Page 106 of The Secrets of the Tea Garden
‘What baby?’ Tilly asked, baffled. ‘Are you pregnant?’
Adela let out an anguished sob and pulled away. ‘No ...’ She looked at Josey in distress and saw realisation dawn on her friend’s face.
Josey went straight over to the drinks cabinet and poured out a large whisky.
‘You’ve had a shock, haven’t you?’ she said, thrusting the glass at Adela. ‘Drink this down and then you can tell us.’
‘Tell us what?’ Tilly frowned in concern. ‘Josey, what do you know that I don’t?’
‘Adela can tell you,’ said Josey.
Adela shook her head.
‘Best to get it all off your chest,’ Josey said. ‘Tilly’s been such a support to you; she deserves to be put in the picture.’
Adela gulped at the whisky and spluttered at its fiery taste. She took another mouthful and almost instantly began to feel calmer. The women waited for her to speak, Tilly’s expression fearful.
Hesitantly at first, Adela began to unburden herself of the shameful secret she had kept from Tilly for so long. When Tilly exclaimed in shock, Josey silenced her and encouraged Adela to continue. Soon, Adela was pouring out her feelings about her lost baby and her increasing desperation to try and find him.
‘So is that what has been the cause of the rift between you and Sam?’ asked Tilly.
Adela nodded. ‘He can’t bear that I wanted my son back more than anything else in the world – even him.’
‘Poor Sam,’ said Tilly, ‘and poor you.’
‘So what has happened today,’ pressed Josey, ‘that has made you so upset?’
Adela told them about going to Railway Terrace and her terrible discovery about the death of the Segals. She dissolved into tears again.
‘I don’t think I can b-bear the pain,’ Adela sobbed. ‘I always believed ... deep down ... I’d get John Wesley b-back.’
Josey sighed. ‘That’s the real reason Adela came back to England – and dragged Sam with her.’ She gave Tilly a rueful look. ‘Sorry – I don’t like having secrets, but Adela asked me not to tell you.’
Adela met Tilly’s look, and was pained at the shocked expression she saw on her friend’s face. She made an effort to calm down and explain.
‘Mother and Lexy know too,’ Adela said, ‘and Joan found out. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell you, Tilly. I knew you’d think less of me.’
Tilly was staring at her as if she were trying to work out who she really was.
‘I’m so sorry,’ whispered Adela. ‘I shouldn’t have made Josey keep secrets from you.’
‘It’s terrible what you’ve discovered,’ said Josey, ‘but at least now you know – and it was the not-knowing that was eating away at you, wasn’t it? The whole thing is an awful tragedy. But you still have Sam. Perhaps now you can begin to patch things up with him before it’s too late.’
‘What do you mean, too late?’ Adela asked, with a prick of alarm. ‘Things aren’t that bad between us—’
‘Where did you say the Segals lived?’ Tilly suddenly interrupted. ‘Railway Terrace?’
‘Yes,’ said Adela, feeling her queasy grief return at their mention.
‘And they were from Belgium?’
‘Yes. Why ...?’
‘I was on ARP duty the night of the bombing,’ Tilly said, a strange look on her face. ‘I was one of the first on the scene at that street near the railway yard.’
Something about Tilly’s words made the back of Adela’s neck prickle.
‘And?’ said Josey.
