The Miller's Daughter Read Online Free Page A

motionless, parked in the position the miller always left them at the end of his working day. Leaning against the deep white
sink beneath the window, Emma saw her father standing outside the back door. He was dressed in his brown Sunday suit, the toecaps of his boots shone and he was pulling on his best cap.
    ‘He’s even shaved,’ she murmured. Normally, Harry Forrest shaved once a week on a Sunday morning in readiness for attending chapel, the rest of the week his face bore a
peppered stubble. His features were thin. His nose had a slight bump in the middle that gave it a hooked appearance and his grey eyes were sharp. Too sharp sometimes, Emma thought, for they seemed
to miss nothing.
    She saw him cross the yard and step into the road, pulling the gate shut behind him. Overcome with curiosity, Emma went out of the back door and towards the gate too. From across the road came
the clatter of buckets as workmen swilled down the cobblestones of the cattle market after a busy day. Their voices echoed through the gathering dusk and the pungent, sweet–sour farmyard
smells drifted across to her. But, leaning on the gate, Emma’s attention was on Harry Forrest.
    ‘Now just where are you going, Father?’ she asked aloud as she watched him walk up the incline of the main road which curved past the mill and through the village. He passed the
market place without even glancing to his right and disappeared round the corner towards the church and out of her sight.
    From behind her came Luke’s wheezing laughter. ‘Off to see the Merry Widow, lass. That’s where ya dad’s off.’
    Emma turned swiftly, but Luke was walking away, his hobnailed boots echoing on the yard. She could hear him chuckling to himself. ‘There’s still a bit of old Charlie in Harry after
all.’
    ‘Luke . . .?’ she began, but Luke only waved his hand in the air without turning round and continued his way towards the gap in the hedge that led through the orchard, past the three
bee hives and towards his own cottage. ‘Harry Forrest can go gallivanting if he likes,’ she heard him chuckle. ‘But I’m off ’ome to put me feet up.’
    Her father did not return until after midnight.
    Lying awake in the darkness, hearing the wind rattling the slates on the roof and rustling the tree outside her window, Emma waited, every muscle tensed, listening for the sound of his return.
It was so totally unlike him. She could not remember a time when her father had acted like this. He should be here, working the mill, she thought crossly. The granary was bulging with sacks of
grain waiting to be ground and Harry Forrest was wasting precious hours of a good milling wind.
    She heard the back door slam, the sound of his boots on the stairs and the creak of his bedroom door. She heard him moving about his room. Then the door opened once more and he stepped out on to
the landing again. Throwing back the bed covers, Emma swung her feet to the cold floor and pattered across the room. Peering round the door, she saw her father going back down the stairs, a candle
in his right hand to light the way.
    ‘Father? Are you all right? Where have you been till this hour?’
    Without pausing in his descent, he rasped, ‘That’s no concern of yours, m’girl. Go back to yar bed.’
    ‘But—’
    ‘Don’t argue.’ The gruff command had become an ill-tempered roar. Emma flinched and shut her door at once. Moments later, she twitched back the curtain to see the dim shape of
her father crossing the yard towards the mill, determined not to miss any more of the good milling weather.
    But where, she thought with an insatiable curiosity, had he been?

Four
    ‘Sarah, do you know where my father went last night?’
    ‘Now, Emma, how would I know a thing like that? ’Sides, it isn’t any of my business.’
    Emma glanced at her archly. She felt like saying ‘Since when has anything to do with a member of the Forrest family not been your business?’ Instead she said