Page 83 of The Stranger in Room Six

The Colonel? The Colonel with his twinkly eyes, who could be so charming and kind one minute, and yet so scary and strict the next?

The man who had been much kinder to her than her aunt, only to be convicted of treason.

He had been her father? The Colonel who had been stabbed to death by a local man intent on ‘handing out his own justice’. At least, this was how the newspapers had phrased it.

And Aunt Clarissa … The woman who had rarely shown her any warmth, who had failed to give her the love that one might expect towards a motherless child. She had given birth to her?

‘You are my mother?’ she said with disbelief in her voice.

Aunt Clarissa looked away. She said nothing, but the blush crawling up her cheeks was enough.

‘I didn’t want you to hear it this way,’ said Papa. ‘Mama and I loved you as our own. You must know that.’

Mabel wanted to believe this, but how could she? He had lied to her for so long. He held out his arms to her, but she stepped away.

‘Please, darling,’ begged Papa. ‘It is love that makes good parents. Not birth.’

This was all too much. She turned away.

‘Where are you going?’

‘I need to think,’ said Mabel.

Stunned, she walked through the woods towards the sea. A figure came towards her. It was the lacemaker, on her arm, a basket full of mushrooms. She looked at Mabel’s face.

‘So you discovered the truth about your parents,’ she said.

It was a statement and not a question. Mabel shivered. Any doubts she’d had about the lacemaker seeing into people’s minds now disappeared.

‘Does everyone in the village know?’ she asked.

‘There were rumours, but then they died out. No doubt folk were threatened. People like your aunt think they can hide their secrets. But truth will out in the end.’ She touched Mabel’s head lightly. ‘You will survive this, my child,’ she said.

‘I just want my baby,’ sobbed Mabel, unable to keep her secret any longer. ‘They sent him away for adoption.’

The lacemaker nodded. ‘I guessed as much. It is very hard on you. But we cannot always have everything. I will say one thing. Your father – the one who brought you up – is a good man. Sometimes we do not tell the truth because we do not wish to hurt others. Forgive him. Now carry on with your walk, Mabel. The sea will give you peace. As for your aunt, her time will come. Believe me.’

The tide was out. Mabel sat for some time on the rocks below the cliffs, staring out across the sea. ‘I loved you, Mama, as if you were my own,’ she said. ‘And you, too, Annabel.’

‘We are still yours,’ the waves seemed to whisper.

Eventually, she stood up and walked back to the Old Rectory.

Her father (how false that word now sounded) was pacing up and down the hall, the dried mud from his boots flaking off onto the antique rug. ‘Thank God you’re back,’ he said, relief flooding his face. ‘I’ve been out looking for you everywhere.’

He took her into his arms. ‘You will always be my little girl.’

She sobbed into his coat. ‘Would you have told me the truth one day?’

‘That’s a question your mother and I discussed constantly. She thought that we should but I was scared that you’d feel deceived. And then the war broke out. The world became so uncertain that we did not want to put you through any more distress.’

‘Did you love Annabel more than me?’ asked Mabel, staring up at him with fear in her heart.

‘Of course not. We loved you both the same. Blood does not need to be an essential factor of parenthood, or indeed childhood. Your little baby will find that out. He will be loved too, God willing, by his adoptive parents.’

Mabel flinched. ‘But that means he will never know me.’

His face tightened. ‘Your aunt was very wicked to take him away from you. I hope she pays for it one day.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘In the library. She instructed that when you were back, she wished to speak to you.’

Her hand shaking on the door handle, Mabel went in.

‘Ah,’ said her aunt – it was impossible to think of her as her mother. ‘There you are.’ She spoke coolly, as though this day was like any other.

‘No doubt you think badly of me,’ she said, blowing out a wisp of smoke from the cigarette in the ebony holder. ‘However, I hope you will understand from your own experience that these things happen. Sometimes one gets – how can I put it? – swept away by the waves of passion.’

‘But at least you had the opportunity to watch me growing up,’ retorted Mabel. ‘I cannot do that with my child.’

‘Trust me,’ said Clarissa. Her voice sounded cracked now.

‘That is harder. Do you not understand how agonizing it was for me? It’s why I couldn’t bear to visit you in London.

Time and time again I wanted to tell you the truth, but I’d promised your parents that I wouldn’t.

It was part of our agreement. They felt it would break you.

Eventually I kept my distance, until the war changed everything and you had to come here.

It’s been agonizing to see my lovely daughter every day and realize how much I had missed. ’

Lovely? ‘If it was “agonizing”, as you put it, why have you always been so horrible to me?’

‘It was my way of dealing with it,’ said Clarissa wistfully. ‘If I had allowed myself to be a kind, loving aunt, it would have been all too easy for me to have told you how much I love you as a mother.’

‘Do you love me?’ Mabel asked, taken aback.

Clarissa moved towards her, wrapping her arms around her briefly before stepping back as if shocked by her own actions. Mabel was shocked too.

‘Of course I do,’ she said quietly, red spots on both cheeks. ‘You are my daughter. Jonty was proud of you as well. Again and again we spoke about what might have been.’

‘Why didn’t you just get married when you knew you were expecting me?’

‘Jonty’s parents wouldn’t allow it,’ she said. ‘They wanted what they called “a more suitable match”. Her lips tightened. ‘They said they would cut him off without a penny.’

‘But you’re a Lady? Wasn’t that enough for them?’

‘A titled Lady without much money,’ said Clarissa drily.

Mabel was still confused. ‘But I was told that the Colonel was a bachelor.’

Clarissa laughed bitterly. ‘His fiancée died from pneumonia before the wedding. By then, I had given you away to my sister.’

‘Why didn’t Jonty ever marry? Why didn’t you? Why didn’t you marry each other when you were older and could do what you wanted?’

‘We discussed it. Perhaps it was the guilt of giving you away that stopped us. I do not know. And then this awful war started. We all got so busy and, well …’

Then she turned away. ‘It doesn’t matter now. It is all in the past. Jonty is dead. You, my daughter, quite rightly hate me because I gave you away. And I have now given away your child. Perhaps it was wrong of me. But now it is all too late.’

There was no answer to that.

When Mabel went back to find the man who was no longer her father, she found him ready to depart again. ‘I have to rejoin my troop,’ he said, cupping her face with his hands.

Mabel stepped back.

‘My darling daughter, please do not be like this.’

‘But I am not your daughter.’

‘Your words are breaking my heart. You are my daughter. You always will be.’

‘But what do I call you now?’

‘Papa,’ he said. ‘Always Papa.’ Then he held her again.

‘I will be back. I promise you. Remember that I love you. Your mother loved you too. I am not talking of the wicked, cold woman in the library. I am talking about the woman who raised you. Who loved you. Who constantly told me how lucky she was. You must believe me. Please.’

‘I’ll try,’ choked Mabel.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I’ll return as soon as I am allowed.’

Slowly, Mabel closed the door without waiting to wave him off. Instead, she ran up to her room and opened the locket around her neck. Slowly with her finger, she traced the face of the woman whom she’d thought was her mother. ‘I will always see you as my mama,’ she whispered.

Then she looked at the photo of Clarissa. Part of her wanted to rip it up. But something stopped her. So instead, she shut the locket firmly with a click. If only she could do the same with the past.