Emma and Her Daughter

by Linda Mitchelmore

  ‘Go on,’ Matthew said. ‘Why don’t you give me a blow by blow account of what she looked like while you’re at it?’ He knew sarcasm didn’t become him, but …

  ‘If that’s what you want, boss. Glossy dark hair that was escaping her hat. One of those new-fangled cloche things all the ladies are wearing. Reddy sort of brown colour. Large brown eyes. Good legs, slim ankles. Oh, and she was wearing earrings.’

  ‘That should help me pick her out in a crowd,’ Matthew grumbled, his sarcasm dripping thicker than engine oil this time.

  ‘I’m sorry, boss, but I thought, seeing as you know the Cascarini chap, that—’

  ‘But that’s just it – you didn’t think! This cheque might not be honoured for all we know.’

  ‘You know where Mr Cascarini lives so you could go and sort it out with him, couldn’t you?’

  ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t run to that. What plates were on it?’

  ‘The ones you put there, boss,’ William said. ‘Registered ones. I did check that before I let her drive it away. You did tell me if I made a sale you’d give me five per cent, so I did.’

  Be grateful for small mercies, Matthew told himself. At least the car was insured under his name should this woman have lied about her ability to drive and was at that moment wrapping just under two hundred pounds worth of car around a tree on Telegraph Hill.

  ‘Did she give you an address?’

  ‘No, boss. But you know where that Cascarini chap lives, so—’

  ‘Yes, yes, so you’ve just said. She could be conning him as well!’ Matthew shouted. ‘Ever thought of that, William?’

  William’s eyes went wide with fright. They were glassy with tears. The lad was only nineteen years old – a pup yet. Matthew knew he was being hard on him, and that he should never have left him in charge of something so important. If this woman was indeed a fraudster of some sort then he only had himself to blame really. And he’d been in worse scrapes in his life with a criminal or two – no make that something like a hundred or two. He’d get out of this if necessary. He still knew how to track a person down if that person needed to be tracked.

  ‘Cheque?’ he said, holding his hand out, palm upwards.

  ‘It’s underneath the blotter,’ William said, pointing at it. ‘The top drawer was locked, boss,’ William said. ‘Do I come in on Monday or not? Only my ma will kill me if I lose my job. No money for her fags and booze, see.’

  Matthew lifted up the blotter. A large cheque written in a flamboyant hand, face up. He checked the date. Not post-dated – good; that was an old trick he was more than wise to. Words and figures tallied.

  E. Jago. His heart stilled for a second. Two. He recognised that writing now, every loop and tail, every dot and comma. Emma’s handwriting. She’d replied to just one of the many letters he’d written her from America, not knowing she and Seth were man and wife. It had been a letter of condolence of a sort – her sadness at the death of his marriage and that he would be seeing less of his son. He still had that letter, safely filed with all his important and precious papers. Matthew gulped in air which made him cough. He was conscious of his heart rate increasing. Something like joy, pure joy, flooded through him. E Jago. This had to be her. His Emma. But Seth. Where was he? Why had Signor Cascarini brought Emma to buy a car? He’d just have to find out, wouldn’t he?

  ‘Boss?’ William said. ‘Put me out of my misery. Have I still got a job or not?’

  Matthew laughed, placed a hand on William’s shoulder. ‘Oh, you won’t be losing your job, William. Seven o’clock sharp, Monday morning.’ The smile on Matthew’s face grew wider with each word. Emma Jago. All he had to do now was find out where she lived. And Signor Cascarini was the conduit to that.

  But not just yet. Stella would need to know Emma was back.

  The line was bad. Matthew rang the number for the nurses’ living quarters. Someone who wasn’t Stella answered and said she would go and knock on the door of her room, and that he was to hang on.

  He’d been hanging on for ages. Emma’s face drifted in and out of his mind. He wondered if she still wore rose-scented perfume. She’d been wearing it the last time he’d seen her. Or was she buying something more expensive these days? Chanel No 5 perhaps? And if Emma was back, did that mean Seth was back as well? Or … he hung onto the hope she was back on her own, especially as it had been Signor Cascarini who had brought her over to Exeter.

  He caught sight of himself in the mirror – he had a huge grin on his face and it was in danger of making his facial muscles ache.

