Apr 1

Apr 1 Emma's Tapestry

“A delightful read”

— Amazon Review

“Gripping historical fiction”

— Amazon Review

“Heartily recommended”

— Goodreads Review

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Emma's Tapestry - book excerpt

1939

Drylaw House

A bell rang, the jingle making its way down the stairs to where Emma stood. She was forced to ignore it. Gathered in the hall with the servants – butler, chauffeur, cook and maid – she was awaiting her turn to receive a national identity card, stamped and her responsibility to keep safe for the duration of the war. The mood was grave and laced with apprehension. The woman seated at the console table wrote with much care. Mrs Davies, the secretary, watched on. The bell rang again, a trifle more impatiently. Emma waited.

The housemaid received her card and returned to her duties. Emma watched the woman inscribe the chauffeur’s details onto his card. With every word, her heart beat a little faster. Her palms felt warm. When Mr Webster walked away, card in hand, she strove to maintain her composure. Mr Holt, the butler, was next, followed by Mary Stoker, the cook. Only Emma remained.

‘Mrs Emma Taylor,’ Mrs Davies read, her tone authoritative. ‘Nineteenth of the first, 1885.’

This was all the woman wrote on the card. The rest, her marital status and occupation, would be kept in the register. Emma’s mind flitted to her daughters, to their husbands, to what loomed for them all.

‘Very good, Mrs Taylor.’

She pocketed the card she was given.

‘Emma!’

The bell jingled and jingled.

With a quick glance at Mrs Davies, she hurried up the stairs. Miss Schuster might be eighty-nine in years, but her mind remained youthful and sharp and her will demanding.

Upon entering the room, she saw immediately the cause of the bell ringing. Miss Schuster – Adela, Minnie to her friends – lay askew, the bedcovers half off her. It appeared to Emma that she had tried to rearrange things and gotten herself into a pickle.

‘I hope they shan’t be bothering with me,’ Adela said, breathless and flustered as Emma straightened out both her patient and the bedding. ‘I shan’t even be leaving the house.’

‘I expect Mrs Davies will be taking care of it.’

‘And you have yours safely pocketed?’

Emma gave her hip a soft pat. Adela fixed her with her gaze.

‘Did Mrs Davies tell them we shan’t be here long?’

‘She told them Cottenham House is where we all live.’

‘Cottenham.’ She trailed off. Then she said, with fresh concern, ‘Did she tell them we shan’t be at Drylaw?’

‘She did.’ The woman hadn’t been the least interested.

‘Not at all reassuring, though, is it? War will soon be upon us, again. I won’t be here to see it. But you will. You must be strong.’

‘Best not dwell on such things.’ She didn’t want the conversation to settle here, not on the prospect of the war. ‘Are you comfortable? Can I fetch you anything?’

‘A new heart would be nice.’ She issued a soft chuckle.

Emma sat in the chair by her bedside and reached for Adela’s hand, cradling her wrist, feeling the pulse, counting. A little racy, she thought, but it should settle with rest. She’d been nursing Adela for about six months and had become accustomed to her frailties, the slow deterioration of her heart. Accustomed, too, to sitting in Adela’s spacious bedroom, with its high ceiling and elegant furniture. The sort of furniture only the rich can afford, all finely turned wood and stylish upholstery, although not modern, not even of the century. Long before she grew ill, Adela created for herself another boudoir of flamboyance, similar to her bedroom at Cottenham House. All swirls of colour, the wallpaper, the rugs, the soft furnishings a riot of movement inspired by William Morris. Not a restful room and not to Emma’s taste, yet there was always something to get lost in, something to absorb the mind if not quieten it.

She tucked the old woman’s hand beneath the covers and smoothed a lock of stray hair from her face. She was still handsome, despite the deep wrinkles and the folds of flesh about her neck. She had kind eyes and a perspicacious turn to her lips.

As though aware she was being studied, Adela muttered something incomprehensible under her breath and her eyelids drooped.

