A Woman of Substance by Barbara Taylor Bradford
Emma said, in a voice that was surprisingly steady, ‘I am not going to die, Daisy, I have you to live for now.’
It was a glorious afternoon in late September, sunny and warm and with a cloudless sky that was radiant with light. But Emma shivered as she walked wearily across the drawing room. She huddled in a chair in front of the fire, warming herself, her thoughts on her sons. War had been declared on September 3, and although she had been too bereaved to pay attention then, the situation could no longer be ignored. Britain was mobilizing with the same speed and efficiency it had displayed in her youth, and she knew that they would be in for a long siege.
Feeling warmer, she shifted in the chair. As she did a shaft of bright sunlight illuminated the ravages her grief had wrought. She had shed pounds and looked painfully thin in the simple black wool dress, its severity unrelieved by jewellery. The only pieces she wore were Paul’s rings, and a watch. But her hair was bright and crackling with life.
‘Here I am, me darlin’,’ Blackie called from the doorway, startling her. She rose to greet him, managing a smile. ‘It’s lovely to see you, Blackie dear,’ Emma said, embracing him.
He enveloped her in his arms and held her tightly to his broad chest, and he choked up as he felt the fragility of her body. She was a bag of bones. He held her away, looked down into her face, and put his hand under her chin. ‘You’re a sight for sore eyes, mavourneen. It’s grand to see you up and about.’
They sat in front of the fire and talked for a while about the war and the probability that the boys would enlist imminently. ‘Bryan is in London with me,’ Blackie told her. ‘He wanted to come with me today, but I wasn’t sure you’d be up to it.’
‘Oh, Blackie, I am disappointed. I’d love to see him,’ she exclaimed, her face brightening. ‘Could he come tomorrow? You know how dear Bryan is to me.’
‘Sure and he can. I’ll bring him meself.’ Blackie now gave her a guarded look. ‘When do you think you’ll be fit enough to go back to the store?’
‘Next week. The doctor was against it, actually. He thinks I should go to Yorkshire for a rest. But I simply can’t neglect the business any longer, and it’s just not fair to Winston. He’s carrying all the responsibility. Besides, he ought to go back to Leeds. We’ve a lot of reorganizing to do.’
‘I know what you mean. I’m facing the same problems. Anyway, Emma, I think it’s a good idea for you to get back into the harness again. You must keep your mind occupied, so that you don’t dwell on things.’
Her face clouded momentarily. ‘Yes, that’s true.’ The maid knocked and came in with the tea tray. Emma eyed the heavy Georgian teapot warily, wondering if she had the strength to lift it. For days she had been like a woman with the palsy, dropping and spilling things. She lifted it carefully and poured two cups, and to her relief her hands did not tremble for once.
She said, ‘I spoke to David yesterday. He sounded very down in the dumps. Ronnie and Mark have already joined up. He’s going to miss them terribly. They’ve been his whole life since Rebecca died.’
He observed the sudden mistiness in her eyes and said swiftly, ‘He’ll be all right, Emma. Tell you what, I’ll take him under my wing when I get back to Leeds. Get him out of that great mausoleum where he lives in such solitary splendour. It’ll do him good to start socializing again.’
‘I wish you would, darling. I do worry about him.’ Emma looked into the fire reflectively, and when she turned back to Blackie her expression was sorrowful. ‘How does one go on, Blackie? It’s so hard, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but not impossible, Emma. Not for someone with your courage.’
‘I haven’t been very strong these past few weeks,’ she said drearily.
‘You can’t rush it, Emma. You’ll have a lot of readjusting to do. You must give yourself time, darlin’.’
‘However did you manage after Laura died?’ she asked.
‘I sometimes wondered that myself at the time.’ He smiled faintly. ‘After I went back to the front I tried my damnedest to catch a bullet, to get myself killed. But the good Lord protected me from me own foolishness. After the war it took me a long time to forgive myself for being alive, but once I did I started to live again. I looked around and became aware of my responsibilities, my duty to Bryan. He was a great help, Emma. A great source of sustenance. As Daisy will be for you. That child, of all your children, is the most like you in character. She understands you and she worships you, mavourneen.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Emma responded quietly, and looked away again. ‘I just—just—just don’t know how I can go on without Paul.’
