Читать книгу Classic Bestsellers from Josephine Cox: Bumper Collection - Josephine Cox - Страница 51

WAKING WITH A start, Emily scrambled out of bed.

Quickly putting on her robe, she went on tiptoe to the door and let herself out onto the landing, where she stood for a time, her ear cocked for the sound she was sure had woken her. Was it Grandad, having one of his bad dreams? She glanced towards his room. Or was it Cathleen?

She gave a long, weary sigh. Whoever it was must have settled down again. The house was quiet now.

Making her way along the landing, she wondered whether she really had heard a cry. I must have been dreaming, she thought. The first bad dream was some two years ago, the night after John had written to tell her he’d found somebody else. Since then, haunted by memories and regrets, she had forgotten what it was to sleep through the night.

As quickly and quietly as she could, Emily checked the child. Satisfied that she was all right, she then went on to check her grandfather. Thomas Isaac too, was sound asleep, his contented snores reverberating through the house. No problem there. She smiled; that dear old man was never a problem.

Now, as she turned away, she caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye. Moving nearer to the landing window, she peeped out.

There was a light on in what used to be the brick-built storeroom, but which Clem Jackson had recently claimed as his own private place. Unwanted and cramped in the farmhouse, and needing somewhere to take his long procession of women, he had turned the storeroom into his own little kingdom.

Emily was relieved that he’d put a distance between them. What she and the family really wanted, though, was for him to go away and never come back. He was a hated man. But that didn’t seem to bother him at all.

Sickened by thoughts of her uncle, she hurried back to her bedroom, climbed into bed and closed her eyes. But sleep was impossible. Her mind was too wide awake with troubled thoughts of John. In spite of him cruelly deserting her, she still loved and missed him.

Skewing to the edge of the bed, she reached over to the bedside cabinet, taking John’s note from the drawer where she had kept it since that day when Lizzie brought it to her. She didn’t open it immediately. Instead she held it tight to her breast, eyes closed and her heart beating fifteen to the dozen.

‘Oh, John! How could you do it to us?’ she asked softly. ‘How could you forget everything we meant to each other?’ Even now she found it almost impossible to believe that after all their dreams and plans, he could simply walk away, into another woman’s arms.

Hesitantly, she unfolded the letter and read it for the umpteenth time, her heart breaking all over again.

After a while, she returned the letter to its place, put on her robe again and went softly down the stairs to the kitchen.

Behind her, pausing in the doorway of her bedroom, Aggie watched her leave. Every night was the same; her daughter would pace the floor restlessly, wander round the house. ‘You’ve a lot to answer for, John Hanley!’ she hissed. ‘Leading her on, then dropping her wi’out the common decency to tell her to her face that you didn’t want her any more.’ Sending a letter was the coward’s way out.

Suddenly the face of her own husband came into her mind. For a moment the tears swam in her sorry eyes, and then they were gone, blinked away in anger. He and John Hanley were a right pair o’ cowards!

Yet, in the same way that Emily still loved John in spite of everything, she herself loved Michael.

Not a day went by when she didn’t look over the hills, expecting to see his lean, homely figure heading for Potts End. The prospect had warmed her many a night, but there was no doubt in her heart that if he walked through that door, at any time, she would welcome him with open arms.

For now though, Emily needed her.

With that in mind, she followed in her daughter’s footsteps, down the stairs and into the kitchen.

Unaware that her mother had entered the room, Emily was standing by the window, arms folded, her gaze reaching across to Clem Jackson’s crude habitat.

‘All right, are you, love?’ Aggie’s concerned voice gentled across the room.

Startled, Emily swung round and for one revealing moment, her hatred of that man, the father of her own daughter, burned bright in her eyes.

Aggie saw it, and not for the first time, she was afraid. There was a certain look in her daughter’s eyes that went far beyond pure hatred, and it frightened her.

Quickly now, she crossed the room to see what it was that had disturbed Emily to such an extent. When she saw the light in Clem’s place, she grabbed the curtains and flung them together. Her brother had probably got one of his trollops in there. Lately, entertaining streetwomen was a regular thing.

Aggie looked at Emily; at the raw emotion still etched into her face. ‘What is it, love? What’s wrong?’

