Whispers of Love (36 page)

Christabel wondered how she would have coped with everything if Mark hadn't been there to give her support in every way.

At breakfast the next morning, Christabel brought up the matter of the house with Kay.

‘I've mentioned so many times that we need to get together and discuss it,' she reminded her. ‘Now that Stuart is here as well, then perhaps it is a good time to do so.'

‘Yes, I know, you have mentioned it before, but I had
some
idea that it was partly mine and I didn't want you to feel uncomfortable about living here,' she explained. ‘I know you must have given up your own home to stay and look after me. I also remember that I wasn't very cooperative and treated you rather badly,' she added apologetically.

‘So you were trying to make it up to me by pretending you didn't know that you were a joint owner of the house, were you?' Christabel smiled. ‘Nevertheless, my dear, when Mark and I do eventually get married and move into our own place in Formby then we will have to decide what we want to do with it, Kay.'

Kay looked startled. ‘I've always thought of the house as yours, Aunt Christabel,' Kay protested. ‘If you are not going to live here, then you should sell it or rent it out. Do you want Stuart to handle all the negotiations for you? I'm sure he has contacts with estate agents in this area and can get you the best possible deal.'

‘You don't understand, Kay; I obviously haven't made myself clear. If you had read his Will like I asked you to do time and time again, then you'd understand. The house is yours; your father left it to you. The stipulation in his Will was that I should live here for as long as I needed a home and then it would pass to you.

‘There will be certain legal details to be sorted out and that is why you must go through your father's papers and then contact his solicitor.'

‘What do you want to do? Do you want to sell it, Kay?' Stuart asked.

‘I rather hope that since it is the house you grew up in, Kay, you might like to move back here,' Christabel suggested.

‘Move back? How on earth can we do that when Stuart's estate agency business is in Berkshire?' Kay gasped. ‘He can hardly be expected to commute,' she added with a laugh.

‘I know that, but I thought he might like a change; he could sell his business in Cookham and open a new business somewhere round here. Or, for that matter, open another estate agency in this area and leave his father to run the existing one.'

‘That's out of the question, I'm afraid. Dad is not well enough to have the sole responsibility of managing things any longer,' Stuart told her. ‘I think he would be heartbroken if I sold up and moved to somewhere else. He has taken such a pride in building up a sound
business, and one which is so well known in the Thames Valley area, and in being able to take me into partnership. I'm sure he expects me to go on running it at least for the rest of his lifetime,' Stuart added gravely.

‘Oh dear, well, in that case, I suppose it means that this house will have to be sold,' Christabel said sadly. ‘That's unless you decide to rent it out for the present so that you can move here at a later date should you change your minds.'

Kay look confused. ‘There's no great hurry for us to decide, is there, Aunt Christabel?'

‘No, not really. If you want to sell it, then of course you will have to dispose of all the contents.'

‘If there is anything you want to take with you, Aunt Christabel, then feel free to do so,' Kay told her, smiling.

‘No, I don't think so. Mark is not moving any of his belongings into our new house and I don't think I want to do so either.'

‘What are you doing with your place, Mark?' Stuart asked. ‘Do you want me to handle the sale of it for you?'

‘No, that won't be necessary. My eldest son is moving in and becoming a partner in the practice. Later on, in a year or so, my youngest son is planning to add a dental surgery to the practice.'

‘That sounds like an ideal arrangement,' Stuart nodded.

‘There are all your father's papers to be sorted
out, Kay,' Christabel reminded her. ‘You might like to take those back home with you and then you can do it at your leisure.'

‘I suppose. If you think it is necessary,' Kay said. ‘After all this time, though, is there anything that has to be kept?'

‘That's up to you, dear,' Christabel told her. ‘It's a very large package with a wax seal and has your name on the outside. I'm not too sure what is in it. I assume it contains Lewis's birth certificate, marriage certificate, and so on. It may even contain documents relating to the deeds of this house. The package is in his desk, I'll go and get it and you can have a look through it.'

