A Gathering Storm (53 page)

‘I wish he could have met you,’ Lucy said, ‘and heard the story, too. I can’t say that I’m not finding the whole thing very difficult to accept. That my father was your son. That Granny wasn’t ever really Granny.’

‘Did you really not know?’

‘No, I didn’t. He never said anything. Do you think she told him?’

‘I sometimes wonder whether she said something, but never explained properly. How it all came about. I wish more than anything that I’d had the opportunity to tell him the story I’ve just told you.’

‘In some ways, though, it’s not totally a shock. I think part of me guessed a long time ago that there was some secret. And this is it. Why couldn’t he have told me? Even Mum didn’t know, I’m sure she didn’t. Or my stepmother.’

‘I’m so sorry that it’s been an awful shock. I still can’t accept that he’s . . . gone. I always held him in my mind, you know. When he was young I sent him birthday cards and presents and wrote him letters.’

Lucy had found nothing like that amongst his things and wondered if he’d ever got them. Perhaps he hadn’t.

Instead she told Beatrice about how she’d been thinking about Tommy ever since Beatrice first mentioned having him, that it had gradually been dawning on her who he was. ‘I see now that Dad and Granny were so unlike each other. I don’t mean just physically, but the kind of people they were, their personalities.’

‘That’s not so unusual in families, is it?’

‘And Granny was never very relaxed with Dad. There was always anxiety. But there was love, I’m sure of it.’

‘I would hope that there was. That would have been the worst thing of all, if they hadn’t loved each other.’

They were both quiet for a moment, then Lucy said, ‘Tell me what happened next with you and Rafe.’

And here Beatrice smiled. ‘Rafe and I had a wonderful marriage,’ she said. ‘He was a most marvellous husband, not that we didn’t have our little ups and downs like everyone else, but we were very happy together. We had a daughter, Sara. Look, here she is.’

Beatrice stood up and fetched a photograph that Lucy hadn’t noticed before because it was on a shelf behind the chair. It was of a smartly dressed, middle-aged woman with a clever, lively face, standing on the steps of what looked like an office building.

‘Sara is a Professor of Marine Biology in Maine,’ Beatrice said proudly. ‘She’s due to retire next year and she’s promised to come here on an extended visit. She has two grown-up sons and I’ve just become a great-grandmother!’ She brought out more photographs now in a plastic album, of a dark-haired couple with a tiny baby girl.

‘She’s so sweet,’ said Lucy, delighted at these new-found cousins.

‘Catriona, they’ve called her.’ The old lady stood gazing at the album a moment, a faint smile on her face.

‘Do they know about Dad?’ Lucy thought to ask.

‘They know I had a child that I had to give away, yes,’ said Beatrice. ‘Lucy, I don’t expect anything of you, dear,’ she added. ‘Angelina and Gerald don’t stop being your grandparents.’

‘No, of course not, but . . .’

‘You can go away and never see me again. I respected your father’s decision not to talk to me, you know. Nothing that happened was his fault. He was the victim.’

‘But it wasn’t completely your fault either, or – and you might disagree with me here – Granny’s. And yet I can’t suddenly pretend . . . well, I’ve got to get used to it all.’

‘You’ve lived all your life without me, without knowing about me. But the strangest thing is that I recognize you, Lucy. I can see things about you that are like me. I don’t mean your appearance, but your . . . well, the way you look at the world, your yearning for something.’

‘I do want to get to know you,’ Lucy said gently. ‘What would you like me to call you? It doesn’t feel right to say Granny or Grandma or Nan. Could I go on calling you Beatrice?’

‘Of course you could,’ Beatrice said. Her smile was light with relief.

‘Beatrice,’ Lucy said suddenly. ‘Can I bring someone to meet you?’

That evening, over supper in the bar, she explained to Anthony a little of all Beatrice had told her.

‘Will you come and meet her?’ she asked. ‘I think you’d like her.’

‘But will she like me?’ Anthony said, smiling.

‘I know she will,’ Lucy replied solemnly.

‘Of course I’ll come,’ Anthony said. ‘I’d like to hear some of her stories. I’ve read up quite a bit about SOE’s role in the war. I can’t believe I’m to meet a real veteran.’

‘Nor can I. Beatrice would be a great subject for a TV documentary. If my boss likes the idea, I’m going to ask her. She’d be excellent in front of the camera.’

‘It would be an amazing story.’

‘There’s something else I need to ask you, Anthony. Do you have a car with you?’

