Hearts Divided (Cedar Cove #5.5)(69)

“She really wanted this marriage.”

“Too bad! If Matthew’s last name wasn’t Blaine, and she wasn’t in a tizzy about how her society friends are going to react, her focus would be where it belongs—on you. Despite that, she is concerned about you.”

“I know.”

“How a daughter of mine could be such a snob, I’ll never know.” Gram paused. Sighed. “That’s not entirely accurate. The truth is, she comes by it honestly.”

“She does? From where? Dad’s not a snob. And she certainly didn’t get it from you or Granddad.”

“That’s the problem. I’m afraid she did. Who knew snobbery could be carried in the genes? Old money isn’t even supposed to be snobbish. Your father being a case in point. But, as I know well, it’s the exception that proves the rule. One of San Francisco’s oldest and wealthiest families—mine—is such an exception.”

“Your family, Gram?”

“The San Francisco Carltons. Even when I was a girl, the Carlton fortune was generations old. But talk about snobs. My mother especially.”

“Your mother?”

“My father was almost as pretentious. He was a Bronxville Smith. But we lived in San Francisco, not New York, and she was the Carlton of the two.”

“So…you’re a Carlton.”

“I was a Carlton. Granddad knew, and his parents. To everyone else, I was simply Clara Anne Smith, who couldn’t wait to become Clara Anne MacKenzie. It wasn’t a secret as much as an irrelevance.”

“Mom doesn’t know.”

“And never needs to. Like your relationship with Matthew, my pedigree is ancient history.”

“But how did you and Granddad meet? I always thought he’d never left Sarah’s Orchard before he went to war—and that the two of you met and fell in love before that.”

“We met here, in September 1941. I’d just celebrated my sixteenth birthday and in two months he’d turned eighteen.”

“And a month after that,” Elizabeth said, “Pearl Harbor was attacked.”

“We were in love by then. Long before that day of infamy, we knew we’d spend our lives together.”

“What were you doing in Sarah’s Orchard?”

“What all San Francisco heiresses did in those days, attending finishing school. Because of the war in Europe, stateside boarding schools were popular, and new ones kept cropping up. Rogue River School for Girls was in its second year when I arrived that September.”

“I’ve never heard of Rogue River School for Girls.”

“But you know the building well. After the war, it became the Orchard Inn.”

“Which is a short walk to MacKenzie’s Market.”

“Where Granddad helped his parents on weekends and after school.”

“And where a Rogue River schoolgirl happened by?”

“A classmate and I loved the apples we were served at lunch. One day, we decided to buy some for snacks. One day became every day. Granddad always had an apple waiting for me, shined to a mirror finish on his shirtsleeve. His parents were amused by how smitten he was. Girls had been stopping by the store for apples—or whatever else was in season—for a while. But he’d never taken an interest in any of them the way he was interested in me. And, of course, he was my one and only love.”

“And you were his.”

“We knew it. His family knew it.”

“And your family?”

“I’d planned to tell them that Christmas. Charles and I talked about his coming to San Francisco for New Year’s to ask my parents’ permission for us to marry that spring. But everything changed, the world changed on December 7. I went to Portland with him. That’s where he enlisted. And where we spoke our wedding vows—privately, just to each other.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “We thought he’d be sent to the Pacific. But Congress had declared war on Germany and Italy, too, by then, and that’s where he went.”

“How long was he gone?”

“Three years, eight months, six days. He came home a month after VE Day.”

“You missed him desperately.”

“Every second of every day. I was lucky to have his parents, and this town. They welcomed me and my babies, your twin uncles.”

“And your family?”

Clara shook her head. “They didn’t want any part of a daughter who’d gotten pregnant out of wedlock with a country boy whose dream was to carry on the tradition of his family’s store. My parents threatened to disown me, to cut me off from the wealth and social status that were my birthright, unless I went into hiding until after I’d had my babies and given them away.”

“They were serious?”

“Oh, yes. And so was I. I didn’t threaten to disown them. I just did it.”

“That must’ve been difficult.”

“I won’t pretend it wasn’t. Not the decision—that was easy. But it hurt me deeply that they hadn’t even wanted to meet the man I loved, hadn’t given him a chance.”

“Mom’s not that much of a snob. But,” Elizabeth said, “I wonder if Matthew is.”

Six

April 13, 1942  Midnight