Emma and Her Daughter

by Linda Mitchelmore

  Emma’s blood seemed to freeze in her veins. This woman sitting in front of her in her fine clothes and her leather shoes, with hair expensively coiffed, putting on airs and oozing confidence was bad, mad, and very dangerous. And Emma was frightened of her. But she’d walk over hot coals and parade naked through the streets before she’d show it.

  She knew now that everything Caroline was saying was more than likely true.‘Aren’t we forgetting the most important person in all this?’ Emma said, coolly, although where that coolness was coming from she had no idea. It was as though some other force was helping her. ‘Fleur. I’ll tell her you’ve asked to take her to America. And why. It will be up to Fleur if she decides to take you up on the film offer though.’ Emma stood up.

  ‘I’m sure she could be persuaded.’

  Caroline wanted the last word, didn’t she? Well, Emma wasn’t going to let her have it.

  ‘We’ll have to wait and see about that. But now I’m going to have to ask you to go. I have things to do. If you give me a telephone number to ring I’ll call you when I’ve spoken to her. But I’ll leave the decision to her.’

  Caroline – for now – was dismissed.

  ‘Stella?’

  ‘Yes,’ Stella was saying in her ear. ‘I did say I’d let you know if and when I had a moment for us to meet. Is this not a good time?’

  Emma stared at the mouthpiece in her hand. Yes, she’d wanted to develop a friendship with Stella and had instigated the idea. But now?

  ‘Are you still there?’ Stella asked.

  ‘Yes … yes, I am. Sorry, it’s just that I’ve had a bit of a shock.’

  And that was the understatement of the year. Her legs had gone from under her the second she’d closed the door on Caroline. She’d fallen against the chair by the hall table and then the telephone had rung. Her thigh was still pressed painfully against the arm of the chair and she knew she’d have a bruise on it later.

  ‘A shock? Can I help? I’m in Paignton unexpectedly free at the moment. I thought we might meet.’

  Stella had stopped speaking and Emma put the mouthpiece to her lips.

  Seeing Stella might be just what she needed. But not here. There seemed to be a bad feeling in the house now, as though she needed to open the windows and rid it of Caroline’s evilness.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In Torbay Road. Dellers is open I notice. We could meet there, or I could get a taxi to Romer Lodge.’

  ‘No. I’ll meet you. I can be there in ten minutes if I hurry.’

  The two women shook hands and then, on impulse, Emma leaned forward and kissed Stella’s cheek.

  ‘I’m so glad you telephoned,’ she told her.

  ‘You do look a bit pale,’ Stella said. ‘I thought I detected a sadness around you yesterday. An atmosphere. Shall we sit?’

  Am I that transparent? Emma thought as they busied themselves pulling out seats, getting comfortable. The action was giving Emma time to think about what she was going to say to Stella about what had just happened, and if she was going to say anything at all.

  A waitress came to the table and they ordered tea.

  ‘And some sandwiches,’ Stella said. ‘And a selection of cakes, please.’

  ‘Of course, madam,’ the waitress said, scribbling on her notebook before walking off.

  ‘Tea and something sweet is good for shock,’ Stella said, ‘even though we might not feel like eating. Has something happened to your daughter? You don’t have to tell me anything, of course, but …’

  ‘Yes. Fleur. In a way.’

  Emma halted. She wasn’t at all sure she should share such a serious confidence with Stella so soon in their friendship. Perhaps she should have taken the train to Brixham to see Ruby. But Ruby had her family around her and it might not have been convenient and here was Stella, unexpectedly free as she’d said. Perhaps it was meant to be.

  ‘A nurse can be like a priest,’ Stella said. ‘Patients often tell us things they’ve never told their families, or even the doctor treating them. We don’t break those confidences unless we consider the patient’s life at risk.’ She touched Emma lightly on her forearm.

  ‘Thank you. I understand what you’re saying.’

  The waitress arrived then with a silver tray piled with cups and saucers, tea plates, a teapot, sugar bowl, and milk jug.

  ‘I’ll be back with the rest of it shortly,’ she said, and hurried away again.

  ‘I’ll be mum,’ Stella said. ‘I hope! One day.’

