Chapter Forty-Seven
Evelyn had the oddest sensation, as if she was watching the scene unfold from afar, and from this distant vantage point, she heard herself say, ‘Where did you get that?’ But it was a stupid question because there could only be one answer.
‘She made it for you,’ he said. ‘It was meant to be part of something bigger: the lace trim for a matinee jacket and bonnet for your layette. But she ran out of time.’
Evelyn took a step forward, saw more clearly the familiar knots and tiny daisies.
‘It was made by your mother,’ Bob whispered. ‘She was called Cora-May.’
‘Like the boat,’ Evelyn said, sensing these muddled strands might somehow join up, but she didn’t yet know how.
‘Yes, like the boat. Father named it after her.’ Bob looked away. ‘He loved her so much.’
‘Was he my father too?’
Bob didn’t speak, gave a brief shake of his head.
‘And is she still . . . ?’ A flash of hope came, like lightning over the sea, but then she saw Bob’s face.
‘No. Mother’s gone.’
She felt a crevice of grief open up inside herself and she teetered on its edge. The woman who had given birth to her, stroked her cheek and counted her fingers and toes, had died before Evelyn had the chance to meet her.
‘Couple of years ago,’ Bob said soberly. ‘Cancer; caught too late.’
But then the crevice in her began to fill with rage. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before? Why only now? I was here – I’ve always been here.’
Bob hung his head. ‘Truth is, I only realised myself a few months ago. It was your poster that got me thinking, so I came to the museum to make sure. Your meeting was the first time I’d been in here and that’s when I saw it – your lace.’ He shrugged. ‘After that, I started to work things out.’
Evelyn needed to rewind, get things clearer. ‘Sorry, but when did she die?’
‘Two years ago. It was only when she was close to the end that I learned she’d had a baby before me.
Then, like I say, in February I saw your lace.
And I realised that when she’d talked about losing a first child, it was you.
And a lot of other things began to make sense: about Mother and the things she’d done over the years. ’
‘Did she ever speak of me?’
‘Not until the end.’
Evelyn gestured at a chair and Bob sat down, still holding his piece of lace in one hand.
‘Please. Tell me,’ she said, staring at the missing half of the lace, brighter and better preserved than her own.
Bob looked down at it too. ‘She kept it inside a book of poetry, in a drawer in her dressing table. After she got sick, I looked after her for as long as I could. One day, quite close to the end, she asked me for the poetry book. She opened it up and there it was.
‘She told me she wanted to see it one last time. Then she said, “I made it for my daughter.”’ He scrunched up his face and wiped his eye with the back of his thumb.
‘At first, I didn’t understand – was she confused? Then I wondered if she’d suffered a miscarriage at some point, and the lace was a reminder. But then she started to talk.’
Evelyn waited for more.
‘She fell pregnant when she was sixteen, long before she met Father. Her sweetheart, that’s what she called him, was eighteen.
But his family didn’t approve and, once she was showing, she was sent away to St Agnes.
She thought he’d come and fetch her and then they’d all be together.
But after she had the baby, it was taken from her. ’
Evelyn felt her stomach turn, as if something slick lurked inside.
‘Did you say, taken?’
‘Yes. Mother said his family took charge – they already had a couple lined up to adopt you: good people, well educated. They could provide her baby with a better life.’
‘A better life – ha.’ Evelyn couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. ‘So, if it was all managed by this family, where did the foundling story come from?’
‘No idea. Might have been to throw people off the scent. I suppose the local doctor might have confirmed the story, for a fee or a favour.’ He shrugged. ‘Or maybe Edwin Silver just liked the idea.’
‘Maybe,’ she echoed. The anger was back, rising up inside her.
‘So who were they, this family who played with everyone’s lives and saw fit to take babies and hand them out at will?’
Bob gave her a cool, appraising look and she felt that sense of distance return, her mind wanting to protect her from the words he was about to say.
‘Her employers – and the people who once ran everything around here. The Warburns.’
Evelyn felt for her chair, lowered herself into it by touch.
‘Are you sure?’
Bob continued talking. ‘Mother had been in service at Warburn Hall when she fell pregnant.’
‘So they sacked her and got rid of the problem, i.e. me,’ Evelyn said flatly. ‘I’m guessing the lad, whoever he was, didn’t hang about?’
Bob shrugged. ‘Well, he was sent away too, but to university.’
That didn’t sound right for a lad in service and her puzzlement must have shown.
‘Mother wasn’t the bride they envisaged for their son and heir. Sir Jasper.’
That man she’d glimpsed from afar: at Christmas services and driving through town in his Jaguar.
A tall man who opened summer fetes, cut a ribbon and wished everyone a jolly good time.
Later, he was the grandfather who had stood in this very museum and laid a gentle hand on Jacob’s shoulder.
And then passed by Evelyn Silver without saying a word.
‘Bob, are you certain about this?’
‘He left for university, but promised he’d come for her. But his parents came instead. I’ll never forget Mother’s words. She said, “They took her and left me there, broken in two.”’
Beyond the door, the tide must have come in while they were talking and Evelyn could hear the hollow boom of the waves hitting the sea wall.
She gathered herself. It would take time to rebuild a wall around herself, but she’d done it before and she could do it again.
She glanced down at the shattered boat name board on her desk and gave a weak laugh.
‘I thought you’d come to tell me about the boat,’ she said. ‘This Cora-May.’ She held the name plate in both hands. ‘Not Cora-May, the woman.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Bob said solemnly. ‘I saw that at the exhibition.’ He shifted position in his chair. ‘Must have washed up on the beach.’
‘Yes. It was one of the first things I ever picked up.’
‘Feels fitting, though. You of all people finding it.’
‘I suppose so. I’m very sorry for your loss.’
‘He was a good man.’ Bob stood to go, but then paused.
‘After we lost Father, Mother and I started coming down here,’ he said.
‘We lived in an estate cottage five miles away in Cowell, but four times a year we came down to the harbour and sat on that bench, whatever the weather.’ He pointed out of the doorway to the bench where Bob still sat, day in, day out, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone.
‘I hated those visits,’ he said forcefully. ‘Having to sit beside the raging sea that had taken Father, swallowed his boat whole and spat out the bits it didn’t want.’
Gently, Evelyn laid down the broken name plate.
‘I was afraid of the sea and I’m sure she was too, but she kept coming, as if something was drawing her back here.
I didn’t get it, but now it makes perfect sense.
The year that Father died, I think she found out where you were and those visits weren’t to see the waves, but in spite of them. She came to watch over you, Evelyn.’