The Sins of the Father (The Clifton Chronicles, #2)(22)

‘I’m sorry about that,’ she said, ‘but Richard doesn’t like me opening the door to strangers. Please come in.’ She led Emma through to the living room. ‘Have a seat while I put Jake back in his cot.’

Emma sat down and glanced around the room. There were several photographs of Kristin with a young naval officer who she assumed must be her husband, Richard.

Kristin returned a few minutes later carrying a tray of coffee. ‘Black or white?’

‘White please,’ said Emma, who’d never drunk coffee in England, but was quickly learning that Americans don’t drink tea, even in the morning.

‘Sugar?’ enquired Kristin after she’d poured two coffees.

‘No, thank you.’

‘So, is Tom your husband?’ asked Kristin as she sat down opposite Emma.

‘No, I’m his fiancée. To be fair, he had no idea I was pregnant.’

‘How did you find me?’ asked Kristin, still sounding a little apprehensive.

‘The purser on the Kansas Star said you and Richard were among the last people to see Tom.’

‘That’s true. We were with him until he was arrested a few moments after he stepped on shore.’

‘Arrested?’ said Emma in disbelief. ‘What could he possibly have done to get himself arrested?’

‘He was accused of murdering his brother,’ said Kristin. ‘But surely you knew that?’

Emma burst into tears, her hopes shattered by the realization that it must have been Bradshaw who’d survived, and not Harry. If Harry had been accused of murdering Bradshaw’s brother, it would have been so easy for him to prove they’d arrested the wrong man.

If only she’d ripped open the letter on Maisie’s mantelpiece, she would have discovered the truth and not put herself through this ordeal. She wept, accepting for the first time that Harry was dead.





GILES BARRINGTON





1939–1941





11

WHEN SIR WALTER BARRINGTON visited his grandson to tell him the terrible news that Harry Clifton had been killed at sea, Giles felt numb, as if he’d lost a limb. In fact, he would have been happy to lose a limb if it would have brought Harry back. The two of them had been inseparable since childhood, and Giles had always assumed they would both score one of life’s centuries. Harry’s pointless, unnecessary death made Giles even more determined not to make the same mistake himself.

Giles was in the drawing room listening to Mr Churchill on the radio when Emma asked, ‘Do you have any plans to join up?’

‘Yes, I shan’t be returning to Oxford. I intend to sign up immediately.’

His mother was clearly surprised, but told him that she understood. Emma gave him a huge hug, and said, ‘Harry would be proud of you.’ Grace, who rarely displayed any emotion, burst into tears.

Giles drove into Bristol the following morning and parked his yellow MG ostentatiously outside the front door of the recruiting office. He marched in with what he hoped was resolution written across his face. A sergeant major from the Gloucesters – Captain Jack Tarrant’s old regiment – stood smartly to attention the moment he saw young Mr Barrington. He handed Giles a form which he dutifully filled in, and an hour later he was invited to step behind a curtain and be examined by an army doctor.

The doctor placed a tick in every box after he’d thoroughly checked this latest recruit – ears, nose, throat, chest and limbs – before finally testing his eyesight. Giles stood behind a white line and recited the letters and numbers on demand; after all, he could dispatch a leather ball coming straight at him at ninety miles an hour, to the most distant boundary. He was confident he would pass with flying colours, until the doctor asked him if he was aware of any hereditary ailments or diseases in his family. Giles replied truthfully, ‘Both my father and grandfather are colour-blind.’

The doctor carried out a further series of tests, and Giles noticed that the ums and ahs turned into tut-tuts.

‘I’m sorry to have to tell you, Mr Barrington,’ he said when he came to the end of his examination, ‘that given your family’s medical history, I will not be able to recommend you for active service. But of course, there’s nothing to stop you joining up and doing a desk job.’

‘Can’t you just tick the relevant box, doctor, and forget I ever raised the damn subject?’ said Giles, trying to sound desperate.

The doctor ignored his protest, and in the final box on the form he wrote ‘C3’: unfit for active service.

Giles was back at the Manor House in time for lunch. His mother, Elizabeth, didn’t comment on the fact that he drank almost a bottle of wine. He told everyone who asked, and several who didn’t, that he’d been rejected by the Gloucesters because he suffered from colour-blindness.

‘It didn’t stop Grandfather fighting the Boers,’ Grace reminded him after he’d been served with a second helping of pudding.

‘They probably had no idea the condition existed back then,’ said Giles, trying to make light of her barb.

Emma followed up with a punch below the belt. ‘You never intended to sign up in the first place, did you?’ she said, looking her brother in the eye. Giles was staring down at his shoes when she delivered the knockout blow. ‘Pity your friend from the docks isn’t here to remind you that he was also colour-blind.’