The Winter Orphan Read online

  ‘Be brave, lady,’ he murmured. ‘I have you and you are safe now.’

  As the coach slowed to a halt and his groom opened the door and helped him ease the woman out, he saw a small inn with a lantern above its door and welcoming lights from a parlour window.

  ‘Run and secure rooms for us, Kent – and then fetch that doctor!’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Kent ran ahead while Arthur gave instructions to his coachman about stabling the horses then assisted the shivering woman to walk. By the time he reached the lights and warmth of the inn hallway, Kent had secured a room for him and accommodation for himself and the coachman.

  ‘There is but the one room in the house but I thought it would do as you will want to watch over the young lady, sir – and me and Barrett are over the stables and the landlord has given me the doctor’s direction,’ Kent told him.

  Arthur nodded to the landlord. ‘I shall require a fire lighting and food for us all. My companion is not well, so some warm milk, perhaps, if the doctor thinks it advisable.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Stoneham.’ The landlord bowed respectfully. Kent had made sure to speak of his master’s consequence, no doubt, for the landlord took a brass oil lamp and lit their way up to a large chamber at the rear of the house. ‘I fear there is but the one bed, sir.’

  ‘She is ill and must have it,’ Arthur said. ‘I shall take the chair and be comfortable enough; besides, she will need watching. I do not know what has befallen this poor girl, but I shall not let her die if I may prevent it.’

  ‘Your man said you were a philanthropist of the highest order, sir. My wife would take in all the waifs and strays if she could …’ He tutted as he saw the condition of the young woman. ‘She cannot be past twenty, sir. It is sad to see one so fair brought to this.’

  ‘Yes, you are right,’ Arthur agreed. ‘I fear it happens all too often but, with God’s aid, we help those we can.’ The landlord nodded and looked pious.

  ‘Amen to that, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ll send the chambermaid up to light the fire straight away.’ He paused, then, ‘Will you dine here or in the parlour?’

  ‘I’ll dine after the physician has been and we hear what he has to say.’

  The host nodded and left Arthur to place the girl between the clean sheets and cover her. Despite her wretched clothes, he thought she had washed recently and her skin had a pleasant perfume of its own. She was pretty, he decided, as he pushed the long fair hair back from her cheek. If she lived, he would be interested to hear her story and would help her if she was willing to be helped. He could take her to Hetty, who would find her a bed at the refuge and perhaps a place to work, he thought as he turned away to take off his coat.

  ‘My baby! Give me back my baby!’

  The cry from the young woman’s lips was so desperate that Arthur turned sharply and saw that she was sitting up in bed staring about her wildly.

  ‘Where is she? What have you done with her?’

  ‘I saw no baby …’ Arthur felt a stab of doubt. Had he missed the child? He had seen nothing of it when they rescued the woman. No, there had been no child nearby that he’d been aware of – but had it been lying hidden by the side of the road? ‘Forgive me, where was your child, madam?’

  ‘They took her. They said she was stillborn but I heard her cries,’ the woman said clearly, in the voice of one gently reared, and then fell back against the pillows, her eyes closing.

  Arthur bent over her, fearing for a moment that a relapse had taken her life, but she was sleeping now and her breathing seemed a little easier. He was relieved, but the poor girl was feverish. He decided that he would not go and look for the missing babe for she seemed confused. Perhaps she had recently given birth to a child that had died, which might explain her distress, but why had she been lying in the middle of the road?

  It was more than half an hour before Kent returned with the doctor. By that time the maid had a good fire burning and the room was pleasantly warm. The doctor examined his patient and confirmed Arthur’s belief that she had recently given birth.

  ‘She still has her milk,’ he told Arthur, ‘though I would say it was some days since the birth – perhaps more than a week.’

  ‘She was asking for the child and seemed confused. Do you think she has been attacked?’

  ‘I see little wrong with her,’ the doctor told Arthur. ‘I imagine she may not have eaten for some hours and she was probably on the verge of dying of the cold. It is a bitter night, Mr Stoneham – too cold for any of us to be out.’

