‘Nobody
is to know where we are. You must forget England. That part of your
lives is over.’
Twins
Ginny and Emily Holborn have everything they could ever need in their
Wolverhampton home: a loving family, a garden to play in, and staff
waiting to attend to their every need. Until, one summer day in 1926,
they disappear without a trace.
Ten
years later, bright-eyed solicitor Charlie Commoner is given his
first job: track down the still-missing Holborn twins. Despatched to
France, he’s left to unravel a web of infidelity, mystery, and
terrifying family secrets.
Let
bestselling author Beryl Kingston sweep you away on a journey from
London to Paris, through tragedy and triumph in the search for two
sisters wearing two silver crosses.
Two
Silver Crosses was
originally published in 1992.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Beryl
Kingston is the author
of 30 novels with over a million copies sold. She has been a writer
since she was 7 when she started producing poetry. She was evacuated
to Felpham at the start of WWII, igniting an interest in one-time
resident poet William Blake which later inspired her novel The Gates
of Paradise. She was an English teacher from 1952 until 1985 when she
became a full-time writer after her debut novel, Hearts and
Farthings, became a bestseller. Kingston continued writing
bestsellers for the next 14 years with titles ranging from family
sagas to modern stories and historical novels. She currently lives in
West Sussex and has three children, five grandchildren, and ten
great-grandchildren.
EXTRACT
Chapter
One
‘Just
turn over on your side, Mrs Holborn, dear,’ the midwife coaxed.
‘Turn on your side, there’s a good girl.’
Hortense
Holborn was too far gone to understand her. She was very young and
very frightened and to add confusion to fear the baby had started
much too early. So instead of having her darling Edouard home on
leave the way he’d planned it, he was away at the front fighting
the Germans, or lying wounded somewhere or dying or blown to bits. Oh
no, no, no. She mustn’t think that. If only he were here, safe in
her arms, and she safe in his. If only… Oh this awful pain and this
awful war that tears people apart! ‘Je’n
peux pas!’ she groaned, retreating
into her native language because she hadn’t got the energy to speak
English. She hadn’t got the energy for anything, not even to lift
her head from the pillow. ‘Je’n peux
pas!’
‘I
don’t think she can understand what you’re saying, Mrs Bonney,’
the midwife’s young assistant said. ‘She don’t seem to hear
you, not to my way a thinking.’
‘Quite
right, Joan,’ Mrs Bonney said. ‘But I’m sure she can
hear, poor girl. She don’t understand, that’s the way of it. And
no wonder with all this stopping and starting. It’s enough to try
the patience of a saint.’
It
had been a complicated labour. When it started, three exhausting days
ago, it had seemed straightforward enough, although premature. But
then for some unaccountable reason it had completely stopped and,
despite hot baths and two enemas and three doses of castor oil, it
had refused to start up again until early that morning. And now it
was proceeding much too slowly for Mrs Bonney’s peace of mind.
For
this was no ordinary confinement. For a start the poor girl was
expecting twins, and at nineteen she was barely old enough for one
baby leave alone two, and as if that weren’t complication enough,
the babies would be the first grandchildren of the great Mr Holborn
who owned GS Holborn’s Munitions, which was one of the biggest
factories in the district, if not the
biggest. And they were being born in his splendid house with a fine
nursery waiting for them, all newly furnished and decorated, with
enough toys on the shelves to stock a shop and the proverbial silver
spoon ready for their mouths. So it certainly wasn’t the sort of
confinement that could be taken easily by anyone concerned.
‘Turn
on your side, Mrs Holborn, dear,’ the midwife tried again. ‘You’d
be easier on your side.’
There
was a discreet knock at the bedroom door. Mrs Bonney clicked her
tongue with annoyance at being interrupted but signalled with her
eyes that her assistant was to go and attend to it.
It
was Miss Agnes Holborn, their patient’s sister-in-law, and to Mrs
Bonney’s surprise she had a soldier standing beside her. It
couldn’t be Mr Edward, could it? Surely not. Mr Edward was at the
front. Everybody knew that. But it was,
looking very fine in his officer’s uniform, polished boots, khaki
cap and all.
‘How
is she?’ he whispered, stripping off his gloves. His long face was
drawn with anxiety and there were dark shadows under his eyes. ‘Agnes
sent me a telegram. I got here as soon as I could. Please let me see
her.’
His
request put Mrs Bonney into a quandary. Ordinarily husbands would
never be allowed into the bedroom while a labour was going on. It
wasn’t hygienic. Or proper. Their place was outside pacing the
carpet. But this was 1916 and they were all in the middle of a war,
and he’d come all the way from the battlefield to be with this poor
little French wife of his. And besides, he might be able to get her
to do what they said, even if it wasn’t hygienic.
