The Forget-Me-Not Girl Read online

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Welcome to the world of Sheila Newberry!

  Meet Sheila Newberry

  A letter from the author

  A Recipe for Norfolk Dumplings

  Don’t miss Sheila Newberry’s next book, coming November 2019 . . .

  Memory Lane Club

  Tales from Memory Lane

  Copyright

  To an inspiring great-grandmother, Emma Meehan, née Wright, the Forget-Me-Not Girl

  She was born in Wymondham, Norfolk in 1840

  This is the first part of her story, alongside the sadly shorter one of her beloved Thomas Frederick (TF)

  If I were a blackbird, I’d whistle and sing

  I’d follow the ship that my true love sails in

  And on the top rigging, I’d there build my nest

  And I’d pillow my head on his lily-white breast

  Traditional

  PROLOGUE

  Boxing Day, 1936

  ‘Shall I brush your hair for you, Grandma Emma?’ the small girl asked. She sat beside the bed where the old lady lay, propped up by plump pillows with her eyes closed. At times like this Emma felt her husband’s presence, which comforted her. Her bed had been moved downstairs to the sitting room and placed so that she could see out of the big window. The Christmas decorations were still up and a Yule log was blazing in the fireplace, for this was the wedding day of her youngest granddaughter, Myrtle. Emma was now very frail and unable to walk from the Old Swan Inn, where she lived with her son Ernest and his wife Bel, to the church opposite as she had a year ago when Myrtle’s sister, Nell, was married. Later, the room would be full of happy chatter when the wedding party and guests returned after the service. Emma would be at the centre of this, as always.

  Emma’s eyes opened; she couldn’t see very well, but she wouldn’t admit it. She gazed at the little girl thoughtfully. Shummy, as the family called her, was awaiting the arrival of her fellow bridesmaids. Emma had chosen their outfits. She herself had worn a ruby-red velvet gown when she married her beloved TF on 26 January 1863 in St Stephen’s Church in London, and her great-granddaughter, four years old, was dressed in red velvet today. She had a little silver Dutch bonnet and she clutched a beautiful white muff. Emma had borrowed a muff like that on her wedding day, she recalled. It had been snowing that day and seemed likely to do so today.

  ‘You may brush my hair, but very gently, dear.’ She indicated the brush on her bedside table and closed her eyes as Shummy knelt beside her to brush the long silver locks, which still had a curl at the ends.

  ‘Did you have black hair once, Grandma?’ Shummy asked.

  ‘I did,’ Emma said. ‘Black as a raven’s wing, my mother said. TF, my dear husband, had very fair hair, Ernie was red-haired like his Irish grandfather. I looked after his and Bel’s children when they took on the Buck Inn at Uggeshall. I used to brush the little girls’ hair before they went to school. The Boy Hedley was at work, of course. Bella, your mother, was blonde like Myrtle and you; Nell had red hair like her father and Little Ernie . . .’ Emma paused, then added, ‘That’s enough brushing, dear, thank you.’

  Shummy put the brush down. ‘Grandma, where is Little Ernie?’

  ‘He’s with the angels. He was seven years old when they laid him to rest.’

  ‘Mummy said when Nanna and Grandad went out on Christmas morning, they were going to Uggeshall Church to visit Little Ernie.’ They’d carried a wreath, which Shummy had watched Nanna make.

  Bel put her head round the door, and said, ‘Shummy, the bridesmaids are here, come and join them in the kitchen. I must help Myrtle with her flowers. Mother, I took a sprig from the myrtle bush you planted long ago in the Buck garden, as you suggested.’ She noticed the empty cup and saucer on the bedside table and picked it up. ‘Oh, your forget-me-not cup. Best not leave it here in case it gets broken, I know how you love your mother’s old cup.’ Then she bustled away, followed by Shummy.

  The bone china cup had been hand-painted with the delicate little flowers, which had faded over many years. It was the only thing belonging to her mother that Emma had been given.

