AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Lili turned to her friend. ‘So, you think Daphne and her lover had a child?’
‘Yes.’
‘Toby.’
‘Uh-huh. Mabel said that she got tired of living abroad, so she bought the cottage and lived there while her husband was away in the army. This is where Daphne’s home movies were filmed. So I think you’re right, Lili. She resumed her relationship with the young man she was still in love with.’
‘It’s possible.’ Lili pursed her lips. ‘But it doesn’t mean they had a child. Wouldn’t she have been a bit old? I mean, she looks in her forties at the party.’
‘Yes, but women do have children in their forties.’
‘Why would she have given him up?’
‘Because of him.’ Abigail pointed at the old man sitting in a wheelchair in the corner of the room.
‘Is that Daphne’s father?’
‘Yes.’
Lili thought about it. ‘So, she gave him up to prevent a family scandal?’
‘Yes, I think so.’ Abigail caught that sceptical look on her friend’s face. ‘What?’
‘Well, think about it? Unless her husband colluded in it, how would she have kept her pregnancy a secret?’
‘The cottage by the sea.’
Lili looked at her askance. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Daphne’s husband was in the army. Mabel and Marjorie told me that she bought the cottage because she was tired of living in forces accommodation and travelling and living abroad where her husband was posted. Don’t you see? It’s possible that while he was away she fell pregnant and—’
‘Had the baby?’
‘Precisely. And who better to help her by adopting the baby than a local nurse, who probably helped deliver him?’
‘I still think it’s a bit far-fetched.’
‘But not impossible.’
Lili conceded, ‘No, I guess not.’
‘Toby was left in the storm porch on the night of the Great Storm. What if that was just a story they concocted to explain his sudden appearance in the local community?’ She could tell her friend was still listening, her expression less sceptical than before. ‘That’s why Daphne let them live in the cottage.’
Lili waded in. ‘Okay, let’s assume for a minute that all this is true. So, why did the nurse suddenly take Toby and move away?’
Abigail turned to the home movie still playing in the background. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’
Lili turned to look at the home movie too. ‘His resemblance to the Somervilles.’
Abigail nodded. ‘I think it was unfortunate that he’d been invited to the party. Perhaps she was afraid the Somervilles might take her adopted son.’
Lili nodded, staring at little five-year-old Toby smiling for the camera as he ate his slice of birthday cake. ‘Perhaps Daphne was afraid the truth would come out. Perhaps she suggested that they move away.’
Abigail smiled, pleased that her friend wasn’t poo-pooing the whole theory. ‘Mabel and Marjorie knew Daphne, not as friends, but as acquaintances. They said something which made me think when I saw this home movie. They said she wasn’t one for sentimentality. It made me think there had to be more behind her reason for giving him the cottage than the fact that he’d been found in her porch.’
Lili listened to all this with interest. ‘If Toby really was her son …’
Abigail nodded. ‘Exactly. She would have made sure he got her cottage.’
