“What sort of charity work, Lady Pennington?” the young dark haired woman said, clearly deciding she would speak regardless of the fact that nobody had cared to introduce them.
What did surprise Imogen was that the young lady seemed to know her name. At that moment, Imogen could not escape the idea that the Earl and his dreadful party had discussed her and Adeline at length after the ball at Lord and Lady Seaton’s. There was no doubt in her mind that the discussion would have been far from complimentary.
“Lady Pennington plans a system to rival the workhouses, my dear Prudence,” the Earl said, not allowing Imogen to speak as he returned to his former mocking tones.
“Good,” Prudence said quietly. “It is about time that somebody did something to free those poor souls. You really must tell me more about it, Lady Pennington.”
“I should like that very much,” Imogen said and felt instantly drawn to the young woman.
“Allow me to introduce you,” the Earl said, suddenly realizing how remiss he had been in his introductions. “This is my sister, Lady Prudence Montgomery.”
“I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady Montgomery,” Imogen said with feeling. “And I should very much like to introduce you to my dear friend, Lady Adeline Redmond, but I fear she has become lost in the crowd in search of food for us.”
“Well, perhaps another time,” the Countess said without even looking at Imogen before turning to walk away.
This time, at least, the old Countess would not be seen to follow in the footsteps of the haughty young woman who would seek to make her the Dowager.
Chapter 7
“But of all the people to happen upon in Vauxhall Gardens,” Adeline said the following morning as the driver helped them out of the carriage on Princes Road. “There must have been thousands of people in the gardens last night. Really, what bad luck that you should have happened upon the Earl of Reddington.”
“I did not happen upon him, Adeline. He rather happened upon me. He appeared as if from nowhere.”
“And it would appear that he irritated you as much the second time as the first.”
“He most certainly did. Really, I cannot imagine why he even asked me about our charity work. After all, he is not a bit interested, and it struck me that he used it as a means of mocking me.”
“But why? You are barely acquainted.”
“I have no idea. I cannot think that I have offended him in any way.”
“Are you sure he was asking for darker motives? I mean, could he not simply have been interested?”
“I very much doubt he was interested, Adeline. Do you know, he asked me if we would merely give charity to the poor without making them work for it.”
“It is a very unfortunate attitude, my dear, but one that prevails I am afraid.”
“But surely he understands the true meaning of charity. Anything other than free giving is a transaction.”
“It certainly takes time and effort to open hearts and minds, Imogen. And anyway, we have much else to concern us today beyond your Earl.”
“He is not my Earl, Adeline,” Imogen said and laughed. “And I can promise you faithfully that he never shall be.”
“I am only teasing you,” Adeline said, but her smile faded away as she looked across the wide Princes Road towards the imposing form of the workhouse building.
“Are you nervous?” Imogen asked as if she were trying to elicit a secret confidence.
“In truth, I am,” Adeline replied and smiled weakly.
“And so am I, Adeline. I can hardly imagine what we are about to see this morning.”
“Before we go in, we must make a pact between us. We must remember why we are here, and we must be practical about the whole thing. It shall, without a doubt, be quite harrowing, but we must not allow it to render us emotional whilst we are there. There could be nothing worse than us both breaking down into tears of sadness in front of the very people we would wish to help. After all, would it not make them feel more helpless still?”
“You speak so sensibly, Adeline. And I promise you faithfully that I shall not let you down. I shall not cry one tear whilst we are inside that dreadful building.”
“My strong, brave girl.” Adeline reached out and laid a hand on Imogen’s pale, flawless cheek.
Imogen had dressed simply for the day, not wanting to tend towards ostentation in any way at all. She wore a simple gown in a dark shade of blue with a bonnet to match. The gown had long sleeves and a sensibly cut neck with three buttons across the bust. The Empire line was pulled in, but not adorned with any satin or other fripperies. And her bonnet was an ordinary velvet with plain ribbons tying it in place.
“Good morning, ladies.” Suddenly a man in late middle age was standing with them.
Imogen had been so lost in her own thoughts that she had not even seen him approaching and, when he spoke, she looked up in some surprise.
“Good morning, Daniel. How very good it is to see you, and how very kind of you to do what you are doing.” Imogen watched as Adeline reached out with both hands and took Daniel Travers’ in her own.
“In truth, I did not take such great risks. Not risks for myself, at any rate. If there is any annoyance from Mr Mott, who oversees and is himself a Guardian of the Poor of the parish of Lambeth, he shall find a way to dismiss me from this role. Of course, I will suffer no financial disadvantage on the strength of it, but I fear that there shall be nobody inside this place who would at least be able to bear witness to the wrongdoing.”
“There is wrongdoing then, Daniel?” Adeline said softly, and Imogen felt entirely unable to speak.
