Ruby looked mock crestfallen. She carried on chewing. Swallowed. She wiped the corners of her mouth with the back of her hand.
‘Go on, Mrs Bossy Boots,’ Ruby said, ‘tell me off for doin’ that an’ all.’
Emma wagged a finger playfully at Ruby and shook her head in a there’s-nothing-to-be-done-with-you-and-your-bad-manners way.
‘The truth is, Em, I ain’t ’ad a crab tart like this since you last made ’em for Mr Smythe’s weddin’. And this little one ’ere just ’appened to be a bit broken around the edges.’
‘Flattery will get you everywhere,’ Emma said and laughed.
She’d made far more than she knew would be needed for her guests, and that with the intention of giving Ruby some to take home for the children for the following day.
‘Talkin’ of Mr Smythe’s weddin’ an’ who was there an’ crab tarts—’ Ruby began.
‘Don’t!’ Emma said. ‘I know where this conversation is heading. And I don’t know that I want to continue with it. We need to get these tartlets off the cooling racks and onto serving plates. Then there are the sandwiches to put together. I’ve done the fillings. They’re in the meat safe outside the window.’
Emma pointed to the place on the north side of the house where the meat safe overhung the garden – a good place to keep things cool, even in summer.
‘I’ll do ’em,’ Ruby said. ‘You go an’ see to your guests. An’ while you’re out there doin’ that tell my Alice I wants ’er in ’ere givin’ me an ’and with things.’
‘Thanks, Ruby,’ Emma said, impulsively giving her friend a quick hug. ‘I’ll go in a minute. Thank goodness I’ve got you.’
Let Ruby read into that what she would.
‘You’re not regrettin’ comin’ back ’ere, then, now Fleur’s about to fly the nest back to Canada?’
How could Emma answer that? She’d yet to tell Ruby she was expecting Matthew’s child. And that it would be best if Fleur didn’t know that just yet.
‘Hmm,’ Ruby said, when Emma was rather slow to answer, ‘it seems to me that were one of they pregnant pauses you reads about in romantic books.’
Emma flinched. Of course she knew pregnant pause and a pregnant woman were not the same thing but it was the use of the word – she was only just getting used to it as applied to herself.
‘Was it?’ Emma said, knowing her voice was higher-pitched than usual.
‘Yeah, an’ you knows it. An’ I knows you. There’s another agenda ’ere and I think I knows what it is. You needs to go and see that Matthew Caunter and tell ’im somethin’ ’e needs to know. An’ you needs to do it sooner rather than later. An’ the reason you ain’t made an almighty ’oo-’a about Fleur goin’ back to Canada is because she won’t see things you don’t want ’er to see. Not yet, anyway. Am I right?’ Ruby returned the hug Emma had given her just moments ago. ‘Don’t answer that because I knows I’m right. An’ I’ve got a mini mountain of sandwiches to make. But your secret’s safe with me. Well, until such times as it won’t be secret no more. Oh …’ Ruby’s flow of words dried up as a car’s tyres scrunched on the gravel outside. She turned round and peered out of the window that overlooked the end of the drive. ‘Ireland’s delivery van. An’ a bloke in a peaked cap ’as just got out and is walkin’ this way, ’alf ’idden by an ’uge bunch of roses.’
Ruby began to walk to the back door. Tradesmen’s entrance. ‘It ain’t Fleur’s birthday so—’
‘I’ll go,’ Emma said, reaching out an arm to stop her.
‘Oh, lawks!’ Ruby said, slapping a hand to her forehead. ‘Michaelmas. It’s your birthday today, ain’t it? And I forgot.’
‘You being here is the only present I need, really it is.’
But Emma would bet every penny she had in the Devon and Exeter Savings Bank that Matthew Caunter hadn’t forgotten. And that the flowers were from him.
He cared. He still cared. But would he think, if she contacted him now, that it was only because she wanted him to support her? And his child?
Chapter Twenty-Four
AUTUMN 1927
‘Give my love to Mrs Gethin and Delia,’ Emma said.
She and Fleur stood in the hallway of Romer Lodge their arms wound tightly around one another. Mrs Bailey had left them alone to say their final goodbyes and was sitting in a taxi on the driveway. But there was plenty of time yet. The train wouldn’t be leaving Paignton station for a good half-hour and it was only a five-minute drive to get there. Neither Fleur nor Emma had wanted to say their goodbyes in a public place with everyone looking on.
