The Foundling’s Daughter

by Ann Bennett

  ‘Look, this is all happening too quickly. I’ll need to think about it.’

  What is troubling her is the thought of selling the restaurant. She thinks of all the years they worked side by side there, all the long hours they put in, the triumphs and successes, the failures and calamities. All the relationships they forged with clients and staff alike. Selling it would feel like part of her life has disappeared for ever, erased like a blank tape. She never imagined that this would be the outcome of their separation.

  ‘I’ll need to speak to Alex.’

  ‘I wouldn’t advise that. I thought you’d agreed to communicate through lawyers. In any case, I believe he’s in custody at the present time.’

  ‘Custody? Where? I’ll have to go and see him!’

  ‘Mrs Jennings, I’m not sure that would be a wise idea.’

  ‘I don’t care whether it’s wise or not. He was my husband for fifteen years. He’s in trouble now. There can’t be any harm in at least going to talk to him.’

  * * *

  Connie and Tommy are waiting in the reception area when Sarah arrives at Fairlawns. They’re standing side by side and both look apprehensive. Tommy is wearing a battered three-piece suit and Connie is dressed in an old-fashioned brown coat and hat and sturdy lace-up shoes. She is wearing a felt hat with a decorated band. Sarah is touched that they have made so much effort for their outing to the solicitors’ office, but then it occurs to her that they might have dressed up for each other. How comfortable they look together, even though they have only recently met up again after almost seventy years apart.

  Connie is able to walk now without her Zimmer frame, but leans heavily on Sarah’s arm as she guides her to the car. They both choose to sit in the back. Sarah drives them the half mile or so to Cartwrights and stops on the yellow line outside while she helps them out of the car.

  Peter Cartwright meets them in reception. He looks shifty and ill at ease. Sarah knows he tried to pressurise Connie into selling Cedar Lodge to the developers and that it is only through Connie’s kindness that she didn’t report him to the Law Society. He could be out of a job and a profession if she’d chosen to do that. He seems suitably deferential towards Connie now as he helps her down a narrow flight of stairs from the reception area to the basement. Sarah and Tommy follow. It smells of damp and the mustiness of generations of forgotten paperwork.

  Peter leads them along a passage and into a small room filled with filing cabinets.

  ‘All your father’s papers are here,’ he says, pointing to two drawers. ‘I’ve unlocked the drawers for you. There’s also a deposit box stored separately, but I’m afraid the key to that has been lost. We could find a way of opening it if needs be. It’s there, on top of the cabinet.’

  ‘There’s no need for that for the moment, thank you, Peter,’ says Connie and gives him a curt nod as if to dismiss him.

  ‘All right. I’ll leave you to it, then,’ he says and he retreats. They hear his footsteps on the stairs.

  ‘You look first, my dear,’ Connie says to Sarah. ‘Your eyes are sharper than mine.’

  Sarah pulls open the top drawer of the filing cabinet and peers inside.

  There’s a pile of hardback notebooks in there and she takes them out one by one and scans them quickly before passing them to Connie. They all relate to the business of the orphanage; lists of household purchases, payments, bills, registers of children’s names and dates of birth. In his work life, Ezra Burroughs was clearly a meticulous and careful administrator. Beneath the books there are piles of buff files of correspondence held together by treasury tags, which Sarah flicks through. She has a sinking feeling as she works through the pile. There is nothing here after all. This all relates to the day to day running of Cedar Hall.

  Connie is looking at the books that Sarah passes to her, holding the writing close to her eyes and peering.

  ‘Anything here? I’m finding it hard to see all of this.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ says Sarah, shutting the drawer. ‘Let’s look in the next drawer.’

  More ledgers and files of registers, bills and accounts for Cedar Hall are piled inside the second drawer. Sarah goes through them one by one, her disappointment growing by the minute.

  Connie is watching her.

