Such a dream might not happen. It would certainly require much more in the way of education than reading and writing—arithmetic, science, and who knew what else. She’d need the funds for her school, as well as a means of support while attending classes. She doubted students could work full time and attend class. Nevertheless, she held the hope, not wanting her future to remain tied to the Millington family’s basements.
“I’m still reading David Copperfield,” Jacob said. “I haven’t had time to look for the other.”
“Dombey and Son,” she supplied, in case he’d forgotten. “You may borrow my copy. Ironic title, though, as the story is mostly about Dombey’s daughter. It’s a beautiful, heartrending book. I think the longer Dickens writes, the sadder he becomes.”
“How so?” Jacob asked, sounding sincerely curious.
Sarah gave a slight shrug. “His earlier works are happier and more lighthearted than his later ones. He started writing books like Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol—”
Jacob interrupted with a chuckle. “Are you saying that tales of orphans, pickpockets, and ghosts are lighthearted?”
“It’s not the topics that are light so much as how he writes about them.” Sarah gave his arm a playful swat but fully enjoyed his teasing—a sign that they were returning to their old selves. “Consider the titles,” she went on. “The Adventures of Oliver Twist and The Old Curiosity Shop sound miles more lighthearted than Bleak House and Hard Times. Not even you could argue otherwise.”
Jacob laughed. “Fine. ‘Dark-hearted’ story or no, I look forward to reading Dombey and Son. While we’re on the topic of letters, in my last, I mentioned something that, well, I’m not entirely sure came through properly with my poor writing skills.”
“You write very well,” Sarah said.
“An expected response from a future teacher.” He looked over, his eyes dancing, and she blushed, relishing the moment of being with him and feeling so comfortable, even when it meant a swarm of butterflies had taken over her middle. She would willingly give a home to every butterfly in the world if it meant Jacob would always be near her, look at her as he did now.
How rare it was indeed to find a man who valued education—and an intelligent, educated women with aspirations. One more reason she adored the man. She hoped Mrs. Roach would insist on Jacob being her chaperone all summer long. Not one word of complaint would escape her lips.
They reached the park, and he led her to a bench. She didn’t ask why they weren’t continuing on to make the purchases Betsy would be waiting on. Rather, she happily took a seat, and he settled beside her. Though the arrangement was hardly scandalous, she caught her breath at his nearness. She could feel his warmth through his sleeve on her arm, as well as the weight of his leg pressing against hers. A more proper girl would have created distance between them, but Sarah had no such compunction. They were in full view of passersby, doing nothing untoward, and she intended to enjoy it.
Jacob turned to face her better. His cheeks had twin rosettes. The thought that she might have evoked such a response made her smile. He took her hand in his. “I’ve been trying to find a way to tell you about something very important.” He looked at her hand resting atop both of his, but didn’t go on.
“Yes?” she prompted. Was he about to declare his love for her? She would happily do the same, if only she knew for certain that he felt it too.
“I care deeply for you,” he began, head still bowed over her hand.
“And I you,” she said softly. “Very much.”
His eyes scrunched at the sides as they always did when he smiled. He took a deep breath, let it out, then raised his face to hers. “My life is somewhat complicated right now. I cannot go into details, but I want you to know that no matter how it may seem, I care for you as much as ever.”
“Truly?” That was all she cared about at the moment. Whatever complications existed in his life could be overcome.
“You have my word.”
Caring nothing for public stares, she threw her arms about his neck. Pulling back, she held his hands. “What happened yesterday. . . Was that because of the . . . complications?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “I wish I could explain. I hope I can soon.”
“When?” Sarah trusted him but disliked the idea of secrets.
“Honestly, I don’t know. But you must trust that the reason I cannot speak of it is, in large part, to protect you.”
“Protect me?” She withdrew her hands warily. Her mind turned and turned like the gears in a clock, trying to find an explanation. “Are you involved in something” —she lowered her voice to a whisper—“illegal?”
“No, of course not.” His look of hurt pierced her to the center.
