As Matthew bowled along the road, the sun streaming through the window, the steering wheel getting hotter and hotter by the second, he amused himself by seeing how many cars he passed that he recognised because he’d sold them. Summer was always a good time for sales. A week of fine weather and people began to think how nice it would be to drive themselves up onto Dartmoor for a picnic, see the ponies, have lunch in Widecombe or Princetown without having to be tied to the timetables of the train or the omnibus or the tram. He always dropped his prices by twenty pounds or so in summer to draw customers in.
And then, if the Emma Jago who had written and signed the cheque in his pocket was the Emma Jago he’d never forgotten, and dreamed of frequently, he’d call on Stella on the way back to Exeter and break it to her as gently as he could that he couldn’t accept her proposal of marriage after all. He would pay her for any expenses already incurred, of course – the dress, so she’d told him, was well in hand. And material had been bought for a bridesmaid dress. He didn’t think Stella had put a deposit at a hotel for a wedding breakfast yet but he’d ask – and if she had then he’d pay that back, too.
No, correct that. He’d call on Stella anyway and somehow break it to her that he couldn’t go through with the wedding. It wasn’t fair on her that he was having the feelings he was for Emma – stronger feelings than he had for Stella. Feelings he knew he would leave a relationship, a marriage for. Stella was far too lovely a woman to have to be second best to anyone.
Ah, the Fair was on the green. He could see flags fluttering on the tops of tents as he drove down over Barcombe Heights. At Manor Road a policeman waved him across the junction and within seconds he was turning right, skirting the Tembani Hotel, past the Redcliffe, and onto the promenade. He had to drive more slowly now. There were excited children running back and forth between the beach and the green where the Fair was in full swing. He could hear the screams of people coming down the helter-skelter. The big wheel turned in a cloudless sky.
Perhaps I’ll take Emma there later. After I’ve told Stella what it is I have to tell.
Not far now. Past the Gentlemen’s Club and into Sands Road. Belle Vue Road. Turn left …
‘Christ!’ Matthew had to slam on the brakes as a car shot out of a driveway. He recognised that car. He’d sold it. And the woman driving – who seemed totally oblivious to having been inches away from an accident – was definitely his Emma Jago. Alone.
Matthew hit the horn with his fist. He had to get her attention. His heart was racing madly and it was nothing to do with the near accident. It was Emma. How she affected him. How she’d always affected him.
But Emma was staring resolutely ahead, racing on down the road to the junction. Matthew almost cricked his neck turning his head to watch her go. She hadn’t even stopped at the junction either although she had slowed a little. It was as though the hounds of hell were after her. Emma had always been headstrong, but he’d never known her put her life at risk. And now the lives of others were at risk with nearly two hundred pounds worth of potential killing machine in her pretty little hands.
As fast as he could, Matthew affected a three-point turn. But his car was big and with a lousy turning circle. Emma’s Clyno was much nippier. By the time he got to the junction Emma’s car had disappeared. Had she turned left or right into Sands Road? There were so many cars and bicycles, and even a couple of horses and drays that it was impossible to spot Emma amongst them.
‘Damn and blast. Damn, damn, damn.’
He’d seen her now. He knew what he had to do. He turned left up towards the railway line and a different route back to Torquay purposely bypassing the Fair. The Fair with all its jollity and promise of happiness would do nothing to lift his mood about what he had to say to Stella and how he was going to say it. But perhaps not today.
Emma banged on the glass of the front door of Eduardo’s ice cream parlour. The door was locked and there was no one inside. She ought to have kept an eye on the time. Emma knew she’d said she would collect Fleur by seven o’clock at the latest, but it was barely that now.
No answer. So she banged again, louder this time.
‘He’s never worth it,’ a woman passing by said.
Emma turned to look at her sharply. ‘She. She’s worth it.’
Ah, nonna at last. The old lady plodded her way to the door and turned the key in the lock. Emma burst in.
