He picked up the cheque Emma had left, weeks ago now, in payment for the car she’d bought from him. He would pay it into his account today. He knew now that the Emma Jago who had signed the cheque was indeed his Emma. He’d found her and he had no reason to hang onto her cheque, unpresented. She might see it as charity if he didn’t bank the cheque, gifting her the car, and he could just see Emma’s look of outrage if that were the case.
He would bank the cheque and then he would go and visit Stella. With a pang of regret – or was it disgust at his treatment of her – he realised that while he’d telephoned Emma every day it had been days now since he’d telephoned the hospital asking after Stella.
He wasn’t liking himself one little bit at that moment.
And Stella was going to like him even less, wasn’t she?
Matthew arrived at the hospital to find Stella sitting on a chair beside her bed. She was dressed in her own clothes – although even from the doorway he could see they were loose on her skinny frame – and not in a hospital gown and lying on the bed, looking frail. She had a little more colour in her cheeks since the last time he’d seen her, though, and he was glad of that. And she hadn’t realised he was there yet.
A bowl piled high with fruit was on the bedside table on the other side of the bed. Untouched. He was glad he hadn’t brought her fruit now, although it was obvious someone had. There was a little pile of magazines beside the fruit bowl. Walking closer he saw that the magazine on the top was a copy of Vogue. A lady’s magazine. Fashion. Trousseau clothes and wedding dresses sprang to mind and he gulped back sadness for Stella that she’d been so excited, so happy, planning both those things and now …
‘Matthew,’ Stella said, turning at the sound of his footfalls.
Her eyes, Matthew thought, looked sad – as though she already knew what it was he had come to say. How could she not have guessed? She was an intelligent woman, trained to observe people as well as treat their physical ailments.
Matthew resisted going into apologetic mode – he’d been busy; he wanted to give her time to heal. All of those things were true, of course, but he knew Stella wouldn’t want to hear them.
‘It’s good to see you sitting out,’ Matthew said.
‘It’s good to be here,’ Stella said. She kept her hands clasped together in her lap.
To kiss her, or not? Would it seem cruel to be kissed and then told their relationship was over? He remembered how he had felt when his wife – ex-wife now – Annie had told him she was leaving him. He decided not to kiss her, and neither did Stella tilt her head to one side, offering him her cheek.
‘Doctor Taylor says I should be ready to return to my duties in another week.’
‘Good, good,’ Matthew said. She had something to look forward to now at least.
A nurse appeared in Stella’s private ward then and offered to fetch a chair for Matthew. Both Matthew and Stella were silent while the chair was brought from the corridor outside and placed so he could sit opposite Stella, but on the same side of the bed.
Was this how Judas felt? Matthew wondered as he sat down.
‘I’ve been lucky, Matthew,’ Stella said. ‘Very lucky to have survived this.’
‘I wouldn’t call it lucky to have been as ill as you have,’ Matthew said.
‘I would,’ Stella said. ‘Had I not gone down with influenza and reacted very badly to it, I’d never have known I had a growth in my womb that shouldn’t have been there. Doctor Taylor told me I’m lucky it was found when it was. I could have done without the blood poisoning I contracted afterwards, though.’ She gave him a wan smile.
‘But you pulled through. I’m glad you have.’
‘Everything that’s happened lately might be for the best,’ Stella said. ‘In the long run.’
And then Matthew noticed she was no longer wearing his engagement ring. And Stella saw him noticing. She unclasped her hands and placed them, palms down, on her knees.
‘No ring,’ Matthew said. He knew he was stating the obvious.
‘No ring,’ Stella said, with the shadow of a smile. ‘It became very loose on me anyway.’
The ‘anyway’ hung there in the air between them … there was another agenda here and all Matthew could do was wait until it unfolded. Stella had asked him to marry her and if he was reading between the lines correctly she was about to tell him she no longer wanted to.
‘I’m sorry,’ Matthew said.
‘For?’ Stella asked.
‘That it hasn’t worked out between us. We both know that, don’t we?’
