Fallen Grace - Mary Hooper [65]
When she had sniffed at the bottle of salts, delicately touched a lace handkerchief to her nose and partially recovered, Mr Gently asked her, ‘Would you mind telling me again of your earliest recollections, Miss Unwin? We want to bring someone in to take notes.’
Charlotte looked rather taken aback at this but said she would do her best, and a clerk appeared carrying a stool and a sheaf of papers. He sat down at a respectful distance from the vast desks of the partners, while the new Lily Parkes sighed and gazed into the distance.
‘The pity is, I remember so little of my past life,’ she began.
‘What about where you lived? Can you remember that, perhaps?’
‘I do recall our house; a dear little cottage with a mulberry tree in the garden, quite near to a windmill. And I had a little whitewashed room upstairs, with a brass bedstead.’
‘What about your mother? Can you recall her name?’
‘Of course. It was Letitia,’ said Charlotte, sadly and well rehearsed. ‘And she had dark hair, like mine, and was very pretty. But I can’t recall Papa at all.’
‘Of course not!’ said Mrs Unwin quickly. ‘She wasn’t much above two years of age when he went off.’
‘Mama had a miniature of him on her bedside table, though.’
‘And was there anything in particular about his appearance?’
Charlotte hesitated. ‘It was quite a small miniature, but Mama used to say I was very like him.’
‘And you lived in the cottage with the mulberry tree . . .?’
‘All on our own. And Mama always said that one day Papa would come back for us and we’d be very rich. We lived there until . . . until . . .’ And Charlotte’s face crumpled as if she were about to burst out crying again.
‘Until her mother died,’ Mr Unwin put in quickly for, having seen them often enough in rehearsal, he was beginning to weary of his daughter’s outbursts. ‘And then Mrs Unwin and I – being unable to have children ourselves – heard about the poor little orphan and took her in.’
‘We claimed you for our own, my darling!’ said Mrs Unwin, and she and Charlotte exchanged rapturous glances.
‘But why did you change her name from Lily?’ Mr Binge asked. ‘The child was what – five or six years old? She was surely used to that name.’
‘But I never liked it!’ said Charlotte, looking pained.
‘And, quite frankly,’ said Mrs Unwin, ‘I have always thought Lily to be a servant’s name. We deemed it best to give the girl a completely fresh start.’
‘But would you mind telling us,’ put in Mr Unwin, ‘how our Charlotte’s natural father came by such a fortune?’
‘Guano,’ said Mr Binge.
All three Unwins looked mystified.
‘Bird, er, droppings,’ explained Mr Gently. ‘A great amount of them which he discovered in the Galapagos Islands.’
Mrs Unwin was so dismayed by the subject matter that she could barely look Mr Gently in the eye. ‘But why does anyone want that sort of thing?’ she asked faintly.
‘Fertiliser,’ Mr Gently explained. ‘It’s a very valuable commodity. He found a veritable mountain of it.’
Mrs Unwin turned away, her face registering great disgust.
‘Can you tell us anything else about your childhood, Miss, er, Charlotte?’ asked Mr Binge.
Charlotte rattled off everything she’d learned from the real Lily and Grace: the bluebird tea service, the wedding bonnet, Mama’s embroidered mottoes and the velvet-lined ring box all got a mention. When she stopped speaking and the clerk was dismissed, the partners informed the Unwin family that things appeared to be in order.
‘And if you would bring in the adoption papers at your earliest convenience, I believe we can complete the formalities in a very short time,’ added Mr Binge.
Both gentlemen then stood and, bowing formally to the Unwin family, gave their commiserations on the death of Lily’s real father and their congratulations on the acquisition of a fortune, leaving the Unwins