‘Where’s Fleur?’ she asked. Had Caroline found Fleur after leaving Romer Lodge? Told her what she herself had just been told? Emma wriggled her shoulders, shrugging off unwelcome thoughts.
Nonna spread her arms wide and shrugged her shoulders. ‘I no know. They here before. Eduardo make gelato.’
Emma had never been out the back but she soon found her way, through the kitchen, out the back door, across a yard to a long, low shed with a sagging roof. The door was open and Emma could hear Eduardo singing something – opera probably. He had a good voice. If only she had time to appreciate it. There was a strong scent of vanilla and Emma realised now that Eduardo always had that smell about him. She’d thought it was the soap he used but no, it had to be the vanilla.
‘Emma!’ Eduardo said as she raced in the door, knocking over a couple of empty cans that rattled noisily on the terracotta-tiled floor. He wiped his hands down the sides of his apron. ‘Is big surprise.’
Eduardo kissed her on both cheeks.
‘I’ve come to collect Fleur,’ she said as calmly as she could, although goodness only knows her entrance had been rather dramatic. ‘She knew I was coming. I’m only a tiny bit late. Only she doesn’t seem to be here. Or Paolo.’
Eduardo’s brow furrowed.
‘Fleur, she not here. I think you early. Take her home early and I not see you. I no expect to see you, but now you here and I happy.’
Emma sighed. Eduardo’s halting English had been quite endearing in the beginning but now it had become irritating, and that was hardly his fault. Caroline’s re-appearance had changed everything. For all of them.
‘Nonna doesn’t know where they are,’ Emma said, eager to get back to the issue in hand. ‘I’ve asked her.’
‘I no surprise. She sleep all time. She no think about her daughter if she sleep.’
Sad as that was to hear, she couldn’t take on nonna’s problems, could she? ‘I really need to find Fleur,’ Emma said.
She was regretting spending so much time with Stella now, as helpful as the meeting had been. It had made her later than she should have been coming to collect Fleur.
‘And Paolo,’ Eduardo said.
He took Emma by the elbow and guided her back to the ice cream parlour and she was glad to be guided. Uppermost in her mind was that Caroline had somehow found Fleur and told her … goodness knows what. And if she’d told Fleur that Seth wasn’t her father – even if that was a lie, as Emma hoped with all her heart it was – then what would Fleur make of that? What would she do?
‘I hope they haven’t run away,’ Emma said, shocked to realise she had actually spoken the words, not just thought them.
‘And me. I no run my ristorante and make the gelato without Paolo. He come back soon. Sit, please.’
Eduardo pulled out a chair and helped Emma down into it. ‘We can only wait,’ he said. ‘And if you want say why you so inquieta, I listen. If no, I make cup of good English tea, even is I Italian and coffee is the best.’
‘Thank you,’ Emma said. ‘Tea will be lovely.’ She placed her hands, palms down, on the table in front of her, steadying herself. Stop going off into flights of fancy. Worry about things when they’ve happened, not before.
Nonna seemed to have disappeared upstairs to the sleeping quarters and Emma was glad of that. Eduardo began to sing again in his native tongue. Something slow, almost like a lullaby.
Emma closed her eyes. She saw herself with Fleur as a baby in her arms, the night Caroline had dumped her in the bakery. She’d sung to Fleur then in French. À la claire fontaine …
Eduardo brough
t her tea. And a slice of cake. It smelled of almonds. She didn’t think she’d be able to eat another thing, even though she’d only nibbled at the sandwiches and cakes in the café with Stella. But she’d have a little taste at the very least because Eduardo was being kind.
‘Olio d’oliva,’ he said. ‘And, how you say, mandoria?’
‘Almonds,’ Emma said. That had to be what he meant. She pulled off a few crumbs and put them in her mouth. Yes, definitely almonds. How good and kind Eduardo was. He would be a wonderful husband for someone. Kind and loving. Handsome, too.
‘We go cinema? You and me? Dinner at Imperial?’
