“But you must go, Leah. You love him, don’t you? It’s your future.”

“I can’t seem to choose between them. It seems either way I’ll be miserable.”

“Oh Leah, it’s the whole of your life with Tom Marner. I’m sure he’ll be the best of husbands. You’ll have a wonderful life with him … Belinda … she’s so unpredictable … she could change in a week. Besides, in time, she’ll have her own life.”

Her face crinkled with pain.

“Be sensible,” I said. “Think what it means. Your future … your marriage … your own children. You can’t give all that up for someone else’s child.”

I thought she was going to burst into tears. “I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I just don’t know.”

“Go and think about it. I am sure you will come to the right decision.”

I left her then. I was certain that she could not give up all that marriage with Tom Marner would mean for the sake of someone else’s child.

It was two days later when Benedict came to me and told me that Tom Marner wanted to talk to us.

“Us?” I said in surprise.

“You, me and Celeste,” he said.

“Is it about Leah?” I asked.

“Yes, she is with him. It looks as if this is something serious. Come along to my study. They will be there shortly.”

We went and Celeste came in—the new Celeste, the radiant wife, no longer the outsider. I felt a glow of pleasure every time I saw her.

“I wonder what this is all about?” she said.

“I think Tom Marner wants to marry Leah and Leah wants to marry him.”

“Oh, that will be very … very … how you say?”

“Suitable?” I suggested.

“That is just what I mean.”

They came. Leah looked very emotional and Tom Marner was more serious than usual.

“Sit down,” said Benedict, “and tell us all about it.”

There was a brief silence. Tom Marner looked at Leah and smiled. “Go on,” he said.

Leah seemed to brace herself. “It was when I went to High Tor to do the tapestry. It was the first time I had been away from home.”

“I remember your coming to us,” murmured Celeste.

“Yes … you were there,” went on Leah. “To me it was all so different … I had never been away from home before. They were all friendly to me … especially Monsieur Jean Pascal …”

I drew a deep breath. I could never hear that name without experiencing a tremor of fear. I was guessing what was coming.

“I … I thought I was in love with him. I believed that we would marry. Please understand. I knew nothing of the way things really are. I had lived all the time with my mother who was always talking about sin and burning in hell and such things. I knew I had sinned … but somehow it happened. There was never any talk of marriage … but I thought that when people did as we had, they would be … in time …”

“We understand, Leah,” I said.

“In time I finished the tapestry. I went home … back to my mother. And then I found I was going to have a baby. You knew my mother …”

“I knew her well,” I said. I could imagine the scenes in that cottage, the fear of Leah, the rage of her mother. She who found sin wherever she looked in those around her now discovered that her daughter was to be the mother of an illegitimate child.

“She told me I was wicked,” went on Leah. “I would go to hell. Our reputations would be in ruins. She started making plans. She would send me away. I could fend for myself.”

“So much for her Christian charity,” murmured Benedict.

“You must not judge her harshly,” said Leah. “She thought she was right. It came out when she talked to me … she was so upset … the secret somehow escaped. She had had a very hard time. She called herself Mrs. Polhenny, but she had never been married. Something similar had happened to her. When she was sixteen she was seduced by the squire of the village in which she lived. There was a child … me. Her parents were shocked and sent her away to an aunt where she pretended she was a widow. The aunt was a midwife and she learned her profession … and in time she came to the Poldoreys and practiced it. I was about five years old then. What had happened was on her mind to such an extent that she became fanatically religious. She thought she was saved and she saw sin in everything and everyone. I could understand her horror … and I was very sad that I had brought more sorrow to her.

“She kept me locked up in the cottage. She said I had gone to stay with an aunt in St. Ives. There was no aunt in St. Ives.”

“I thought I saw you once at the window,” I said. “Just a shadow … you were there … and gone.”

