“And he never told you what had happened?” asked Macdonald.
“Never. He didn’t know. As weeks went by he talked more and more: he could read. That came back bit by bit, and counting and adding up—though I never was sure if he picked it up again from me. He was a clever little boy, d**k was. He was always clever.”
“How old did you think he was?”
“Eight or nine. We decided he was nine, and we gave him a birthday—Lady Day—and we called him Richard, after the baby boy I lost. And he went to school that September, like the other children, and was entered as d**k Greville, and he never looked back. He was good at books, and Teacher thought the world of him. But he’s never remembered what happened, though we told him just how he’d come to us. ’Twas only fair to tell him.” Again she was silent f
