Read Online Always Emily by Michaela MacColl - Free Book Online Page B

you were still my student,” Miss Wooler continued. “But you are my employee, a young woman of nineteen. I am torn between my affection for you and my duty to my students.”
    Charlotte rushed around the wide desk to kneel at Miss Wooler’s feet. Clutching at Miss Wooler’s hands, she cried, “Please let me stay. I need this position. I was your best student. I can be your best teacher. . . . If only you’ll give me another chance!”
    Miss Wooler’s sternness softened as she looked down at Charlotte’s imploring face. “So you do want to continue here?”
    â€œYes!” Charlotte let the heartfelt word speak for itself.
    â€œI think you should take some time to consider your situation. Go home for a week or so. If at the end of that time you can assure me you will never contaminate Roe Head School with this filth again, I will take you back.”
    Suddenly Charlotte was brought back to the present. She heard screaming. For a moment she was afraid her imagination had taken over once again. Then she realized the frightened voice was only too real.
    â€œHelp me! Stop, please!”
    The carriage jerked to a halt, sending Charlotte to the floor in a heap of skirts and hand luggage. “Driver, what happened?” Charlotte shouted. There was no answer, but she could hear the driver expostulating with a woman.
    â€œWhat were you thinking, miss? You could have been killed!”
    â€œHelp me, please.” The woman’s voice was ragged, as though she had been screaming for a long time.
    Charlotte clambered out of the carriage to see a woman, perhaps in her late forties, dressed in the most makeshift of country dresses, pleading with the driver. Most likely she had come from the moorland track intersecting the road. Her hair was a reddish blond shot through with gray, hanging loose below her shoulders. Charlotte noted the vestiges of what must have been a remarkable prettiness in her youth. Her pale blue eyes were never still, darting from the driver’s irate face to the empty track behind and then to Charlotte. Seeing another woman, she cried out in relief and clasped Charlotte’s hands. The driver gratefully abandoned the hysterical woman and went to check his horse.
    â€œWon’t you help me? I’m desperate.” Her hands were soft, Charlotte noticed, unusual in a woman who looked like afarmer’s wife. But there were marks about her wrists, making Charlotte wonder if she had been restrained. “I ran away, but it won’t be long before they come looking for me.”
    The woman was quite tall, and Charlotte felt at a disadvantage peering up at her. She noticed that the mysterious woman’s pupils were dilated, huge black pools fixed on Charlotte’s face.
    â€œWhat’s your name?” Charlotte asked, not committing herself to anything. As a clergyman’s daughter, she had often heard terrible stories of husbands beating their wives. Sympathetic as she was, her father had taught her to mind her own business. Neither the law nor the husbands welcomed interference.
    â€œI shan’t tell you lest my brute of a . . .”
    â€œHusband?” Charlotte prompted.
    â€œHusband? I wish ’twere my husband. At least when he was alive, I was protected. But now, I am alone.” As she spoke, her voice grew louder and shriller.
    â€œYou have no one?” Charlotte asked.
    â€œHe’s taken everything from me: my son, my fortune, and now my freedom.” The woman began to sob.
    â€œYou mustn’t speak so wildly,” Charlotte soothed.
    â€œIf he catches me, he’ll kill me. That would solve all his problems!”
    Despite her frenzied manner, Charlotte could tell the mysterious woman did not lack an education. “Madam, be reasonable. I cannot help you if I don’t know your name.”
    â€œHow do I know you won’t tell him where I am? Maybe you are in it with