Emma sat back. Her gaze drifted, first here, then there, settling at last on the curtains, the brocade, noticing a touch of fading at the opening, the result of a keen summer sun. Autumn now, and the days were shortening. She preferred summer. The dying were always happier in the summer months, eager to hold on. Winter brought gloom to the spirits and the long nights were wearing, the curtains almost always drawn. She was certain she had lost most of her patients in the winter.

Adela’s breathing became rhythmic. Emma took in her sleeping patient, a small mountain beneath the quilt, rising and falling. Adela was a large woman, so large her friend Oscar Wilde nicknamed her “Miss Tiny”. Emma imagined her laughing with him, wearing the name with good-humoured grace. Adela said he also called her the “Lady of Wimbledon”, a more flattering title. In Emma’s mind, Adela had always been a lady, if not in title. Even now, at her age, she never faltered, never slipped and most certainly never complained. She was always charming, always knew what to say. Ever since they met at church many moons before, Emma had found much to admire in Miss Schuster. She regretted only getting to know the Jewish heiress so late in her life, when much of her vibrancy had left her, after her world had shrunk to just the four walls of her bedroom.

Few visited. At her grand age, many of her contemporaries had already passed on. There were no children. There had never been a husband. Emma wondered why she’d never married. Perhaps her size was off-putting or she preferred the single life. Surely she had had suitors. Here Emma sat, as she had sat with many patients over the years, so often at the end of life, always wondering what adventures they had had, the highs and lows, successes and tragedies.

It was much easier to dwell on the lives of others than on her own turbulent past.

Adela’s breathing slowed. At times, all she needed was Emma’s company, a presence in that room that had become her universe as she ever so slowly slipped from this world.

Emma reached into the wicker basket at her side. Her fingers met cane, and she extracted the oval hoop. Blue silk thread dangled from the shuttle. A thin band of plain blue sky capped a simple garden scene. She was keen to finish it. The wedge-weave tapestry would look pretty on her mantelpiece and the work was small and light enough for her lap. She drew the shuttle in and out of the warp, tugging gently, careful not to yank the thread, keeping the tension just so.

Time drifted by.

The door opened on the dot of nine and Susan tiptoed inside. They exchanged a few words in low whispers. A serious and plain young woman, Susan had her youth, if not experience, on her side. She was employed to be the guardian of the night shift.

‘Sleep well,’ she said as Emma left the room.

She didn’t think she would. She might have gone downstairs and shared a cup of tea with Mrs Stoker in the kitchen, but she was troubled and sought the solitude of her room, where she could pray.

Pray for her daughters, for their husbands, for the safety of them all back in Wimbledon. Her youngest, Irene, was with child and Emma said a little prayer to keep it safe, hoping the world in which they lived and moved would not be destroyed, that mayhem wouldn’t descend, that it would all be over quickly and peace would reign. She prayed, too, for her other family far away, whom she had not heard from in so long.

She sat at her dressing table and slid a hand in the pocket of her uniform, and took out the card. Her name, date of birth, some numbers and a stamp. Her identity. She hoped Adela held on to life a while longer; here, Emma felt secure. She put the card in her handbag. The clasp made a muted click as she directed her gaze at the room.

Adela had insisted she took the main guest room next door to her own and not, as was customary, a room in the servants’ quarters. She was privileged, a matter Mrs Davies, who had a much smaller room in the east wing, brought to her attention whenever she could. Emma took no notice. Not since Singapore had she dwelt anywhere so fine and she was grateful.

As she readied herself for bed, she wondered what the future held for her now another war loomed. The last war had proved difficult but not unbearable for her, as it was for many, yet her troubles, brought about by the happenstance of her birth, formed a dark backdrop and, in the finish, tremendous loss.

Would this time be different? Worse? She was here, an alien in England, a country at war with her own, and not as she was before, a British subject by marriage living in far-flung climes, in Singapore, in Japan, in America. Memories crowded her, chattering voices, distressing scenes. She shook them away.

She did not care to think of the past or indeed too far ahead, for such musings inevitably involved death and now that war was here, death loomed far larger than Adela in the room next door. She went back to thinking of her patient. She would do better to keep it that way. Nursing held her in the present, which was where she preferred to exist.