  ‘Matthew? Is something wrong?’

  Stella. At last. Kind, caring Stella who was sounding as though she really hoped there was nothing wrong with him and that if there was she’d make him better.

  Nothing could cure what was troubling him. Love. Only not for Stella. Not the sort of love that Stella deserved.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ he said. ‘Face to face.’

  ‘But, Matthew, we did that today. I’m not likely to cancel the wedding because of what you’ve told me. I’m a nurse. I’ve heard worse. But it’s late, and—’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry if I woke you from your beauty sleep. Not that you need any.’

  God, what a crass remark. Not him at all. But then he wasn’t feeling the same as he had when he’d been in the Imperial Hotel giving Stella chapter and verse of his life. He’d told Stella that a young and homeless girl had been his housekeeper way back before the war, but not her name. But now that girl was a woman, and older. And not homeless any more. And, hopefully, back in his life. A friend of Signor Cascarini’s. Well, as he’d said before, all’s fair in love and war and Signor Cascarini was going to have a fight on his hands.

  ‘Thank you, kind sir.’ Stella laughed. Her voice was higher-pitched and rather crackly over the telephone system. ‘But I’d like to get back to that sleep soon. I’m on the very early shift in the morning. Oh, there’s something I forgot to mention this afternoon. I think I might have found a bridesmaid. The daughter of the lady who’s making my dress. She’s a beautiful girl – very dark hair, almost black. Her mother is going to ask her. That will be all right, won’t it? There’s no one on your side you want to ask. Or is there?’

  Stella’s voice was full of excitement at her plans and it only served to make him feel a bigger heel than ever over what he was going to have to do.

  ‘No, no one.’

  He knew for certain Harry wouldn’t want to be a bridesmaid although he had, tentatively, asked his son if he would be his groomsman when he’d last written to him. So far he’d had no reply.

  ‘You’ll have a chance to meet her on the sixteenth because we’ve been invited to her birthday party. Four o’clock. It’s next Saturday. The garage is always quiet on a Saturday afternoon, isn’t it? That’s if you can make it and want to come. You don’t have to.’

  And now, Matthew thought, I don’t think I can. But the sixteenth was a week away yet. It would buy him time.

  ‘But if you want to meet me to tell me whatever it is you forgot to tell me this afternoon,’ Stella prattled on, happily enough, ‘then I’m off duty … hang on …’

  Matthew could hear the scraping sound of pages being turned. There was a book with the duty rota beside the telephone at all times – Stella had told him that.

  ‘Oh, gosh, this is going to be difficult. If you can come over on, say, Wednesday, at around two o’clock, I’ll have an hour. I could meet you in the park at Shiphay. I’ll probably need a breath of fresh air by then but the thing is, I’ve said I’ll cover for Mavis. Her mother’s ill so I’ll be doing double shifts.’

  ‘Then I’ll let you get back to bed,’ Matthew said. ‘I’ve kept you from it long enough. I’ll try and get there for Wednesday, but if I can’t—’

  ‘Then it will keep, I hope,’ Stella finished for him, although perhaps not the exact words he had in mind. He heard her yawn loudly.

  Whether he told Stella what he had to now, or later, was one and the s
ame thing – Stella’s happy world of plans and dreams was going to be completely shattered.

  ‘Sleep well,’ Matthew said.

  Stella made kissing noises down the line. But this time Matthew didn’t return them.

  ‘Goodnight,’ Stella said. ‘I love you.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ Matthew said.

  But he couldn’t say ‘I love you’ back as he usually did. Because while he did love Stella in the way anyone would love a dear, kind and compassionate friend, it wasn’t the sort of love he still had in his heart for Emma. He picked up Emma’s cheque. Her hands had touched it, and he laid it against his cheek wanting to get closer to her.

  You always did court trouble, Emma Jago, but this time you’ve handed me the baton.

  And he wasn’t going to bank her cheque. Not yet. Not until he’d found out exactly what the situation was between her and Signor Cascarini.

  Chapter Ten

  16th JULY 1927

  ‘Happy birthday, Fleur,’ Emma said. She held out the wrapped wristwatch that Fleur had coveted in Conroy and Couch’s. She’d also bought her a cream leather handbag from Trownson’s with crocheted summer gloves to match. And she’d put twenty pounds inside so that Fleur could choose something for herself.

