Emma's Secret

  And so she skipped the year 1939 and picked up the diary for 1940, began to leaf through this, looking at days here and there, still a trifle reluctant to read her grandmother’s intimate and very private thoughts.

  The diary fell open at a page, and as Paula glanced down, she read: ‘I had dinner tonight with Blackie O’Neill. He made me laugh for the first time in months. He is my dearest friend…’

  Paula heard a slight noise, and as she looked up suddenly there was Shane, standing next to her. She said, ‘Here is my grandmother writing in her diary that your grandfather is her dearest friend…’

  Shane smiled down at her. ‘So you finally had the courage to start reading them. Maybe she wanted you to do that, Paula. Perhaps that’s why she left them for you to find. She could have destroyed them, you know.’ Lowering himself onto the sofa, he asked, ‘What year is that?’

  Paula glanced at him and said, ‘Nineteen forty. She wrote this when she was fifty-one years old. I only knew her when she had become an old woman, and I can’t help wishing I’d known her then…I wonder what she was like, Shane?’

  He put his arm around her and drew her close to him. There was a moment of silence before he spoke, and then he said, ‘I bet she was…simply bloody marvellous!’

  PART TWO

  Legend

  1940

  ‘She possessed, in the highest degree, all the qualities which were required in a great Prince.’

  Giovanni Scaramelli Venetian Ambassador to the Court of Elizabeth Tudor, Queen of England

  Be not afraid of greatness: some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

  William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night: II v

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Emma Harte stood in front of the cheval mirror in her spacious, elegant bedroom in her Belgrave Square house, regarding herself thoughtfully.

  And she hated what she saw.

  Her reflection was of a thin, almost wraith-like woman, deathly pale, with a mass of red hair surrounding a tired, sorrowful face like a fiery halo. The contrasts were stark.

  And she hated the dress she wore.

  It was a good dress, couture, but it was black, funereal and depressing, and it did nothing for her except underscore her unprecedented lack of physical appeal. In general her appearance disturbed her enormously as she studied herself objectively. She had never looked like this before.

  Glancing at the dressing table nearby, her eyes settled on the photograph of Paul McGill. ‘It just won’t do any more, will it, darling?’ she said out loud, talking to his picture as she had done every day for months and months past. Instinctively shrewd, Emma was aware that the staff thought she was slightly mad these days, the way she talked to herself, quite loudly at that. But she wasn’t crazy; she was actually talking to Paul. She knew she always would for as long as she lived. It gave her such comfort, made her feel less alone, less lonely. They had lived together here for sixteen years and his presence was everywhere.

  ‘Nothing for it but a radical makeover,’ she continued, and as she walked past the dressing table she touched the top of the gold photograph frame that held his picture, let her hand rest on it for a split second. In the incandescent light from the lamp, the great, square-cut McGill emerald ring Paul had given her after Daisy’s birth shone like bright green fire on her small, capable hand.

  Moving across the floor rapidly and with the lightest of steps, she took off the black dress and laid it on the bed, put on a silk robe and hurried into the adjoining bathroom.

  Without wasting a moment, she found a pair of large scissors in a drawer of the vanity, and with a burst of energy and a great deal of concentration she began to cut off her hair. She did so with much precision and skill, and she did not stop until she was left with a sleek, slightly wavy pageboy, a style that was all the rage at the moment.

  Now peering at herself in the bathroom mirror, she saw that the new shorter hairdo so flattered her finely boned face she suddenly looked ten years younger, and somehow much less sorrowful.

  Stepping off the bath mat, she bent down and folded it over to trap the discarded hair.

  Returning to the bedroom, Emma sat down at the dressing table, regarded her face for a moment or two; then, picking up a large powder puff, she swept it across her cheeks and brow. Next, she added a trace of pink lipstick, smoothed her eyebrows with her fingertips, and brought the black mascara brush to her lashes. Finally sitting back, she saw how her whole appearance had undergone a swift change for the better, and this pleased her. She no longer looked like a demented, mad Ophelia en route to the asylum.

