“Are you staying nearby? Perhaps you’d like to come and see my mother tomorrow. I’m sure she’ll be very grateful to you,” he said graciously, looking Emma over carefully, and she wondered if he had noticed the accent and disapproved.
“No, I’m not staying nearby,” Emma said, embarrassed. “I took the train up to bring it to her. I thought Pru might like that,” she said, and he narrowed his eyes as he noticed the red hair under her cap. “I’m sorry. I’m Emma Jones,” she said, and held out her hand to shake his.
“The firebrand!” he said with a broad grin. “My sister told me all about you last summer, when she was here after…after our brother died. She adored you,” he said, directing her toward the drawing room. “Can I take your coat? Come in and sit down. You must be freezing after the day on the train.” He was stunned that she had brought it herself, and took the gift-wrapped journal from her, while she took off her coat. He led her into the drawing room, where the fire was blazing, and invited her to sit down. He set the journal down on a table, and she hoped he’d remember to give it to his mother. “Would you like something to eat? You must be starving!” She was, but she was too shy to admit it to him. “She called you a firebrand, you know.” They both laughed at that. “She admired you so much. You were really her closest friend in the end.” They both thought about Pru for a quiet minute, and he smiled at Emma. He had the same warm smile as Pru, that started at his eyes. “I insist that you let me give you something to eat. I have some rather sad-looking sausages, and dreadful potato soup. I was about to eat, myself. I’m afraid rationing has made our menus a bit thin. But my mother made scones today, and I’ve got some of her homemade jam.” He made it so inviting that Emma didn’t want to turn it down, and she was hungry. He invited her into the big old-fashioned kitchen, where he put the meal together himself. He reminded her a lot of Pru: practical, down-to-earth, warm and unassuming, with a look of mischief in his eye.
They sat down at the kitchen table together, and he told her funny stories about Pru from their childhood, while they shared the meal. The time passed quickly, and she told him about the journal and how much she had loved reading it.
“My mother will love it, and I’ll read it myself. I’m down here for five days, on leave. Christmas and all that, although it’s going to be hard this year. Fortunately, we have the children to distract us. I’m sure Pru told you about them.”
“Yes, she did,” Emma said with a smile, as they heard the front door open and then close hard. A moment later, his mother walked into the kitchen. She was an elegant woman with impeccably groomed white hair, wearing a black velvet dress and a fur coat. She smiled as soon as she saw Emma, and then looked embarrassed.
“Oh, I am sorry. I didn’t know you invited a friend,” she said to Max. “Oh my God, you’ve given her that awful soup, and Mr. Jarvis’s nasty sausages.”
“The scones were delicious,” Emma said, feeling like an intruder, but Lady Pommery was so warm and welcoming, and Max had been so kind, that she enjoyed being there, even though she was an uninvited guest.
“This is Emma Jones,” Max introduced her to his mother, “a dear friend of Pru’s. They were roommates at the base and flew together. She took the train all the way up here to bring you something very special. I left it in the drawing room for you. It’s Pru’s journal.” They were both bowled over that Emma had brought it herself, and gone to so much trouble to do it.
“It didn’t seem right to just send it by post,” Emma explained.
“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.