The Lost Ancestor (34 page)

Morton
had just left a brief, yet informative meeting with Susan Catt: the final piece
of the jigsaw was complete.  He was now sitting in his Mini in the car
park of Hastings Cemetery.  There were four other cars but no sign of
their occupants.  His window was down and he was savouring the peace and
quiet.  Beside him, on the passenger chair was a bulging file containing
everything pertaining to the Mercer Case
,
all filed in chronological
order and prefaced with a typed, four-page summary explanation of his
findings.  He had duplicated everything and posted it this morning to
Jenny Greenwood.  In his rear-view mirror, he spotted a green Vauxhall
Corsa pulling in.  It was bang on the scheduled meeting time.  Morton
stepped from his car and waved at the woman behind the wheel.  She
acknowledged him and parked her car beside his.

‘Hi,’ Morton said, greeting the
woman.  ‘Morton Farrier.’

‘Melissa—Ray’s daughter,’ she said with a
broad smile.  ‘He’s very excited about all this.’  She moved around
the car and opened the passenger door.  She was tall with shoulder-length brown
hair and wore smart clothes and heels.

‘Hello, Morton,’ Ray Mercer said.

‘Hi, Ray,’ Morton replied, approaching the
old man.  His face had become more drawn and thin since their last
meeting, evidently the cancer was strengthening its grip on him.  Morton
was thankful to have been able to bring the case to a close so that Ray could
know what became of his great aunt.  Morton offered his hand and received
Ray’s thin bony hand in his.

‘Would you like to sit in my car for a
moment and I’ll talk you through what I’ve found?’ Morton said, pulling open
the passenger door for Ray.  He turned to Melissa.  ‘Sorry, will you
be okay in the back?’

‘No worries at all—I’m just looking
forward to
finally
finding out what happened to this elusive Mary; I’ll
sit on the roof if I have to!’  Melissa climbed in, carrying a small bunch
of roses.

Morton handed the file to Ray and angled
himself so he could face both Ray and Melissa.  ‘Well, it’s all in
there—all evidenced for you to look at in your own time.  But basically, the
nitty-gritty of it all is this,’ Morton said to his eager audience.  ‘At
the time of her disappearance, your Aunt Mary was, in modern terminology, in a
relationship with her cousin, Edward Mercer.’

‘Really?’ Melissa said.

‘Yes, and they intended to marry, but
never did because, in May 1911, Edward drowned in the lake at Blackfriars—the
place where they both worked.’

‘Oh my goodness,’ Melissa commented. 
‘How awful.’

‘But, Mary was pregnant at the time—very
likely by Edward,’ Morton said, taking a moment to ensure Ray was following.

Ray nodded.  ‘What happened to the
baby?’

‘Well, there are no babies registered to
Mary Mercer in the timeframe when she would have given birth,’ Morton said.

‘Then what happened?’ Ray asked with a
curious frown.

Morton leant across and opened the file to
the birth certificate of George Mansfield and allowed Ray and Melissa to read
it for themselves.

‘Nine forty-eight a.m, 1
^st
November 1911, George Richard Mansfield, son of Cecil Mansfield, Earl of
Rothborne and Philadelphia his wife,’ Ray highlighted.

Melissa gasped.  ‘She gave it away to
another family!  So this lord is our cousin!’ she said excitedly. 
‘Can you believe it, Dad?’

‘Are you sure this baby is Mary’s? 
It says here that the parents are Lord Cecil and Lady Philadelphia
Mansfield.  There’s no mention of Mary.’

‘I’m very sure.  Cecil was certainly
unable to have children…’

‘So Mary gave up her baby?’ Melissa
interjected.

Morton paused for a moment.  ‘Well,
from what later transpired, I’m inclined to believe that she had no choice,
that she was held against her will somewhere on the Blackfriars estate in
Winchelsea.’

Another gasp from Melissa.

‘I think she was selected to work as a
third housemaid at Blackfriars purely on the basis of her appearance—she bore a
resemblance to Cecil Mansfield—certainly from the records I’ve uncovered, she
was no good at her job.’

‘Then what happened?’ Melissa asked
impatiently.

‘Whether she was allowed to leave freely,
or whether she escaped, I’m not sure, but in December 1911 Mary set sail from
Bristol to Canada, where she remained for most of her adult life.  She
worked as a teacher and—’

‘Hang on,’ Ray interjected.  ‘I
searched every inch of passenger records for that period—there was no Mary
Mercer.’