And
while she was dithering, Hortense made up her mind for her, calling
out to her husband in her own language, her face suddenly bright with
renewed vigour, her voice stronger and more alive. ‘Edouard!
Edouard! It is you, is it not, my love. Oh come to me quickly,
quickly. I’m so frightened.’
He
was into the room in three strides, regardless of permission, tossing
his cap on to a chair, reaching the bed, sweeping her into his arms,
holding her close, kissing her damp dark hair. ‘Don’t be afraid,
my dearest. I’m here. You’re safe with me.’
‘Mr
Edward,’ Mrs Bonney protested. ‘You can’t…’
But
he could. He was. Smiling up at her with weary blue eyes, the light
brown hair above his temples still pinched by the pressure of his
cap, his long face tanned and more lined than she remembered it from
the last time she’d seen him in the village, his expression clearly
pleading with her. There was a scurry of frantic activity at the
other end of the bed as Joan flung a sheet across their patient’s
swollen abdomen for decency’s sake.
‘Oh
dear,’ Mrs Bonney said. ‘I’m not sure this is…’
But
he went on smiling at her, hopefully.
‘Very
well,’ she decided. ‘You can stay. But just for a little while
mind, because it really isn’t proper. We’ll rig a sheet up.’
‘You’re
a pearl!’ Edward Holborn said.
So
the sheet was rigged, with two ends tied to the tops of two
high-backed chairs one on each side of the bed so as to stretch a
screen of white cloth between the birth and its begetter. And as if
his arrival were all the medicine Hortense needed, the labour began
to speed up. Soon it had settled into an encouraging rhythm.
‘Now
we’re getting somewhere,’ Mrs Bonney reported with great
satisfaction from behind her screen. ‘Does she need a drink, Mr
Edward, could you ask her?’
Hortense
lay back in her husband’s arms and gave herself up to the power of
the birth. When a contraction took hold there was nothing in the
world except remorseless pain, squeezing and squeezing, but as it
ebbed away Edouard was still there, sponging her forehead and kissing
her fingers and telling her she was a dear, brave girl. And as long
as he was there, she knew instinctively that she could and would get
through, bad though it was. Her darling, darling Edouard, who loved
her to distraction and whom she loved with all her heart. ‘Oh,
Jesus mercy. Mary help,’ she prayed clutching his hand. ‘Here
comes another one.’
The
first baby was born as the evening began to draw in and the mirror
over the mantelpiece turned rose with reflected light. A five-pound
girl with a mop of thick dark hair, the skinniest legs, her father’s
long nose and eyes so tightly shut they looked red and swollen.
‘Emilie,’
her mother said in English. ‘We’ll call her Emilie.’
Fifteen
minutes later the second baby slid into the world. At
four-and-three-quarter pounds she was even skinnier than her sister
and had the same dark hair and the same matchstick limbs; but her
eyes were open wide. They were large and round and very dark blue,
and they gazed at the world in the wise, solemn way of the newly
born. It was the sight of those eyes that lifted her parents to tears
of wonder and happiness.
‘Virginie,’
her father said to her as she was placed in her mother’s arms
beside her sister. ‘You have two names because you have two
nationalities like your sister. Emily/Emilie. Virginia/Virginie.
Isn’t your mother the cleverest girl to have two such beautiful
babies?’
‘I
only hope Mr Holborn thinks so,’ Mrs Bonney muttered to Joan behind
the screen. Old Mr Holborn was a difficult man at the best of times
and everyone knew he wanted grandsons to carry on the business.
But
when he came in much later that evening to view the new arrivals the
old man was quite taken with them. ‘They’re as like as two peas
in a pod,’ he said to Hortense, putting down a rough forefinger for
Virginia to grasp. ‘Two little funny faces, aren’t you? They’ve
got your thick hair, my dear. But the Holborn nose, poor little
things. Still I suppose we had to expect that, eh, Edward? We run to
noses in this family.’
‘I
think they’re beautiful,’ Edward said, giving his father a
warning grimace.
‘They’ll
do,’ Mr Holborn said. And for him that was praise. ‘How long are
you staying?’
‘Ten
days,’ Edward told him. ‘I’ve put my leave forward.’
‘You
boys can wangle anything,’ his father said admiringly. ‘How’s
it going out there?’
‘Oh
much the same,’ Edward said laconically. ‘You know how it is.’
And
his father agreed that he did. Although, in point of fact, like most
other people back at home, he didn’t have the remotest idea about
life in the trenches.
