“May I offer you a cup of tea, Miss Swinney?” he asked.
His relief when she declined confirmed her sudden flash of intuition that the used cup beside her was the only one he had and that she was the only visitor he had ever entertained here.
“You and your wife have obviously discussed the North Kent Echo’s interest in her story,” Jean began, looking up at him from her disadvantaged position near the ground. “I wanted to reassure myself that you were comfortable with the idea.”
“That’s thoughtful of you,” he replied. “But this matter is so very much my wife’s concern that I take my lead from her. As long as it has no ill effect on Margaret.”
“Yes. Margaret.” Jean shuffled forward onto the rigid seat edge to gain a few precious inches of height. It was hard to assume any kind of authority with her knees higher than her hips.
“You’ve met her?” At the mention of her name his worried expression lightened.
“Briefly. I thought her delightful.”
“Yes,” he beamed. “She is. Quite the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
Jean flipped through her notebook to the pages of scribbled shorthand she had written during her visit to the Tilburys’ house in Sidcup the previous week.
“How old was Margaret when you first met your wife?”
“About six months. I came as a lodger to their house in Wimbledon. Gretchen’s mother, Frau Edel, let out rooms to bring in money. One of the other tenants had moved out because she didn’t like the idea of living with an unmarried mother. It didn’t worry me, of course. And then when I got to know the Edels better, they told me Gretchen’s story.” He recounted it, at Jean’s prompting, all just as Mrs. Tilbury herself had described.
“And you never doubted this version of events?”
“No. I know to an outsider it sounds far-fetched. But not if you knew the Edels. I’ve never had any reason to doubt my wife’s honesty. I don’t think she’s capable of telling an untruth.”
“But unmarried women have very good reason to lie about the circumstances of a pregnancy. Society is so unforgiving.”
“People are quick to judge, that is true. All I can say is she had no reason to lie to me. I made it quite clear that it made no difference to me how Margaret came into being.”
“But she never wavered from her story?”
“Never. And I have to believe her.”
“Presumably you would be happy to see science prove her right?”
“I have never felt the need for any ‘proof.’ But if you are asking whether I would be glad, on balance, to know that no other man than me has any stake in Margaret, then yes.”
“And perhaps glad to see any doubters silenced once and for all?”
“I don’t know about that,” Mr. Tilbury said, flattening the hair on the back of his head with one hand. It was a nervous habit; every few minutes his elbow would shoot out again as he clasped the back of his neck. “I’m not sure there are any doubters to bother us. Frau Edel died soon after Gretchen and I married, and we moved away from Wimbledon to Sidcup and started afresh as just another couple with a baby. None of our new neighbors knows anything about our past.”
Exactly, thought Jean. So why on earth would you want to risk your privacy now? Instead, she said, “Are you a religious man, Mr. Tilbury?”
“No more, nor less, than most people, I suppose. I don’t go to church much, except for weddings and funerals, but I’m glad it’s there.”
“Did you marry in church?”
“No. It was easier not to, in the circumstances. Frau Edel’s priest wasn’t very accommodating.”
“You would think a priest of all people would be open to the idea of a virgin birth,” Jean said.
Mr. Tilbury met her glance for the first time. “They can be rather possessive about miracles, I’ve found.”
“Was it a long courtship?”
“Four months or so. We were living in the same house, of course, which accelerated things. And Frau Edel was already ill by then so there was a certain urgency for her to see Gretchen safely married, as it were.” There was a pause. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said quietly.
Jean blushed. “Oh, I’m sure you don’t,” she replied.
She had in fact been wondering if she could have a cigarette, or whether the workshop contained material and equipment sensitive to smoke. There was no sign of an ashtray.
“You’re thinking a woman like Gretchen would never have looked twice at a man like me if it wasn’t for the baby.”