The Lost Sister by Kathleen McGurl (i can read book club .TXT) 📕

they’d had taken the previous week on top of her night-stand she knew she’d made the right decision taking this job.

The days passed quickly on board the ship, as it was made ready to sail. Emma and a few other new stewards were given intensive training in what their duties were. On the 10th of June, the public were allowed on board to view the ship, and Emma was kept busy showing people around and serving refreshments, then clearing up after them. That night she was exhausted and fell into bed with burning feet.

‘We’re lucky – they’ve all left the ship now. Wait till we have passengers staying on board, and still ringing for us after we’ve gone to bed,’ Mary said, with a roll of her eyes.

When the passengers boarded, Emma introduced herself to those in the cabins she was assigned to look after – she was working alongside Martin, she was pleased to note. He was responsible for the male passengers in their set of cabins, while she looked after the females. They had a mixture of elderly couples, young newlyweds looking to make their home in New York, and a few families with children. When she first met them Emma thought all of them seemed pleasant enough people. One or two of the older women might perhaps prove to be a little harder work than the others, but their early requirements seemed no more excessive than she’d been used to from her job in the hotel.

And finally, the big day came. On the 14th of June, a band played, and a huge crowd turned out to see the ship leave its berth and set sail on its maiden voyage. A deafening blast on its foghorn announced the departure. Five tugs were needed, just as when the Olympic had docked, less than two weeks earlier. To think, back then she’d watched the ship come in, and now she knew her way around it, and had lived aboard it for a week! Emma was on deck along with almost everyone else as the ship inched its way backwards, down Southampton Water until it reached the mouth of the Itchen, in which it was able to swing round, be freed from the tugs and make its way down towards the Solent, around the Isle of Wight past Sandown and out into the English Channel. Emma stayed on deck as long as she could – she could make out Ma and her sisters waving at her from the dock – but once the ship had turned she knew she had to go below and attend to her duties. The ship was due to put in at Cherbourg in France and then Queenstown in Ireland before setting off across the Atlantic. Emma could not believe that by the time she returned to Southampton she’d have had sight of three other countries – France, Ireland, and the United States of America! Not only that, but there were rumours the Olympic was going to try to beat the record for the trans-Atlantic crossing. And Emma was on board, playing her own small part in making sure everything went as smoothly as possible. She needed a far bigger word than ‘excited’ to describe the way she felt.

‘Isn’t it all stupendous?’ Martin had appeared alongside her at the deck railing.

Emma grinned and nodded. Yes, stupendous. That was the word.

Chapter 5

Harriet

After Sally, Charlie, and Jerome had left, taking the old trunk with them, Harriet spent a little while going through another box Charlie had brought down for her. It contained mostly framed pictures from her mother’s house. Many of them would be destined for the charity shop, but buried deep in the box was a photograph of Harriet and her brother Matthew as teenagers. She gazed at it wistfully, remembering how much she’d worshipped her older brother in those days.

She placed the photo on her mantelpiece along with the ones from her grandmother’s trunk and was sitting down with a well-earned cup of tea, when her phone rang. The display announced the call was from a withheld number. ‘Either a cold call or her ladyship,’ Harriet muttered as she answered it, but inside her stomach was in knots as she fervently wished it would be Davina. It had been several months since she’d heard from her.

‘Harriet? It’s me. Davina.’ As always, it grated a little that Davina would not call her ‘Mum’ but nevertheless Harriet was delighted to hear from her, even if she felt the familiar little pang of dread that maybe Davina was phoning with bad news.

‘Hello, love. Lovely to hear from you. Is everything all right? How are the girls?’

‘They’re fine. How are you?’ It was typical of Davina to give minimum information about her daughters, and instantly change the subject. Harriet had tried hard over the years not to push her, but just to chat normally and hope Davina would release a few more snippets about the girls. The best thing she could do was give Davina space and time, as much as she needed, but always to let her know she’d be welcomed if or when she wanted to return. But it was so hard, especially after all these years.

‘I’m fine, too. Sally’s helping me clear out the attic. She thinks I should move to a smaller house.’ As soon as she said this she regretted it – it made Sally sound too controlling, and was just the sort of comment that would wind Davina up.

‘That’s just like Sally. She’s so bossy. What do you want to do, Harriet? I mean, don’t move house if you’d rather stay there, with all the memories of Dad.’

Harriet flinched as Davina referred to John as ‘Dad’, despite refusing to call her ‘Mum’. ‘Well, there are lots of memories here, it’s true. But this is a big house, as you know, and I’m rattling around in it on my own, and it takes so much effort to maintain it. So I suppose she’s right