  Emma’s eyes closed again. She wasn’t asleep, but remembering her dear mother who had been her inspiration, and her wonderful husband – how happy she had been on her wedding day . . . Emma smiled to herself, recalling their first meeting. It was love at first sight for them both.

  Another vivid memory surfaced: TF visited her one day when she was on holiday with the Summers family by the sea. As the sun was setting the two of them went on the last boat trip of the day and the red sky was reflected in the water. The colour of my wedding dress, she mused . . .

  Gladys came into the room, dressed in the outfit she had worn for her own wedding but with a new hat. She was the mother of five children herself, and she was particularly close to her grandma, who had lived with her for a time, and helped with the children while her husband was away in the navy. Gladys pinned Emma’s hair into place. ‘I have to go now, Grandma – we are just about to go out of the door and you must wave to the bride! The bridegroom and best man are waiting in the church. Your children have come from far and wide. Tom, Ted, and Alice – and Frank in Canada sent a cable. Can you hear the bells – Hedley is ringing as usual!’

  ‘Yes, I hear the bells,’ Emma said. ‘Is it snowing?’

  ‘It’s stopped now, but it’s a white world, Grandma.’

  As it was in Marylebone Terrace, in London, Emma thought, when TF and I arrived at our first little home after the wedding feast. We were warm that night, despite the weather – two young people passionately in love, as we were to the end.

  ONE

  Emma

  Browick Bottom Farm, Wymondham, Norfolk, 1840

  The lantern hooked on the cowshed door shed a patch of yellow light onto the growing pile of snow in the yard. There had been a heavy fall during the night and two young men with shovels, Edward and twelve-year-old Samuel, their faces muffled by woollen scarves against the freezing cold, worked without conversing to clear a pathway to the farmhouse, where another light gleamed through a gap in the curtains of an upstairs window. There was an intermittent lowing from the small herd of dairy cows inside the shed, for it was time for the early milking. Then the horse, pigs and fowl must be tended to, and then many buckets of water needed to be hauled up from the well before the lads could pause for breakfast.

  The workers looked up as they heard the crunch of footsteps in the snow that had not yet been cleared, and William made his way up the path. The wooden sails of the small drainage mill were motionless, festooned with icicles, but when the thaw came, the stream would flow and William would be in charge of the irrigation, for he had a keen interest in farm machinery. The middle son of the three, he was his father’s right-hand man.

  William, a strong, cheerful chap of eighteen, had been
despatched half an hour earlier to fetch the midwife. Sophia, his young stepmother, was in labour with her third child. The back door of the house opened at their approach and – with oil lamp in hand – his father, Tobias, observed mildly to the stout little woman that William was helping up the steps, ‘You took your time, missus.’

  The midwife soon divested herself of several heavy shawls, and then rubbed her hands together to warm them. Her fingers were bone-white from the cold. She removed her bonnet, but not the little cotton cap beneath that covered her hair. ‘Everything ready?’ she asked sharply. Tobias nodded. ‘Then I’ll goo straight up. William can bring my bag. Is there aplenty hot water in the jug? Where’s the little one – not with her mother, I hope?’ At three years old, Martha still slept in her parents’ room.

  ‘She’s in the kitchen with her sister. It’s the warmest room in the house; the new range do give out a good heat. Lizzie made her a bowl of bread and milk and will cook the lads’ breakfast. I lit the fire in the bedroom first thing.’

  ‘Young Sophie’s not here to help?’ the midwife turned her head as she grasped the polished banister. Lizzie was, after all, only seven years old herself. She hadn’t known her own mother, who had died soon after her birth. She was a quiet girl and devoted to her small half-sister Martha, but was somewhat overshadowed by her strong-minded older sister, Sophie, who was fifteen.

  ‘The gal went to her first job after Christmas. It was time. You can’t have two grown women in the kitchen,’ Tobias replied. There was a piercing scream from upstairs. ‘You’d better git up there quick, missus,’ he added.

