Chapter 5: Secrets discovered

Chapter 5: Secrets discovered

Mr and Mrs Heddegan both felt the honeymoon was not a success. They were happy to return to the island and start married life together in David Heddegan’s large house. Baptista soon became as calm and passive as she had been before. She even smiled when neighbours called her Mrs Heddegan, and she began to enjoy the comfortable life that a rich husband could offer her. She did nothing at all to stop people finding out about her first marriage to Charles Stow, although there was always a danger of that happening.

One evening in September, when she was standing in her garden, a workman walked past along the road. He seemed to recognize her, and spoke to her in friendly surprise.

‘What! Don’t you know me?’ he asked.

‘I’m afraid I don’t,’ said Baptista.

‘I was your witness, madam. I was mending the church window when you and your young man came to get married. Don’t you remember? The vicar called me, to be a witness.’

Baptista looked quickly around. Heddegan was at the other end of the garden but unluckily, just at that moment, he turned and walked towards the house. ‘Are you coming in, my dear?’ he called out to Baptista.

The workman stared at him. ‘That’s not your-’ he began, then he saw Baptista’s face and stopped. Baptista was unable to speak, and the workman began to realize that there was a little mystery here. ‘I’ve been unlucky since then,’ he continued, still staring at Baptista’s white face.

‘It’s hard finding enough work to buy food for my wife and myself. Perhaps you could help me, because I once helped you?’

Baptista gave him some money, and hoped never to see him again. But he was cleverer than he looked. By asking questions on the island and the mainland, he soon realized that Baptista had married one man on Tuesday, and another man on Wednesday. He visited her again two days later.

‘It was a mystery to me, madam!’ he said, when she opened the door. ‘But now I understand it all. I want to tell you, madam, that I’m not a man to make trouble between husband and wife. But I’m going back to the mainland again, and I need a little more money. If your old man finds out about your first husband, I’m sure he won’t like it, will he?’

She knew he was right, and paid him what he wanted. A week later the workman sent his wife to ask for more money, and again Baptista paid. But when there was a fourth visit, she refused to pay, and shut the door in the man’s surprised face.

She knew she had to tell her husband everything. She liked him better now than she had done at first, and did not want to lose him, but her secret was no longer safe. She went to find him, and said, ‘David, I have something to tell you.’

‘Yes, my dear,’ he said with a sigh. In the last week he had been less cheerful and had seemed worried about something.

When they were both in the sitting room, she said, ‘David, perhaps you will hate me for this, but I must confess something that I’ve hidden from you. It happened before we were married. And it’s about a lover.’

‘I don’t mind. In fact, I was hoping it was more than that.’

‘Well, it was. I met my old lover by chance, and he asked me, and - well, I married him. We were coming here to tell you, but he drowned, and I said nothing about him, and then I married you, David, for peace and quietness. Now you’ll be angry with me, I know you will!’

She spoke wildly, and expected her husband to shout and scream. But instead, the old man jumped up and began to dance happily around the room.

‘Oh, wonderful! he cried. How lucky! My dear Baptista, I see a way out of my difficulty - ha-ha!’

‘What do you mean?’ she asked, afraid he had gone mad.

‘Oh my dear, I’ve got something to confess too! You see, I was friendly with a woman in Pen-zephyr for many years - very friendly, you could say - and in the end I married her just before she died. I kept it secret, but people here are beginning to talk. And I’ve got four big girls to think of-’

‘Oh David, four daughters!’ she cried in horror.

‘That’s right, my dear. I’m sorry to say they haven’t been to school at all. I’d like to bring them to live here with us, and I thought, by marrying a teacher, I could get someone to teach them, all for nothing. What do you think, Baptista?’

‘Four grown girls, always around the house! And I hate teaching, it kills me! But I must do it, I can see that. I am punished for that moment of madness, I really am!’

Here the conversation ended. The next day Baptista had to welcome her husband’s daughters into her home. They were not good-looking or intelligent or even well-dressed, and poor Baptista could only look forward to years of hard work with them. She went about, sighing miserably, with no hope for the future.

But when Heddegan asked her a month later, ‘How do you like ‘em now?’ her answer was unexpected.

‘Much better than at first,’ she said. ‘I may like them very much one day.’

And so began a more pleasant time for Baptista Heddegan.

She had discovered what kind, gentle girls these unwelcome daughters were. At first she felt sorry for them, then grew to like them. And from liking, she grew to love them. In the end they brought her and her husband closer together, and so Baptista and David were able to put the past behind them and find unexpected happiness in their married life.