Emma’s Secret (7 page)

The young women lost no time in taking out all of the boxes, and as soon as Linnet saw one with an old Harte’s label attached to the lid, she shrieked.
‘Voilà!
I bet it’s in here!’ At once she pulled the lid off, and was staring down at a glittering mass of pale blue and emerald-green bugle beads. ‘We’ve found it!’ she exclaimed triumphantly, then lifted the gown out of the box, held it up to the light, gazing at it. ‘Isn’t it beautiful, India?’ She pressed the beaded sheath against her body, stood looking down at the dress.

‘Grandy must have been a sensation when she wore it, don’t you think?’ India said. ‘What with her red hair and green eyes. And you don’t look half bad yourself, the way you’re holding it against your body. The colours are wonderful for you. You know, Linnet, it has a sea-like effect, all those blues and greens mingling.’ India gave Linnet a big smile. ‘The gown seems to undulate when you move. Maybe you should keep it for yourself. You love vintage clothes more than anyone I know.’

‘It’s too valuable,’ Linnet responded, laughing. ‘And the beading has been very cleverly worked, that’s why it undulates,’ she explained, then carefully laid the dress on top of the long table. She began to examine the embroidery and the overall workmanship, marvelling at both as she scrutinized the gown intently. She was amazed at its condition, realized how well it had been preserved over the years, which was the reason it looked almost new.

In the meantime, India had made a discovery of her own, and she was excited by her find. She exclaimed, ‘Linnet, come over here and look at this.’

‘What is it?’ Linnet asked without turning around, her attention on the lining of the evening gown.

‘It’s a suitcase that belonged to Grandy. I just opened it up and there’s a smaller case inside marked
Private and Confidential.
And her name is on the same luggage label. Oh, and here’s a little key attached with a bit of string to the handle.’

‘What’s inside the smaller case?’

‘I don’t know, I haven’t looked. After all, it is marked private and confidential…’ India’s sentence trailed off as she untied the small key and opened the case, murmuring, ‘Since our great-grandmother has been dead for many years, I suppose I can lift the lid at least.’

‘Of course you can,’ Linnet said confidently.

‘Linnet, please do leave that dress and come and look at what I’ve found.
Please.’

Struck by the excitement and urgency in her cousin’s voice, Linnet jumped up and went to join India on the floor in front of the built-in cupboard.

She crouched down on her haunches next to India and followed her gaze. ‘Oh my God!’ Linnet’s hand flew to her mouth as she stared into the large suitcase. It contained the smaller one, which India had just opened, and Linnet couldn’t believe what she was looking at. Her eyes widened, and she reached out, touched the leather-bound books lying there side by side. What she was seeing made her heart miss a beat. And she was speechless all of a sudden. At last she said in an awed voice, ‘Emma Harte’s wartime diaries. Oh, India, what a find!’ She lifted one out and read the date embossed in gold on the black leather cover. ‘Nineteen thirty-eight. Long before we were born, and even before our parents were born. Gosh…’

‘This is a treasure trove, you know,’ India volunteered. ‘They run right through to nineteen forty-seven. Did you notice that?’

Linnet nodded, then tried the lock on the 1938 diary, which was still in her hands. It opened easily. Linnet was about to look inside the diary, but hesitated, then very resolutely she closed it again.

India, sounding nervous, said, ‘I’m glad you didn’t read anything. I know Grandy’s been dead longer than we’ve been alive, but I think it is rather an invasion of privacy, reading her diaries, don’t you, Linny?’

‘I do, and I think it’s my mother’s decision. After all, she was Emma’s chief heir. My mother should see them first. I’ll take them down to her when we’ve finished up here.’

‘Yes, yes, that’s the wisest thing, to be sure,’ India agreed.

Linnet put the diary back in its given place in the small case, and then slowly smoothed her hand over the ten books, her expression reflective, her eyes suddenly far away, as if she saw something no one else could see. After a moment or two, she focused her attention on the diaries. All of them were bound in black, the year embossed in gold, and she was sure none of them were locked. She could not help being curious about their contents, wondering what secrets they contained, and she longed to read them.

But her integrity, bred in the bone, would not permit her to violate her mother’s trust in her. The golden rule in the family was that anything pertaining to Emma Harte first passed through Paula, head of the Harte dynasty.

