Best Kept Secret (The Clifton Chronicles 3)

'Sir Giles Barrington. My nephew is on board that ship,' he said, pointing out of the window. 'Is there any way of getting him off?'

'I wouldn't have thought so, sir, unless the captain is willing to stop the ship and allow him to be lowered on to one of our pilot boats, which I'd have thought was most unlikely. But I'll give it a try. What's the passenger's name?'

'Sebastian Clifton. He's still a minor, and I have his parents' authority to get him off that ship.'

The harbourmaster picked up a microphone and began twiddling some knobs on a control panel as he tried to get the captain on the line.

'I don't want to get your hopes up,' he said, 'but the captain and I did serve together in the Royal Navy, so . . .'

'This is the captain of the SS South America,' said a very English voice.

'It's Bob Walters, skipper. We've got a problem, and I'd be grateful for any assistance you can give,' the harbourmaster said before passing on Sir Giles's request.

'In normal circumstances I'd be happy to oblige, Bob,' said the captain, 'but the owner's on the bridge, so I'll have to ask his permission.'

'Thank you,' said Giles and the harbourmaster in unison, before the line went dead.

'Are there any circumstances in which you have the authority to over-rule a captain?' asked Giles as they waited.

'Only while his ship's in the estuary. Once it's passed the northern lighthouse, it's deemed to be in the Channel and beyond my jurisdiction.'

'But you can give a captain an order while his ship's still in the estuary?'

'Yes, sir, but remember, it's a foreign vessel, and we don't want a diplomatic incident, so I wouldn't be willing to over-rule the captain unless I was convinced a criminal act was taking place.'

'What's taking them so long?' asked Giles as the minutes passed. Suddenly a voice crackled over the intercom.

'Sorry, Bob. The owner's unwilling to grant your request as we're approaching the harbour wall and will soon be in the Channel.'

Giles grabbed the microphone from the harbourmaster. 'This is Sir Giles Barrington. Please put the owner on the line. I want to speak to him personally.'

'I'm sorry, Sir Giles,' said the captain, 'but Mr Martinez has left the bridge and gone to his cabin, and he left strict instructions that he's not to be disturbed.'

HARRY CLIFTON

1957

33

HARRY HAD ASSUMED that nothing could surpass the pride he felt when he heard Sebastian had been awarded a scholarship to Cambridge. He was wrong. He felt just as proud as he watched his wife climbing the steps and on to the platform to receive her business degree, summa cum laude, from Wallace Sterling, the president of Stanford University.

Harry knew better than anyone the sacrifices Emma had made to meet the impossibly high standards Professor Feldman set himself and his students, and he had expected even more from Emma, as he had made clear over the years.

As she left the stage to warm applause, her navy hood in place, like all the students before her, she hurled her mortar board joyfully into the air, the sign that her undergraduate days were behind her. She could only wonder what her dear mother would have made of such behaviour from a 36-year-old English lady, and in public.

Harry's gaze moved from his wife to the distinguished professor of business studies, who was seated on the stage only a couple of places away from the university president. Cyrus Feldman made no attempt to hide his feelings when it came to his star pupil. He was the first on his feet to applaud Emma, and the last to sit down. Harry often marvelled at how his wife could subtly make powerful men, from Pulitzer Prize-winners to company chairmen, bend to her will, just as her mother had done before her.

How proud Elizabeth would have been of her daughter today, but no prouder than his own mother, because Maisie had experienced every bit as painful a journey before she could place the letters BA after her name.

Harry and Emma had dined with Professor Feldman and his long-suffering wife Ellen the previous evening. Feldman hadn't been able to take his eyes off Emma, and had even suggested that she should return to Stanford and, under his personal supervision, complete a thesis for a PhD.

'What about my poor husband?' Emma had said, linking her arm through Harry's.

'He'll just have to learn to live without you for a couple of years,' said Feldman, making no attempt to disguise what he had in mind. Many a red-blooded Englishman hearing such a proposition made to his wife might have punched Feldman on the nose, and a less tolerant wife than Mrs Feldman might well have been forgiven for initiating divorce proceedings as her three predecessors had done. Harry just smiled, while Mrs Feldman pretended not to notice.

Harry had agreed with Emma's suggestion that they should fly to England straight after the ceremony, as she wanted to be back at the Manor House before Sebastian returned from Beechcroft. Their son was no longer a schoolboy, she mused, and only three months away from being an undergraduate.

Once the degree ceremony was over, Emma strolled around the lawn, enjoying the celebratory atmosphere and making the acquaintance of her fellow graduates, who, like her, had spent countless lonely hours of study while residing on distant shores, and were now meeting for the first time. Spouses were introduced, family photographs shown off and addresses exchanged.

By six o'clock, when the waiters began to fold up the chairs, collect the drained champagne bottles and stack the last of the empty plates, Harry suggested that perhaps they should make their way back to their hotel.

Emma didn't stop chatting all the way back to the Fairmont, while she was packing, during the taxi ride to the airport, and as they waited for their flight in the first-class lounge. No sooner had she climbed aboard the aircraft, found her place and fastened her seat belt, than she closed her eyes and immediately fell into a deep sleep.

'You're sounding positively middle-aged,' said Emma as they started out on the long drive back from London Airport to the Manor House.

'I am middle-aged,' said Harry. 'I'm thirty-seven, and what's worse, young women have started calling me sir.'

'Well, I don't feel middle-aged,' said Emma, looking down at the map. 'Take a right at the traffic lights and you'll be on the Great Bath Road.'

'That's because life has just begun for you.'

'What do you mean?'

'Exactly that. You've just been awarded your degree, and appointed to the board of Barrington's, both of which have opened up a whole new life for you. Let's face it, twenty years ago neither opportunity would have been possible.'

'They've only been possible in my case because Cyrus Feldman and Ross Buchanan are enlightened men when it comes to treating women as equals. And don't forget that Giles and I own twenty-two per cent of the company between us, and Giles has never shown the slightest interest in sitting on the board.'

'That may well be the case, but if you're seen to do the job well, it might help convince other chairmen to follow Ross's example.'

'Don't kid yourself. It will still be decades before competent women are given the chance to replace incompetent men.'

'Well, let's at least pray it will be different for Jessica. I'm hoping that by the time she leaves school, her sole purpose in life won't be to learn how to cook and to find someone suitable to marry.'