He grinned and kissed her. ‘You make a fine businesswoman, Edie.’
‘I’m proud of you. It would have made me happy just to know you’re finally going to see Savile Row.’
‘I’m sure it would have.’
She heard the subtlety of his words. ‘Would?’ she frowned.
His expression turned sheepish as she waited. ‘I’m going to London, but I’m not going to Savile Row. Solly’s handling that bit.’
‘But why?’ she asked, bewildered. ‘If you make it up to London without feeling anxious those are the hardest yards covered, and you might as well go all the way to Savile Row. This is your sale, your chance to derive all the benefit. I want the buyers to meet you – Tom Valentine, entrepreneur.’
‘I don’t have an ego that requires having to personally close a sale. I’ve set it up. Solly knows what I want and he’s an honest man. He gets his cut. I don’t have to do anything except help load it onto the cart. Suits me.’ He winked. ‘No pun intended.’
‘So you don’t feel confident about going up to London alone?’
‘That’s not it. I want to go to London – have to in order to prove to myself that I no longer have to fear travelling alone. But confronting my fears may take too much out of me and I don’t want to risk facing Savile Row with a blurred mind or weakened in any way when negotiations have to be done. Solly’s my emissary. Next time I won’t need one but the cloth we’ve got stockpiled needs to be shifted now and can’t wait for me to be feeling confident about travelling into the heart of the city. We have to strike now, Edie, before the economy sinks further.’
She looked downcast, not ready to let the debate go. ‘If you’re feeling as strong as you appear and sound, then I really do think you should go. There may be all sorts of opportunities. You can’t keep doing accounts for shopkeepers, Tom. You’re so much better than that. You think big always. Ignore the fear, risk going into central London and close that deal yourself. Lead the sale.’
‘Travelling alone that far will challenge me.’
‘But you won’t be alone,’ she countered, knowing he had meant just the trip from Epping to Golders Green, but she chose to ignore it for the sake of her determined argument that he close the deal. ‘And Savile Row will seduce you,’ Edie said, excited again and with a plea in her voice.
‘What is it, Edie?’
‘Pride, I suppose,’ she admitted, shrugging. ‘I want them to know they are buying Valentine cloth from a Valentine. And envy. I would give anything to be able to spend time at Savile Row. It’s a man’s world, though. My father is quite a revolutionary in the way he has always encouraged me in his trade and allowed me to meet his clients.’
‘I’d tell you to come with me but I don’t like the idea of you travelling this close to our child’s arrival.’
Edie waved a hand as though she didn’t need to come today. Instead she prodded his chest. ‘Someone important might see the potential in you that I know is there. You might be offered a wonderful new job on the Row.’
Tom grunted. ‘I doubt it very much. This is where I want to be. Right here with you and our new baby in our sweet little home, with our vegetable garden and my roses. And besides, I like being self-employed. You can never make it big if you’re employed by someone else.’
‘Make it big?’
‘I want to give you so much. And our child . . . children!’ He smiled and held her. ‘I don’t want to go to work every day of my life for someone else. I want to be that someone else.’
She stopped their debate with a kiss. ‘I love you, Tom Valentine.’
‘I love you more, Eden Valentine.’
She shook her head. ‘I doubt that.’
‘I can prove it.’
‘Go on, then.’ She grinned.
‘All right. When I am paid for the remainder of the cloth, the money is yours.’
She looked at him perplexed. ‘For what? You’re the financial brain in this family.’
He smiled, his eyes twinkling with mischief. ‘Come with me.’ He took her by the hand and led her out to his garden shed where he had an old leather satchel hanging up that Abe had given him. It was one of the many items Abe had gifted to his ‘children’, as he called them now. Everything from furniture to cooking pots and pans had found their way into their tiny but happy home.
As Tom took down the satchel Edie shook her head in wonder.
‘Hold your apron out,’ he said.
She did as he asked and Tom upended the satchel – out of it fell money. Lots of it.
