Two Weddings and a Baby

by Scarlett Bailey

  ‘Oh, Kirsten,’ Tamsyn didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘It’s fine.’ Kirsten pulled her blanket up under her chin. ‘I didn’t really like him anyway. I was just bored, so …’

  ‘Do you like babies?’ Tamsyn asked her. ‘You can hold her if you like.’

  Kirsten slid down deeper into the bed.

  ‘I’ve got a baby brother,’ she said. ‘He got taken into care, and now I’ll probably never see him again.’

  ‘Right.’ Tamsyn sat there for a moment longer, listening as a chorus of something folksy struck up behind her. ‘I do get it, feeling like crap, aged seventeen. I know you won’t believe me, but I do. When I was seventeen I was a very angry person. My dad died, and I never felt like I fitted in much anywhere. I got drunk a lot, too much. I maybe hung around with a few more boys than I needed to, slept with them. If I could go back now, and talk to my seventeen-year-old self, I would say, you are so much more amazing than you know you are. You are so much more pretty and special than you think you are. And you are worth so much more than those thoughtless boys, who never think of how you feel, think you are.’

  Kirsten screwed up her nose. ‘I know I’m worth a hundred times more than that lot,’ she said. ‘Look, I’m not being funny, but I don’t know who the fuck you are. Could you just leave me alone?’

  ‘Fine.’ Tamsyn stood, watching the young woman curl herself into a ball, shutting her eyes against the laughter and comradeship that filled the room.

  ‘But look, if you want to talk about anything … well, it’s never too late, you know. Just come and find me.’

  Kirsten did not reply.

  There was a lot about the young girl that seemed to make her an ideal candidate to be the baby’s mother, but she was so detached from everything.

  So who, then, who, in this day and age, would not be able to bear the shame of giving birth to a baby, who would leave it on the steps of the church, what did it mean, unless …?

  Tamsyn looked around at Jed, as the girls scooted back under their duvets and sleeping bags and began discussing the merits of Ryan Gosling over Bradley Cooper. Unless the father of your secret baby also happened to be the town’s handsome, single vicar.

  Chapter Nine

  Tamsyn almost walked into a woman, who was bent over double in the hallway, her hand stretched out, steadying herself against one of the dark, wood-panelled walls, and recognised her at once as Jed’s poorly verger, Catriona.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Tamsyn asked her, although it was clear that she wasn’t. The older woman was as white as a sheet and looked feverish, her greying hair clinging to her face.

  ‘I was trying to find the bathroom,’ the woman said. ‘I’ve never really been up at Castle House before. I mean, I’ve been, but not further than the main hall or the reception rooms. Mother didn’t really approve of it, Castle House, that is. She thought it was a great deal of stuff and nonsense, and that Ms Montaigne was just a silly little woman puffed up with hot air, although I always rather liked her.’

  She held her hand over her stomach and groaned, closing her eyes. ‘I’m afraid it’s rather urgent.’

  ‘Oh, there’s one down the corridor here. Can you make it if I walk next to you? It’s just the baby, you see …’

  The woman looked up and saw the child in her arms, and smiled faintly, closing her eyes for a moment as a wave of something, nausea most likely, hit her.

  ‘The lost baby,’ she said. ‘You must be Tamsyn Thorne. The woman who found her. Good job you did; it sounded like it was a close-run thing. I was supposed to be at the church; I should have been there, but I was coming down with this bug. I had no idea things had got so bad in the town until Ruan came to check on me. I was trying to get out to the church.’

  ‘You look awful,’ Tamsyn said. ‘Here, let me help you, you look like you need a shoulder to lean on.’

  ‘It’s very good of you to offer, but I don’t think you’d better touch me. Whatever this is I don’t want to risk passing it on to that little one. The awful thing is, I was supposed to be at the church yesterday evening, getting it ready for choir practice, but then this bug laid me low, like it has so many. I should have been there, going about my business as usual, but I wasn’t. Thank God you were passing.’

  ‘Yes, you said,’ Tamsyn reminded her as she walked next to the poor woman. Perhaps she was a little delirious, or confused from the sickness.

