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Trevor looked at Geraldine. “How much did you give her?”
“Four hundred pounds.”
“Dear God. Then I shall push her as hard as I like.”
“No, darling,” Gerry said. “Emma is quite right. Our Miss Hoffman knows something
that she is not telling us, this much is obvious. But just as obviously, her chief motivation is to protect
Adelaide. So if you –“
And then she broke off, for Miss Hoffman was walking back through the door. Although
she had been gone only moments, she seemed different, her assurance rather miraculously restored,
and she tossed a large folder down on the tile table beside the teacup.
“These are the earliest papers we have,” she said. “They go back to the late fifties and
if there is anything that tells you how and why Adelaide came to the temple, it will be in here.”
“What is her surname?” Emma asked, as Miss Hoffman opened the folder, releasing an
arc of dust into the air.
“The girls don’t have surnames. We give them English first names when they – ah, here
we are. 1857 is when she came, which would make her one of the first girls to be taken in and –“
She picked up the paper as if to read the faded ink more closely and it fell to dust in her
hands. No, it fell more like sand, Trevor thought, as if a solid thing had turned to liquid, the paper
crumbling into a thousand small pieces and raining down upon the slate floor.
They sat for a moment in silence. Then Trevor exhaled a low curse.
“How unfortunate,” Miss Hoffman said. “It’s those beastly white termites. They seem to
get into everything.”