“I have accepted some extra work and hope the position will continue for some weeks. Set aside whatever funds you don’t need, because the price of bread seems only to rise.”
“That, it do,” she said, returning to her seat across from him. “More extra work, Mr. Delancey? You took on extra work before the holidays, and I gather those responsibilities continue. The children won’t appreciate it if you come down with a lung fever and expire on us. For that matter, I won’t appreciate it, and Finny will curse you to perdition if she has to go back to the Magdalen house.”
“If anything happens to me, Mrs. H, you have your character. You and Finny can go to my sister or my father, and they will find you another post.” So Michael hoped. Dorcas and Papa were truly charitable souls, and they would not hold Michael’s deception against his employees.
“Right. Your family, who never comes to call.” Mrs. Harris peered into her tea cup and swirled the contents clockwise, then counterclockwise, like a fortune-teller. “I’m dear old Mrs. Harris what knew you in Yorkshire. Fine for me, but what of the nippers? If you work yourself into an early grave, they’ll have nobody.”
“I’m in excellent health, but I’d ask you to prevail on my family if I’m ever unable to care for the children.”
Mrs. Harris topped up her cup, though the tea was tepid. “Bea’s beginning to ask questions. ‘Why does my Papa work so far away?’ She sees Mr. Belcher right across the street coming and going daily from his job in the City. Mr. Daley goes to his post at the printer. Bea’s papa works ‘far away, at Lambeth.’ In another year or two, she’ll be able to walk to Lambeth. She’s a smart girl, and she’ll have more questions.”
Questions for which Michael would have no answers, and that, too, was a cause for worry. “Fortunately, her curiosity is limited at present to the alphabet, my favorite animal, and why cats have six kittens at a time, but people only show up in ones or twos.”
Six infants at one go. The mind boggled.
“We saw a pair of twins at market this week,” Mrs. Harris said, sipping her tea. “Bea was fascinated.”
Michael stared at his own tea. “Why was Bea at market with you?” He posed the question calmly, but taking Bea out like that had been a violation of very clear orders.
“Because the girl wants fresh air from time to time and to be free of her younger brother.”
Patience was a skill for adults as well as children—different forms of patience. “I agree that children need fresh air, such as can be found in London. We’ve discussed this. Bea can go to the park with you at midmornings.” When the parks were least crowded. “She need not tag along when you do the marketing.”
Mrs. Harris wasn’t elderly, but she’d spent three years in a parish workhouse upon becoming widowed. Her two children had died in the first wave of measles to hit the facility, and her own health had suffered considerably.
“Does Bea look like her mother?” Mrs. Harris asked mildly. “Is that the problem? I assume her mother hails from London, and that’s why you’ve been so fretful since we came south.”
Mrs. Harris had many fine qualities, and not prying into Michael’s business ranked high among them. This was as close to prying as she’d ever come.
“My family is in London,” Michael said. “My sister has in-laws and cousins-by-marriage, and my father knows half the clergy in the Home Counties. I have to be careful, and if I’m fretful, I do apologize.” Exhaustion and frustration could do that to a man.
Mrs. Harris considered him by the flickering light of the hearth fire. Outside, the winter wind moaned and distant bells tolled. The walk back to Lambeth would be hellish.
“Do you know nothing at all about Bea’s mama?”
“I know Bea’s mother survived the birth by about half a year, but never truly recovered. When the mama succumbed to influenza, the child’s father was not in a position to care for her, and then he fell ill too. My church duties gave me an opportunity to intervene when Bea was orphaned. She’s growing up in a loving home as a result.” Not quite the whole truth, but as good as.
“You have a novel view of church duties, Mr. Delancey. I thought I’d like London, myself, but I don’t.”
If Mrs. Harris piked off, Michael would… cope, somehow, but not easily. “The winters are the worst. Once the coal smoke abates, London can be quite pleasant.”
“We had coal smoke in Yorkshire, though I prefer peat smoke. It’s the people. Too many of them, too many living in misery, and the whole place is one stinking temple to mammon.”
Mrs. Harris was merely grumbling then, which Michael understood quite well. “I could not have put it better myself, but I have found extra work here, and that means extra coin.”
Michael’s housekeeper heaved up the universal sigh of exasperated women the world over. “You need extra work, sir, only because life in London comes so dear. It’s late, and you doubtless want to be on your way. I’ll mind the pennies, and you cease worrying over a little trip to market for our Bea. It’s not like you stole her, after all.”
Michael decided against a piece of stale shortbread. “Until next week, then, and my thanks for all your hard work. The children and I are lucky to have you. I’ll lock up on the way out.”
“Mind how you go, sir. It’s colder than the devil’s privy out there. Until next Sunday.”
He left her in the shadowy, cozy kitchen dunking her stale shortbread in her weak tea. Seven nights before he could return, and they would be long, anxious nights. Michael arranged Dorcas’s latest scarf around his face, neck, and ears and locked himself out of the house.
Mrs. Harris was right about London being expensive, and she was doubtless right about Bea’s questions growing increasingly awkward. She wasn’t right about everything, though.
It was like Michael had stolen Bea. It was exactly like that.
He emerged into the alley, bent into the bitter wind, and started walking for Lambeth.
Chapter Six
“Do you like living in London?” Mr. Delancey posed the question from the divan, where Psyche had situated him, another study of the male in his prime at his leisure. He lay on his back, one foot on the floor, the other knee bent.
A gentlemanly faun in repose.
His boots sat on the floor at the end of the sofa, his cravat was draped over the sofa arm, his coat and waistcoat slung over the back… and the composition was not coming together at all.
“I’m supposed to say yes, of course, I love London,” Psyche replied, rising to move Mr. Delancey’s boots into the shadows. “The Old Smoke is the throbbing heart of civilization. Art, commerce, culture, politics… Town offers all of that and so much more.”
She collected the waistcoat and coat from the back of the sofa and surveyed the results. “Better. Simpler is usually better. The line from your foot on the floor to the hand flung above your head works, but the rest of it…”
Mr. Delancey sat up and passed her his cravat, a plain linen affair that had long since lost its starch. “Try moving the candles. The sun, or the dominant light source, in an upper corner is so ubiquitous as to be trite. Try putting the candles on the floor beside an open book. The shadows created by placing the illumination below the subject will be interesting.”