  She could well afford it and she loved buying presents for her daughter. Emma’s dressmaking business had kept her very busy since Stella Martin had become her first client. In just two weeks she’d made three dresses for three different women to wear to the Mayor’s Ball. Thank heaven for Coco Chanel and her simplicity of design which meant the dresses were quickly made. And Emma was reaping the benefit of her foresight to make things for herself and Fleur to show prospective clients. All had been impressed and now they were giving recommendations to their friends. Sometimes Emma had to pinch herself because she found it hard to believe how much she’d achieved since her arrival in England back in April. Never go back, people had said to her in Canada, because it’s never the same. But then, they didn’t have the memories Emma had to be going back to.

  ‘Thanks, Ma,’ Fleur said, taking the proffered parcel, and reading the gift tag.

  Emma had felt a real pang of sorrow writing ‘With love from Ma’ on it. Somehow it had accentuated her aloneness not being able to write ‘and Pa’. But she’d swallowed it back. This was her new life. Their new life. Fleur seemed a lot happier since the night they’d all been to the theatre with Paolo and his father. She was still seeing Paolo, but not as much. And Emma had had a genuine reason for not being able to accept Eduardo’s invitations to the cinema, or the theatre, or for him to cook her a meal in his ristorante after closing hours. She was busy. She’d had to sew until well after midnight some nights. Not that she minded. But in her heart she knew she was holding back from seeing Eduardo in the hope he would notice her coolness and end things between them. Emma had never in her life had to tell someone she didn’t want them for a friend any more. She didn’t know that she could do it.

  Thank goodness she had the car now which was cutting the time she had been taking to pick up material and sewing notions from Beare’s. She was going to use it later to go and fetch Ruby and the children, after she’d been to put flowers on her mama’s and Johnnie’s grave, and her papa’s. And some on the grave of Seth’s ma, too. She made a mental note to remember to take the lawn cotton dresses she’d made for Ruby’s daughters to wear at the party – simple shifts that had taken no time at all to run up on her Singer. For Thomas she’d made some trousers out of an off-cut of linen she’d had leftover from a jacket she’d made for Fleur. And she’d given Ruby the money to buy Thomas a shirt to go with it. Ruby, being Ruby, had grumbled and said weren’t they smart enough to come to Fleur’s party as they were? But she’d laughed as she’d said it and she’d been effusive in her thanks for the dress Emma had loaned her to wear. Tom was coming over on the train before the rest of his family.

  Emma checked the time on the clock on the mantelpiece. He should be here any minute. She had any number of instructions for him about what she wanted done, and where, in the garden. Thank goodness the weather had been hot and dry and the lawns were now in good order, watered daily by the sprinkler she’d bought. She added ‘mow the lawns just one more time’ to the list in her head.

  ‘There’s Tom,’ Fleur said. She pointed to the gateway where Emma could now see that it was indeed Tom walking slowly, as though each step was an effort. He was wearing his good clothes. Emma recognised the suit he had on – it had been Seth’s. It hung off Tom now. There were working clothes in a cupboard in the hall for Tom to change into for gardening, but Emma was pleased to see he’d worn his best clothes over on the train.

  ‘God, but is that man ever going to cheer up?’ Fleur sighed theatrically. ‘He’s misery on a plate. I don’t know how his wife puts up with it.’

  ‘She puts up with it, Fleur,’ Emma said, ‘because she loves him. And I have to tell you he’s been through a terrible experience. I thought you liked Tom?’

  ‘I do. Sort of. He doesn’t say much. But you didn’t have to play at being his psychiatrist to make him well, Ma,’ Fleur said.

  ‘I’m not playing at anything,’ Emma said sharply. ‘Tom and Ruby need money and I’ve got it, but it will be better for Tom – well, for all of them really – if he feels he’s earned it, rather than me giving it to them.’

