Emma and Her Daughter

by Linda Mitchelmore

  ‘Let’s ’ope not,’ Ruby said. ‘Just like a man to bugger off when you need ’im. Sorry, Em, but—’

  Emma laid a hand on Ruby’s forearm. ‘I’ll deal with this,’ she said.

  Caroline was staring at her with a sneer of a grin on her face – I’ve upset the applecart here, haven’t I? that grin said. It was all Emma could do not to swipe it off her face for her.

  ‘And you can wait there, Caroline,’ she said. ‘Or you can go. The choice is yours. You might have come into my garden unasked but you’re not entering my house until I invite you. If I ever do.’

  ‘Not the first time I’ve entered your premises uninvited, is it?’ Caroline said, a sickly sweet, false smile on her face.

  No. No it wasn’t. Just before Christmas 1911 Caroline had been waiting for Emma in her own bakery, with baby Fleur in her arms – although she’d been called Rose then. And she’d left her there. Dumped her on the table as though she was worth less than a sack of rotting potatoes.

  But Emma wasn’t going to answer her question. She turned to Fleur.

  ‘I’ll explain everything. Inside. Just you and me. I’m so sorry it’s happened like this but—’

  ‘You’re sorry?’ Fleur said. She looked, Emma thought, as though she wanted to spit in her face.

  ‘’Ere, miss,’ Ruby butted in. ‘I might not ’ave seen you since you were knee ’igh to a grass’opper, but I know Emma’s been the best ma in the world to you so you just go and listen to what ’er ’as to say, or you’ll ’ave me to answer to.’

  Fleur looked startled for a second at Ruby’s command, but she leapt to her feet and ran for the house.

  Emma ran after her.

  ‘I don’t know that I can believe anything you tell me, Ma,’ Fleur said, throwing herself down into the armchair in the sitting room. No way was she going to sit on the couch and have her ma sit beside her and put her arm around her to comfort her. Not any more. ‘Or should I call you, Emma?’

  ‘Don’t, Fleur. I’m still your ma.’

  Her ma went over to the windows and pulled down the sashes. Huh! They all knew what had happened – even Ruby, it seemed, knew that Emma wasn’t her real ma by what she’d said. What difference would it make shutting in their voices now?

  ‘But you’re not!’ Fleur waved the birth certificate at her. The first thing her ma had done when they went in the house was to get the certificate from the bureau. At least she hadn’t lied about it, denied it. ‘It says here under mother – Caroline Florence Prentiss. Thank God it says Seth Jago under father.’

  She didn’t know what she’d have done if it hadn’t said that. All the portraits her pa had painted of her when she was a little girl would have meant nothing, wouldn’t they? He’d done them as a sort of diary of her growing up. She had the one he’d painted of her when she was eight years old – leaning up against a maple tree in the garden of their house in Vancouver reading a book – on the wall beside her bed. Fleur hadn’t known he’d been sketching her, ready to transfer that sketch to an oil painting in his studio at the top of the house. Her pa had used paints and brushes the way other people used a camera to catch magic moments. All the other portraits her pa had done of her where in boxes in the loft. Well, ma could just get them out again, couldn’t she, should she want to remind herself of what she looked like. There was a room in Delia Gethin’s house ready for whenever she wanted to go back. Just as soon as this conversation with her ma was over she’d telephone and tell Delia and her mother she was coming back. She didn’t know that she wanted to be here any more.

  ‘Sweetheart—’

  ‘Don’t call me that. Pa used to call me sweetheart. My name’s Fleur. Or is it? It says Rose on this birth certificate. Rose! Why did you change my name?’

  ‘We both changed it and it’s a long story, Fleur. We need to be alone, you and me, when I tell you and without a garden full of people waiting for us to join them. Your pa always said he would do the telling because he’d know when the time was right to do it, except that time never came for him, did it?’

  ‘I’ve only got your word for that.’

  Although she was biting the insides of her cheeks to stop herself crying, and screwing up her eyes so any tears that escaped wouldn’t fall, Fleur began to sob. Her tears, hot and salty, slid down her cheeks and around the sides of her neck. She did nothing to wipe them away. And they were no comfort whatsoever.