The girl grew nervous. ‘What do you mean?’ Just now when she’d been looking across at her uncle’s place, she was thinking about the day in the barn, when he had brutally possessed her. She hadn’t realised how, in that moment, the murderous intent she felt for him had been alive in her face.

Aggie took her by the shoulders. ‘I know you hate him,’ she said softly. ‘We all do. Only, it seems something more with you.’ She had to ask. ‘Did he ever hurt you, child? Has he ever made improper suggestions to you?’

Emily felt the blood rush to her face. ‘No!’ Shock and disbelief that her mother could ask such a thing made her lies all the more convincing to Aggie. ‘I blame him for coming between me and John. It was him who warned John off!’

She wriggled out of her mother’s grip and went to stand with her back to the wall, her voice breaking with emotion as she said, ‘I’ll never forgive him. Yes, I hate him! I hate the way he rules this family like the bully he is. I hate how he carries on his filthy ways in front of us all … in front of little Cathleen! And the pity of it is that there isn’t a thing we can do to stop him.’

‘All right, lass, I understand.’ Aggie was more settled in her mind now about the suspicions she’d harboured. But she had little reason to be content. ‘Come and sit down. I’ll put the kettle on, and we can talk awhile. But then you’ve to go back to bed and try to get some sleep. We’ve a deal of work to do on the morrow, and we’ll neither of us be capable of anything, if we don’t take care of ourselves.’

Good as her word, Aggie put the kettle on, made the tea and cut two small helpings of her best fruit-cake. ‘There y’are, lass.’ She set the tray between them. ‘Now then, what woke you out of your bed, eh?’

Emily shook her head. ‘I’m not sure,’ she answered, taking up her tea and slowly sipping it.

Aggie did the same. ‘One of your bad dreams, was it?’

‘I think it must have been.’

‘Dreaming about John Hanley, were you?’

Emily smiled up at her. ‘I can’t forget him, Mam. I still can’t understand why he did what he did.’

Aggie was straightforward as ever. ‘It’s like he said in his letter, lass. He just fell out of love with you and in love with someone else.’

Emily still could not accept it. ‘I find it so hard to believe. We loved each other too much. I could never love anyone else the way I love John.’ Her gaze fell away. ‘How could he do it, Mam? How could he just turn his back on me, after what we meant to each other?’

Aggie sighed. ‘I know it’s hard, lass, but it wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened and I’m sure it won’t be the last.’

Emily paused before asking, ‘Is that what’s happened with Dad, d’you think?’ She didn’t want to hurt her mother by raising painful issues, but her father had been gone so long, it was like he was never coming home.

Aggie was visibly surprised at her daughter’s pointed question. ‘I think he just gave way under the weight of debt and troubles,’ she answered simply.

Emily valued her conversations with Aggie, and never more than now. ‘If it had been another woman, would you be badly hurt by it?’

‘Aye, lass, I would.’

‘Enough to shut him out of your life for ever?’

‘Aw, love.’ Aggie smiled knowingly. ‘I’m not saying you should shut John out of your life. What I’m saying is this: he was the one who did the shutting out. You mustn’t spend your life waiting for him to walk in the door. He might never come back, and one day it’ll be too late for you to start again. You’ve had no word from him in years.’

Every minute of every day, Emily was looking for reasons as to why John had not come back to her. ‘One day he may realise that the other woman isn’t for him,’ she said hopefully.

‘If you’re waiting for that to happen, you’ll be wasting precious time.’ Like any mother, Aggie wanted happiness for her child. She needed to see her settled and content before the years caught up with her. ‘You’re still young,’ she said encouragingly. ‘You should be looking for a fresh start, with a new man. And what about Cathleen? She’s over four years old now. It won’t be long afore she starts at the village school. What will she think, when the other children start talking about their daddies? An’ how long will it be afore she starts asking questions about her daddy?’

Emily, too, had been troubled about that very thing. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered truthfully.

‘Will you tell her how her daddy ran out on you, and that you’ve no idea where he is?’ Aggie asked innocently.

‘Right now, I’ve no idea what I might tell her.’ Emily had never argued with the rumours that circulated, about John being the father of her child. At the time it had seemed easier that way. Yet if he ever did come back, she knew she would be bound to tell him what had happened that day in the barn. She would have no choice but to confess that little Cathleen had been the result, and that though she herself would regret the making of her till the day she was gone from this earth, she would never regret knowing and raising that lovely-natured little girl.

