"Yes, but they had very little to come and go on. Only that a young girl had arrived by train with a baby, and gone away by train without one. The train had come from the crowded Birmingham district with all its ramifications. We started at the other end. Walter's end. We went back to where Walter was, somewhere about twenty-two years ago, and began from there. Walter was a rolling stone, so it wasn't easy, but we did find out that, among his other jobs, he was in charge of a stable in Gloucestershire for a couple of months while the owner was away having an operation. The household was a housekeeper and a young girl who cooked. She was a very good cook, but her real ambition was to be a hospital nurse. The housekeeper liked her and so did the owner, and when they found she was going to have a baby they let her stay on, and she had her baby in the local maternity home. The housekeeper always believed that it was Walter's child, but the girl would not say. She did not want to get married; she wanted to be a nurse. She said that she was taking the baby home for the christening-she came from Evesham way-and she didn't come back. But the housekeeper had a letter from her long afterwards, thanking her for her goodness and telling her that the girl had realised her ambition and was a nurse. No one knows about my baby," she said, "but I have seen that he is well looked after."
She glanced at Brat. He was lying with his eyes on the ceiling, but he appeared to be listening.
"Her name was Mary Woodward. She was an even better nurse than she was a cook. She was killed during the war, taking patients out of a ward to safety in a shelter."
There was a long silence.
"I seem to have inherited my cooking talents too," he said; and she could not tell whether the words were bitter or not.
"I was very fond of Walter. He was a dear; very kind. He had only one fault; he had no head for drink, and he liked drink very much. I don't believe for a moment that Walter knew about the girl. He was the kind who would have rushed to marry her. I think she didn't want him to know."
She had another look at Brat. Perhaps she had told him all this too soon; before he was strong enough to be interested. But she had hoped that it would give him an interest in life.
"I'm afraid that is as near as we can get, Brat. But none of us have any doubt about it. Charles took one look at you and said, 'Walter. And I think myself you look a little like your mother. That is Mary Woodward. It was taken in her second year at St. Luke's."
She gave him the photograph, and left it with him.
A week or two later she said to Eleanor: "Nell, I'm going to leave you. I've taken a lease of Tim Connell's stud at Kilbarty."