  Sophia, who coincidentally bore the same name as her predecessor, had thrown back the covers on the bed. She was nothing like the first Sophia, who had borne seven children, but lost two in infancy. She had been a tall, well-made woman with red cheeks – not always a sign of good health – and a placid nature. There had invariably been one of her family in attendance when her babies were born. In contrast, this young woman was small in stature with glossy, centre-parted dark hair pulled back and knotted at the nape of her neck. Her high cheekbones gave her an exotic look, unlike the strapping local girls with their flaxen hair. This second Sophia had just her husband for support. Tobias was middle-aged and grey-bearded, but didn’t panic like a young father, and never had, since he’d grown up with pigs farrowing and later, calving cows. He’d taken on the tenancy of the family farm when his father retired.

  The midwife knew why Sophia had no close relatives with her, of course. The second Sophia came from a family of Dissenters – Protestant Christians who had separated from the Church of England during the past three centuries. Sophia’s father was politically ambitious, like so many of his fellow dissenters who were keen on education and had founded several local schools. They said they were directed by God alone, and they followed the scriptures devoutly.

  The Wrights, on the other hand, attended services in Wymondham Abbey, their parish church. Sophia, a bright, intelligent girl who had learned to read and write by studying the Bible, had been employed to look after Tobias and his family when he was widowed after the death of the first Sophia. She was not only a competent house-keeper, but she also cared for baby Lizzie and carried on teaching the younger children at home, as their mother had done. Wisely, she did not try to replace her. However, the children were soon captivated by her lively storytelling and succulent cooking.

  Tobias saw how she cared for his children and she was accepted as one of the family and realised that he was starting to feel something for her himself. One evening, when he came in weary after a heavy day on the farm, his boots muddy, he had slumped into his chair by the stove in the kitchen and heaved a sigh. He could smell his dinner, rabbit stew, warming in the oven, but was too weary to get himself cleaned up before he ate.

  Sophia came into the room, with a bowl of hot water, soap and a towel. She knelt beside the chair and pulled off his soiled boots. ‘Don’t worry, let them dry by the fire, then I’ll clean them for you,’ she said. She passed him a flannel to dip in the water and clean his face and hands. ‘Soak your poor old feet, Tobias, and I’ll dry them for you.’

  He looked at her concerned face and said simply, ‘I think I should marry you, Sophia, if you will hev me, because like the children, I can’t do without you.’

  Her face had lit up. ‘Of course I will, Tobias. I feel like one of the family already; but I don’t think my father will allow it—’

  ‘He can’t say no, once you’re of age,’ he told her.

  She held out the big towel and said, ‘Right foot first.’

  He looked down at her dark head, with tendrils of hair curling in the steam from the bowl of water. He guessed she was waiting for him to say he loved her. Then, on impulse he said, ‘It’s lonely, you know, to lie by myself in that big bed. Would – you mind that?’

  She looked up, and she was smiling. ‘Of course I wouldn’t – but we must be married first, Tobias! I didn’t realise I loved you – and your family – until you said what you did.’

  He could say no more then. ‘I meant it; I promise to love and cherish you all my days.’

  Later, when she came of age, Tobias and Sophia had married secretly in Norwich, knowing her parents would disapprove. He was nearly twenty years her senior, but it was certainly a love match. Tobias was tolerant and kind, unlike her stern, unrelenting preacher father.

  A year later, Sophia had given birth to a tiny son, and as was the custom with her kin, she gave him a biblical name – Urim. One meaning of this was innocence. Sadly, the baby, like so many at that time, died shortly afterwards.

  Although Tobias assured her that he didn’t mind at all if the next baby after Martha was also a girl – he had three sons already, after all, who had followed him into farming – Sophia prayed for another son, to replace the lost baby.

