Walter nodded, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to go quite as far as his wife in forgiving the Beaumonts for what they’d done to her. Doing that would require just a trifle more selfishness than he thought would be good for a vicar.
* * *
They paid visits to the vicars of Cartmel Priory, St. Peter’s in Field Broughton, and St. Paul’s in Lindale. Walter was acquainted with all three men, of course, though mostly because in the early days of his posting at St. Mary’s, every one of them had called on him to complain that attendance at their churches was down because he was poaching their parishioners. The accusation was thoroughly unjust; Walter had never done anything to encourage the worshippers from other parishes to attend St. Mary’s other than be young, handsome, and eligible. It was just that that had been enough.
Fortunately, now that he was slightly less young and entirely ineligible, most of the families who’d attended St. Mary’s in the hopes of their daughters catching Walter’s eye had drifted back to their home parishes. This meant that he was now more or less in the good graces of the other vicars, and once apprised of the situation, each was more than willing to share the information they sought.
There had been three births of baby boys in more or less the right time frame, two in Cartmel and one in Lindale, but as each of the three infants had been scheduled to be baptized in the upcoming weeks, there was no reason to suspect that one of them might be Noel. In Field Broughton, no babies had been born at all in the month of December, though one was expected any day.
By the time Walter and Artemisia had finished at St. Paul’s, it was getting on to late afternoon. With only another hour or so of daylight remaining, there was just enough time for a stop at the orphanage in Meathop.
From the outside, the orphanage was indistinguishable from any other country residence built in the seventeenth century of local stone and slate. The only indication that the building was not simply the private home of a local squire or other well-to-do family was the large, wooden sign posted near the gate which read, in sedate white lettering, “Lindale-Meathop Home for Orphans.”
The door was answered by a tall, stern-faced woman in the black dress and starched white cap and apron of a housekeeper, who peered at them with a mixture of curiosity and what Walter could only term as wariness. She looked Artemisia up and down, her eyes narrowing, before turning her attention to Walter. “Good afternoon, sir,” she said, pointedly not addressing Artemisia. “May I ask what brings you?”
Walter made a conspicuous show of clasping Artemisia’s hand and said, “I am Walter Langston, vicar of St. Mary’s church in Grange-Over-Sands, and this is my wife. We would like to consult the proprietors regarding a potential position we believe they might have the means to help us fill.”
If anything, the woman gave him an even more sharply suspicious look. “And how did you hear of us, Mr. Langston?”
He exchanged a look with Artemisia. “An acquaintance mentioned the existence of this orphanage, and we thought an orphanage would be uniquely equipped to assist us to fill this particular post.”
The housekeeper pressed her lips together. “I see.” Stepping aside, she opened the door and beckoned them into the long, narrow entrance hall. “If you would like to remove your coats and hats, you may hang them on the hooks there.” She gestured to a row of a dozen or more iron hooks affixed to the wall on the left. “The parlor is just through that doorway.” Here, she indicated the first door, also on the left. “I will inform Mrs. Knowles of your presence, and she will meet you directly.”
As the woman departed in a strangely ominous swirl of black skirts, Walter and Artemisia began to remove their outer garments as instructed.
“That was…odd, wasn’t it?” Artemisia asked in a low voice after the housekeeper disappeared around a corner.
“Very.” Walter hung his long coat on one of the pegs and then helped his wife out of her pelisse to avoid dragging its damp hem on the spotless parquet floor. After glancing toward the back of the house, he looked at the steep, narrow staircase that led to the upper floors of the house. The pale gray runner that covered the treads was unblemished and showed little evidence of wear.
He stood there for several seconds, his head cocked, listening. There was nothing to hear save his own respiration and the sound of Artemisia’s heels clacking against the floor.
“It seems awfully quiet, doesn’t it?” His words came out in a whisper. “For an orphanage.”
His wife’s expression turned thoughtful. “Perhaps the children are napping. Or doing their studies.”
Walter nodded, but he couldn’t shake the sense that something was very wrong with the place. Taking her hand, he led her through the door into the parlor.
The room was furnished with several straight-backed chairs and a divan, all of them upholstered in a sturdy maroon-and-cream jacquard fabric. The windows facing the front of the house were covered with heavy drapes of a similar wine-red hue, and they had been opened only far enough to let in a few thin shafts of the weak winter light. Most of the illumination was therefore provided by wall sconces and cylindrical lamps scattered about the chamber, all of them flickering with oil-fed flames.
Like the entrance hall and the staircase, everything was immaculate and looked, if not precisely new, then certainly not much used.
“I can’t imagine they allow the children in here,” Walter observed drily as they seated themselves on the divan to await Mrs. Knowles.
“Probably not,” Artemisia agreed. “But would all of the children even fit in here at once? Judging from the size of the building, they must have as many as twenty in care if not more, wouldn’t you think?”
Frowning, he nodded for that seemed at accurate guess, but it only served to trouble him more. Running an orphanage was not a tidy, quiet enterprise, nor was it a particularly profitable one—or at least, it should not be. Given that, he would expect an orphanage to be showing some signs of wear and tear and of…well, children. Yet nothing about this dwelling suggested the presence of a large number of young human beings.
