It seems so long ago since you worked for my father and I have never forgotten the times you and I spent together, although I always knew deep down that your heart belonged to another. My own heart was broken when you left, although I lay no blame at your door. What we shared was beautiful but you never told me that it would be for always and I accepted it for what it was. However, shortly after you had gone I realised that I was carrying your child.

I was in a predicament. My father was, as you know, a kind but stern man and knowing that he would be deeply ashamed if he found out, I ran away and travelled to your home town. It took some time to find out where you were living – in a little house in Shepperton Street – but I also discovered that you were now reunited with the girl you loved and I didn’t wish to cause you pain. And so I took a job and worked right up until our child’s birth and then, God forgive me, I left the baby on the steps of the workhouse – the very same one that you had told me about. The child was a little boy. I called him Benjamin and pinned his name to his shawl.

I stayed in the town for some while after that, by which time you had married. And then I discovered that you and your wife had taken the child to live in the foundling home that you had opened, and I thanked God that at least my darling boy would know one of his parents. I then returned home and told my father that I had run away to find you. He accepted this but I never married and I often think of you and our son and pray that you are both healthy and happy.

By the time you read this I shall be gone to meet my maker. Whether or not you decide to acknowledge the boy, or the man as he will be now, as your own, will be up to you and your wife – but at least I have salved my conscience by telling you the truth and hope that you will not think badly of me.

Affectionately yours,

Cecile Randle

Sunday stared up at Tom with her emotions in a whirl. This couldn’t be true, surely? And yet as she began to work out the dates in her mind, everything fitted together like the pieces of a jigsaw. The child must have been conceived when Tom had run away from Mrs Spooner’s following his sister Daisy’s death.

‘So Ben is your son?’

Tom looked away from the confusion and the pain in his wife’s eyes. ‘It would appear so, but I swear to you I never had an inkling.’

‘And you remember this Cecile?’

He nodded. ‘Yes. I briefly worked for her father and we … well, we sort of came together a few times. I was in a very dark place in my mind, as you know, and I was hurting and not thinking straight. But I never dreamed that I had left the poor girl carrying a child.’