Part 6 (1/2)
”Did we come together?” She smiled. ”Of course you did. You were only a very tiny baby, you know. I remember it quite well. Such a sad little family.”
”My father...”
Here Mrs. Meyton shook her head. ”No, it was just after he was killed. I never met him.”
”But,” urgently, ”you do remember us coming together?”
”Certainly. Boundary Cottage had been empty for a long time-since old Miss Potter died, in fact-and I remember how glad we were that someone was going to live in it after all.” Mrs. Meyton raised her eyebrows heavenwards. ”A rare old state it was in, I can tell you, but your mother soon got to work on it and she had it as right as ninepence in next to no time-garden and all.”
”She liked things just so...”
Mrs. Meyton wasn't listening. ”How the years do go by. It hardly seems the other day but it must be all of twenty years...”
”Twenty-one,” said Henrietta. ”I'll be twenty-one next month.”
”I suppose you will.” Mrs. Meyton regarded the pa.s.sing years with disfavour. ”I don't know where the time goes. And the older you get the more quickly it pa.s.ses.”
”Baptism,” said Henrietta suddenly.
”What about it, dear?”
”Was I christened here in Larking?”
But here Mrs. Meyton's parochial memory failed her. She frowned hard. ”Now, I would have to think about that. Is it important? Edward would know. At least,” she added loyally, ”he could look it up in the Register.”
Memory was not one of the Rector's strong points.
”Do you think he would? You see,”-she swallowed hard-”you see, the police have just told me that Grace Jenkins wasn't my mother after all.”
Mrs. Meyton looked disbelieving. ”Not your mother?”
”That's what they said.”
”But,” said Mrs. Meyton in a perplexed voice, ”if she wasn't, who was?”
”That's what I'd like to know.” There was a catch in her voice as she said, ”I expect I'm illegitimate.”
”Nonsense.” Mrs. Meyton shook her head. There were thirty years of being a clergy wife behind her when she said, ”Your mother wasn't the sort of woman to have an illegitibaby.”
”She hadn't ever had any children,” said Henrietta bleakly, ”and she wasn't my mother, so it doesn't apply.”
”I shouldn't have said myself,” went on Mrs. Meyton, ”that she was the sort of woman either to say she'd had a baby if it wasn't hers.”
”Neither would I,” agreed Henrietta promptly. ”That's the funny thing...”
”But if she did,” sensibly, ”I expect she had a good reason. They must have adopted you.”
”I hadn't thought of that.”
”A cup of tea,” said Mrs. Meyton decisively, ”that's what we both need.”
Ten minutes later Henrietta put her cup down with a clatter. ”I've just thought of something...”
”What's that, dear?”
”How do I know I'll be twenty-one in April?”
”Because...” Mrs. Meyton's voice trailed away. ”Oh, I see what you mean.” Then, ”A birth certificate, dear. You must have a birth certificate. Everyone does.”
”Do they? I've never seen mine.”
”You'll have one somewhere. You'll see. Your mother will have kept it in a safe place for sure.”
”The bureau...” cried Henrietta. - ”That's right,” said Mrs. Meyton comfortably.
”It's not right,” retorted Henrietta. ”Someone broke into the bureau on Tuesday.”
”Oh, dear.”
”And there's certainly no birth certificate in there now...”
”A copy,” said Mrs. Meyton gamely. ”You can send for one from Somerset House.”
”But don't you see,” cried Henrietta in despair, ”if she wasn't my mother I don't know what name to ask for.”
CHAPTER FIVE.
”Crosby...”
”Sir?' Crosby had one ear glued to the telephone receiver but he listened to Sloan with the other.
”You tell me why a woman brings up a child as her own when it isn't.”
”Adopted, sir, that's all.”
”Why?”
”Why adopt, sir? I couldn't say, sir. Seems quite unnecessary to me. Asking for trouble.” His early years on the beat had made a child-hater out of Crosby.
”Why adopt when she did,” said Sloan. 'That's what I want to know.”
”When?” echoed Crosby.
”The middle of a war, that's when. With her husband on active service.”
”Do we know that, sir, for sure?”