  Within minutes Emma had put on a navy-blue dress and stepped into a pair of navy-blue, high-heeled court shoes. Again she regarded her reflection in the cheval mirror in the corner near the window, this time nodding her head in satisfaction. Falling to her ankles, the dress was beautifully made of matte wool crepe. It was by Jean Patou; it was narrow and elegant with long sleeves and a long stole. She had bought it in Paris in 1935 because Paul had loved it, and now she understood why. It was extremely flattering to her slender figure and made her seem taller than she was.

  Moving back to the dressing table she put on Paul’s square-cut emerald earrings, which matched her ring, and an emerald bracelet, and pinned Blackie’s lovely emerald bow on her shoulder. After spraying Chanel No. 5 at her throat, she went to find a navy-blue bag to match her dress, stole and shoes.

  A moment or two later she was ready to go to the Dorchester to meet the boys, as she called them and, as she crossed the bedroom, walking towards the door, she decided they would be pleased that she had put away her mourning black at long last.

  Emma stood at the top of the steps for a moment before going down into the street where her car and driver were waiting. She could not help marvelling yet again at the extraordinary weather. It had been glorious all week, and the week before, and it was still the same: a truly gorgeous spring evening, the air balmy and warm, the sky a perfect cerulean blue without clouds.

  The worse the news got–of a devastated Europe crumbling under Nazi jackboots, which were aggressively goosestepping into countries too defenceless to withstand them–the more splendid the weather in England was.

  And to Emma, now walking down the steps, there was something terribly poignant, almost heartrending, about the radiance of these lovely days and nights, when everything seemed so normal and tranquil under an English heaven. She could not help wondering how long it would be so…asking herself when the Nazi assault on her beloved country would begin in earnest. And she knew it would…and soon.

  Tomkins, her driver, hurried to open the car door for her as she stepped onto the pavement, touching his cap. ‘’Evening, Mrs. Harte.’

  ‘Good evening, Tomkins, I was just admiring the weather. Isn’t it a beautiful night?’

  ‘It is, madam, an’ a blinkin’ miracle, it is that, this luverly warm spell. It’s usually still a bit nippy in May.’

  After helping her into the back seat, he went around to the front, and a moment later the Rolls was smoothly pulling away from the kerb.

  ‘I’m going to the Dorchester,’ Emma murmured, settling back against the leather seat.

  ‘Right you are, madam,’ Tomkins answered as he circled Belgrave Square and headed up towards Hyde Park Corner, making for Park Lane.

  Emma thought about her destination as the car pushed through the early evening traffic. The Dorchester Hotel had been opened in April of 1931, and from that moment it had been a favourite spot to rendezvous for royalty, the denizens of high society, politicians and the rich and famous. Those in the know who frequented it regularly affectionately called it the Dorch; now it was more popular than ever because it was considered to be the safest hotel in London. This was because it had been built entirely of reinforced concrete, according to Blackie O’Neill. He knew the builder, Sir Malcolm MacAlpine. Blackie loved it as much as everyone else did, herself included.

  It was Blackie’
s favourite place to dine, and she was on her way to meet him there now, and very much looking forward to seeing him; he had been absent for several weeks and she missed him when he was out of town. He was her true and dearest friend.

  Blackie had come up to London earlier in the day, and had brought with him their old friend and long-time companion, David Kallinski. He had been sad and depressed since his wife Rebecca had died, and his emotional state had scarcely been alleviated when he had discovered that his sons Ronald and Mark had suddenly joined the armed forces without conferring with him.

  Blackie had told her only last week that David was filled with a deep conviction that his sons would be killed in battle on foreign soil, and that this distressed him.

  I’ll have to do my very best to pull David out of his black mood, Emma told herself, clutching her bag, now focusing her thoughts on David. He meant a lot to her, and she could not bear to think that he was suffering. They had been in love with each other once, long, long ago, but she had walked away from the relationship because he was married. ‘I won’t build my happiness on another person’s unhappiness,’ she had told him at the time. David had eventually accepted her decision, and because they were mature they had managed to preserve both their friendship and their business partnership in Lady Hamilton Clothes over the years.