  And so far, Tom was indeed earning his money. He worked well and Emma had to insist at midday that he come into the house for some lunch and to put his feet up for half an hour. And she had to practically push him out of the gate again at five o’clock to go home again. ‘Just this one bit of clipping, then I’ll go,’ was what he invariably said, although he never met Emma’s eye when he said it. He was doing wonders with the garden, if not with his mental health problems. The shrubs had all been cut back and some of them had started sprouting fresh green leaves already. The lawn edges were now all neat and straight again. Emma had bought some terracotta urns from Ireland’s and Tom had planted three boxes of scarlet geraniums and some trailing ivy in them.

  ‘Well, all I can say is, Ma, that I hope his wife has got a bit more life in her than Tom has.’

  ‘That will be an understatement!’ Emma laughed. She realised now that she ought to have taken Fleur to see Ruby – goodness, Ruby had asked her to enough times – but there’d never been the time or the opportunity. ‘But no more. Tom will hear us.’

  ‘Mornin’, Emma. Fleur,’ Tom said, knocking and coming into the breakfast room simultaneously through the door that led out onto the terrace.

  Emma had said she didn’t want to think of Tom as a servant of any kind. He was and always had been, and always would be, a friend – the husband of her dearest friend, Ruby.

  ‘Good morning, Tom,’ Emma said. She gave Fleur a look – say good morning to Tom, the look said.

  Fleur pulled at the ribbons to undo her parcel and said, ‘Good morning, Tom,’ without looking up.

  ‘’Appy birthday, Fleur,’ Tom said. ‘And lots more of ’em.’

  Fleur looked up then. ‘I hope so,’ she said.

  ‘Ruby said I ’ad to say that,’ Tom said, looking at Emma. And he was smiling. The first time Emma had seen him smile.

  ‘Very Ruby.’ Emma laughed.

  ‘Isn’t it just,’ Tom said. ‘’Er said ’er’ll be ready fer the time you said.’

  ‘Two o’clock.’

  She had lots to do before then. She’d already made the crab tarts and a tarte Tatin. And she’d got up early this morning and made a sponge cake so that it would be fresh and not starting to go solid as it would if she’d made it the day before. She planned to fill it with whipped cream and strawberries, when she’d been to Dey’s to buy them. Mental note to self – get Tom to prepare a strawberry bed so we can pick our own for Fleur’s next birthday. Then there would only be the sandwiches – cucumber, egg and cress, and some tinned salmon with capers and mayonnaise – to make an hour or so before Stella arrived for her wedding dress fitting. Stell
a was unsure, she’d said when she telephoned Emma to confirm that she’d be calling for her dress fitting, whether her fiancé would be with her or not. Emma loved the way Stella always said, ‘my fiancé’, giving the words gravitas. It had been on the tip of Emma’s tongue to ask what his name was a couple of times but it seemed a crime to deprive Stella of the pleasure of saying the words.

  Much to Emma’s surprise Fleur had been thrilled at the idea of being Stella’s bridesmaid and was looking forward to talking to her about what colour dress she might have. Emma had promised to buy her some high-heeled shoes – her very first – for the occasion.

  ‘Oh, Ma,’ Fleur said, fastening the wristwatch on. ‘This is beautiful. It really is. Thank you. And I love the bag and gloves.’

  ‘Good,’ Emma said. ‘And I think you might like the bag even more if you open it!’

  Fleur grinned at her – how good that felt.

  Fleur did as suggested and waved the five pound notes in the air. ‘Rockhey’s here I come,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, but first we’ve all got work to do.’

  ‘Lead me to it,’ Tom said. ‘It’s goin’ to be a beautiful day. Proper ’an’some.’

  Two hours seemed to fly by, and it was only the position of the sun in the sky that told Emma it was now mid-morning.

  They’d all helped carry tables onto the big lawn, setting them up under the Ginkgo biloba tree. Emma loved the pretty shape of the leaves … like cockle shells almost. And such a beautiful shade of green, fresh and cooling.

  Fleur was detailed to lay linen cloths on the tables – done without grumbling Emma was pleased to see. Emma found six old fish paste jars in the shed, washed them out, and filled them with small posies of flowers – roses and honeysuckle, and Mrs Sinkins’ pinks which were actually white and smelled divine. They reminded her of her old home – Shingle Cottage.

  ‘Us ’ave got they in the garden,’ Tom said, picking up a bloom and inhaling the scent.