Blackie took her hand and held it tightly. ‘You can, darlin’. You will. The human soul has great fortitude.’ He paused and his black eyes swept over her piteous face. He said gently, ‘Do you remember what Laura said to you when she was dying? I’ve never forgotten the words since you repeated them to me, and they have helped me many times. Do you remember what she said about death, Emma?’
Emma nodded. ‘Yes, I remember her words as if she had spoken them only yesterday. Laura said there was no such thing as death in her lexicon, and that as long as I lived and you lived she would live, too, for we would carry the memory of her in our hearts for ever.’
Blackie said, ‘Aye, mavourneen, and she was a wise lady, my Laura. She truly believed that, as I have come to believe it, and as you must. It will help you, I know. And just as I have Bryan, you have Paul’s daughter. She is part of his flesh, part of him, and you must cleave to that and take strength from it.’
His words seemed to give her comfort and so he continued. ‘You also told me Laura said God doesn’t give us a burden that is too heavy to bear. She was right, Emma. Think on that.’ He sighed under his breath. ‘I know you are heartbroken and that you feel lost and alone. But none of us are alone, Emma. We all have God, and God has helped me over the years. Why don’t you try Him on for size?’
Emma’s eyes widened. ‘You know I don’t believe in God.’
Observing the look on her face, Blackie refrained from making any further comments and wisely talked of other things.
But later, when he left Emma’s house, Blackie walked to the Brompton Oratory. He crossed himself on entering that fine old church, sat down in a pew, and lifted his face to the altar. And he prayed to God to give Emma comfort and courage in her crushing loss, and he prayed for her soul.
Before she went to bed that night, Emma sat at the window in her bedroom for several hours, dwelling on those words of Laura’s. The sky was a peculiar cobalt blue, clear yet intense, and shining with hundreds of stars, and a pale silver moon rode high in the heavens. Its beauty was so perfectly revealed to her it made her catch her breath and she suddenly had the most overwhelming sense of the Infinite. It was a feeling she had never experienced before and she was strangely moved as she sat gazing at that incredible night sky. And then it seemed to her that Paul was with her in the room. And she thought: But of course he is, for he is in my heart always. And she drew strength from this knowledge, and that night she slept a deep and untroubled sleep.
Two days later Emma received a letter from Paul. It had been posted the day before his death and it had taken three weeks to arrive. She looked at it for a long time before she finally found the courage to slit open the envelope and take out the letter.
My dearest darling Emma:
You are my life. I cannot live without my life. But I cannot live with you. And so I must end my miserable existence, for there is no future for us together now. Lest you think my suicide an act of weakness, let me reassure you that it is not. It is an act of strength and of will, for by committing it I gratefully take back that control over myself which I have lost in the past few months. It is a final act of power over my own fate.
It is the only way out for me, my love, and I will die with your name on my lips, the image of you before my eyes, my love for you secure in my heart always. We have been lucky, Emma. We have had so many good years together and shared so muc
I did not send for you because I did not want you to be tied to a helpless cripple, if only for a few months at the most. Perhaps I was wrong. On the other hand, I want you to remember me as I was, and not what I have become since the accident. Pride? Maybe. But try to understand my reasons, and try, my darling, to find it in your heart to forgive me.
I have great faith in you, my dearest Emma. You are not faint of heart. You are strong and dauntless, and you will go on courageously. You must. For there is our child to consider. She is the embodiment of our love, and I know you will cherish and care for her, and bring her up to be as brave and as stalwart and as loving as you are yourself. I give her into your trust, my darling.
By the time you receive this I will be dead. But I will live on in Daisy. She is your future now, my Emma. And mine.
I love you with all my heart and soul and mind, and I pray to God that one day we will be reunited in Eternity.
I kiss you, my darling.
Paul
Emma was motionless in the chair, clutching the letter, the tears seeping out of her eyes and rolling silently down her pale cheeks. She saw him in her mind’s eye, tall and handsome, his deep violet eyes laughing, and she remembered him as he wanted her to remember him. She thought of the years and the joy and love he had given her. And she forgave him, now understanding, and with great compassion, both his dilemma and his motives.