  ‘Did Caroline tell you anything before I got back?’

  ‘Only that she was my mother! And she wasn’t married to Pa! And he wouldn’t let her keep me! Isn’t that enough?’ She knew her voice was raised and they’d probably heard her outside but she didn’t care. ‘I put my hands over my ears and told her I didn’t want to hear any more until you got back. She’d only been her five minutes before you returned.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ her ma said. ‘The bit about your pa not letting her keep you.’

  Fleur shrugged. ‘No?’ she asked.

  ‘No, but what I don’t understand, Fleur,’ her ma said slowly, ‘is why you are instantly believing what Caroline says and yet dismissing my words.’

  Fleur grabbed the antimacassar off the back of the chair and wiped her wet face with it. She sniffed back more tears. ‘I said I didn’t want to hear what else she said. That’s not instantly believing her, is it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But it’s completely wrecked my birthday tea.’

  ‘We’ll still be having your birthday tea. Mark my words.’

  Fleur unstrapped her wristwatch, took it off, and slammed it down on the side table. ‘I don’t know that I want to wear this any more. It’s buying me off, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, Fleur. Never that.’

  ‘Huh! And this dress—’

  ‘—is beautiful. And you are beautiful. And I have been proud to be your ma. I still am.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Fleur said, ‘if we hadn’t come back to England I’d still be living in ignorance about my existence.’

  ‘Not forever. I would have told you.’

  ‘That’s what you say.’ Fleur stood up. ‘I’m going to telephone Paolo and tell him the tea is cancelled. And then I’m going to my room.’

  ‘No. Don’t do that, please? There are three little children out there all expecting a tea party and none of this is their fault. I don’t suppose they’ve ever been to a tea party in their lives. And the girls have never had such pretty dresses before either. Couldn’t we at least give them a happy time, if only for an hour? I’ll ask Caroline to go. She can come back tomorrow and by then I’ll have told you everything. Caroline, of course, will have her version of it, but I’ve never not told you the truth, Fleur.’

  ‘Except the most important truth of all! Who my mother actually is! Oh God, that’s Stella Martin arriving, Ma,’ Fleur said as she saw her walk past the window. The front doorbell rang. ‘I expect you’re going to put her before me as well now and do her fitting.’

  ‘You will always be first in my heart, Fleur, but sometimes we have to be aware of other people’s sensibilities. Ruby and her family, and Stella Martin, and a little later on Paolo and his family, are those people at the moment. Please, Fleur, give me two minutes to go and ask Mrs Prentiss to leave—’

  ‘Mrs Prentiss? She was married to someone else when she and Pa—’

  ‘Widowed.’

  And then to Fleur’s utter astonishment her ma wrapped her arms around her and hugged her close. ‘I love you more than words can say and my life would have been far, far emptier had you not come into it,’ she whispered. ‘And should you leave it now, it will be the saddest day of my life.’

  ‘Even sadder than the day Pa died?’ Fleur sobbed against her ma’s shoulder.

  Her ma didn’t answer for a moment and then she said, ‘Yes, it would be, because you are all I have of him now.’

  ‘Oh, Ma …’ Fleur said. Her mind was telling her to stop calling her ma and say Emma, but she knew her pa wouldn’t want that.

  The d
oorbell rang again, for longer and louder this time.

  ‘Go and put some cold water on your face while I let Stella Martin in. By the time you’ve done that Caroline will have left.’

  ‘But you’ll let her come back?’

  ‘Yes,’ her ma said, and walked to the door. ‘I promise. I owe you that.’

  Tom was back when Emma returned to the garden. He was standing by the chair Ruby was sitting in, a hand on her shoulder, and he’d placed himself, protectively, between Ruby and Caroline. The children were around because Emma could hear their excited voices although she couldn’t see them.

  Emma wondered just how much of anything Ruby had told Tom about Fleur and how she’d come into her and Seth’s lives. She knew Ruby hadn’t believed the story Emma had told her that Fleur had been Seth’s cousin Frank’s child, and that Frank’s wife had died in childbirth – no, not for a minute had Ruby believed that although she’d gone along with the lie and hadn’t asked any questions. She had, though, told Emma that Caroline had been seen in Victoria Park talking to Seth and with a baby in her arms, and just weeks before Caroline had turned up in Emma’s bakery with Fleur.

