and she hadn’t seen Trip since. But he would come back, she consoled herself. This was his home. He’d always come back to Ashford. But would it be to see her?
    Thomas Trippet was a handsome young man in anyone’s eyes, not only in Emily’s. He was tall with black hair and warm brown eyes. His skin was lightly tanned from roaming the hills and
dales near his home –he loved the outdoor life – and the lines around his eyes crinkled when he laughed. And he laughed often, for he was forever teasing and joking. Emily knew the
friendship between the four of them was strong, but did Trip feel as much for her as she now knew she did for him? It was a question she often asked herself, but one she could not answer. When
he’d left that weekend, he’d hugged her andkissed her cheek but there’d been no promise to meet again, not a hint that he wanted her to be ‘his girl’.
    Her thoughts were brought back to the present with a jolt. Suddenly, Josh jumped up from the table, sending his chair crashing to the floor behind him, making them all jump and agitating Walter.
His shaking was suddenly worse and he clasped Emily’s hand, his eyes wide and pleading.‘It’s all right, Dad,’ she whispered, trying to reassure him, but she couldn’t
make her voice sound convincing.
    ‘I’m not going, Mam.’ Josh was shouting now. ‘You do what you like, but I’m staying here, making my candles and marrying Amy – if she’ll have
me.’
    ‘She’ll have you right enough,’ his mother snorted. ‘She knows a good catch when she sees it. And I expect her father’s pushingfor the two of you to get wed, just
so’s he can keep her close by and looking after him. He’ll want you moving in there with them, I shouldn’t wonder.’
    Josh bit his lip. The matter had already been talked about between them when Josh had asked Amy to marry him on the day when the four of them had walked to the viaduct. Falling behind Emily and
Trip, he and Amy had paused beneath the shadowof the arches. He’d kissed her and asked her to be his wife.
    ‘Oh Josh, yes.’
    ‘Let’s keep it our secret for a while, shall we?’