Marc began, vaguely, to sense where the story was heading. “And at some point, my name was mentioned.”
“Yes.” She gave his fingers a squeeze. Part of him wanted to tear away from her grip and this scourging narrative, but another part admitted that he must know the truth, whatever the cost. “Owen, dear soul, was going on about how wonderful Jabez was-it was all I could do to hold my tongue-and how he’d adopted a five-year-old lad whose parents had died and, he said, this was all the more admirable because the boy’s father was a mere gamekeeper and the mother a tenant-farmer’s daughter. He must have thought me mad, the look I had on my face, when I demanded to know their names. It took him a minute or two, and I thought I might faint waiting, but he finally said Thomas and Margaret Evans. And then I knew for certain. I let him babble on-oh, how grateful I was for his garrulousness. But the child who was ripped from my breast, who I never would have abandoned for the world, was alive, was thriving, and close enough to touch.”
She released his hands, as if perhaps she had said enough to hold him there while she wept quietly and composed herself.
“But I stood over your grave-marker in the garden by the big house, and wished you had lived that I might have an aunt … and a kind of mother.”
“Bless you for that.”
“Uncle Jabez thought you were dead. He grieved over you for years. I was forbidden to speak your name because it hurt him so much.”
A series of expressions passed across Mary Ann Edwards’s face in quick succession: contempt, anger, sorrow, regret, resignation. She took a deep breath, pulled the lapels of her robe tightly together, and said in a low, sad voice: “I thought I had worked out all my anger towards Jabez-after all, it’s been twenty-seven years-but you never do, not when the betrayal is so great.”
“Uncle Jabez betrayed you?”
“Yes. But you’ll need to know the story from the beginning to understand what happened, if you are to forgive him. I cannot, but you must.”
Marc realized that she was as exhausted as he was, but the adrenaline was running strong in both, and he sat back, bracing himself for the secrets that were about to be revealed into a new day’s glare.
“When I was almost eighteen, Jabez decided I should go up to London to Madame Rénaud’s finishing school, after which I would ‘come out’ and be matched with a suitable husband. I was a tomboy around the estate, I fought against the plan, but when I was forcibly removed to the great metropolis, I soon discovered I liked it very much. Not the ladies’ school, of course-Madame Rénaud was about as French as Yorkshire pudding-but the nearby theatres. I sneaked off every chance I got to one or another of the summer playhouses. During vacations I stayed with an elderly cousin who didn’t keep close tabs on me, so I was soon landing bit parts and getting to know many of the actors. Eventually I met your father.”
Marc waited, fearing the worst.
“Don’t worry so: he wasn’t a syphilitic pimp. He was a tall, handsome young man of twenty-five, the youngest son of a country squire who had once been a renowned barrister in the city. His name was Solomon Hargreave. He was a talented actor, but his father disapproved of his chosen profession, cut off his allowance, and impounded his grandfather’s legacy. Solomon thought me talented as well as beautiful, and before long I simply abandoned the school and moved in with him. He was very much in love with me. I was still young and naively romantic. I was surprised and confused when I was told I was pregnant.”
“You did not marry?”
“No. It didn’t seem to matter, though Solomon was willing, I believe. We were quite happy as we were but, of course, when Jabez learned I had abandoned school, he came up to London in a perfect fury. We had a great row, but he left, saying he would be back. I was very frightened, but managed to hide my pregnancy from him. Solomon was off on a trip up north with a touring company, so I moved to a cheap flat where Jabez couldn’t find me. Solomon was due back in a few weeks, but Jabez discovered me first by bribing someone at the theatre. I went into labour two months early.”
“So I was-”
“A bastard, yes. But a beautiful, blue-eyed babe, nonetheless, wee and shrivelled and underweight at seven months, but kicking and screaming for the teat. I must say that Jabez’s concern for my health and that of the baby was genuine and took immediate precedence. He sent for Margaret Evans from the estate, and had her nurse me and take care of you. But when Solomon arrived a few days later, everything changed. After Jabez took a couple of swings at him, he calmed down and settled on a quick wedding. Solomon was, after all, a gentleman, if also a blackguard in his eyes. But I was defiant. I wanted to be an actress, to make a life for myself on the stage. I told Jabez that we would marry when we were ready to and that I would raise my son backstage. Actresses were then, and still are, regarded as no better than whores. But looking back on that moment now, I believe I suspected even at that youthful age that I preferred women to men: something was urging me to resist marriage.”
“Yet you became Mrs. Thedford?”
She smiled wryly, but continued her tale. “I did not understand how determined and how cruel my eldest brother could be. When Solomon had gone off to the theatre, Jabez exploded in a fury of curses and recrimination. So towering was his anger that I feared for my life. But it was my baby’s life he was after.” Her expression darkened at the memory, as lines of bitterness twisted at her mouth.
“Surely not. Uncle Jabez was-”
“Kind and considerate, yes. As he had been to me. But ever since our mother’s death when I was myself a baby and our father’s death a few years later, Jabez saw himself as responsible for me, for my upbringing, my education, even my morals.”
“What happened?”
“Jabez left in a huff. But two days later, after a long nap-I was still weak and not fully recovered from the birth-I awoke to find Jabez standing over me, and Margaret Evans and my unnamed son gone. ‘The bastard has been taken to an orphanage,’ Jabez said in the coldest voice I’d ever heard in a man. Then he handed me a large sum of money-in cash-and announced that I was no longer an Edwards, and was to have no contact with him or Frederick or anyone else we knew: I was, in his words, ‘dead to the family and to the world.’ He left before I could think of a reply. I have not seen him since.”
“Then how did I get to the estate?” Marc asked after a long moment. He was sure he knew the answer. Even so, Jabez’s heartless abandonment and shunning of his own sister was a devastating truth, whatever the mitigating circumstances might have been. Marc had literally been stolen from his mother.
“I only learned the bare details of that much later. You see, when Solomon returned to find the child gone, I thought he would fly into a rage of his own and confront Jabez, demand the return of his son, and scour the alleys and byways of London until you were found.”
“But he didn’t.”
“No. He was, in his way, attached to the notion of a child, but he had only seen you for a short while, squalling for food and attention, and he soothed me by saying it was all for the best, we were destitute, we both wanted to have careers in the theatre, we were young, we would have legitimate children of our own, and so on.”
“And he won you over?” Marc said.
“You must believe this if nothing else, Marc: I did not abandon you. As soon I could walk, I went to every orphanage in central London in search of you. I was frantic, but you were nowhere to be found.”