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Abigail nodded. ‘When I was going through his things after he died, I found a DNA testing kit he’d ordered from AncestryDNA. He must have bought it online and got it through the post. There was still the receipt in the box with the date. I have the date when the deeds of the cottage were put into his name. He’d ordered the test shortly after.’
‘None of which you knew about at the time.’
Abigail shook her head. ‘I wish he’d told me. I don’t get why he didn’t. Why did I have to find out when …’ she trailed off.
Ray breathed a sigh. ‘I know this is hard to understand. You were a couple, married, you expected him to share this with you straight away, to include you in what was going on. But it is not a reflection on you or your relationship. Sometimes an individual needs time alone to process something like this in their own headspace and find some answers themselves. Especially if, as I suspect in this case, he’d suddenly discovered he wasn’t the person he thought he was.’
Abigail looked at him askance. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He ordered a DNA kit. I take it that he didn’t know that he was adopted?’
She shook her head. Why did she have to find out that Toby might have been a foundling when he was gone? Gerald had never brought the story up before, but then why would he? It had only been seeing the cottage that had led him to mention it. It wasn’t something he’d have just come out with and talked about on the occasions she and Toby had got together with her family – which hadn’t been that often. She wished he had, for Toby’s sake.
‘Look, I don’t know if he even knew that before he died.’
Ray stared at her. ‘I don’t understand …’
Abigail explained, ‘He was brought up by a woman he believed was his mother. They lived in the cottage until he was five, and then she met a man and got married – Toby’s stepfather. Then they moved away to live in London and had another child, a girl, who as far as Toby knew was his half-sister.’
Ray sat there, nodding, taking all this in. ‘So, he is given the cottage. Now, his first thought must have been, what is my connection to the Somervilles?’
‘Yes, my first thought too.’
‘So, before approaching the family, he gets a DNA test.’
Abigail frowned. ‘Yes, but I don’t see what that would tell him? I don’t get how they work.’
Ray smiled. ‘Okay, let me explain. There’s a vast database containing millions of people’s DNA. He could submit his on the off-chance that someone in the Somerville family tree has submitted theirs, and there’s a link – a connection to that family through DNA would then be established. From there, it would involve genealogy. Constructing the Somerville family tree and seeing where he fits, and from whom he is descended.’
Abigail thought of Lord Somerville. She still didn’t believe he’d had an affair with the nurse and that Toby was his illegitimate son, and that Daphne had given Toby the cottage because he was her nephew. If it was true that Toby had been the foundling, as she believed it was, it threw that theory out of the window.
Ray listened attentively as she told him all this. He stared at her thoughtfully. ‘Okay, before we go down the route of exploring the Somervilles’ family tree, I’m going to make a suggestion. We change tack.’
‘How so?’
‘Have you considered that he had no connection whatsoever to the Somervilles, and it was just a matter of a charitable lady who decided to give her cottage to a disadvantaged baby who, through providence, had been left on the doorstep of her cottage?’
She stared at him, thinking,could it be that simple?All along, she assumed he had some connection to the family.
‘You said your stepfather believed Toby was found in the storm porch of that cottage. It could be that the cottage is the connection Toby had to Daphne, not to the Somervilles. Does that make sense?’
‘Daphne didn’t have any children,’ Abigail said slowly.
Ray nodded.
‘It would explain why the cottage was put into the trust for him when he was five, when he moved to London with the nurse and his new stepdad,’ Abigail added.
‘Abigail, I have a theory. Let’s assume you are correct and Toby was the foundling. Now, don’t forget, there was a lot going on that night, emergency services out on lots of calls, that sort of thing. But let’s just assume that was the case. Now, I take it the nurse, who he believed all along was his mother, was living there at the time.’
‘Yes, I presume so.’
‘Okay, so she found this baby and adopted him.’
‘But she never told him that.’
‘Well, that happens. Adoptive parents will be afraid of what might happen if their child, when they get older, wants to find their biological parents.’
‘You mean they might lose them?’
