“We would like to ask a few questions of you, if we may.”
The matron’s face didn’t change, but it was clear the idea held little appeal. “What would I get out of it?”
“I’m willing to donate my medical services to the children in the infirmary.”
“We don’t need a doctor. The Sisters of Mercy come three times a week to minister and do nursing.” The door began to close.
“For your time,” Helen said, discreetly extending a coin to her.
The matron’s hand closed over it, her eyelids flicking briefly as she realized it was a half-crown. Standing back, she opened the door wider and let them inside.
They entered an L-shaped main room flanked by offices on one side and a nursery on the other. A squalling infant could be heard from the nursery. A woman walked back and forth past the doorway with the infant, trying to soothe it.
Straight ahead, through a pair of open double doors, Helen could see rows of children seated at long tables. A multitude of busy spoons scraped against bowls.
“They’ll eat for ten more minutes,” Mrs. Leech said, consulting a pocket watch. “That’s all the time I have.” A few curious children had hopped off their benches and had wandered to the doorway to stare at the visitors. The matron glared at them. “Go back to the table, if you know what’s good for you!” The children scuttled back into the dining hall. Turning back to Dr. Gibson, Mrs. Leech shook her head wearily. “Some of them insist their mothers will come back for them. Every bloody time there’s a visitor, they make a fuss.”
“How many children do you have at the orphanage?” Dr. Gibson asked.
“One hundred twenty boys, ninety-seven girls, and eighteen infants.”
Helen noticed that one girl had stayed half-hidden behind the door. Slowly the child looked around the jamb. Her hair, a very light shade of blonde, had been chopped into short, uneven locks that stuck out in all directions. It had matted down in some places, giving her the appearance of a half-molted chick. She stared fixedly at Helen.
“Have any of the mothers come back in the past?” Dr. Gibson asked.
“Some used to.” Mrs. Leech looked surly. “Troublesome bitches treated this place like free lodging. Brought their children here, left them to live off charity, and came back to fetch them whenever they pleased. The in-’n-outs, we called them. So the Board of Governors made admission and discharge procedures as complicated as could be, to stop the in-’n-outs. But it’s made more work for me and my staff, and we already—” She stopped with a wrathful glare as she noticed the little girl, who had taken a few uncertain steps toward Helen. “What did I tell you?” the matron exploded. “Go back to the table!”
The child hadn’t taken her eyes—wide, frightened, awed—from Helen. “Mamma?” Her voice was small, a mere quaver in the large room.
She darted forward, her spindly legs a determined blur. Ducking beneath the matron’s arm, she threw herself at Helen, clutching her skirts. “Mamma,” she repeated over and over, in little prayerful breaths.
Frail and small though the child was, the impact had nearly knocked Helen off-balance. She was distressed to see the child yanking frantically at her chopped-off hair, as if trying to find a lock that was long enough to look at. Helen reached down to stop the desperate pulling. Their fingers brushed, and the tiny hand fastened to hers in a grip that hurt.
“Charity!” Mrs. Leech snapped. “Take your grubby paws off the lady.” She drew back to cuff the child’s head, but without even thinking, Helen blocked the swipe with her own arm.
“Her name is Charity?” Dr. Gibson asked quickly. “Charity Wednesday?”
“Yes,” the matron said, glaring at the little ragamuffin.
Dr. Gibson shook her head in amazement, turning to Helen. “I wonder what caused the child to—” She stopped, looking down at the girl. “She must have noticed the color of your hair—it’s so distinctive that—” Her gaze flickered back and forth between the two of them. “God’s feathered choir,” she muttered.
Helen couldn’t speak. She had already realized how closely Charity resembled her: the dark brows and lashes, the light grayish eyes, the white-blond hair. She had glimpsed herself too in the lost look of a child who had no place in the world.
The little girl rested her head against Helen’s waist. Her grimy face turned upward and her eyes closed, as if she were basking in the feel of sunlight. Exhausted relief had spread over her features. You’re here. You’ve come for me. I belong to someone.
As a child, Helen might have dreamed of a similar moment—she couldn’t remember. All she knew was that it had never happened.
She could hear the matron demanding to know what was going on and what they wanted with Charity, while Dr. Gibson countered with questions of her own. Continuous squalling came from the nursery. The children in the dining hall had become restless. More of them had returned to the doorway, staring and chattering.
Helen reached down to pick up the child. The small body was light and unsubstantial. Charity wrapped her arms and legs around her, clinging like a monkey. The child desperately needed a bath. Several of them. And the orphanage uniform—a blue serge dress and gray pinafore—would have to be burned. Helen longed to take her somewhere clean and quiet, and wash the filth from her, and feed her something warm and nourishing. For a despairing moment, she wondered what it would take to discharge the child from the orphanage, and what on earth she would say to Lady Berwick when she arrived at Ravenel House with her half-sister in tow.
One thing was certain—she wasn’t going to abandon Charity in this place.
“I’m your older sister, darling,” she murmured. “I’m Helen. I didn’t know you were here, or I would have come for you before. I’m taking you home with me.”
“Now?” the child quavered.
“Yes, now.”
As she stood there with the little girl in her arms, Helen realized that the course of her life had just been permanently altered, like a train that had crossed a switch-point and moved onto a new track. She would never again be a woman without a child. A confusion of emotion twisted inside her . . . fear, that no one, not even Kathleen, would agree with what she was doing . . . and grief, because she had lost Rhys, and every step she took was leading her farther away from him . . . and a faint, lonely note of joy. There would be compensations in the future. There would be solace.
But there would never again be a man like Rhys Winterborne.
Helen’s attention was caught by the other two women as they began to argue in earnest.
“Mrs. Leech,” Helen said sharply.
They both fell silent and looked at her.
Helen continued in a tone of command, which she had borrowed from Lady Berwick. “We will wait in one of your office rooms, while you attend to the children in the dining hall. Be quick about it, if you please, as our time is running short. You and I have business to discuss.”
“Yes, miss,” the matron replied, looking thoroughly harassed.
“You may refer to me as ‘my lady,’” Helen said coolly, and took private satisfaction in the woman’s glance of surprise.
“Yes, milady,” came the subdued reply.