Don Gutteridge - Vital Secrets

“But I stood over your grave-marker in the garden by the big house, and wished you had lived that I might have an aunt … and a kind of mother.”

“Bless you for that.”

“Uncle Jabez thought you were dead. He grieved over you for years. I was forbidden to speak your name because it hurt him so much.”

A series of expressions passed across Mary Ann Edwards’s face in quick succession: contempt, anger, sorrow, regret, resignation. She took a deep breath, pulled the lapels of her robe tightly together, and said in a low, sad voice: “I thought I had worked out all my anger towards Jabez-after all, it’s been twenty-seven years-but you never do, not when the betrayal is so great.”

“Uncle Jabez betrayed you?”

“Yes. But you’ll need to know the story from the beginning to understand what happened, if you are to forgive him. I cannot, but you must.”

Marc realized that she was as exhausted as he was, but the adrenaline was running strong in both, and he sat back, bracing himself for the secrets that were about to be revealed into a new day’s glare.

“When I was almost eighteen, Jabez decided I should go up to London to Madame Rénaud’s finishing school, after which I would ‘come out’ and be matched with a suitable husband. I was a tomboy around the estate, I fought against the plan, but when I was forcibly removed to the great metropolis, I soon discovered I liked it very much. Not the ladies’ school, of course-Madame Rénaud was about as French as Yorkshire pudding-but the nearby theatres. I sneaked off every chance I got to one or another of the summer playhouses. During vacations I stayed with an elderly cousin who didn’t keep close tabs on me, so I was soon landing bit parts and getting to know many of the actors. Eventually I met your father.”

Marc waited, fearing the worst.

“Don’t worry so: he wasn’t a syphilitic pimp. He was a tall, handsome young man of twenty-five, the youngest son of a country squire who had once been a renowned barrister in the city. His name was Solomon Hargreave. He was a talented actor, but his father disapproved of his chosen profession, cut off his allowance, and impounded his grandfather’s legacy. Solomon thought me talented as well as beautiful, and before long I simply abandoned the school and moved in with him. He was very much in love with me. I was still young and naively romantic. I was surprised and confused when I was told I was pregnant.”

“You did not marry?”

“No. It didn’t seem to matter, though Solomon was willing, I believe. We were quite happy as we were but, of course, when Jabez learned I had abandoned school, he came up to London in a perfect fury. We had a great row, but he left, saying he would be back. I was very frightened, but managed to hide my pregnancy from him. Solomon was off on a trip up north with a touring company, so I moved to a cheap flat where Jabez couldn’t find me. Solomon was due back in a few weeks, but Jabez discovered me first by bribing someone at the theatre. I went into labour two months early.”

“So I was-”

“A bastard, yes. But a beautiful, blue-eyed babe, nonetheless, wee and shrivelled and underweight at seven months, but kicking and screaming for the teat. I must say that Jabez’s concern for my health and that of the baby was genuine and took immediate precedence. He sent for Margaret Evans from the estate, and had her nurse me and take care of you. But when Solomon arrived a few days later, everything changed. After Jabez took a couple of swings at him, he calmed down and settled on a quick wedding. Solomon was, after all, a gentleman, if also a blackguard in his eyes. But I was defiant. I wanted to be an actress, to make a life for myself on the stage. I told Jabez that we would marry when we were ready to and that I would raise my son backstage. Actresses were then, and still are, regarded as no better than whores. But looking back on that moment now, I believe I suspected even at that youthful age that I preferred women to men: something was urging me to resist marriage.”

“Yet you became Mrs. Thedford?”

She smiled wryly, but continued her tale. “I did not understand how determined and how cruel my eldest brother could be. When Solomon had gone off to the theatre, Jabez exploded in a fury of curses and recrimination. So towering was his anger that I feared for my life. But it was my baby’s life he was after.” Her expression darkened at the memory, as lines of bitterness twisted at her mouth.

“Surely not. Uncle Jabez was-”

“Kind and considerate, yes. As he had been to me. But ever since our mother’s death when I was myself a baby and our father’s death a few years later, Jabez saw himself as responsible for me, for my upbringing, my education, even my morals.”

“What happened?”

“Jabez left in a huff. But two days later, after a long nap-I was still weak and not fully recovered from the birth-I awoke to find Jabez standing over me, and Margaret Evans and my unnamed son gone. ‘The bastard has been taken to an orphanage,’ Jabez said in the coldest voice I’d ever heard in a man. Then he handed me a large sum of money-in cash-and announced that I was no longer an Edwards, and was to have no contact with him or Frederick or anyone else we knew: I was, in his words, ‘dead to the family and to the world.’ He left before I could think of a reply. I have not seen him since.”

“Then how did I get to the estate?” Marc asked after a long moment. He was sure he knew the answer. Even so, Jabez’s heartless abandonment and shunning of his own sister was a devastating truth, whatever the mitigating circumstances might have been. Marc had literally been stolen from his mother.

“I only learned the bare details of that much later. You see, when Solomon returned to find the child gone, I thought he would fly into a rage of his own and confront Jabez, demand the return of his son, and scour the alleys and byways of London until you were found.”

“But he didn’t.”

“No. He was, in his way, attached to the notion of a child, but he had only seen you for a short while, squalling for food and attention, and he soothed me by saying it was all for the best, we were destitute, we both wanted to have careers in the theatre, we were young, we would have legitimate children of our own, and so on.”

“And he won you over?” Marc said.

“You must believe this if nothing else, Marc: I did not abandon you. As soon I could walk, I went to every orphanage in central London in search of you. I was frantic, but you were nowhere to be found.”

Their eyes locked. “Yes, I believe you,” Marc said, “because I’ve watched you with Tessa, Thea, and the others. You do not let go easily.”

“Soon we started to spend Jabez’s blood-money. I felt that without Solomon to back me up, I could not go down to the estate and demand you back. As an unmarried English-woman, I had no legal right to my own child: you were Solomon’s or Jabez’s to fight over. So when Solomon suggested we flee to America to start over again, I said yes. And we did. And except for the child I left behind, I have had no regrets about that.”

“But you still thought I had been left with an orphanage?”

“Yes. Solomon and I arrived in New York late in 1810, and having some capital, we managed to do well. I blossomed as an actress, soon outshining him. We lived together as man and wife, but my proclivity for female company and companionship was becoming blatant and undeniable. We quarrelled often. Finally, he decided to return home. His father had died, and he hoped his oldest brother would give him a second chance. I stayed and prospered.

“Then about a year later Solomon sent a letter, the only one he ever wrote to me, saying that he had made a search for our son, and after much effort had located a woman who admitted being the wet-nurse for you at a rented house overseen by Margaret Evans and sponsored by Jabez Edwards. At some point, they had taken you back to Kent and represented you as the child of Thomas and Margaret Evans, who had no child of their own. Solomon didn’t know, nor did I, that they had christened you Marcus. But at least I knew you had survived and were being raised by good people on the family estate. That’s the last I heard about you-until yesterday. I had no idea that Jabez had adopted you and given you our name. I wanted to dash into the theatre and embrace you till I dropped. But I could not do so. You were investigating a murder I committed.”