  Quite suddenly his father’s face flashed before her eyes, and she thought of Abraham Kallinski, her good friend in Leeds when she was a young girl–alone, destitute and pregnant by Edwin Fairley.

  One day, when she had first lived in Leeds, she had tramped along North Street looking for work at one of the clothing factories. It was near there that she had seen a couple of street hooligans throwing stones at a man, jeering at him, calling him a dirty Jew. Injured and bleeding, he had fallen down, lost his spectacles and his loaves of bread.

  Without thought to her own safety, she had run to his aid, chasing off the young thugs, shaking her fist at them, saying she would call a bobby, yet ready to take them on single-handedly, forgetting momentarily that she was carrying a child in her womb.

  After she had helped the man to his feet and picked up his glasses, she had dusted off the loaves, called challah, and put them back in the paper bag which contained several other items. He had asked her name and introduced himself as Abraham Kallinski, all the while thanking her profusely. And then she had helped him home to his house in Imperial Street. ‘A most unfortunate name for that poor little street, considering it is hardly royal in any sense of that word,’ he had told her, and she remembered his wry smile even to this day. He had gone on to explain that the street was located in the Leylands, and only then had she been afraid, for she knew that this was the ghetto and dangerous. But she had taken him home anyway, wanting to be sure he would be safe, and now she recalled the way Janessa Kallinski, his wife, and their two sons had welcomed her. They had taken her under their wing, she, a stranger, and Abraham had given her a job at his little clothing factory and treated her like one of his own.

  Having just run away from Fairley village on the Yorkshire moors, she had not known the ways of the big city, nor had she really known what a Jew was, and it was Abraham who had explained about their religion, their customs and their ways. Yes, she remembered all of the Kallinskis with great affection, and she owed them so much for their kindness to her some thirty-five years ago…

  ‘Here we are, Mrs. Harte,’ Tomkins announced, interrupting her thoughts as he brought the Rolls-Royce to a standstill in front of the hotel.

  ‘I’ll be a couple of hours, Tomkins,’ Emma informed him. ‘So if you’d like to go and have supper, that will be perfectly all right.’

  ‘Thank you kindly, Mrs. Harte. But I’ll stay here, just hang around in the vicinity. I’ll be about when you come out.’

  Emma nodded and stepped out of the car, assisted by the doorman in his dark green uniform and tall top hat. She walked towards the wall of sandbags, which had been built around the front entrance of the hotel after war was declared on September the third last year. This offered protection, as did the shingles which, according to Blackie, had been added to the roof at the same time; he seemed to know everything about his beloved Dorch.

  Making her way across the elegant front hall, Emma was instantly struck by the activity. People were milling around, others standing chatting, bellboys and porters were rushing about their duties and telephones were ringing insistently.

  To Emma, the Dorchester lobby appeared to be busier than usual, a veritable hive of activity. But then the whole of London was hectic these days, teeming with troops, both enlisted men and officers, American war correspondents who were based here, and the sad, rather forlorn-looking refugees who had flooded in from Europe. Many of them were Jews fleeing persecution, and her heart went out to them.

  Inclining her head, smiling at the head concierge with whom she was acquainted, she walked on, went through the larger hall, making for the restaurant, unaware of the swathe she cut, the eyes that followed her progress with great interest.

  At the restaurant entrance the maître d’ greeted her pleasantly, and then escorted her through to the table where Blackie was seated with David Kallinski.

  Both men rose as she approached, and they greeted her with much affection, each of them kissing her on the cheek.

  Once the maître d’ had pulled out her chair and seen that she was seated, he departed discreetly. Now Emma looked from Blackie to David, and said in a loving voice, ‘It’s wonderful to see my boys. I’ve missed you both.’

  They both beamed at her, and Blackie cocked his head on one side, his black eyes narrowing slightly as he said, with a small delighted chuckle, ‘Well, mavourneen, I can see you’ve been titivating yourself up a bit, and all I can say is that you’re a sight for sore eyes. And a mighty bonny one at that, my lass.’