Edie stared at the notes and coins in stunned silence. ‘What is this, Tom?’ she finally whispered, all amusement fled. ‘Have you robbed a bank?’
‘Honestly earned, invested and reinvested until I turned a profit during difficult times on the share market.’
‘What do you know about stocks and shares?’
He shrugged, nodding. ‘It’s a good question. Nothing, but I learned very quickly.’
‘I had no idea.’
‘I couldn’t have you worrying. It’s why I never used any of the money that I earned doing the shopkeepers’ books. You remember the seven pounds?’ She nodded. ‘I won more than that but kept a few pounds back for us. I thought we may need it if your father turned his back on us. All of this is earned through that original fund.’
‘Pretty Penny, you mean?’ she asked. He grinned. ‘What made you do it?’
‘You did, Edie.’
She frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
Tom undid a front flap of the satchel and withdrew some paperwork. ‘You will when you read this.’
‘I prefer you to tell me. You’re scaring me.’
He smiled and his eyes were round and filled with warmth. ‘Nothing to fear. It’s exciting. I have taken on a lease.’
Her gaze narrowed. ‘A lease . . . for what?’
‘For the atelier you dream of. I considered Petticoat Lane. I even thought long and hard about Lavender Hill, but you need to go after the real money, Edie – and the real money is spent in places like Sloane Square. Your new salon is on the King’s Road. With the sale of the cloth today, you can afford to set up that shop with everything you need to start the dressmaking and bridal business.’
Edie felt as though a million words were crowding into her mind at once, backing up in her throat, but she couldn’t get a single one out. She looked down at the money piled into her apron and back up to Tom’s face, speechless.
Tom continued, filled with laughing enthusiasm. ‘It’s time to climb out of the shadow of Abe Valentine and especially that of your brother’s. This is only about Eden Valentine, and her atelier.’
Edie continued to stare at him.
‘All the paperwork is done for the shop itself. I have spoken to a lawyer who is handling everything. All the details are in here. We can go through it together . . .’ He paused and laughed again. ‘Once you get over the shock. But in all honesty, you don’t need me.’
She took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Nothing to say. Just follow your dream, Edie.’
‘But our baby?’
‘We’ll work it out. There are so many people looking for work, and we can set up a nursery at the back of the salon.’
She felt as though a rabble of butterflies had suddenly been startled in her chest.
‘Edie? This is what you want, isn’t it?’
She nodded through helpless tears, which she tried to sniff back while she responded to her husband’s searching look. ‘It’s more, Tom. You’ve given me my dream – my salon, a child . . . and you. Is it fair for one person to have so much happiness at once? I feel dizzy with guilt.’
‘Don’t you dare,’ he warned. ‘You’ve spent your whole life being dutiful. Now it’s your turn to chase the stars, and I’ll be there, watching you proudly. So make me proud, Edie. Take this opportunity and don’t worry about anything you can’t control. Life is always going to get in the way of the best laid plans. But I’m here . . . I’
ll always be here for you.’
‘Promise me.’
Tom kissed her long and tenderly, pulling away only when they both needed to take a breath, and even then leaving only the space of a single finger between their lips, which he now touched to his mouth. ‘Hush, Edie,’ he murmured. ‘You have nothing to fear.’
10
When Tom and Edie had been firm about leaving her family home above the shop and moving out of London, Abe had been inconsolable to begin with.
It had felt harsh at first to leave the old man behind, but no amount of Edie’s pleading or Tom’s urgings could encourage him to join them in the cottage that they’d stumbled upon one summery afternoon while picnicking in the Epping Forest.
Sitting humbly away from the Jacobean hunting lodges and various country manors were quaint workers’ cottages and small lanes meandering through unspoiled countryside. Edie had fallen in love with the region and one particular abandoned cottage, its scrambling hedge of honeysuckle gone wild, while an arbour over the broken gate dripped with wisteria and nasturtiums. Ancient rose bushes, whose main shafts were nearly as thick as Edie’s arm, bloomed sweet and bountiful in dazzling colours and scents. Flowerpots on the window ledges had long ago dried and cracked, their flowers withered, but somehow they managed to still look cheerful, perhaps aided by sentries of sunflowers that kept a vigil in beds lining the front of the house.
