Suzanne had no idea how she’d been manipulated into entering Mrs. Armbruster’s carriage. She hadn’t had much of a choice. Her only alternative had been to strike the older woman. Or perhaps scream at the top of her lungs.
She’d been impotent in the face of the older woman’s implacable determination.
The vehicle was not as luxurious as her own, but then, her carriage had been a gift from her husband on their second anniversary. As if a vehicle was enough of an inducement to ignore George’s straying from the marital bed. She’d pretended not to notice and, later, not to care. The terrible thing about pretense was that sometimes it became real.
Her hand on the bottom of the window was warm even through her gloves. The sun was insistent about brightening the day. She pulled her hand down and placed one atop the other at her waist.
“It’s not just money we’re after,” the older woman said. “These poor babies need more than that. Food first, it’s true, but they also need kindness. They need someone to care for them, Your Grace, and you struck me as the type of person who would care.”
“You don’t know me, Mrs. Armbruster. Nor did you when you first came to see me. What gave you the notion I would be interested in a hospital?”
The other woman shook her head. “No, Your Grace, not just a hospital. It’s called Haven Foundling Hospital.”
She was going to be sick. She couldn’t possibly visit such a place, but she had the inkling that whatever she said would be countered by this most insistent woman. She had to do something, anything, to get Mrs. Armbruster to turn the carriage around and take her home. She just wanted—desperately needed—an end to this. Hopefully before anything more terrible happened.
“Recently we took a few babies from St. Pancras Workhouse,” Mrs. Armbruster was saying. “That despicable place stank of sewage, Your Grace. Flies were allowed to breed everywhere and the poor infants had been left to lie for hours in their own waste.”
Suzanne closed her eyes and wished that the woman would stop talking. She and God had an arrangement. He would no longer punish her and she wouldn’t pray. She was not going to betray their truce now by slipping and praying that He would do something to quiet Mrs. Armbruster. Not that God would listen. He hadn’t been listening for two years.
“I realize that Spitalfields is a terrible place, Your Grace. Father Gilbert and the Sisters of Mercy have recently opened a refuge on Providence Row. It’s a place where destitute women and children can find a meal and a bed at night. But we know there is always more of a need than there is an answer to that need.”
She’d heard of Spitalfields at one of her father’s innumerable political dinners. Someone had described it as Hell on earth and had then apologized profusely to the assembled guests.
She mutely nodded, turning to the window again.
In the past few minutes the merry sun had vanished. Houses leaned together, obscuring the view of the sky. The crowded London streets had altered as well. The color of the pavement was darker and had a slick and slimy look to it. An odor came to her then of an open sewer or the Thames in previous summers. She held her handkerchief to her nose and wondered if Mrs. Armbruster came this way every day. Or was this journey only to impress upon Suzanne the dire conditions of the people living in Spitalfields?
Only a few people were visible. The women who stood on the street corners had stark white faces with pale mouths and dark shadowed eyes. How odd to realize that she and a woman of the streets had the same lack of hope, the same disinterested view of the world.
The men were thin, startled easily, and glanced around nervously before their eyes settled on the passing carriage. Their looks were hungry and not simply for food. They wanted what she had without knowing the price she’d paid for it.
“Why?” Suzanne asked, turning to Mrs. Armbruster.
“Why you?” The woman smiled brightly again.
Suzanne shook her head. “No. Why you?”
For the first time, Mrs. Armbruster looked taken aback. Suzanne could see that she was formulating an answer. No doubt something that sounded good but was far from honest.
She pressed her advantage. “Why you, Mrs. Armbruster? What about the situation inspired you, particularly, to do something? To raise money? To attempt to change the conditions of these children?”
The other woman’s gaze settled on her hands. Although Mrs. Armbruster wore gloves, Suzanne could tell that her knuckles were swollen and her thumbs disfigured from arthritis.
“I had a maid,” she finally said. “A good girl. Tenny was her name. She came from Ireland and was as bright a soul as you could ever meet. She and I looked like mother and daughter with our red hair. But Tenny’s eyes were as green as the hills of Ireland.”
Suzanne didn’t interrupt the woman, even though she was certain the tale didn’t end well.
“She left my employ, I’m sorry to say, but at the time I was happy for her. She benefitted herself by taking up service in a wealthy merchant’s home.” Mrs. Armbruster took a deep breath, let it out, and continued Tenny’s story. “It wasn’t an advancement at all, poor thing. Instead, she got herself with child and was dismissed.”
The older woman stared out at the sight of Spitalfields.
“She didn’t come to me, and I wish she had. I would have spared her the agony of her actions. She put her child in the care of a woman who promised to look after it while Tenny worked. The infant died only three weeks later and Tenny was beside herself. She passed not long after and although the physician said she died of natural causes, I think it was a broken heart, myself.”
She turned to look at Suzanne. “Had she placed the infant with an orphanage or a workhouse, the effect would have been the same. The child would probably still have died. Most infants do in those circumstances.”
A band tightened around Suzanne’s chest, keeping her heart from bursting. She could barely breathe, but somehow she asked a question of the older woman. “But they don’t with your organization?”
“No,” Mrs. Armbruster said flatly. “They don’t. We give each baby individual care and pride ourselves on the fact that each thrives under it. Yet we have a list of nearly five hundred women and their children who desperately need help. I don’t know how many of them are still alive, Your Grace. I do know that we could have saved most of them.”
“Have they no place to go?” she asked.
“One would think their families would take them in, but that isn’t the case, regrettably. They’ve shamed their relatives and they want nothing to do with them.”
“Not even for the sake of the child?”
“Unfortunately, the child is seen as expendable.” Mrs. Armbruster’s voice was dull. Gone was her bright smile, and tears pooled in her eyes. “That’s why, Your Grace, I’m appealing to you.”
She didn’t want to help. She didn’t want anything to do with Mrs. Armbruster and her Foundling Hospital. She wanted to be returned to Marsley House now, as swiftly as the horses could carry her. She wanted to retreat to her suite, bolt the door behind her, and take some of Ella’s tonic, the better to forget everything.
“We exist not only to save those poor children, Your Grace, but to give their mothers a chance once more to enter society. We teach them to read, do sums, and write. We train them in various positions so that they are able to support their children. When the children get older, we provide a school for them.”
“All of which sounds exceedingly virtuous, Mrs. Armbruster. If you’ll return me home I’ll communicate with my solicitor and ensure you are given a generous sum.”
“But that’s not enough, Your Grace.”
It was assuredly going to have to be. She could not tolerate much more. Her hands were clammy. Her heart was beating entirely too fast. Her stomach was churning. She was going to be deathly sick in front of the woman, in front of all of London, but she didn’t care as much about that as the feeling that she was breaking in two.
What had she said to the woman to give the impression that she was interested in this cause? She suspected that she’d said almost anything in order to keep the woman from going on and on about her charity. People normally didn’t mention children around her. They knew enough to keep silent on that topic. She doubted that Mrs. Armbruster had been as tactful and now she was trapped in a carriage with the woman.
Any moment now and her heart was going to spill out of her chest. It would go tumbling down over her bodice, her skirt, and throw itself out the door of the carriage, there to be run over by the wide wheels.
What did she need with a heart, anyway? Hers had been dead for years.
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the seat.
“Please, Mrs. Armbruster. I’m feeling unwell. I need to return home.”
“But Your Grace, we’re here. We’ll get you a bracing cup of tea and all will be well, you’ll see.”