The Sins of the Father - By Jeffrey Archer Page 0,80

up and down, admiring paintings by Peploe, Fergusson, McTaggart and Raeburn. She remembered that her grandfather Lord Harvey owned a Lawrence that hung in the drawing room of Mulgelrie Castle. She had no idea what her great-uncle did for a living, but he clearly did it well.

The butler returned a few minutes later, the same impassive look on his face. Perhaps he hadn't heard the news about Pearl Harbor.

'Madam will receive you in the drawing room,' he said.

How like Jenkins he was: no surplus words, an even pace that never varied, and somehow he managed to display deference without being deferential. Emma wanted to ask him which part of England he came from, but knew he would consider that an intrusion, so she followed him along the corridor without another word.

She was about to start climbing the stairs when the butler stopped, pulled back a lift grille and stood aside to allow her to step in. A lift in a private house? Emma wondered if Great-aunt Phyllis was an invalid. The lift shuddered as it reached the third floor and she stepped out into a beautifully furnished drawing room. If it were not for the noise of traffic, blaring horns and police sirens coming from the street below, one might have been in Edinburgh.

'If you'll wait here please, madam.'

Emma remained by the door while the butler walked across the room to join four elderly ladies who were seated around a log fire, enjoying tea and crumpets while listening intently to a radio that had never blared.

When the butler announced, 'Miss Emma Barrington,' they all turned and looked in Emma's direction. She couldn't mistake which one of them was Lord Harvey's sister, long before she rose to greet her: the flaming-red hair, the impish smile and the unmistakable air of someone who isn't first generation.

'It surely can't be little Emma,' she declared, as she left the group and sailed across to her great-niece, the hint of a Highland lilt still in her voice. 'The last time I saw you, dear girl, you were wearing a gymslip, short white socks and daps and carrying a hockey stick. I felt quite concerned for the little boys playing in the opposing team.' Emma smiled; the same sense of humour as her grandfather. 'And now look at you. You've blossomed into such a beautiful creature.' Emma blushed. 'So what brings you to New York, my dear?'

'I'm sorry to intrude like this, Great-aunt,' Emma began, glancing nervously towards the other three ladies.

'Don't worry about them,' she whispered. 'After the President's announcement, they've got more than enough to keep themselves occupied. Now, where are your bags?'

'My bag is at the Mayflower Hotel,' Emma told her.

'Parker,' she said, turning to the butler, 'send someone round to pick up Miss Emma's things from the Mayflower, and then prepare the main guest bedroom because, after today's news, I have a feeling my great-niece is going to be with us for quite some time.' The butler melted away.

'But, Great-aunt - '

'No buts,' she said, raising a hand. 'And I must insist that you stop calling me Great-aunt, it makes me sound like an old battleaxe. Now it's quite possible that I am an old battleaxe, but I do not wish to be reminded of it on a regular basis, so, please, call me Phyllis.'

'Thank you, Great-aunt Phyllis,' Emma said.

Phyllis laughed. 'I do so love the English,' she said. 'Now come and say hello to my friends. They will be fascinated to meet such an independent young lady. So frightfully modern.'

The Sins of the Father

'Quite some time' turned out to be more than a year, and as each day passed, Emma was more and more desperate to be reunited with Sebastian, but was only able to follow her son's progress from letters sent by her mother, and occasionally Grace. Emma wept when she learned of the death of 'Gramps', because she'd thought he'd live for ever. She tried not to think about who would take over the company, and assumed her father wouldn't have the nerve to show his face in Bristol.

Phyllis couldn't have made Emma feel more at home if she'd been her own mother. Emma quickly discovered that her great-aunt was a typical Harvey, generous to a fault, and the page defining the words impossible, implausible and impractical must have been torn out of her dictionary at an early age. The main guest bedroom, as Phyllis called it, was a suite of rooms overlooking Central Park, which came as a