  Caroline still had a smug smile on her face, but her eyes were closed and her head turned up to the sun, the hat she’d been wearing placed on the table in front of her, as though she intended to remain there awhile. Emma regretted saying she could stay if she wanted to.

  ‘Tom and I will be over there with the children, if you want us,’ Ruby said, standing up as Emma reached them. ‘Just give Tom a shout and ’e’ll throw ’er out, ’ook, line, and bleedin’ sinker.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ Emma said with a smile for her friend. ‘But I’ll bear it in mind.’

  Goodness only knows what Caroline was likely to say. To do. But she wasn’t going to sit down to let Caroline do it. She’d remain standing.

  ‘I should never ’ave left Fleur on ’er own,’ Tom said. ‘I wouldn’t ’ave let ’er in otherwise.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Emma told him. ‘But if you could both leave Caroline and me alone for a few minutes …?’

  ‘We’re gone,’ Ruby said, and she grabbed Tom’s hand and pulled him across the lawn with her towards the children.

  ‘And now,’ Emma said when she was sure Tom and Ruby were out of earshot, ‘I’m going to have to ask you to leave my premises. I take back what I said about giving you the choice to stay or go now I’ve had time to think about it. I have a client waiting for a dress fitting, and friends expecting a tea party for Fleur’s birthday, and that is what I am going to give them all. Were he here, Seth would tell you the same thing. So, you have two minutes in which to get yourself out through that front gate. You can come back tomorrow. At two o’clock.’

  That should give me enough time to tell Fleur everything I know and, hopefully, begin to repair bridges between us. Seek legal advice. The look Caroline was giving her was telling Emma that Caroline Prentiss – or Jago, if what Ruby had said was true – wasn’t simply going to sail back out of their lives again the way she’d sailed back into it half an hour ago. She was here to make trouble.

  ‘Where is Seth?’

  ‘In a grave on Vancouver Island. He died two years ago. Not that I have to tell you anything.’

  ‘You always were a mouthy one,’ Caroline said.

  Which, Emma thought, isn’t meant as a compliment. But she was going to take it as one – she’d unnerved Caroline by what she’d said, she knew she had, because Caroline had picked up her hat and was fiddling with the rim of it.

  Caroline stood up.

  She put her hat back on, taking an age to do it, as though she was looking in an invisible mirror as she tilted her head this way and that, getting the angle of it on her hair just right. Vain was the word that sprang immediately to Emma’s mind, followed swiftly by self-centred, scheming and calculating. To say nothing of down right criminal seeing as Caroline and Miles Jago had sailed on the Titanic under false names.

  ‘Two o’clock, you say?’

  Emma nodded. She couldn’t trust herself to say another word to this odious woman for fear of saying too much.

  ‘I’ll be here, Emma. But brace yourself. You don’t know the half of it yet, although I know you think you do. You’ve got a surprise coming, mark my words. Both of you.’

  Emma watched Caroline go, walking slowly and with very careful steps across the grass on her high heels. As she reached the corner of the house she turned and raised a hand in farewell towards Emma.

  Emma didn’t respond. She just stood as still as a statue while her mind raced. She’d deal with whatever Caroline had to tell her tomorrow.

  She heard a car approaching and the squeal of brakes immediately outside her gate. A car door creaked opened, and then a few seconds later it was banged shut again. Had a car been waiting for Caroline? Emma struggled to remember how wealthy Caroline’s parents had been. Her pa had been a builder before he’d bought Seth’s fishing fleet. Wealthy enough for a chauffeur although she didn’t remember Caroline’s pa employing one. But it had all been a long time ago.

  Right now she had a very lovely woman waiting for her in her drawing room. Thank goodness someone has a clear and happy vision of her future, Emma thought, as she hurried back indoors.

  Chapter Twelve

  17th JULY 1927

  To Emma’s relief the tea party for Fleur had been a happy enough event given the circumstances. The children had seen to that. They’d swarmed around Fleur as though she was some sort of fairy tale princess, much to Fleur’s amusement.

