‘Maybe I should have come to you and asked your advice about how to deal with this, rather than let Myles go to Adele,’ she said plaintively to Honour, her eyes filling with tears. ‘But I didn’t know what reception I’d get from you.’ She paused to wipe her eyes and then looked at Emily. ‘I had never met you until the night I pulled you from the river. When I discovered who you were I couldn’t believe that fate could take such an ironic twist. And I haven’t been faking my friendship with you. It’s entirely genuine, though I doubt you can believe that now.’
Emily wanted to know exactly when the affair took place, how long it lasted, and whether Rose knew Myles had three children. Myles hung his head as he told her, then told them all about his meetings with Adele in London. ‘I’ve come to love her,’ he said simply. ‘She urged me never to divulge any of this, she had always been afraid of it hurting Emily, Michael and my other children.’ He turned to Emily then and tentatively took her hand. ‘I’ve always been tempted to tell you. It might have seemed kinder to everyone else involved to keep it under my hat, but it never seemed right to do so.’
‘What have you got to say Emily?’ Honour asked gently, for she was now leaning her elbows on the table, her hands covering her face and her slim shoulders heaving as she sobbed.
‘Nothing.’ Emily uncovered her face and sniffed back her tears. ‘I’m as much to blame for this as Myles. I was awful to him at the time it happened. Just as I continued to be awful right up till we split up and I came here.’
‘That’s a very honest and generous attitude to take,’ Honour said, and she moved her chair nearer to Emily and put her arm around her. ‘Perhaps we should think now whether Michael should be told the truth.’
‘I don’t know,’ Emily said. ‘What do you all think?’
‘It would stop him believing there was hope for him and Adele,’ Myles said.
‘But maybe that hope is keeping him going right now,’ Rose said.
Emily suddenly slumped forward on to the table, knocking a glass of wine over on the tablecloth. ‘Emily!’ Honour exclaimed. ‘Are you all right? Would you rather Rose and I left now to let you and Myles sort things out between yourselves?’
She lifted Emily up and cradled her head against her breast, for the woman was sobbing again and seemed distraught. ‘This must have been a terrible shock to you,’ Honour said soothingly, stroking her hair. ‘We both were guilty of dreaming dreams of a wedding and our two families becoming one. We can’t have that of course, not now, but maybe we can reconcile ourselves to a deeper friendship based on true understanding.’
Rose got up from her chair and came nearer to Emily, putting a hand on her shoulder. ‘I wish I could turn the clock back,’ she said sorrowfully. ‘Do you know, Emily, that you are the only true friend I’ve ever had? I can’t bear that I’ve hurt you so much. Please forgive me!’
‘And me too,’ Myles said. ‘I should have understood that your nervous problems were related to the birth of Michael, and got you help. I became so hard on you. I’m so sorry.’
Emily lifted her head from Honour’s shoulder, looked at the concerned faces all focused on her, then got up, moving round the table. She picked up a glass of wine and downed it in one gulp. ‘None of you need to apologize to me,’ she said, wiping away her tears with a napkin. ‘I deserved everything I got, and more besides. But looking at all three of you, so full of concern, makes me very ashamed of myself, and I know I must tell you something I thought wild horses wouldn’t drag from me. For Adele and Michael’s sake.’
She leaned forward and filled her glass again with shaking hands.
Honour was frightened now. There was a dangerous look in the woman’s eyes, she had already had more drink than was good for her, and her apparent calm was almost certainly a lull before a storm.
‘Let me help you up to bed,’ Honour suggested. ‘We’ve all had enough shocks and distress for one night.’
‘And I’m going to give you more,’ Emily said, picking up her glass and glugging down the wine. When it was empty she continued to hold it in her hand, and looked at all three intent faces before her.
‘Michael isn’t Myles’s son. He’s the child of the gardener at The Grange.’
There was complete silence for a moment. Honour could only stare at Emily, thinking she’d misheard. Myles and Rose were doing the same.
A loud crash brought them out of it. Emily hurled her empty glass at the fireplace where it shattered into pieces.
‘It’s true,’ she shouted defiantly, her hands fluttering. ‘I fell in love with him, he begged me to run off with him, but I couldn’t.’