‘You must tell the child the truth,’ Aggie said firmly. ‘That her father went away and never came back. You can tell her all about him if you choose, or make up any story you like. But the child has a right to know who her father is.’

Emily’s heart sank. ‘That’s for me to decide, Mam! You mustn’t worry your head about it.’ The prospect of telling Cathleen who her father was had caused her many a sleepless night.

‘I’m not saying it isn’t your decision, lass. All I want is for you to think about it and be ready, for when she starts asking the questions.’

For a moment Aggie discreetly observed her daughter deep in thought. There was a troubled look on Emily’s face that prompted her to ask worriedly, ‘Cathleen is John’s child, isn’t she?’

Emily looked up. ‘Well, that’s what they’re all saying, so it must be right.’

‘Yes, lass. It’s what they say, and we all thought the same. But you’ve never said. You’ve never confirmed or denied it. Not so as I recall, anyway.’

Pushing the chair away, Emily excused herself. ‘I’m feeling tired now, Mam,’ she apologised. ‘I’d best be away to my bed.’ She kissed her mother on the forehead and was soon on her way upstairs.

Left alone, Aggie began to wonder. A dark suspicion crept in. If she wasn’t John’s child, then who was Cathleen’s father? Emily had only ever had eyes for John Hanley. The lass never kept company with any other young men – not so far as she knew, anyway.

A shocking thought entered her head then; so terrible that she thrust it to the back of her mind. ‘You mustn’t think bad things, Aggie!’ she told herself. ‘What happened with you was a long time ago. You mustn’t let it colour your thinking, or it’ll send you out of your mind!’

Afraid of her own rampaging thoughts, she took herself off to bed. But it was a long time before she could get to sleep, and even then, it was a sleep full of restless dreams.

In the morning it was as though the conversation between Emily and her mother had never taken place.

When Emily came into the kitchen with Cathleen beside her, Aggie was already cooking breakfast. ‘Look what I found, Mam.’ Emily sat the tousled-haired child at the table. ‘One half-asleep, starving-hungry little girl.’ She stooped to give her daughter a hug.

‘Dolly Dora wants a hug too.’ Cathleen held out her rag-doll. ‘I think she wants some porridge as well.’

Aggie turned from the stove to give her a smile. ‘Well now, we’d best feed you both, eh?’ she chuckled. ‘Afore you start eating the table!’

The child found that very droll. ‘We won’t eat the table, Grandma,’ she said. ‘Anyway, Dolly Dora hasn’t got any teeth.’

While Aggie spooned out the child’s porridge, Emily poured her a glass of milk. In a matter of minutes the child was settled, but no sooner had the two women sat down than there came a familiar tap on the door. ‘Any chance of a brew for a weary, hardworking milkman?’ Grinning from ear to ear, Danny poked his head round the door.

At once, Cathleen scrambled down from the table and threw herself into his arms. ‘Danny! Danny! Dolly’s having porridge,’ she said, leading him to the table. ‘You can have some too, if you like – can’t he, Grandma?’ Her face shone up at Aggie. ‘If there’s none left, he can share mine.’

‘Oh, there’s plenty left,’ she answered readily. ‘Only I’ve a feeling Danny might rather have eggs and bacon – and mebbe a sausage and a morsel o’ black-pudding too?’ She looked at Danny, who nodded emphatically.

‘That sounds just the ticket,’ he said, and sat himself at the table. ‘Morning, Emily.’ As always, his face lit up when he looked at her.

Emily bade him good morning. She brought his tea and served his meal, and the four of them sat together at the table, talking and laughing, and exchanging tales, just like a real family. For Danny it was a wonderful feeling. One he intended making permanent, soonever he got the chance.

When the meal was over, the dishes were carried to the sink. ‘I’ll give you ladies a hand washing up.’ Danny sank his hands into a pot-sink full of soda and hot water from the kettle, but that was as far as he got. ‘Take Cathleen up to see her grandad,’ Emily suggested, ‘while me and Mam wash up.’

‘That suits me.’ Danny drew his hands out of the water, and pretended to examine them. ‘All this hot, greasy water is doing terrible damage to my skin.’

