The ripple of ice rippling up Emma’s spine spread over her shoulders and she shivered to try and shake it off. But it wouldn’t go. Her jaw was clenched tight and she wondered if it would ever unclench.
Emma had a hunch that whatever it was Matthew had told Stella before she’d arrived it wasn’t that he and Emma had made love. Well, she wasn’t going to be the one to tell her, was she?
Emma drew to a halt outside Shingle Cottage and yanked on the handbrake. Not bothering to lock the car she ran up the path and rammed on the door.
No answer. She peered in the letterbox. From that angle she could see along the hallway into the kitchen, and could see that the back door was open. Emma had never, ever in her life entered anyone’s home without being asked in but technically Shingle Cottage was hers. So she turned the handle and to her huge relief the door opened.
‘Ruby?’ she called, her voice a blancmange wobble. She swallowed. What Ruby had been through with Tom being so mentally ill for such a long time, and what she’d had to do to earn money to feed her family was a much bigger concern than the one facing Emma, she knew. But it was all relative, wasn’t it?
No children came rushing out to see who had just walked into their house and Emma sent up a silent prayer they weren’t in the garden when she stepped out onto the back path to look for Ruby. She hoped she’d be able to say what she had to quickly because as good and reliable as Tom was he’d want to get back to Ruby and the family before the children’s bedtime, wouldn’t he? But she had to talk to Ruby first. Needed to.
‘Bleedin’ ’ell, Em, you tryin’ to give me an ’eart attack, or summat?’
Ruby shook mud from a bunch of beetroot she’d just pulled and dropped them into a wooden box by her feet. She wiped her muddy hands down the sides of her apron.
‘You’re all muddy,’ Emma said. ‘It’s raining.’
‘Drizzlin’,’ Ruby said. ‘And beetroots fer supper don’t pull theirselves out of the ground, now do they? What’s wrong, Em? Aw gawd, it’s not that bleedin’ Mrs Prentiss up to ’er old tricks again? I can’t bring meself to call ’er a Jago, same as you, even though ’er is. ’Ere, Fleur ain’t ’urt is ’er?’
‘No,’ Emma said, her mouth bone dry with nerves, so dry she thought her skin might crack. ‘Tom’s—’
‘Tom told me what you told ’im about ’er being arrested, and what ’appened to Fleur but, oh gawd, ’er ’asn’t escaped, ’as ’er?’
‘Not that I know of. I left Fleur painting and Tom said he’d stay …’ The rest of Emma’s sentence stuck in her throat. She just couldn’t get the words out.
‘Come ’ere,’ Ruby said and opened her arms wide.
Emma rushed towards Ruby and threw herself into her friends arms. She’d never felt more in need of another human’s touch as she did now. Not even after her parents and her brother, Johnnie, had died had she felt like this. And after Seth had died there had been a numbness but she’d known, even in that darkest moment, that her life would go on.
Only now she thought it might have ended. Matthew had said she knew where to find him which was tantamount to saying he’d be happy to be found. But did he deserve to be found? Did she deserve to have the sort of love she knew she had for Matthew?
‘I’ve done a terrible thing, Ruby,’ she said as Ruby enveloped her in her arms, and started crooning to her as she would one of her own children. ‘I’ve done the worst possible thing any woman can do to another woman.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ Ruby said, hugging Emma hard now. ‘No one could ’ave been worse than me, eh? And I’ve come good – wi’ your ’elp. So—’
‘You don’t understand,’ Emma said with a loud sob.
‘I understand we’re standin’ ’ere like a pair of fools gettin’ soaked. An’ I never will know what it is you’ve done if you don’t tell me, an’ even I know it’d be best if you don’t do the tellin’ ’ere where there might be ears.’
She released Emma from the hug, but put an arm around her shoulder and began to lead her down the path and back to the house.
‘The beetroots,’ Emma said.
‘The rain’ll wash ’em off a bit.’
‘The children?’
