I thought of my life in the village. The strangeness of my appearance in the world, the secrecy surrounding my mother’s life... and Jack taking me in and dubbing me ‘his own.’ Oh, how I missed Jack and Nan! It seemed almost ludicrous to believe, as the governess to the esteemed Vandelaws, I had been raised in a humble whitewashed cottage on the east coast of Cornwall.

By Jack... and Nan, a common fisherman’s daughter.

But Nan wasn’t common. She was uncommon, as my mother must have been. What had happened to my mother? I imagined she must have been in a desperate situation to have to give birth to me in a poor house. I suppose my father sent her away when he learned she was with child.

A nobleman’s bastard I must be.

Nan said she knew little and the little she knew she refused to say. Why? Who could my father be?

I didn’t fear this legacy. Scare mongering, Jack would say, but I remembered the pain in his face when he spoke of my mother. He would glance at Nan and Nan would shake her head.

Don’t tell the child, I could hear her saying.

Tell the child what?

What could be so terrible? I didn’t understand Nan or Mrs. Cheltenham. They belonged to a different generation, a generation who liked to whisper about ‘the legacy.’

Only one thing concerned me.

How could I be involved?

* * *

I dreamed of my mother again that night. I saw her face so clearly... registered her sorrow. Why should she be sad? Wouldn’t she be angry to be turned out of the house without a penny and nowhere to go?

I refused to consider my mother being in love with her employer. Her story was too like Nan’s for my comfort. I was glad Jack Trevelick hadn’t seen Nan’s ruination, too. He was so proud of his girls, his ‘Trevelick’ girls. He wanted to see us prosper in the world, not become whores.

I knew the term was harsh. Hadn’t I witnessed Nan’s anguish with her Mr. Norris? They loved each other. They belonged together. I wondered what my mother’s Mr. Norris looked like--plain, handsome, tall? He must have been a man of some property to afford to pay her. Mrs. C knew of him and she refused to tell me his name. She said he was married and had grown children of his own. How could I stumble into his life? How could I even prove I was his daughter? My mother was dead... and Mrs. C would never do anything so unwise as to approach him, even if I begged her to do it.

Why should I care who my father was? The knowledge wouldn’t affect my future life and a mysterious father was better than the reality of one who would instantly reject me as an adventuress. Had he born any love for my mother? Had he discarded her like the many other women who were forced into the poor house?

That course of life could only lead to a legacy of abandonment and despair.

I was sure my mother came to warn me of it as fate tempted me to accept it.