Emma’s Secret. Barbara Taylor Bradford
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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.
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.
‘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