  ‘My lass indeed! Some lass,’ she shot back dryly, but nonetheless her expression was warm and her deep-green eyes were merrier than they had been in a long time. ‘Thank you, Blackie darling. You’re a sight for sore eyes, too, and so are you, David. It’s been weeks since you were in town.’ Reaching out, Emma laid her hand on his arm affectionately. ‘You have to come to London more often, so I can pamper you a little bit.’

  ‘I will,’ David replied. ‘And I’ve missed you, Emma. Blackie’s right, you know.’ He cast an appraising eye over her, and added, ‘You’re bonnier than ever.’

  ‘Sounds to me as if you’ve kissed that famous stone in Ireland that Blackie O’Neill embraced so enthusiastically donkey’s years ago,’ Emma murmured. ‘But it’s a nice compliment, and I thank you. I decided tonight it was time to put away all the black mourning clothes, cut my hair, and titivate myself a bit, as Blackie so aptly calls it. I suddenly realized I had to come back to the land of living, because life is for the living. Paul would be the first to say that, David, and so would Rebecca.’

  He nodded, and forced a smile. ‘I agree with you, and I’ve managed to bring my sadness to heel…at least I hope I have.’ He threw Blackie a questioning look.

  ‘David’s been wonderful today, Emm. The best I’ve seen him in a month of Sundays.’

  ‘Your hair is as beautiful as always,’ David now said, obviously appreciating her, gazing at her, and when he smiled it was a natural smile, full of love. That he was glad to see her was most apparent. He had always adored her.

  And so had Blackie, who asked, ‘And now, me darlin’, what would you be wanting to drink?’

  ‘Oh Blackie, I think I’d like a glass of champagne. Yes, that would be nice.’

  ‘Right away. David and I are enjoying a drop of good Irish, but we might partake of the bubbly later, so I’ll order a bottle. What would you be preferring?’

  ‘Pol Roger is my new favourite, thanks, Blackie.’

  Blackie nodded, motioned to the waiter, who was by his side in an instant. After Blackie had given the order, and the waiter was out of earshot, Emma asked, ‘How’s Bryan? Is he all right?’

  ‘Aye, Emma
love, he is, although as I keep telling you, I’m not too happy he joined up so quickly. But these young lads are in such a hurry, wanting to do their bit for their country, full of patriotism, itching to fight the Jerries, just as we were in the Great War.’

  ‘I don’t think you were all that keen,’ Emma murmured thoughtfully, throwing him a knowing look. ‘If I remember correctly, you and Joe were quite late joining up. You both waited to be called up, as a matter of fact…married men last, that was the rule of the day. I’m positive you and Joe joined the Seaforth Highlanders in 1916, after the Compulsory Service Act was passed in March of that year. I’ve a good memory, you know.’

  ‘I don’t be doubting,’ he said, ‘and aye, you’re quite right about the year. Nineteen sixteen it was.’

  Turning to David, Emma reached out to him when she said, ‘Ronnie and Mark will be all right, David. Try not to worry so much about them.’

  ‘I do try, but it’s awfully hard,’ he answered, attempting to sound more cheerful, making an enormous effort for her. She was so brave and strong, he didn’t want to appear weak in her eyes.

  Blackie, listening to Emma comforting David, was suddenly flooded with memories of the Great War. Yes, she was right, he and Joe had gone only when they had to, shipping out in 1916, sent to France and the Battle of the Somme. He thought of the rain. And the mud; he had been knee-deep in it in the trenches. He could almost smell the cordite, and the sound of the cannonade seemed to reverberate in his head. Pure hell it had been. The kind of hell he prayed his son would not have to face. The Battle of the Somme.…where Joe had been killed. Emma’s first husband, Joe Lowther, the father of Kit. And now Kit was with the British Expeditionary Force, fighting another war with Germany. The last one had only ended twenty-odd years ago. He prayed that Kit, and Bryan and David’s sons did not become cannon fodder. He prayed for all of the boys at the front…