“I’m sorry,” she said with a shake of her head. “Of course not.”
“But it is something that, through an association with me, could tarnish your reputation.” He gazed into her eyes, his own glassy with unshed emotion. “I could never forgive myself if you lost your position because of me.” The more he said, the more questions she had. Nothing made any sense.
“You can trust me.”
“Yes. Of course I can. But I don’t trust other people. You matter too much for me to gamble with your position or your future.” Jacob ran a hand through his hair, mussing it. “I’m sorry for yesterday, even though I can’t talk about it yet.”
She nodded her understanding of that part, though she hadn’t any idea what troubled him.
He slapped his hands on his thighs and stood. “Now, let’s get to the market and discuss this another time.” He sounded chipper, but the tone was forced. Did he think he could fool her? Or was this his way of changing the topic? She stood too, and when he held out his elbow, she took it as before. Together, they walked to the corner and waited to cross. As they stepped into the street, they heard someone yelling.
“Jacob!” a deep voice called. “Jacob Croft!”
Beneath Sarah’s hand, Jacob’s arm stiffened. Indeed, his entire frame tensed. After the slightest of hesitations, he kept walking, not looking to either side but straight ahead like a soldier marching in his proper rank and file.
Sarah looked about for the source of the voice. “Someone is calling you.”
“My name’s not so uncommon. They must mean someone else.” He pressed his other hand over hers and increased their pace so much she had to take two steps for every one of his.
“Jacob!” the man called again. “I need a word with you!” Whoever the man was, he’d made it across the intersection. Heavy footsteps approached from behind them. Only then did Jacob slow down, looking strained with worry and defeat.
“What’s wrong?” Sarah asked him, her breath coming quickly.
They stopped completely, but he didn’t turn around or remove his hand from hers. Breathing hard, Jacob closed his eyes and braced himself, as if waiting to be struck. A thick hand grabbed Jacob’s shoulder and turned him about, tearing her hand from his arm.
She expected to see a thug with missing teeth, no hair across a shiny scalp, and a fist the size of a melon. Instead, she found the interloper to be a gentleman with a coat, hat, and gloves. While he wouldn’t be mistaken as wealthy, he certainly looked like a proper businessman. Yet Jacob looked every bit as unnerved by this man as she would have expected from a thug demanding a gambling debt. Jacob’s face drained of what little color it had.
Sarah reached for his arm, which hung straight and stiff. “Jacob?”
“Miss Jenkins,” he said in a painfully formal tone, “would you excuse us for a moment while I speak with Mr. Huntsman?”
She’d never heard him speak so stilted. Jacob didn’t so much as glance her way, keeping his stare on the man, as he added, “I must speak with this gentleman.” He pried his arm from her weak grasp and stepped forward. “Could we talk in private?”
“By all means.” The man’s voice sounded decidedly deep compared to his average frame. He gestured to a nearby alley. “Will a moment ov
er here suffice?”
Jacob looked askance at Sarah, who did her best to determine what he was thinking—who was this man, and what did he want? But Jacob’s expression, tone, and words said only that he didn’t want her to witness or overhear the conversation.
She took a step backward. “I’ll go to the market and wait for you by the apple merchant.”
A tiny voice in her head whispered that Mrs. Roach would be displeased to learn that Sarah had gone to the market alone after all. She had to remind herself that the bit about highwaymen and chaperones was nonsense.
“I’ll meet you there soon,” Jacob said. His eyes seemed to say thank you and I’m sorry before he and the mysterious middle-aged man entered the alleyway and left Sarah alone.
Chapter Seven
Jacob walked to the end of the alley and behind a metal staircase before turning to speak with the director of the orphanage. Even then, he turned back to scan the opening to the street beyond, making sure he found no sign of Sarah. This outing was supposed to be quick and simple. Yet he’d disobeyed Mrs. Roach’s one order—to accompany Sarah—but he’d gotten pulled into the one affair he couldn’t afford anyone, least of all Sarah, to learn of.