‘Jasper?’ Myles exclaimed. ‘Was it him?’
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘You called him Jasper. His name was actually William Jasper, I called him Billy. Michael looks just like him.’
Honour turned to look at Myles. He was ashen-faced, stunned by the news, and for a moment Honour thought it was just Emily’s cruel way of getting her revenge.
‘I-I-I,’ he stuttered. ‘I sometimes wondered why you spent so much time with him in the garden. But I couldn’t believe that of you.’
‘Men are so foolish sometimes.’ Emily gave a tight little laugh. ‘They think it’s fine for men to stray, but women are supposed to sit at home with their embroidery and wait for them to come home. I was so alone at The Grange, Myles. You left early in the morning and came home late, often you were away for days on end. All I had was your blessed parents preaching to me about how the young mistress should conduct herself. They didn’t even let me play with Ralph and Diana, they had to be brought up by the nursemaids. Billy made me feel wanted and loved, he made me feel alive.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Myles said.
‘What, that I was having an affair with the gardener and was expecting his child?’ Emily cackled drunkenly. ‘You would have thrown me out on my ear. I’d have ended up in the same plight Rose found herself in.’
‘I meant about how unhappy you were, before you began the affair,’ Myles rebuked her.
‘What would you have done?’ she tossed back. ‘Given me a lecture on how long The Grange had been in the family? Your parents were getting frail, someone had to be there with them. Even when the first war broke out, I wasn’t allowed to do anything more than sit and knit balaclavas. Billy had wanted to enlist, do you remember that?’
Myles nodded. ‘I persuaded him against it because I said we couldn’t manage without him.’
‘Yes, that’s what you said. But he was in love with me even then and wanted to leave because he was afraid of where it would lead, and we hadn’t even so much as kissed then. You should have let him go. He went in the end and died in the trenches. I don’t think he even tried to survive.’
Honour could hear the raw pain in Emily’s voice and knew then why she had been such a troubled soul for so many years. She remembered too how she felt about Frank, and knew in her heart that any woman feeling that strongly for a man would do what Emily did, right or wrong.
Rose was crying too, whether it was because she also understood Emily, or because she felt responsible for bringing further grief into this house, Honour couldn’t tell.
Myles was looking at Emily who was now sitting at the table again with her head in her hands. He looked as if his whole world had crumbled.
Honour wanted to cry too. She had been looking forward to tonight for days because she thought it was on the cards that Emily and Miles might become husband and wife again. Now that was wiped out.
‘I think we should go home, Rose,’ she said quietly.
Rose and Honour left then, creeping out without saying a word. It was dark now, and the night air warm on their bare arms. They didn’t speak, but linked arms and walked quickly away from Harrington House.
It was the start of August before Rose and Honour saw Emily again. They had both written her a letter after the supper-party, but neither of them received a reply. They were told by Jim the postman that she’d gone away but they had no idea if she was with Myles or alone.
Honour and Rose had discussed when Adele should be told, the morning after the supper-party. It would of course be wonderful news for her, for there was nothing now to stand in the way of her and Michael marrying when he came home. But they couldn’t just tell her without consulting Myles and Emily first. It was their family secret, after all, and they might want to explain it to Adele themselves, once they’d decided whether or not they were going to tell Michael.
But talking further about what had happened that night was like a minefield. Honour got angry and said Rose should have told her the truth a long time ago and saved both families such grief. She said she would never have accepted the invitation for supper had she known Rose had once had an affair with Myles. She guessed too that Rose had blackmailed Myles, and she was so disgusted she didn’t speak to her for days. At times the atmosphere was so tense between them that Rose was tempted to go back to London.
It didn’t help that it rained almost continually, forcing them to be indoors a great deal. They went about their usual tasks by day, at night they listened to the wireless or read, but not in the easy, companionable way they had before. It was when they heard that a new pilotless plane known as the V1 was being launched from Germany to drop bombs on London again that Honour showed her real anxiety.
‘What on earth are Emily and Myles up to? Why don’t they contact us?’ she raged. ‘I want to get this over and done with, it’s playing hell with my nerves.’