‘The little bleeders are at their grandmother’s. ’Er misses that they’re not there so much now I’m on the straight an’ narrow, so they’ve gone up to tea with ’er. ’Er’ll spoil ’em rotten, but it looks as though fate ’as dealt us a good ’and today, Em, don’t it?’
They’d reached the kitchen now and Ruby gentled Emma through the doorway and closed the door.
‘Tea first with a drop of somethin’ in it,’ Ruby said. ‘And none of your protestantations.’
‘Protestations,’ Emma said.
‘That an’ all,’ Ruby said. ‘You’ll live. I know it ain’t protestantations and I only said it to test you. The true bossy Emma is still in there, ain’t she?’
‘I hope so,’ Emma said.
Emma’s heart rate was beginning to return to normal now. She found a handkerchief in her handbag and mopped her damp lashes. She ran a hand through her hair because Ruby had been smoothing it and ruffling it as she’d comforted.
‘Well, there you are then.’
While they waited for the water to come to the boil on the hob Emma told Ruby about Stella. And how Matthew had been engaged to her – had been until a few short hours ago.
‘Tom told me Matthew was back. ’Ow he looked really pleased to see you.’
‘That’s as maybe. But it doesn’t alter the fact I made love to another woman’s man, Ruby,’ Emma said.
‘But you didn’t know they were engaged then, you daft lummox. You can’t blame yourself for that.’
‘But I do. And I was totally indecent. The second I set eyes on Matthew after all the years that have gone by since I last saw him, I couldn’t get him into my bed fast enough.’
‘Sounds like true love and passion if you ask me.’
Was she asking? But Ruby was entitled to her opinion and Emma knew if you told friends intimate things then you must expect for them to have their own views.
‘Men are weak in that direction, Em.’
‘What direction?’
‘The bedroom door direction. An’ any other bleedin’ direction. An’ don’t I know it!’
‘But Matthew?’ Emma said. ‘I never expected that of him.’
Ruby sighed. ‘You are a little wet behind the ears, me darlin’,’ she said. ‘An’ I love you for it. Matthew, as ’andsome and as excitin’ as ’e is, is no different in the genitals department, now is ’e?’
Emma gulped. Well, he was better endowed than Seth had ever been. Oh! Guilt sat heavily over her heart that she was even making the comparison. She’d loved Seth dearly and would forever be grateful for the love he’d given her and the comfortable life he’d left her with, but for all his attributes Seth had never taken Emma to the heights of ecstasy she’d experienced with Matthew. And not once but … they’d lost count, hadn’t they? But she could hardly tell Ruby that, could she?
‘Oh, I get it,’ Ruby said with a grin when Emma was slow to respond. ‘’E’s a big man, is that it?’
Emma nodded. Her body began to tingle with the memory of how Matthew had made her feel.
But was she ever going to let him make her feel like that again?
‘And you ain’t goin’ to tell me,’ Ruby said, her voice more serious now as she tipped a measure of brandy into Emma’s tea. ‘Get that down you.’
‘In a minute. It’s a bit hot.’ Emma twisted her hands over and over in her lap. Never in her life before had she felt so not in control of a situation. ‘And while Matthew and I were making love, Fleur was in Torquay police station. She—’
‘I knows that you daft bugger. About Fleur being arrested an’ that. Not the bit about you and Matthew being in bed, of course. You told Tom and ’e told me, like you told ’im to.’
Yes, she had told Tom, but a condensed version of it.
‘Fleur w
asn’t at the Cascarini’s ice cream parlour with Paolo as she’d told me she would be,’ Emma went on. It was easier speaking about Fleur than it was herself and she knew that was why she was telling Ruby things she already knew. ‘She’d gone to meet Caroline—’
‘Gawd, but I’d swing for ’er,’ Ruby interrupted.
‘Me, too,’ Emma said.
‘Were it of ’er own free will that ’er went to see ’er mother?’ Ruby asked, and somehow the use of the word ‘mother’ stung Emma more than she thought it would.
‘Yes. But Caroline was there with a man and it seems they went on a big pickpocketing spree. They’d hired a box to watch a film with Louise Brooks in it. Fleur couldn’t resist. She models herself on Louise Brooks at the moment.’