‘No, I won’t,’ Fleur said. ‘Because I’m keeping it all for myself until I see you again. And I don’t know that I want to go now.’
‘Oh, Fleur, you say the nicest things and you’ll have me dripping all over you in a minute. But you are going and it will do you good. I’m proud of you.’
‘And me of you, Ma. The way you’ve built up a business after being snubbed by so many of the neighbours for not having a husband and being a dangerous, loose cannon of a woman.’
‘Predatory, Fleur. I think they thought I would be a predatory woman, after their husbands, but that’s not how I am.’
‘No,’ Fleur said, releasing herself from Emma’s hold and stepping back a little so she could look Emma in the eye.’ But you’re a stubborn one, and a blinkered one.’
‘Blinkered?’ Emma said. She knew there was no point in arguing about being stubborn or not because she knew she could be that at times.
‘Blinkered,’ Fleur repeated. ‘Now then, Ma, I want you to make me a promise. Say you will.’
‘I need to know what it is first before I can do that. And there’s a train waiting …’
‘I know. So here it is – what I want you to promise me. As soon as you hear the steam train chuffing out of the station I want you to pick up the telephone and call Mr Caunter. His number’s on the pad by the telephone.’
‘I know.’ Emma had seen it there, ringed round in blue ink by Fleur a million times.
‘I hope you wrote and thanked him for the roses for your birthday.’ Fleur wagged a finger playfully at her.
Emma hadn’t been able to prevent Fleur seeing the card attached to the flowers because she’d come into the kitchen to ask if she could help just as Emma had taken delivery of them.
‘Of course I did. I know my manners. Tom hand-delivered it.’
‘Huh,’ Fleur said. ‘A man who spends that much money on such a big bunch of roses deserves to be thanked face to face, I think, or at least spoken to. Why don’t you telephone him? Now that I’ll be out of the picture and you’ll be free to, well, you know, put someone in Pa’s place …’
‘No one could ever take your pa’s place, Fleur,’ Emma said. ‘And that’s the truth.’
‘But you’ll ring Mr Caunter?’
Emma sucked in her cheeks to stop herself from crying. She might not have given birth to Fleur but Fleur had certainly picked up Emma’s stubborn streak, the way she wouldn’t let an idea go once she got it between her teeth.
‘I’ll think about it,’ Emma said. ‘But I’m not going to talk about it with you a second longer.’ She reached for Fleur again and hugged her to her. ‘Be safe. Be happy. Never, ever, forget how much I love you. Write often. Or telephone and reverse the charges. I love you, Fleur, possibly more than you will ever know.’
‘Au revoir, Ma’ Fleur croaked into Emma’s neck, her tears hot and sliding down Emma’s skin now. ‘Je t’aimes aussi.’
And the fact Fleur’s last words to Emma were in French – the language she had sung to her in as a baby, and which she’d taught her as soon as Fleur could speak – would stay with her forever. Fleur was truly her daughter even though Emma hadn’t given birth to her.
She stood in the doorway of Romer Lodge waving and forcing a smile on her face, the tears coursing down her cheeks, long after the taxi with Fleur and Mrs Bailey in it disappeared.
Emma stood there until she heard the steam train’
s whistle. She turned then and went back into the house. She knew as she climbed to the tower room that had been Fleur’s bedroom – her sanctuary after Caroline had turned up in her life – that she would be able to see the train going along the line, skirting the shore, towards Torquay. Something solid seemed to have lodged in Emma’s chest that she knew only hard work would shift.
As the train disappeared into the tunnel under the road, Emma kissed the tips of her fingers and blew in the same direction.
And then she ran down the stairs to her atelier.
She had work to do.
The next morning Emma was woken by someone knocking on her front door. What time was it? She’d fallen into a deep sleep the night before because she’d stopped up long into the night sewing. Her sleep had been dreamless – or at least she didn’t remember any dreams as she often did.
Wrapping her robe around her and jabbing her feet into a pair of embroidered slippers that had been a present from Fleur, and after putting a brush quickly through her hair, Emma ran down the stairs.
Still with the chain across, she opened the door a crack.
Mrs Passmore.
