Grateful that she was not herself burdened by a social class with such rigid conventions, Naomi reasoned, “The vicar won’t judge you, good soul that he is. And is it worth clinging to unhappiness just because your friends might raise eyebrows?”
“But how would I explain taking the child in?”
“You owe no one an explanation, Madam. You could just say you’re performing an act of Christian charity . . . which you would be.”
“But if I say she’s my grandchild . . .”
Naomi thought for a minute. “You could say she’s your ward.”
“Even to her?”
“Perhaps at first.” That would actually be best, Naomi realized, for the less this child knew about her parentage, the better. Better to think that she was brought here out of the goodness of Mrs. Blake’s heart than to learn she had such a scoundrel for a father.
Mrs. Blake angled her head musingly, but then shook it. “The servants would know better. And they would gossip. I knew this was a ridiculous notion all along.”
“But there are only three of us left from those days,” Naomi said, grasping at straws. “And we would carry this to our graves if you asked us.”
“Three?”
“Mrs. Bacon and Mr. Duffy, besides myself.” The housekeeper and gardener, both of reliable character. “Of course you might have to include Claire.”
Claire, a parlormaid, was Mr. Duffy’s wife. Even as she spoke, Naomi knew that this would not be enough. Tales of Jeremy Blake’s misdeeds had weathered the years, being passed from former to present servants who had not even known him and even to other households bordering the square. Anyone with half a mind could figure out who the girl was, especially if she resembled portraits of her father. But no servant would be foolish enough to speak of such things in Mrs. Blake’s hearing, so hopefully she would be insulated enough to believe no one capable of putting two and two together.
“I’m so afraid, Naomi,” her mistress said.
Moving closer, Naomi coaxed her to lie down so that she could tuck the covers around her narrow shoulders. “It’s the things I neglected to do that cause me the most pain, Madam,” she said softly. “Five years from now, when the girl is grown and probably impossible to locate, will you look back on this moment with regret, or the assurance that you followed your conscience?”
Mrs. Blake took in a shaky breath. “More regret would kill me.”
“Then you acted wisely. Why don’t you put your doubts to rest now?”
“I will.” Closing her eyes, she said, “You’ll pray for me, Naomi?”
“Always, Mrs. Blake.”
Chapter Four
A hansom stopped on Drury Lane on the eighteenth of April in front of an aged, narrow three-storey building. Jules Swann climbed out of the cab and called above the traffic noises to the driver in the box behind him. “Are you positive there’s an orphanage here?”
Twisting the lid from a tin of snuff, the man called back, “Aye. Saint Matthew’s.”
Jules’ confusion was caused by the stenciled letters in the top panel of the aged oak door. Even through the ubiquitous fog, he could read:
MACDONALD LTD.
ARTIFICIAL TEETH
Even the meanest of orphanages he had visited during the past week had managed to display at least a scrap of wood for a signboard. What if he owned his own carriage and was not dependent upon the driver’s competence? He looked past the horses. A wagon was piled high with sacks that seemed to be the object of a heated discussion taking place between a man and woman facing each other on the pavement. Across the lane, two lowbrow men scowled at him from the doorway of a public house. The air stank of gin, courtyard privies, and the heaps of refuse below open windows.
“Want me ter wait again?” the driver called.
“Yes!” Jules exclaimed, slipping his fingers down over the purse in his coat pocket. The building he approached was oppressively dark, its red brick stained sooty by decades of coal fires. On either side shabbily dressed people lounged in the open doorways of what appeared to be tenements converted from businesses that had either gone out of business or moved to safer locations. On the east, an aged signboard for J. BENSON’S INDIA RUBBER TRUNK AND PORTMANTEAU WORKS dangled from rusty chains, and on the west, FORE’S PRINTSELLERS, PUBLISHERS AND FRAME MAKERS was stenciled in faded gilt across a cracked window.
“Spare a penny fer a honest fellow?”