‘I do. Did you want a lift back to London on Sunday?’

‘That would be lovely. But tomorrow there’s somewhere I want to take Beatrice first. Do you know Saint Agnes on the north coast?’

‘My father once offered me a penny to climb Saint Agnes’s Beacon!’ Beatrice remarked as the car passed a distinctive-looking hill on the right. She was sitting next to Anthony in the front seat and clearly enjoying the outing.

‘Did you win the penny?’ Lucy asked.

‘Of course, and in record time.’

‘This is Saint Agnes village, ladies,’ Anthony said. ‘Where do you want to go?’

‘Down there, I think,’ Beatrice said, pointing past a signpost for the beach, and he turned down a narrow lane dusted with sand and lined with houses on either side.

‘There’s The Hawthorns!’ Lucy cried, and Anthony drew up outside a broad-fronted 1930s villa with the front garden asphalted over for cars.

‘Are you sure you don’t mind hanging about?’ she asked him as he helped Beatrice out of the car.

‘No, of course not,’ Anthony replied. ‘I’ll drive up the road a little and take a look at the beach. I’ll be fine.’

‘We’ll ring you when we’re ready then,’ she said, kissing his cheek. She took Beatrice’s arm. Now the reality of seeing Hetty was close, Beatrice was, she thought, looking grim.

The Hawthorns’ Care Home looked a pleasant place to pass one’s sunset years. Lucy had phoned ahead and the young woman who opened the door to them said, ‘You’re to see Miss Wincanton?’

‘That’s right,’ Lucy said, introducing Beatrice.

‘Come in. She’s quite bright today, so you’ve picked a good time.’ The woman showed them into a large, high-ceilinged room at the back of the house with a distant view of sand dunes.

‘Miss Wincanton, your guests are here.’

A shrunken old woman tried and failed to push herself up out of her easy chair.

‘Hello, Aunt Hetty,’ Lucy said, rather shocked to see how much Hetty had aged since Granny’s funeral – the last time she’d seen her – and went forward to take her knotted hand. Hetty Wincanton’s watery eyes looked up at her with confusion. ‘I’m Tom’s daughter,’ Lucy said loudly.

‘Ah yes, dear Tom,’ Aunt Hetty said, quite clearly. Her eyes alighted on Beatrice. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know you were coming.’

‘Don’t blame me. It was Lucy’s idea,’ Beatrice said haughtily.

Lucy and the care-worker arranged two more armchairs and established Beatrice in one, Lucy in the other. ‘I’ll bring you some tea shortly,’ she said and hurried out.

Now that they were all here, nobody seemed sure how to start. Lucy bravely dived in.

‘Aunt Hetty, Beatrice has been telling me all about the family and how . . . well, how Granny came to adopt my father. I didn’t even know he was adopted and it’s been something of a shock. Could you possibly tell me – did Dad know?’

Hetty’s eyes moved suspiciously from Lucy to Beatrice and back. Then she pushed herself upright in her chair and moistened her lips.

‘He suspected and asked Angie once. She told him he was adopted, but asked him never to speak of it, said that it was hurtful to her and anyway it didn’t matter. His real mother hadn’t wanted him. She only gave him a short form of his birth certificate, which didn’t have his parents’ names on it. Of course, later he looked up the full version and . . .’

‘I remember. It only had my name on it, not Guy’s,’ Beatrice broke in, her voice trembling. ‘The local Register Office had been bombed and the girl was filling in for someone. She told me if you weren’t married you didn’t put the father’s name on. She was wrong, as it transpired. I could have done if I’d wanted, but by the time I found out it was too late.’

‘How sad that Granny wouldn’t tell him anything,’ Lucy said.

‘I imagine she found it too difficult,’ Beatrice said. ‘But perhaps he did, too.’

‘And he never said anything to me or Mum. Why?’

‘I don’t know. Yes, I do. He was ashamed. People used to have a proper sense of shame.’

Lucy was taken aback by this. ‘You mean about being adopted?’

‘About being illegitimate.’

That was an old-fashioned word, Lucy thought. She didn’t think that would have been her father’s reason. Beside her, Beatrice shuffled restlessly.

‘I don’t know what
she’s
told you,’ Hetty went on, ‘but I’ll be surprised if it’s the whole story.’ And suddenly, she began to ramble. ‘I don’t know why she ever had to come to Carlyon in the first place. Nobody asked me, not little Hetty, no.’ Lucy quickly realized that Hetty was talking about her childhood. ‘They thought I didn’t matter; shovelled about, I was, from house to house, always in the way. My mother didn’t want me, you know. She as good as told me once. Said she’d finished having her family and then I came along.’