  Eduardo and Paolo and nonna – as both men called her, but whose name was actually Lucia – came bearing gifts. A leather purse from Paolo with an Italian coin in it. He’d handed it to Fleur and said he hoped to be able to take her to Italy one day so she could spend it. Emma had gulped back her emotions at the romance of it – would Fleur want to do that now, once she had heard whatever else it was Caroline had to say? Nonna gave Fleur a pretty silk scarf which Emma thought might have been her daughter’s because while it was pure silk and obviously expensive, it wasn’t new. Fleur had accepted it with good grace – or possibly in total shock still that Caroline had turned up – and immediately placed it loosely around her neck.

  Eduardo brought ice cream for the children – nonna had remembered to pass on the message – much to their delight and they made ice cream sodas with lemonade. And Eduardo had brought Fleur an Italian cake he’d made himself – a cake normally given at Christmas called panforte, which had been absolutely delicious eaten with a glass of champagne. But it was a huge cake and there had been loads left which Emma gave to Ruby to take home for the children after they’d all been to the Fair for an hour and made themselves giddy on the rides.

  Ruby had said the Fair could wait for another time, given what had happened but Emma had insisted she honour her promise to the children. It had come as a welcome relief to be carefree amidst the noise and the smell and the fun of the Fair if only for a short while.

  Tom’s visit into town had been to buy flowers for Fleur for her birthday. He’d handed the small posy of roses over with a shy look and Ruby had said, ‘Where’s mine then, you tight-fisted whatsit, ’cos you’ve never given me any flowers.’ But she’d said it with a big grin on her face and she’d given Tom a kiss on the cheek to let him know she was only joking. Ruby had been pleased Tom was thinking about someone else now, and not just himself and the horrors he’d been through in the war and the love that shone from her for her husband had told Emma that.

  Stella’s fiancé hadn’t turned up. While Emma thought Stella had been upset that he hadn’t, Stella hadn’t shown her feelings. ‘I expect something’s happened at the garage that he’s had to deal with,’ she’d said. And Emma had told her to let him know how happy she was with the car he’d sold her. Stella promised that she would. But Stella hadn’t stopped long. Just long enough to drink one glass of champagne and nibble at an egg and cress sandwich. She had, she said, to keep her f
igure for February because Emma wouldn’t want to be letting the dress out all the time, would she?

  ‘I know you probably think I’m well in hand having a wedding dress made now for a February wedding, but winter, when there’s so much influenza about which often turns to pneumonia and death, is always the busiest time in a hospital and I’ve been known to do double shifts for months and months with little spare time for dress fittings,’ was what Stella had said.

  Emma agreed. ‘More time to find shoes and sort the flowers and everything. And plan your trousseau.’

  More work for Emma, hopefully, making things for Stella to wear on her honeymoon.

  Next time Stella called, Emma would try to remember to ask her what her fiancé was called although, in her heart, Emma knew Stella was still finding it a novelty that she had a fiancé. She’d confessed she’d done the proposing. ‘How wanton of me!’ she’d said. That the much longed for fiancé owned Exe Motors, Emma knew, but the lad who had dealt with the purchase of her car had called him ‘the boss’, and very proudly, too, so she still hadn’t found out what he was called. Eduardo hadn’t been forthcoming with a name either, and she hadn’t thought, at the time, to ask.

  Emma had suggested a tiara might be best for Stella, rather than a veil. Neither had said, ‘at her age’ but the words had been there in the air between them. Or a crystal covered bandeau? Yes, that could look good, too. Almost like a hat but not quite. More glamorous.

  But now, Emma had everything ready for Caroline’s visit. Fleur’s birth certificate was in the top drawer of the bureau. And the drawer was locked. Emma had written down everything Seth had told her about his time with Caroline. Well, not all the personal things about the conception, but everyone knew how that happened, didn’t they?

  Except it never has for me.

  After breakfast, Fleur had demanded to be told, again, everything Emma knew about how Caroline had abandoned her. It was as though Fleur was checking Emma said exactly the same thing each time, almost as though she was trying to trip her up. But there was only the truth and Emma could repeat that accurately until the cows came home, as the saying had it.