‘I can’t think about that right now,’ Emma said. ‘I’m sorry.’
Perhaps it had been a mistake inviting him to Fleur’s birthday party. A family event. Had he had it in his mind to combine the two families? The way Eduardo was looking at her now told her he more than likely was.
‘I understand. Things that are bella are worth to wait. I wait. For you I wait.’
No not for me. I’ll have to tell him. Now?
But then the door opened and Fleur and Paolo were filling the space, Fleur looking rather dishevelled Emma thought. The fabric of her dress was creased and Emma didn’t want to begin to imagine how that had happened, because the overriding feeling she had was relief – relief that Fleur had returned.
‘Ah, there you are,’ Emma said.
‘I’m not that late,’ Fleur said. ‘You said seven.’
‘And it’s gone half past now,’ Emma told her. She knew her voice had come out sharper than she had meant it to. ‘I was concerned for you. For your —’
‘Are you going to be checking up on me all the time now?’ Fleur snapped at her.
‘No. But, in the light of yesterday and today, I—’
‘Come in, come in,’ Eduardo butted in. He rushed forward, pulling the two young people into the room and Emma was glad of the diversion.
Emma stood up, ready to go.
‘I’ve told Paolo,’ Fleur said. ‘What I know so far. Does he know?’ She jerked her head towards Eduardo, and folded her arms across her chest, tucking her hands in under her armpits.
She looked so frightened, and yet angry at the same time. To go to her and envelop her in her arms or not? Would that embarrass her further? As though sensing Fleur’s distress, Paolo put an arm around her shoulders.
‘Eduardo and I haven’t been talking about you, no,’ Emma said. ‘But we must go now, you and I.’
‘I no understanding,’ Eduardo said.
‘You go with your mama now,’ Paolo said. ‘I tell my papa what is happen. You must do what your mama say.’
Fleur’s shoulders shuddered. She leaned her head against Paolo’s shoulder and then took it away again. She slipped out from under his protective arm.
Emma went to her then.
‘Don’t hug me,’ Fleur hissed at her under her breath. ‘I might cry.’
And so, Emma thought, might I. But this wasn’t the place to be airing their private business. Home, Romer Lodge, was the place for that. But even then she’d have to think very carefully about what she was going to tell Fleur about what Caroline had said.
Chapter Thirteen
‘You can’t come in, Mr Caunter,’ the nursing sister blocking the doorway to the house Stella shared with four other nurses said. ‘No men allowed.’
‘I don’t want to come in. I merely asked if I might see Staff Nurse Stella Martin.’
Matthew had put off calling to see Stella but he couldn’t drag his feet over the matter any longer. And he was here now and no one was going to turn him away.
‘And I, I’m afraid, have said you can’t.’
The sister folded her arms across her skinny chest but held them, sharp elbows sticking out in front of her, like a shield. Formidable was the word that sprang to mind.
Matthew didn’t think for a second that Stella might have told the sister to turn him away should he turn up, although he realised now that was what he would deserve.
A nurse came down the corridor towards the front door and the sister was forced to step to one side to let her go past, cape swinging, hair piled inside her starched cap. She smiled at Matthew as she passed, but Matthew struggled to smile back.
‘Nurse Martin is off duty,’ Matthew said. ‘I know that. She gave me a list with her days off on it, although I know that can change. She is off duty, isn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘And in?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I’d like to see her.’
’She’s resting.’
‘Is she ill?’
‘She’s indisposed. But it’s not hospital policy to divulge to anyone other than close relatives why that should be.’
‘And if I’m a doctor …’
‘Which you’re not. Nurse Martin has told me you own a garage business. And I do hope you realise you are depriving the nursing world of a most excellent nurse in marrying her.’
Which I’m not going to be now. Whether Emma wanted him or not wasn’t the issue here. Stella was a thoroughly decent woman and while he was going to tell her what she probably didn’t want to hear, he had to – she deserved a husband’s full love and not a portion of it.
