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Chapter 27
“Come again?” Patrick said, thinking this the missing piece of the puzzle that he’d been hoping for.
Lord Kelly cleared his throat and repeated, “I’m told that I had a twin. He was a still born; it was explained to me.”
Patrick felt the desperate need to unpack everything that had just been shared. “Who has informed you of this?”
“My mother. The story is a rather difficult one to tell, and she herself has trouble recounting it.”
“Tell me, as best you can remember it.”
“My mother has never been the same since,” Lord Kelly went on to explain. “She’s prone to dark moods and emotional episodes. My father has always tried to get to the bottom of it but with no luck whatsoever.”
“Tell me more,” Patrick said, taking another sip of his champagne.
“It unfolds in this manner,” Lord Kelly began to explain. “My mother was to give birth to two sons. Father had to travel to London to sit at the House of Lords, and Mother was left alone in Wales, only the staff and her best housemaid to assist her. When mother fell into labour, the doctor was unable to arrive due to a perilous storm. Mother was horrified, unsure of how she would survive the birth.”
“But the housemaid assisted?” Patrick asked, thinking it the logical answer.
“Indeed. I arrived in the world first, and I’m told that I was a healthy child. The second infant came, unable to breathe, and mother was told that the child was dead upon his birth. The child was taken away in order to secure a burial. Mother didn’t wish to see the child, considering that it had already perished. And that’s when her dark moods began.”
Although fascinating, Patrick didn’t sense that that was the end of the story. “So, what happened next?”
“My father returned from London and noticed the change in my mother, but they carried on with their lives and raised me to be the man I am today.”
A dreadful question came to mind that Patrick didn’t wish to ask. It sprung from a haunting bit of intuition. “And what of the housemaid?”
Lord Kelly fell silent, gazing off into the sunset. He cleared his throat before speaking. “She fled. Mother insists that it was because of trauma upon seeing the dead child, then being responsible for burying it. The housemaid was never heard of again.”
Patrick’s throat went dry, and his blood turned cold. Apparently, Lord Kelly must have had a similar realization at the same time because the two men stared at one another in wonder.
“Do you have a description of the housemaid?” Patrick asked.
“I’m afraid that I do not.”
Patrick scratched his chin. There was so much that his mother kept hidden from him, and he was told on occasion that they even looked nothing alike; he and his mother.
“My friend, I fear that I have a sinking suspicion about something,” Patrick said.
“Oh?” Lord Kelly asked.
“Indeed. I fear that my mother might have been that housemaid.”
Lord Kelly’s eyes widened in shock. Patrick knitted his jaw, hating to make such a suggestion but fearing for the worst.
Just then, some guests began to trickle out onto the veranda. Footmen came out as well, passing trays of food and handing out champagne. Whilst all this was happening, Patrick felt as though he were lost in a dream. Could it possibly be true? And if so, why would his mother do such a thing? It would be heinous to tell someone that their child was dead, only to take that child in one’s possession and flee.
Patrick heaved a sigh. Although his mother was dutiful, she was not very loving. He recalled how after she died, Patrick felt sadness for a bit, but then a kind of freedom, as though it was the natural progression of the world. He was happy living on his own, travelling from town to town. Was that because he did not feel a sincere connection to his mother?
Guests approached, and Lord Kelly chatted with them while Patrick remained silent. He felt people staring at him and Lord Kelly, and that was understandable. There was now no question in Patrick’s mind that Lord Kelly was his identical twin brother.
Lord Kelly said under his breath, “It’s frightfully difficult to carry on as though nothing has happened, after the information we just shared.”
“I agree. And I have one more question for you,” Patrick whispered.
“What is that?”
“Was there a name for the child? The child that was lost.”