Lucy stared at her, bewildered, then looked at Beatrice, whose horrified gaze was absolutely riveted on Hetty .

‘So along comes Miss Prim here and nobody notices poor Hetty any more. She pretended to be nice to me, but I knew what she wanted – to be like one of us – and she wasn’t.’

‘Hetty,’ Beatrice said to her, ‘that’s plainly ridiculous. It wasn’t like that at all. They
did
care about you. They always did.’

‘Did they?’ Hetty said. ‘Well, it never felt like it. It was always Ed this and Angelina that. Even Peter had a better time than I did. And then,’ here Hetty addressed Lucy, ‘she goes and has a baby and there’s no father, though we knew who the father was, didn’t we? Angelina’s young man.’

‘
Who?
’

‘Rafe – Gerald’s brother. She took him. Beatrice took Rafe from Angelina.’

‘No I didn’t,’ Beatrice said. ‘Stop it, that’s nonsense.’

‘It’s not nonsense. You gave the baby to Angelina and went away and Angelina had to look after him. And then you came and wanted him back and Angelina wouldn’t give him to you. Serves you right.’

There was a silence and then Beatrice said to Lucy, ‘I don’t think she’s quite right in her head.’

Hetty heard her and looked mutinous.

Lucy was thinking about something else. She said, ‘Auntie Hetty, do you really believe that Tom’s father was Rafe?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Did you . . . is that what you told Tom?’

‘Yes. Sometime after Angelina’s funeral he came to see me. I told him the truth, the whole story. How
she,
Beatrice, had abandoned him. Angie would never speak about it to me or to anyone, but I knew the truth.’

So that’s why Dad was so interested in Rafe
, Lucy realized.

Beatrice said tiredly, ‘Hetty, you weren’t there a lot of the time. You only knew bits and pieces of what happened.’

‘That may be, but I was always watching and listening. I could work it out. I saw what kind of person you were. Even afterwards you kept trying to get him back, didn’t you? By sending all those birthday cards and letters. Angelina never gave them to him of course. He found them when she died and opened them. Brought them when he came to see me.’

Beatrice gave a little gasp. ‘Why didn’t she give them to him? Oh, that is cruel.’

Lucy said gently, ‘Perhaps Granny was afraid, Beatrice. That he would reject her and go and find you. I think she loved him so much.’

‘He said that, too,’ Hetty remarked.

‘Do you mind telling me what you mean?’ Beatrice asked.

‘It’s what he told me. He couldn’t go and look for you because that would be betraying Angie’s memory. He was surer of this after what I told him, about you abandoning him. Much surer.’

‘I haven’t found those letters,’ Lucy told Beatrice. ‘They weren’t among the things my stepmother gave me.’

Hetty muttered something.

‘What? Do speak up,’ Beatrice said, frowning.

Hetty repeated triumphantly, ‘I took them from him and I burnt them.’

After this there was another long silence.

Lucy glanced at Beatrice and was astonished to see that the old lady’s eyes were swimming with tears. She placed a hand on Beatrice’s arm. ‘Oh, don’t,’ she whispered.

‘It’s all right,’ Beatrice said, finding a handkerchief. ‘I’m used to the fact that he never came to find me. It’s the thought . . . well, I have a picture in my mind of him finding all those things I sent him – the birthday cards, the airmail letters, oh, with the little drawings I did – and reading them all, and perhaps learning that I loved him.’

The care-worker returned with a tray of tea. She took one look at the anguished expressions of everyone in the room and said to Hetty, ‘Are you getting upset again, Miss Wincanton? It’s not good for you, you know. I’ll get your medicine.’

Lucy followed her outside. ‘She does seem very worked up. Is this normal?’

The young woman checked the label on a bottle and shook out a pill. ‘It’s worsened, I’m afraid, since her little stroke,’ she said. ‘Early stages, they think.’

‘Dementia? But she sounds so lucid. It’s
what
she says that’s so worrying.’

‘She does say whatever comes into her mind, that’s the trouble. It can be a bit rude or hurtful sometimes. I really shouldn’t be telling you this. You ought to speak to her doctor.’

‘I understand,’ Lucy said.

When she returned to the room she was astonished to find that the tenor of the conversation had changed radically. Beatrice and Hetty were chatting quite amiably.

‘Do you remember the picnics on the beach?’ Beatrice was asking.