There – he’d been the one to start the unravelling of the end of their relationship; he’d prevented Stella from having to say what, to her, were probably unpalatable words. He’d pulled back one small crumb of self-respect here, at least.
Stella nodded, lips pressed together.
‘I’d guessed. Long before today,’ she said. ‘When you didn’t visit, I guessed. I can’t imagine I wouldn’t have visited you, daily, had it been you lying in a hospital bed close to death, as I was in the beginning.’ Stella was looking directly into his eyes, unblinking, as she spoke.
Matthew was startled. Was the worm turning? Was he about to be on the receiving end of a litany of his own shortcomings? He had enough of them, for God’s sake. He’d behaved like a cad over this. Stella – dear, sweet Stella – hadn’t deserved that. But Emma had turned his mind. His heart.
‘I met someone,’ Matthew said. ‘After you became ill, not before. Someone I knew many years ago. Someone I let go from my life when I ought not to have done. My head ruled my heart then—’
‘But it was the other way around when you met her again.’ It was not a question.
‘It was after we became engaged—’ Matthew began.
But Stella interrupted him. ‘Well, thank goodness for that!’ she said. ‘Because I don’t have you down as totally heartless.’
‘No, no,’ Matthew said. More than he deserved.
‘Your ring’s on the bedside table,’ Stella said. ‘You can fetch it.’
‘No. You keep it. As you said yourself at the time it’s not a traditional engagement ring, so you can wear it—’
‘I can not!’ Stella interrupted again. ‘It would only eternally remind me of what might have been. And of what now isn’t going to be. Because, you see, all this …’ Stella unclasped her hands and waved them about, over her body, over the bed, around the room, ‘… has had a purpose in a way. An incredibly painful purpose at times, but sometimes the things we have to bear the most can be the most worthwhile in the end. Don’t you think?’
Yes. The pain of having to walk away from Emma back in 1913 had been almost unbearable. But now she was back. And this wonderful woman in front of him was setting him free to be with her. But he could hardly say all that, could he?
‘I think, if I’m honest with myself,’ Stella said, ‘I always knew there was a part of you that would never be mine. Am I right?’
‘You know you are,’ Matthew said.
Stella stood up slowly and walked past Matthew, around the end of her bed, and along the other side. She took her ring from its resting place and leaned an arm out across the bed towards Matthew.
‘Palm out,’ she said.
All this was going against his instincts – the woman always kept the ring if things didn’t work out, didn’t she? But he’d hurt Stella enough. He wasn’t going to stick another knife in by refusing to do as she asked.
‘There,’ she said, as she dropped the ring – cold and hard – into his palm. ‘Do with it what you wish. I did love you, you know. I loved you very much.’
‘But not now?’
He had to ask, even though he prayed she wouldn’t ask him the same thing, because what could he say? I don’t think I did ever love you, not really? It was more affection than love? A fear of growing into old age with no one by my side?
‘No. Not now. For all the reasons I just gave you. And also,’ Stella said, ‘because I’ve been offer
ed the chance to train as a midwife. And I wouldn’t be able to do that as a married woman.’
Stella had looked almost triumphant saying that.
‘So good has come from bad?’ Matthew said.
‘That’s one way of putting it,’ Stella said. ‘I’ve already accepted the invitation from the hospital board. All I have to do now is see the dressmaker who had all but finished making my wedding dress. I won’t be wearing it now. Not ever, I don’t think. But perhaps she’ll be able to alter it into something else – a cocktail dress perhaps. She said she’d be here today so …’
And, as if on cue, Emma appeared in the doorway.
‘Please, please,’ Emma said, walking on into the room, ‘will one of you tell me this isn’t what I think it is.’
Chapter Twenty-One
‘Don’t say a word!’ Emma hissed.
She was walking as fast as she could down Shiphay Road, back to her car. Matthew was so close behind her she could feel his breath on her neck.
‘It’s more than one word I want to say,’ Matthew said. ‘And slow down for heaven’s sake, I’m older than you are.’
Emma twisted her head to look at him but didn’t slow, or stop. ‘Well, don’t expect me to give you mouth to mouth if you have a heart attack.’
