“What a horrible man,” said Jean with more force than she had intended. “I despise doctors.”

If Mrs. Tilbury was taken aback, she was too polite to show it.

“But of course he was quite right. And he looked after me very well in the end,” she conceded.

“So, when it became clear to you that there was no mistake, how did you account for it to yourself? I mean, what do you think happened? Did you think it was a visitation from the Holy Spirit—or some kind of medical phenomenon that science can’t explain? Or what?”

Mrs. Tilbury spread her hands out in a gesture of helplessness. “I don’t know. I’m not a scientist. I’m not religious like my mother. I only know what didn’t happen.”

“And how did your parents react to the news? Presumably you had to tell them.”

“My father was dead by this time, so there was just my mother.”

“And she believed you?”

“Of course.”

“Not all mothers would be so amenable.” Jean thought of her own mother and had to subdue a sudden surge of hatred.

“But she knew I couldn’t have had relations with any man. You see, at the time of the supposed conception I was in a private clinic being treated for severe rheumatoid arthritis. I was bedridden for four months, in a ward with three other young women.”

“Oh.”

Jean was unable to hide her surprise at this revelation. It seemed to provide an unexpected level of corroboration to Mrs. Tilbury’s account. Her claim had suddenly become much harder to dismiss and to Jean’s surprise, she was glad. For reasons that were not just to do with journalistic hunger for a good story, she wanted it to be true.

“I suppose you’d be happy for me to check out all the dates and so forth,” she said.

“Oh yes. I was in St. Cecilia’s Nursing and Convalescent Home from the beginning of June 1946 to the end of September. It was November first when I found out I was pregnant and Margaret was born on the thirtieth of April, 1947.”

“She wasn’t premature or anything like that?”

“No. Late in fact. They had to bring her on because my blood pressure was too high.”

“Mrs. Tilbury, do you mind if I ask you a personal question? I’m afraid if we go ahead with this you are going to be asked many personal questions.”

“I understand,” Mrs. Tilbury replied, a faint blush rising to her cheeks.

“At the time you went to the doctor, had you not noticed that you weren’t menstruating? Wouldn’t that have rung alarm bells?”

“Well, it wasn’t the first time that there had been a gap. I was never very regular in that department. Sometimes months would go by.”

The two women exchanged a smile of complicity at the trials of womanhood. Jean was struck by the strangeness of discussing these intimate details over the best china with someone she had only just met. Now that the ice had been broken she decided to press on with other delicate questions.