will have taken with her,’ Cait retorted now. ‘Well, no matter how critical this woman’s situation is, I can’t do anything about it. Should she telephone back tomorrow, please ensure you get a number from her this time.’
Agnes hoped the sarcasm didn’t show in her tone of voice when she responded, ‘I’ll make sure I do. I’ll go and put your dinner out then I’ll be off home.’
Her mother would never consider it proper to thank an employee for doing anything for her as they were paid to do so. But what Agnes had done today for Cait she wasn’t being paid for, and Cait felt the least she could do was show the older woman she appreciated her thoughtfulness.
She called after her, ‘Thank you for cooking for me amid all your other chores.’
A shocked Agnes froze in her tracks for a moment, thinking she was hearing things, before she turned and smiled at Cait and said, ‘My pleasure.’ In her surprise at actually being thanked for something she had done after all the years she had worked here unacknowledged, she nearly forget herself and added ‘love’, but remembered her place just in time and instead said ‘Miss Thomas’.
A while later, feeling lonely in the eerily silent house and wishing Agnes were still here to afford her some company, Cait sat at one end of the large scrubbed pine table in the kitchen, forking small pieces of stew and potatoes into her mouth, surprised to find she was actually enjoying the meal. A copy of the local evening newspaper was open before her. Had her parents been here she would never have dared eat at the kitchen table, let alone read at the same time, but it was far warmer in here than in the large imposing dining room in which she felt overwhelmed. It also felt good to be doing something she wanted to do instead of having to abide by the house rules set by her mother. Her mind, though, was not on the print she was scanning but on the conversation she’d just had with Agnes. Cait couldn’t work out why her mother’s presence was needed so urgently to resolve a problem at a company. She wasn’t aware, had no inkling whatsoever, that her mother was involved in any way in business. But according to Agnes there had been no mistake. Her mother’s details had been found in the private files. It was all very confusing but equally intriguing.
Cait frowned. But then, what did she really know about her mother . . . about both her parents? Nothing much except that they were orphans and neither of them needed to work as her mother had a private income. She had long accepted that the past was too painful for them to talk about. But surely she had a right to know some bare facts about her own background, no matter how painful it was for them to tell her. Her need to find a place to live was suddenly overridden by a great curiosity about her own family background. With her parents away, this might be her only opportunity to see what she could uncover.
Her parents must both have birth certificates. At least from those she would be able to find out the names of both sets of grandparents, which was more than she knew now. There might even be a photograph or two so she could see what they’d looked like. But where would important papers like that be kept?
When she had needed her own birth certificate to show the vicar before the wedding, her mother had told her she was busy and would get it for her when she had the time. She hadn’t been busy at all, was just arranging some flowers she’d cut from the garden. Cait had apologised to her for not asking for it before but said she really did need it right then as Neil and she were off to see the vicar, and nothing could proceed apparently until he had seen her birth certificate. So Nerys had gone upstairs to her bedroom in a mood, telling Cait to wait down here. So that was where she obviously kept things of importance – somewhere in her bedroom.
Her parents’ bedroom had always been out of bounds to Cait. She was never allowed in there except when her mother expressly sent her up to do something for her. She had never dared venture into that private sanctuary unbidden before, for fear of