‘She travelled under a false name—the name
of a school friend, who had died of influenza in 1902.  The school records
are all in that file and they show that the two girls were close friends. 
Mary lived under the name of Martha Stone until her death.’

‘How sad,’ Melissa said.

Morton nodded in agreement.  ‘But,
she does appear to have had a good life.  She became a teacher and I’ve
been in touch with a couple of people who were taught by her.  They said
she was one of the kindest, most gentle people they’d ever met.  She also
had a mischievous sense of humour—there are a couple of anecdotes in the
file.  They also sent me this,’ Morton said, revealing a sheet of paper
with a class photo printed on it.  The picture was of a group of children
formally facing the camera with a sign saying ‘Velmont Juniors 1958’. 
Standing alongside them, with a mop of wild red hair, was their teacher, Martha
Stone.  ‘That’s Mary.’

‘I feel like I know her from somewhere,’
Ray said.

‘It’s the family resemblance,’ Melissa
said.  ‘You can see it’s definitely her.’

‘I’ve analysed the photo against the one
you have of her as a child—you’ll see the report in there,’ he said, pointing
at the folder, which was still open on George Mansfield’s birth
certificate.  ‘It’s definitely her.  It’s Mary.’

Melissa interrupted a few seconds of
silence.  ‘So, do I take it that she’s buried here, Morton?’

‘Yes, but don’t get your hopes up. 
It’s a common grave.  She was buried here under her assumed name but
there’s no headstone for her.’

‘We’ll soon change that,’ Ray mumbled.

‘Before I show you the grave,’ Morton
said, ‘there’s one more thing.  Turn the page in that folder.’

Ray did as instructed.  ‘Another
birth certificate?’

Melissa got it faster than her
father.  ‘Oh.  My.  God.’

‘Twins,’ Ray breathed quietly.

‘Five past ten a.m., 1
^st
November 1911, Rebecca Victoria Ransom, born to Caroline Ransom and William
Ransom—deceased.’

‘But this makes no sense!’ Ray
blurted.  ‘The birth’s registered in Bristol!  The other was
registered in Rye!’

‘They’re both fabricated—Caroline took one
baby and the Mansfield’s took the other,’ Morton said.

‘So that side of the family knew all
along,’ Ray muttered incredulously.  ‘I knew it.’

‘According to Douglas's wife, Susan, he
only discovered it by accident a few years ago and vowed that nobody else in
the family would ever find out.  I think he was ashamed of his
grandmother’s actions, actually and that was what motivated him to keep it
quiet.  Just after his mother, Rebecca, died in 1993 he found a letter
written to her from Caroline confessing everything.  Well, almost
everything.  She didn’t mention the huge detail of Rebecca having a twin
brother.’

‘Did Mary allow all of this to happen?’
Melissa asked, incensed.

Morton shrugged.  ‘That I can’t be
sure of.  My gut instinct is no.  I think it’s no coincidence that
Mary leaves Bristol—the home town of her elder sister—under a false name: she
didn’t want to be found.  And that’s the way it remained until 1925 when
your grandmother went out and found her.  We can only guess at what
happened out there in 1925, but that was the year your grandmother divorced
Joshua Leyden and the following year Mary moves away.’

‘This is far beyond what I was expecting,
Morton,’ Ray exclaimed.  ‘My goodness.  The poor girl.’

The car fell into silence, as Morton
allowed his two passengers to absorb the information he had just shared. 
He hoped it wasn’t too much for Ray to take in, considering his frail health.

Ray exhaled loudly.  ‘Come on, let’s
go and see her grave.’  He turned to Melissa.  ‘If I can’t get a
headstone sorted out, promise me you will.’

‘Of course, Dad.’

‘It’s over the other side of the cemetery,
so I’ll drive us closer,’ Morton said, starting the engine.  ‘I asked the
office to put a marker on it, so hopefully we can find it.’

Morton slowly wove his way through the
cemetery until he reached the right place.  He pulled the car over into a
parking bay.  ‘Grave division E, section R, Row B, number
eighty-seven.  I think that’s it, over there,’ Morton said, indicating a
section of grass close to the boundary wall of the cemetery.  He killed
the engine and hurried around to open the door for Ray.

‘I’ve got my cane—I’ll be fine,’ Ray
muttered, as he climbed out of the car.  He stood still and gazed at the
great expanse of grass around them, only sporadically dotted with
headstones.  ‘Is this all unmarked graves around here, then?’ he asked.

Morton nodded. ‘People too poor to be
remembered.’

Ray shook his head.  ‘Was she that
poor, then?’

