Page 66 of The Little Island Flower Stall
‘So neither of you ever spoke to Violette or her sister after you got married?’
‘We hadn’t spoken to them long before that. I’ve never spoken to her in all the years since. Now she’s in the home, and I suppose it’s too late. I’ll always be sorry about that. I should have tried harder.’
‘It’s hard to make peace with someone who doesn’t want it, but I don’t see why her being in the home makes it too late.There’s still time, isn’t there? To bury the hatchet and be friends again?’
‘I don’t think so. She’d have every right to hate me, even now, all these years later, and if she remembered me at all, she wouldn’t want to bury the hatchet.’
‘Don’t say that. I’m sure that’s not true.’
‘You don’t know what I did. If you knew, you might think she was right to hate me.’
‘I’d never think that.’
‘My dear Bella, even you can’t say that for sure.’
‘How can anything you’ve done be so terrible that I’d hate you? There’s just no way.’
Celestine patted her hand. ‘I want to tell you, I really do, but I’m afraid.’
Bella rubbed her aunt’s back. ‘You don’t have to tell me what it was about, but I’m here and I’m willing to listen. I promise I would never judge you. It must be awful, holding on to this secret for all this time.’
‘I must admit it feels as if the past is finally catching up with me. Perhaps I ought to. I suppose I ought to come clean with that poor man too.’
‘Which man?’
‘The one who’s been asking around about Violette. I’m sure he must be desperate to know the truth about who his great-grandfather is.’
‘I’m sure that’s true,’ Bella said, squirming at the notion that it wasn’t only Celestine keeping secrets. If anyone ought to be confessing here, it ought to be her, not her poor, traumatised great-aunt. She wished more than anything that they could simply get everything out in the open and deal with it. Maybe they’d be able to, but right now it felt like such a mess she wouldn’t know where to begin.
‘Dolly told you about the rumours?’
‘The rumours that Violette had gone away to have a baby? Yes, but I heard Dolly talking to you about that the first day we were at the stall, remember? So please don’t be mad at her – it’s not really her fault.’
‘Well, the rumours were true. She did leave Jersey to have a baby.’
Bella suddenly went cold. Despite knowing that the facts didn’t stack up, she had to ask: ‘It wasn’t Great-Uncle Roland’s, was it?’
‘Oh, no.’ Celestine looked shocked at the suggestion, and Bella wished she hadn’t asked. ‘Nothing like that.’
‘Thank God!’ Bella allowed herself to relax. At least, as much as anyone having such an intense conversation could relax. Right now she couldn’t decide whether she wished she’d come home more sober or more drunk. Her current state didn’t seem to fit the bill either way. ‘I don’t see what it has to do with you then. You mean to say you told people she’d had a baby, is that it? Is that the secret you feel bad about letting out?’
‘No, I never breathed a word about that. I knew, yes. Everyone else worked it out. In those days, if any young woman went off for a few months and then came back, there was a decent chance she’d gone for that reason.’
‘So she came back without the baby. And you know who the dad was?’
Celestine paused. And then gave the tiniest nod. ‘I do.’
‘But you’ve never told anyone?’
‘Not a soul. It was the last thing Violette asked of me and, for my part, after all the trouble I caused, I at least owed her that. No matter what else happened, I would not have let that go, not even on pain of death.’
Bella’s thoughts went back to the photo she’d found of the three girls taken on the beach with the message on the back.Wasn’t that something about keeping their secret on pain of death? Was this the secret?
‘So what changed your mind? You want to tell me now, don’t you?’
‘You asked, and I’m worn out with keeping it. I’ve done my best, and it’s been a long time.’
Bella gave a small smile. There had to be more to it than that – Bella had been asking about it since she arrived and Celestine had never let out a squeak until tonight. There didn’t seem to be anything to gain by pointing that out now, though. ‘Let me get this straight. Violette had a baby out of wedlock and she gave it away? And then she came back and carried on with her life. She got married and she had more children. And the baby she gave away never came looking for her?’
