Barbara Bradford - A Woman of Substance

He followed the direction of her pointing finger and strode rapidly across the cave. ‘They are, indeed. And on this ledge above them there is an old piece of tallow candle. Oh, come on! Let’s see what else we can find. You go around that side, and I’ll poke about here,’ he finished, his voice vibrating with eagerness.

Emma walked slowly, holding the candle out in front of her. She looked from side to side alertly as she moved, glancing down at the hard earth floor, scanning the high-flung walls. To her immense disappointment the far side of the cavern appeared to be quite empty. She was about to turn back and rejoin Edwin when the frail light from the candle illuminated a patch of smooth wall. She was certain she could make out faint markings on the wall, like writing scratched on to the surface. She ran over and held the candle close to it. It was writing. How interesting.

And then Emma sucked in her breath in amazement, for the first word she read was Elizabeth. She moved the candle. Written underneath was Elizabetta. And below, Isabella. Slowly, Emma’s eyes followed the column running down the wall of the cave. Lilibeth, Beth. Betty , Bess. Eliza. Liza. Lisa. Next to this column was one single word, carved in giant capital letters. ADAM. She swallowed. Under the name was a small heart with an arrow piercing it, and inside the heart were the simple initials A E.

Emma’s eyes were pinned to the wall and those initials. A coldness settled over her, as she remembered the locket she had found in her mother’s wooden box. Not me mam and him!

‘Emma! Emma! Where are you? Cooee! Cooee!’

She pulled herself together as Edwin’s footsteps drew closer, echoing on the hard ground. She opened her mouth and closed it at once, for a moment not trusting herself to speak coherently. Finally she called, ‘Over here.’

‘What did you find?’ Edwin asked, rushing to her side. She pointed to the writing on the wall mutely. Edwin’s eyes lighted on his father’s name at once. ‘Adam!’ he read wonderingly, staring at the giant letters. ‘Why, my father must have found this cave years ago!’ He sounded jubilant. ‘And look, here’s every derivation of the name Elizabeth, even in Italian and Spanish. This is very intriguing, indeed. Who do you think Elizabeth was, or is?’

Emma was silent. Edwin appeared not to notice her lack of response, or her utter stillness, for she was as rigid as stone standing next to him. ‘Well, I don’t suppose I can very well ask Father. However, let’s search around a bit more.’ Edwin was buoyed up with enthusiasm. He left Emma standing in front of the scratchings on the wall, still staggered at their dreadful implications.

‘Come here, Emma. I’ve found something else,’ Edwin shouted after a few seconds had elapsed. Emma stifled the desire to run out of the cavern and it was with considerable reluctance that she joined him in the corner where the sacks were stacked. Edwin was holding a flat oval pebble, about three inches long and two inches wide. He handed it to her and held the candle over it. ‘Do you see, Emma? The pebble has been painted on. It’s a miniature, in oils, of a woman. See! I think it’s Aunt Olivia. Yes, I’m positive it’s her.’

Emma said nothing, but thought grimly: No , it’s not. It’s me mam.

‘Don’t you think it’s Aunt Olivia?’

‘Yes,’ Emma responded dully.

Edwin put the stone in his pocket. ‘I think I shall keep this,’ he said.

Emma shivered and the candle wavered about in her hand. Edwin did not fail to notice this. ‘Emma, you’re cold.’ He clucked sympathetically, and put his arm around her. Emma tried hard not to shrink away from him.

‘Yes, I am. Let’s get out of here. It’s warmer in the sun.’ Without waiting for him to reply, she extracted herself and ran to the opening of the cave. She blew out the candle and placed it on the ledge, and crouching, and then crawling, she moved with incredible speed along the tunnel until she was out in the fresh air. She heaved a sigh of relief. She would never go back in there. Never.

Edwin emerged a few moments later. His eyes sought out Emma. She stood under the shadow of Ramsden Crags, shaking her dress free of the dirt and dust, her hair blowing about her in the wind, her face inscrutable. As he continued to gaze at her he recognized that the strange coldness which sometimes invaded her face had crept back on it. Sensitive as he was by nature, and especially to Emma, he at once detected a change in her mood, and a change that was radical. It distressed him.

He walked over to her and took her arm. ‘Emma, is something wrong?’ She did not answer, and averted her face. ‘Is something wrong?’ he said again, more loudly.

She shook his hand off. ‘No, nowt’s wrong.’

‘But you look peculiar. And you fled like a frightened rabbit out of the cave.’

‘No, I didn’t. I was cold, that’s all.’

Edwin turned away, realizing he would not make any headway with her at this moment. He brushed the dirt off his trousers, and began to busy himself collecting the tools. He felt suddenly deflated. Emma had seated herself on the flat rock where she always sat. He watched her as she lifted her long hair and moved it back over her shoulders gracefully. Then she folded her hands in her lap and sat staring ahead, looking out across the moors, and to the valley far beyond. He smiled to himself. She looked so prim and curiously dignified. No, regal, he told himself; it’s the way she holds her head so high, and keeps her back so straight.

He wandered over to Emma, attempting a show of casualness. He sat down on the ground at her feet and looked up at her. ‘Do you feel better now? Out here in the sunshine,’ he ventured gently.

‘Yes, thanks,’ Emma said quietly, without so much as glancing at him.

Edwin winced. She sounded so cold and remote. He rested his head against the flat rock and closed his eyes, wondering why she was adopting this stern attitude. She had shut him out most purposefully, he recognized that. He felt a twinge in his chest, and that sense of loss he had experienced before.

Meanwhile, Emma’s fertile brain was racing. How could her sweet and gentle mother have been friendly with Adam Fairley? That terrible man. And anyway, her mother had spent part of her girlhood in Ripon with Cousin Freda. It struck her then, and quite forcibly, that Elizabeth was not a very unusual name. Might it not be some other Elizabeth whose name was carved on the wall? A girl from the gentry perhaps, who had known Adam Fairley when he was young. There was more likelihood of him being friends with a girl of Quality than with one from the working class. But there was the stone Edwin had found. Still, that might really be a painting of Olivia Wainwright, just as Edwin believed. It certainly looked like her. She thought then of the locket. Yet even that didn’t mean anything significant. Lots of people had names beginning with an A. Anybody could have given it to her mother. Emma now found all of these conclusions quite irresistible. And because the idea of a friendship between her mother and Adam Fairley was intolerable and unacceptable to her, for it would besmirch her mother’s memory, Emma slowly convinced herself that her mother was not the Elizabeth of the cave.

In no time at all she felt more cheerful. She looked down at Edwin resting peacefully at her feet. Poor Edwin. She had been mean to him and unfair, when he was always so nice to her. She tapped him lightly on the shoulder, almost playfully.

Edwin opened his eyes and glanced up, not without apprehension, uncertain of her mood. To his delight Emma was smiling at him, that lovely and most radiant smile, and her emerald eyes danced with the brightest of lights.