‘The local authority paid for her funeral
as they had no idea who she was apart from her name.  All her worldly
goods were left behind in Canada.’

Ray looked at Morton with a mixture of
understanding and incomprehension.

Melissa, holding the flowers in one hand,
linked her free arm with her father’s and followed Morton to a spot close to
the low wall.

‘Here it is,’ Morton said, solemnly
pointing to a wooden stick, on which had been written ‘M. Stone.  B87.’

Ray stood with his head bowed for a moment
as he stared at the grave.

Melissa handed him the bunch of
roses.  ‘Do you want to put these down, Dad?’ she whispered.

Ray took the flowers and set them down in
front of the grave marker.  In a tearful, quivering voice, he said, ‘I’ve
found you at last, Aunt Mary.’

Morton smiled and mouthed to Melissa that
he would wait in the car.  He walked back and sat in the driver’s seat,
watching the pitiful old man hunched over the grave, his daughter’s hand gently
stroking his back.  Ray said something to Melissa, then she too walked
over to the car.

‘He wants a few moments by himself,’ she
said, as she sat in the Mini beside Morton.  ‘You really don’t know how
much this means to him, you know,’ Melissa said.  ‘All my life I’ve heard
of this mysterious woman and now it’s solved, thanks to you.  You’ve made
a dying man very happy.’

‘It was a pleasure,’ he answered.

‘So when did Mary die, then?’

Morton paused before opening up the folder
to the last page: her death certificate.  ‘Day of Edith’s funeral,’ he
said quietly, knowing the reaction it would cause.

‘What?’ Melissa said.  She looked
down at the certificate.  ‘Oh my God.’

25
^th
December 1925

Mary
Mercer—living under her pseudonym of Martha Stone—sat by the warm, open fire in
the small front room of her cottage in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  She was
repairing the hem on her skirt, which she had snagged earlier on in the day
whilst cutting some flowers from her white rose beds.  As she ran the fine
cotton through her dress, in an uneven running stitch, she thought of her
previous life as Mary.  When she had first escaped to Canada in 1911, she
had put so much effort into detaching herself from her past that Mary now felt
like an entirely separate being—like a long-forgotten acquaintance.  She
had become so disconnected from her that she seldom thought of her old life in
England.  Strangely, thoughts of her previous existence seemed only to
surface when she performed perfunctory tasks, like sewing, that had dominated
her time at Blackfriars.  At first, she had disallowed her mind to wander
back and would force herself to change the direction of her thoughts. 
Gradually, as her life in Canada developed to include friends that knew nothing
of her former life, she would occasionally allow herself the indulgence of a
brief recollection of happier moments.  Over time, the choking blackness
that had once dominated began to fade and she found herself able to cherry-pick
from a handful of happy past memories.

Mary finished her sewing and placed it on
the floor by her feet.  A blast of cold air tumbled down the chimney and
she pulled her cardigan tight.  She stood up to draw the curtains. 
She tugged the first curtain across and was just about to reach across to the second
when she thought she saw something unusual in the street outside.  She
stopped and pressed her face up to the window.

Mary shuddered and felt her body go limp
as the blood drained from her face.

A shadowed figure stood pitifully in the
blustery snow outside her door.

It couldn’t be…

The silhouette looked familiar.  Like
it belonged to Edie.

But that couldn’t be…

She stared hard, trying to discern the
facial features.

It was her…without any doubt, it was her…

She had been found.  The day that she
had feared and yet knew was inevitable, had arrived.

She stared at the motionless figure, snow
settling on her body as if she were a statue.

Mary began to shake as the past came
thundering back into her head, like an unstoppable locomotive.

Trembling all over, Mary went to the front
door and pulled it open.  She saw with certainty that it was indeed her
twin sister standing before her.

The past—with all the darkness that
encompassed it—had come to the present.

‘Edith,’ Mary said simply.

Edith suddenly lunged from the shadows and
threw her arms around her sister, as tears flowed from her eyes.  ‘Oh,
Mary!  It is you!  It’s been so long.  I’ve missed you so much.’

Mary.
  It was the first time that anybody had called her that
in a long time.  She tried to smile, she tried to reciprocate the embrace,
but the deliberate fence that she had spent fourteen years building, refused to
yield to the past.

Edith released her grip and Mary looked
her up and down.  The time that had elapsed since their last meeting had
changed her appearance little.  The subtle make-up that she wore gave her
a beauty that Mary hadn’t previously noticed.

Similar thoughts must have passed through
Edith’s mind.  ‘Look at you, you’ve not changed much.  Still got that
wild red hair!’