Christabel returned a few minutes later carrying a bulky brown manila envelope. Stuart moved Kay's plate, cup and saucer out of the way so as to clear a space in front of her on the breakfast table.

Kay took the thick brown envelope from Christabel and deciding not to wait, broke the seal, and then tipped the entire contents out on to the table. She handed the deeds of the house, which were clearly labelled and secured by a thick elastic band, over to Stuart.

‘I'll leave you to check through those; they'll make more sense to you than they will to me,' Out of the remaining items she picked up a flimsy yellowing slip of paper and unfolded it and smoothed it out.

‘This is Dad's birth certificate,' she said, looking up and smiling across at Christabel.

‘Lewis Montgomery, 1890. Heaven's, I didn't realise that he was older than you, Aunt Christabel. That means he was only forty when he was killed; and poor Mum must have been even younger when she died.'

She dropped the piece of paper on to the table and picked up another one. ‘Here's their marriage certificate and it's dated 1913. They must have married only a short time before the Great War broke out.'

She folded it carefully and put it with his birth certificate, then picked up the remaining piece of paper and gave a little cry of surprise. ‘This is my birth certificate – February 1915.' She studied it in silence for a moment, frowning. ‘Have you seen this, Aunt Christabel?'

‘No dear, of course I haven't. The package was sealed, that's why I didn't open it.'

‘I know that, but have you looked at it before and seen the date, when it was issued, I mean?'

‘No, of course not.' Christabel frowned. ‘Why ever should I?'

Kay stared at her aunt for a long moment before she spoke. ‘The reason I'm asking, Aunt Christabel, is because this certificate has your name on it!'

Christabel felt the colour draining from her face as she held out her hand for the slip of paper. ‘Let me see; it probably means that you are named after me?' she said in a shaky voice.

‘No,' Kay frowned as she stared at the slip
of paper again. ‘No, Aunt Chrissy, it's not that at all. What do you make of it?' she asked as she handed it to Stuart.

He studied it in silence then, without a word, passed it across the table to Christabel.

Her hand was shaking so much that she could hardly take it from him. The words on it were a blur as she tried to read what was written there.

Memories of that day long ago, when she'd been discharged from the private clinic and had left Lewis to deal with all the relevant paperwork, came flooding back.

She'd insisted that he should be the one to sign everything and she'd never asked him for the certificate; there hadn't seemed any point in doing so. She'd given up all rights to her baby, so there was no reason why she should check the child's birth certificate – she was never going to need it. From now on it belonged to whoever adopted her baby, not to her.

So who had adopted her baby? The sudden realisation that it must have been Lewis startled her. She looked across at Kay and it made her feel faint. All these years her little daughter had been within reach and she hadn't known. How could Lewis have been so cruel as not to have told her?

With a feeling akin to guilt she remembered Violet's distress when she'd kept on about Kay not taking after her in any way but
looking more like Lewis and the Montgomery family.

Memories of the whispered rumours she'd overheard when her own mother had been talking to her friends about Violet's baby surfaced in her mind; something about it being stillborn. At the time she'd not been interested because she tried to avoid all talk of babies, knowing that she had just given up her own for adoption.

Had Lewis adopted her baby? Had Violet known all along that she was Kay's real mother, or had she suspected that the baby was Lewis's but by some other woman not her?

There were so many questions seething in her mind; so many possible answers. She felt confused. She didn't know what to say as she handed the slip of paper back to Kay.

‘Can I have a look at that, Kay?' Mark asked.

‘Yes, of course.'

Christabel watched with growing concern as Mark perused the certificate, frowning as he tried to reconcile the date on it. She was sure he was remembering that it was around the same time as when they had both been at Hilbury.

Surely, even though they had known each other fairly well because they'd worked together, he wouldn't remember that she had taken compassionate leave from Hilbury Hospital for several months around that date and, even if he did, why would he connect the two?

