The Sun Is Often Out

Chapter Six

This shock was not the last to shake the Hale household that year. The next came when Gertie declared that due to her wish for a child and to relieve the scandalous talk she would be adopting the illegitimate offspring of her brother and the housemaid. By the time it was born she would be a wife of two years, with nothing to show for it, and had decided any child of her blood was better than no child at all.

Uncle Jago was furious at the idea that his life's work might be bestowed in its entirety on the bastard of Billy Stewart. The fault lay with him alone, he declared; the mother would be sent to another place with a letter of recommendation after the birth but that was all he was willing to accommodate. The child should go to the church.

Aunt Mary was more obliging—she asked Lance to promise, in writing, that this child would have no claim to Gamboola if male and instead be considered as a ward might rather than an heir. It would be educated and cared for and given the best in life in all other respects. Lance agreed, for it seemed the only way to placate both his wife and his father.

It was Gertie's wilful obstinance with regard to the child that finally endeared her to Jessie. "Shows she has some backbone after all," she whispered to May one evening as they brushed out each other's hair. Downstairs the long, drawn out argument on the subject continued unabated in the parlour while they listened from their bedroom. "And the child will be much better off here than in some church orphanage."

May wasn't so sure. Though she knew little of these things, save what she read in books, she understood that the taint of illegitimacy would follow that child wherever it went, and might even be worse in the echelons of squatter society than amongst the working class of which its mother was a member. She worried that this determination of Gertie's could not last; that it was a mere caprice that would only end in regret. Then there was Annie to consider.

"Would Annie just give her baby to Gertie, without a second thought?"

"What do you mean?" Jessie peered back over her shoulder at May, who paused in her brushing. "She doesn't have a choice."

"But her family—maybe they'd want to raise it."

Jessie laughed. "I'm sure they won't want to bother with it. Irish, you know. Papists hate bastards more than anyone. No, Gertie has the right of it. Her brother, her responsibility. I'm glad I was never cursed with such a bounder for a brother. And Mama will be satisfied to have her occupied and useful rather than weeping at the drop of a hat."

She faced forward again and May resumed her task, staring at the filigree detail on the back of the silver brush as she pulled it through Jessie's dark hair. A cherub floated above an English rose, its small wings hardly big enough to support its weight, while thick vines wound their way around the edges of the design, trapping it within. Like a butterfly caught in a spider's web.

*

When the family travelled down to Redruth House that December Annie was no longer in residence. Dr Stewart had taken her in until the birth, his own contribution to rectifying his son's transgression a meagre one in comparison. There were whispers that her family had given her up, so without his charity she would not have had a home to go to. Gertie visited them, and the adoption was arranged through Uncle Jago's solicitor in town so there would be no legal difficulties, but Lance kept his distance. What his thoughts were about the unconventional addition to his family remained a mystery, for he did not share them. Instead he went about his duties as if he bore a heavy load, that of his father's disappointment and disillusion, and perhaps even his own.

The new maid who saw to May's dress and hair was as skittish as a mouse, and never spoke unless she was asked a direct question. Even then she mumbled, her chin tucked to her chest in a perpetual bow to her assumed betters, and seemed more comfortable in a curtsey than standing straight. Her meek deference made May uneasy, and she missed Annie's chatter and easy smiles all the more.