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Worse, what if Lew was right, and Freddy or the others tried to convince her to stay ... or she started to want to?
She had to make it back to the island. Folks there had lost enough already.
Freddy waited until she’d taken a bite of buttery goodness to speak again, raising his hand to the scruff of his neck and taking in a gulp of air. “There is another reason I wanted to be the one to check on you today. See, what I told you at the Fire Muster was true but not the whole truth.”
“Ha!” she burst out, spewing crumbs. “I knew it.” Her mind raced ahead, going through all her theories, the ones she’d pushed aside to grieve. “So are you a spy for the fifth column or the Communists?”
“You’re not making this easier.” His sigh was long and drawn out. “I came to Windward Hall specifically. Because I wanted to meet Louise—I mean, Miss Cavendish.”
“Because she’s rich?” Was he really admitting to some kind of con job?
But his next words tipped her so far off-balance that a stiff breeze could have sent her tumbling off the cliffs: “Because she’s my mother.”
No matter how long she stared, it didn’t look like Freddy was going to break out in laughter and admit it was a joke. “Your...”
All of it made sense now. Not just the bits about Freddy, but Louise, the way she hated romances and was always doing good deeds, like she was making up for something.
For some reason, the first thing out of her mouth was “Is Freddy your real name?”
“Middle name, but it’s what everyone calls me. Samuel Frederick Powell. I changed the last name to that of a favorite poet, in case Louise had ever found out my parents’ names—the ones who raised me.”
Ginny leaned forward eagerly. “What did she say when you told her?” Louise didn’t seem the swooning type, but if anything would cause the ol’ spinster to faint, it would be this news.
“I haven’t ... exactly ... told her yet.”
“What?” Ginny turned her outrage on Freddy, who was studying his cuticles.
“I meant to tell her straight out that first night when I knocked on her door.” He shrugged helplessly. “But ... you’ve met her. She greeted me all formally and turned the conversation into a job interview from the start. I had the feeling that if I told her the truth, she’d ... well...”
“Stuff you in cement shoes and heave you into the ocean?”
He let out a laugh. “Not exactly, but at least deny everything and tell me to go away. I couldn’t let that happen, after howlong I’d wondered about her, about my father. I thought maybe it would be better to get to know her first.”
That made a strange kind of sense, though Ginny knew she’d have burst out with the truth in the first five seconds if she’d been him. “Are you going to tell her now?”
“Well...”
“Freddy,” she said sternly. “You’ve got to. Your own mother!”
“I don’t know if she’ll be angry or turn me out on my ear. She doesn’t approve of lying, or sinning in general, you know.”
To Ginny’s way of thinking, someone who’d had a child while unmarried probably wouldn’t make too much of a fuss about that, but then with Louise, you never could tell.
“Don’t be a ninny. Anyone would be proud to have a son like you.”
“My father wasn’t, I guess. His name wasn’t even on the birth certificate.”
Wasn’t that just a bombshell? Louise Cavendish, partner to a doomed romance. This was better than a Hollywood drama. “Still, she’s got to know. And soon.”
“I know.” The familiar smirk appeared on his face, the one she’d been so suspicious of. “If I promise to tell Louise the truth, will you promise to come back to the book club?”
Oh, he was a clever one, that Freddy. She snatched another cookie and considered. “That depends. What’re you reading this time?”
“We’re starting ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ by Edgar Allan Poe. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t all right upstairs, if you know what I mean. You’d like it.” She snorted, not sure if that was meant as a compliment or an insult until Freddy grinned. “It’s short.”
Short was good. Shakespeare ought to learn a lesson.
And really, what harm could it do, going back to the book club? It wouldn’t bring Mack to life, fix things with her ma and pa, or fill up her bank to buy her home back. But maybe it was better than being alone.