  ‘Nothing there?’ she asks. ‘Why don’t you ask Peter to open the deposit box?’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any need to call Peter. I wonder if this key might fit it. The one that was in the box under the floorboards. I brought it along just in case.’

  Sarah takes the silver key out of her bag and tries it in the deposit box. It’s a perfect fit.

  The lid is stiff, but after a few attempts it opens with a jerk.

  There’s only one thing inside the box – a brown leather-bound notebook. Ezra’s handwriting on the front cover on a white label states Private and Confidential. Perhaps this is it?

  Sarah holds her breath as she opens it up.

  Inside only a few of the pages are written on. The first column is narrow and contains numbers. Beside each number are written names. Sarah scans them and her heart stops when she sees number 5. ‘King’ is written beside it. That’s her father’s surname was her own name before she married Alex. Number 5. She thinks back to the letters she found in the deposit box under the floorboards. Hadn’t number 5 been written on the letters from Charles Perry? Surely that meant they were connected?

  ‘I think this has something to do with the foundlings,’ she tells Connie and Tommy. ‘All the envelopes in the box under the floorboards were marked with a number. There are numbers here, in the first column. Look…’ she shows the book to Connie, who peers through her glasses. Number five is beside the name ‘King’.

  ‘But that doesn’t really tell us anything does it. Nothing about the foundlings themselves.’

  Footsteps sound on the stairs and Peter’s head appears round the door.

  ‘How are you getting on? Need any assistance?’

  ‘Peter, do you think there might be some other papers from my father anywhere? Letters? Accounts? Anything from the 1930s?’ Connie asks, her voice a little frosty.

  ‘I’m not sure. All his archives are here, Miss Burroughs.’

  ‘You’re absolutely sure?’

  ‘Unless you’d be interested in letters he wrote to my own grandfather, Joshua. Joshua kept all his letters from Ezra Burroughs in a special locked drawer. I looked through them once. It is almost as if he kept them for a purpose, for some sort of protection perhaps.’

  ‘We’d love to see them. If you don’t mind, of course,’ says Sarah.

  Peter leads them through a passageway into a room at the end of the cellar. This room holds locked wooden drawers with brass handles. Peter produces a bunch of keys and opens a drawer near the bottom in a corner. He lifts out a bunch of letters held together with pink ribbon.

  ‘Take your pick,’ he says.

  Sarah undoes the ribbon and takes the first letter from the pile. She reads it out loud.

  Dear Joshua,

  Thank you for your bank draft for the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds. I shall expect the second tranche when your client arrives at my premises. In the meantime, I will write to her regarding arrangements.

  The letters are all in similar vein about money and arrangements. They date from 1932 until 1940. They speak in euphemisms; never once alluding to birth, to babies or adoption. As Sarah reads through them, she is beginning to feel disappointed again. She is almost at the bottom of the pile, when one letter catches her eye. This one doesn’t speak in euphemisms, it tackles the subject head on.

  It is dated June 1934.

  Dear Joshua,

  I have to inform you that there has been a slight delay in delivery at my end. The last visitor was unsuccessful. It resulted in a fatality, I’m afraid. One I have dealt with appropriately. If your clients could wait a further two months or so, I expect a further visitor to my premises in early September.

  Sarah reads the
letter out loud to Connie and Tommy. Their eyes widen.

  ‘The fatality must mean the dead baby,’ Sarah says, ‘The one he buried under the conservatory. Was there another foundling within another couple of months?’

  Connie closes her eyes and thinks for a few moments. ‘I think so, yes. Around the time that Anna’s baby went. Shortly after that there was another foundling. I’m almost sure.’

  Then Sarah turns to the final letter in the drawer. This one speaks in even more explicit terms. She unfolds it and scans the words.

  Dear Joshua,

  Please inform your client that there is a discrepancy between the date they will see on the birth certificate and the actual date of birth. That is nothing to worry about. It is only a few months and as the baby grows older will not matter at all. It is done like that in order to ensure there is no public record of the correct date of birth to prevent it from being traced back to the mother. Remember she has paid for complete confidentiality. Your clients will understand this I’m sure as they also have paid for the confidential nature of this unique transaction.

