"I was telling you about the probate. My kind solicitor said we ought to celebrate with a meal out the same evening. I didn't know what to say. I knew enough about the profession to be sure that my father would never have suggested such a thing to a client, but he was another generation. Part of me wanted to accept. He'd been so kind throughout, and now that the legal part was over… Well, to cut the story short, I went out to dinner with him the same evening at the Hole in the Wall, which at that time had a reputation unrivaled in Bath. He was a charming companion. He wasn't terribly good-looking, or anything, but he had an unusually attractive voice, like an actor's. He bought champagne, and toward the end of the meal he told me the Valentine had come from him. Of course I was overwhelmed by the whole thing. I had no experience of men. I think the champagne affected me, too.
"After the meal, he walked me back to the Paragon. It was raining, and he had an umbrella, and he asked me to take his arm while he held it over both our heads. I was extremely happy. As we approached the house, he said he hated mixing business with pleasure, but he had a couple more papers for me to sign. I half knew it was just an excuse for him to come inside, but I wanted the excuse. I don't condone my behavior."
"It's all in the past," said Diamond.
She lowered her eyes. "You won't need telling what happened. I was a willing participant, and I have to say that he was considerate. Gentle and understanding. People's attitudes to such things have undergone a revolution since then, but by the standards of that time, we were wicked. That evening I didn't care. He didn't stay for more than an hour, I suppose. If I'm honest, I was relieved he didn't spend the night with me. I don't think I was ready to sleep with a man, literally sleep with him, I mean. He left before midnight, and I sank into my bed and slept until quite late next morning, when I woke and felt like a scarlet woman. These days the only thing that makes a young woman feel guilty seems to be eating a bar of chocolate."
He gave an encouraging smile. To make a remark even faintly resembling a joke, she must have been feeling calmer.
"That evening wasn't the only occasion," Miss Chilmark went on. "He came to the house at other times in the weeks, that followed. He was usually there on some pretext. A letter about my bank arrangements, or something. I have to say that I invited him as often as he suggested coming. We would go to my bedroom, and… he never stayed long. We didn't really go out together, and I suppose that made me suspicious that there was a reason why he didn't want to be seen with me in public. I didn't really want to admit it to myself, I wanted so much to keep him. Then the inevitable happened. I discovered that I was pregnant."
So honest was the recollection that Diamond's image of the solid middle-aged woman opposite had been supplanted by a mental picture of the desperately vulnerable twenty-six-year-old she had been. He remembered those times, and the moral climate and the pains and blunders of young love.
"Of course it was a shock, a tremendous shock, but in a way I'd been hoping something like this would happen. He'd always been vague about our future together. This was going to force us to a decision. I saw it as my chance to bring him to the registry office, if not the altar."
She shook her head, sighing deeply. "When I told him, his whole manner toward me changed. He told me to get rid of it. Those were his actual words. 'It'-as if the child inside me was an object. I was horrified. I said something about getting married, and he told me quite brutally-as if I should have realized already-that he was already happily married with two children of his own. As I say, I'd guessed it really, but refused to admit it to myself. I was his mistress. He regarded my pregnancy as my mistake, a hazard that you have to face. We'd taken no precautions. I don't know if you can understand this, but I would have felt that birth control in any form would have made me into a loose woman."
"So you had the child?"
She nodded. "Alone. He refused to have anything more to do with me. His attitude was that if I wasn't willing to go to an abortionist, it was my bad fortune. So I made my own arrangements. I confided in a cousin, a woman who lived in Ex-mouth and worked in a private nursing home. We'd spent holidays there sometimes, and I'd got to know her quite well. She was the only person I could think of asking. I said I wanted to have the baby, but I wouldn't be able to keep it. I couldn't face the shame of bringing up a fatherless child. So my cousin Emma told me she knew of women who were desperate to adopt and had been turned down for some obscure reason by the adoption agencies. If I was really willing to give up the child within a short time of the birth, she could arrange it. So that's what happened. When I got toward the end of the pregnancy- when it was getting obvious, I mean-I went away to Exmouth. The child was born. I suckled him for a week or two, and then Emma took him away. He was registered as someone else's child, you see. It was highly illegal, but he was legitimized. Part of the understanding was that I should not be told the identity of the couple who were given him. I came back to Bath and resumed my life. I've never had another serious relationship."
"Did you name him?"
"No. It was thought to be better if the adoptive mother gave him a name."
"And you were not to have any more to do with them?"
"That was the understanding."
"Hard, I'm sure."
"Very-but I understood the thinking behind it. Over the years I've had times when I've wept a little, and times when I've wondered just what my son was like, but I kept my side of the bargain. I made no attempt to trace him. Fortunately I couldn't, not even knowing his name."
She paused. She had shredded the paper tissue in her lap. She picked up one piece and dabbed the corner of her eye.
Diamond prompted her. "You said you kept your side of the bargain, as if someone else did not. Did the father-your lover, I mean-did he know of these arrangements?"
"No. He had nothing more to do with me."
"So it was someone else."
She nodded. "About two years ago, I received a letter from someone who clearly knew a great deal about what had happened. He mentioned the date of birth, the place and the name of my cousin Emma, who died in 1990. He asked to meet me at a stated time by the west door of the Abbey. It wasn't exactly a threatening letter, yet there was so much in it that only I could have known. So I decided to go along."
"A blackmailer?"
"No."
"But you paid money. You've been making regular payments." She had been frank, and so would he.
"He's not a blackmailer. He's my son."
"Your son?"
"I couldn't refuse him, could I?"
"Are you certain?"
"Absolutely."
"How do you know?"
"A mother's instinct. Whatever one thinks of him-and I know he has taken advantage-that first meeting outside the Abbey was a revelation. He wanted to know what his own mother was like as much as I longed to see him. It was genuine, I swear to you. We went for a coffee together and for a long time simply looked at each other. An opportunity I never expected to have. A miracle. We weren't breaking faith with anyone, because he'd long since left his adoptive family."
"What's his name?"
She shook her head. Her expression tightened. "I'm not going to say and you can't make me. What has happened between us is strictly private. It isn't illegal. I'm allowed to support my own child, for heaven's sake."
Diamond sighed. "When did he tell you he needed money? Right at the start?"
"It was obvious. He's thirty-two. He should be making his way in the world, but these are dreadful times for his generation. He was sent to a good school. It ought to help, but he's been unable to get regular work. I had more, than enough money, so I gave him some. He was living in Radstock, with no prospect of employment, so I persuaded him to come here- to Bath, I mean. There are more opportunities here."