Matthew laughed.
‘And it’s not in the least bit funny.’
Emma saw a gap in the traffic and ran across the road. Matthew wasn’t quite as quick.
‘Wait!’ he yelled.
Emma began to run now. She could see her car. She glanced back over her shoulder to see that Matthew still hadn’t crossed the road. Good. If she was quick to crank her car over she could be in and away in seconds. On she ran. But she could hear Matthew calling her, and hear his feet pounding the pavement. Getting closer. He was a lot taller than she was and with longer legs.
One more road to cross and … could she make it before that coal lorry drove past? She stood teetering on the kerb for a moment or two then stepped into the road, only to feel herself being yanked backwards painfully by her shoulder.
‘You idiot!’ Matthew said, as he pulled her to him and the lorry shot in front of them.
‘Let me go!’
‘No. Never. I’ve waited half a lifetime for you and I’m not letting you go now.’
‘But you could let Stella go? As though she is less to you than a bit of rotting fish that’s no use to man nor beast?’
‘You know that’s not how I see Stella.’ Matthew loosened his grip on Emma a little, but tucked her hand through his arm, holding onto it with his spare hand. ‘We need to talk.’
‘I have nothing to say to you.’
‘That’s fine. I’ll do the talking. You can do the listening. You’ll know how much I love you if you do.’
Matthew began to steer her across the now clear road. In front of the isolation wing of the hospital he steered them to the left.
‘My car’s that way,’ Emma said. She wanted to struggle from his grasp but she didn’t have the strength.
‘I know. You bought it from my garage, Exe Motors. My mechanic, William, sold it to you. I hope it’s giving good service.’
There was no answer to that, so Emma didn’t provide one. She still couldn’t quite believe the coincidence that she’d been making a wedding dress for Stella, Matthew’s fiancée. Ex-fiancée now. Stella had told them both, dry eyed and without even a hint of anger in her voice, how she’d guessed it was Emma Matthew was carrying in his heart when she saw the amethyst necklace that had fallen from his pocket – the very same necklace Emma had drawn onto Stella’s wedding dress design.
‘Where are you taking me?’
Matthew steered her right, and into a small park Emma hadn’t known was there. A few yards or so and they came to a bench.
‘This will do,’ Matthew said.
It most certainly would. For what I have to say to you.
Matthew took a handkerchief from the pocket of his trousers and wiped the seat, then gestured for Emma to sit down.
Strangely, the gesture touched Emma more than she could ever have dreamed it would. She swallowed.
Do not show any emotion.
‘I’m disappointed in you,’ Emma said, when they were both seated. She shuffled a few inches away from Matthew along the seat, so they weren’t touching as they had been when they’d sat down. ‘I didn’t want to believe that the Stella who’s wedding dress you saw in my atelier was the same Stella who was so full of love for her fiancé who, I have to tell you, she never named. And I didn’t want to believe that that same fiancé who owned Exe Motors, and from whom I was recommended to buy a car, was you. And I didn’t want to believe that Stella’s rather cold-hearted fiancé, who rarely visited when she was so ill, was you. Had I known any of that I’d never have let you make love to me.’
‘Well, well,’ Matthew said. ‘For the woman who said just moments ago that she had nothing to say to me, that was rather a lot.’
‘And there’s more. I gave you every opportunity to tell me all of that before now. Before we all discovered what we did just now. I know Stella had told her fiancé that she’d found someone to make her wedding dress. And that wedding dress was on a mannequin in my atelier and you saw it. I saw the way your eyes widened, just a little, when I said the name Stella. You should have told me then.’
‘Making sure Fleur was unharmed was more important, in my opinion.’
‘And in mine. Don’t split hairs. You know what I meant.’