Linnet was honour-bound to abide by that rule.

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

A
lthough she was fifty-seven, Paula McGill O’Neill looked younger. Her head of thick, luxuriant dark hair, coming to a widow’s peak above her smooth brow, was still the colour of jet, although she was the first to admit that it got a little help from her hairdresser these days. Her eyes, her most spectacular feature, were still that amazing deep violet, thickly fringed with dark lashes. They had always reflected her intelligence, but wisdom and compassion dwelt there now as well.

She sat in the upstairs parlour at Pennistone Royal with her cousin Emily Harte, but her thoughts were on her daughter Linnet, and Julian Kallinski, whom at one time she had thought Linnet would marry. She wished her daughter had confided in her more; wished that Linnet had not made such sweeping and drastic moves without at least one discussion. But when she herself had been in her twenties she had been headstrong, too; had believed she knew everything.

Oh, what it was to be young and impulsive, and so convinced of the rightness of what one did. She had married Jim Fairley when she was very young, and lived to regret it, as she had come to understand that it was Shane O’Neill who held her heart. But at least things had eventually worked out for her and Shane. They had been married now for almost thirty years, their love growing deeper and deeper with the passing of time.

Eventually, Emily said, as if reading her thoughts, ‘I think Linnet and Julian were made for each other, as you and Shane were—’

‘And you and Winston, too,’ Paula interrupted, as she roused herself from her thoughts of her daughter.

‘True.
Anyway, I was going to say I hope those two begin to realize this, and very soon. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a lovely family wedding in the summer with the three clans present?’

‘You see, there you go, Emily!’ Paula exclaimed, shaking her head. ‘Bringing the clans into it. But yes, you’re right, it would be nice. In the meantime, there’s Gideon for us to worry about. He’s still a bachelor.’

‘He doesn’t settle down with any of the women he dates. Brief encounters, I call them,’ Emily muttered.

‘He just hasn’t met the right woman yet, that’s all,’ Paula asserted. She pushed herself up from the chair, walked across the floor of the upstairs parlour where they were sitting.

Emily’s eyes followed her. She thought her cousin looked beautiful tonight with her new short hairdo: sleek, stylish and youthful. She was wearing a long, straight, amethyst wool skirt and a matching turtleneck sweater that brought out the colour of her eyes and was a foil for her dark hair. The outfit was simple, even a little severe in a way, but it suited Paula, who was tall and slender.

Emily wished she had a figure like Paula’s, but try though she did she always looked slightly plump in comparison. No wonder Paula had affectionately dubbed her Apple Dumpling when she was little. She was still fighting the childhood propensity to put on weight.

In all the years of their growing up together they had never exchanged a cross word or had a quarrel, although sometimes the eight-year-old Paula had reprimanded Emily when she was five and they were staying at Heron’s Nest, Emma’s summer home in Scarborough, and she had been what Paula called ‘a pest’. Cousins, best friends and confidantes, they had been each other’s rock in times of trouble and adversity.

For the most part, these two had been brought up by Emma, were trained by her, and today they ran a large part of her empire between them, and did so with great skill. They were devoted to their grandmother’s memory, and in a sense they were the keepers of the flame.

Pausing at the door of the bedroom which adjoined the upstairs parlour, Paula said, ‘There’s something I want to show you before the others arrive.’

‘What?’

‘Linnet and India found it in the storage attics and—’

‘The famous beaded dress!’ Emily declared triumphantly.

‘No, not the dress. Oh, they found that all right, but they came across something else, something much more important.’

‘Hurry up then, I’m intrigued.’ Emily sat back, an expectant look on her face.

A moment later Paula came back carrying the old brown leather suitcase, the small one which contained the diaries. She placed it on the coffee table in front of Emily, and then, leaning forward, she lifted the lid.

‘This is it,’ she said, glancing over her shoulder to look at her cousin.

‘What’s in it, actually?’ Emily asked, full of curiosity.

‘Grandy’s diaries. From 1938 to 1947. Ten of them, and they’re all in the most beautiful condition. I suspect she stored them in this case for years, and that’s why they’re so well preserved.’

‘Oh my God, what a find!’ Emily cried, leaning forward, staring at the set of black leather, gold-embossed diaries placed side by side in consecutive order within the case. ‘But where on earth have they been all these years? And how is it the girls just found them? I mean, why didn’t
we?’
She glanced at Paula, frowning. ‘How could we have missed them?’