‘I wasn’t aware I had to ask your permission,’ Matthew said. He’d met some cold-hearted, immovable people in his time and this woman was up there with the worst of them.
‘Sister!’ someone yelled down the stairs. ‘Can you come. It’s Stella, she—’
The sister turned to look towards the voice, and Matthew took advantage of her distraction. He raced past her and up the stairs. While he might not love Stella as a fiancé should, he did care for her deeply. The alarm in the voice calling for the sister told him something was seriously wrong.
‘In here,’ the nurse at the top of the stairs said, ushering him into a room that had two single beds in it. Stella, her face scarlet, her hair wet with perspiration, lay in one, groaning and writhing. She’d kicked off the cover and her nightdress had ridden up almost to her waist, exposing naked flesh. Her legs were juddering as though there was an electric current pulsing through them at intervals.
‘Are you the new doctor?’ the nurse said.
‘No, he isn’t,’ the sister answered for him. ‘Cover Nurse Martin, nurse,’ she instructed.
‘I can do it,’ Matthew said.
How thin Stella was. Did she get enough to eat in this godforsaken place? How loveless it must be if the sister was an example of the human nature she was amongst. He reached for the cotton sheet and covered Stella’s modesty. But she kicked it off again.
‘Go for Dr Taylor, nurse.’ The sister barked her orders. ‘And you can go with her,’ she said, turning to Matthew.
‘I don’t think so,’ Matthew said. He’d never forgive himself if he left now and Stella were to die with this harridan of a sister to hold her hand – or not – in her dying moments, if that was what Stella was having. Her moans were animal-like in their depth and intensity now and a shiver of real fear went through him. He’d seen plenty of people die, or dead, but he’d not been close to any of them, and this felt very different. ‘I’ll stay until the doctor arrives and I’m told what is wrong.’
‘Sister …?’ the nurse began.
‘Go!’ Matthew said. ‘Please.’
The nurse did as she was told.
‘What’s wrong with her?’ Matthew asked.
‘A fever of some sort,’ the sister said.
‘Well, ten out of ten for perspicacity,’ Matthew said. A facetious remark but what the hell, this woman hadn’t so much as laid a finger of comfort on Stella or spoken to her.
‘She’s very thin,’ the sister said.
Stating the obvious. Some people were naturally thin and he believed Stella was one of them – certainly, if the amount of food she ate when he took her out for a meal was anything to go by.
‘Then she can’t afford to sweat off any more flesh, can she?’
; There was a basin in the corner of the room and Matthew marched over to it, swiped a towel hanging from a rail on the side and ran it under the tap. He wrung it out slightly.
‘Don’t meddle,’ the sister said, when Matthew returned to the bed and began to tap the damp cloth gently on Stella’s forehead.
‘Don’t try and stop me,’ Matthew barked at her.
The action of the towel pressed to her forehead quietened Stella, and the moaning stopped. The shock of the cold water? Matthew neither knew nor cared because at least he had got a reaction from her. Holding the damp towel to her forehead with one hand, he placed his other hand on Stella’s wrist. She had a pulse, fast and flickering, but there.
Everything happened fast then. The doctor arrived, the nurse who’d fetched him following in his wake. If the doctor was surprised to see Matthew in the nurses’ quarters he didn’t show it.
Stella’s eyelids fluttered and for a second Matthew thought she might be opening her eyes so he leaned over her.
‘I’m here,’ he said. ‘Matthew. We’ll get you well.’
And then what? I’ll make you feel like hell all over again when I tell you I’m breaking off our engagement?
‘Sister?’ the doctor said. ‘A moment.’
‘Certainly, doctor,’ came the reply.
The doctor and sister walked away from Stella’s bed towards the window. They turned their backs on Matthew and even though his hearing was pin-sharp he couldn’t catch a word of what they were saying. It was probably all medical information anyway.
The young nurse pulled up a chair and sat on the opposite side of the bed to Matthew, her back to the window.
Emma and Her Daughter Page 18