“It is a very corrupt system, Adeline,” Daniel said slowly nodding his head. “I shall tell you a little of the workings of it all before we go in as we shall not be able to have any such conversation within those walls for fear of being overheard.”
“I am very happy to stand here in the street and discuss it, Daniel, as is Imogen.” She nodded in Imogen’s direction. “This is Lady Imogen Pennington, the young lady I told you about.”
“And what a fine young lady you are, Lady Pennington. What a pleasure it is to meet someone so young of such great conscience.” Daniel Travers bowed deeply, and Imogen felt herself warm to him immediately.
“I thank you kindly, Sir. And I thank you also for speaking with us and allowing us inside the workhouse to see quite what we are up against.”
“And you most certainly are up against it, Lady Pennington. You both are,” he said and took a deep breath before continuing. “The idea of the workhouse was not initially so corrupt, really it was not. Here in London, they date back to Elizabethan times, and they were a means for the very poorest in society to at least survive. But there is a different side to it all now, and there are many who have seen quite how the terrible fortunes of others can help them feather their own nests most richly.”
“Local businesses?” Imogen said, already knowing a little of the thing.
“Of which Mr Charles Mott was once a part. He was a shopkeeper in Lambeth before he turned his attention to working for the poor.” Daniel let out a mirthless laugh. “When I say working for the poor, I ought really to say working for himself. He has such strident and vehement oppositions to any form of kindness towards the poorest in our society that I can hardly believe he would dare to claim to be working for the poor. From the very moment he came into the Lambeth workhouse, he made it clear that he thinks that paupers are, in his own words, excessively pampered.”
“Pampered?” Adeline said, looking doubtfully towards the workhouse before glancing back at her friend.
“Those are his exact words. Do you know, he has managed to save the authorities a good deal of money by adjusting the scales used to count out the amount of food that the poor in the workhouse are allotted to eat?”
“So, he underfeeds them?” Imogen said, feeling her throat tighten just a little at the thought of it.
“He said that the scales had been made wrong by
not being cleaned regularly enough. And he said that the scales had been tipped in the favour of the paupers and that it was time to tip them back. But really, when you see what they have to eat, it is scarcely enough to keep them alive. Just a tiny little woman such as yourself, Lady Pennington, would doubtless eat more in a day.”
“Yes, and I would not be expected to work my fingers to the bone on an empty stomach,” Imogen said, suddenly feeling the great shame of her own class.
“And they do work, Lady Pennington, believe me, they do. They break stones, which is just about the worst thing I have ever seen. And when they are breaking stones, it is from first light until dark. And it is not just breaking stones; there is all manner of work in packing and preparing items for shipping for local merchants. In truth, the local merchants of Lambeth have more say in the running of not only the workhouses but the asylums also, than the authorities do. It is an open secret that there are contracts bandied about in the regard of the provision of the cheapest labour available in this country. And that is the labour of the poor.”
“But is there no scandal about it? Does nobody stand firm against it or point out the wrongs?”
“When you have men of the cloth coming in to preach goodness and morals to people who have not a moment to themselves in the day to commit a sin of any sort, and those same men of the cloth can turn a blind eye to the dreadful conditions, then you know that these people have no spokesman on this earth; no saviour.”
Already, Imogen felt ready to cry. The idea that people could be so trapped and so beneath the notice of others was heartbreaking to her. And if that was how she felt outside the building, how on earth was she going to manage once she was inside?
Still, when the time had come, Imogen had acquitted herself very well indeed. She had breathed deeply and kept herself steady throughout the entire thing. On first entering the workhouse, things had not seemed at all as bad as she had imagined they would be. However, it was the entrance through which the guardians and overseers made their way into the building and, as such, had been kept bright and clean.
However, the deeper into the workhouse they grew, the worse things became. It was clear that the inmates of the workhouse had very little access to any form of ablutions, and even fewer charitable donations of clothing than the people she regularly handed out alms to. Everybody seemed ragged, and everybody seemed thin. Furthermore, it seemed as if the sexes were very much kept apart with the men working in one section and the women and children in another.
Imogen had seen poor children before and had done what she could in the past to harden herself to the shock of it all. However, nothing she had seen before could have prepared her for the very gauntness of the children before her now. As they worked harder than any man of her acquaintance, she could see that their bodies were thin, their eye sockets quite hollow, and their cheeks sunken. Surely no child could survive into adulthood from such a place.
“As you can see, nobody is allowed to slacken for a moment,” Daniel Travers almost whispered as Imogen and Adeline watched from one of the rear windows of the workhouse as a great sea of people seemed to work without a moment’s cease.