‘How did you find me here?’ Mary asked
quietly.

Edith smiled.  ‘It’s a very long
story.  I’ve got so much to tell you and talk about!’

Mary nodded.  ‘Come and sit down,’
she said, leading Edith into the front room.

‘This is nice,’ Edith said, casting her
eye around the room, which comprised two patterned armchairs, a coffee table,
grandfather clock and a writing bureau.  The only picture on the wall was
a painting of the Rye workhouse—a reminder of the life waiting for her if ever
she returned home.  A simply decorated Christmas tree close to the window
completed the room.

‘Thank you,’ Mary said, shifting
uncomfortably in the doorway.  ‘Would you like a drink?’

‘Tea would be lovely.  They served
some dreadful version of tea on the ship.’

Mary tried to smile.  ‘I’ll be back
in a moment.’

Edith smiled and sat in one of the
armchairs, fretting over her sister’s reaction to her arrival.  Mary was
hardly excited to see her. 
It’s understandable,
she told
herself. 
I arrived here with no warning—of course she’s going to be
surprised and a little taken aback. 
Edith knew that she needed to
back off a little and give Mary time.

Mary returned carrying a tray with a pot
of tea, two cups and saucers and a plate of sandwiches.  ‘They’re turkey
with cranberries from Maine—not sure if you’re hungry.’

Edith smiled and picked up a
sandwich.  ‘Only a bit peckish.  They put on a full Christmas dinner
on the ship.  Magnificent thing—the RMS Celtic II, it was called. 
You wouldn’t believe the size of it, Mary.’

Mary sat down in the armchair beside
Edith, perching on the edge of her seat as she poured the tea.  Edith
watched her sister’s shaky hands and wondered at her nervousness.  ‘Are
you okay?’ she asked.

Mary tried to smile again.  ‘Yes,’
she answered feebly.

An awkward silence sat like a heavy cloud
between the sisters.  Mary knew that she was standing at a deep chasm with
her past thundering towards her like a pack of unstoppable wild beasts. 
If she was going to have a future, she needed to turn and face the past. 
Only then could she make the leap to her future.  ‘So, how did you find
me?’

Edith took a sip of tea, then exhaled
slowly before beginning.  ‘After a lot of searching.  Years of
private detectives found nothing.  Then the answer came suddenly from
Joshua.  He—’

‘Joshua?’ Mary interjected.

‘Sorry—my husband—Joshua Leyden, the
doctor—’

‘You married
him
?’ Mary
blurted.  ‘But he…’  She couldn’t finish her sentence as hot tears
welled in her eyes and her throat closed to the words she needed to say. 
That
man…

‘I know what he did now, Mary,’ Edith
said, placing a hand on her sister’s leg.  ‘But I didn’t know it when we
married.  I thought he was a decent man when we got together; I loved him
and I thought he loved me.  We had several years of happiness but his drinking
just got worse and worse and then one night he just announced that Cecil and
Philadelphia Mansfield were raising a child that you had given birth to. 
I couldn’t believe it, Mary—I really couldn’t.  He wouldn’t tell me any
more that night and I knew he’d only reveal things if he was drunk.’ 
Edith stopped and took a sip of tea.  ‘So, the next night I plied him with
a bottle of whisky and then he opened up with the vile truth about what had
happened—that you’d given birth to twins.  Is it really true, Mary? 
That Caroline took the other one?  Is Rebecca really not hers?’

Mary couldn’t take it any longer and she
burst into tears.  Years of holding in the horrible truth came flooding
out, as if an emotional dam had just ruptured inside her.

‘I’m sorry, Mary—this must be so painful,’
she said, leaning over and placing her arm around her sister.  ‘I’m so
sorry.’

Mary started to speak, but the words
wouldn’t come.  She needed to ask all the questions that had tried to
bubble to the surface over the years, but that she had quickly stifled. 
She took a deep breath.  Now that Edie was here, she had to do this. 
‘Yes it's true.  My children were taken from me...’

‘Oh, Mary.  Why ever didn't you tell
me?’

‘I just couldn't.  Does she know
you’re here?  Caroline, I mean.’

Edith shook her head.  ‘Nobody
does.  I left Charles with Mum and Dad and told them I was going on
holiday.’

Mary wiped her eyes.  ‘Who’s
Charles?’

Edith smiled.  ‘He’s my son—your
nephew.  That’s how I know you can come back to your old life, Mary. 
You don’t need to hide away as Martha any longer – eventually nobody minded
about me having Charles.’

