The Courtship of the Vicar's Daughter (14 page)

He saw people entering and leaving a doorway with the words
Margate’s
etched into a wooden signpost overhead. A policeman leaned against one of the posts, idly tapping his billy club against the side of his shoe as he watched passersby on the walkway. Seth felt his knees go weak. Would the shop assistants recall his face if he had to prove he’d purchased the items in his canvas bag? His anxiety deepened when the policeman looked in his direction and then past him, as if he were one of the gaslight poles lining the walkway.
You’ve every right to go in there
, Seth reminded himself, his shoulders relaxing a little with relief. The policeman gave him a nod as he approached the door, and Seth actually nodded back.

Halfway through his meal, he noticed that the smattering of other patrons still in the small café were sending curious glances his way. He realized he had been hunched over his bowl of soup and loaf of bread, wolfing it down as if a guard would blow the whistle, signaling the end of mealtime at any minute.

Not one whit did he give for their opinions, these people who lived their lives so blithely, unaware that at this very moment there were hundreds of convicts walking treadmills in not so pleasant surroundings. But as a concession to the manners that once used to matter to him, he forced himself to slow down. In doing so he rediscovered something he’d once taken for granted—that food could taste good as well as fill the belly.

A ripple of feminine laughter came from the window table. Seth started at the sound, but he could see at a glance that the young woman seated there, flush faced and smiling at the young man accompanying her, was not Elaine.

He had effectively blocked out all thoughts of her during the latter years of his term. Why torture oneself with pipe dreams that could never materialize? He was surprised that he could still picture her face so clearly. Could he really leave London without at least trying to see her? What if she hadn’t believed his denial of love and had been waiting for him all of this time? Miracles did happen, or he wouldn’t be sitting here this moment having a meal like any other Englishman.

I have to know
, he thought as he left the café. Even if she had married someone else, at least the finality of the situation would help him to keep her out of his mind for his remaining years. The clock above a draper’s shop showed half-past four. He would have to hurry if he still expected to board a train leaving the city.

He knew he would not be welcome on the Hamilton estate, where Elaine had worked as a chambermaid at the time of their covert courtship. Lord Hamilton hadn’t allowed romances among his domestic staff, but there were only so many half-days off that one could assign the servants without repeating some. And Seth’s and Elaine’s had fallen on Tuesdays. Weather permitting they would walk the mile and a half to Chelsea, where Elaine’s mother and aunt shared a small cottage. They sat at a well-scrubbed table with the two women and drank hot chocolate and played dominos until it was time to hurry back to the estate before the great wrought-iron gates were locked.

The memory was a pleasant one, and he became aware while hailing an approaching hansom cab that he was smiling inanely. He pulled a sober face so as not to frighten away the driver, perched precariously high in the rear of the passenger seat.

“Take yer somewhere, guv’nor?” he called down in a Cockney voice.

“Church Street, Chelsea,” Seth told him.

Some thirty minutes later he was stepping around a clump of weeds in front of a faded whitewashed cottage. His knock went unanswered, and he was about to turn when he heard a noise from inside the cottage. Presently the door opened to reveal a stooped, white-haired woman. Seth remembered her right away as Elaine’s Aunt Phoebe, and he had to restrain himself from leaping across the threshold and catching her up in his arms.

“Yes, sir?” she said in the manner of one who is not used to having callers.

Switching his satchel to his left hand, he removed his cap. “Mrs. Woodruff?”

“Yes.” She tilted her head to study his face. “Who are you?”

“Seth Langford, Mrs. Woodruff. Do you remember me?”

“Who’s there, Mother?” came a voice from another part of the cottage just as recognition flooded the woman’s faded hazel eyes.

“Seth? Is that you?”

He almost laughed for the joy of it. He had not been totally forgotten by the people who mattered to him. “I was let out of prison today.”

“Yes?”

Swallowing, for his mouth had gone suddenly dry, he said, “I’m here to ask about Elaine, Mrs. Woodruff.”