The area at the back of the workhouse was immense, far larger than any other grounds she had seen in all of London, even those surrounding the largest and richest of mansions in Mayfair or Belgravia. Still, this was not home for anybody; this was an industry which thrived on slavery as far as Imogen was concerned. And any industry which thrived in such a manner undoubtedly needed great space in which to do it. And of course, it was clear that the authorities were not only aware but entirely complicit.
At the sound of a bell, everybody stopped working. Imogen felt her mouth drop open a little as she watched them down tools and walk towards the doors back into the building. There was no talk or any form of merriment between the workers, they merely stepped one foot after the other as if they were walking asleep, compelled by some common force to congregate in another place.
“It is time for them to eat?” Adeline said, breaking the spell.
“Once they are settled, I shall show you what they eat and where they eat,” Daniel said, furtively looking all around him for any signs of interest in his visitors.
Chapter 8
“Are you sure you will be alright, Imogen?” Adeline said kindly as they sat side-by-side on a bench in Hyde Park. “Really, some tea at the pavilion might well do you good.”
“No, I know how important this meeting is this afternoon. After all, Lady Hanbury looks ready to be our very first contributor, and I do not wish to do anything that should ruin it. Especially if she is planning to help us with more than just funds. Really, one look at my helpless tearstained face might put her off entirely.”
“You look neither helpless nor tearstained,” Adeline said, reaching out to take her hand. “Well, you do look tearstained, but you do not look helpless. In fact, I really am so very proud of you.”
“For bursting into tears the moment I walked out of the workhouse?” Imogen said miserably.
“Yes, for just that. Because your bursting into tears outside the workhouse means that you did not burst into tears inside it. That was all that I could have asked of you, and I know exactly how much I did ask in the end. But you did it wonderfully, my dear. I knew what you were feeling inside because I felt it myself, but you never once gave any show of it on your face, and for that, I am very proud.”
“Oh dear, it would seem that I am in tears once more,” Imogen said and dug into the sleeve of her navy-blue gown for her handkerchief once more.
“And that is why I do not like to leave you. Lady Hanbury is a kindly enough woman, and I am quite sure that she shall understand your emotion. And who knows, perhaps it might even work in our favour?”
“You are ever the optimist, Adeline, but I shall not risk it. I am afraid I shall leave this part of our business to you today.”
“I think, perhaps, arranging this meeting with Lady Hanbury just an hour after quitting the workhouse might have been a little too much. But what are you going to do whilst I am in the pavilion?”
“I shall sit here for a while, Adeline, and then I shall wander around to Rotten Row and take a seat and stare at all the fine lords and ladies as they trot back and forth on their even finer steeds.”
“Will that not make you a little angry after everything you have seen this morning?”
“That is my entire point, Adeline. I need to be angry. I need to sit and stare at the injustice of it all and the great chasm of difference between those who have and those who have not. That shall stop my weeping if nothing else shall. And that shall make me effective once again for I fear I have been rendered a bawling heap that is currently of no use to man nor beast.”
“How extraordinary, really, I never thought of you as a bawling heap,” Adeline said and gave her customary chuckle.
Adeline was a very well built woman, quite rotund in fact, and something about the depth and richness, not to mention the utter truth of her laugh always mended Imogen’s spirits. It was the laugh that had been much in use in the dark days after her mother’s passing. It was the laugh that had saved her from disappearing down into the depths of despair and wallowing there for a very long time to come.
“And I promise you I shall be bawling no longer once I have spent an hour at Rotten Row.”
“Are you quite sure about Rotten Row? After all, it is a fair walk across the park.” Adeline raised her eyebrows.
“Well, we have no firm engagements for this evening, and so I think I should be glad of the exercise and the good night’s sleep which will inevitably follow it. Once I am finished, I shall return to this spot and meet you here when you are finished with Lady Hanbury. What do you say?” Imogen said hopefully.
“Well, I am not sure that your father would be overly impressed at me allowing you to be out and about in London without me at your side. However, I know you to be very sensible, and it is, after all, broad daylight. But do come back here af
ter an hour, I beg you.”
“I shall do, I promise,” Imogen said and rose to her feet, fearing that any further conversation would change Adeline’s mind and force Imogen to sit inside the pavilion drinking tea with a red and stinging face.
“Alright, off you go then,” Adeline said and briefly kissed her cheek before releasing her.
In the end, the walk through Hyde Park in the late April air did her the world of good. Imogen felt her face, once puffy, had calmed a little, and she was sure that she did not look as entirely distressed as she must have done previously.
It took her no more than fifteen minutes at a good pace to reach Rotten Row. In truth, she could hear it before she could see it as it seemed to be awash with braying horses and the laughing and chattering upper classes of London.
A Lady for the Brazen Earl: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 6
