Without another word, he turned to leave, but not before Admiral Summers muttered, “Not a moment too soon.” He then fixed his gimlet eye on the two other directors who had backed Knowles.
After a moment’s hesitation, Clive Anscott and Andy Dobbs also stood up, and quietly left the room.
Emma waited for the door to close before she spoke again. “From time to time, I may have appeared impatient with the company secretary’s fastidious recording of the board’s minutes. I now concede that Mr. Webster has proved me wrong, and I apologize unreservedly.”
“Do you wish me to record your sentiments in the minutes, madam chairman?” asked Webster, without a hint of irony.
This time Sebastian did allow himself a smile.
4
Once Harry had edited the fourth draft of Anatoly Babakov’s remarkable memoirs of Stalin’s Russia, all he wanted to do was take the first available flight to New York and hand the manuscript of Uncle Joe to his publisher, Harold Guinzburg. But there was something even more important that prevented him from leaving. An event he had no intention of missing, under any circumstances. His mother’s seventieth birthday party.
Maisie had lived in a cottage on the Manor House estate since her second husband’s death three years before. She remained actively involved with several local charities, and although she rarely missed her daily three-mile constitutional, it was now taking her over an hour. Harry would never forget the personal sacrifices his mother had made to ensure he won a choral scholarship to St. Bede’s, and with it the chance to compete with anyone, whatever their background, including his oldest friend, Giles Barrington.
Harry and Giles had first met at St. Bede’s over forty years ago, and seemed an unlikely pair to end up as best friends. One born in the back streets of the docks, the other in a private ward of the Bristol Royal Infirmary. One a scholar, the other a sportsman. One shy, the other extrovert. And certainly no one would have predicted that Harry would fall in love with Giles’s sister, except Emma herself, who claimed she had planned the whole thing after they’d first met at Giles’s twelfth birthday party.
All Harry could remember of that occasion was a skinny little object — Giles’s description — sitting by the window, head down, reading a book. He had remembered the book, but not the girl.
Harry met a very different young woman seven years later, when the grammar school joined Red Maids’ for a combined school production of Romeo and Juliet. It was Elizabeth Barrington, Emma’s mother, who noticed that they continued to hold hands after they’d left the stage.
When the curtain came down on the final performance, Harry admitted to his mother that he’d fallen in love with Emma and wanted to marry her. It had come as a shock that Maisie didn’t seem delighted by the prospect. Emma’s father, Sir Hugo Barrington, made no attempt to hide his feelings, although his wife couldn’t explain why he was so vehemently opposed to any suggestion of them marrying. Surely he couldn’t be that much of a snob? But despite both their parents’ misgivings, Harry and Emma became engaged just before they went up to Oxford. Both virgins, they didn’t sleep together until a few weeks before the wedding.
But the wedding ended in tears because when the college chaplain said, “If any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter, forever hold his peace,” Old Jack, Harry’s mentor and friend, hadn’t held his peace, and told the congregation why he feared he had just cause.
When Harry learned the truth about who his father might be, he was so distraught he immediately left Oxford and joined the Merchant Navy, unaware that Emma was pregnant, or that, while he was crossing the Atlantic, England had declared war on Germany.
It wasn’t until he’d been released from prison, joined the US Army and been blown up by a German landmine, that he finally returned to England to be reunited with Emma, only to discover that he had a three-year-old son called Sebastian. Even then, it was still another two years before the highest court in the land decided that Sir Hugo Barrington was not Harry’s father, but, despite the ruling, both he and Emma were aware that there would always be a lingering doubt about the legitimacy of their marriage in an even higher court.
Harry and Emma had desperately wanted to have a second child, but they agreed not to tell Sebastian why they had decided against it. Harry never, even for a moment, placed any blame on his beloved mother. It hadn’t taken a lot of digging to discover that Maisie had not been the first factory worker to be seduced by Hugo Barrington on the annual works outing to Weston-super-Mare.
When Sir Hugo died in tragic circumstances, Giles inherited his title along with the estates, and the natural order of things was finally restored. However, while Harry had remained happily married to Emma, Giles had been through two divorces, and his political career now seemed to be in tatters.
Emma had spent the past three months preparing for the “big event,” and nothing had been left to chance. Harry was even made to deliver a dress rehearsal of his speech in their bedroom the night before.
Three hundred guests beat a path to the Manor House for a black-tie dinner to celebrate Maisie’s seven decades, and when she made her entrance on Harry’s arm, it wasn’t difficult for anyone to believe that she must have been one of the great beauties of her day. Harry sat down beside her and beamed with pride, although he became more and more nervous as the moment approached when he would have to propose his mother’s health. Performing in front of a packed audience no longer troubled him, but in front of his mother...
He began by reminding the guests of his mother’s formidable achievements, against all the odds. She had progressed from being a waitress in Tilly’s tearoom, to manager of the city’s Grand Hotel — the first woman to hold that position. After she had reluctantly retired at the age of sixty, Maisie had enrolled as a mature student at Bristol University, where she read English, and three years later graduated with honors; something Harry, Emma and Sebastian hadn’t achieved — all for different reasons.
When Maisie rose to reply, the whole room rose with her. She opened her speech like a seasoned pro, not a note, not a tremor. “Mothers always believe their sons are special,” she began, “and I’m no exception. Of course I’m proud of Harry’s many achievements, not only as a writer but, more importantly, as president of English PEN and as a campaigner on behalf of his less fortunate colleagues in other countries. In my opinion, his campaign to have Anatoly Babakov released from a Siberian gulag is a far greater achievement than topping the New York Times bestseller list.
“But the cleverest thing Harry has ever done was to marry Emma. Behind every great man...” Laughter and applause suggested that the audience agreed with Maisie. “Emma is a remarkable woman in her own right. The first female chairman of a public company, yet she still somehow manages to be an exemplary wife and mother. And then of course there’s my grandson, Sebastian, who I’m told will be the next governor of the Bank of England. That must be right, because it was Sebastian himself who told me.”
“I’d rather be chairman of Farthings Bank,” Seb whispered to his aunt Grace, who was seated beside him.
“All in good time, dear boy.”
Maisie ended with the words, “This has been the happiest day of my life, and I count myself lucky to have so many friends.”
Harry waited for the applause to subside before he rose again to propose Maisie’s long life and happiness. The assembled guests raised their glasses and continued to cheer as if it was the last night of the Proms.