nodded. ‘Yes, I remember her words as if she had spoken them only yesterday. Laura said there was no such thing as death in her lexicon, and that as long as I lived and you lived she would live, too, for we would carry the memory of her in our hearts for ever.’
Blackie said, ‘Aye, mavourneen, and she was a wise lady, my Laura. She truly believed that, as I have come to believe it, and as you must. It will help you, I know. And just as I have Bryan, you have Paul’s daughter. She is part of his flesh, part of him, and you must cleave to that and take strength from it.’
His words seemed to give her comfort and so he continued. ‘You also told me Laura said God doesn’t give us a burden that is too heavy to bear. She was right, Emma. Think on that.’ He sighed under his breath. ‘I know you are heartbroken and that you feel lost and alone. But none of us are alone, Emma. We all have God, and God has helped me over the years. Why don’t you try Him on for size?’
Emma’s eyes widened. ‘You know I don’t believe in God.’
Observing the look on her face, Blackie refrained from making any further comments and wisely talked of other things.
But later, when he left Emma’s house, Blackie walked to the Brompton Oratory. He crossed himself on entering that fine old church, sat down in a pew, and lifted his face to the altar. And he prayed to God to give Emma comfort and courage in her crushing loss, and he prayed for her soul.
Before she went to bed that night, Emma sat at the window in her bedroom for several hours, dwelling on those words of Laura’s. The sky was a peculiar cobalt blue, clear yet intense, and shining with hundreds of stars, and a pale silver moon rode high in the heavens. Its beauty was so perfectly revealed to her it made her catch her breath and she suddenly had the most overwhelming sense of the Infinite. It was a feeling she had never experienced before and she was strangely moved as she sat gazing at that incredible night sky. And then it seemed to her that Paul was with her in the room. And she thought: But of course he is, for he is in my heart always. And she drew strength from this knowledge, and that night she slept a deep and untroubled sleep.
Two days later Emma received a letter from Paul. It had been posted the day before his death and it had taken three weeks to arrive. She looked at it for a long time before she finally found the courage to slit open the envelope and take out the letter.
My dearest darling Emma:
You are my life. I cannot live without my life. But I cannot live with you. And so I must end my miserable existence, for there is no future for us together now. Lest you think my suicide an act of weakness, let me reassure you that it is not. It is an act of strength and of will, for by committing it I gratefully take back that control over myself which I have lost in the past few months. It is a final act of power over my own fate.
It is the only way out for me, my love, and I will die with your name on my lips, the image of you before my eyes, my love for you secure in my heart always. We have been lucky, Emma. We have had so many good years together and shared so much, and the happy memories are alive in me, as I know they are in you, and will be as long as you live. I thank you for giving me the best years of my life.
I did not send for you because I did not want you to be tied to a helpless cripple, if only for a few months at the most. Perhaps I was wrong. On the other hand, I want you to remember me as I was, and not what I have become since the accident. Pride? Maybe. But try to understand my reasons, and try, my darling, to find it in your heart to forgive me.
I have great faith in you, my dearest Emma. You are not faint of heart. You are strong and dauntless, and you will go on courageously. You must. For there is our child to consider. She is the embodiment of our love, and I know you will cherish and care for her, and bring her up to be as brave and as stalwart and as loving as you are yourself. I give her into your trust, my darling.
By the time you receive this I will be dead. But I will live on in Daisy. She is your future now, my Emma. And mine.
I love you with all my heart and soul and mind, and I pray to God that one day we will be reunited in Eternity.
I kiss you, my darling.
Paul
Emma was motionless in the chair, clutching the letter, the tears seeping out of her eyes and rolling silently down her pale cheeks. She saw him in her mind’s eye, tall and handsome, his deep violet eyes laughing, and she remembered him as he wanted her to remember him. She thought of the years and the joy and love he had given her. And she forgave him, now understanding, and with great compassion, both his dilemma and his motives.
At the beginning of October, Mel Harrison took a four-engined ‘C Class’ Qantas flying boat from Sydney to Karachi, and there boarded an English aeroplane that provided the link to Great Britain. Several days later he arrived in London. His purpose: to see Emma and present Paul McGill’s will to the solicitors who handled the McGill legal work in England and Europe.
Emma, austerely dressed in black, appeared wan and fragile, yet she was composed when she arrived at Price, Ellis, and Watson for the reading of Paul McGill’s last will and testament. Winston, Frank, and Henry Rossiter accompanied her.
‘Paul made you the executrix of his estate,’ Mel informed her as she sat down. She was taken by surprise, but she simply nodded, at a loss for words.
There were bequests to servants, to old and loyal employees, and a two-million-pound trust fund had been created to provide for his wife and son during their lifetimes. Upon their deaths it was to go to charity. His entire estate he had willed to Emma in perpetuity, passing to Daisy upon her death, and from Daisy to her progeny. To Emma’s astonishment Paul had left her everything he owned, holdings worth well over two hundred million pounds. He had made her one of the richest women in the world and their daughter the heiress to a great fortune. But the thing that moved Emma the most was the fact that Paul had accorded her the respect and consideration generally reserved for a man’s legal widow and not his common-law wife. In death, as in life, Paul had declared his devotion and love for her, had acknowledged her to the whole world. And into her hands had passed the McGill dynasty for safekeeping.
Emma’s grief was a mantle of iron, but slowly she came to grips with her heartache. In all truth, her sorrow did not really lessen and she missed Paul and yearned for him constantly, but she took control of her emotions, and as the weeks passed she began to function like her old self. Also, her anguish was muted by the circumstances of her life and the world crisis which had developed.
She was beset by the most pressing problems as England plunged into the European conflict, and consequently her energies were taxed to the fullest, leaving little time or strength for self-indulgences. Her sons joined the forces, Kit enlisting in the army, Robin in the Royal Air Force.
Elizabeth, who had enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in the summer of 1939, was quietly married to Tony Barkstone during the Christmas holidays. Although Elizabeth was only eighteen and still too flighty to marry, in Emma’s opinion, she did not have the heart to object. Everyone had to grasp happiness when they could, especially in these terrible times, and, in spite of her misgivings, she gave her blessing. The young couple were obviously head over heels in love, and Emma approved of Tony, who was a friend of Robin’s from Cambridge and also a pilot in the RAF.
Despite the austerity, a spirit of
