Emma and Her Daughter

by Linda Mitchelmore

  This was the moment when Emma would have liked to have been able to say, ‘You never know, he might. He might be looking down from heaven.’ But she couldn’t say that because she didn’t believe it. It must, she thought, be wonderful to have that faith and to get that comfort in the unknown, from some heavenly power, but it hadn’t worked for her when she’d lost her parents and her brother, Johnnie. And it hadn’t brought a crumb of comfort when she’d lost Seth – she’d seen the light go out of him as she’d held his hand as he’d breathed his last breath.

  ‘No, he’s not,’ she said now. ‘But if he were here I know he’d be proud.’

  ‘If he were here, Ma, you wouldn’t be going to the theatre with Signor Cascarini. And he wouldn’t be making cods eyes at you all night. And … oh, Ma, you can’t marry him, you just can’t.’

  Fleur shrugged Emma’s arm off and put her head in her hands. Her shoulders juddered up and down with loud, wracking sobs.

  Cods eyes? Did Eduardo look at her like that? She’d only dined with him a handful of times. They were simply two widowed adults enjoying one another’s company, weren’t they?

  And he was now more than likely on his way in his ice cream delivery van to pick her and Fleur up to take them to the theatre.

  ‘It’s never entered my head to marry him, Fleur,’ Emma said.

  Eduardo is lonely, I’m lonely if I am honest enough to admit it to myself – not the best scenario for a romance for either of us. But she could hardly tell Fleur that because it would sound as though she was using Eduardo, which wasn’t the case. She genuinely liked the man and admired him for his care of his motherin-law and the way he put his all into his ice cream making business.

  ‘Besides,’ Emma carried on. ‘We’ve only dined together a handful of times, and he hasn’t asked me to marry him.’

  Fleur took her hands from her face and sat up straight. She turned to look at Emma. ‘Well, he’s told Paolo he’s thinking about asking. And if you were to marry him that would make Paolo my stepbrother and it wouldn’t be right. You’re making things very difficult for Paolo and me.’

  Ah, so that was the crux of Fleur’s problem – she didn’t like Emma seeing Paolo’s father. All the talk about being offered a cigarette by a stranger on the pier was the run-up to this, and of no consequence? Emma wondered what it was Eduardo might have said to his son about marrying her but did she really want to know?

  ‘Unintentionally,’ Emma said. ‘I think you’re reading more into my friendship with Eduardo than there is. But I don’t know that I should stop seeing him because you want me to.’ And then, in a very quiet voice, Emma added: ‘Seth and I talked about the possibility of one of us being widowed and we both said we hoped the other would find happiness, and love, again.’

  ‘I know, Ma,’ Fleur said. ‘I was watching Pa paint a portrait of you just before he died and I don’t know if he must have had a premonition or something, but he told me then that if anything happened to him I was to welcome any man you wanted to marry, and be respectful to him.’

  Had Seth said that? What a generous thing to say – but then Seth had always been generous. With his money, with his time, and with his love.

  ‘But it won’t be with Signor Cascarini, Fleur,’ Emma said. ‘I can promise you that.’

  But all the same, Emma wanted that sparkle in her eyes that Stella Martin had had. And the excitement of planning a future with someone; someone to watch sunsets with, someone to grow old with.

  Was there any harm in wanting that?

  ‘That was fun, Eduardo,’ Emma said. ‘Thank you for asking me. And Fleur. I think, despite her protests that she didn’t want to come tonight, that she’s enjoyed it after all.’

  ‘And Paolo, he like whatever Fleur like,’ Eduardo said with a chuckle, his shoulders rising and falling. ‘Is the way of the young. And,’ he reached for Emma’s hand, ‘the not so young.’

  Quickly Emma withdrew it and began scrabbling in her handbag for something, nothing, anything at all – anything so Fleur, who was walking arm in arm with Paolo towards them, wouldn’t see.

  Ah, she’d found something. The slip of paper with the telephone number of the garage owned by Stella’s fiancé. A recommendation might be a safer way of buying a car, rather than risk some underhand deal with someone she didn’t know.

  ‘I want to buy a car, Eduardo,’ she said quickly. ‘A client has given me this telephone number. Do you know it?’