  ‘I feel sorry for the mother. She must have been terribly desperate to leave her baby that way.’

  ‘Foolish, more like,’ Catriona said, closing her eyes. ‘My mother always said that a person had no one to blame for the misfortune in their lives except themselves. You can’t run away from your indiscretions and pretend they haven’t happened. The stupid woman needs someone to sit her down and tell her that.’ She stopped. ‘Oh dear, I feel terrible. I don’t suppose you might find someone to help me …’

  ‘Of course, I’m so sorry. I’ll find someone.’

  What was interesting, Tamsyn thought as she turned around to find Jed, was that the mother of the baby had to be someone connected closely enough with the church to know about its regular routines. She had to be someone who would be fairly certain that under normal circumstances, Catriona or Jed would have been inside when they left Mo in the shelter of the porch, and that the baby would only be alone for a matter of minutes. The trouble was, unlike many other twenty-first-century towns, Poldore life still revolved very much around the church, which in one way or another touched the lives of most of those who lived near it. Whether they were true believers or not. And to be honest, if you were going to leave a baby on a doorstep, Tamsyn couldn’t imagine anywhere else in Poldore that would seem like a suitable fit. The only other place that was frequented so often would be the pub.

  ‘Jed!’ she called, as she saw the vicar walking in the opposite direction. ‘Can you help?’

  ‘Catriona!’ Jed jogged back, immediately putting his arm around his colleague’s waist to support her. ‘You look awful, what are you doing out of bed?’

  ‘Oh, I’d … um,’ Catriona said, lowering her eyes. A modest woman of a certain age, she probably didn’t want to be talking about her urgent need for the bathroom with her vicar, her boss.

  ‘Which way is the bathroom?’ Tamsyn asked him, although she knew that to spare Catriona she would have to explain. ‘Maybe you could just help Catriona down the corridor? She looks like she really needs to be in a room with an en suite.’

  ‘I’ll look after Catriona,’ Jed told Tamsyn. ‘Sue’s in the kitchen. See if there’s a better room for her, one nearer a bathroom, perhaps?’

  ‘I don’t want you making a fuss over me,’ Catriona insisted as Jed helped her down the corridor. ‘Mother always said that no one person’s needs are any greater than another’s, especially not mine. What do I have to lose but a few old sticks of furniture and some ancient carpet? It’s the young families I feel sorry for.’

  For a person who was so poorly, she certainly didn’t have a problem with talking.

  The large kitchen, with its long, ancient, well-scrubbed oak table, was bustling with people even now that it was well past midnight. Sue was still up, making what looked like a leaning tower of sandwiches, and Tamsyn saw her brother sitting at the table next to Alex, neither one speaking as they ate, just leaning against each other, shoulder to shoulder. It was an oddly affecting sight, the two of them like that. So quiet, so close, content just to be. Tamsyn remembered how Ruan always had been with Merryn, dear, bright, funny Merryn, who never seemed to be still for more than a moment. He’d once said that it felt like he always had to run to keep up with her. There was none of that between him and Alex; they were in exactly the right place at the right time. Together.

  It suddenly struck Tamsyn what a miraculous and unlikely occurrence that must be for anyone, in any life. How fortunate they were to have found each other at exactly the right moment.

  ‘Sue.’ Tamsyn approached her host cautiously, i
n case she thought of something for her to do. Although the one thing to be said for discovering an abandoned child in a storm of biblical proportions, and all of the stress and anxiety that came with being responsible for it, did seem to be a good get-out clause when it came to doing chores. ‘Catriona Merryweather, she’s really quite poorly, don’t suppose you have an en suite left that she can stay in, do you? I think she … might need to use the bathroom rather a lot.’

  ‘Oh dear, poor Catriona.’ Sue thought for moment. ‘We don’t have any; they hadn’t been invented when the castle was built, you know. But hang on a minute – there’s a commode in the Red Room upstairs, where I keep all of the things that I haven’t got round to throwing away yet.’

  ‘She calls it “haven’t got round to throwing away”, I call it hoarding,’ Rory told Tamsyn with a wink as he brought his wife another loaf of bread. ‘And it’s not just the Red Room that’s full to the rafters, it’s also the Chinese Room and the Solar, and don’t get me started on that attic.’

