Page 55 of Pining for Lord Lockhart
He nodded. Who had been responsible for each of those things? If he remembered right, it was Charity. And she was nowhere to be seen. “I’m sure everything will be just fine. I would presume that the most urgent of needs would be the key.”
He had signed the lease and knew the location of the owner. Perhaps the keys were still at his residence. And the books, the materials. If they did not arrive, and if there were no teachers either, then he could at the very least, teach the children, teach them something of value.
He hopped back in his carriage and gave the direction to the owner’s home.
With any luck, he would catch the man at home and he would still be in possession of the key. It would have been better if Charity had picked up the keys as planned and was on her way now to the school, but with everything that had happened between them, he couldn’t be certain she would do so.
One short month ago, he would have never doubted her or anything she had committed to do.
All the way to the man’s house, he felt worse about Charity, about his responsibility for her changed behavior, about how he’d behaved at the ball. He could not regret his interference with Lord Wessex. If Charity did not appreciate the precarious situation she was in with him, Andrew did.
But the larger issue bothering him should be his plans with Penny. Would he be moving forward to rescue her from herself? And therefore be subject to her flirtatious manner directed at all and sundry, as well as her obvious lack of caring for him? The more he thought about things, the more he knew he should wait, as he’d already decided. And he suspected that the longer he waited, the more he’d realize that she was not the woman for him. But a conversation was in order. He knew that. After last night especially, he knew they must converse.
Last night, he’d sent them off in his carriage. He was just not comfortable leaving Charity with Lord Wessex. While handing her up, Miss Penny had hardly spoken to him. Her mother had been all warmth and smiles. And Andrew saw more clearly the life that was opening up before him. If she couldn’t be bothered to respect him or treat him with the barest civility before they were married, he had little hope for a pleasant life after. Gone was the rapport in their friendship, but that had been missing for many years.
The door opened as soon as he stopped in front of a townhome. The owner stepped outside with a package in hand. “I know you are hoping to start today. No one has come by.”
“Thank you.” Andrew pocketed the keys. “We hope to do much good with this location.”
“I’m pleased to be a part. I never dreamed the space would be used for something so noble.” He nodded. “God bless your efforts.”
Andrew smiled and hopped back in the carriage. They would hurry to return and get things moving. Hopefully the children were still there, ready and waiting outside the school.
And he really hoped that the materials would have arrived.
When he returned and hopped down off the carriage, he headed toward the school at a run.
A line of children stood outside the door with a group of them running about nearby. The woman he’d left standing at the front door looked more frazzled than when he’d left her. And more children arrived from the direction of some residences he knew were nearby.
He hurried to the door, juggled his keys, finding the one that entered the front door and pushed it open.
A hoard of children rushed inside behind him. He smiled. The place was clean. “Come in here, children.” He stepped through a small entryway hall and into the main space they had leased, a large area with chairs. Someone had decorated it with posters and a sign that said, “Welcome to school.”
He wondered who of all the children even knew what it said. But they would soon. They would learn. And it would make all the difference.
The children stepped timidly into the room for the most part. Most of their energy and bounding about had subsided, and they walked around the space, wide eyed with curiosity. He moved up to the front. The school had no books. And as far as he could tell, no teacher.
No matter. School would go on. They had to begin. It would get better as it went along naturally, but today, they would at least lay down the rules and expectations, and if he had anything to say about it, learn something useful.
And so that is how he, Lord Lockhart, became a schoolteacher.
“Class.” At first, they didn’t pay him any mind.
“Students.” He waited. A few of them turned to him.
“Let’s begin.” He moved to the front of the room. “If you could each please take a seat. Choose wisely, for this will be your seat for the remainder of time in our school.”
A few of them moved as quickly as possible to the very front of the room. A few others immediately chose the back. Everyone else seemed to care more about who was beside or in front or behind them. When that was at last situated, he took out a quill, inkwell and paper. “And now I will show you how to use these glorious items.” He asked each of the students to say their name and he wrote it down, creating a form of chart to remember who they were and who sat in which seat. “I will need you to come every day if possible and sit in this same seat. In that way, we will learn each other’s names.”
He held up the quill and described its functions. “You will each get one of these.”
A few of the students gasped.
“And you will learn your letters. Come every day and you will learn your basic maths. And these two things will make all the difference.”
Most of them sat forward in their seats. Where had they found these children? Were they from the slums of London? Were they pickpockets like that one girl? Were they working class families? He had no way of knowing.
“And now let us begin.” He stood, carrying his paper with him. “There will be times when you might feel alone.” He thought of the weeks, months and years since his parents had died. “There will be times when you are suddenly asked to do things you don’t know how to do. And there will be times that you might feel trapped.” Like he himself felt, right in that moment. “Part of the reason this school was formed was so that you would know there will always be options. There is always a better way than to live a life of crime. Do not be trapped in the lower lives of those around you simply because they claim an association.” His own words and their truth hammered through him. He intended to help them see that they could rise above their circumstances, but did his own words apply to his situation? “Help them certainly, as you can, but where assisting them brings you down into their crime-filled depths, you must rise above. You must make something of yourself. You must contribute to society in a positive way.” He kept talking, kept encouraging and right in the middle of a grand example using Wellington himself, Charity stepped in the door. And with her, several servants with arms full of books and supplies, and at her side, the young pickpocket from the seedier part of London.
