EMMA BARRINGTON
1939–1941
6
‘SEBASTIAN ARTHUR CLIFTON,’ said Emma, handing the sleeping child to his grandmother.
Maisie beamed as she took her grandson in her arms for the first time.
‘They wouldn’t let me come and see you before I was packed off to Scotland,’ said Emma, making no attempt to hide her scorn. ‘That’s why I called you the moment I got back to Bristol.’
‘That was kind of you,’ said Maisie, as she stared intently at the little boy, trying to convince herself that Sebastian had inherited her husband’s fair hair and clear blue eyes.
Emma sat at the kitchen table, smiled and sipped her tea: Earl Grey, how typical of Maisie to remember. And cucumber and salmon sandwiches, Harry’s favourite, which must have emptied her ration book. As she looked around the room, her eyes settled on the mantelpiece, where she spotted a sepia photograph of a private soldier from the first war. How Emma wished she could see the shade of his hair, hidden under the helmet, or even the colour of his eyes. Were they blue, like Harry’s, or brown, like hers? Arthur Clifton cut a dashing figure in his army uniform. The square jaw and the determined looked showed Emma that he’d been proud to serve his country. Her gaze moved on to a more recent photo of Harry singing in the St Bede’s school choir, just before his voice broke, and next to that, propped against the wall, was an envelope displaying Harry’s unmistakable hand. She assumed it was the last letter he had written to his mother before he died. She wondered if Maisie would allow her to read it. She stood up and walked across to the mantelpiece, and was surprised to find that the envelope hadn’t been opened.
‘I was so sorry to hear you had to leave Oxford,’ Maisie ventured, when she saw Emma staring at the envelope.
‘Given the choice of continuing with my degree or having Harry’s child, there was no contest,’ said Emma, her eyes still fixed on the letter.
‘And Sir Walter tells me that your brother Giles joined the Wessex regiment, but has sadly been—’
‘I see you had a letter from Harry,’ interrupted Emma, unable to contain herself.
‘No, it’s not from Harry,’ said Maisie. ‘It’s from a Lieutenant Thomas Bradshaw who served with him on the SS Devonian.’
‘What does Lieutenant Bradshaw have to say?’ asked Emma, aware that the envelope hadn’t been opened.
‘I’ve no idea,’ said Maisie. ‘A Dr Wallace delivered it to me, and said it was a letter of condolence. I didn’t feel I needed any more reminders of Harry’s death, so I never opened it.’
‘But isn’t it possible that it might throw some light on what happened on the Devonian?’
‘I doubt it,’ Maisie replied, ‘after all, they’d only known each other for a few days.’
‘Would you like me to read the letter to you, Mrs Clifton?’ Emma asked, aware that Maisie might be embarrassed by having to admit she couldn’t read.
‘No, thank you, my dear,’ Maisie replied. ‘After all, it’s not going to bring Harry back, is it?’
‘I agree,’ said Emma, ‘but perhaps you would allow me to read it for my own peace of mind,’ she said.
‘With the Germans targeting the docks at night,’ said Maisie, ‘I hope Barrington’s hasn’t been too badly affected.’
‘We’ve escaped a direct hit,’ said Emma, reluctantly accepting that she wasn’t going to be allowed to read the letter. ‘Mind you, I doubt even the Germans would dare to drop a bomb on Gramps.’
Maisie laughed, and for a moment Emma considered snatching the envelope from the mantelpiece and ripping it open before Maisie could stop her. But Harry would never have approved of that. If Maisie were to leave the room, even for a moment, Emma would use the steaming kettle to unseal the envelope, check the signature and make sure it was back in its place before she returned.
But it was almost as if Maisie could read her thoughts, because she remained by the mantelpiece and didn’t budge.
‘Gramps tells me congratulations are in order,’ said Emma, still refusing to give up.
Maisie blushed, and began to chat about her new appointment at the Grand Hotel. Emma’s eyes remained on the envelope. She carefully checked the M, the C, the S, the H and the L in the address, knowing that she would have to keep the image of those letters in her mind’s eye, like a photograph, until she returned to the Manor House. When Maisie handed little Sebastian back to her, explaining that sadly she had to get back to work, Emma reluctantly stood up, but not before she had given the envelope one last look.
On the way back to the Manor House, Emma tried to keep the image of the handwriting in her mind, thankful that Sebastian had fallen into a deep sleep. As soon as the car came to a halt on the gravel outside the front steps, Hudson opened the back door to allow Emma to get out and carry her son into the house. She took him straight up to the nursery, where Nanny Barrington was waiting for them. To Nanny’s surprise, Emma kissed him on the forehead and left without a word.
Once she was in her own room, Emma unlocked the centre drawer of her writing desk and pulled out a stack of letters that Harry had written to her over the years.
The first thing she checked was the capital H of Harry’s signature, so plain and bold, just like the H in Still House Lane on Maisie’s unopened envelope. This gave her confidence to carry on with the quest. She next searched for a capital C, and eventually found one on a Christmas card, with the bonus of the capital M of Merry: the same M and the same C as Mrs Clifton on the envelope. Harry must surely be alive, she kept repeating out loud. Finding a Bristol was easy, but England was more difficult, until she came across a letter he’d written to her from Italy when they were both still at school. It took her over an hour to neatly cut out the thirty-nine letters and two numbers, before she was able to reproduce the address on the envelope.