It was ramshackle, inside and out, but Edie could see strong bones, assured Tom they could afford somewhere like this, and it would work for them.
‘You make me nervous, Edie,’ he’d admitted, frowning at the restoration challenge ahead.
‘I’ll make this a home so fast you’ll hardly catch a breath, and the railway station means the seventeen miles to London is easily covered. It’s perfect. My father can still visit and I can get into and out of town to pick up work and deliver it back to Abba.’
Tom had nodded, deep in thought. ‘I like that it’s a market town.’
‘Every Monday apparently,’ she’d said.
Within weeks the newlyweds had moved in and begun turning the cottage into their home. As Tom kissed his wife now, both standing either side of their repaired and freshly painted front gate, she sighed.
‘What’s wrong?’ he frowned.
‘Nothing,’ she replied.
‘Tell me.’
‘I can’t bear us to be apart.’
He tutted. ‘You go up and down to London all the time.’
‘I do, yes. But you are always safe here and waiting for me. This time you’re leaving.’
‘You have nothing to fear. Just be relieved that I feel independent enough to do this.’
‘I’m so proud my heart feels full enough to burst.’
He looked at her quizzically as he inhaled the scent of honeysuckle. ‘And?’
‘I’m frightened it might burst.’
‘There you go again,’ he teased. ‘I am going to London to make us a cold fortune with our magnificent European cloth and then we’re going to celebrate. You’re going to have our baby very soon, then you’re going to open the salon . . . and we’ll really be on our way.’
‘No straying into pubs today.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not a child.’
‘I know. It’s why I haven’t sewn our address into your jacket,’ she said sadly. ‘But I wanted to.’
‘Please stop worrying, Edie. I am recovered and now it’s time I started proving that.’
She couldn’t argue with this logic. ‘I did sew something for you, though.’
He shook his head in query.
‘Look in your breast pocket.’ She mustered a grin. ‘The invisible one.’
He pulled out a red handkerchief, ironed and folded neatly. He frowned. ‘I have a handkerchief,’ he said, tapping his outside breast pocket.
‘Not like this one,’ Edie said. ‘Open it.’
He shook it out and noticed that the middle had been neatly cut away in a specific shape. Tom gave a sad smile. ‘I do believe, Eden Valentine, that you have my heart.’
Edie opened her hand to reveal the heart-shaped scrap of red cotton upon which she had embroidered their intertwining initials. ‘Forever,’ she answered. ‘And I’m going to keep it safe right next to my own.’ She grinned, pushing the small piece of fabric into the front of her blouse, tucking it into her bra.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘I’ll be back to claim it. In the meantime, you should know that I don’t ever want it to be anywhere else but there.’ He kissed her softly. ‘Back before you know it.’
She nodded. ‘I’ll miss you the whole time.’ Edie hugged him hard and then he was gone, striding down the small lane, wearing the new navy suit her father had made for him recently. She noticed him pause to exchange a few words with Mrs Bailey, who was cutting some roses in her garden, and then he lifted his hat again for Mrs Charmers, who was pushing her new baby in its pram. She craned to watch him before he turned the corner and headed up towards the main road for the bus into town to meet Sol.
Oh, how Edie wished she possessed Tom’s easy way with others. He seemed even more at home in their new country setting than she did. A soft summer breeze blew her hair off her shoulders.
‘Being in love hurts, doesn’t it?’
Edie swung around. It was the barmaid from The King’s Head, where she and Tom had dropped in a couple of times and couldn’t help but notice the laughing, loud woman behind the bar. If the giveaway wrinkles were an indication, then this was a woman past her prime but Edie had noticed that Delia took care with her appearance. She surprisingly looked even more youthful with her hair in a ponytail and no lipstick or rouge.
‘Delia, isn’t it?’
‘Good memory. Where’s your handsome fellow going?’