Mark was a doctor, she reminded herself; he would be able to work out accurately enough to satisfy himself what the dates on the certificate implied and Christabel wondered what he would feel about it when he did.

The tension around the breakfast table was palpable. Christabel could see from their faces that they were all bursting with curiosity, especially Kay. She took a deep breath, but when she tried to speak no sound came so she cleared her throat and, with a slightly trembling hand, reached out for her cup of tea.

It was cold and she shuddered as she swallowed a mouthful. The silence remained unbroken, all eyes fixed expectantly on her, waiting to hear what she had to tell them. She felt uneasy and her mind went blank. She knew it had to be the truth but she wasn't sure how to begin.

She felt that she needed time to sort out her thoughts. Standing up, she held out a hand to little Jill who was amusing herself by making patterns on her plate with some crumbs she'd made out of the remains of her toast. ‘Shall we go out into the garden and feed those crumbs to the birds?' she asked.

Excitedly, Jill clambered down from her chair and then reached for the plate.

‘Perhaps I'd better carry that,' Christabel suggested.

* * *

She sat down on a seat at the bottom of the garden and watched as Jill scattered the bread-crumbs and then waited for the birds to swoop down for them. Each time they did so she clapped her hands excitedly and immediately the birds rose up into the air in fright and the whole procedure began all over again.

By the time they went back into the kitchen again Kay had sorted through the contents of the envelope and everything was spread out on the table.

Christabel noticed that there were a great many photographs of herself and Kay, which Lewis had taken when she'd arrived in Wallasey to help look after them but there wasn't a single picture of Kay as a baby, or any taken of Kay and Violet together.

Christabel wondered what had happened to those. She was sure there must have been some since there was several of Kay taken with Lewis. There were also school photographs and some taken of Kay with her grandparents as well as with Marlene.

Christabel found herself mesmerised by the panorama of the past spread out there. She marvelled at how closely interwoven her life and Kay's had always been even though they'd both been unaware of their close relationship.

 

Aunt Christabel's relationship with Jill was like history repeating itself, Kay mused as she refilled her coffee cup and watched her aunt
sitting on the other side of the table showing Jill a better way of drawing ducks and swans on a pad of white paper. She remembered her own childhood, and the way her aunt had always wanted to teach her new things and also, as she grew older, to exercise control over everything she did.

It was one of the reasons why she had spent so much time in London with Marlene. Aunt Lilian had been so much more tolerant than Aunt Chrissy.

She looked at the conglomeration of pictures arrayed on the table and felt she couldn't discard any of them. Her mind made up, she gathered them together in order to put them back into the manila envelope. As she opened it she peered inside to make sure nothing had been left there and then drew out what looked like a letter of some kind.

Kay frowned as she straightened it out. It was an invoice from a private clinic in London. It was addressed to Mr Lewis Montgomery and it was dated February 1915 and was for a confinement and medical services for his wife Christabel Montgomery.

She studied it with interest; the month and year were correct, but what she couldn't understand was that the mother's name was given as Christabel Montgomery. That didn't make sense!

She looked across the table at Christabel. ‘That birth certificate we were looking at a little while ago, Aunt Christabel,
my
birth certificate . . .
you still haven't told us why it has your name on it. You must have some idea. Surely it ought to have both my mother's name and my father's name on it?'

‘It is all so long ago, Kay, you can't expect me to remember details like that,' Christabel said evasively.

‘Perhaps this will help you to remember,' Kay said, holding out the invoice.

As she took it from her, Christabel felt the colour suffusing her face and she felt trapped. She knew all eyes were on her and she could think of no way of concealing the truth any longer. Taking a deep breath she decided to make a clean breast of it all.

‘It's obviously the invoice from the clinic where I gave birth to the baby I had in 1915. Lewis, your father, helped me to deal with the situation I found myself in at the time and he also made the necessary arrangements to have my baby adopted. I had no idea what was entailed because I left him to see to all that side of things and to pay the clinic, as well as sign all the legal documents. That was why I knew nothing about the birth certificate.'