  She showed Eduardo the piece of paper. EXE MOTORS. Exeter 297.

  ‘I no believe!’ Eduardo said. ‘Is like Agatha Christie mystery, no? Is the garage that do the CASCARINI on my ice cream delivery van! And sell me van, of course! And mend them when Paolo hit wall with them!’ He laughed loudly, slapping a hand down on the table. ‘I take you! We go!’

  Goodness, Emma could almost see the exclamation marks dancing in the air like daggers on the ends of Eduardo’s sentences. But, what luck. A double recommendation.

  ‘Thank you,’ Emma said. ‘That will be lovely.’

  ‘We will go on a Saturday,’ Eduardo said. ‘Is always quiet for ice cream sales on Saturday afternoons. I will telefono. Is good to go when boss man is there. He know me. He give you good deal. Is good?’

  ‘Very good,’ Emma said. ‘Thank you.’

  And it was left that Eduardo would let Emma know which Saturday would be best. But knowing nothing about the purchase of cars, only how to drive them and needing one, she hoped it would be soon.

  ‘What would you like for your birthday, Fleur?’ Emma asked the next morning at breakfast.

  ‘I haven’t thought,’ Fleur replied. ‘But if you’re pushing me, I’ve seen a wristwatch in Conroy and Couch’s that is the biz. Paolo and me saw it in the window and we went inside to ask the price.’

  Fleur had been looking in jewellers’ shops? With Paolo?

  ‘Paolo and I, Fleur,’ Emma corrected her.

  ‘Oh, forget the stupid wristwatch,’ Fleur snapped. ‘You’re always correcting me.’

  ‘I’m not always correcting you. But you know I don’t like sloppy grammar,’ Emma said. ‘It’s important you speak properly. If you’re going to be in a position somewhere, working for someone, then it will be important.’

  ‘Who says I’m going to be working for someone? There’s nothing to do in this place anyway except serve tables in some crummy hotel.’

  ‘Then you could get some qualifications of some kind to get yourself out of it.’

  Fleur jerked her head backwards, forehead furrowed, and stared in wonderment at Emma.

  ‘Is something wrong, Ma? One minute you’re asking me what I want for my birthday and the next you’re reading me the riot act about grammar and suggesting I leave home. I’ve come down to breakfast washed and dressed and I’ve cleaned my teeth and brushed my hair and I’m not talking with my mouth full, so what have I done wrong?’

  Emma couldn’t help but smile at Fleur’s remark. Hadn’t she always, when Fleur had been little, repeated the mantra ‘wash your face, clean your teeth, brush your hair’ until Fleur did those things without having to be reminded or sent back upstairs to do them? And she’d been an absolute dragon about Fleur not talking with food in her mouth, she knew that.

  ‘Sorry,’ Emma said. ‘You haven’t done anything wrong. It’s me, I’m a little out of sorts.’

  She had a lot on her mind. Driving back from the theatre with Fleur and Paolo in the back she’d turned around to say something to Fleur and seen Paolo place his hand on her knee. She’d seen Fleur push it away, but was that only because she’d known her mother had noticed? Unable to say anything at the time she was wondering if she should mention it now. And what was more, Eduardo had laid a hand on her knee while he was driving – no, not laid, it had been more of a grip that Emma hadn’t been able to fend off without making a fuss. And with Fleur in the back.

  She wasn’t looking forward to driving to Exe Motors with him now, but she’d said she’d go, and how else was she going to g
et there? Train and then taxi was a possibility. Hmm … perhaps that might be best. But Eduardo said he would make the appointment and she’d said she’d go and Emma didn’t renege on her promises. All she could do was wait to be told when.

  Stella Martin was coming for her first fitting this afternoon. Emma had made up the design in very cheap cotton fabric just to be certain the size was right and that the shape suited Stella before she cut into the very expensive wedding dress material. Stella had said there was no rush for the dress but Emma wanted to get it done and then, hopefully, Stella would tell all her friends how much she loved it and Emma’s business would start to boom.