Mr. Huntsman’s amused smile was encircled by his trimmed beard. He tugged on one coat sleeve and then the other, then glanced at the street as Jacob still did. “I presume your lady friend knows nothing about your niece, and that is why you wish to discuss the matter in a smelly, disgusting location?” He wrinkled his nose and looked around.
The alley wasn’t particularly dirty, and it certainly didn’t stink, though surely it didn’t resemble a location that a man of higher station and means would choose for a business interaction. Jacob didn’t like hearing Ellie being referred to as a “matter,” but thought better of saying so. He deliberately ignored the man’s question and asked his own.
“What is so urgent?” With his worry about Sarah overhearing no longer at the fore, his mind turned to other worrisome possibilities. “Is Ellie sick? Is she hurt?”
“Nothing is seriously amiss with the lass.” The infuriating man’s amusement didn’t wane at all.
Though relief washed over Jacob, something still had to be wrong, or Mr. Huntsman wouldn’t have chased him down the street. Jacob tried to be patient but couldn’t wait. “Then what is it? I have the right to know.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Mr. Huntsman said in his most exasperating tone. Was the man bound and determined to worry Jacob to death? Mr. Huntsman clasped his hands behind his back. “Some situations have emerged that you would likely want to be made aware of. Seeing as you refuse to allow communications to be sent through the post, I had no option but to seek you out in person.”
Then it was a stroke of luck he’d found Jacob on the street rather than at the town house.
“Tell me.” Keeping himself in control took every bit of restraint Jacob possessed.
“She did wake this morning with a fever and a cough.”
“Has a physician seen her?”
“No. You see, we haven’t the funds to call for expensive physicians whenever one of the children has a sniffle.”
“You didn’t say she had a sniffle,” Jacob countered. “You said it was a fever and a cough.”
“That I did.”
“Do you need money to pay for a doctor?” He had no idea how much that kind of visit would cost, not to mention medication, special foods, or other costs a doctor would demand. And Jacob had no extra money, unless he counted the few coins he’d set aside in hopes of buying Ellie some proper-fitting shoes before the weather turned cold.
“The orphanage will need an additional payment to pay for her care,” Mr. Huntsman said. “Not to mention other costs.”
“Such as?” Jacob asked warily.
“Oh, costs associated with quarantining the others. Can’t have the entire place falling to the same illness. You understand.”
Jacob grasped the words, but the reality refused to settle into understanding. Ellie was sick and might not get the care she needed unless he magically found more money.
“But I come bearing some additional news that may ease your worries,” the man said.
“Oh?” Jacob’s head came up sharply. His insides leapt with hope, but he tried to tamp the feeling down. Mr. Huntsman had never been a purveyor of hope.
The man offered his most patronizing smile. “I’ve a visit from a most delightful couple, a Mr. and Mrs. Greenhalgh, from Liverpool. He is a respected barrister.”
“What do they have to do with anything?” Jacob couldn’t fathom what, but a cloud of gloom settled over him anyway, one he’d be unable to shake until he knew more.
“Alas, they have been unable to have children of their own. This morning, they came to visit Cloverfield in hopes of finding a suitable child to adopt. One look at little Ellie, and they fell in love with her. Mrs. Greenhalgh couldn’t stop talking about her angelic halo of curls.”
Jacob might as well have been shot full of lead for as dead as he felt. He felt himself shaking his head. “Don’t let anyone have her. Please. The only reason I brought her to you was so she would be cared for until I could do it myself. That was my dying sister’s wish—that I become Ellie’s guardian. Please, sir, she is the only family I have left, and I am the only family she has. She’s already lost her mother. It wouldn’t be right to separate us. You can’t—”
“Oh, I most certainly can,” Mr. Huntsman said. “And I will. When a couple comes forward willing to adopt a child—particularly one who is otherwise a drain on the system—”
Anger bubbled in Jacob’s chest. “Ellie is not—”
Mr. Huntsman cut him off with a raised hand and continued as calmly as before. “The Greenhalghs are able to provide a loving, stable home to an orphan. It is my right—nay, it is my duty—to see that a child is given the opportunity to better her life.” He paused, looking disturbingly gleeful as he anticipated Jacob’s reaction.