‘You’re going to have a good laugh when I tell you where they were stored for years, Emily.’

‘Where?’

‘In that walk-in closet in the ground floor office.’

‘Not the one which is now called the morning room?’ Emily asked, her eyes wide with surprise.

‘Exactly. They’d been there for years. This one and five others, all part of a matched set of luggage from Asprey. Grandy used that office every day when she was at Pennistone Royal, and for years and years. So it was definitely she who put them there. This small case was actually inside a larger one, otherwise I would have noticed the luggage label marked confidential. Anyway, I moved them when I revamped that room a few months ago.’

‘And you never looked inside any of the cases?’ Emily asked, incredulity echoing in her voice.

‘No. Why would I? They weren’t heavy. I just assumed Grandy had kept them there because there was no space left in the luggage room. Which there isn’t. And it was a convenient place. Actually, I never gave them a second thought, not even when I used that office myself. I had Margaret put them down in the basement when I redecorated.’

‘So how did they find their way to the attics?’

‘Margaret took them up there. We had a dreadful flood in the basement two weeks ago, and she remembered the cases when she was taking other things out to safety. She knew they were good, hardly used, and she put them in the smaller attic, in the first cupboard where there was space.’

‘Thank God she did. If she hadn’t, the cases and the diaries would have been totally ruined, destroyed.’

‘You’re right, we’re lucky she acted so promptly.’

Emily glanced at the open suitcase again, and then turned to her cousin. ‘Have you read any of them?’

‘I haven’t. Linnet only gave them to me a couple of hours ago.’

‘Are you going to?’

‘Eventually, I suppose.’

‘Shall we look inside one now?’ Emily asked. ‘I’m very curious.’

Paula hesitated, and then nodded. ‘All right, if you want to, Emily.’

Reaching into the case, Emily pulled out the diary dated 1938, opened it and glanced at the first page, then she handed it to Paula silently.

After scanning the page in the same cursory way Emily had done, Paula put the diary back in the small suitcase. ‘I don’t think we should be reading these…’

‘I know what you mean, they’re very private. On the other hand, Paula, I have the feeling Gran wouldn’t mind
us
looking at them. I think she’d want us to read them, actually.’

‘Perhaps you’re right. But for now I’m going to lock the case and put it away somewhere safe. And maybe in a few weeks or so we can read them together. If you’d like that, Emily?’

‘Oh yes, I would, that’s a good idea. Gran was articulate, you know, and actually she wrote rather well I thought. She expressed herself most eloquently at times.’ Emily paused, and then leaning toward Paula, she said quietly, ‘I’m sure there are a few secrets in there, don’t you agree?’

‘I don’t really know…did she have any during the war years? Paul was dead and she was grieving, coping with our uncles being in the services, running a big business under wartime conditions. What kind of secrets could she possibly have had?’

‘Well, I didn’t mean sexual, or anything like that! I bet she never wrote that kind of thing down. Really, Paula, Gran was very proper.’

‘She also had a number of husbands, let’s not forget that.’

‘Only two. And two lovers.’

‘And that was that. So I’m sure there are no secrets buried in those diaries.’

‘You never know. Anyway, everyone has secrets,’ Emily pronounced.

‘They do?’ Shane said from the doorway, startling them both, making them jump as he strolled into the room. ‘Are you quite positive of that?’ He was smiling broadly as he came to join them by the fireside.

Paula said, ‘I didn’t get a chance to tell you earlier, Shane, but India found a case full of Grandy’s diaries in the attic. I was just telling Emily about their discovery, showing them to her.’

‘How wonderful,’ he said, glancing at the case on the coffee table. ‘I see they’re her private diaries.’

‘Yes, it’s a great find, but we’ve decided not to read any of them. At least not now.’

Shane looked down at her, his eyes loving as he said, ‘You’ve made a good decision…wait for the right moment. After all, these are sacrosanct…a woman’s private thoughts and feelings. Those should be treated with great respect.’

Later, as she sat near the fireplace in the great Stone Hall, Paula glanced around at her family, as always pleased and happy to have them gathered around her at Pennistone Royal.