  But first there was Tom to see. He and Ruby were coming over for lunch, on their own. Tom’s mother was looking after the children. Ruby had giggled that it would be like being on a date with Tom, going out for the day without the children. Emma was going to show Tom the garden and tell him what she wanted him to do – if he wanted to do it, and if he felt up to doing it. It would be easier to talk about these things without the children who had been with Ruby and Tom the first time they’d visited Romer Lodge. Emma was looking forward to seeing Ruby again – each time she saw her now, her friend looked happier, healthier. But she hoped that Tom wouldn’t feel under any pressure from her about the garden.

  ‘Ma?’ Fleur said. ‘You’re miles away. Are you sure you’re okay? Are you thinking about Pa?’

  About Seth? No she hadn’t been thinking about Seth. A strange sort of guilt flooded through her that she hadn’t been.

  ‘Not at this very moment, I wasn’t, no,’ Emma said. She thought quickly. ‘I was wondering if you’d like a tea party for your birthday? Here. In the garden. We could carry some tables outside and lay them prettily with the best china. And flowers. We could ask Paolo and Eduardo. And Ruby and her family? And we’ll go into town and I’ll buy you the watch at Conroy and Couch. How will that be?’

  It frightened Emma sometimes how fast she could think of things, make things up, and bend the truth. She’d had to do it many times when she’d been an orphaned fifteen-year-old, and she’d done it even more times after she and Seth had begun living together at Mulberry House, before they’d married. And somehow the habit had stuck. It wasn’t a very nice habit to have but it was useful. As now.

  ‘Expensive!’ Fleur laughed.

  ‘I can do expensive,’ Emma said, laughing with her. ‘And the tea party? Would you like that?’

  Five adults, Fleur, and three small children hardly constituted a party but it might be fun. She could think up some games for the children to play – blind man’s buff or something. And get some champagne in for the grown-ups – and Fleur – to drink.

  And Stella? Should she ask Stella and her fiancé to come? Her social circle needed widening and Stella might be the person to help her to do that, mightn’t she?

  Fleur finished her toast and washed it down with the last of the coffee.

  ‘Can I go now?’ she asked. ‘Only Paolo’s nonna is ill and can’t be in the ice cream parlour. Paolo’s got to go out on deliveries and his pa’s got a big batch of ice cream to make for the Imperial Hotel. Paolo’s going to show me how to work the coffee machine. It shouldn’t be too hard, should it? I said I’d help out. That’s all right, isn’t it?’

  She smiled winningly and Emma wondered for how long Fleur had been rehearsing that little speech in her head.

  ‘It’s not what I want to do for ever and ever, Ma, but I can do it for now, can’t I?’

  ‘You certainly can. It’s nice to help people out. But just so I know, what do you want to do for “ever and ever” as you put it?’

  ‘Paint maybe,’ Fleur said, quickly. ‘Like Pa. He showed me lots of tricks about perspective and depth and how to mix colours and how when you’re doing watercolours you don’t put white paint on, you just don’t paint the paper at all so it stays white.’

  ‘Well, we’ll look at courses, shall we?’

  ‘There aren’t any around here.’ Fleur pulled a face. ‘Only amateur groups.’

  ‘Exeter, then?’ Emma said.

  ‘Look, Ma, can we have this conversation some other time? And can I look for my own course?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. I’m only trying to help.’

  My fault there, Emma thought, that Fleur had snapped at her. Being a mother was such a hard job – but it never seemed the right time to say anything to Fleur these days.

  ‘I’m going to be late now,’ Fleur said.

  ‘Then you’d better hurry along,’ she said. ‘We Jagos don’t break our promises, do we?’

  Stella Martin seemed at least a stone thinner standing in front of Emma in her underthings – as though she never ate, or if she did she just picked at things. She had no bosoms to speak of and Emma made a mental note to add a bit of padding to the bust part of the petticoat and to adjust the other dress accordingly.

  To Emma’s joy, what she’d run up was a perfect fit. But somehow, it made Stella look like a rather large six year old. Well, all that could change soon once Stella was married and became pregnant and Emma wished with all her heart that Stella’s fiancé – when he became her husband if not before – would take her to the giddy, sexual heights that Seth had taken her. And Matthew’s kiss had done the same, but without the sex. What would sex with him be like?

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Stella asked. ‘Only there’s a flush creeping up the side of your neck?’

  On instinct Emma clapped her hand to her neck. Yes. Rather warm there. She flushed some more.