It was the advanced age of the ragged man that caused Jules to respond, even though he had learned from painful experience in The Rookery that giving to one beggar encouraged others to swarm about like pigeons when one of their lot had been given a crust. After placing tuppence into the trembling palm, he hurried to the door in front of him. His ring was answered by a young woman wearing a white apron over a gown of serviceable gray. Had she not been so clothed, Jules would have mistaken her for a boy, for her brown hair was barely past her earlobes. Removing his hat, Jules said, “Good afternoon. I’m looking for—”
“Sorry, we don’t sell teeth, sir. We’re an orphanage—Saint Matthew’s Methodist Home for Foundling Girls. Our old signboard fell from its chain and broke in half, so the Ladies’ Mission Society is having another—”
“I am not here to purchase teeth,” Jules was finally forced to cut in.
“Oh.” Her cheeks flushed pink. “Beggin’ your pardon.”
“No offense taken,” Jules said in spite of mild embarrassment. Though he had fairly decent teeth, there was one chipped at an angle almost in half—the result of a fall from the roof of a chicken coop when he was a boy—which he usually managed to cover with his top lip whenever he spoke or smiled. “I’m looking for a girl who was brought here over thirteen years—”
“Then would you care to wait in the parlor, sir?”
As she opened the door wider, Jules stepped into a tiny windowless room that probably once served as a vestibule for the teeth factory. On one paneled wall hung a cheap landscape print—he knew it was so because an identical one hung in his own office. Three mismatched chairs and a small table were arranged upon a faded rug of indeterminable color.
“Mrs. Forsyth will be back inside shortly,” the young woman said, taking his hat and hanging it on the rack just inside the door.
“Thank you.” Jules waited until she had walked through an arched doorway before settling into one of the chairs. He supposed Mrs. Forsyth was the woman who was speaking to the delivery man. Through the doorway he could hear signs of life in the building, a fussy infant being soothed by a woman’s song, and several childish voices reciting the multiplication tables.
He was well aware why someone of Mrs. Blake’s social standing and wealth would hire him, a solicitor with a dingy hatbox of an office below his flat on Cheapside. And it was not because he commanded far lower fees than the legal experts who advised her on matters of business and finance. Such a matter as this required the assistance of someone who was not likely to rub elbows with the woman’s peers at social gatherings.
She need not have worried. Discretion was a necessary part of the vocation. But he was glad for the money that would tide his family over the times between clients who could afford to pay no more than pittance.
****
Though passersby sent stares in her direction, Olivia Forsyth did not wish to bring the altercation inside. The children were well enough aware of their lowly positions in the scheme of life. They did not need to overhear that there were people who would purposely feed them rubbish.
“And I’m telling you, Mr. Brody, there was mold again in that last delivery,” she insisted to the man standing before her. Her fury rose at his mask of disbelief, for his eyes could not conceal his guilt. “You assume because they’re orphans you can sell us your old merchandise with a clear conscience—if you even have one!”
The man already loomed a head taller than she but seemed to grow even more so. “I’m a God-fearin’ man, I’ll have ye know! And ye can’t go blamin’ me if ye let them oats sit too
long in a damp cellar!”
Her righteous indignation was only producing unrighteous anger on his part, so she forced herself to calm down. “Mr. Brody, is it reasonable to believe that we have the luxury of allowing food to sit about until it spoils? All I’m asking is that we open up one of those sacks out here in the sun—”
“I haven’t time. Ye ain’t my only customers. So do ye want them unloaded or not?”
Olivia sighed. Anger and reason had not worked, so she had no choice but to pull a third arrow from her quiver. She drew in a deep breath and forced a smile. “Very well. You may bring them inside.”
His mouth gaped, exposing teeth as gray and crooked as old headstones. “Yes?”
“We can’t very well cook them out here in your wagon, can we?” she quipped.
Mr. Brody actually threw back his head and chortled. “The horses wouldn’t take too kindly to that, now, would they, Mrs. Forsyth?”