  Me too, Emma thought, too full up to respond immediately. She was relieved when Stella left her to her silence and set out the cups, turning the handles so they’d be easily picked up, pouring tea, adding milk.

  ‘Fleur,’ Emma said, gathering all her mental strength, ‘is my stepdaughter.’

  ‘Ah,’ Stella said. ‘I did wonder. You have very different looks. I hope I didn’t upset you when I first came to see you and, well, we had that embarrassing conversation.’

  ‘When you said how beautiful she is and I said she takes after her father?’

  ‘Yes,’ Stella said.

  And that, Emma realised now, was what had made her warm to Stella. She knew now, beyond doubt, that anything she said to Stella would stay with her. She also knew that if she didn’t let out all the things that were in her head then she might burst with it.

  ‘You didn’t upset me in the slightest. But her birth mother turned up yesterday. Just before you did. She was in the garden when I got back from fetching Ruby and the children from Brixham.’

  Now the words had been said Emma felt better, much as a body feels better after they’ve been sick from eating food that’s too rich, or gone off.

  All the same, Emma was glad that the waitress chose that moment to return with the cakes and the sandwiches. This was a story that needed to be told, almost like a book, chapter by chapter. No, not a book, maybe just a synopsis. There would be things she couldn’t tell Stella. Not yet. If ever. About how she and Seth had lived as man and wife even though it had been years before they’d married. And how she’d kept more of Matthew in her heart than it was right for a married woman to keep.

  ‘And am I guessing correctly if I say this woman hadn’t been expected? And that, perhaps, Fleur had been kept in ignorance of—’

  ‘Yes,’ Emma butted in quickly. ‘It was wrong of me. Us. Seth always said he would tell her when the time was right but he died and it was left to me and I just didn’t know how. But I would have.’

  ‘You’d be surprised how many people don’t know the truth of their entry into the world until they marry and need a birth certificate before they can have a marriage licence.’

  ‘That doesn’t take any guilt off me.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ Stella placed a cucumber sandwich on Emma’s plate. ‘As I said, I guessed something was wrong yesterday but I’ve also had a lot of experience of people and I’ll stick my neck out here and say, given what she’d just been told, Fleur coped magnificently and in a very mature way for her age. She was wonderful with Ruby’s children, wasn’t she? She behaved as though she didn’t have a care in the world – just a girl enjoying her sixteenth birthday tea.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  As they ate their way through the sandwiches and cakes – or rather Stella did while Emma nibbled at things, her usual excellent appetite gone for the moment – and drank cup of tea after cup of tea, Emma told Stella how Fleur had come into her life and how much she loved her. She told her how Caroline wanted to take Fleur back to America with her, get her into the film industry. And how she didn’t want her to go. Stella didn’t offer advice, but simply listened.

  Talking had made Emma’s mouth go dry, despite copious cups of tea. They ordered another pot.

  ‘That’s enough about me and my woes, I think,’ Emma said. ‘You said you were unexpectedly free today. And you didn’t want to spend it with your fiancé?’

  ‘I did,’ Stella said. She pulled a mock-sad face. ‘I telephoned him to let h
im know I’d swapped duties with my friend Mavis. Her mother is ill and being transferred to the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital tomorrow and she wants to go with her. Goodness, but you don’t want to know all this …’

  ‘I do, if we’re to be friends. Go on.’

  ‘Well, my fiancé said he had a car to deliver to Earl something or other at Powderham Castle. When people of that order want something on a Sunday they get it on a Sunday. We hardly see one another, what with my duties at the hospital and his business.’

  ‘Then more fool him,’ Emma said. ‘But wait until he sees you in that wedding dress!’

  ‘And trousseau! I’ll need clothes for the honeymoon which I hope you’ll have time to make for me. But it seems frivolous talking about such things given your shock today. And yesterday.’

  ‘Not at all. I can’t change anything. What’s happened has happened. Talking to you has helped me think more clearly. Thank you.’ Emma checked the time on her wristwatch. ‘Oh my. Is that the time? I’ll have to get back very soon.’