‘I thought you might be needing a bit of company,’ Mrs Passmore said, ‘seeing as your lovely girl is on a boat by now and … oh, here’s me come to comfort you and it’s me who needs comforting. I’m going to miss my sister so, I really am, even though she’s a bit holier-than-thou sometimes what with her being a vicar’s wife. And …’ Mrs Passmore dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.
‘You’d better come in,’ Emma said. She took the chain off the door and opened it just wide enough to let the not insubstantial form of Mrs Passmore in. ‘Go through to the sitting room. I’ll just go and make myself more presentable. Five minutes.’
Still dabbing her eyes Mrs Passmore did as she was asked.
Back in her room, Emma was shocked to find it was almost ten o’clock. Thank goodness it was a Sunday and Tom wasn’t here to see she’d overslept. She had never, ever in her life before stayed in bed that long. Perhaps it was the child she was carrying making her more tired. Emma had always had boundless energy and she didn’t know that she liked the thought of turning into a sleepyhead.
But she took less than the five minutes she’d told Mrs Passmore she would to get changed.
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Emma said, peering around the sitting room door. ‘And then I’ll be with you. And then I’ll light a fire in the grate.’
She turned to go but was surprised to find Mrs Passmore following her.
‘No need to heat that big room just because I’ve turned up unannounced. Goodness, but my mother would turn in her grave to know I’ve called on a neighbour without giving her twenty-four hours notice! What my mother would think of women getting the vote, never mind as young as twenty-one years old, as I see might be going to happen before too long, I don’t know. We can drink our tea in your kitchen.’
Emma pulled out a kitchen chair for Mrs Passmore to sit down.
‘It was very kind of your sister to accompany Fleur,’ Emma said. ‘It’s a long journey.’
‘For both of them,’ Mrs Passmore said. ‘And trust me Margot will get as much, if not more, from the companionship as Fleur will. And Fleur will put a stop to Margot’s flirtatious ways.’
Flirtatious ways? Emma didn’t have Margot Bailey down as a flirt. A vicar’s wife and all!
‘I can see I’ve shocked you,’ Mrs Passmore said. ‘But my sister played the field before she settled down with the good reverend. I have to say I was a little concerned that she was going all that way on a ship full of handsome sailors all by herself so I was more than relieved when you mentioned your concerns about how Fleur was going to have a safe, chaperoned passage. Fortuitous, don’t you think, how things have turned out?’
Fortuitous? A good word. It was fortuitous that Emma had no morning sickness, but did it follow that it was also fortuitous that she was pregnant and unmarried? She could almost hear dear old Beattie Drew saying, ‘You’re not the first, lovie, an’ you certainly won’t be the last. Worse things ’appen at sea.’
Emma swallowed back her emotions.
‘Oh, dear,’ Mrs Passmore said. ‘Me and my ramblings. I’ve upset you now.’
‘You haven’t. Not one bit. As you say, fortuitous indeed,’ Emma said.
She found some biscuits in a tin in the larder and put some on a plate for Mrs Passmore, knowing the dear lady wouldn’t refuse a biscuit whatever the hour. Emma was forever letting clothes out, taking them in again, as Mrs Passmore failed, or succeeded, with her latest eating regime.
‘And how is Mr Passmore this morning?’ Emma asked.
‘As fine and dandy as a bedridden man can be. Maria is sitting with him. I left her reading the newspaper to him. Tip number one, Mrs Jago, never, ever engage staff who can’t read.’
‘My friend, Ruby, couldn’t read until she was in her twenties,’ Emma said, suddenly feeling protective of those less fortunate. ‘But she learned so she could read the letters I wrote her when I lived in Canada, and so she could write back. Her husband, Tom, taught her.’
‘Ah, yes. Tom. Your gardener.’
‘He’s not my gardener. He’s a friend,’ Emma said. ‘A friend who happens to help me out by doing the heavy gardening I can’t do.’
And certainly won’t be able to as this pregnancy progresses.
‘Goodness, how times change,’ Mrs Passmore said. ‘Best not let Mrs Grant hear you say that.’
‘I have no intention of it,’ Emma said. Mrs Grant had snubbed Emma’s invitation to drinks once and she certainly wasn’t going to get another invite.
