Page 55 of Lady Daring
That wasn’t at all the world she wanted to be in. Why was she trying?
James emerged shaking his head. “Peery scrape, the whole of it. The mort said to spirit it off and not mouse to anyone, an’ that’s all. Sounds a bit like me own mum, don’t that?” He spat in the street, then leapt to his perch in the phaeton, as light as a cat.
“Oh, James.” Henrietta tasted acid, though her mouth was dry. “Do you think she sent it to the Foundling Hospital? Where should we start searching?”
“The workhouses, and the alleys, and the baby farms,” James said with a grim face, and Henrietta shivered.
“I pray not.” There would be little chance of finding it if the child were sent out of the city. The children of workhouses, when they survived, were sold to apprenticeships as soon as could be. She had seen plenty of children sent to work in the mills, where their small bodies could dart beneath the heavy machines. They were fed and housed, and in parishes like hers attended Sundayschool, but not all mill owners shared Jasper’s concern that children should not be overworked or endangered.
Oh, why hadn’t she begged Lady Celeste to see Darien’s solicitor? If she couldn’t locate the babe and some ill befell it, she would never be able to forgive herself.
The day passed in a blur. The midwife, when they called at her lodgings, was attending another childbed. Henrietta left her card. Though she knew most of the charitable institutions in town, without James she would have become hopelessly lost in London. Narrow passageways twisted between buildings that had been split to accommodate more tenants, then split again. There was no order or plan whatsoever, just rickety structures that leaned atop one another, shoddy and hastily made. Her wheels flattened refuse left in the middle of the street, and the smells of the markets made her gag.
How she missed Salford and their sweet Mersey River, which provided fresh water at one end of town and collected its refuse at the other. Here in London, which was girdled by the Thames, one drew from the river what another had just put into it. The constant noise was astonishing, worse than the relentless grind of the machines at a mill. Over everything hung the smoky haze of burning coal, the fuel for the noisy, tireless engines of industry.
She stopped at a tavern, chafing at the lost time, when James informed her that if she didn’t fill his breadbasket, he would chew off her stumps. Leaning against the rough piece of lumber that served as the counter for the small shop, she ate a pasty filled with some chewy meat she didn’t care to identify and wiped greasy fingers on her habit. James used his uniform for the same office and finished her untouched pint of ale, and they returned to the phaeton for more fruitless searching.
Finally, as the coal smoke blended with approaching dusk, Henrietta called a halt from sheer exhaustion. She wanted tocry from frustration and fear. She was rubbish at rescues. She’d earned Pinochle’s enmity by helping his maid escape. She’d not been able to save Elijah. And what could she say to Darien, as it was her fault the child had disappeared?
For solace she stopped by the Sisters of Benevolence Hospital to see the one girl whose life she had at least managed to improve. In a pool of warm, quiet light, Mary Ann sat rocking in the matron’s sitting room, a newborn at her breast.
Henrietta’s heart skipped several beats.
“Came at the crack of dawn, poor wee one,” Mary Ann said. “Mother said I might feed her.”
Henrietta swallowed the ash in her throat. “Was there a note?”
Mary Ann drew a small card from her apron, one engraved with the name and direction of the home. On the back was a crooked scrawl.You asked for the brat, so take her. Tell Daring to rot in hell.
“What’s it say?” Mary Ann asked innocently.
“It says the mother has surrendered all claim. A girl, is it?” Henrietta sank to the small stool by the fire. The child was here, safe. She might sob with relief. “Are you— Is she feeding?”
“Like a farmhand,” Mary Ann whispered. “And I’ve milk enough, mum, more’s the wonder. I tole you they were plumping me up.”
The matron entered with a pile of swaddling fresh from the laundry. “Ye’ve met our new one, Miss Hetty? The midwife said she’s sound, so that’s a blessing, but my word, that’s the fifth this week.”
“D’ye want to hold her? Mind ye keep her upright and get the bubble out.” Mary Ann pulled up her bodice with one hand and held out the infant with calm expertise.
Henrietta stared at the tiny creature. She had fed, changed, and burped each of her younger half-sisters, and this felt oddlythe same, as if the child belonged to her somehow. Thick black hair mossed the baby’s head, and dark strands traced her brows and the lids of her eyes. A web of tiny red veins spread over her round cheeks and chin, with dark pink patches on her eyelids and one in the center of her forehead, an angel’s kiss.
This might be Darien’s child. Henrietta took the baby as if she were made of glass and rubbed the swaddled back.
“Five, Mother? All newborns?”
“And seven last week, one for each blessed day.” The matron handed a pile of cloths to Mary Ann to help fold. “I can’t think where we’re to put them all. We’ll be stacked to the rafters soon.”
“Are there enough nurses?” The wee mite pressed one fist to the side of her face, her lips still sucking in the rhythm she had just learned. Henrietta’s lungs closed at the thought of any harm coming to her.
“Aye, nurses enough, all too many.” The matron sighed. “It’s a needful care we provide, Miss Hetty, and I don’t begrudge a one of them. But the Good Lord keeps giving, at least unto us.”
The words emerged before the thought had finished forming. “I’ll take her,” Henrietta said. “Home with me. And Mary Ann too, if you can spare her.”
The matron paused and raised her eyebrows. Henrietta had never been able to guess her age, nor did she know her hair color, but the matron’s eyebrows were a thick and startling black.
Mary Ann’s eyes grew equally wide, and Henrietta hurried on. “Will you come with me and be the baby’s nurse? We can offer you room and board and a salary, and everyone is quite kind in my father’s house. You can stay till the babe is weaned, if not longer.”
Mary Ann looked like she had been handed the moon. She was a young woman, not sixteen, a mother who had already lost a babe. At sixteen, Henrietta had been concluding her studiesat Miss Gregoire’s and writing Lady Mama instructions on how Jasper liked his household to run. She had never held a child of her own.
