Page 183 of The Secrets of the Tea Garden

Adela laughed and did so. Then Sam took back the camera and said, ‘I’ll take one of you and Adela, shall I?’

‘All right,’ Jacques agreed.

He shuffled up to Adela and she put her arm about his narrow shoulders. She leant close, breathing in his boy smell of unwashed hair and jam on his chin. She resisted the urge to lick her finger and wipe it off as her mother used to do with her and Harry. For one brief idyllic moment, as they grinned at Sam for the camera, Adela was a mother again, sitting with her son tucked in the crook of her arm.

It was over in an instant as Jacques wriggled out of her hold and began telling them about how he’d made a pin camera at school.

Too soon, Major Gibson was calling for his son. ‘Jacques, old boy, time to let our guests go home.’

Adela’s heart weighed like a stone as she climbed back down the ladder. Sam held out his hand to her as she reached the bottom. Jacques was already dashing ahead, waving a shiny horse-chestnut that he’d found on the ground. ‘Look, Daddy, my first conker! Can we put it on a string?’

Sam gripped Adela’s hand in his all the way back to the house, only letting go so that they could shake their hosts by the hand in farewell.

‘I’ve so enjoyed today,’ Adela said to Martha, fighting back tears.

Martha smiled, giving her a quizzical look. ‘It’s so nice to meet you. You’ll visit again before you leave for India, I hope? Jacques has quite taken to you and Sam.’

Adela forced herself to say, ‘We may not have time to come again, but thank you.’

She turned away quickly and braced herself to say goodbye to Jacques.

‘Thank you for showing us your treehouse. Would you like me to send you a photograph of a palm squirrel when I get back to India? Sam could take one with his camera.’

Jacques grinned. ‘Yes please, MrsJackman. Then I can take it into school and show my friends.’

‘Good,’ said Adela, putting on a brave smile.

She gazed at her son, trying to memorise every little detail about him to store away and think about later. She had to restrain herself from grabbing him and pulling him to her in a fierce hug. How she longed to kiss him and tell him that she loved him – always had and always would. Instead she briefly put out her hand and touched his head – the soft, silky dark tufts of hair that grew in the same haphazard way that her father Wesley’s had and her brother Harry’s did.

Then Adela turned from him and Sam was taking her arm and guiding her towards the car. Moments later, she was sitting in the back of the car with Sam beside her. James didn’t question why Sam didn’t sit in front as before.

As the car pulled away from the house, Adela stared out of the window, drinking in the sight of her son waving and smiling. Before they were halfway down the drive, Jacques’s interest had been caught by something else and the boy was dashing off across the terrace and out of view.

As they journeyed rapidly further away from Willowburn and her son, Adela sat back, engulfed in sorrow. Sam held her hand tightly in his. She looked into his face and saw that his eyes were brimming with tears too.

‘He’s a fine boy,’ Sam murmured.

‘He’s happy,’ whispered Adela, though it broke her heart to think that another woman would be bringing him up as her own. But she had seen how completely the Gibsons loved John Wesley and she knew that in time, the knowledge of how much they cared for the boy would come to be some consolation to her aching heart.

Sam put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. He whispered into her hair. ‘He looks just like you, Adela.’

She smiled through her tears. ‘Yes he does, doesn’t he?’

She wondered if Martha had seen the similarity and whether she pondered how that could be.

Adela closed her eyes. Today she had found the son for whom she had been searching and the questions that had tortured her for so long had finally been answered. She had always known that to find out the truth was likely to bring as much pain as it did relief; having to tear herself away from John Wesley had been almost intolerable. But at least now she knew what had happened to him and that he was secure in a loving home. She had to cling on to that thought. She would do anything for her son – and the biggest sacrifice of all was to let him go into the hands of others. Adela knew that that was what her love for John Wesley demanded of her. For the first time, she had it in her heart to forgive her eighteen-year-old self her immaturity. She couldn’t change the past but – however painful – she would find a way to accept and bear it.

Crushed by her sense of loss, there was another emotion that gave balm to her raw feelings – gratitude to Sam. Her husband had supported her today, although it must have been difficult for him too. More than that: Sam had liked John Wesley and been kind to the boy.In other circumstances, she knew that generous-hearted Sam would have taken on her illegitimate child without hesitation.

Adela reached up and kissed Sam on the lips and then laid her head on his shoulder. They didn’t need to say anything more. Both knew what the other was thinking and how much they loved one another. James, perhaps sensing their sadness, drove on without any prying questions. They travelled back to Newcastle in silence.