Emma’s Secret

Despite the closeness of their families, they had only run into each other once since, and that was at Christmas here at Pennistone Royal. But like Tessa, Julian had fled as quickly as he could without appearing rude.

She closed her eyes, saw him in her mind’s eye. Tall, slender, darkly handsome, with the most penetrating blue eyes she had ever seen. His cold blues, she called them, when he got angry.

Linnet felt a sudden and terrible longing for him, and she was momentarily startled. He had been part of her life for as long as she could remember, from the time they were toddlers, and an indispensable part of her existence since she was fifteen. She missed him …

‘I’m sorry I’m so late.’

Linnet snapped her eyes open with a start, and straightened against the stepladder. Her cousin, India Standish, was hovering in the doorway, carrying her own shopping basket, her tortoiseshell glasses pushed up on top of her mass of curly, pale blonde hair.

India was twenty-seven but looked much younger, and was pretty in a soft, delicate way. She had large, luminous, silvery-grey eyes and an expressive, sensitive face, reminiscent of the Fairleys. She had their blood running through her veins. Without a doubt, India was the most popular person in the family. She was considerate, gentle in her ways, and had an understanding heart. Everyone loved her.

Walking into the attic, India asked with a small frown, ‘Is something wrong, Linnet?’

‘No, I’m fine. Why?’

‘You’re rather pale, and you look … well, slightly troubled.’

‘Oh, it’s nothing of any importance, India,’ Linnet answered and, pushing her mobile into the pocket of her loden-green trousers, she continued more briskly, ‘I pulled out that very big box over there on the table, and a lot of others fell down. We’d better pick them up. Maybe the missing dress is in one of them.’

‘Don’t worry, darling, we’ll find it,’ India murmured in her soothing voice which held a lovely lilt, a hint of her upbringing on the estate at Clonloughlin, which belonged to her father Anthony, the Earl of Dunvale.

Placing her shopping basket of tools on the table, India added, ‘I’m quite sure we can finish everything by tomorrow night, so don’t worry.’

‘I hope we can. We have to go back to London on Monday morning. Early. We’ve a lot to do at the store, India.’ As she spoke, Linnet carried one of the larger boxes to the table; India did likewise.

Together, the two great-granddaughters of Emma Harte sorted through the flat boxes which contained so many things that had belonged to their famous forebear. But after an hour’s search the beaded dress had not turned up.

‘It can’t have walked away. It must be somewhere,’ Linnet remarked to India, and then hurried off down an aisle between the racks. ‘Let’s look in that big built-in cupboard in the smaller attic next door. Maybe we’ll be lucky,’ she said, disappearing from view.

India hurried after her. ‘I think that built-in is full of suitcases; old leather suitcases that belonged to Grandy.’

‘I don’t remember seeing any there,’ Linnet answered, sounding puzzled. ‘I wonder who could have put them there?’

‘Who knows. But certainly Aunt Emily might easily have packed the evening gown in one of them,’ India suggested.

‘She was positive she’d put it back in the box she’d found it in, one with a faded Harte’s label on the lid. But she could be mistaken,’ Linnet said over her shoulder. ‘After all, it was years ago.’

‘To be sure it was,’ India murmured.

A moment later the cousins stood in the smaller attic staring at the shelves in the tall cupboard. It was stacked to the hilt with boxes. But just as India had said, there were also a number of leather cases on the lower shelves.

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.

CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_38d514b0-9ce0-5447-95e6-709c4788230a)

Although 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.