Everyone had finally arrived. Shane had mixed drinks for those who wanted whiskey or vodka, and Linnet and India had poured champagne into tall Venetian flutes and passed them around.

Although she rarely drank, Paula had elected to have a glass of champagne tonight, and she sat sipping it, her eyes roaming around the room. They came to rest on her cousin…and staunchly devoted ally, Emily. She was currently engaged in deep conversation with Emsie, the two of them sitting in a corner near the fireplace. Those two had bonded early in Emsie’s young life, and they were particularly close. When Emily had been a teenager, she had loved horses, and had been a champion rider in all manner of equestrian events in Yorkshire. Mucking out stables had been fun for Emily, just as it was for Emsie. They had a lot in common, in many areas, quite aside from loving each other. How pretty Emily looks, Paula thought. Her cousin was wearing a sage-green silk tunic over fir-green wool twill trousers, so narrow and well cut they might have been tailored for a cavalry officer. The green emphasized the loveliness of her eyes, and her soft blonde colouring, while the outfit made her look slimmer, Paula noted.

She experienced a sudden, wonderful surge of warmth and love for Emily, who had been her stalwart companion since childhood. There was nobody like Emily in the whole family, not really. Loving, kind and sincere, she was also a tough businesswoman, direct, with no frills attached, and outspoken to the point of bluntness. There were times, at meetings, when she took Paula’s breath away with her pithy comments, most of which usually made Paula laugh hilariously.

Even Emsie had made a big effort tonight, Paula realized, as her eyes lingered on her seventeen-year-old daughter.
Emsie
…another original, Paula thought, smiling inwardly. Usually she looked dishevelled and grungy in unattractive clothes that Paula wanted to rip off and burn. In fact, the only time she looked halfway decent was when she wore her riding clothes. But tonight there had been a sudden reversal, and Emsie was attractively decked out in scarlet wool trousers and a matching turtleneck sweater, which Paula recognized. Didn’t they belong to Linnet? Well, she’d obviously borrowed them. Red was a marvellous colour for Emsie with her black hair and black eyes.

No mistaking who
she
is, Paula thought, scrutinizing her intently. She was Black Irish, a true Celt, the epitome of an O’Neill. Her eyes swept over the three men in her life: Shane, Desmond and Grandfather Bryan. They were standing together talking near the big armoire, obviously engrossed in some topic, horses and racing, no doubt. Tall, long-legged, broad shouldered all three of them, descended from Shane Patrick Desmond O’Neill, known to the world as Blackie. They had inherited their looks and their colouring from him. Bryan’s hair was pure white now and Shane’s tinged with silver at the sides, but Desmond, at fifteen, had hair as black as coal. Her three devoted men, how she loved them. Like Emsie, the youngest of the clan, they were unmistakably O’Neills right down to their boots.

And there was her other child, Linnet. She was a true Harte, no two ways about that, with red hair shot through with gold and green eyes. She had chosen to wear black trousers and a black sweater with a scooped-out neck, and she looked taller than ever and very slender, her hair a fiery halo around her pale face. Tonight she appeared quiet and reflective, unsmiling. Paula was certain it was because of Julian’s presence.

Shifting slightly in the chair, Paula’s eyes scanned the Stone Hall, and finally she spotted her great ally, Gideon. He was standing at the far end, engrossed in conversation with India, his first cousin and close friend. Like Linnet, Gideon was pure Harte, with dark russet hair and light green eyes, very white teeth in his lean, tanned face. He loved sports and had recently been to Switzerland for five days’ skiing, where he had caught the sun. He was good looking, like his father Winston, and just as stable; devoted to the family in the same way Winston had always been.

Her eyes settled on her cousin Anthony’s daughter, India. Lady India Standish. She had an honorary title as the daughter of an earl. Another blonde in the family, a dainty, fragile-looking girl, with delicate bones and soulful eyes. Soft, gentle; but Paula knew that India had a great deal of strength, and was a true and loyal friend to Linnet. She carried the Fairley blood through her grandmother Edwina, and there were those who said she had a strong look of
her
when
she
had been young. Paula felt protective of India, although Shane laughed at her when she said this, reminding her that India had the courage of a lion and could easily stare down an army without flinching. She was the family’s favourite because of her loving kindness, her tenderness and compassion for others. Paula knew that she was also very brave.