  He seemed a little annoyed that he had been brought from his warm house to tend a woman he did not consider sick, for bearing a child was the law of nature. Arthur kept his counsel, paid him generously and thanked him for his advice – which was that she should have rest, good food and be kept warm.

  ‘She is young and with some food inside her will soon recover her strength, sir. I think these young women are often back in the fields within days of giving birth.’

  ‘You think her a country woman?’

  ‘She is dressed like one of the travelling folk,’ the doctor said disparagingly. ‘Be careful, Mr Stoneham – these people can take advantage if you let them.’

  Arthur nodded, giving no answer except to thank him for his time once more. He was angry, for he had seen nothing in the young woman’s features to suggest she was Romany and would not have cared if she was, but he would have thought by her speech that she was more likely to be of good family, although he supposed the clothes she wore might have belonged to the kind of woman the doctor had mentioned.

  A knock at the door made Arthur turn to greet the plump woman who had arrived with a hot toddy and a glass of warmed milk.

  ‘I’m Sally, the landlord’s wife, and I thought you could do with something to warm you, sir,’ she said. ‘I brought the milk in case the young lady was feeling able to drink it.’

  ‘At the moment she sleeps,’ Arthur said. ‘I wonder if you could bring me up a cold supper – I do not feel able to leave her just yet.’

  ‘How would it be if I sat with her for a while, sir? You go down and my husband will bring you soup, bread and then cold meat and pickles – if that will suit?’

  ‘It sounds like a feast,’ Arthur said and smiled, for Sally had a kind face. ‘She woke once and I think she has recently lost a child.’

  ‘The poor girl,’ Sally said. ‘I know how that feels, for I lost one of my own – though I now have two strapping sons.’

  ‘I am glad to hear of your present happiness,’ Arthur said and drank some of his hot toddy. ‘I shall take this with me, Sally. Please watch this lady while I avail myself of your husband’s hospitality.’

  It was an hour and a half before Arthur returned to the bedchamber. The landlord’s wife was bathing the young woman’s forehead and smiling as she tended her. Clearly, she had taken to her patient and was caring for her as she would one of her own.

  ‘Thank you for your kindness, Sally.’

  ‘It was a girl I lost, sir. She would have been just a little younger than this young lady if I am not mistaken, for she can be little more than eighteen.’

  ‘You think her gently born?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir. Her hands have known work but only in the past few months – and her skin is soft and white, her features gentle. I believe her to have been ill-treated, Mr Stoneham – there are marks of a beating on her back no more than a few months old.’

  Arthur’s eyes narrowed in question. ‘You bathed her to ease her fever and discovered scars?’

  ‘Aye, sir, I did. Who would beat a young woman who was bearing a child? I do not understand such cruelty, for my John is a good man. What kind of a man could do such a thing?’

  ‘I fear there are many such,’ Arthur told her, frowning. ‘I daresay there is a sorry tale behind her appearance but she is not alone in her suffering; there are many more …’

  Sally nodded but made no further comment. She took her tray and left the room, saying she would return
later but he must ring for her if he needed her help. Arthur thanked her and sat in the armchair by the fire, stretching out his long legs and leaning his head against the winged back. He felt warm and he had dined well. The young woman seemed to be resting and he might as well sleep if he could; time enough when she woke to discover the mystery that had brought her to a lonely road for him to find on such a night. It could not be mere coincidence. This was meant to be and Arthur sensed that he was meant to find her.

  CHAPTER 2

  ‘I had thought Mr Stoneham would have returned by now,’ Ruth Jones said when Hetty visited the kitchen at the refuge in the East End of London for fallen women where the pair both worked and lived. ‘You don’t think he would … you know, in his grief for the poor lady?’ Her distress showed in her eyes at the thought and Hetty was quick to reassure her.

  Made warden of this spacious and comfortable home for unfortunate women, by a man she both admired and cared for, Hetty smiled. It had, she thought, once been the house of a wealthy merchant and had several good bedrooms, which enabled them to take in more women needing a place to call home.