Rose knew that in reality she was afraid Adele was in danger again, as these new bombs meant she wouldn’t get any leave for a while.
People called the new threat ‘doodlebugs’ or ‘buzz bombs’, and it was said that they were Hitler’s revenge for the Normandy landings as they began soon afterwards. They could be heard flying overhead, but the only news on the wireless or in the newspapers was quite casual; reports of attacks on the south, but no detail. Adele’s weekly letters reported that the hospital was very busy again with casualties, but she didn’t say much more than that the doodlebugs were an infernal nuisance, because there was no warning of their arrival.
‘She’ll be all right, Mother,’ Rose said soothingly. ‘And Emily and Myles will surface again soon. They’ve got to make a really important decision, they can’t rush it. I know you are dying to tell Adele, but she’s believed Michael was her brother for three years, another couple of weeks of thinking that won’t make any difference to her.’
‘It’s not just Adele I’m fretting about,’ Honour admitted. ‘I keep worrying about Michael too. How’s he going to feel when he hears that the gardener was his father?’
Then, on the first dry day they’d had in some time, Emily came visiting at Curlew Cottage. She looked well, having been away in Devon with Myles for several weeks. She apologized for not contacting them, but said she and Myles had felt they needed time and distance from everyone to think things through.
‘It might seem strange to you both, but I’m glad it’s all come out now,’ she said, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘Myles and I have a chance to maybe start again, all fresh and new. And there won’t be anything to hold Adele and Michael back now either.’
She went on to say they had decided that they would tell Michael when he came home, but it should be his decision whether Diana and Ralph were also informed. She said that Myles thought they should tell Adele next time she came home on leave, and he would come down so they could all tell her together.
‘He thinks I should be there too,’ she said. ‘To show I’m happy that’s she’s now part of our family.’
Despite Emily’s understandable anxiety about how Michael would take the news that Myles wasn’t his natural father, she seemed relaxed and happy. She said that her secret had caused her great misery over the years, and that now it was out, she felt a huge burden had been taken from her shoulders. Myles had said it didn’t change his feelings for Michael in any way, and he was also very happy that he no longer had to hide his meetings with Adele.
‘I hope you two are still my friends?’ Emily said, looking from Honour to Rose. ‘It has, if nothing else, made us real family too.’
They had always thought of Emily as charming, but weak and self-centred, yet they suddenly realized how brave and unselfish it had been for her to admit her infidelity and deception that night. She could have raged at Myles, taking the moral high ground and gaining everyone’s sympathy, but she didn’t.
All she’d seen was the obstacle between her beloved son and the woman he loved. Knowing she had the power to remove that obstacle, however much it cost her, she had been prepared to pay the price.
‘Of course we’ll always be friends,’ Honour said, her voice thick with emotion. ’You, Emily Bailey, are a brave and very honest woman.’
Emily stayed all afternoon, and the three of them found a great deal to laugh about as they exchanged gossip, and news about what had gone on since they last met.
‘You two should have a day out together,’ Honour suggested as they had yet another pot of tea. ‘There’s probably things you need to say to one another without me there. And you could do with a bit of fun for a change.’
‘We could go to London,’ Emily said immediately. ‘I need some new things and there’s nothing in the shops in Rye.’
‘Is that a good idea with these doodlebugs?’ Honour asked.
‘Adele said in her last letter that they are mainly south of the river,’ Rose replied. ‘Besides, I need to check on my place in Hammersmith. And London’s more fun than anywhere else.’
Honour smiled at that, for she was glad to see the clouds had rolled back for both Rose and Emily. ‘On your heads be it,’ she said. ‘Just don’t grumble to me afterwards if all the trains are delayed.’
It was on a Thursday, almost at the end of August, that Rose and Emily caught the eight o’clock train from Rye to London. The entire summer had been very wet and chilly, but that morning was bright with sunshine. Emily looked very elegant in a pale blue costume and a cream, broad-brimmed felt hat. Rose joked that she looked like the poor relation in a striped summer dress and a rather battered straw hat trimmed with a new ribbon.
‘We could look at wedding hats,’ Emily said dreamily as she looked out of the train window.