Emma knew she’d gone on the defensive all of a sudden and it troubled her because Mrs Passmore had been a very good client, standing firm in front of less understanding neighbours who didn’t like a loose cannon of a widow in their midst. But that, Emma realised now, was because Emma was hardly going to be a threat to Mrs Passmore’s bedridden husband, was she?
‘Could we get back to, er, Tom?’ Mrs Passmore said. ‘Does he drive?’
‘A bicycle,’ Emma said. ‘I bought it for him so he could get here more easily from Brixham.’
‘I meant a car, dear. Does he drive a car?’
‘Not that I know of. Why do you ask?’
‘Because the good doctor – Doctor Grenier over in Bishop’s Place although he makes home calls, of course, for me and Mr Passmore – has recommended that my husband get some sea air. And that he gets it a bit closer than a little breeze coming in the bedroom window. My husband can walk a little – a few steps to get in and out of a car shouldn’t be too much of a problem, but he can’t stand for long. So … I was wondering, if I were to buy a car, do you think Tom would drive it for me? A couple of trips out a week to start with? Maybe over to Torquay with a little stroll along the promenade? Or down to Dartmouth and along the quay?’
‘I’ll put it to him. There’s less to do in the garden now that winter is on its way and I’m fast running out of things for Tom to do in the house.’
And he needs the money, Emma thought, but didn’t add.
‘I knew the first time I met you, Mrs Jago, that we were like minds,’ Mrs Passmore said. ‘I’m glad I came over this morning and suggested this. You need something to think about now that your daughter has sailed away and this might be the thing. Teaching Tom to drive, I mean.’
Something to think about? If only you knew. I’ve got a growing baby inside me to think about.
‘Yes,’ Emma said, her mind in a daze now. As kind as Mrs Passmore was she was something of a steamroller in her approach and Emma knew she was in danger of having her life taken over by the well-meaning woman if she wasn’t careful. ‘I’m sure I could teach Tom to drive if that’s what he wants. But I shall have to ask him first. But tell me, Doctor Grenier – do you recommend him?’
Emma knew she would have to go to a doctor soon to get her pregnancy confirmed, not that she wasn’t sure she was pregnant but she would ha
ve to do the right thing by her child.
‘Once you get past the foreign accent he speaks with, I’m sure you’ll get on fine.’
‘Accent?’
‘Foreign. He can’t pronounce the “th” sound. He says “z”. Or sometimes “s”. But I’ve got used to it. Although sometimes I’ve found myself mimicking him without realising I was doing it. So embarrassing!’ Mrs Passmore gave a girlish sort of laugh.
‘He’s French?’ Emma said.
Grenier was the French for attic, although Mrs Passmore hadn’t pronounced it that way.
‘He is. Makes a strange sort of noise in his throat when he pronounces his “r”s as well, but he’s a good doctor for all that.’
Emma laughed. ‘I’m half French myself so I’m sure Doctor Grenier and I will get on fine.’
And the sooner I see him the better.
‘Well, that’s all settled,’ Mrs Passmore said.
Not quite. I’ve yet to ask Tom if he wants to learn to drive but thinking about it now, Emma could see it was a good idea. How soon would it be before she couldn’t get behind the wheel of her Clyno and would need Tom to fetch things from the shop for her?
‘More tea?’ Emma asked.
‘I’ve kept you long enough,’ Mrs Passmore said. ‘So, no, thank you. But there is one more thing? Can you tell me where you bought your car? I would only buy such a thing on recommendation.’
Oh! Emma hadn’t been expecting that.
‘Only I see there’s a garage opened up on Roundham Road. Bay Motors. Run by a chap called Caunter so it says on the sign over the door. Do you know him?’
Oh, yes, I know him. And rather better than you think I might.
‘I’ll let you have his number,’ Emma said.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Eventually Emma could put it off no longer – she had to go and register with a doctor. After her conversation with Mrs Passmore in her kitchen she waited another six weeks before doing so. Winter was well and truly on its way now the clocks had gone back an hour.
Doctor Grenier confirmed what Emma knew. She was with child. As she knew the date – and even the precise time, give or take half an hour – that her child had been conceived she was sure of her due date. Late May. The good doctor told Emma he could hear the heartbeat. He also chided her, gently, for leaving it so long before coming to see him. Emma had felt it move inside her, as though she had trapped wind that couldn’t find an exit. The doctor laughed when she told him so.
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