  ‘No, Ruth, I do not think that Arthur Stoneham would take his own life, no matter how much he loved Katharine. He knows that too many people rely on him – besides, it is the coward’s way, and Arthur is no coward. You must not think such things. I daresay he has been delayed for some good reason and will return when he is ready.’

  Ruth nodded and looked more cheerful. ‘Bless you, Miss Hetty, thank you for puttin’ my mind at ease. The master had seemed restless for a while and then, when Miss Ross agreed to wed him – well, I’d never seen him as happy. It was such a tragedy.’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ Hetty agreed, though privately she had her doubts that Arthur would have found lasting happiness with Katharine Ross. No doubt Katharine had felt some tenderness towards Arthur, perhaps loved him in her gentle way – but not with the wholehearted passion he deserved. But perhaps Hetty was biased, because she loved him herself, loved him with a passion she knew matched his own capability for love, though she would never have stood in his way. She cared only that he found peace and happiness for he had surely suffered enough remorse for any man.

  At that moment a knock came at the door and Ruth went to answer it. Hetty looked for her to return, hopeful of some news concerning Arthur. Instead she was followed by a young girl Hetty had come to know well in recent weeks; she had, no doubt, brought medicine for one of their ladies.

  ‘Here’s Eliza come with herbs for our Sarah’s cough …’ Ruth announced. ‘I asked her to step in and take a glass of milk and a biscuit.’

  Hetty nodded her approval. Eliza worked and cared for the apothecary, taking her cures to those in need and sometimes visited them at Hetty’s behest, for her ladies had often suffered and needed medicines to help them overcome their ills. A young, pretty girl, Eliza had both compassion and courage, for she had survived the cruellest upbringing in the workhouse.

  Hetty knew that Arthur believed Eliza was his child, born of a young country gentlewoman, long dead now, and through misfortune given to a workhouse where she had suffered terribly before being rescued.

  ‘I am happy to see you, Eliza dear. Come, sit with us and tell us how you are – and Miss Edith, too.’

  Eliza smiled. ‘I am well, ma’am, though I fear Miss Edith is not as strong as she might be.’

  ‘I am sorry for that,’ Hetty said looking at her with sympathy. ‘You know you may come to us if you are worried or distressed and we shall do our best to help you. My door is always open to you, Eliza.’

  Eliza smiled at her sweetly and in that smile, Hetty saw something of the man she admired, and in her heart had always loved. Arthur only needed to see that smile to know for sure that she was his daughter, but Hetty knew that for the moment his grief had made him blind to anything but his memories of Katharine and her loss. He worried what to do for Eliza for the best, because she loved Miss Edith and to take her from the woman who had given her a home might distress her, and yet he wanted her to have the life she deserved. Once he’d managed to set his grief aside, he would undoubtedly put his mind to ensuring Eliza’s future happiness.

  ‘Miss Edith told me to make sure that Sarah knows the dose is once every six hours, Miss Hetty,’ Eliza said. ‘She should not take more.’

  ‘We’ll look after her, don’t you worry …’ Ruth said and smiled at her. In the workhouse she had looked after Eliza as if she were her own child for she had none to love and truly cared for the girl.

  Hetty knew it was on Ruth’s mind that she needed to tell Eliza the secret she’d kept all these years, to give her the diamond trinket she’d discovered pinned inside her shawl – placed there, Ruth had no doubt, by the mother who had been forced to give her up. However, she agreed with Hetty that she needed to ask Arthur Stoneham’s permission before she did so and in all the distress of the past weeks she had not dared to ask.

  ‘Has Mr Stoneham returned from the country?’ Eliza asked suddenly.

  ‘Not yet – did you wish to speak to him?’

  Eliza hesitated and then nodded. ‘Yes, ma’am but it is not important. I know Mr Stoneham is a busy man. I only wished to ask if he had found any record of who brought me to the workhouse. He did say he would help me if I asked …’

  ‘Arthur will return soon I am sure and you may ask him then. He has spent the weeks since Katharine’s death, at Christmas, searching for her sister, but I fear too many years have passed for him to succeed. Only a little miracle would bring that to pass.’

