Twenty-six
EMMY didn’t know how many hoops Mac had to jump through to borrow someone’s car and drive her to Gloucestershire when she was released from the hospital two days later. When Emmy asked him how he managed it—and the cost of the petrol—he waved away her questions and told her he had a friend who owed him a favor.
The handful of women with whom Emmy had served at the WVS and who came to visit her at the hospital seemed genuinely sad to hear that Emmy was leaving London; at least as sad as they could be to say good-bye to someone who had volunteered with them for only two months. The war made every relationship seem temporary. Someone else would surely show up to take her place.
Mac offered to drive Emmy past the burned ruin of Primrose on their way out but she declined. She wanted to remember it as it had been, when it was a lovely shop on a bustling street back when the war was just a rumor, and even after the first bombs fell, when it was a dark and shadowed haven for a young woman who had nowhere to go. For the last eight weeks, Emmy had fought to stay in London so that she could find Julia, but on the day she left, she could not get away soon enough. As they drove out of the tattered city, gray from November clouds and never-ending smoke and ash, Mac assured Emmy that he would stay on the lookout for her half sister. He would continue to ask about her among his colleagues covering the many sides of the war. He had the connections Emmy did not have and none of the transgressions that she did. He was the perfect person to look for Julia.
He also asked Emmy whether it would be all right if he stayed in contact with her after he returned to London. She could tell Mac was growing fond of her—fond of Isabel the Crusader. Emmy did not hope for a minute that his affections would amount to anything lasting; he was an American stationed abroad. But she liked how he made her feel. She was taken with the notion that Mac preferred her over other women he knew—older, more experienced women. Emmy would enjoy his attentions as long as she had them. She told him she would like that very much.
The hospital had deemed Emmy well enough to be discharged as they needed her bed for the wounded, but cautioned her that she still required bed rest for a week or two. She began to get sleepy as the car rumbled out of the city, and when she began to nod off around High Wycombe, Mac told her not to fight it. He had a map. He’d get her safely to Stow.
So she slept.
An hour or so later, Mac shook her gently awake. They had arrived at Stow and he needed to know how to get to Thistle House from the village. Emmy told him which direction to head for and soon they were traveling down Maugersbury Road, the same narrow lane on which she and Julia had started their escape in the dark two months before. It seemed like such a long time ago. And then in no time at all they were pulling up to Thistle House. Smoke swirled from the chimney in delicate tendrils and soft lights glimmered in the front room windows.
“You can just let me off,” Emmy said to Mac, unable to take her eyes from the cozy beauty of the house, its timeless perfection and stoic presence.
“What was that?”
Emmy turned to him. “You can just let me off.” She needed to speak to Charlotte alone.
Mac laughed lightly. “Not a chance.” He put the car in park and set the brake.
“Please, Mac. We, I mean, my aunt and I didn’t . . . We didn’t part on the best of terms. And I didn’t ring her up to tell her I was coming.”
He turned the car off. “Well, then I am definitely not just leaving you off. What if she says no, you can’t stay?”
Emmy looked back at the house. She saw a face at the window. Charlotte’s. “She won’t say no.”
Mac reached for her hand and squeezed it. “Then you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“Give me a second with her, please? Just wait here a bit. Will you?”
He frowned. “Well, if you think that’s necessary.”
“I do,” Emmy said hurriedly, withdrawing her hand from under his. “Just give me a moment so that I can tell her why I am here. And what—what has happened. She probably doesn’t know.”
The red door opened and Charlotte appeared, wiping her hands on a dish towel.
Emmy opened the car door and the biting chill of the outside air prickled her. “I’ll be right back.”
She stepped out of the car, purposely keeping her back to the house as she maneuvered out. She closed the door, kept her head down, and walked up the stone pathway to the front door. Emmy was wearing Mum’s second-best dress, Eloise Crofton’s blue wool coat, and a knitted hat Mac had bought for her to keep her head warm. From a distance and with her gaze fixed on her heeled shoes, Emmy knew she did not look like the fifteen-and-a-half-year-old who had run away from this house just weeks before.
When Emmy was only a few feet from the door, she raised her head to look at Charlotte and their eyes met.
“Emmeline!”
Emmy’s name came out of Charlotte’s mouth like a breath, like a prayer. She bolted forward and drew Emmy into her arms. Weak from illness and so ready to be held by someone who cared for her, Emmy nearly collapsed into her tight embrace.
“Are you all right?” Charlotte said, and Emmy smelled pie crust and cinnamon and nutmeg in the woman’s gray braid.
Before Emmy could answer, she pulled away and looked past Emmy, to the waiting car. Emmy saw in Charlotte’s shimmering irises what her eyes sought.
Julia.
A blade seemed to slice into Emmy’s chest. “It’s just me, Charlotte,” she whispered.
With her arms still on Emmy’s shoulders, Charlotte looked hard into her eyes. “Is Julia . . . Has she . . . ?” But Charlotte could not finish her question.
Emmy shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know where she is.” The familiar nausea at saying these words swept over Emmy and she faltered. Charlotte caught Emmy as spots began to dance in front of her.
“Emmeline, are you ill?”
She nodded.
Charlotte’s firm arms were around her again in an instant. “Who is that in the car?”
“A friend, the only friend I have, actually. He brought me here. His name is Mac. He’s an American.” Emmy leaned into her.
“Let’s get you inside.” Charlotte turned toward the car and motioned for Mac to follow them.
Emmy heard the car door open.
She let her head fall on Charlotte’s chest. “Charlotte?” she whispered.
“Yes?”
“He thinks my name is Isabel.”