Chapters (52)
- Cover
- Margaret Dickinson
- Dedication page
- Contents
- Part One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Part Two
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Sow the Seed
- Note
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- Copyright page
Tears poured down Kate’s face. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not usually so emotional. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.’
‘It’s just all the excitement,’ Peggy soothed.
Calmer now, Kate watched the baby sleeping placidly in the cradle. If only Peggy knew how she had agonized over the naming of her baby.
Peggy, misreading Kate’s silence, said, ‘Well, you’ll have to think of one now. You have to register her soon, you know.’
‘Yes,’ Kate whispered, still staring at her daughter. She would love to call her daughter Philippa, but how could she? So far she had managed to keep the father’s identity secret, although she felt that Isobel and Mavis had guessed the truth. But she knew her two loyal friends would keep silent, and that was the way she wanted it. She loved Philip enough to want to protect him and spare him any further distress.
And if she could not call her daughter after him, then there was really only one other name she would consider.
The interview with the Registrar was a little embarrassing, as he went through the questions.
‘ . . . And what is the surname by which the child is to be known?’ the man asked, writing with meticulous care as Kate answered each question.
‘Hilton.’
‘Name and surname of mother?’
‘Katharine Hilton.’
‘No, Mrs Hilton, I need your maiden name.’
When she did not answer immediately, he looked up over his steel-rimmed spectacles.
She returned his gaze steadfastly and said quietly, ‘Hilton is my only name. I’m not married, Mr Forbes.’
‘Ah – I see,’ he said evenly, giving no indication in his tone as to his feelings on such a matter. ‘Then I presume we cannot fill in the father’s name on the certificate. In these circumstances,’ he went on to inform her, ‘it is necessary for the father to be present at the time of registration to give his consent for his name to be on the certificate.’
Kate nodded. ‘I understand,’ she said huskily. Clearing her throat nervously, she said, more strongly, ‘I’m afraid it’s – not possible.’
He said no more but filled in the other details, and a few moments later, Kate left the room with her daughter’s birth certificate in her hand.
Born on the sixteenth day of January, 1943
Danielle Hilton.
Forty-One
Kate could imagine the furore her choice of name would cause at Fleethaven Point. She didn’t care. She wanted to call her baby after Danny and she would not apologize to anyone for having done so. How she wished with all her heart that Danny could see the little girl she had named after him. Mindful, however, of the feelings of others, Kate decided that the little girl would be known as Ella.