  ‘Her death was very sad, ma’am. We were sorry to hear of it …’

  Hetty sighed. It would take a miracle and a persistence few could muster to find someone who had disappeared all those years ago. No one but Arthur Stoneham would have attempted it. She had calmed Ruth’s fears, but she too wondered where Arthur was, for she had expected his return before this. His cousin, Matthew Soames, who was also his secretary, was taking care of business in Arthur’s absence, but Hetty felt it keenly. Arthur Stoneham was never far from her thoughts or her prayers these days. Yet she believed that if he had not returned from his search there must be a good reason for his tardiness.

  Bella sat on the stairs, hugging her thin arms about her body as the tears trickled down her cheeks. She hated this place – and most of all she hated Mistress Brent. Mistress Brent was the warden in charge of the female section of the workhouse but her husband was the master. He ruled the house with a rod of iron and even his wife had been seen with black eyes after he’d beaten her. It was after he’d taken his wrath out on Mistress Brent that she vented her spite on the women and girls in her charge – but most of all on Bella.

  Bella had no idea why the mistress despised her and ill-used her so much more than the other children. A harsh, thin-faced woman, tall and skinny but very strong, when Mistress Brent gripped Bella’s arms, her fingers dug in so hard they bruised her and she had black and mauve marks all over them. The mistress had a long thin cane, which she used whenever she felt inclined, striking out at anyone she thought was being disobedient or impertinent. She made the children line up for everything – food, visits to church or the schoolroom, which was a privilege reserved only for those the mistress favoured, despite the law that said children must be educated between the ages of five to ten years. Bella had learned to write her name, but she could not read more than a few letters nor could she reckon numbers, even though some of the women inmates said that it was a disgrace she had been denied this right.

  ‘It’s the law that all the children should be taught their letters, numbers and to read, as well as sewing and other things and the child’s ripe to learn,’ they’d said amongst themselves, but no one dared to say it to the mistress’s face. All the women and girls obeyed their mistress almost by instinct, their spirits long subdued, and it was Bella alone who refused to march in time to her tune. She ran when she should walk and talked when she was ordered to be silent and took her punishment without tears. S
omething told Bella that, whatever she did, she would be beaten and ill-used and a fierce pride inside would not let her lie down and let the mistress wipe her feet on her.

  Bella was good with a needle. Her eyes were sharp and her stitches were neat, and because of that she was given most of the mending to do. She was allowed to sit in the special room reserved for the seamstresses and help them in the afternoons, but in the mornings she was set tasks like scrubbing the floors or washing dishes. Yet she suspected that if her needlework had not been so neat, her life might have been harder. There were far worse jobs in the workhouse – the laundry, which was hot and damp and smelly; picking oakum, which made hands bleed, and slopping out the latrines. They stank, especially in summer, and they were cleared manually by the men, but children had to wash them down after the men had taken the stinking effluent away. Bella had been given that job once but since then she’d been fortunate enough to be sent to the sewing room.

  Bella had learned about the woman who had given birth to a healthy child but was told it was dead while she sat quietly mending. The other women had gossiped about the young woman who had arrived earlier that bitter afternoon on the point of giving birth.

  ‘She does not know her own name nor whence she came,’ Florrie said as she cut the delicate pattern out of expensive silk. Florrie was the head seamstress and her work was so fine that word had spread to Lady Rowntree, whose family had founded the workhouse. Lady Rowntree had started by asking for some alterations and repairs, but then she had asked if Florrie could make some fine underwear for her daughter, Rosalie, who was soon to be wed. ‘I think a man betrayed poor Jane – for so the mistress said she should be called – and beat her and she lost her mind, poor wench.’

  ‘She would be better off if the babe dies at birth for she cannot care for it,’ Marta said as she paused in her own sewing. ‘In any case, I know the mistress and master sell the healthy ones – it has always been so, except in her case …’ The woman nodded her head at Bella. ‘Why do you think she kept her?’