Flying Angels(63)

“What an incredibly nice thing to do. Where are you staying?” Lady Pommery asked her.

“I’m not. I’m going to take the train back tonight.”

“You can’t possibly. I won’t hear of it. On Christmas Eve? You have to at least spend the night. We have plenty of room. The entire third floor is full of children, and they’ll wake you at dawn tomorrow, but the second floor is quite civilized. You must spend the night. We’ll be devastated if you don’t.” She went to find the package then, sat down in the drawing room and opened it, and they joined her a few minutes later, after Max put their dishes in the sink. Lord Pommery had settled into his favorite chair by the fire and had lit a pipe. He stood up to greet Emma politely, they shook hands, and he sat down again. Lady Pommery was already reading the first pages of the journal, and she looked up with a smile and damp eyes when Max and Emma walked in, then was engrossed in it again.

“What a dear girl you are to bring this to me. Are you on duty tomorrow? I hope not, since it’s Christmas.”

“No, I’m not,” Emma answered.

“Then you must spend the night. I won’t hear of your going back on some dreadful train tonight. You’ll get sick.”

“I really shouldn’t.” Emma hesitated.

“Yes, you should,” Max said softly, and she looked at him. “Pru would want you to.” Emma had the feeling that was true, and she allowed them to convince her. She sat down with them by the fire, and they talked for an hour. Then Pru’s parents went up to bed, and Lady Pommery told Max which guest room to put her in.

   “I’m sorry to have just dropped in like this on Christmas Eve. I just wanted to drop off Pru’s journal,” she said after his parents left, and he looked thoughtful.

“You know, I think this is Pru at work from wherever she is. She loved you, and she loved us, and we all loved her. Can’t you just imagine her wanting us to be together, especially on Christmas?” The truth was that Emma could imagine it perfectly, and she nodded. “Now, my rakish younger brother is another story. He would have rather been in London, chasing around some beautiful girl, or a flock of them. Yorkshire was far too tame for him. Pru and I loved it here, but Phillip never did, from the time he turned eighteen. And where is your family?” he asked her.

“They’re not. My father died in the last war before I was born, and my mother when I was fifteen. I’ve been on my own since I turned eighteen. I went to nursing school, eventually became a midwife, and then I enlisted. And now here I am. Pru was like a sister to me,” she said in a gentle voice.

“She said the same thing about you,” he said, startled by her description of her origins, and life on her own. She was a little older than Pru, but not that much, and he was about to turn twenty-eight. He felt like an old man these days.

As the fire died down and the room got chilly, he took her up to the guest room his mother had suggested. Emma noticed that Lady Pommery had taken the journal with her to bed and she was pleased. The gift had been a success, and she had ended up spending the evening with Pru’s family, which she hadn’t expected and was enjoying more than she’d imagined, with such warm treatment from the Pommerys. The bedroom Max led her to was large and comfortable and looked as though it hadn’t been used in a long time.

   She fell asleep thinking of Pru and woke to the sound of children laughing and talking, and thundering down the stairs to have breakfast, shepherded by the young women who took care of them.

Emma dressed in her uniform and joined the children in the kitchen. She was playing games with them when Max walked in, looking as impeccably put together as he had the night before. She felt a little bit intimidated by him. He seemed so sophisticated, handsome, and aristocratic, and he had been nothing but welcoming to her since she’d arrived.

“I’m so sorry. Did the little monsters wake you?” He put one of the younger ones on his lap, and Emma had an adorable little girl on hers. They chatted over the din, and one of the babysitters made them coffee, which they agreed was ghastly ever since the war, and they ate some of the leftover scones. His mother joined them shortly after and told the children that Father Christmas had left them some presents in the great hall. Max told Emma when his mother left the room that she had wrapped them all herself. The children followed her like the Pied Piper and Max and Emma could hear the noise in the hall as they opened their gifts. Pru’s mother managed to make it a happy day for all of them, despite what the Pommerys had been through that year, losing two children. She thanked Emma profusely again for Pru’s journal. She said she had already read half of it.

   “You two were quite the naughty girls together, playing tricks on the other nurses, I gather,” she teased Emma, and she laughed.

“We had fun.”

“Pru was always fun, even as a little girl,” she said. “Those were happy times. Life is much harder now, but hopefully it will be over soon.”

Emma said she had to leave, after breakfast. She didn’t want to overstay, and she said she needed to start the journey back or she wouldn’t get to the base, and she was flying the next day.

Lady Pommery hugged her before she left and looked at her with a warm smile. “Thank you for coming, my dear, and thank you for that incomparable gift. Nothing could have pleased me more. Promise me you’ll come back and visit soon, and stay longer next time.” Emma nodded with tears in her eyes. No one had ever been as kind to her, except Pru. Emma thanked her for letting her spend the night, and Max drove her to the station. She didn’t see his father again. Max said his father got up late now, to avoid the children in the kitchen at breakfast.