  ‘I was thinking, Stella, that you will make a beautiful bride and I’m also pleased that this mock-up is such a good fit. I can get on with putting my scissors to that very beautiful material you’ve chosen. I didn’t want to make a mistake, although I’d have replaced the material if I had. At my cost, of course.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Stella said with a giggle. ‘But there was something else causing that flush but I’m not going to push you! As a nurse I’m used to hearing what a person doesn’t say as often as what they do say.’

  Stella’s words made Emma feel transparent – the way Matthew’s words often had. Now why had he popped into her head again? She decided to change the subject.

  ‘Stella, I’m holding a tea party for Fleur’s sixteenth birthday. It’s on the sixteenth – the week after next. A Saturday. Would you like to come? And you can bring your fiancé if you’d like to. If you can make it, and if you can come a little earlier, then I should have your dress tacked together to try on by then.’

  Emma knew she was sounding rather desperate that Stella joined them. It makes me sound totally friendless. And she was, apart from Ruby. And Tom. Although when she herself had worked at Nase Head House Tom hadn’t been there. She’d only seen him a couple of times before she’d emigrated to Canada with Seth and Fleur.

  ‘I’ll just check my diary,’ Stella said. ‘Can I get out of this thing first? Only it looks rather like a shroud.’

  ‘It does rather,’ Emma said, but she knew it was always wise to make up the pattern out of something cheap when expensive material was going to be used for the real thing. Her mama had done the same. You taught me well, Mama, even though I was a very reluctant student at the time.

  She unpinned Stella and helped her off with the mock-up dress.

  ‘Actually,’ Stella said, ‘I hope you won’t think this is too forward of me seeing as I’ve only met you once before but, well, I was wondering if your lovely daughter would be my bridesmaid?’

  ‘Bridesmaid?’ Emma said.

  ‘Well, yes. I’ve no nieces or nephews to ask, and if I were to ask someone I work with at the hospital, someone else is bound to have their nose put out of joint because I haven’t asked them. Minefield!’

  ‘I’ll bet,’ Emma said.

  Her mind wandered back to March 1913 and the RMS Royal Edward and the captain marrying her and Seth in his cabin. She’d carried a bunch of stocks wrapped in cellophane she’d bought from a florist’s on the quay at Bristol befor
e boarding the ship. Fleur – a toddler then – had dozed on Seth’s shoulder all the way through the ceremony. Emma had put a couple of blossoms in Fleur’s hair and she’d made her a special white velvet dress to wear, seeing as she’d planned the whole thing in her head before departure. The dress hadn’t stayed white for long!

  ‘So,’ Stella said. ‘Do you think she will? I won’t be offended if she doesn’t want to. She hardly knows me.’

  ‘I’ll ask,’ Emma said. She knew better than to present Fleur with a fait accompli – Fleur hated that as much as Emma did, although Fleur had presented her with one only that morning. ‘She’s out at the moment.’

  ‘No rush,’ Stella said. ‘I haven’t been able to pin my fiancé down to coming to look at the church yet!’

  And then the conversation turned to men in general and then shoes and handbags and hats, and then it was time for Stella to leave.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Emma said, ‘you and I could meet for lunch in town one day? On your day off. You do have a day off?’

  Stella laughed. ‘Half days are usually as much as I manage! My fiancé’s become quite used to me cancelling things at the last minute if there’s an emergency and I have to work on, or take on a shift for someone who’s gone sick. But to answer your question – yes, I’d love to meet for lunch some time. Shall I telephone you with a suggested date when I have one?’

  ‘Perfect,’ Emma said. She could plan her day around Stella more easily than the other way around. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’

  ‘But don’t be offended if it isn’t soon.’ Stella laughed. ‘It won’t be because I don’t want to.’ She held out a hand to Emma and the two women shook hands – how good it felt, another hand holding hers in friendship.

  Well, that’s nice, Emma thought as she watched Stella walk down the drive to the gate. The sum of my female friends has increased one hundred per cent to a massive two!

  She sang all the way down the passage to the kitchen to get on with preparing lunch for Ruby and Tom.

  ‘You look like the cat what got the cream,’ Ruby said, kissing Emma on the cheek. ‘More colour in yer face.’