He might have made some observation along these lines aloud, but the door clicked and opened to admit a woman who must be the aforementioned Mrs. Knowles. She was tiny, perhaps four-and-a-half feet tall and very slender, with a round, motherly face and graying brown hair done up in a simple knot covered with a crisp white mobcap. Her gown was a sensible navy-blue twill, its bodice topped with a lacy white fichu. The only thing that spoiled the impression of a kindly, middle-aged matron was the icy calculation in her slate blue eyes.
In spite of his instinctive dislike of the woman, he did what a gentleman must and rose to his feet. Artemisia followed him up.
“Mr. and Mrs. Langston,” Mrs. Knowles said, her voice oily smooth, “please, do sit down.” When they had resumed their seats, she perched on one of the nearby chairs and smiled unconvincingly at them. “I understand you are looking to fill a position. I regret to inform you, however, that at present, I have no children who are old enough to be apprenticed or sent for work. Perhaps if you came back in six or eight months…”
Of course. Walter’s gut churned. Sending orphans who had reached the age of eight or nine to workhouses or apprenticing them was an accepted—even endorsed—practice. Not only did the orphanage receive payment that defrayed some of the costs it had incurred in raising the child, but the child presumably gained a skill that could be carried into adulthood. The fact that an eight- or nine-year-old was still very much a child and deserved more time to play and grow before being forced to work for a living seemed to escape the institutions that approved of this practice.
The primary institution, in this case, being the very church for which he worked. Local parishes bore the brunt of the cost of caring for orphans, and the longer children stayed in care—whether in an orphanage or fostered to a local family—the less money the parish had to spend on other needs and wants.
When Walter had taken over St. Mary’s, Grange-Over-Sands had had o
nly ten orphans, all of whom were fostered by local families. Since then, another three children—all of them aged seven or older—had lost their parents, but Walter had been able to situate all three with extended family members. As to the other fostered children, he had made it clear to the families fostering them that the parish would continue to support them until the children reached the age of majority…no questions asked. But he was fortunate. His church’s coffers were full enough for him to stand by his principles.
The parish of Lindale-Meathop, which encompassed a larger geographical area, was more populous, more rural, and considerably less well-to-do than Grange-Over-Sands and thus likely much more stretched for funds. However much he deplored the practice of sending young children off into work, he only did differently because he could afford to. It was unfair to judge Mrs. Knowles harshly because she did what she had to do to keep her orphanage afloat.
And yet…she made his skin crawl, an effect no one else—not even Robert Beaumont—had on him.
It was, as Artemisia had said, odd.
But he couldn’t see that there was anything to be done about it. A very quiet and well-kept orphanage was not a crime. And since it was beginning to look more and more as though Noel’s mother really had abandoned him, they were going to need a wet nurse.
Before he could explain the situation, however, his wife spoke. “You misunderstand our reason for consulting you, Mrs. Knowles. We are in search of a wet nurse, and thought you might be able to recommend someone to us.”
Mrs. Knowles blinked, looking momentarily thrown off-balance. Her shrewd eyes swept over Artemisia, lingering at her waistline and again at her bosom before returning to her face. “How old is your baby, Mrs. Langston?”
A shadow of sorrow flitted across Artemisia’s features so swiftly that Walter was sure he was the only one who registered it. She might have forgiven Beaumont for the harm he’d done her, but she still ached for the child she’d borne and lost.
Sliding his fingers into hers, he looked Mrs. Knowles straight in the eye and said, “As far as we are concerned, he was born on Christmas Eve.”
7
Lullay, Lullay (Coventry Carol)
Artemisia’s fingers shook as she closed the top-most button on her pelisse, and not from the cold. She could not wait to put as much distance between herself and Mrs. Knowles as possible, so she all but ran down the front steps of the orphanage toward the buggy.
“The very suggestion!” she hissed at her husband, who was taking long, brisk strides to keep pace with her. “I would not allow that awful woman within two hundred yards of Noel, much less bring him here to be raised.” When they had explained the circumstances that brought them in search of a wet nurse, Mrs. Knowles had generously offered to take the infant into care so they would not have to concern themselves. She would bill the parish of Grange-Over-Sands for his care, of course, rather than Meathop-Lindale, but perhaps Walter would consider settling additional children with her in future should the need arise. Artemisia shuddered at the thought, looking back over her shoulder at the unremarkable façade of the orphanage. “There is something very wrong with this place.”
Nodding, Walter slid his arm through hers. “I agree, but I don’t know what we can do about it. This is not my parish, so I have no authority over this orphanage, and I doubt the magistrate would consider our dislike of the proprietress to be sufficient grounds to investigate possible wrong-doing.”
She shot him a glance. “So you felt it, too?”
“Yes. From the moment the housekeeper opened the door.”
