The Downstairs Maid Read Online Free Page B

upstairs sleeping – she’s lost the baby.’
    Derek sat down abruptly, the colour washing from his face. ‘I told the stupid woman not to do so much. She ought to have had help while she was pregnant. If your father had anything about him he would have got a girl in to help out.’
    ‘I help sometimes.’ Emily was defensive, because no one was allowed to find fault with Pa.
    ‘What can you do? A bit of washing up or ironing? What about making the butter, scrubbing floors and all the rest of it? Stella works too hard and always has done. She should never have married that loser.’
    ‘Don’t talk about Pa that way …’ Emily was furious. She had the still-warm iron in her hand and without thinking just threw it at him. It missed and fell a few inches short but it shook him up. For a moment he stared at her, his eyes narrowed in anger.
    ‘You want to watch that temper, girl. What you need is a good smacking …’
    ‘You’re not my father.’
    ‘You little bitch …’ Derek lunged at her, grabbed her by the arm and hauled her across his knee. He slapped her hard several times and she gasped with pain but struggled and then nipped his leg through his trouser. He yelled and hit her harder.
    ‘Beast. I’ll tell Pa …’
    ‘Hurts your pride does it?’ he said and then his hand caressed her backside through her knickers. ‘Rub it better shall I?’ His hand had slipped beneath the cotton drawers and he was caressing her bottom. She felt a surge of revulsion mixed with anger and bit his bare arm hard. Derek shouted with pain and jerked. She rolled off his lap and ran across the kitchen, pulling open the back door and making a run for it. Her heart beat wildly as she made her escape, fleeing through the yard and out into the fields beyond. The air was cold and damp but she hardly noticed in her panic.
    Derek was horrid! She hated him now. What did he think he was doing, pretending to make it better after he’d hurt her? The thought of him touching her made her feel sick and dirty. She didn’t know why, but it had seemed wrong and nasty and she would have done anything to get away.
    Emily knew that she would have to be careful when her uncle was around in future. He was mean and spiteful and he would get his own back one of these days.
    If Emily had dared to tell her father he might have sent her uncle packing but she couldn’t do that, because it would cause another quarrel between her parents. Ma thought the world of Derek. He could never do anything wrong in her eyes and she was always telling Pa how much better her brother was at farming than he could ever be.
    All Emily had done was to throw the iron at him in a fit of temper, because he’d been rude about Pa – and he’d punished her. Pa never hit Ma whatever she said or did. He just looked at her in his hurt way and went out without speaking. Derek was a bully and he made her feel uncomfortable whenever he touched her.
    She wouldn’t tell on him, because Ma wouldn’t believe her and if Pa did there would be a row – so she’d keep it to herself, but she wouldn’t give him a chance to touch her again like that …
    She made a bolt for the open fields. Ma was sleeping and if Derek woke her up she wouldn’t want Emily around. All Ma really cared for was her brother and money – and, apparently, the son she’d lost. The son and heir that had made Pa lose his smile.
    The tears building inside her, Emily ran and ran. She climbed the stile at the edge of her father’s meadow, where the cows were feeding on the meagre grass, raced across the dividing lane and scrambled over the stile into the next meadow, where she threw herself down on the damp grass and wept. The ground was soaking wet, because it had been raining and heavy clouds scudded across the sky even now. It was getting darker and turning much colder. Emily was too miserable to notice. She didn’t know why she was so miserable but her life just seemed to get worse and worse. She’d always