‘Go on with you!’ He always made Aggie smile. ‘Get off upstairs, the pair of youse. Oh, and will you tell Dad I’ll be along shortly to change his bedlinen?’

‘I’ll do that,’ Danny answered with a cheerful grin. ‘And will you be all right, Emily?’ He always came back to her.

Emily gave him a grateful glance. ‘I’m fine, thank you, Danny,’ she answered. ‘Give me a few minutes, and I’ll be right behind you. Tell Grandad that for me, will you?’

Danny assured her he would. ‘So now, Cathleen me little darling, shall we go and say hello to your grandad, eh?’

‘Come on then!’ The child slid her hand into his. ‘Grandad’s waiting.’

Beaming, he allowed her to lead him away.

‘That man aches with love for you.’ Aggie never lost an opportunity to sing Danny’s praises.

‘I wish he wouldn’t,’ Emily answered. ‘I could never promise him anything.’

‘He’d wed you tomorrow, given the chance.’

‘I know that, and I’m flattered.’ Emily had a soft spot for Danny, but it wasn’t love and never could be.

Aggie, though, refused to give up. ‘He’s a good man.’

‘I know that too, Mam. But it doesn’t mean I have to marry him.’

Keeping her face to the window, Aggie dipped a plate into the hot water. ‘Love isn’t everything, lass,’ she said, scrubbing the plate until it shone.

Emily took the clean plate and wiped it over with her cloth. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because it’s true.’

‘You and Dad loved each other.’

‘Yes, and look what happened!’ There was anger in her now.

Keeping her voice down so as not to let anyone else hear, Aggie turned to her. ‘I gave him years of pampering. I worked alongside him, out there in all weathers. By! There were times when I were so tired and weary I thought I’d fall down on the spot, but I kept going, and when the day’s work was done, I’d wash his clothes and cook his meal, and give him all the loving a woman normally gives her husband.’

Turning away, she shook the water from her hands and wiped them dry. ‘After all that, he ran off and left me, when I needed him most.’ Looking Emily in the eye, she warned her, ‘You should never set too much store by love. There are more important things in life, such as security and contentment.’ Wagging an angry finger she finished, ‘You’d do well to remember that, my girl.’

She would have walked away, but Emily blocked her path. ‘You still love Dad though.’

‘Who says so?’

‘I do. Don’t deny it, Mam. You’d have him back tomorrow, wouldn’t you?’

‘Aye, lass, I would.’ The whisper of a smile touched Aggie’s mouth. ‘But that’s only because I’m a silly old fool who should know better.’

‘I must be a silly fool too, because that’s how I feel about John. I don’t love Danny in that way, Mam.’

Aggie was humbled, but hopeful for the child’s sake. ‘Aw, lass. Are you absolutely certain you and he couldn’t make a go of it?’

Emily gave an honest reply. ‘If I really thought John was never coming back, I dare say we could. But it wouldn’t be fair on him.’

‘And you’ve told him that, have you?’

‘Time and again. He knows how I feel, but he still wants to wed me.’

‘For the child’s sake if not your own, why don’t you just say yes?’

‘Is that what you want, Mam?’

‘Oh, lass! It doesn’t matter what I want. It’s your life and as far as I can see, you’ve got two choices.’

Emily gave a sorry little smile. She knew the choices only too well, for hadn’t she agonised these past years, and didn’t she always come up with the same empty hope; that there was still time for John to realise he’d made a mistake and come home. The trouble was, time had run out so quickly, and with every day that passed, she dreaded the questions Cathleen was soon bound to ask.

Aggie went on, ‘You can wait for John, and drive Danny away, so then you’ll be on your own. The years will pass and you’ll get lonelier and lonelier, and you might still not see hide nor hair of John Hanley. You’ll have denied Cathleen the opportunity of having a father, and mebbe brothers and sisters, and as for yourself – well, it’ll be awful hard, lass, because you’ll need to be both parents at once. There’ll be no companion, and no man there for you, not if you keep saving yourself for something that may never happen.’

Emily stopped her. ‘I know all this, Mam,’ she told her. ‘I’ve thought of nothing else.’

Aggie persisted. ‘The second choice and by my reckoning far the best option, is to accept Danny’s offer of marriage. Think of it, lass. You’ll have a home, and a husband who’ll cherish you.’