For his part, Jacob wanted to punch the man in the face. Instead, he clenched his fists, released them, and clenched them again. “Is it done?” he asked, hoping his voice didn’t reveal his dread.
“Not yet, no.”
“Is there something I can do to stop it?”
“I highly doubt it.” Mr. Huntsman tugged on the cuffs of his coat sleeves again. “I met with the Greenhalghs just this morning, and the process isn’t quite as fast as all that. I am duty bound to inform the next of kin, if there be any, before an adoption can proceed.”
So that was the reason he’d chased Jacob down. To tell him that, very soon, Ellie would be torn from her only living relative to live with strangers. Jacob would never see her again, and in a few years, Ellie wouldn’t remember him at all.
“What must I do?”
Besides race to the orphanage, steal Ellie, and hide her at Ivy House without being arrested.
“You must understand,” Mr. Huntsman said as if he were explaining the situation to a fool. “Children need stable homes, a safe place to live, with a father and a mother—who are married, of course. The father must have a comfortable living to provide for her. Naturally, the Greenhalghs fit every qualification. If you could suddenly qualify in the same manner, then you could adopt Ellie, but you don’t, so—”
“Wait, I could adopt her?”
“Of course you could, in theory. But the fact that she’s at Cloverfield at all shows that you cannot.” He stepped forward and placed a hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “You don’t have the ability to provide for her. Even if you did, you are a bachelor with no prospects. Neither situation will change anytime soon, if ever, will they?”
Of course, Jacob could say nothing in rebuttal. All he could do was fume.
Mr. Huntsman removed his hand and adjusted his hat. “I must make a recommendation based on the information I have. Surely you understand.”
Ellie was slipping through Jacob’s fingers. “But—”
“Your lack of resources is precisely why she e
nded up in our care, correct?”
Jacob sighed miserably. “Yes.” He couldn’t provide a home for Ellie. He had no home to call his own. He owned no property. He had no wife. No education or station or, well, anything. He had hopes for the future, but hopes didn’t pay for rent or food. “How soon will she . . .”
The words stuck in his throat. He couldn’t bear the thought of saying goodbye to Ellie, let alone saying farewell forever—a moment Ellie wouldn’t comprehend. She had a difficult time adjusting to the orphanage even with his regular visits; how much more pain would her little heart go through when faced with going to a new country and not even her uncle to provide a modicum of comfort?
Jacob lifted his chin and asked, “When does she leave Cloverfield?”
“Friday.”
Worry gripped his stomach. “So soon?”
“It would have been sooner, but the Greenhalghs wanted to prepare a room for her in their house and such. Friday morning, they will be back to finalize the paperwork and fetch their daughter.”
Their daughter. The hackles on Jacob’s neck rose. Never.
Mr. Huntsman stroked his mustache with all of the compassion of a tiger having eaten its kill. “I suggest you pay a final visit to Ellie on Thursday—for her sake, of course. It would be best to not confuse or upset her the morning of her departure.”
“Could someone else still adopt her first?” The desperate question fell out of Jacob’s mouth.
“That would be highly irregular,” Mr. Huntsman said, “although I suppose it is possible. But don’t set your hat on the hope that a family in the city will adopt her so you won’t have to say goodbye. I have done my duty by informing you of the fact that your niece will soon be adopted elsewhere. Don’t fret. She will have a good life, one far better than you could provide.” Mr. Huntsman tipped his hat, turned, and sauntered toward the street.
Jacob remained by the metal staircase, hating that Mr. Huntsman’s words were absolutely true. He had no way of suddenly changing his circumstances to provide for Ellie, not when he could barely provide for himself and the costs the orphanage demanded. Ellie would have more advantages and privilege growing up with an adoptive family of means.
Summer Holiday Page 21
