Fern felt stricken. ‘Matilda’s baby was stillborn?’
Dorothy now looked visibly upset and Edgar reached across and squeezed his friend’s hand. ‘No, the baby wasn’t stillborn.’
‘So what happened to him?’
Dorothy took a deep breath before continuing. ‘Nathaniel and Alistair arranged for an adoption. I doubt it was legal. Matilda had no idea what they’d done, believing what they’d told her– that the baby had died.’
Fern hadn’t known her great-aunt Matilda, but she felt for her. How could anyone be so cruel? This was heartbreaking to hear.
‘How did she find out the truth?’ asked Daniel.
‘I don’t know; I didn’t ask, and she didn’t tell me. She was sharing so much that night…’ Dorothy said. ‘Anyway, she somehow discovered the truth that the baby had survived, and it was a boy. But by the time Matilda finally tracked him down, which was only a few years ago… she discovered he had passed away many years ago. She never got to tell him she was his mother.’
Fern shook her head in disbelief. It was one tragedy after another. What gave Nathaniel and Alistair the right to do this to her great-aunt?
‘Alistair and Nathaniel do not know I know, that we’—Dorothy gestured between herself and Edgar—‘know.’ She dabbed her eyes with a tissue. ‘I just wish we had been friends at the time. I could have helped her track the baby down sooner. Matilda was never looking for revenge, she just wanted the truth to be known. Nathaniel didn’t just take her music, he took her son and her future, and my brother helped him do it. I gave you the dress because Matilda wanted someone to find the truth after she was gone, and she thought you might be the one person able to discover it and put the record straight.’
Fern looked at her, incredulous. ‘But if you knew all this, why not just tell me? Or tell Daniel? Why give me the dress?’
‘It was my way of coming clean without betraying my brother directly in words. If I confronted Alistair and Nathaniel, or told the story, I feared no one would believe me, that they would pass it off as me being deluded. I know they would have found a way to destroy me. Giving you the dress allowed the evidence to start speaking for itself. If the truth came from someone outside the inner circle, he wouldn’t see it coming, and with your journalistic background, you had more of a chance of discovering everything than I did. That was the only way I could see to help expose the truth about Matilda’s stolen legacy.’
Fern sat in silence, her mind racing. The threads were tangled, but they were slowly coming together.
‘Why would Nathaniel get rid of his own baby?’ Fern asked. ‘Why didn’t he want to keep the baby, be a family? After all, he was ready to marry Matilda. They got engaged when they were at music college and were meant to marry the Christmas after they graduated. He loved her, didn’t he?’
Dorothy looked at her with sadness. ‘No, Fern, I don’t believe he did,’ she said gently. ‘He was in love with her talent.Matilda had the spark. She was the talented one and he knew it. That’s why he took the song, along with her notebook filled with all of her ideas. He used it to map out his career.’
‘His songs wereallMatilda’s songs?’
‘Every last one of them. She only discovered he’d signed a record deal the morning of the wedding. Alistair went to visit her and told her that the wedding was off and that Nathaniel had no more need of her.’
‘But the baby?’
‘He didn’t want a baby. He wanted fame more than anything, and he thought being a father would tie him down, limit his image, distract from the brilliance he was ready to claim as his own. And marriage?’ Dorothy gave a hollow laugh. ‘Matilda was sadly just a pawn in his game.’
‘Why pretend he wanted to marry her?’
‘Because he’s a cruel man and strung her along to the very last second. He didn’t want her finding out about his record deal until it was signed.’
Fern shook her head in disbelief. ‘Still. Why didn’t Matilda fight him? Why not blow the whole thing wide open?’
‘Because she was still grieving. The baby was born in the February of their last year of college, ten months before the wedding. After Nathaniel called the wedding off, they planted rumours about Matilda being unstable, unfaithful. If she had gone public, if she’d tried to accuse him of stealing her songs, she would’ve been painted as a bitter woman trying to bring down a rising star.’
‘And the song?’
‘She confronted him privately,’ Dorothy said. ‘He couldn’t deny it as they both knew the truth.’
‘All this just for fame?’ Fern couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
‘“Echoes of the Past” was written by Matilda about the child she lost. She never got over it. As a cruel and mocking gesture he sent her the first pressing, told her it would be worth something one day.’
‘What sort of monster is he? This is just heartbreaking.’
‘As Nathaniel made more money and built his own legal team it quickly became impossible for Matilda to expose the truth.’
‘But we could expose the truth.’ Fern looked at Daniel. ‘We have the evidence.’
‘We have,’ confirmed Daniel. ‘Not only have we discovered Matilda’s original manuscript, but we’ve also uncovered a film of her at the piano composing it.’