  ‘And isn’t it a good job?’ Sue said a little sharply. ‘After all, if I had cleared out all of the so-called junk that you are so keen to be rid of, then we wouldn’t be able to help poor Catriona out in her hour of need. Now go and fetch it down and put it in her room. You can be the one who makes sure it’s emptied too.’

  ‘Honestly,’ Rory said bitterly. ‘You talk to the dogs with more respect than you do to me.’

  ‘There’s a reason for that,’ Sue said, slapping mustard onto ham with quite some venom. ‘I do have more respect for the dogs. Loyal creatures, the lot of them.’

  Tamsyn bit her lip and, just like everyone else in the room, pretended not to notice the fierce exchange between the couple. Alex was the only person who was openly watching them, a frown drawing her dark-winged brows together. Her sister-in-law-to-be looked like the sort of person who, if she had an opinion, found it difficult not to express it. Tamsyn watched as Ruan covered Alex’s hand with his own and gently squeezed her fingers, telling her, ever so subtly, that it was none of their business.

  ‘And while you are at it, you can show Tamsyn where the rest of her family are. The baby will need another feed in about two hours, Tamsyn. Cordelia made up enough bottles to see you through the night. They are in the fridge, the bottle warmer is there, remember to test the temperature. It should be skin temperature, not too hot, not too cold, and …’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, woman,’ Rory said, ‘she’s not an idiot.’

  ‘Well, I sort of am when it comes to babies,’ Tamsyn said, but Rory had already left the room.

  It had been a very long time since Tamsyn had visited Castle House, and even then she’d never been further than the ground-floor rooms for Christmas parties or the various committee meetings that her mother had been to, long ago. As children they had often roamed as far as they dared, playing games of hide-and-seek and sardines to amuse themselves while the grown-ups talked about Christmas pageants or Easter parades, or whatever occasion it was that Sue had been organising for what seemed like her whole life. But they had never strayed too far, in fear of the Blue Lady of Poldore who, legend had it, had thrown herself off one of the turrets over a lover, and was rumoured to roam about upstairs, screaming. It wasn’t until much later that Tamsyn realised that most of the folly that was Castle House hadn’t been built until the nineteenth century, and that the ghost was a tactic invented by Sue’s mother to keep her children under control, a remarkably effective one as it turned out.

  Upstairs, the interior of Castle House was like a world caught in aspic, almost a time capsule in itself, the echoes of lives long gone heard in every corner. The threadbare curtains that hung from the huge windows must have been very grand once, and the worn and well-trodden rugs that covered many of the polished oak floors would have been considered the height of fashion. Tamsyn wanted to stop and stare at the paintings that lined the walls, some of them hundreds of years old, dating back to the time of the buildings that had stood on this site long before Castle House, each of them fascinating, particularly the Regency lady in silver and blue silk, her jewels glittering on her shoulder, her hair powdered white. Tamsyn had to stop and look at her. Her beauty was very much of the age, but it was certainly there in those bright, sharp eyes, the shape of the nose and mouth. It could have been Sue with a wig and a corset on. What a strange life it must be, Tamsyn thought, to live amongst all of this grandeur knowing that it would never return again, and that all that could be done was to watch it slowly fade away. No wonder Sue never threw anything out. Tamsyn didn’t think she would either if all this wonderful history belonged to her. What a wonderful setting for a fashion editorial this would make! She could see it now: Bernard’s relentlessly modern and avant-garde garments against this aged and genteel backdrop. Perhaps she’d suggest it when she got back. Sue could almost certainly do with the money; it must cost a fortune to keep this place going.

  A door closed somewhere in the distance and Tamsyn realised that by dawdling she had lost Rory, her guide, and she had no idea where she was supposed to be staying. Mum had told her to take the turret stairs, but she had not been specific about which ones – and there were six turrets on Castle House, not arranged nice and neatly at the corners of the walls, as a person might expect from a castle, but rising up from the main house at varying heights and angles. It was much more like a Disney idea of a castle than anything bearing a resemblance to historical fact. From this main upper gallery, spiral staircases seemed to peel off left, right and centre and her family could be at the top of any one of them. Tamsyn listened for the familiar shrieks of her nephews, but the house was eerily quiet, considering the number of people it was housing tonight, and for one fanciful moment Tamsyn wondered if she’d slipped into a long-ago, ghostly version of the building, one where ladies in silk dresses still powdered their hair. And then she told herself that she really needed to get some sleep and stop being ridiculous.