The following day, Adela was as bright as a button. She was always at her best in the morning. Unlike Susan, all bleary-eyed and eager for sleep. Once the two women had heaved Adela up on her pillows Susan left the room. Adela chattered while Emma drew the curtains and attended to the blackout fabric that Mr Holt had attached to the window frames only the other week. Adela watched.

‘I have no idea why we must bother with those things.’

‘Because we have to.’

‘We shan’t be here long.’

‘Just you rest, Miss Schuster. It really is no trouble.’

They’d come to Guilford to enjoy the last of the summer and then to shut up the house for the winter and gather various items precious to Adela, most importantly her signed copy of The Happy Prince, which she had inadvertently left behind on her last visit and could not bear to be without with war on its way.

Done with the curtains, Emma returned to the bedside and propped Adela up even higher on her pillows, just as Mr Holt knocked and entered with Adela’s breakfast.

‘I’ll take care of this,’ Emma said, meeting him in the centre of the room and reaching for the tray.

He glanced over at the bed and raised his eyebrows a fraction as though about to mount a challenge. Then he said, ‘As you wish,’ and he let go as Emma took the weight.

Tea, a soft-boiled egg, toast and marmalade, and a small bowl of bottled fruit. There were two cups. The teapot was brimming.

Emma set down the tray on the trolley table and poured before the tea stewed, adding a dash of milk. She preferred coffee but had learned to enjoy tea. The English loved their tea. She discovered how much in Singapore. Even in the heat, the English drank hot tea.

She helped Adela, whose unsteady hand was not as adept as it once was at finding her mouth. Emma’s own, gentle and guiding, helped steer from bowl and eggcup and plate all that Adela could manage to eat. It wasn’t much. Then they sipped tea together, Emma sitting on the chair at Adela’s bedside.

‘Is the sun shining today, Emma?’

‘I believe it will be.’

An expectant look appeared in Adela’s face. Emma knew that look. She smiled to herself. The dear old thing loved nothing more than to voice her reminiscences of the times she spent in Torquay, at Babbacombe Cliff. They were heady, joyful days. Back when Emma was a small child growing up far away in Philadelphia, Adela and her mother would travel from Wimbledon to Devon to stay at Lady Mount Temple’s manor house.

‘Georgina was the perfect hostess and you would journey far to find a more interesting woman. You know, in those days, people took interest in the most fascinating things. Unlike today. Today, things are much too grim.’

‘What was the house like?’ Emma said, pretending she didn’t know, guiding Adela’s thoughts back to the past.

‘Just magnificent. Rather like this room, Emma. Can you imagine an entire house festooned with such floral prints as these? Not to mention the most glorious of paintings! Those pre-Raphaelites could surely paint. Remind me to tell you about the pre-Raphaelites, one day. Such interesting people. And rather wicked, at times.’ She giggled and Emma saw a flicker of the youthful Adela in the old woman.

‘And then, of course, Constance would come and bring her dear Oscar. That was how we met, you know, Oscar and I.’

She broke off, lost in a private world for a moment. Emma waited, expecting more. Every day Adela sang the praises of her precious Oscar.

‘We did have a lot of fun in Torquay, although when Oscar came, we didn’t leave the house much. There was simply too much going on inside it to be bothered with outdoors.’ She laughed. ‘I suppose the others took walks. He was such a wit. What was it he said to the customs agents in New York?’

‘I really have no idea.’

‘“I have nothing to declare but my genius,”’ she said, more to herself than to Emma. ‘That’s it,’ she added with a self-satisfied smile. She paused and patted the bed. ‘Sit here where I can see you.’ Emma stood and moved her chair forward, facing her patient, and Adela went on. ‘Now, Georgina knew how to put on a good séance. Have you ever been to a proper séance? They are nothing like the after-service sessions they put on at the church.’

Emma pretended she had never heard the story. Of a large, circular table in a darkened room. Of hands joined together and resting on the indigo velvet covering. Of the charged feeling. Of the strange utterances of the medium as she slips into a trance. Of the messages that would come through from the dead. Of the squeals and screams and tears and fainting. Emma pictured the drama with ease. For those adventuresome aristocrats, a séance was little more than a parlour game. Spiritualism for some had always been reduced to a parlour game. For others, for those missing departed loved ones, a séance was not a game, but rather a genuine means of contact and a source of solace and hope. And that was the way it should be, Emma thought. Yet she resisted now, as she always did, the urge to defend her faith to a woman more interested in the frivolous and the social.

