Page 103 of Secrets and Seashells at Rainbow Bay
‘Oh, what about George, then? Did he have any children?’
‘I believe so – at least one.’
‘So where are they now?’
‘That, I’m afraid, is where this puzzle annoyingly has its missing piece – in the form of George’s child.’
‘But there must be a record of their birth.’
‘Frustratingly, I can’t find one.’ Benji looks like he’s taking this as a personal failure.
‘Then how do you know there is a child? I say “a child” but how old would they be now? We’ve spoken about so many generations that I’ve lost track of how old they’d be.’
‘Difficult to say exactly how old, because even though there is a limited window of procreation for woman, in theory men can sometimes father children until they’re well into their seventies, sometimes even beyond that.’
‘Benji, try to keep on track please,’ I encourage him.
Benji nods. ‘So if George fathered a child with his wife, Louisa, then we’d be looking at a window of about twenty years.’
‘Twenty years!’
‘Yes, remember there was a lack of contraception back then, so women were having children commonly into their forties – especially if they had a big family. They didn’t always survive, but I’d say we’d be likely looking for a baby born in the late 1940s to early 1960s.’
‘But that’s a huge span of time, Benji. They could be, what, as old as seventy now or as young as fifty?’
‘Yes, as long as the child we’re looking for was conceived with his wife. But as I’ll go on to in a moment, I think it’s likely it was. However, what this child and any offspring of this child all have in common is that they as direct descendants of Mary would have more of a right to the castle and the title than you and Charlie do.’
I drain the last of my lemonade while I think.
‘But you said you couldn’t find any traces of them? Why not, if you can trace all these other Chesterfords?’
‘Strictly they’re not Chesterfords – none of them ever had the family name, for obvious reasons when you hark back to Clara’s sister, Mary.’
‘But why does the family tree stop at George? And how do you know he had a child if you can’t find any records of them?’
‘Because of this.’ Benji holds up an old newspaper clipping, yellowed with age and beginning to curl around the edges. ‘I found this in one of the family record books when I was researching for the tour guides. It was in with some information on staff in the castle at that time. Here,’ he passes me the paper, ‘read what it says.’
I take the clipping from him, looking at the photo from the article first. It’s a photo of a man, a woman and a baby. They are standing on a large expanse of grass with the castle in the background. I’d say from their dress the photo was taken in the late forties, maybe the early fifties. I begin to read what the copy says underneath the photo.
George Edwards (Chief Footman) and his wife, with their newborn baby after the fire.
‘Fire?’ I ask, looking at Benji.
‘Read on,’ Benji says.
The Chesterford family and their staff are thanking their lucky stars that a fire that began in the library of the castle last month was quickly intercepted by Chief Footman, George (above), and two of his fellow staff. The fire, which is thought to have been ignited by an incorrectly extinguished cigarette left burning in an ashtray, is said to have wiped out over half of the family’s extensive collection of books, and a wall that possessed records dating back some fifty years of many of the castle’s staff. The current Earl said, ‘We are incredibly grateful to George and his team for extinguishing the fire as quickly as they did. Without them, it might have gone on to cause significantly more damage to the many priceless works of art that we have here at Chesterford.’
‘So this is George?’ I say, looking at the faded photo again. ‘And is this the missing child?’
‘It could be. There’s no record of a child anywhere else that I can find, possibly because the castle records were destroyed in the fire. But thisisour George, and in this photo he has a newborn baby. It could be the first of many or the only one. Like I say, for some reason official records seem to stop around now for George and his family. There’s nothing in the later census records for any of them, and the previous one doesn’t include a child.’
‘But if this child is still alive,’ I hold up the newspaper clipping, ‘then the chances are they are the rightful heir to Chesterford Castle?’
Benji nods. ‘Either them or possibly even their children. So now, Amelia, it falls to you to make the difficult decision.’
‘It does?’
‘Yes, somewhat like Clara, your ancestor before you, you have to decide whether to come clean about this new line of Chesterfords or keep quiet and retain the castle for yourself, and the title for your son.’
