Free Tyringham Park by Rosemary McLoughlin

she?”
    “One of the servants. A girl from the village . . .”
    “You know we never employ local people. Those Papists are likely to shoot one in one’s bed with the least hint of an uprising. I thought I told you –”
    “I know you did, but you can’t blame me. If you must blame someone, make it Miss East. She installed Teresa Kelly when I was in Dublin giving birth to Victoria, and I wasn’t
informed.”
    “Oh, dear.” Waldron poised his pen and adopted an unblinking attentive expression to avoid having to comment on that piece of information. The effort made his eyes smart. “Why
do you want to find this particular servant?”
    “I think she stole Victoria.”
    He made a sound as if to speak, but she talked over him.
    “As a matter of fact I’m sure she did. I’ve no evidence but I just know. Call it a mother’s instinct.”
    Waldron made a sound like a snort that turned into a cough. He tapped his chest and took up his pipe for a puff. The coughing stopped. “Works every time,” he said as he wiped his
mouth.
    Earlier, Edwina had noticed the pipe falling sideways, allowing a revolting brown slime to trickle from the mouthpiece. Now that she’d seen him take a mouthful of it, she was glad she
hadn’t warned him about it.
    “What do the police think?” Waldron pulled a face, drank from the glass beside him and made some throat-clearing noises.
    “They think Victoria fell into the river and was washed out to sea. They discounted my theory as a mother’s wishful thinking.” Her voice had a flat quality to it. “But no
one knows anything for sure. No one saw anything and nothing was –”
    “Quite. I get your point. Why then do you suspect the servant you mentioned?” His hand had found the pen again. He was making such tiny strokes he must have thought he wouldn’t
be noticed.
    “Te-re-sa Ke-lly,” she said, drawing out the syllables of the name as if she were talking to someone with limited understanding, “was seen leaving on the same afternoon
Victoria disappeared. That’s enough in itself to point to her.”
    “Could be pure coincidence.”
    “Too much of a coincidence. What are the chances of those two things happening together?”
    “That’s what a coincidence is.” His pen looked as if it was making flourishes.
    Edwina took two deep breaths and continued with what she’d rehearsed on the way over: Teresa was forty, had given up hope of having children of her own, was besotted with Victoria and had
begun indoor employment at the Park at the same time Victoria was born.
    “Another coincidence?” He was colouring with a red pencil, licking the point after each stroke, and making sure he stayed inside the lines. “What does Miss East think? Sound
woman. She always knows what’s what.”
    “No point in asking her. She’s completely one-eyed. Blames Dixon for everything and thought the sun shone out of Teresa Kelly. Of course they had a lot in common, both old maids who
played cards and hankered after children.”
    “Wouldn’t dismiss her opinion out of hand. A rock of sense, that woman.” He was now stretching his arm to reach the top right-hand corner of his drawing while trying not to
lean over.
    “You always favoured –”
    “Come in,” he ordered, reacting to a tap on the door.
    Edwina started – she was fully occupied with her thoughts and hadn’t heard the knock. Waldron sat up straight, patted the long strands of hair across his bald patch to make sure they
were in position, smoothed his handlebar moustache, and draped one arm over the back of his chair.
    A young soldier entered, saluted, handed Waldron an envelope, saluted, turned, looked intently at Edwina for a second and left the room without speaking.
    “Nice-looking boy,” said Edwina absent-mindedly. “He looks about fourteen.”
    “He does, doesn’t he? Thatcher. Name, not trade. Talented chap. Lucky to have him. Asthmatic – not eligible for active service. More man than boy, actually.