Her eyebrows arched. As a general rule, her husband tended to be less suspicious than most people. Or, perhaps it was more accurate to say that he seldom suspected people of ill intent. Either way, she was surprised that he seemed to have been put off by the atmosphere of the orphanage even before she had. Her hackles hadn’t been raised until the housekeeper had asked how they’d learned of the orphanage. The question still raised alarm bells in her head, though she couldn’t articulate why, even to herself.
Not only did the place make the hair want to crawl from her head, but the visit hadn’t even yielded them the information they’d been hoping for. Mrs. Knowles had claimed not to know of any wet nurses in the vicinity who were currently between positions.
When they reached the buggy, Walter helped Artemisia up into her seat and then rushed to the other side to climb into his own. He seemed in every bit as a great a hurry to quit Meathop-Lindale Home for Orphans as she was.
But the children here… There was no escape for them. Well, not until they were old enough to be sold off to a workhouse or as an apprentice, which could just as easily be a worse situation as a better one.
As Walter took up the reins and urged Buford into a walk, Artemisia took one long, last look at the house. Movement in a third-story window caught her eye. A curtain twitched and a pale, thin face appeared in the opening. Although the distance made it impossible to make out specific details, Artemisia had the impression of haunted eyes. But given her feelings about the place, that was just as likely to be her imagination as reality.
The curtain twitched closed and the face disappeared.
Poor child.
And with that thought, the words of the Coventry Carol slipped into her mind:
Then woe is me
Poor child for thee
And ever mourn and say...
If only she could do more than mourn. But Walter was right. Without some evidence of foul play on the part of Mrs. Knowles and the orphanage, all they had were their instincts. And that was simply not enough.
* * *
That night, Artemisia tossed and turned. Every time she started to drift off to sleep, she saw the child’s face again—only now the eyes were reproachful instead of sad—and she would startle fully awake. Finally, after several hours of this, she gave up and slid from the bed, taking care not to disturb Walter.
Wrapping herself in her dressing gown, she made her way down to the kitchen and stoked the fire to heat the kettle. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well have a hot cup of tea to keep her warm. She was pouring when a knock sounded at the back door. The sound surprised her so much that she spilled a considerable amount of the boiling water and had to jump to her feet to escape being burned by the rivulets that ran off the table.
Glancing wildly around the dimly lit room, she located a cloth and used it to dam up the tea to prevent more from rolling onto the floor.
The knocking came again. The tempo was a little more insistent this time.
She hesitated. Should she go wake Walter and have him answer the door? After all, most people who came to the vicarage at night were looking for him, not her. But none of them would come to the rear of the house. In fact, she couldn’t think of anyone who would choose to knock on the back door of any house. Except, possibly, a servant.
Could something have happened to Noel? Had the Nesmiths sent one of their servants to bring some terrible news to that effect?
Trembling, she stepped over the cooling puddle and into the hallway that bisected the house from front to rear. Whoever was on the other side knocked a third time. With a mixture of curiosity and dread, Artemisia threw the latch and turned the knob.
For a bare fraction of a second after she opened the door, she thought no one was there. And then she looked down into a pale, thin face. With haunted eyes.
“Please,” the girl said, breathless and shivering, “you mustn’t send the baby back to the orphanage.”
* * *
Her name was Jane Howard, she was twelve years old, and she had walked the entire two and a half miles from Meathop to the vicarage on a cold winter’s night by the light of a small lantern.
Having wrapped the too slight and underdressed girl in a warm woolen blanket, Artemisia had elicited this much information from their visitor before her husband—whom she had been forced to waken from a sound sleep—joined them at the table. She had also managed to clean up the mess she’d mad
e with the tea and found some of the biscuits that Mrs. Appleby always kept on hand. These she set in front of the child, who after a moment of wide-eyed astonishment at this largesse, stuffed three into her mouth in rapid succession and, when she thought no one was looking, pilfered three more to put in her pockets.
Walter began the questioning very gently with a non-question. “You left the baby in our stable on Christmas Eve because you hoped we would take care of him.”
Jane’s expression became a study in misery, and she nodded. “I heard from one of the servants that you were a good vicar and kind, and also that you and your wife don’t have any children. I thought if I left him for you like a present, you’d want him.” Then her mouth pinched into an angry line. “If I knew you’d just bring him back to where I was trying to save him from, I wouldn’t have bothered.”
The girl’s words struck Artemisia like an arrow to the heart. She opened her mouth to explain that they did want Noel and that Jane had misunderstood the reason for their visit to the orphanage, but her husband gave her a quelling look.
“Where did the baby come from, Jane?” Walter asked.
“Someone left him on the back stoop on Christmas Eve morn. The housekeeper, Mrs. Payne, sent me out to gather eggs from the henhouse, and there he was in a basket wrapped in a blanket.”
“And you didn’t tell Mrs. Payne or Mrs. Knowles about him?”
She scowled, her nose wrinkling as if she’d just smelled something foul. “Why would I do that? If I did, he’d just become another one of us.”
Artemisia wasn’t sure what question her husband would have asked if she’d given him the chance. “Us? You mean other children?” The girl nodded, and Artemisia prompted, “How many?”
My True Love Gave to Me Page 4