  ‘Look at this!’ she says to Connie, passing her the letter.

  Connie reads the letter slowly, holding it up close.

  ‘So what does that mean?’ she asks.

  ‘I think I know. Look at this.’

  She puts the letters down on the table and rummages in her bag. She has brought the book that she found in the hidden drawer under the bureau. She opens it up. Sure enough there’s a column of numbers beside what looks like dates. Sarah runs her finger down the list to number 5. She looks up at Connie, her eyes shining.

  ‘I know what these are. These are dates. Look beside number 5. There is one date – 5534 and in the second column another date 5934. Why didn’t I realise that? It’s partly because he’s left the full stops out to make it even more confusing.’

  ‘So…’ says Connie slowly, ‘what does that mean exactly?’

  ‘This is it, Connie,’ Sarah says, her voice full of excitement. ‘The first column is the real date of birth, the second one the one on the birth certificate. Like he says in the letter the difference is to remove any trace of the birth back to the mother and back to his room above the coach house. So, if we look at the dates beside number 5 – which the other ledger says is King – it shows that my father was registered as having been born on the 5th September 1934, but that his real date of birth was the 5th May 1934.’

  ‘May 1934,’ murmurs Connie. ‘The date that Anna came to Cedar Lodge. So your father is Anna’s child.’

  Sarah nods at her, but she can’t speak. For a moment she is overcome with emotion.

  ‘Would you do something for me, my dear?’ Connie asks after a pause.

  ‘Of course,’ says Sarah, fumbling in her handbag for her handkerchief.

  ‘Next time you see your father, would you give him Anna’s diary?’

  Thirty-One

  Sarah

  As Sarah pulls up on the drive of her father’s house, her mind is a jumble of emotions. How will he react to the news about Anna? Will it be too much for him this particular morning? He’ll be ready for her to take him into hospital for his tests, feeling anxious and probably in a low mood. It might not be the right time for the news, but how can she possibly keep it to herself? He’s been waiting his whole life for this. He needs to know straight away.

  She sees him wave from the kitchen window as she walks towards the house. Then he appears at the front door dressed in his coat.

  ‘Are you coming in?’ he asks. ‘I thought we’d be going straight off to the hospital. But if you want a coffee, there’s time.’

  ‘There’s no need to make coffee. I’ve just had one,’ she says, kissing him. ‘But could we sit down for a few minutes? I came a bit early. I’ve got something to tell you.’

  ‘Not bad news I hope,’ says William, frowning. ‘Something to do with Alex?’

  ‘No Dad. It’s nothing like that. Can we go through into the kitchen for a few minutes?’

  ‘It all sounds very ominous. What’s it all about?’ he says, following her through and sitting down at the table.

  Sarah sits down opposite him. Her heart thumping, she pulls the blue diary out of her bag.

  ‘This is for you, Dad.’

  He picks it up slowly and stares at the front cover.

  ‘What’s this? Anna’s Diary?’ he says, puzzled. ‘Who’s Anna, Sarah?’

  Sarah leans forward and looks into his eyes.

  ‘I think she was your mother, Dad.’

  His eyes widen and colour rushes to his cheeks, ‘My mother? You mean my real mother?’

  ‘Yes, Dad. Your real mother.’

  He stares at the little blue book, which he has laid on the table. It’s almost as if he’s afraid to touch it. He passes his hand over his face. For a moment Sarah thinks he might be going to cry.

  ‘But… Sarah, how do you know? How on earth did you find out about her?’

  ‘From Connie Burroughs.’

  ‘But I thought… you said she didn’t know anything.’

  ‘It’s complicated, Dad, but I’ll try to explain.’