Matthew leaned towards her, chin thrust out. ‘See that?’ he said, pointing to it. ‘I’m taking everything you say there. I’m not proud of myself. But I’m only human. And I love you. I know now that if you never, ever, want to see me again – and I would understand completely and respect you for it – then the time we spent together in your bed will still be the best use of my time I have ever made. It was as though I’d been waiting all my life for the physical and the emotional aspects of love to come together in one place, at the same time. And they did. With you. And if that was the last time I’m ever to feel a woman’s lips on mine, a woman’s body against my skin, then so be it. But I cannot walk away from you. Even if you won’t speak to me or see me then I still won’t walk away. You know, and I know, that Caroline is mad and dangerous and won’t be in prison for ever. I am going to stick around and make sure you are safe.’
‘And Fleur?’ Emma said.
And what have I told him by those two small words? That I want him to stick around? That I’ll speak to him, meet him? Let him make love to me again? Do I want all that? Do I?
‘It goes without saying,’ Matthew said.
‘I can’t ask that of you,’ Emma said.
‘You’re not asking. I’m telling. There’s a difference. I owe you that much.’
‘You owe me nothing.’
‘Oh, yes, I do. Without you I’d never have known what it is like for two people to become one. As we did. You do understand what I’m saying?’
Yes. Oh, yes.
‘Maybe, but it’s not making me feel any better about myself,’ Emma said. ‘That I took the fiancé of a friend into my bed, I mean. Even though I didn’t know he was at the time.’
‘I can’t make that better for you,’ Matthew said. ‘I didn’t know you and Stella had met then.’
‘Would it have made any difference to you if you had?’
‘That’s an unfair question.’
He means no it wouldn’t have made a scrap of difference. To him. I might have seen it differently. No, not might … would.
‘I’ll need time, Matthew, to think about all this,’ Emma said.
‘But preferably not the fourteen years I had to wait the last time I said goodbye to you.’ Matthew laughed. And then before Emma could protest he cupped her chin in his hand and kissed her. Long and slow and deep and Emma did nothing to stop him. A dove cooed softly in a tree above them. Doves mate for life. Emma remembered reading that somewhere once. But Matthew was right. They had be
come one when they’d made love and they were becoming one now. It was as though she was powerless to resist him.
Almost.
‘Not fourteen years,’ Emma said, pulling away from him. ‘But I still need time.’
Matthew stood and pulled her to her feet. ‘Well, aren’t you the lucky one, because that’s something I’ve got plenty of.’ He pulled her hand through the crook of his arm again and they set off down the path, back to the road. ‘You know where to find me.’
Without speaking, Matthew found the crank and turned over the engine of Emma’s car for her.
‘Au revoir,’ Emma said, her heart full of love and yet heavy with such an ache she wondered if it would ever go, as Matthew helped her into her car, placed the crank in the footwell, then shut the door for her and she drove away.
There was no one else Emma wanted to see now except Ruby. Not tomorrow or the day after, but now. Fleur was more than likely still painting. Since the drama with Caroline, Fleur had been reluctant to leave the house. Emma had taken Fleur to Axworthy’s to buy cartridge paper and paints, and a small easel, and when she’d left earlier to visit Stella, Fleur had said she was starting a new painting – a view from her bedroom window down over the tops of the trees to the harbour. Tom said he’d wait until Emma got back before going home. Keeping Fleur safe. She knew he would honour that promise.
Driving far too fast, Emma hurtled in her Clyno down New Road, glancing swiftly to the right and then the left before crossing into Fore Street.
At the hospital she’d mustered as much dignity as she could as Matthew had taken the bull by the horns and told her that yes, he had been engaged to Stella, but was no more. Stella – bless her dear, kind heart – had jumped in and said she had asked Matthew to marry her in the first place, had now realised it had been a mistake to do so, and was releasing him.
But Emma hadn’t stopped long. Just long enough to tell Stella, with tears in her eyes, that she would be in touch. Guilt that she had made love to Stella’s fiancé had almost overwhelmed Emma at the time. And it was still doing that now, despite everything Matthew had said to her in that little park – would she ever be able to hear a dove coo and not remember that time? Ripples of ice seemed to be running up and down Emma’s spine and yet her hands were clammy on the steering wheel. And it had started to rain, making vision difficult, as the wiper swished inefficiently over the windscreen. The rain suited her mood.
Emma and Her Daughter Page 27