At the beginning of October, Mel Harrison took a four-engined ‘C Class’ Qantas flying boat from Sydney to Karachi, and there boarded an English aeroplane that provided the link to Great Britain. Several days later he arrived in London. His purpose: to see Emma and present Paul McGill’s will to the solicitors who handled the McGill legal work in England and Europe.
Emma, austerely dressed in black, appeared wan and fragile, yet she was composed when she arrived at Price, Ellis, and Watson for the reading of Paul McGill’s last will and testament. Winston, Frank, and Henry Rossiter accompanied her.
‘Paul made you the executrix of his estate,’ Mel informed her as she sat down. She was taken by surprise, but she simply nodded, at a loss for words.
There were bequests to servants, to old and loyal employees, and a two-million-pound trust fund had been created to provide for his wife and son during their lifetimes. Upon their deaths it was to go to charity. His entire estate he had willed to Emma in perpetuity, passing to Daisy upon her death, and from Daisy to her progeny. To Emma’s astonishment Paul had left her everything he owned, holdings worth well over two hundred million pounds. He had made her one of the richest women in the world and their daughter the heiress to a great fortune. But the thing that moved Emma the most was the fact that Paul had accorded her the respect and consideration generally reserved for a man’s legal widow and not his common-law wife. In death, as in life, Paul had declared his devotion and love for her, had acknowledged her to the whole world. And into her hands had passed the McGill dynasty for safekeeping.
FIFTY-NINE
Emma’s grief was a mantle of iron, but slowly she came to grips with her heartache. In all truth, her sorrow did not really lessen and she missed Paul and yearned for him constantly, but she took control of her emotions, and as the weeks passed she began to function like her old self. Also, her anguish was muted by the circumstances of her life and the world crisis which had developed.
She was beset by the most pressing problems as England plunged into the European conflict, and consequently her energies were taxed to the fullest, leaving little time or strength for self-indulgences. Her sons joined the forces, Kit enlisting in the army, Robin in the Royal Air Force.
Elizabeth, who had enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in the summer of 1939, was quietly married to Tony Barkstone during the Christmas holidays. Although Elizabeth was only eighteen and still too flighty to marry, in Emma’s opinion, she did not have the heart to object. Everyone had to grasp happiness when they could, especially in these terrible times, and, in spite of her misgivings, she gave her blessing. The young couple were obviously head over heels in love, and Emma approved of Tony, who was a friend of Robin’s from Cambridge and also a pilot in the RAF.
Despite the austerity, a spirit of gaiety prevailed at the wedding and all of the family were briefly reunited, with the exception of Edwina, who was still estranged from Emma, and Kit, who was unable to get leave. June, his wife of one year, came up to London for the occasion and stayed with Emma through the New Year. In January of 1940, Elizabeth dropped out of the Royal Academy to become a Red Cross nurse, much to Emma’s amazement. ‘But I thought you always dreamed of being a famous actress and seeing your name in lights,’ she exclaimed when she heard the news. ‘Oh, phooey to all that nonsense,’ Elizabeth quickly responded. ‘I feel I must be part of the war effort, too, Mummy.’ Emma was soon impressed by Elizabeth’s seriousness and her dedication to nursing, and she began to think the marriage would be the stabilizing influence her most wayward child needed.
The news grew more distressing by the day, and in March Emma contemplated sending Daisy to America to live with the Nelsons at their Hudson River estate. But the more she thought about it, the more she balked, acknowledging that the transatlantic crossing could be hazardous, and she decided that the child’s present location at boarding school in Ascot was probably the safest place.
As the year progressed, Emma threw herself into work with a vengeance, but she welcomed the distraction it offered. Henry Rossiter, who had handled some of her business in the past, became her financial adviser on a full-time basis, since she now had all the McGill holdings to supervise as well as her own. She was in constant touch with Mel Harrison in Sydney and Harry Marriott in Texas, and her days were longer and more arduous than ever before as her responsibilities increased. But she took everything in her stride. She was the dynamo she had been in her youth, and most especially during the First World War when she had also been left to cope single-handedly. If Emma’s face grew graver by the day, then so did every other face in England, for the country was held in the grip of fulminating desperation as Hitler’s blitzkrieg continued unabated.