  The visit from Caroline and now the unexpected meeting with Stella had put her behind with her jobs for the day. She’d need to get at least some of them done before going to fetch Fleur. She knew that Fleur would be able to stay with the Cascarinis until she was collected but it didn’t pay to impose on people, did it? And in the light of Caroline turning up, and the shock revelation for Fleur, her letting Eduardo down – telling him she didn’t want to go to the theatre or the cinema or out to dinner with him again – was going to be the easier option, wasn’t it? And it had to be done. But perhaps not today.

  ‘But we can meet up again?’ Stella said.

  ‘I certainly hope so.’

  ‘If we can get our diaries to synchronise!’ Stella laughed.

  And then they got ready to go, split the bill, agreed that it would be easier for Emma to accommodate Stella’s duties so they could meet up again, and said their goodbyes.

  Her heart just a little lighter, Emma hurried back to Romer Lodge.

  ‘But your mama, she come,’ Paolo said. ‘We no can go out. She say she come in car for you. She speak to Papa and she say.’

  ‘She’ll wait,’ Fleur told him. ‘Trust me, she’ll wait.’

  The second the last customer had gone and all the dirty dishes washed and put away, Fleur had told Paolo she wanted to walk down to Torre Abbey beach. She hadn’t given him a chance to refuse because she’d grabbed her jacket and run for the door.

  Paolo had followed but he was still protesting that they ought to have stayed and waited for her ma to collect her.

  Past the entrance to the pier, Fleur hurried around little groups of people who stood chatting, or simply leaning on the railings looking out to sea, admiring the view – as though they had all the time in the world to do such things. She was holding tightly to Paolo’s hand and almost dragging him along behind her.

  ‘Is problem?’ Paolo asked as at last they ran down the slope to the beach. The tide was out and the sand firm beneath their feet.

  Fleur kicked off her shoes. Then she reached up inside her skirt and unfastened her suspenders. First the left leg, then the right. She rolled her stockings down to her ankles, and took them off.

  ‘Problem? You could say that,’ Fleur said. She knew she ought not to be quite so snappy with Paolo but she couldn’t help it. She wasn’t herself at the moment. If she knew what self that was!

  Thank goodness the beach was emptying. Everyone leaving, with bags and deckchairs tucked under their arms, all going back to their hotels or their boarding houses. A small white dog with a large fluffy tail yipped excitedly at a seagull which flew off squawking.

  ‘Your mama no like you have bare legs,’ Paolo said.

  ‘Well, she’s not here to see me, is she?’ was Fleur’s retort.

  Whichever mama that might be.

  ‘You have good birthday?’ Paolo asked. He took Fleur’s shoes and stockings from her and carried them. Had he noticed an atmosphere yesterday, if only for a little while before Ruby’s children had run riot, insisting she join them in their games?

  ‘In part,’ Fleur said. ‘I liked your present. No … I loved your present. Thank you.’

  Her pa would want her to remember her manners. If he were here. She still couldn’t quite believe that he hadn’t thought it important enough not to tell her who had actually given birth to her!

  ‘Is good Italian leather. And good Italian lire.’ Paolo laughed. He put an arm around Fleur’s shoulder and pulled her close.

  Fleur liked that closeness. At the moment that was the only truism in her life – Paolo and the fact he wanted to be with her all the time, sometimes more often than she wanted to be with him.

  ‘Can we walk around the edge of the cliff?’ Fleur asked. ‘Across the rocks.’

  ‘We can. But your feet …’

  ‘Good. Come on.’ Fleur raced along the beach not caring how unladylike it might look to anyone watching. Who knew her here anyway?

  ‘Sit down,’ Fleur said, once they’d scrambled over the rocks and rounded the cliff. She dropped down onto a flat red rock. Sandstone her ma had said it was called. She’d never seen rock that colour before. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

  Paolo sat. He nibbled at the side of her neck.

  Fleur shrugged him off, but reached for his hand to show him she still cared, still wanted him near her.

  ‘Do you like my ma?’ she asked him.

  ‘Si. But perhaps not as much as my papa like her. Is right answer, no?’

  ‘Probably not. What would you say if I told you she was the biggest liar on this earth?’

  ‘Liar? You mean, bugiarda?’

  I don’t know, do I? Although she’d hazard a guess bugiarda was the Italian for liar. Paolo understood more than he let on he did sometimes, she was sure of that.