But
what did any of that matter now, with these two delightful babies
safely delivered and a midwife on call night and day and the young
assistant, Joan, to live in and take care of them all?
‘I
think they’re the prettiest little things I’ve ever seen,’
Agnes said. ‘You are lucky, Edward.’ And it wasn’t just his
good fortune in having two new daughters that she was talking about.
Every
time Agnes saw him with Hortense, caught up in the glow of their
passion for one another, she yearned for and was envious of their
obvious happiness. She couldn’t imagine anything better than to
love like that and be loved in return. Not that it was likely to
happen to her now, for she was twenty-eight, going on twenty-nine,
with a plain rather pasty face, timid blue eyes, that awful Holborn
nose and lank brown hair like her brother’s. And although she did
her best to disguise the fact with flowing blouses, tunics and
dresses that were cut very full, she was already developing the dumpy
figure of a middle-aged woman. But there was no unkindness in her and
her envy was more vicarious tenderness than jealousy. Love was
wonderful; she knew it and was happy to bask in the reflected warmth
of it, even if she couldn’t experience it herself. ‘You’re
very, very lucky.’
‘Yes,’
her brother said. ‘I know. Your turn next, eh, Sis?’
Agnes
decided it was best to ignore that. ‘They’re so alike,’ she
said. ‘How will you tell them apart?’
‘That
is easy for the moment,’ Hortense said, speaking English with her
pretty French accent. ‘Emilie does not open her eyes.’
‘Shouldn’t
she?’ Agnes said, stroking the baby’s silky head.
‘Oh,
she’ll do it in time,’ Edward said. ‘Won’t you, poppet?’
But
two days passed, and the baby’s eyes were still swollen and tightly
shut. And when Mrs Bonney came in on the second evening to check her
charges and settle them for the night both lids were decidedly
sticky.
‘How
long’s this been going on?’ she said to Joan, frowning down at
the child.
‘There
was no sign of it at her last feed. Was there, Mrs Holborn?’
‘Well,
it won’t do!’ the midwife disapproved. She held out her hand to
her assistant for cotton wool and cleaned both eyes thoroughly,
throwing the pads into the nursery fire afterwards. ‘If they’re
no better by the morning we shall have to have the doctor in. You’ll
keep an eye on that, Joan, won’t you? Are they feeding well?’
‘Oh
yes,’ Hortense said happily. ‘They are – how do you say? –
gourmandes.’
‘Greedy,’
Mrs Bonney guessed. ‘That’s good.’ But she could see how well
they were being fed from the colour of their skin and the way their
limbs were already beginning to round out. A good mother, this little
French girl, for all her youth and her apparent fragility. And very
pretty in her foreign way with that olive skin and all that thick
curly hair. It was the heart-shaped face that did it, and those big
brown eyes. Always a fetching combination. It was a pity the babies
didn’t take after her. But they’d probably grow better looking
with time. Babies often did. ‘Now let’s have a look at you, my
dear,’ she said. ‘Is my Joan looking after you?’
‘Oh
yes,’ Hortense said again, smiling at Mrs Bonney’s assistant.
‘She is to keep me company tonight while the party is ’appening.’
‘Oh!’
Mrs Bonney said. ‘We’ve got a party, have we? Well we’ve
certainly got something to celebrate.’
‘Ah
no!’ Hortense said. ‘It is not for ze babies, you understand. It
is for ze company. For GS Holborn’s.’
‘It’s
their staff do,’ Joan explained. ‘They have it once a year.’
Mrs
Bonney changed her mind about the party. ‘Well, I hope they don’t
make a disturbance, that’s all I can say,’ she warned. ‘You
need peace and quiet when you’re lying-in, my dear, and they should
see that you get it.’
But,
in fact, Mr Holborn’s staff parties were usually rather sober
affairs because they were held in the great hall. A daunting place,
built in the medieval style with oak beams and a minstrel gallery, it
was two storeys high with huge windows stretching from floor to
ceiling on one wall and a fireplace on another big enough to contain
two wooden settles on either side of the fire.
Mr
Holborn moved among his guests, talking to each in turn and checking
they all had enough to eat and drink, but except for a handful who’d
been with the company for a long time and were used to it, most of
the guests were ill at ease. They shuffled their feet and cleared
their throats when their employer approached and were obviously
relieved when the annual ordeal was over.
Agnes
Holborn was even more ill at ease than they were. She’d played the
hostess at these events ever since her mother died when she was
barely seventeen, but she’d never found it easy because she was shy
in company and always conscious of how unattractive she was. But she
felt she owed it to her father to do her best, so her best she
dutifully did. At least at this party she had the babies’ arrival
to talk about and the wives would be interested in that.
