Free The Silent Tide by Rachel Hore Page A

was saying. Emily would have liked to ask why Hugh Morton refused it, but Mrs Morton had forgotten her.
    Emily edged Coming Home off the shelf and examined it quickly. There was no inscription in this copy, no mention of any Isabel. She toyed with the idea of showing her own book to Hugh’s widow, but something stayed her, the not-knowing who Isabel was. She watched Jacqueline and Joel together, and how Jacqueline seemed to trust him.
    Joel had already told Emily how he had introduced himself to Hugh and Jacqueline once at a literary party in London the year before he died. He’d admired all Morton’s novels and had felt compelled to meet the great man and tell him so. Jacqueline added that when Joel wrote to her in sympathy after her husband’s death, she remembered the young man who’d spoken so charmingly to her husband and who’d impressed her by his knowledge of the books.
    said, sitting down again. or like Joel had visited Stone House several times since Morton’s death, but he didn’t seem to mind being made to do the tour with Emily today. So far they’d politely marvelled at the impressionistic oil painting of Hugh Morton in the hall, and the table in the breakfast room where the great man had sometimes worked on sunny mornings, his beloved Persian cats sleeping close by. In the dining room they had studied several photograph albums of awards ceremonies, of the Mortons holidaying in various exotic locations with other distinguished literary figures, Jacqueline cool and elegant in headscarves or shady hats. The number of such pictures had dwindled as the years had gone by.
    After they’d finished in the study, Lorna served sherry in the drawing room and Emily took out her notebook to consider her list of questions.
    Could Joel tell her a little about what else he’d written? Did he have an agent? Was there an outline for the proposed biography? How long did he think the book would take to complete, and so on? ‘I’m sorry to bombard you, but my boss is going to want to know all this,’ she told him.
    Nervous under this questioning, Joel spilled his sherry while placing his glass on the side table.
    ‘I do have an agent,’ he said, wiping his fingers on a tissue Emily gave him. He named someone Emily hadn’t heard of at a small, but reputable firm.
    Emily knew that Hugh Morton’s books were notionally looked after by one of the bigger literary agencies, but that Jacqueline made all the decisions. She wasn’t surprised that the agent in question wasn’t there today.
    ‘I’m a freelance writer,’ Joel was telling her. He mentioned several important commissions he’d had: writing the official history of a big City firm; ghostwriting the bestselling memoirs of a senior business figure. He’d also scripted a TV series about the 1950s that was in the process of being filmed. ‘That’s when I became very interested in Hugh Morton. I’ve always admired his novels.’
    He must have been paid reasonable money for some of these, Emily thought. Parchment wasn’t going to be able to offer more than a modest advance for this biography, and the thought worried her.
    ‘Joel really understands dear Hugh,’ Jacqueline Morton broke in. ‘He recognises how central he is as an English writer, don’t you, Joel?’
    ‘I certainly feel Hugh’s reputation is ripe to be reevaluated. The Silent Tide was actually a very modern book. The character of Nanna, for instance . . .’
    ‘Joel thinks Nanna is a woman for her time,’ said Mrs Morton, interrupting once again, ‘in the way of Tolstoy with Anna Karenina.’
    The pair of them regarded Emily as though daring her to challenge this. Emily hesitated, wondering if they really wanted her opinion. Anna Karenina was a favourite novel of hers and nothing to her mind compared with it, but Nanna in The Silent Tide was a powerful symbolic figure. She said, ‘I do see what you mean. Zara Collins is perfect to play her, isn’t she? Have they consulted you about it?’