  ‘She tell you one thing but is another?’ he added.

  ‘Yes. Exactly that. I’m going to tell you something and I don’t want you to tell another living person. Not even your pa.’ Fleur slid her feet up towards her over the warm, flat rock and hugged her knees. ‘She’s not my ma. Yesterday, before you and your pa arrived at my birthday tea, another woman turned up and told me she was my ma.’

  ‘This other woman, she lie. She burn and die in hell’s fire.’

  ‘No. Ma admitted it. She showed me my birth certificate. Only that’s a lie as well because my real mother, Caroline, called me Rose. Pa changed it. I … I …’

  And then the tears came as Fleur told Paolo as much as she’d been told.

  Paolo held her while she cried and talked. The sun started to sink in the sky and the few clouds around were tinged with pink. It might have been beautiful and romantic if not for … this!

  He kissed her hair, and ran a hand soothingly up and down her back.

  ‘Cara mia,’ he said, over and over. And then, when at last Fleur had run out of things to say and had stopped crying, he said, ‘What you do now?’

  For answer, Fleur kissed him. Long and hard. His tongue slid into her mouth and the kiss deepened. Since the time Paolo’s pa had disturbed them in the kitchen they hadn’t had the opportunity to be alone much. But now? Well, now, there was no one to see them, tucked into the cliff wall with only sea in front of them, although should anyone decide to clamber over the rocks then they would be seen.

  Her ma would go mad if she knew what a public spectacle she was so close to making of herself.

  All that grief her ma had given her about taking a college course, or getting a job, making something of her life. Well, if she knew who she was she might be able to think about those things. She’d listen to what Caroline had to say – somehow she couldn’t quite think of her as her mother just yet – and then she’d decide.

  But right now, she’d give herself up to Paolo and his kisses. That would be a start to her finding herself, wouldn’t it?

  I’ll call the reason for my visit a follow-up service on the car if it’s not my Emma, Matthew
told himself as he drove far too fast towards Paignton. The delivery of a car to Powderham Castle hadn’t taken as long as he’d thought it would, and no driving instruction had been required. He had the cheque Emma had left with William in his inside jacket pocket. He had no intention of banking it until he’d made certain for himself that the Emma Jago who had signed the cheque with such familiar-to-him handwriting was his Emma Jago. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that there was another Emma Jago somewhere with similar handwriting, he knew that. He’d once spent weeks trailing a cheating husband called Ernest Spencer, who had thick fair hair, green eyes and an Irish accent, only to find he’d been trailing the wrong Ernest Spencer entirely. He’d got his man in the end, though.

  Finding out where a Mrs Emma Jago was living in the Torbay area hadn’t been too hard. He’d considered telephoning Eduardo Cascarini under some pretext that the cheque had been incorrectly made out and he needed to get in touch with Mrs Jago immediately. But that was underhand.

  ‘Underhand?’ Matthew laughed out loud. All his working life, until he’d bought the garage business, had been about finding things out about people by whatever means. But none of it had been done with malice – all had needed to be found for some reason; murder, fraud, infidelity, rape, smuggling. A telephone call to the rates office purporting to be a clerk at a rates office in another area had done the trick. A forwarding address for Mrs Emma Jago had been given readily enough. Romer Lodge. Cleveland Road. Mrs Jago was head of the household. One minor living with her. No servants. So far, so good. It looked as though this Mrs Emma Jago was a widow. Or, possibly, divorced. More and more women were filing for divorce these days.

  Had Emma rung to ask why her cheque hadn’t been banked yet he would have said he was far too busy to go into town to the bank. True enough. He had been busy. He’d had to pull out of escorting Stella to some birthday tea for the daughter of her dressmaker. As if that was his idea of a fun afternoon out with his fiancée? He hadn’t been entirely sure that Stella had believed him when he said the Earl of Devon wanted his new car delivered the following day and there was oil to check, and the brakes to test, and all manner of things before he could release the vehicle. But it was the truth and she hadn’t made a huge fuss about it. But again, that was Stella. And there had been many times she’d had to cancel lunch out, or dinner, or a drive along the coast to Plymouth because of something that had happened at the hospital.