Adela’s concentration slipped and her memories faded. She rested her head back on her pillows. The dear old thing had so little energy for anything much.

‘Read to me, dear,’ she said breathlessly.

Emma took away their teacups and picked up the book by Adela’s bedside, the only book ever there. This was the second time she had read The Picture of Dorian Gray. She suspected once she arrived at the end, she would be required to start over again. But she preferred it to The Happy Prince. Early in her stay, on Adela’s insistence, Emma had tackled The Importance of Being Earnest, but the two women soon agreed it was beyond her capabilities to deliver the dialogue with any finesse. As a consequence, unsurprisingly, she had never been asked to tackle Lady Windermere’s Fan. Dorian it was to be.

Emma managed to read two whole pages without interruption. As she turned to the next, Adela broke in with, ‘Mrs Taylor. You haven’t told me what name you started out with.’

Her non-sequitur took Emma by surprise.

‘My maiden name?’

‘I don’t know it.’

‘I prefer not to say.’

Adela lifted her head off the pillows and scanned Emma’s face before letting her head fall back.

‘I’ve embarrassed you,’ she said lightly. A lightness belying tenacity. Then, ‘Don’t you like your name?’

‘It isn’t that.’

‘Then what is it?’

‘Please, Miss Schuster, I would rather not have to tell you.’

‘Oh, but I insist. You needn’t fear. I shall not laugh and I shall not breathe it to anyone. I shall no doubt forget it, in any event. Do tell!’

There was no choice. She was too honest to lie.

‘Harms,’ she said softly.

‘Harms?’ Adela boomed. ‘What on earth is wrong with Harms? Much better than Taylor, if you want my opinion.’

‘I suppose Taylor is somewhat…’

‘Common. There, I’ve said it. Do forgive me. I prefer to think of you as Mrs Harms.’ She took a breath then added conspiratorially, ‘It can be our secret.’

Emma was relieved and hoped the conversation would end there. She picked up the book and inhaled, preparing to continue. She hadn’t had a chance to utter her next word when Adela said, ‘Where is he? Do you ever wonder where he is?’

‘Who?’

‘Your husband.’

‘He passed away, Miss Schuster. I am sure I told you.’

‘Yes, yes, I know that,’ Adela murmured vaguely. ‘But has he ever been in touch?’

‘No.’

‘Pity.’

Adela said no more. Seeing her patient had expended all her energy for now, Emma closed the book.

The conversation had left her unsettled. And she quickly told herself these were unsettling times. Unsettling for more reasons than Adela could suppose.

Too much long buried now bubbled under the surface.

She thought she had succeeded in vanquishing the memories but, as she moved her chair back beside the bed, Adela’s probing stirred in Emma sensations she at first did not recognise. Something laboured its way up in her, a slow and steady climb, and she felt the pressure like heavy footfalls in her belly, at last pressing down on her heart, a heavy pressure weighing her down, an iron searing that vital muscle until the pressure no longer burnt, but ached. Moisture burst from her eyes and she fought back the tears, swallowed, choked on the impulse to give in to the unbidden anguish. She found herself taken back to a place she had long refused to recall. To a vicious summer followed by a bitingly cold winter, to a room too small for her and her babies, to loneliness and confusion, and then to the malicious hatred; hatred for being who she was: German. A single burning tear slipped, unseen, down her cheek.

Later, when the house slept, she threw off the bedcovers, let her feet find her slippers and tiptoed over to her dressing table. In the bottom drawer, tucked beneath her cardigans, was a brown envelope. She didn’t look inside at her birth certificate, her papers. She slipped on her dressing gown, crept down to the kitchen. The fire in the Aga was still alight.

She opened the door to the fire box and shoved in the envelope.

Seeing the flames rear, the core of her felt cindered, as though she had erased her own existence.