She then gave Emily a deliberate shock. ‘There’s summat else you need to think of, lass, and it’s this.’ Holding Emily’s questioning gaze, she informed her quietly, ‘There will come a time when me and your grandad are no longer here for you, lass.’

Emily’s heart turned over. She had never envisaged a life without her mother and it shook her to the core. ‘Please, Mam. Don’t talk like that.’

Aggie continued regardless. ‘I’m only saying what’s true. Hard though it may be, these things need to be considered. Besides, you owe it to yourself and the child to marry a good man, to make a home that will last. Be grateful and content that somebody loves you enough to keep pestering you, even though time and again you tell him no. There’s a good chance that if you keep turning him away, he might just meet a young woman who values him enough to say yes – and then where will you be, eh? I’ll tell yer.’

She was in full swing now. ‘You’ll be all on yer own, with a child to raise, with all the worries and decisions that go with it, and you won’t be able to sit down of an evening and talk it over with your husband because there’ll only be you. Is that what you really want, lass, and all because you can’t put John out of your mind – a man who cared so little for you, he went away and set up with some other woman?’

In her heart of hearts, Emily knew that everything her mother said was true. She had known it all along, yet had pushed it from her mind. Instead of listening to her head she had been listening to her heart.

Now though, in the wake of her mother’s outburst, she was forced to ask herself some harsh questions. Was she being selfish? Should she forget about John and settle for Danny? As a mother, shouldn’t she be putting Cathleen first? But no less important: could she bear to live with a man who she couldn’t really love? When he put his arms round her in bed of a night, how would she feel?

She considered all these things, and what came out as being most important was the child. After all, just like her mam said, Cathleen needed a father, and she already loved Danny in that way. But wasn’t it ironic, that the same man who to her mind had driven John away and defiled her that day in the barn, was now ruling her life as never before, through that same innocent child?

On top of all that, Emily now forced herself to consider what John had done to her. How could he ever have really loved her, to do a thing like that?

‘You keep thinking on it, lass.’ Aggie saw how deep in thought her daughter was, and it gave her little pleasure to have pointed out what was necessary. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been brutal in what I said, but I only want you to do what’s right, for both you and the child.’

Having said her piece, Aggie busied herself, making the old man a brew. She then wiped down the pot-sink and put away the crockery. ‘You’d best go up and see Grandad now,’ she suggested. ‘Like as not he’ll be waiting for this.’

She gave the filled cup with saucer to Emily, together with a fond word or two. ‘Look, lass, I don’t hate John for what he did, though I wish it hadn’t happened. But it did. And it seems to me, whatever dreams you and he had together are over now. He’s carved out a life for himself, and to my mind, you need to do the same.’

‘I’m not ready yet, Mam.’ She sighed from deep down. ‘Maybe I never will be.’

‘Time will tell.’ Aggie’s heart dipped. She knew how turning your back on the man you cherished was not an easy thing for any woman. ‘You know I love you, don’t you, lass?’

Emily nodded. That much she had never doubted.

Aggie gave her a gentle nudge. ‘Go on then. Take that up to Grandad.’

Upstairs, while Cathleen played at the window with her rag-doll, the old man and Danny were catching up on events. ‘He strides round this place as if he owns it!’ The old man had fire in his eyes. ‘By! If I were a younger, fitter man, I’d have him down yon lane so fast his feet wouldn’t touch the ground!’

‘Don’t get yourself worked up, old-timer.’ Danny knew how frustrated the old man was, and how desperately he wanted rid of Clem Jackson – as they all did.

‘’Course I’m worked up!’ Keeping his voice low so the child couldn’t hear, the old fella hitched himself up in the bed. ‘He’s a thorn in my side, that’s what he is.’ Leaning closer, he imparted intimately, ‘There’s summat bad happening in this house. I don’t know what it is, but I can sense it.’

Startled by the old man’s comment, Danny asked worriedly, ‘Whatever d’you mean by that?’

Lying back on his pillow the old man sniffed and coughed and for a while he tried hard to think what it might be that played so heavy on his mind. ‘I don’t know exactly what it is,’ he said finally. ‘All I know is there’s summat secretive goin’ on. I can feel it in me bones.’ He looked at Danny. ‘Did you know he’s fetching women of a certain sort back to the farm? I’ve seen the randy buggers from me window, an’ it don’t need no brains to guess what they’re here for.’

