‘Let me hold her,’ he said, and held out his arms to receive her. ‘I should try and get to know her a bit better.’
Aurelia passed Christina to him. The baby manifested a wide-eyed look of confusion, but with mother so close, she made no murmur of objection, and Algie hugged her to him, and whispered, ‘Hello, Christina. I’m your daddy, you know…but for now we have to keep it a secret…’
He looked at Aurelia. ‘I do wish I’d known,’ he said softly. ‘I honestly didn’t know. Not for sure anyway. The thought had crossed my mind, but I never sort of allowed it any weight because of all it would entail. And you never gave me any inkling.’
Aurelia sighed, meeting his eyes again. ‘I dearly wish I could have,’ she said sincerely, ‘but it would have created too many problems. I can only apologise, Algie. But what use is an apology? There were too many other considerations. Do you see?’
‘I do see, and there’s no need to apologise. I’m beginning to understand. It all falls into place now.’ He shook his head as events and Aurelia’s actions started to make sense. The whole sequence was like a book revealing its story, sentence by sentence. ‘So when you ended our affair all you were doing was sacrificing yourself in favour of Marigold?’
‘If that’s the way you want to look at it, Algie. But I had a husband. Marigold did not. I had it within my power to reunite the two of you, so I did. I thought about it long and hard, and it seemed so much more practical.’ She sighed profoundly. ‘I’d only recently met Marigold for the very first time. I soon discovered she was my half-sister. She had just given birth to Rose and she had nobody if she didn’t have you…Her child was yours. Please don’t condemn me for what I did, Algie. I thought it was best for everybody.’
He reached for her hand and held it reassuringly, aware that it was the first time he had touched her intimately and in private since those heady days and nights, also aware of the effect it could have on them both.
‘I don’t condemn you for it at all,’ he answered softly. ‘I should thank you from the bottom of my heart. If I’d been in your shoes I doubt whether I could’ve been half so noble.’
‘Oh, nobleness didn’t enter into it, Algie, I assure you. It was expediency.’
‘Expediency?’ He was not certain of the word’s meaning.
She nodded. ‘The most convenient solution for everybody. So how did you find out?’
‘Oh, well…’ He rolled his eyes. ‘The small matter of a visit from Benjamin this morning.’
‘A visit from Benjamin?’ Her stomach churned. ‘I hope you mean to your works.’
He nodded solemnly.
‘Oh, dear God…What did he have to say?’
‘Just that he knows we were lovers. That you confessed to him about us, that you confessed Christina is mine and not his.’
Aurelia gasped with disbelief. ‘But I did not, Algie,’ she protested. ‘I swear, I would never confess any such thing, especially to him. Believe me, I confessed nothing. Not even that we had an affair.’
‘He said that when he got back home last night you and he had a chat—’
‘So we did.’
‘And that you confessed everything.’
‘I did not. Algie, believe me…He accused me, yes, but I denied everything. I swear to God.’
He shrugged. ‘Well, thanks for trying to protect me…but…’ He buried his face in his hands and sighed ruefully. When he looked into her eyes again, he said, ‘So it was me who let the cat out of the bag.’ He paused as it dawned on him that Benjamin had tricked him into a confession. ‘I reckon my reaction to what he was saying gave the game away. And now he’s going to start divorce proceedings, citing me as co-respondent.’
‘Oh, dear God,’ Aurelia said again.
‘It’s his due. But don’t you think he’s got a nerve, considering his own shenanigans, and the fact that he’s fathered a child with that Maude Atkins?’
‘That would never enter into the equation as far as Benjamin was concerned – or the law either, I suspect. My wrongdoing is a greater sin than his. The fact that he has wronged me is irrelevant. He’s vindictive by nature, Algie, and never considers himself at fault. Whatever goes wrong or displeases him, it’s always somebody else’s fault. Never his. That’s the way he is. It’s not his fault our marriage has failed, it’s mine, of course. Don’t you see?’
‘Whoever is to blame, Aurelia, I want you to understand this – I’m willing to accept my responsibilities. I’m willing to shoulder my share of the strife.’
‘Oh, Algie…Really, I…’
He took her hand again. ‘I want you to know you can rely on me all the way. I’ll be around whenever you need me. Any help I can give, just ask. Please, don’t be afraid to ask…But I dread having to tell Marigold.’ He shook his head in despondency. ‘I dread having to explain everything.’
‘Marigold…’ Aurelia sighed gloomily. ‘Poor Marigold…You know, Algie, when she and I first met at my Aunt Edith’s, and she’d just had Rose, I saw her as my arch-rival because I was also carrying a child by you. Only I knew it of course. Can you imagine how that felt? But as I got to know her, as I discovered so much more about her, I couldn’t help but like her. We used to do each other’s hair, you know, trying different styles. We’d talk for hours. I admired her enormously. She had such courage, such firm principles, and such unswerving loyalty to you. She defended you as though her life depended on it, and I liked her all the more for it. She believed you were lost, gone forever, but that it was all her fault. It would have been so easy for me to let her carry on thinking it. It would have been so easy for me to ignore her strife, to pretend I’d never heard of you. It would have been so easy to walk away, and make a home with you as we’d planned, as if nothing else had happened, as if I had never known her. I couldn’t do it, though. I just couldn’t – I would never have been able to live with myself. I had to tell her that I knew you, that you were not lost after all – that I knew how to contact you. The look of hope and anticipation in her eyes when I told her that…The realisation that after all, she would find you and realise her dream…’
Tears moistened Aurelia’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She let go of Algie’s hand, pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed her eyes.
‘Compared to Marigold,’ she continued, ‘I was in an unassailable position, don’t you see? There was always Benjamin. Because I was already married to him it was so easy to pass off the child I was carrying as his. I believe women do it all the time…And I’m just another such woman – I know I’m no saint…’ Her voice trailed off and she shrugged.
‘So what should I say to Marigold?’
Aurelia shook her head and wiped more tears. ‘I don’t know, Algie. I wish I did. It’s a horrid situation. Despite the fact that she’s married now to the man I love more than anything, I have come to love her too, not just as a sister but as a dear, dear friend. I don’t want to lose her now that I’ve found her, especially since I can’t have you.’
‘You just said despite the fact that she’s married now to the man you love…’ He looked her squarely in the eye and even before she answered he saw the truth manifested in their troubled, misted blueness.
‘Yes, I still love you, Algie…’ She took a deep breath and sighed again vocally, as if trying to exhale her inner strife. ‘With all my heart. Oh, I know we can never be together in the way we wanted to be, and I’ve learned to accept