Harry met a very different young woman seven years later, when the grammar school joined Red Maids’ for a combined school production of Romeo and Juliet. It was Elizabeth Barrington, Emma’s mother, who noticed that they continued to hold hands after they’d left the stage.
When the curtain came down on the final performance, Harry admitted to his mother that he’d fallen in love with Emma and wanted to marry her. It had come as a shock that Maisie didn’t seem delighted by the prospect. Emma’s father, Sir Hugo Barrington, made no attempt to hide his feelings, although his wife couldn’t explain why he was so vehemently opposed to any suggestion of them marrying. Surely he couldn’t be that much of a snob? But despite both their parents’ misgivings, Harry and Emma became engaged just before they went up to Oxford. Both virgins, they didn’t sleep together until a few weeks before the wedding.
But the wedding ended in tears because when the college chaplain said, “If any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter, forever hold his peace,” Old Jack, Harry’s mentor and friend, hadn’t held his peace, and told the congregation why he feared he had just cause.
When Harry learned the truth about who his father might be, he was so distraught he immediately left Oxford and joined the Merchant Navy, unaware that Emma was pregnant, or that, while he was crossing the Atlantic, England had declared war on Germany.
It wasn’t until he’d been released from prison, joined the US Army and been blown up by a German landmine, that he finally returned to England to be reunited with Emma, only to discover that he had a three-year-old son called Sebastian. Even then, it was still another two years before the highest court in the land decided that Sir Hugo Barrington was not Harry’s father, but, despite the ruling, both he and Emma were aware that there would always be a lingering doubt about the legitimacy of their marriage in an even higher court.
Harry and Emma had desperately wanted to have a second child, but they agreed not to tell Sebastian why they had decided against it. Harry never, even for a moment, placed any blame on his beloved mother. It hadn’t taken a lot of digging to discover that Maisie had not been the first factory worker to be seduced by Hugo Barrington on the annual works outing to Weston-super-Mare.
When Sir Hugo died in tragic circumstances, Giles inherited his title along with the estates, and the natural order of things was finally restored. However, while Harry had remained happily married to Emma, Giles had been through two divorces, and his political career now seemed to be in tatters.
*
Emma had spent the past three months preparing for the “big event,” and nothing had been left to chance. Harry was even made to deliver a dress rehearsal of his speech in their bedroom the night before.
Three hundred guests beat a path to the Manor House for a black-tie dinner to celebrate Maisie’s seven decades, and when she made her entrance on Harry’s arm, it wasn’t difficult for anyone to believe that she must have been one of the great beauties of her day. Harry sat down beside her and beamed with pride, although he became more and more nervous as the moment approached when he would have to propose his mother’s health. Performing in front of a packed audience no longer troubled him, but in front of his mother …
He began by reminding the guests of his mother’s formidable achievements, against all the odds. She had progressed from being a waitress in Tilly’s tearoom, to manager of the city’s Grand Hotel—the first woman to hold that position. After she had reluctantly retired at the age of sixty, Maisie had enrolled as a mature student at Bristol University, where she read English, and three years later graduated with honors; something Harry, Emma and Sebastian hadn’t achieved—all for different reasons.
When Maisie rose to reply, the whole room rose with her. She opened her speech like a seasoned pro, not a note, not a tremor. “Mothers always believe their sons are special,” she began, “and I’m no exception. Of course I’m proud of Harry’s many achievements, not only as a writer but, more importantly, as president of English PEN and as a campaigner on behalf of his less fortunate colleagues in other countries. In my opinion, his campaign to have Anatoly Babakov released from a Siberian gulag is a far greater achievement than topping the New York Times bestseller list.
“But the cleverest thing Harry has ever done was to marry Emma. Behind every great man…” Laughter and applause suggested that the audience agreed with Maisie. “Emma is a remarkable woman in her own right. The first female chairman of a public company, yet she still somehow manages to be an exemplary wife and mother. And then of course there’s my grandson, Sebastian, who I’m told will be the next governor of the Bank of England. That must be right, because it was Sebastian himself who told me.”
“I’d rather be chairman of Farthings Bank,” Seb whispered to his aunt Grace, who was seated beside him.