Danny had suspected as much. ‘What do Aggie and Emily have to say about it?’

‘They haven’t said owt, and they wouldn’t.’ He grinned from ear to ear. ‘I know more than they think.’

Though he was not one for gossip, Danny was intrigued. ‘In what way?’

Implying a secret, the old man tapped his nose. ‘Folks often talk to theirselves,’ he said. ‘Sometimes in their sleep and sometimes when they’re on their own and think nobody’s listening. If there’s bad things playing on their minds, they say ’em out loud. I know, ’cause I’ve ’eard it all with me own ears.’ His bushy eyebrows merged in a frown. ‘Secrets! Things like that!’

Hearing a door close somewhere downstairs, he dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘I know about things that went on a long time ago. I’ve never said, and I never will. But I don’t like it. One o’ these days, I intend doing summat about it an’ all!’

Growing anxious, he began struggling to sit up, angered when he fell back against the pillow. ‘Damn it! I’m useless. Bloody useless!’

Danny helped him. ‘You’re getting too excited,’ he told him. ‘Lie still and stop your worrying.’ He didn’t know what the old man meant by the things he’d said but, having been warned that Mr Ramsden’s mind was beginning to wander, he put it all down to that. ‘Emily will be along any minute,’ he said comfortingly. ‘Aggie too. She said to tell you she’d be up to change the bedlinen.’

The old man chuckled. ‘Fuss, fuss! Why is it women allus have to be doing summat?’

‘They love you, that’s why.’ Danny was grateful that, for the time being, Emily’s grandfather appeared to have forgotten what had got him so agitated.

‘Oh, I know they love me all right.’ Thomas Isaac gave him a naughty wink. ‘I know summat else too.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘I know you love my Emily.’ He had a twinkle in his eye. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’

Danny laughed. ‘Yes, you’re right.’

‘And do you love her enough to wed her?’

‘If she’d have me, which she won’t.’

‘Keep on trying,’ the old man urged. ‘Don’t take no for an answer. Wear the lass down! She’ll soon get fed up saying no.’

Outside, balancing the cup and saucer while she opened the door, Emily caught the gist of that last conversation.

Not you an’ all, Grandad, she tutted to herself. It seemed the world and his friend were trying to match her to Danny. But there was a stirring of guilt in her heart. If both her mam and her grandad thought it best for her and Danny to be wed, happen she ought to seriously consider what they were saying.

When she opened the door the two men fell silent. ‘There you are!’ Addressing Grandad, she told him, ‘Mam’s sent a fresh cup of tea for you.’

Hoping she hadn’t heard what was said, Danny got out of the chair. ‘Sit here,’ he suggested. ‘I’d best make tracks anyway, or the customers will be stringing me up, along with the horse!’

While Emily served his tea, the old fella gave Danny a crafty wink. ‘Don’t forget what I told you,’ he said connivingly.

Danny returned his smile. ‘I won’t.’

Emily didn’t let on how she’d overheard the last part of their conversation. ‘What’s all the secrecy?’

‘Nothing for you to worry your head about!’ Grandad retorted, and realising she was being told to mind her own business, Emily said no more.

After a hug from Cathleen and a warm smile from Emily, Danny prepared to leave. ‘Thank you for sitting with Gramps.’ Emily saw him to the top of the landing.

‘I always enjoy talking to Tom,’ Danny said. ‘Though he’s a force to be reckoned with, that’s for sure. Strong-willed and strong-minded, and a temper to go with it.’

‘He’s all of that,’ Emily answered with a chuckle. ‘So – we’ll see you tomorrow morning, will we?’

‘Try and keep me away,’ was his reply.

‘You’d best go now,’ she suggested. ‘We can’t have the customers lynching you, can we?’

‘Am I to understand it would bother you if they did?’ Danny asked hopefully.

Emily didn’t answer. Instead she smiled shyly and turned to leave him there. But then she was taken by surprise when he took hold of her and swung her round. ‘I love you, Emily Ramsden. No! Don’t say anything. I just wanted you to know that. So, now I’ve told you, I’ll be on my way.’

Before she could open her mouth, he was down the stairs and out the door like a scalded cat, leaving her feeling warm and content inside. It was a peculiar, if unsettling feeling.