Her expression clouded. “She’s gone.” Before she could say anything else, another face appeared in the doorway over her shoulder. This woman was much younger, perhaps forty years old, with blunt features and a suspicious expression.

“Who’s this, Mother?” she asked, as if Seth were incapable of speech. Nevertheless, he took it upon himself to answer.

“I’m inquiring about Elaine. My name is Seth Langford, and I just want to hear how she is before leaving town.”

The woman’s expression softened just a little. Gently pulling her mother away from the door, she said, “I’m Lucille, Elaine’s cousin. You’d best come inside.”

Seconds later he was seated in the small parlor in a worn armchair. He listened as Lucille recounted somberly how her cousin Elaine had married Jack Norton, who owned a little greengrocery in the east side on Stepney Way. “ … eight years ago,” she continued after a thoughtful pause. “He was considerable older than her but treated her good. They both had to work hard to keep the business goin’, so when Elaine had the baby, her mother—my aunt May—moved into their flat with them over the shop.”

What did you expect?
Seth asked himself, while a hard knot centered itself in his chest.
Her to spend twenty years scrubbing chamber pots in the hopes that you’d come back for her one day?

It was time to catch a train, any train, and the sooner the better. But before he could apologize for his intrusion and get to his feet, Elaine’s elderly aunt mumbled while staring at something visible only in her distant memory. “The shop burned like dry leaves, they told us.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ll tell him, Mother.” Lucille’s chest rose and fell. “Seven years ago last June. It was the wee hours of the mornin’, and the shop burned with the flat above it. The driver of a milk wagon saw Jack at a window. ‘Catch the baby!’ Elaine’s husband called out, and the driver ran under the window and caught him. When he called for Jack to jump, too, he said he had to get his wife and mother-in-law. He never came back.”

The two women became blurs in Seth’s eyes. “Elaine is dead?”

“All dead, except the boy,” the old woman said, rocking her body back and forth.

There was nothing left to say. The agony he’d felt over losing her to an unjust prison sentence was nothing compared to the mental picture evoked upon hearing how she died. As he got to his feet he pushed a fist into his chest, as if he could somehow make the knot go away.
My poor Elaine
.

It was only when Elaine’s cousin had opened the door for him that Seth thought to ask about the child. The woman didn’t answer but looked away for a second.

“You said the driver caught him,” Seth said. “That means he lived, didn’t he?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Who has him now?”

Now she looked straight into his eyes, daring him to judge her. “I had eight of my own to raise at the time, sir, and a husband breakin’ his back at the cotton mill to keep ’em from starvin’. And Mother hadn’t the means nor the strength. We handed him over to the Whitechapel home.”

“An orphanage, you mean?”

Her lips tightened. “Better than leavin’ a basket on the church steps. And now if you please, I’ve Mother’s things to pack. I’m takin’ her with me to Enfield.” The door closed with a final snap, ending Seth’s last tenuous link with Elaine.

Chapter 9

He’s not my child
, Seth reminded himself in the seat of the hansom carrying him to Paddington Station.
This has nothing to do with me
. At Queensway and Bishop’s Bridge Roads, a crossing sweeper who couldn’t have been more than ten years old grinned up at him with gaping teeth. Seth tossed him a shilling.
At least Elaine’s son isn’t having to fend for himself on the streets. He’s fed and sheltered
.

“Just like you were at Newgate,” he muttered. An image came to his mind, a face so beloved that it brought tears to his eyes. How Elaine would have grieved if she could have known what would happen to her child!

“Sir?”

It was the driver, waiting now at the side of his carriage as the remaining daylight was ebbing away.
I could just go have a look at him, reassure myself that he’s well tended
. He owed Elaine that much. And since he would never return to London, this would be his only opportunity. But spend another night in the city he loathed?

“Sir?” Again the driver, this time looking impatient.

Seth gave a sigh. If only he hadn’t stopped at Mrs. Woodruff’s cottage! “Do you know of a reasonable place where I could lodge tonight?”

“Place on Chilworth has cheap lodging. Lumpy mattresses but clean sheets, bland food but plenty of it.”

