Page 107 of The Stranger in Room Six
‘Whowasmy father?’ she asked in a small voice.
They stopped still. Silent.
Then Aunt Clarissa opened her mouth and suddenly Mabel knew what she was going to say before the words came out.
‘Jonty,’ she said. ‘It was Jonty.’
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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.Shehad 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?’
