So many changes occurred in the Blackshaw household during the last year of the war that memories of the missing Victoria were superseded by less momentous but more immediate concerns.
Six weeks before her due date Edwina travelled to the fully staffed Blackshaw townhouse in Dublin to await the birth of her child, explaining her early departure by saying she was taking no chances after what had happened to Sid’s wife, Kate. Beatrice would like to have accompanied her but she and Bertie were heading back to England to continue the search for their missing son.
Edwina gave birth to a boy and called him Harcourt, the surname of her paternal grandmother, officially registering the name before Waldron wrote to direct that, in line with five hundred years of tradition, the boy would be named after him. The postal deliveries could be erratic during wartime, she informed him later.
She remained in Dublin for three months.
To replace Nurse Dixon, Beatrice’s niece, who knew everyone and everything, recommended Holly Stoddard, a properly trained nanny from a good family, not a stray, untrained orphan like Dixon. Anyone who met her, according to the niece, would warm to her on sight with her soft round smiling face, her erect posture and her white-blonde hair hanging in a single plait down her back. Edwina said she couldn’t care less what she looked like as long as she was competent and could take over the care of the baby from the day it was born.
The following September, with the war over, Charlotte was sent to her mother’s old school in England to make suitable friends, to separate her from Miss East and Manus who were indulging her, and to rid her of the Huddersfield accent she had picked up from Dixon. The fact that she would be riding on her first hunt during the Christmas break sustained her during her lonely first term. A pony was supplied at the school, as Mandrake was considered too valuable to travel.
Miss East hadn’t told Charlotte about her forthcoming marriage to Sid, planned for the following August, a year and a month since the death of Kate. By that time Charlotte, with three terms completed and surrounded by friends, would be able to accept the separation with composure, so she persuaded herself.
Waldron stayed on in London to tie up all the loose ends in the War Office. He sent word he would be home in time to host the hunt from the Park on New Year’s Day. A hero’s return, Edwina commented to Verity when she read the letter. Waldron’s long-running absences were an affront to her, but were preferable to his brief appearances, which caused her nothing but irritation. She wondered if he was considering retiring from the army now that he was sixty-two years of age.
In October she reclaimed Sandstorm who, as she had predicted, had lost his fire. She and Les, the middle stable lad, put in many hours of secret training in a field out of sight of Manus’s suspicious eye. The New Year’s hunt would be her first since her confinement, Waldron’s first since the War, and Charlotte’s first ever. Edwina could feel a build-up of vitality on the estate.
The servants were glad to have the Park come back to life, and began to prepare months in advance. Fires had to be set in the twenty-five bedrooms, and every room was aired, swept, polished and dusted. Miss East supervised the transformation.
Waldron was in full uniform when he returned at midday three days before Christmas with the young soldier, Thatcher, walking two paces behind him. The staff lined up in front of the house to cheer him home.
Edwina received him in the hall.
“The first thing I want to see is my son and heir,” he beamed after they greeted each other with a kiss on the cheek. “Get him brought down at once. And the second thing: I’ve decided to have our portraits painted in the New Year by that fellow who did yours when you were younger, only this time,” he laughed in Edwina’s direction, “I’ll make sure there aren’t any missing hands, so you can show off the family heirlooms.”