‘Where are the buggers now, then?’ Ruby asked.
‘Matthew had the good grace to telephone me and tell me they’ve been taken into custody. The man – an American citizen – is going to be deported. He’s some sort of failed film director, so Matthew found out from somewhere. His last film was a flop.’
‘An’ they thought they could make a film star out of your beautiful daughter and make their fortunes, I ’spect.’
‘Something like that.’
Emma told Ruby about all the clothes Caroline had given Fleur and the film magazines. Things to whet her appetite for Hollywood.
‘You should’ve told me before,’ Ruby said. ‘I’d ’ave seen straight through the schemin’ minx. You ain’t been over much.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
‘Forgiven,’ Ruby said. ‘You’m ’ere now. An’ we got to work out ’ow to get you out of this fix, ain’t we? But at least Mrs P is out of the way. Maybe ’er’ll be deported an’ all?’
‘Not unless she’s become an American citizen, I shouldn’t think. But I don’t know what’s going to happen to Caroline, and I care even less.’
And I’m not going to get in touch with Matthew to find out.
‘That’s my girl!’
‘Fleur was going to be Stella’s bridesmaid,’ Emma said, purposefully steering the conversation back to the reason she was there. ‘I cut out the fabric for her dress only last week. Fleur’s going to be so disappointed when I tell her.’
‘Fleur’s young. She’ll get over the disappointment of not bein’ a bridesmaid, especially if you turns that frock into summat she can wear some other place. Am I right?’
‘Yes,’ Emma said. ‘It might cheer her up.’
Emma told Ruby how Fleur had seen Paolo with someone else at the cinema and how it was all over between them.
‘Well, things ain’t so sweet in the Jago ’ousehold right now, are they?’ Ruby said. ‘An’ I’m the sorrier for it. Trouble seems to scent you out the way a dog follows its nose to the butcher’s shop, don’t it?’
‘It would seem so,’ Emma said. ‘I’m beginning to regret coming back to England now.’
Or am I? Would I ever have seen Matthew again if I hadn’t? Would I ever have known the passion that he made me feel?
‘You talk a load of old rubbish sometimes, Emma Jago,’ Ruby said. ‘I don’t regret you comin’ back one little bit. You was the savin’ of me, and I’ll do anythin’ to ’elp you. Anythin’.’
‘I know.’
The difference in Ruby between April and now was just astonishing and Emma knew she’d been instrumental in that change.
And I’d never have made love to Matthew had I not come back. And I’d have been the poorer for that, wouldn’t I?
‘Hmm, Emma Jago,’ Ruby said, tilting her head to one side, studying her friend. ‘I know you. You only regrets what ’appened to Fleur and not what ’appened between you and Matthew Caunter which …’ Ruby held up her hand to stop Emma interrupting, ‘… which I ain’t goin’ to ask the details of. I ’onestly don’t see what the problem for you now is, Em. Matthew’s a free man again. Fleur’s back ’ome safe and sound. Caroline’s locked up somewhere and likely to stay that way, so—’
‘So, I’m going back home now,’ Emma said.
Everything Ruby was saying was true. And she was grateful to her dear friend for listening, but all the same, it wasn’t a nice feeling having her life laid out before her for scrutiny. She would make her own decisions, however sensible Ruby’s might be at the moment.
‘Said too much, ’ave I?’ Ruby asked. She didn’t sound as though she was the least put out.
‘Possibly not enough,’ Emma said, struggling to smile.
‘Well, you always was stubborn, Em, and that ain’t goin’ to change. But if I says one last thing to you and you never wants to speak to me again, it’s this – don’t let love pass you by if that’s what Matthew Caunter is offerin’ you, besides the other.’
‘Oh, Ruby …’ Emma said, and dissolved into tears again.
Whatever was the matter with her? She hadn’t cried as much as this in her life before however sad she’d been at the time.
‘I’d like to make a transatlantic phone call,’ Fleur said.