  The midwife tidied the rumpled bed, eased Sophia up so that her shoulders rested against the pillows piled high behind her. ‘Stretch your arms up, my dear, pull on the rope,’ she coaxed the exhausted woman. This was a cord fashioned from torn sheeting tied to the bed rail. Sophia closed her eyes and did as she was told, as the midwife examined her. She knew she was in safe hands.

  Tobias arrived with a tray of teacups and was in time to see the baby caught in the midwife’s capable grasp and the cutting of the umbilical cord. The baby was wrapped swiftly in a towel and placed in the waiting crib, the same one Tobias had made for his firstborn with the first Sophia. It was made of wood and set on rockers. He set the tray down with a clatter on a small table and rushed to Sophia’s side. After all her efforts, sweat streamed down her face, and she lay there looking up at him, her body racked with more pain, as the placenta was expelled.

  ‘You – shouldn’t be here – to see all this,’ she murmured faintly.

  ‘My dear gal, course I should,’ he said robustly, sponging her face with a wet flannel handed to him by the nurse. Then he supported Sophia while she sipped her tea. She grimaced. ‘Too sweet!’

  ‘You need the sugar to git your strength back,’ Tobias insisted.

  ‘The baby – is he – all right?’

  The midwife gave Tobias a nod. Her lips formed a word. He nodded in return. ‘Sophia, us hev a baby daughter. All is well.’

  ‘A daughter,’ she repeated.

  ‘Yes, dark-haired, like you. What shall us call her?’

  ‘I am too tired to think,’ she said, turning her face to the pillow.

  ‘Us’ll let the children decide.’

  The baby had cried lustily when she was born but had been quiet since. Now there was a different cry. At this sound, tears trickled silently down Sophia’s cheeks.

  ‘She need her mother,’ Tobias said to the midwife. He was referring to Sophia as well as to the baby.

  The midwife scooped the little bundle up and passed the baby to Tobias. He cradled her for a moment, then carefully placed the baby in the crook of Sophia’s arm, and adjusted the bedcovers over them both. ‘She is bootiful
,’ he said huskily in his soft, Norfolk burr. ‘Yes, she do take after you, my dear.’ He cleared his throat, having seen Sophia kiss the top of the baby’s dark, downy head, before gently turning it to her breast. ‘I will leave you now, I must give the family the good news. Will you, missus, kindly tell those who might care to know?’

  ‘I will,’ the midwife promised. ‘Give me time to bath the baby afore the children rush in here,’ she indicated the bowl patterned with bright-blue cornflowers on the washstand. ‘The water in the jug should be cool enough by now. Your good wife needs a clean nightgown, too. Stir up the fire afore you goo, Tobias.’

  *

  The new baby was registered as Emily, but on 5 March 1840, she was baptised Emma in Wymondham Abbey. William stood as her godfather. The rift between Sophia and her family was irrevocable, it seemed. The Penny Post was at last a reality, putting people in touch all over the country, but Sophia’s father would, she knew, open any letter addressed to her mother. He was a pious man but implacable. She could never return to the fold, but her steadfast faith endured.

  TWO

  TF and Isabella

  Newcastle to Glanton, Northumberland, 1836

  Isabella travelled for the last time in the family carriage, accompanied by her maid, who would bravely return to face the music without her once the wedding was over. This loyal woman had packed Isabella’s leather-bound trunk, tucking several pieces of jewellery among her clothes. These included an extravagantly ruffled black satin opera cloak lined with scarlet, which Isabella had worn on her twenty-first birthday outing to the theatre with her father, together with an ostrich fan and elegant opera glasses. At the last minute, she added a few favourite books, a family portrait in an ornate silver frame and a small sewing basket, which held her embroidery silks and reels of cotton. Hidden in the basket was a tiny japanned box inside which was a golden guinea, a birthday gift from a favourite great-aunt, Eliza Nesbit. Apart from this, Isabella had only ten shillings left from her monthly allowance in her purse, but this would enable the young couple to stay a few days in a cheap lodging house once married.