“Indeed they wouldn’t.” But before he could turn, Olivia said as if an afterthought, “Oh, I should mention that I discussed the recent troubles we’ve had with mold with Father Malone.”
His eyes darted a glance down Drury Lane in the direction of Saint Theresa’s rectory a half block away. “Father Malone?”
“He said I should send for him anytime I question the quality of one of your deliveries so he can inspect it with me.” Sending a glance in the same direction, Olivia said, “Why don’t you go ahead and unload, since you’re in a hurry? I’ll just have one of my workers nip over to—”
Wariness crept into his expression. “But you’re Methodists.”
“Quite true, but our families were neighbors on Moorgate. My sister and I played many a game of Whist with Father Malone and his siblings. Of course that was back in the days when he was just ‘Tom.’ He stops by occasionally for tea and to argue religion.” She smiled again. “Good-naturedly, of course. As you know, Father Malone is a gentle soul. But I’ve heard he can be a bear when it comes to handing out penance.”
Now it was Mr. Brody who sighed, rubbing a hand over his beefy face. “I expect I should take this load back and look through it myself,” he said, not quite meeting her eyes.
“That seems a great inconvenience, when you can do that right—”
He was already striding toward the wagon seat. “Too much noise here. I’ll be back before nightfall.”
Relief accompanied Olivia back to the door of the home. It would have been a pity to ask Father Malone, who suffered from lumbago, to hurry up the street on a mission of mercy.
Thank you for the good people you’ve put on this earth, Father, she prayed. Such as Mr. McDonald, who had donated the building when his factory relocated. That was twenty years ago, when Saint Matthew’s was founded by her late husband, Samuel Forsyth, a minister.
She and Samuel had no way of knowing in those early years of their marriage that they would not be blessed with their own children. But there was little time to feel any loss, and Olivia’s arms were seldom empty.
Nor were the sixty-two beds and cradles, which was why she worked hard to find positions and apprenticeships for the older girls. She could recall still playing with dolls at fifteen, and it never ceased to grieve her to send a girl that age out into the world to earn her keep in domestic service. Still more terrible would be having to turn helpless infants and younger ones away. It was like having a choice between typhus and cholera.
She turned the knob with a work-roughened hand and opened the door. A dark-haired man rose to his feet. On his medium frame hung a frock coat that had gone out of style sometime during the last decade. Oddly, he looked at her as if they were acquainted.
“Mrs. Forsyth, I presume?”
“Forgive me,” Olivia said, closing the door behind her. “Have we met?”
“The young lady who allowed me in gave me your name. But I noticed you out on the pavement just a moment ago.”
She grimaced. “Oh. I wish you hadn’t.”
“Is there something wrong?”
“Not anymore. Just a delivery man who needed a wee dose of conscience.”
“And did you get him to take it?” the man asked with a smile.
“He did. With the enthusiasm of a child taking cod-liver oil, Mr.—”
Stepping around the tea table, he hurried over to her. “Do forgive me. My name is Jules Swann.”
“Olivia Forsyth, Mr. Swann,” she said, offering her hand. After the introduction, she untied the strings of her bonnet and hung it next to the bowler hat on the rack. The surprise in his expression was no surprise to her. It had dawned upon her long ago that the lice epidemics that plagued the home two or three times yearly would be more effectively fought if everyone’s hair was kept short. And as lice did not confine themselves to the orphans, she and her staff followed the same rule.
She thought of the myriad of duties awaiting her. As cordial as her visitor was, they had devoted enough time to pleasantries. “How may I assist you?”
He glanced toward the inner doorway through which drifted young voices in unison:
Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
“William Blake?” he asked, leaning his head to listen.
“We strive to instill an appreciation for literature, Mr. Swann.” Olivia felt equally as passionate about teaching proper grammar, penmanship, and manners. There would be those who looked down upon the girls from Saint Matthew’s simply because they were orphans, but if Olivia had anything to do with it, none would be able to fault their way of speaking and conducting themselves.
