EMMERDALE veteran Faith Dingle has harboured many secrets over the years on the ITV soap but a new theory suggests her biggest to date could unravel in the weeks leading up to her death.
On Emmerdale, Faith (Sally Dexter) has recently been trying her best to mend her relationships with her daughter Chas Dingle (Lucy Pargeter) and son Cain Dingle (Jeff Hordley).
This has happened at the same time that she has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and will be leaving the ITV serial opera soon. However, there appeared to be a suggestion in the episode that aired on Wednesday that the matriarch has three children, not just two.
Faith attempted to carry out her objective to rescue something important to her from her stepdaughter’s home at the start of the most recent instalment.
Eileen Roberts (Zoe Lambert), who just passed away, had a strained relationship with her stepmother because she believed the Dingle matriarch had killed her father to gain his money.
Faith believed she would be able to mislead the deceased’s widower into letting her inside the house now that Eileen was out of the picture.
Her attempts earlier this week failed when Nate Robinson (Jurell Carter) discovered her true identity, but in the episode airing on Wednesday, she showed up to the house wearing a wig.
She claimed she was a photographer who was taking pictures of the house for the estate agents and Eileen’s widower fell for this.
Later in the episode, Fatih was seen fleeing the home because it appeared her true identity had once again been revealed.
Faith’s arrival back in the hamlet wasn’t met with joy because Cain and Chas were furious with their mother for robbing someone’s home.
Why were you so anxious to go inside the house, her daughter questioned Faith as she took off her wig.
“She has obviously participated in a robbery. What have you stolen? Money? Jewellery?” Faith was more focused on taking a biscuit tin out of her luggage than answering Cain’s question.
The memories she had saved after abandoning Cain and Chas when they were small were in the tin.
Eileen took it, according to Faith, “because she was an unhappy cow and she wanted to hurt us since I married her dad,” she said.
As the family flipped through the photos, they laughed together and the atmosphere was joyous as Faith’s kids realised their mother had never forgotten them.
They might not have known, though, that Eileen had taken the memory box from her stepmother for another reason.
This might be due to the fact that she only recently realised Faith was also her mother, having lost her father not long before.
Faith might have met her second spouse Brian before she met Shadrach Dingle (Adam Devine), and during this relationship when they were younger, she might have given birth to a daughter.
Faith may have urged Brian to raise Eileen with someone else because she couldn’t handle the obligations of being a mother.
Although Brian would have been devastated, he would have followed Faith’s wishes and married someone who would have taken on Eileen without hesitation.
Faith may have gone back to Brian and told him she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him after abandoning Shadrach and her small children.
Brian would have greeted Faith with wide arms because she had been the love of his life and he had only recently laid his first wife to rest.
As Eileen was mourning the loss of the person she believed gave birth to her, she would have claimed to be Eileen’s stepmother.
It wouldn’t have been until Brian died and the mother and daughter got drunk that Faith would have revealed her secret to Eileen.
Jealous that Faith decided to go and have more children and leave her with Brian, Eileen would have become extremely bitter.
She wouldn’t have wanted to damage Faith’s life, which is why she would have kept the box of memories.
Her appearance in the village in 2017 when she accused Faith of stealing her late father’s money and reported her to the police may have also played a role in this.
When Cain and Chas learn they had a sister all along but never got to spend any time with her, how will they react?
Will they have to endure the death of their mother and sister in the same number of months that Faith passes away before Christmas?
Sally, the actress who plays Faith, commented on the conclusion of her tale: “I believe it is fantastic.
I haven’t read the scripts for her passing, but I’m praying for the best outcome possible. This is a larger family story rather than just a cancer story.
“The best thing about dying is what comes before it: life, and all the love that comes with it.
She told TV Times, “I’d love it if everyone watching had a tiny bottle of gin, to salute her.”
