Emerald Star (Hetty Feather) Read online

  We walked along the street together until we got to the end. He yawned and stretched and then leaned against the wooden railings.

  ‘Oh dear, it’s been a long night. I shall be glad to get to my bed. So how can I help you? Who are you? What’s your name?’

  ‘I – I have several names. Folk used to call me Hetty, but I know my real name is Sapphire – though just of late I have been called Emerald.’

  ‘My, my, you go in for some very fancy names! And what is your business with me, Hetty-Sapphire-Emerald?’ He said the three names solemnly enough, but his eyes crinkled, his mouth twitched, and I knew he was laughing at me.

  I took a deep breath. ‘I – I think I might be kin of yours,’ I said.

  He stared at me. ‘What, some long-lost cousin or something of that sort? Are you Hetty-Sapphire-Emerald Waters?’

  ‘No, sir. I have taken the surname of Battersea, after my mother. She was Ida – but I don’t think that was her real name.’

  ‘My goodness, this is too much of a riddle for me. I’m not sure what you’re saying, child.’

  ‘I’m saying that you once knew my mother – more than fifteen years ago, when she was a young girl, little and slight like me, with blue eyes just like mine.’

  He was looking straight at me now, standing very still.

  ‘I don’t know what she was called, but she was a local girl and she loved you with all her heart. You and she were sweethearts.’

  ‘Evie,’ he said. ‘Evie Edenshaw.’ He grabbed hold of my shoulder. ‘You know Evie? Will you tell me where she is? I would dearly love to see her again.’

  Evie Edenshaw! Each syllable rang like a bell in my head. So this was Mama’s real name!

  ‘She’s . . . not here. She passed away this summer. She died of the consumption,’ I said, struggling not to cry.

  His eyes filled too. ‘Poor little Evie,’ he murmured. Then he looked at me again – a long searching look. ‘Are you telling me . . .?’ he murmured.

  I unwound the shawl from my head and let my hair whip free in the wind. ‘I am Evie’s daughter,’ I said. ‘I think I am your daughter.’

  ‘I wondered – dear God, how I wondered if that was the case. I went sailing halfway across the world, selfishly wanting adventure. At first I barely gave Evie a second thought. I had new sweethearts wherever the ship docked – but none proved as sweet and spirited as your mother. I sickened of them all, I sickened of life at sea. I came back two years later, wondering if she’d waited for me, if she’d maybe take me back – but she was gone, and no one knew what had happened to her. There was talk, of course. Some said her own folk had turned her out. I begged them to tell me where she was but they wouldn’t even speak to me. So she was having a child – my child?’

  ‘She couldn’t keep me, so she gave me to the Foundling Hospital in London,’ I said.

  ‘My child, brought up a foundling?’ he said, and now his tears spilled.

  ‘But Mama came to work at the hospital and watched over me, and when I found out the truth we snatched precious moments together. We vowed that one day we would live together in our own little house, but then poor Mama got sick and – and now I am all alone,’ I said.

  ‘You are not alone any more,’ he said. He reached out and drew me close, his strong arms around me. ‘You are my child and you shall live in my house with me.’

  4

  I BREATHED IN my father’s strange smell of sea and wool and fish, and wept against his chest. He held me tightly. I think he was crying too. The sun suddenly came out between black clouds and the gulls screamed over the grey shoals of fish. I felt dazzled, deafened, unable to think clearly at all. I simply clung to my father as if I would never let him go. I had found him at last. My heart was beating so fast I felt faint, as if Mama herself were stirring within me . . .

  Yes, Hetty, yes! We are a family at last.

  I saw myself living cosily with my dear long-lost father. I would care for him and cook for him and clean for him. I would be the most dutiful daughter in the world, and he would love me and protect me and go out fishing every day. Oh, we would live so happily, just the two of us . . .

  ‘Come, Hetty. I think you had better be Hetty here. Sapphire and Emerald sound a little too glittery and fancy for fisher-folk. Is that all right? Can I call you Hetty, child?’

  I nodded. Even Mama had struggled to call me Sapphire. I did not care for Hetty now, but I didn’t truly mind what my father called me – and there was such gruff affection in the way he said my homely name.

  ‘And what shall I call you?’ I asked.

  ‘Why, Father, of course,’ he said.

  He pronounced it Feyther, so I said ‘Yes, Feyther,’ copying him as best I could.

  He roared with laughter at me. ‘That’s right, we’ll have you talking with a Monksby brogue before the week is out,’ he said. ‘Come then, Hetty. You must meet the rest of your family.’

  I stared at him. ‘My family?’ I repeated.

  ‘I have a wife, Hetty, and a son and a daughter.’

  My chest tightened so I could scarcely breathe. ‘They’re your family,’ I said, my dreams evaporating. ‘They won’t want me!’

  ‘Of course they will. They will do as I say,’ he said resolutely.

  He rested his huge hand on my shoulder and steered me back to the crowd at the harbour edge. Women had set up crude fish stalls, large planks resting on two barrels, and were gutting the fish with startling speed, their sharp knives gleaming in the sunlight.

  Father looked down and fingered Lizzie’s shawl.

  ‘Should I tie it round my head again?’ I said.

  ‘No, no – folk will put two and two together soon enough,’ he said.

  So we walked along the road side by side, a red-haired man and a small red-haired girl. Gradually all the fisher-folk stopped their busy work and stared at us. The women gutting the fish stared at us too – and then they looked over at the woman at the end, in a blue scarf and a dark green dress. She was tanned by the sun and wind, her cheeks naturally rosy. She went red all over as we approached.

  ‘Can I have a word, Katherine?’ Father said softly.

  She looked up at him. ‘What are you playing at, Bobbie?’ she said. Her eyes flicked sideways. ‘Who is she?’

  I saw Father swallow nervously, the Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. ‘This here is Hetty, Katherine. We need to talk. Could you come home with us?’

  ‘What? What’s all this nonsense? What are you doing with this girl? Of course I can’t come home. I’m in the middle of gutting your fish, you fool,’ she said.

  Father’s fists clenched. ‘I’ll thank you not to take that tone with me,’ he said. ‘Now come home, Katherine.’

  She stood up, still clutching her sharp knife. It glistened with fish entrails. She looked as if she wanted to stick it straight in me.

  ‘Could you call Mina from the shore? And where’s Ezra? Is he playing truant from school again? Look for him on Long Beach. I need you all at home,’ Father said. ‘Come, Hetty.’

  He spoke with calm authority, but I could feel him trembling as he turned me round and steered me onwards. I heard an excited babble behind us as folk repeated what he’d said. I peered round. Katherine was staring after me as she hurried down to the beach.

  ‘Oh, Father, she hates me,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Hetty – she doesn’t even know you yet,’ he said.

  I could not understand how he had made such a bad choice of wife. I thought of my pale little mama with her bright blue eyes and dainty ways. This woman was big and coarse and pink in the face – maybe a handsome woman, but certainly a hard one. The last woman in the world I wanted as a stepmother.

  ‘How old are Mina and Ezra?’ I asked.

  ‘Mina is twelve and Ezra seven. Mina takes after her mother but Ezra is a chip off my block, with hair as red as mine – and yours. It will be a surprise for them to have a new ready-made sister. Mina has often said how much she longs for a