“Very admirable.” Mr. Swann cleared his throat. “This is a matter of some delicacy, Mrs. Forsyth. Perhaps it would be better discussed in an office?”
Olivia shook her head. Most of the children in her keep were the results of “delicate matters.” “This is the only available room, I’m afraid. My late husband and I gave up our office for a nursery years ago.”
The desk and filing cabinet in the corner of her bedchamber sufficed as a makeshift office, but it was unsuitable for conferring with callers. She moved to close the inner door, abruptly cutting off the sound, then turned to him again. “The walls are thick, so you will not be overheard. Do have a seat, please.”
“Thank you.”
But he waited until she was seated before resuming his chair. Olivia could not help but notice some fraying at the ends of his sleeves and caught glimpses of a chipped tooth when he spoke. Yet he was well groomed and composed and did not seem to be a victim of dire poverty. She thought again about those duties awaiting her attention. “Now, what is the purpose of your visit, Mr. Swann?”
* * *
Jules nodded, understanding her need to be abrupt. Time was surely a precious commodity here. He felt uncomfortable with what he would have to ask her before stating his business. But he was bound to the directives of his client and so cleared his throat and said, “May I rely upon your discretion, Mrs. Forsyth?”
“You may,” she replied with no sign of offense.
“Thank you. Several months ago I was commissioned by Mrs. Arthur Blake to find her granddaughter,” he said, and when no recognition entered her expression, he added, “I trust you’ve heard of the Blake Shipping Line?”
“The name sounds familiar,” she replied. “And you believe her granddaughter to be here?”
Jules nodded. “Mary Tomkin was the child’s mother, a servant in the Blake household. She’s married and living up north now, which is why it took me so long to find her.”
“Mary Tomkin . . .” Mrs. Forsyth said thoughtfully and shook her head. “I don’t recall the name.”
“You wouldn’t have met Miss Tomkin. Her father left the newborn in a lard pail outside a church on the night of January twenty-ninth in 1857.”
“Over thirteen years ago. We have a half-dozen girls that age, Mr. Swann.”
“But how many were left in church doorways, Mrs. Forsyth?”
“You would be surprised.”
>
Jules opened his mouth to respond but closed it upon realizing silence was the more prudent course. Something seemed to be weighing at her. He stared with no fear of being rude, for her hazel eyes stared blankly past him. She appeared older than he by at least a decade, as her short auburn hair was dulled with gray. At first glance her face had seemed unremarkable in its ordinary arrangement of features, but he now realized she had once been quite striking. No doubt the years of trying to meet the needs of the children in her charge had eroded the beauty. He rather admired the character that had settled in its place, the mixture of compassion and strength and even humor, as she had demonstrated with her remark about the delivery man and cod-liver oil.
Finally she came out of her reverie and looked again at him. “We were brought a newborn from Saint Mark’s thirteen years ago. She was left in the doorway in the dead of winter, curled up in the bottom of a lard pail with only an old pillowcase for covering.”
Jules’ pulse jumped a notch. “Yes?”
“It was a miracle that an animal did not find her first or that she did not freeze.”
Everything Jules found out about the case made him more and more relieved that it was almost over. “The circumstances surrounding the birth were . . . painful.” And disgusting, he thought. While Mrs. Blake had not admitted her son had taken advantage of Miss Tomkin, it was obvious that was what had happened. He thought of his oldest daughter Margaret, who had just turned fifteen last week. How terrible it would be to have to send her—or any of his children—into domestic service. His wages did not allow for luxuries such as fashionable clothing and holidays to Brighton, but he was grateful that he was able to at least provide a home and some education for his family.
Mrs. Forsyth’s voice broke into his thoughts. “I’m curious,” she said, her hazel eyes studying his. “You said Mrs. Blake hired you several months ago?”
“That is correct.”
The Maiden of Mayfair Page 4
