Reggie and Isobel shuffled along the sofa. ‘Come, sit with us,’ Isobel said.
Bridie smiled affectionately at them both as she took a seat between them on the sofa.
Reggie leaned forward to put his mug on the coffee table, the locket around his neck dangling in front of him. Bridie said, ‘May I see it?’
‘Oh, I … um …’ He looked at Isobel.
Isobel smiled. ‘Show her.’
Reggie took it off and hesitated before he handed it over.
Bridie carefully opened it. Isobel and Reggie peered at it too. Bridie saw the photo of Reggie she’d missed the first time round when Maisie had shown her the locket and the photo of the cute baby inside.
Oliver said, ‘Who’s the baby?’ He looked at Isobel, wide-eyed. ‘Sorry, that’s none of my business.’
‘Ah, but it is,’ said Isobel, her gaze shifting to Bridie. ‘She’s sitting right next to you.’
Oliver shifted his gaze from Bridie, nodding at him and smiling, to Isobel. ‘I thought I saw the resemblance between you and Bridie. So, you guys really are Bridie’s—?’
‘We are.’ Isobel reached for Bridie’s hand and squeezed it tight.
Reggie turned to Bridie. ‘I wanted to tell you so much, Bridie, but Rufus … he didn’t want to cause you anymore heartache, finding out so much all at once. And neither did we.’
‘It’s what you were talking about, wasn’t it? In the ambulance after I left.’
Isobel nodded.
Reggie said, ‘When you used to visit Cobblers Yard as a teenager, of course I saw the resemblance, but I thought Rufus and Isobel had been together, you know, had an affair, and that’s why she’d suddenly disappeared from the show, to have the baby, and for some reason, arranged for Rufus and Claire to bring you up. But I was wrong. Rufus genuinely thought you were a foundling, until later when he saw the resemblance too. That’s when he realised Isobel was your mother, and the father was someone in the theatre troupe – me.’
‘It’s why he avoided Aldeburgh, especially Cobblers Yard,’ said Bridie knowingly.
‘Yes, guilty conscience and all that. You see, Claire thought he’d had an affair, but if he told her the truth, then she’d see it was her moral duty to look for … well, me. But then the whole truth might come out that they weren’t your parents. Rufus didn’t want to lose you.’
‘Damned if he did and damned if he didn’t,’ said Isobel sadly.
‘Are you all still … friends?’ Bridie ventured, wondering how that could be after Rufus had kept the truth from him all these years.
Reggie smiled. ‘Rufus and Claire are good people – the best, actually. You’ve grown up with loving parents and siblings. There’s no point crying over spilt milk, Bridie. The past is the past, and nothing can change that.’
Isobel nodded in agreement.
‘Rufus loves you so very much, Bridie,’ Reggie continued. ‘I wasn’t there when Isobel left you on the doorstep of the theatre. It was Rufus who found you, and by the time he realised the truth, it was too late. You were their child. You’d grown up with them. Even if Rufus had come and told me the truth, I could never have taken you away from your parents. And I know you’ve always had a very close relationship with your paternal grandad.’
Thinking of whom, Bridie said to Isobel, ‘I realised you were the woman my neighbour talked of, the one who used to visit Grandad, and who I resembled.’
‘Yes, he knew the truth about me … and you, but they fell out over not telling you the truth. I understood. Rufus didn’t want to hurt you, and he was afraid, they both were, Rufus and Claire, that you would do something like disown them if you found out the truth they’d kept from you about your past.’
‘I wouldn’t do that. They raised me.’
‘And that’s what makes them your parents.’
‘Yes, but you are still my mother and father.’
Reggie tentatively said, ‘Can I … can I really be your father?’
She smiled, reached out, and took his hand. ‘Yes. It’s never too late, Reggie.’ She took Isobel’s hand too. ‘Never too late.’ She glanced at Oliver, who sat there opposite them, smiling. He’d be the first to agree.
Bridie said, ‘There’s so much I want to ask you, about your lives in the theatre, about you.’