Towards the end of May, just after his fifty-fourth birthday, David Kallinski came to London to discuss their mutual business interests with Emma. He was still a good-looking man and those penetrating blue eyes had not dimmed, although his hair was iron grey and he had thickened around the waist. His devotion to Emma had remained constant over the years and he was always concerned about her. To his relief, when she greeted him at the house in Belgrave Square, he immediately saw that her face had lost its gaunt look and her beauty was returning, and she had also put on a little weight. Later they were joined by Blackie, and after a light supper they adjourned to the library for coffee and liqueurs, their conversation revolving around the war.
‘Do you think we’ll be able to get the boys off the beaches in time?’ Emma asked, thinking not only of Kit, and Ronnie and Mark Kallinski, but of the thousands of other British troops stranded in Dunkirk.
‘If anybody can do it, by God, Winston Churchill can!’ Blackie asserted. He shifted in his chair and went on, ‘He’s assembled an armada the likes of which the world has never seen, albeit a motley one. But it’s united in one goal—getting our boys safely home to Deal and Ramsgate before they are annihilated by the Germans advancing across the Low Countries into France.’
‘I read they came from all over England to assist the Royal Navy’s destroyers,’ David interjected, puffing on his cigar. ‘Volunteers from all walks of life, with their rowing boats, sailing boats, fishing trawlers, yachts, pleasure steamers, and even barges. It’s the most wonderful display of patriotism and heroism I’ve heard of in my lifetime.’
Blackie nodded. ‘Aye, it is, David. Seven hundred vessels of all shapes and sizes, including the destroyers, of course. It seems the volunteers are picking up the men an
‘How long do you think the evacuation will take?’ Emma inquired quietly, looking from Blackie to David with consternation.
David said, ‘A few days longer at least. There are hundreds of thousands of British and French troops to lift off, you know.’
‘I read today that the Luftwaffe is keeping up a steady bombardment of the beaches,’ Emma said. ‘I dread to think of the casualties.’
There are bound to be some, Emma,’ Blackie said. ‘But the RAF boys are up there in their fighter planes doing their damnedest to—’
‘Bryan, Robin, and Tony amongst them, Blackie,’ Emma interjected, and she looked away.
‘We all feel frustrated and helpless, sitting here in London. But all we can do is pray that our sons will be safe. And we must be cheerful,’ Blackie said. ‘Now come along, let’s have another drink. It will do us good.’ As she fixed their drinks Blackie’s eyes strayed to the clock on the mantelshelf. ‘Do you mind if we turn the radio on, Emma? Winston Churchill’s about to speak.’
‘No, of course not. I’d like to hear him myself.’ She rose and fiddled with the knob, tuning in to the BBC, and a moment later the familiar rhetorical voice rang out: ‘Good evening. This is the Prime Minister.’ The three old friends, who had shared so much in the past thirty years, sat back to listen, even more strongly joined together by fear for their sons and all the sons of England. When the Prime Minister had finished, Emma’s eyes stung and her voice quavered when she said, ‘What an inspiration that man is to us all. God help us if we didn’t have Churchill.’
The epic of Dunkirk gripped the imagination of England and her allies. Out of hell came back all the little steamers and rowing boats and pleasure steamers, bringing back the living and the wounded. The evacuation had taken eleven days, and 340,000 Allied troops had been rescued by the time the Germans captured the French sea town. Only 40,000, mostly French, were left behind. Emma and David were lucky. Amongst those to land at Ramsgate on June 1 and 2 were Ronnie and Mark, and on June 3 Kit stepped off the barge that had transported him to Deal across a choppy Channel jammed with vessels and wreckage. Kit told Emma later, when he came home on leave, ‘I just made it by the skin of my teeth, Mother. I must have a guardian angel watching over me.’ He embraced her tightly, and, clinging to him, she choked up, thinking of his father, who had died in France in 1916, apparently in vain.