The driver could have described Buckingham Palace, and Seth could not have been less enthused. It was still London. He was deposited two blocks away at a narrow two-story building set between a butcher’s shop and the apothecary. The mutton stew he was served for supper was the tastiest meal he’d had in ten years, and the bed was like a cloud—a lumpy cloud, perhaps, but infinitely more comfortable than a prison cot.

Thursday morning when habit woke him at six o’clock, the temptation to lie abed for a little while lasted only a couple of seconds. In just a matter of hours, London would be at his back—and the sooner he started, the more distance he would reach before nightfall. Just as soon as he took care of the one little errand that had compelled him to spend the night.

“Whitechapel,” he told the driver of the first hackney he flagged down. “There’s a children’s home there. Do you know of it?”

The man touched the handle of his whip to his forehead. “Aye. On Cable Street.”

Soon Seth was seated in the moving hackney cab. He watched the towering monument fade away into gray mist, for the morning was as overcast as the day before. To his right the Tower of London’s gray stones rose above the press of wagons and carriages, and the masts of the shipping in London Dock cut sharp edges against the sky. As he alighted in front of a three-story building of sooty red brick, The Whitechapel Foundling Home, the first thing he noticed was a sharp unpleasant odor. It was far more irritating to the nostrils than the heavy stench of the Thames, which was but a short walk south. “What do I smell?” he asked as he paid the driver.

The man jerked a thumb toward the north. “Ammonia factory.”

A woman in a gray uniform gown and apron answered his ring and left him in the vestibule. Minutes later an older woman appeared. “I’m Mrs. Briggs, the headmistress,” she told him when he’d introduced himself. “Please follow me.”

Her shoes thumped a dull staccato on the quarried tiles as she led Seth up a long corridor. From all appearances Mrs. Briggs seemed to be a woman who hurried through life. Her graying hair was pinned into a careless knot, her olive-colored linen dress serviceable and free of ornament. Even in her tiny office she sat perched on the edge of her chair as if begrudging having to surrender her body to it.

As she stared expectantly at him, Seth realized he had no idea of the boy’s first name. He mentioned the circumstances that had orphaned him, that he should be seven years of age, and the father’s last name. Mrs. Briggs nodded.

“Thomas Norton,” she said. “Why do you ask about him?”

“I was once acquainted with his mother.”

“Are you his father, Mr. Langford?” she asked, her gray eyes appraising.

Seth bristled at the innuendo but answered with a civil, “I am not.”

“Then I must ask why you’re inquiring about him.”

He would have liked to have known that himself. After a fractional hesitation he replied, “Out of respect for his late mother. I’m leaving the city this morning and just wanted to reassure myself that he’s being well cared for.”

“Does that mean you wish to see him?”

The idea hadn’t entered his mind, but now that she had mentioned it, he supposed he should. Better to take care of everything, since he was already here, than to have regrets later. “May I see him from a distance? He doesn’t know me, so there is no point to our meeting.”

“As you wish.” Again her rapid footsteps proceeded him farther up the corridor. “The children are at breakfast,” she said, reaching for a doorknob at the end. She ushered him through to the other side. A familiar institutional silence was what struck him first. Boys filled chairs surrounding at least two dozen tables, yet the only sounds were the muffled clicks of spoons against tin porridge bowls and an occasional cough. Some waifish eyes strayed curiously in his direction, but for the most part the children ate mechanically.
They would feel right at home in Newgate
, he thought.

“There he is,” Mrs. Briggs whispered beside him. He looked in the direction in which she was pointing. All the young boys looked alike to Seth, especially with their identical brown shirts. But then his eyes locked with those of a lad of about seven. Something in the tilt of his oval face, the way he held his lips together when not spooning porridge through them, made him certain that this was Elaine’s child. Seth could tell even from that distance that he was small for his seven years. There was a surprising air of loneliness about him. It was memories of life on the outside that preyed upon those in prison and even drove some to madness. He would have imagined that a child with no memories beyond institution walls would feel at home.