  ‘Rory?’ she called out, but her voice sounded too loud in the silent corridor. ‘Well, Mo,’ Tamsyn said to the baby, who stirred in her arms. ‘We are lost in a faux Victorian castle. Still, it’s not the worst thing that’s happened to us. Rory must be around here somewhere; we’re looking for the Red Room …’

  As Tamsyn padded in her socked feet down the hallway, she was halted abruptly by a ghostly image in a very old and very foxed mirror. The blood drained from her face as she took in what she was looking at, something much scarier than the legend of the Blue Lady.

  Her own reflection.

  Tamsyn barely recognised herself; her dark hair frizzed wildly around her narrow, pale face, Lucy’s borrowed – and certainly not best – pale pink fluffy jumper giving her a distinctly mumsy look that her sister Keira would have been proud of, and finally, in her arms the one accessory that she had never planned on sporting – a baby. Who was this wild woman staring back at her from the mirror? What had happened to the polished sophisticate who had stepped off the plane only yesterday? It was as if she’d gone feral and no one had thought to mention it.

  ‘Oh, God, I need some moisturiser and a pair of straighteners, stat,’ Tamsyn told her little charge, not that Mo seemed the slightest bit interested. ‘If Bernard could see me now, he would certainly fire me, and throw up at exactly the same time!’

  ‘Sue’s got an iron,’ Jed said, striding down the corridor towards her. ‘If you’re prepared to risk your ears you could try that, although I have to admit I prefer the natural look. You look sort of ethereal, like a wood nymph. I like it.’

  ‘You do, do you?’ Tamsyn eyed him suspiciously, remembering her new theory that he had to be the father of the baby.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Jed asked her, surprised.

  ‘What do you mean, “What does that mean?”?’ Tamsyn narrowed her eyes at him.

  ‘I think it means that you are overtired and rambling,’ Jed said. ‘And that maybe you need to get some sleep. Mo’s been pretty good until now, but who knows when she might decide t
o wake up and stay up for the foreseeable? Babies do have a habit of doing that.’

  ‘Well, we are joint carers, aren’t we?’ Tamsyn said, scrutinising his face and then the baby’s for any shared genetic traits. Mo had her own particular kind of charm, but she didn’t have the vicar’s hair – or much hair at all, to be fair – or indeed high cheekbones (or any cheekbones that Tamsyn could identify), and while her mouth was a sweet little pursed ruby rosebud, it bore no resemblance to the generous curves of the vicar’s firm lips. Maybe there could have been something about the eyes that looked a bit like Jed, but that might be because both Jed and Mo were watching her with a distinct air of scepticism at that very moment.

  ‘Of course,’ Jed offered, holding out his arms. ‘I had a good scrub down after getting Catriona back to her room, so I should be all right to take her. Would you mind helping Rory with the commode?’

  ‘Well …’ Tamsyn glanced back at herself in the mirror and made eye contact with the woman who looked like she’d been raised by wolves in a branch of Primark. The idea of shifting about a primeval Portaloo was even less appealing, ‘No, it’s OK. I’ll take her. You help Rory with the toilet.’

  There was an awkward silence for a moment, the two of them really not sure what should happen next after that groundbreaking sentence in the world of small talk.

  ‘So you didn’t find any possible secret mothers when you talked to the girls in the hall?’ Jed asked her after a moment.

  ‘No,’ Tamsyn said. ‘If anything, they were at great pains to point out to me that they would never be so silly as to get pregnant, and that if they did, they certainly wouldn’t be leaving their offspring on church doorsteps. Although there was one girl, a bit of loner … but I don’t know, she didn’t seem to care about anything.’

  ‘Kirsten.’ Jed recognised the description at once.

  ‘Yes, she said you had something to do with the hostel she lived in?’