Mrs M. Clifton
27 Still House Lane
Bristol
England
Emma collapsed exhausted on to her bed. She had no idea who Thomas Bradshaw was, but one thing was certain: the unopened letter propped on Maisie’s mantelpiece had been written by Harry, and for some reason, best known to himself, he didn’t want her to know he was still alive. She wondered if he would have thought differently had he known she was pregnant with his child, before he set off on that fateful voyage.
Emma was desperate to share the news that Harry might not be dead with her mother, Gramps, Grace and of course Maisie, but she realized she would have to remain silent until she had more conclusive proof than an unopened letter. A plan began to form in her mind.
Emma didn’t go down for dinner that evening, but remained in her room and continued to try to fathom out why Harry would want everyone except his mother to believe he’d died that night.
When she climbed into bed just before midnight, she could only assume that it must have been for what he considered a matter of honour. Perhaps he imagined, poor, foolish, disillusioned man, that it would release her from any obligation she might feel towards him. Didn’t he realize that from the first moment she’d set eyes on him, at her brother’s birthday party when she was only ten years old, there was never going to be another man in her life?
Emma’s family had been delighted when she and Harry became engaged eight years later, with the exception of her father, who had for so long been living a lie – a lie that wasn’t exposed until the day of their wedding. The two of them were standing at the altar, about to take their vows, when Old Jack had brought the ceremony to an unrehearsed and unexpected close. The revelation that Emma’s father might also be Harry’s father didn’t stop her loving Harry, and it never would. No one was surprised that Harry behaved like a gentleman, while Emma’s father had remained true to his character, and behaved like a cad. One stood and faced the music, while the other slunk out of the back door of the vestry and hadn’t been seen since.
Harry had made it clear, long before he asked Emma to be his wife, that if war was declared he wouldn’t hesitate to leave Oxford and join the Royal Navy. He was a stubborn man at the best of times, and these were the worst of times. Emma realized there was no point in trying to dissuade him, as nothing she could say or do would have changed his mind. He had also warned her that he would not consider returning to Oxford until the Germans had surrendered.
Emma had also left Oxford early, but unlike Harry, she hadn’t been given a choice. For her there would be no chance of returning. Pregnancy was frowned upon at Somerville, and even more so when you weren’t married to the father. The decision must have broken her mother’s heart. Elizabeth Barrington had so wanted her daughter to achieve the academic accolades that she had been denied for no other reason than her sex. A rare glimmer of light appeared on the horizon a year later, when Emma’s younger sister Grace won an open scholarship to Girton College, Cambridge, and from the day she’d arrived in that seat of learning she had outshone the brightest men.
Once it became obvious that Emma was pregnant, she was whisked off to her grandfather’s estate in Scotland, to give birth to Harry’s child. Barringtons don’t produce illegitimate offspring, at least not in Bristol. Sebastian was crawling around the castle before the prodigal daughter was allowed to return to the Manor House. Elizabeth had wanted them to remain at Mulgelrie until the war was over, but Emma had had more than enough of being hidden away in a remote Scottish castle.
One of the first people she visited after returning to the West Country was her grandfather, Sir Walter Barrington. It had been he who had told her that Harry had joined the crew of the SS Devonian, and planned to return to Bristol within the month, as he intended to sign up as an ordinary seaman on HMS Resolution. Harry never returned, and six weeks went by before she learned that her lover had been buried at sea.
Sir Walter had taken it upon himself to visit each member of the family one by one, to inform them of the tragic news. He’d begun with Mrs Clifton, although he knew she had already heard what had happened from Dr Wallace, who had passed on Thomas Bradshaw’s letter. He next travelled up to Scotland to break the news to Emma. Sir Walter was surprised that his granddaughter didn’t shed a tear, but then Emma simply refused to accept that Harry was dead.
Once he’d returned to Bristol, Sir Walter visited Giles and told him the news. Harry’s closest friend had sunk into a desolate silence, and there was nothing any of the family could say or do to console him. When Lord and Lady Harvey heard the news of Harry’s death, they were stoical. A week later, when the family attended Captain Jack Tarrant’s memorial service at Bristol Grammar School, Lord Harvey remarked that he was glad Old Jack had never found out what had happened to his protégé.
The only person in the family Sir Walter refused to visit was his son, Hugo. He made an excuse about not knowing how to get in touch with him, but when Emma returned to Bristol he admitted to her that even if he had known, he wouldn’t have bothered, and added that her father was probably the one person who would be pleased that Harry was dead. Emma said nothing, but didn’t doubt that he was right.
For several days after her visit to Maisie in Still House Lane, Emma had spent hours alone in her room endlessly considering what she might do with her new-found knowledge. She concluded that there was no way she could hope to discover the contents of the letter that had rested on the mantelpiece for more than a year, without harming her relationship with Maisie. However, Emma resolved not only to prove to the whole world that Harry was still alive, but to find him, wherever he might be. With that in mind, she made another appointment to see her grandfather. After all, Sir Walter Barrington was the only person other than Maisie who’d met Dr Wallace, so he must surely be her best chance of unravelling the mystery of exactly who Thomas Bradshaw was.