Mary was confused.  ‘But why would
they—you’re married—to a doctor at that.’

‘I wasn’t at the time,’ Edith said. 
‘And he’s not Joshua’s boy, either.’ 

Mary met her sister’s gaze, her eyes
imploring her to continue.

Edith’s head slumped down. ‘He was the
result of one mistaken evening.  It was a desperate time.  You’d been
missing for several months.  I’d been out looking for you and came back to
Winchelsea upset at yet another failed search.  That was when I bumped
into Walter and he took me for a drink.  One thing led to another…’

Mary withdrew her hand from Edith’s in
shock, praying that she had misheard.  ‘Walter?’

Edith nodded.  ‘Walter Risler.’

Another rush of emotion surged out of Mary
in a painful wail.  ‘No, Edie, no!’

‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Edie said, trying
to calm her sister.

‘He…he…he was the one who kept me in the
folly,’ she cried.

Edith pulled Mary in tightly.  ‘I’m
sorry,’ she whispered.  ‘I didn’t know.  He was so nice to me…’

The pain of discovering her twin’s
inadvertent complicity in the dark days of her pregnancy clouded and fogged her
thoughts. 
Another sister tangled in the complications of 1911.

‘Why did you up and leave, Mary?  If
you’d just told me we could have kept the twins,’ Edith said quietly.  ‘I
would have helped you.’

‘No, Edie—I couldn’t have kept them—I
would have ended up in the workhouse, just like Gran.  That’s no place to
raise two babies.  Caroline said that the boy would have the best life
imaginable with them and that I could help her raise Rebecca in Bristol, so
that was what I opted for.  She said she had discussed it with Mum and
Dad.’

Edie shook her head in anger.  ‘That
woman!  I can assure you they have absolutely no idea that Rebecca isn’t
hers.  Honestly, I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve seen
her and Rebecca since you left…I understand why you would want to run away from
her.’

‘But that’s just it, Edie, I had no
choice.  When we got to Bristol Caroline said it would be less scandalous
if she said that the baby was hers.  It was just about feasible with
William’s death in January.  I agreed just so I would at least get to see
my daughter every day, but then she made life so unbearable for me and pretty
well stopped me from seeing Rebecca.’

‘Why didn’t you just take Rebecca and
run?  Back home…or somewhere to make a fresh start?’ Edie asked, softly
stroking Mary’s back.

‘I thought about—I really did…and I wish
now that I had but I was scared stiff, Edie—terrified of ending up in the
workhouse.  Caroline was an awful person, but she was a good mother to
Rebecca.  In the end, I thought that Caroline could offer her a better
life than me, so I decided to run away.’

Edie’s eyes met Mary’s.  ‘Rebecca
looks the spitting image of you.  So does George—your son.’

Mary shuddered inside.  Her children
were suddenly coming to life and becoming real people.  The boy had a
name. 
George.
  She hadn’t allowed herself to dwell on them as
children turning into young adults.  And now she knew that they looked
like her.  ‘Are they well and happy?’

Edie nodded.  ‘Yes, but they’d be
happier with you.  You can come back and live with me for as long as you
need.’

The very idea went against everything that
Mary had worked towards since leaving England.  She knew that she didn’t
have the inner strength to re-open that closed chapter of her life.  With
a trembling voice, she said, ‘Edie, listen to me carefully.  I can never
go back to England until…the past is gone.  Every day my heart has ached
for those children and what might have been.  The life I might have had
with Edward.  But I shut it out, close down those feelings because it can
never be.  I’ve got a life here now, far away from all those people. 
I’m a teacher.  I’ve got friends.  In my own way, I’m happy.’

Edith sniffed and sobbed at the news she
feared she might have come all this way to hear.  ‘Please, Mary.  We
can move away from Winchelsea and leave the past behind.’

‘Edie, don’t you get it? 
You’re
part
of it.  You had a child with that horrible man and then married the doctor
who pinned me down and snatched away my children the very moment they first
drew breath.  No matter where I could be in England, I’ll always be
reminded of Mary Mercer and her past.’

‘But you
are
Mary Mercer,’ Edie
said.

‘No, not anymore.  I’m Martha Stone.’

Edith looked exasperated.  ‘Martha
was a good friend of ours who died, Mary—don’t you see?  You’re just
hiding from the past by pretending to be a dead girl.’

‘Stop!  Please!’ Mary begged. 
‘Listen to me.’  She paused and took Edie’s hand in hers.  ‘You’re my
sister and the only thing outside of Canada that I care about—’