Which
they were, of course, saying how lovely it must be and how nice to
have twins and asking what they were to be called. And Agnes shared
her good news so happily she didn’t notice that she was being
watched.
She
turned to move on to another table and found one of her father’s
‘young men’ standing in her way and smiling as though he knew
her.
‘Miss
Holborn?’ he said, giving her a little bow.
‘Yes,’
she said, returning the smile politely. ‘I don’t believe we’ve
met, have we? Mr…?’
‘Everdale,’
he said. ‘Claud Everdale. I’m one of the sales team with the
British Expeditionary Force.’
‘You’re
in the army?’ she asked. All the young men she met seemed to be in
the army these days.
This
one wasn’t. ‘Not yet,’ he confided. ‘I’m part of the Derby
scheme, so you won’t have to search for a white feather. I’ve
taken the shilling and got my number and all that sort of thing, but
they think I’m more use to them providing your father’s guns.’
‘I’m
sure you are,’ she said, thinking what a handsome young man he was,
so tall and dapper with his dark hair neatly oiled and a narrow
moustache on his upper lip. And he was wearing a nice white shirt
under his dark suit.
‘I
know you’ll think this the most frightful cheek,’ he said,
smiling at her, ‘but I suppose you wouldn’t honour me with a
dance, would you? To tell you the truth I’ve only just joined the
firm, so I don’t know anybody, and I’ve been looking at you for
ages and you’ve got such a beautiful face that I wondered…’
‘Oh
come now, Mr Everdale,’ Agnes protested. ‘I do have a mirror you
know.’
‘I’m
sure you have,’ he said. ‘But what does that show you? Features.
That’s all you see in a mirror. I’m talking about your
expression. Believe me, Miss Holborn, you have the most beautiful
expression I’ve ever seen. Kind and loving, if you don’t mind me
saying so. Really beautiful. But lots of men must have told you
that…unless of course they were blind.’
Agnes
didn’t know what to say because, of course, nobody had ever told
her she was beautiful. She was confused and charmed and flattered,
despite her honest knowledge of her own worth, or the lack of it. And
besides, he was looking at her with such open admiration, how could
she doubt what he said, ridiculous though it was? After all Hortense
thought Edward was handsome and they did say beauty was in the eye of
the beholder. ‘Well…’ she said finally.
He
assumed a rueful expression but continued to gaze into her eyes.
‘I’ve offended you,’ he said. Then he shook his head as if he
was changing his mind. ‘I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken.
It is
cheek.’
‘No.
No,’ Agnes said, plucking at her pearls.
But
he continued. ‘I withdraw my request, Miss Holborn. I’ve no right
to ask you anything. You wouldn’t want to dance with the likes of
me.’
‘Oh
no. Not at all,’ Agnes said, feeling she had to reassure him.
Usually she retreated as soon as the music began because she was much
too awkward to want to dance with anybody except Edward, but she
could hardly say that when he’d asked her so politely, had said so
many charming things and was looking at her like that. ‘I mean, I
should be very happy to dance with you.’
His
eyes flashed such excitement that it gave her a sudden frisson
of pleasure. ‘You would?’ he said. ‘Oh, you don’t know what
this means to me. Which one? Do I have to mark a card or anything?’
She
was warmed by his ignorance. ‘We don’t use cards on these
occasions, I’m glad to say,’ she explained. ‘My father likes
things to be informal.’
‘Then
may I claim the first dance you’ve got free?’
‘You
may,’ Agnes said. And she was suddenly warm with hope. It was
impossible, ridiculous. But she couldn’t help feeling it. The hope
that at long, long last she’d found a man who would love her as
Edward loved Hortense. Oh wouldn’t that be wonderful!
‘You’ve
made me the happiest man in the room,’ he said, giving her another
half bow and striding across the room to join the other salesmen who
were standing against the wall.
‘Well?’
they asked him.
‘It’s
in the bag,’ he said. ‘First dance. That’s ten bob you owe me,
Jack.’
‘You
toe-rag!’ his friend Jack said with admiration. ‘So now what? I
suppose you’ll be marrying her next.’
‘Just
watch me!’
‘She’s
old enough to be your mother.’
‘Give
it a rest. I’m twenty-two.’
‘And
she’s pushing thirty.’
But
she’ll inherit half the firm, Claud Everdale thought. Everybody in
the company knows that. When old man Holborn goes it’s to be
divided between her and her brother. And that was what was important.
She’ll inherit half the firm and I’ve interested her already.
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