  And so she tells him everything that Connie told her about Anna Foster. She tells him about how Anna came from Kandaipur in India to give birth in secret. She explains how Ezra was making illicit money out of desperate women, and how Anna came because the father of her child wasn’t her husband. She tells him that he was really born in the May of 1934, not September as he’s always thought. As she speaks he shakes his head in wonder, his expression veering from astonishment to joy.

  ‘Connie Burroughs actually met her, Dad, at the time you were born.’

  ‘Does Connie remember much about her? What was she like?’

  ‘Young and beautiful, with dark sparkling eyes just like yours. She was devastated at leaving you behind.’

  ‘This is amazing, Sarah. I don’t know what to say. So this diary is really hers?’

  ‘Yes. She gave it to Connie and asked her to make sure it went with you to your new home. But you were taken there without Connie knowing. She spent a lifetime of regrets, Dad, trying to track you down.’

  ‘So I wasn’t really a foundling after all?’ he muses almost to himself, tears in his eyes.

  ‘No. You weren’t a foundling, Dad.’

  She doesn’t want to tell him how Anna had promised to return for him but had never done so, or how Connie had waited for word from Anna for weeks but it had never arrived. Why spoil the obvious pleasure that this new knowledge was bringing him?

  They talk about it all the way to the hospital. He has hardly mentioned his tests or the appointment with the consultant, he’s so absorbed in the revelation.

  Later, when Sarah leaves him in the hospital bed, he’s still clutching the diary, although he hasn’t opened it once.

  ‘I’ll read this when I’m resting after the treatment if I feel well enough,’ he says.

  Sarah kisses him, understanding that he wants to be alone when he reads the diary.

  ‘I’ll be back this evening. You can tell me what it says then.’

  He grabs her hand as she moves away from the bed.

  ‘Sarah?’

  ‘Yes Dad?’

  He’s looking up into her eyes.

  ‘Thank you so much for this. I can’t tell you what this means to me.’

  * * *

  Sarah leaves the hospital car park and takes the road towards the M4 and London. Judith Marshall had found out from Alex’s solicitor that he was being held at Snow Hill police station in the city and Sarah had phoned them this morning and made an appointment to visit him there. She feels a nervous churning in her stomach at the thought that she will be with Alex face-to-face in a couple of hours. It feels so long since they even spoke, and their time together seems like a distant memory.

  She reflects on how things have changed since she drove in the opposite direction along the motorway that first day when she was running away from him, running awa
y from her life in London. If there hadn’t been an accident on the motorway that day, if she hadn’t turned off and driven through Weirfield and noticed Cedar Lodge for sale, how differently things might have turned out. How strange that one’s future can turn on such seemingly inconsequential decisions.

  She thinks too of Matt. He’d been anxious as she left him this morning.

  ‘Are you sure it’s a good idea to see Alex?’

  ‘I need to see him. He’s in trouble. Whatever he’s done I’m still married to him.’

  But then she’d noticed the look of pain in Matt’s eyes that those words had caused.

  ‘I don’t mean like that,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘There’s no need to worry. It’s just that I feel I owe it to him to at least go and check how he is. I’m still angry with him. Furious, in fact. That hasn’t changed at all.’

  ‘I love you, Sarah. And I don’t want to lose you,’ said Matt pulling her close.

  ‘I love you too. And please don’t worry, you won’t lose me. I’ll be back later.’

  * * *

  She finds a parking space in a side street near the police station and feeds the meter with coins. The police officer on the desk shows her down a long airless corridor with scuffed walls, lined with blue doors. He opens one on the left and beckons her to go inside.

  Alex sits at a Formica table in the middle of the bare room. Sarah hears the door slam and lock behind her. She turns and sees that they are alone in the room. She’d expected a policeman to be with them. Alex looks up and smiles at her. She swallows. There it is again, the haunted, gaunt eyes; his face is even thinner now. She takes a deep breath, trying to dampen down the surge of sympathy.

  She sits down opposite him.

  ‘Thank you for coming to see me, Sarah,’ he says. ‘I didn’t expect you to.’