“Yes,” she said. “I saw you. I was terrified. I did not know what I should have done if I had been seen and my condition discovered. Then she had this plan. “She said she could never hold up her head in the towns again if it were known that her own daughter was a slut. She would do anything … anything … to stop it’s being known. So she had this idea. Jenny Stubbs had gone about believing she was pregnant for a long time. She longed for a child. Being a midwife, my mother would be able to put her plan into action. Jenny had had a child once before. My mother would examine her and tell everyone that Jenny was indeed pregnant. She would attend her and let it be known that Jenny had her child. That child would be mine. The more she thought of it the better it seemed. She could get rid of my child, and my virtue, at least outwardly, would be retained.”

“So …” I cried, “Lucie is your child.”

“It didn’t turn out like that. Your mother had her child at this time. She died and not much attention was given to the child at first. She was a sickly little girl. My mother believed she could not live more than a few days … weeks at most. She was always fond of children and it was only when they began to grow up that she saw them as imps of mischief. Then she did this thing. She took Mrs. Lansdon’s sickly baby and gave her to Jenny and my child she put in the nurseries here. Mine was a strong and healthy child and it seemed the best thing to do. My child would have the advantages Jenny Stubbs could not give her … and my mother was, after all, her grandmother. She thought she had settled everything in the best way. We did not know that Lucie would grow stronger and live.”

I looked at Benedict. He was as shocked as I was.

Tom Marner said: “So you see … Belinda is Leah’s own child.”

“And that means,” said Benedict, “that Lucie is mine.”

There was a long silence. I believe everyone was too bewildered by what we had heard to say anything just yet.

It was Tom Marner who spoke first. “Leah told me all this and I persuaded her that she must tell you. We are all concerned and we have to work out what is to be done. You can understand how Leah feels.”

“You are right,” said Benedict. “But this is a great shock to us all.”

“I’ll tell you what we want,” went on Tom. “Leah and I want to take Belinda with us to Australia.”

That evening we sat together in the drawing room—Benedict, Tom Marner, Celeste and I. After her confession, Leah was too upset to join us.

“I still find it hard to credit this story,” said Benedict. “Who would have believed that the midwife had such a devious mind?”

“I would,” I said. “But she did have it on her conscience at the end. I know now why she was so anxious to see my grandmother when she was dying. She was going to confess to her. If she had we should have known of this long ago.”

“Leah can’t be parted from her child,” said Celeste.

“That’s for sure,” added Tom.

“I always felt drawn towards Lucie,” put in Benedict, as though talking to himself. “Perhaps there is something in this relationship between a parent and child even when they are unaware of that relationship.”

“I am very fond of Lucie too,” said Celeste.

We talked for a long time … well into the night. Tom Marner was passionately persuasive. He wanted to take Leah back with him and he wanted Belinda too. “She’s a strange one,” he said. “She needs special handling.” He was smiling to himself. He would know how to do the handling and, having seen the comradeship between him and Belinda, I believed him. Moreover Belinda would never be happy if they left without her. I had thought she showed signs of fondness for me. I believed she did care for me … a little. But Leah was first with her and I guessed that place could be shared with Tom before long.

I think we were all beginning to realize that when Leah and Tom went to Australia, Belinda, that strange changeling child, would go with her mother and the stepfather she would have chosen for herself.

The wedding followed very soon. There was no point—nor time—for delay, Tom said. Belinda and Lucie were bridesmaids.

Belinda was brimming over with excitement. She talked continually of Australia and the perfections of her new father.

It was a little churlish perhaps to those of us who had cared for her all these years, but she was genuinely happy and so excited that she could not hide her feelings. We all understood.

After the church ceremony we went to Manor Grange for the reception.

As I came into the hall one of the maids called to me. Her eyes were shining and she said in a high-pitched voice, “There’s someone called to see you, Miss Rebecca. He’s in the little room.”

I went into that room where Benedict listened to the complaints and suggestions of his constituents. A man was standing there, his back to the window. He looked different. The sun had tanned his skin to a light bronze and he seemed older.

“Pedrek!” I cried.

And then we ran to each other.

The embrace was breathtaking. I managed to say, “You have come home then. I have been so longing for news.”