Julia picked up the yellowed newspaper clippings recounting the scandal that had happened so many years before in Boston. The faded headlines were lurid:
LOVE NEST ON BEACON HILL
BILLIONAIRE HARRY STANFORD IN SCANDAL
TYCOON’S WIFE COMMITS SUICIDE
GOVERNESS ROSEMARY NELSON DISAPPEARS
There were dozens of gossip columns filled with innuendo.
Julia sat there for a long time, lost in the past.
She had been born at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Milwaukee. Her earliest memories were of living in dreary walk-up apartments and constantly moving from city to city. There were times when there was no money at all, and little to eat. Her mother was continually ill, and it had been difficult for her to find steady work. The young girl quickly learned never to ask for toys or new dresses.
Julia started school when she was five, and her classmates would mock her because she wore the same dress and scruffy shoes every day. When the other children teased her, Julia fought them. She was a rebel, and she was always being brought up before the principal. Her teachers didn’t know what to do with her. She was in constant trouble. She might have been expelled except for one thing: She was the brightest student in her class.
Her mother had told Julia that her father was dead, and she had accepted that. But when Julia was twelve years old, she stumbled across a picture album filled with photographs of her mother with a group of strangers.
“Who are these people?” Julia asked.
And Julia’s mother decided that the time had come.
“Sit down, my darling.” She took Julia’s hand and held it tightly. There was no way to break the news tactfully. “That is your father, and your half sister, and your two half brothers.”
Julia was looking at her, puzzled. “I don’t understand.”
The truth had finally come out, shattering Julia’s peace of mind. Her father was alive! And she had a half sister and two half brothers. It was too much to comprehend. “Why…why did you lie to me?”
“You were too young to understand. Your father and I…had an affair. He was married, and I…I had to leave, to have you.”
“I hate him!” Julia said.
“You mustn’t hate him.”
“How could he have done this to you?” she demanded.
“What happened was my fault as much as his.” Each word was agony. “Your father was a very attractive man, and I was young and foolish. I knew that nothing could ever come of our affair. He told me he loved me…but he was married and had a family. And…and then I became pregnant.” It was difficult for her to go on. “A reporter got hold of the story and it was in all the newspapers. I ran away. I intended for you and me to go back to him, but his wife killed herself, and I…I could never face him or the children again. It was my fault, you see. So don’t blame him.”
But there was a part of the story Rosemary never revealed to her daughter. When the baby was born, the clerk at the hospital said, “We’re filling out the birth certificate. The baby’s name is Julia Nelson?”
Rosemary had started to say yes, and then she thought fiercely, No! She’s Harry Stanford’s daughter. She’s entitled to his name, and his support.
“My daughter’s name is Julia Stanford.”
She had written to Harry Stanford, telling him about Julia, but she had never had a reply.
Julia was fascinated by the idea that she had a family she had not known about, and also by the fact that they were famous enough to be written about in the press. She went to the public library and looked up everything she could about Harry Stanford. There were dozens of articles about him. He was a billionaire, and he lived in another world, a world that Julia and her mother were totally excluded from.
One day, when one of Julia’s classmates teased her about being poor, Julia said defiantly, “I’m not poor! My father is one of the richest men in the world. We have a yacht and an airplane, and a dozen beautiful homes.”