‘The story would be put about that Ginny’s cousin had died in childbirth and that she had been named as his guardian. She’d raise my boy at Pier View House as her own but she never came back to Wight, and when Mum and Dad tried to find her, she and Teddy had vanished. I wanted them to go to the police and report them missing, but they wouldn’t because that would have meant telling them the truth behind Teddy’s birth. I went to the station once. I sat outside for an hour trying to find the courage to go inside, but in the end, I couldn’t do it. There were times I thought I saw them, but they always turned out to be strangers, and for a long time I’d think I could see Teddy’s face every time I spied a child who looked to be of a similar age.
‘I light a candle for him on his birthday; I’ve never missed not once in all these years.’ She paused exhausted from all those words and watched a seagull as it dipped and soared over the Solent. ‘All those years we never knew where they went or even if they were still alive. The first news I’ve had of her and what happened to my boy since I said goodbye to her at Saint Augustine’s was when you came, Isabel. I left Pier View House with a little brown case, and I returned to it with that same brown case, and it was as though the whole thing had been a dream. It was if Henry, my getting pregnant, Teddy’s birth, none of it ever happened. Then, when I turned seventeen mum and dad gave me a pair of pink satin dancing shoes and told me that whenever I wore them, I was to look to my future, not my past. And that’s what I did.’
Isabel gasped. ‘Oh Constance, I’m so, so sorry. How could Ginny do that to you and your parents?’
Constance looked at her, her eyes weary with the telling of her tale. ‘Ah, looking back now there were signs that she wasn’t well after her baby died. There’s a name for it now, postnatal depression, but back then there were no labels for things like that. I think she was frightened that I wouldn’t be able to let go of Teddy if she brought him back to Wight, that I’d always be hovering in the background trying to take him off her. She was probably right. In some ways, it would have been worse to have him close and not be his mother. Perhaps she convinced herself initially that Teddy was her biological child, and then with the passing of time as her mind cleared she felt it was too late to go back. I’ll never know, but at least I know she was sorry for what she did.’
Isabel pushed her daisy chain from her lap and got to her feet. There were times, she thought, that gesture could mean as much as any words and sometimes there simply were no words, and so she’d embraced Constance as tightly as she could without hurting her. Beneath her words, buried deep in the subtext she’d caught the lingering shame instilled in Constance all those years ago, and she tried to vanquish it in that hug.
A burst of laughter sounded behind them, and to her ears, it sounded obscene. She turned her head to see who the culprits were. Two women giggling over something or other had appeared at the edge of the woodland path. She shot them daggers willing them to shut up, but Constance was unperturbed her mind still foggy with the past. Before they set off Constance took hold of Isabel’s hand and patted it. ‘Thank you for listening, Isabel.’
Isabel fought back the tears. This lady whom she’d thought so formidable initially had become a special person in her life. She rested her other hand on top of Constance’s as though they were about to engage in a game of paper, scissors, rock feeling humbled that she had confided in her.
‘I’m so sorry for all that you’ve been through, Constance. It was all so very unfair.’
‘It was a very long time ago, but it never got easier losing Teddy. There’s not a single day that’s gone by since I put him in Ginny’s arms that I haven’t thought of him, but I’ve done what I came here to do. I wanted to tell Henry I was sorry I couldn’t keep our boy. I forgive Ginny for what she did too, you know Isabel, because you can’t look back in life, that’s something you learn with each year that passes by. You have to keep putting one pink satin shoe in front of the other, and that’s what I did.’ She sighed, and the larger than life Constance Downer suddenly looked frail as she said, ‘I think it’s time we went home now, Isabel. I’m eighty-nine, you know.’
͠
Rhodri was waiting at a table, seats saved for them in the packed courtyard of the abbey proper’s tea garden when Isabel pushed Constance back over the lawn toward the outdoor dining area. It was a perfect afternoon for tea and cake in the sun, and it
