Jeffrey Archer - Only Time Will Tell

Harry and Emma walked slowly back to the Randolph chatting about nothing of any consequence, just not wanting the evening to end.

‘Well, at least you’ll be back in a fortnight’s time to sit your entrance exam,’ said Harry as they climbed the steps to the hotel, ‘so it won’t be too long before I see you again.’

‘True,’ said Emma, ‘but there’ll be no time for any distractions until I’ve completed the last paper. Once that’s out of the way, we can spend the rest of the weekend together.’

Harry was about to kiss her goodnight, when she whispered, ‘Would you like to come up to my room? I’ve got a present for you. I wouldn’t want you to think I’d forgotten your birthday.’

Harry looked surprised, as did the hall porter when the young couple walked up the staircase together hand in hand. When they reached Emma’s room, she fumbled nervously with the key before finally pushing open the door.

‘I’ll just be a moment,’ she said as she disappeared into the bathroom.

Harry sat down in the only chair in the room and tried to think of what he’d most like for his birthday. When the bathroom door opened, Emma was framed in the half light. The elegant strapless gown had been replaced by a hotel towel.

Harry could hear his heart beating as she walked slowly towards him.

‘I think you’re a little overdressed, my darling,’ Emma said, as she slipped off his jacket and let it fall to the floor. Next she undid his bow tie before unbuttoning his shirt, and both joined the jacket. Two shoes and two socks followed, before she slowly pulled down his trousers. She was about to remove the one remaining obstacle in her path, when he gathered her up in his arms and carried her across the bedroom.

As he dumped her unceremoniously on to the bed, the towel fell to the floor. Emma had often imagined this moment since they’d returned from Rome, and assumed that her first attempts at making love would be awkward and clumsy. But Harry was gentle and considerate, although he was clearly every bit as nervous as she was. After they’d made love, she lay in his arms, not wanting to fall asleep.

‘Did you like your birthday present?’ she asked.

‘Yes I did,’ said Harry. ‘But I hope it’s not going to be another year before I can unwrap the next one. That reminds me, I’ve got a present for you too.’

‘But it’s not my birthday.’

‘It’s not a birthday present.’

He jumped out of bed, picked his trousers up off the floor and rummaged around in the pockets until he came across a small leather box. He returned to the bedside, fell to one knee and said, ‘Emma, my darling, will you marry me?’

‘You look quite ridiculous down there,’ said Emma, frowning. ‘Get back into bed before you freeze to death.’

‘Not until you’ve answered my question.’

‘Don’t be silly, Harry. I decided that we were going to be married the day you came to the Manor House for Giles’s twelfth birthday.’

Harry burst out laughing as he placed the ring on the third finger of her left hand.

‘I’m sorry it’s such a small diamond,’ he said.

‘It’s as big as the Ritz,’ she said as he climbed back into bed. ‘And as you seem to have everything so well organized,’ she teased, ‘what date have you chosen for our wedding?’

‘Saturday, July the twenty-ninth, at three o’clock.’

‘Why then?’

‘It’s the last day of term, and in any case, we can’t book the university church after I’ve gone down.’

Emma sat up, grabbed the pencil and pad from the bedside table and started to write.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Harry.

‘I’m working on the guest list. If we’ve only got seven weeks…’

‘That can wait,’ said Harry, taking her back in his arms. ‘I feel another birthday coming on.’

‘She’s too young to be thinking about marriage,’ said Emma’s father, as if she wasn’t in the room.

‘She’s the same age I was when you proposed to me,’ Elizabeth reminded him.

‘But you weren’t about to sit the most important exam of your life, just a fortnight before the wedding.’

‘That’s exactly why I’ve taken over all the arrangements,’ said Elizabeth. ‘That way Emma won’t have any distractions until her exams are over.’

‘Surely it would be better to put the wedding off for a few months. After all, what’s the hurry?’

‘What a good idea, Daddy,’ said Emma, speaking for the first time. ‘Perhaps we could also ask Herr Hitler if he’d be kind enough to put off the war for a few months, because your daughter wants to get married.’

‘And what does Mrs Clifton think about all of this?’ her father asked, ignoring his daughter’s comment.

‘Why should she be anything other than delighted by the news?’ Elizabeth asked him. He didn’t respond.

An announcement of the forthcoming marriage between Emma Grace Barrington and Harold Arthur Clifton was published in The Times ten days later. The first banns were read from the pulpit of St Mary’s by the Reverend Styler on the following Sunday and over three hundred invitations were sent out during the next week. No one was surprised when Harry asked Giles to be his best man, with Captain Tarrant and Deakins as the principal ushers.

But Harry was shocked when he received a letter from Old Jack, declining his kind invitation because he couldn’t leave his post in the current circumstances. Harry wrote back, begging him to reconsider and at least attend the wedding, even if he felt unable to take on the task of being an usher. Old Jack’s reply left Harry even more confused: ‘I feel my presence might turn out to be an embarrassment.’

‘What is he talking about?’ said Harry. ‘Surely he knows that we’d all be honoured if he came.’

‘He’s almost as bad as my father,’ said Emma. ‘He’s refusing to give me away, and says he’s not even sure he’ll come.’

‘But you told me he’d promised to be more supportive in the future.’

‘Yes, but that all changed the moment he heard we were engaged.’

‘I can’t pretend that my mother sounded all that enthusiastic when I told her the news either,’ Harry admitted.

Emma didn’t see Harry again until she returned to Oxford to sit her exams, and even then not until she’d completed the final paper. When she came out of the examination hall, her fiancé was waiting on the top step, a bottle of champagne in one hand and two glasses in the other.

‘So, how do you think you got on?’ he asked as he filled her glass.

‘I don’t know,’ sighed Emma, as dozens of other girls poured out of the examination hall. ‘I didn’t realize what I was up against until I saw that lot.’

‘Well, at least you’ve got something to distract you while you wait for the results.’

‘Just three weeks to go,’ Emma reminded him. ‘That’s more than enough time for you to change your mind.’

‘If you don’t win a scholarship, I may have to reconsider my position. After all, I can’t be seen associating with a commoner.’

‘And if I do win a scholarship, I may have to reconsider my position and look for another scholar.’

‘Deakins is still available,’ said Harry as he topped up her glass.

‘It will be too late by then,’ said Emma.

‘Why?’

‘Because the results are due to be announced on the morning of our wedding.’

Emma and Harry spent most of the weekend locked away in her little hotel room, endlessly going over the wedding arrangements when they weren’t making love. By Sunday night, Emma had come to one conclusion.