‘Hello. I’m Eden Valentine. Is it obvious how much I love him?’
‘Then and now.’
‘Tom’s my husband.’ She absently stroked their unborn child. ‘I was watching him go for the day.’ She looked away self-consciously.
‘Why so worried?’
Edie found herself explaining to the relative stranger at her gate about her husband’s lost memory, how they’d met, fallen in love and that they’d moved away from the city to help him heal fully. She even told her companion about her plans to open a bridal salon.
‘Not just bridal, of course . . . I’d like to do the whole trousseau and the honeymoon garments. Ultimately I’d like to offer a range of clothes off the hanger for the busy woman – at work, at play, at home.’ She lost the misty look in her eyes and refocused on Delia. ‘Today, though, it’s all about Tom and knowing he’s safe.’
Delia shrugged. ‘You have to let him go sometime. Next time will be easier. And soon you’ll be waving him off, glad to have some time to yourself for a while,’ she said, slapping Edie playfully. ‘I can’t wait to push Bert out of our flat.’
‘Do you live above the pub?’
Delia nodded and her expression clouded. ‘We never could have children,’ she said, glancing at Edie’s bump, but she brightened almost immediately. ‘But it does mean we can work our long pub hours and Bert said we should take a holiday next winter. Maybe go somewhere warm.’
‘Lucky you,’ Edie said.
‘You’ll have your hands full by then, I suspect.’ Delia winked. ‘Have you got family nearby?’
Edie shook her head.
‘What about friends? Have you made many?’
She shrugged. ‘Not yet.’
‘Well, you two have probably been too busy,’ Delia remarked dryly, glancing again at Edie’s swollen belly. ‘Come on, I’ve promised my Bert a nice fruit pie tonight.’
‘Come on where?’ Edie frowned.
‘You do know the best blackberries in Britain grow at the bottom of your lane, don’t you?’ Delia asked.
Edie looked back at her vacantly.
‘Oh, my heavens. Go fetch a bowl and tonight you are going to have a warm blackberry and apple pie waiting triumphantly fo
r your man’s return.’
Edie giggled. ‘I’ve got an apple tree laden with fruit in our garden.’
‘Excellent.’
Edie hurried back into the cottage, returning with a big glass bowl.
Delia casually linked an arm. ‘Come on then, Eden.’
‘Edie,’ she corrected.
‘Good, because I have to discuss your hair.’
‘My hair?’ she said.
‘We’re cutting it. You’re young, Edie! Wear it in the new bob style.’
Edie looked back apprehensively at her new friend with a mischievous expression.
‘What?’ Delia said.
‘Tom likes it long.’
‘So does every man, but this is the 1920s! How old are you?’
‘Twenty-four,’ she answered.
‘Well, then!’ Delia replied as if that was the answer to all ills. ‘There isn’t a woman under thirty who isn’t rushing out to have her tresses cut off. And you’ve got thick, dark, shiny hair that other women would kill you for. You can lead the charge in London, Edie.’
‘Why don’t you lead the charge?’
‘Because I’m hitting forty-four! If you open this salon, aren’t women going to be looking to you for fashion advice?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Cut your hair, girl. I heard on the radio that barber shops in New York are being flooded by thousands of women every week, all wanting to be shorn. London will be next. You’ve surely seen the fashion magazines?’
Edie nodded.
‘Must be quite intimidating for the men.’ Delia laughed. ‘But we have Madeleine.’
‘Madeleine?’
‘Great hairdresser turned amazing model and now retired from Paris, who lives near the pub and can cut your hair in the latest style. We can probably do it this afternoon and you can surprise your fella not only with a hot blackberry pie, but with a sexy new haircut.’
‘Delia, I’m not sure . . .’ She began to shake her head.
‘Oh, he’ll love it.’ She patted Edie’s arm as though a deal had just been done. ‘Now, tell me more about your handsome husband. I have to warn you, if I was twenty years younger . . .’
Edie’s laughter could be heard echoing down the pretty country lane with high hedgerows and tangles of blackberry canes.
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