Fleur crossed her fingers behind her back that there would be a quick connection. Tom kept downing tools to come into the house. Checking on her. No doubt he’d been told to report back to her ma about what she was doing. Well, so far there had been nothing to report. She’d painted until she thought her hand would drop off from holding the brush so long. Then she’d written to her friend, Delia. She thought about going to the post office to get a stamp for it but changed her mind. Her ma had told her Caroline had been arrested but she didn’t want to run the risk of seeing her in town if she’d been let out on bail. ‘I’m just popping over to Torquay, to the hospital, to see Stella,’ her ma had said. Hmm … she was being a jolly long time doing it. But she’d be there a bit longer with any luck.
‘Number to call, please,’ the operator said, dragging Fleur back to the present.
Fleur didn’t have to look it up. It was etched into her mind. When she’d lived on Vancouver Island she’d telephoned Delia every night after school even though they’d been talking almost all the day, and at weekends to arrange to meet up, to go and see a film. And she’d telephoned her a few times, without her ma’s knowledge, recently, too.
‘Vancouver 278,’ she said. ‘Gethin is the name.’
‘Hold the line,’ the operator said, his voice clipped and business-like.
‘Hurry up,’ Fleur said under her breath. She had tried to work out what time it would be over in Vancouver but could never do it with any accuracy, not when there were so many time zones across Canada anyway. But she knew it would be morning. Delia and her ma were always up early. Mrs Gethin baked fresh bread every morning. And then she’d make a pie or two for pudding, and would more than likely get a big pot of stew on the go as well. How she missed Mrs Gethin’s home-baked bread. And the pies. Her ma didn’t make pies, only fancy French upside down apple tarts. Tarte Tatin.
Well, I’m sick of tarte Tatin. And I’m sick of England. I want to go back to Canada and I want to be able to put flowers on my pa’s grave. I want to be as far away from Caroline as possible – so far she won’t be able to find me.
Fleur sent up a silent prayer that Mrs Gethin’s offer to give her board and lodging still stood. The house was big enough, she knew that. Delia was going to college to study art. Fleur was good at art, although not quite as good as her pa had been. But she was getting better and better though. She was pleased with how the painting she’d started today was shaping up. Maybe she’d see if she could join the same course as Delia. It would be better than being here, doing nothing except hold pins for her ma while she put bits of fabric together to make clothes for other people to wear, although she’d enjoyed designing dresses in secret. Something to think about for the future perhaps – dress designing.
And then Fleur remembered the bridesmaid’s dress her ma was making for her to wear at Stella Martin’s wedding. Well, with luck, she wouldn’t be wearing it, although she felt a bit mean letting Stella Martin down because she seemed nice enough.
All she had to do now, while she waited to be connected to either Delia or her ma, was work out how she could persuade her own ma to go back to Canada. It wasn’t going to be easy. But she’d try.
‘Your call is connected.’
At last!
‘Delia? Delia?’ Fleur squealed into the mouthpiece. ‘Wait ’til you hear what I’ve got to tell you.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
SEPTEMBER 1927
‘I’m afraid I can’t let you in,’ Tom said.
Matthew thought he looked genuinely sorry that he couldn’t.
‘But Emma is in?’
‘She is. She’s doin’ her sewin’. Busier by the day she is with that, what with women comin’ in for fittin’s, whatever they might be. They draws the curtains in the room what Emma does ’er sewing in so I can’t see. There’s one in there now.’
‘And Fleur?’
‘She’s in there an ’all. Becomin’ a fine little painter ’er is. Like her pa before ’er.’
‘It would be nice to see them both.’
‘I still can’t let you in.’
‘Did Emma tell you not to let me cross her threshold, or words to that effect?’
‘I think you know the answer to that, sir,’ Tom said.
‘You don’t have to “sir” me. You’re my equal.’
‘That’s kind of you, s—’ Tom stopped himself from saying what obviously automatically tripped off his tongue.
‘It’s me who isn’t you’re equal really,’ Matthew said. ‘You fought in a war, I didn’t. I respect you for that.’
Keep Tom talking. Even though there’s a nip in the air now that autumn has well and truly arrived.
Emma and Her Daughter Page 28