LADY MARGARET I PRESUME, do come in.” Mrs. Susannah Elmhirst, a slim, fair-haired woman in her early thirties, with the same warm brown eyes as Father Sebastian, opened the door to the rectory herself. “You found us easily enough, then?”
“We came in a hackney carriage,” Margaret said. “This is Molly, my maid. Thank you so much for permitting me to help out. I don’t know how useful I will be, but I can promise I’ll do my level best.”
Mrs. Elmhirst smiled. “I was surprised when I received your note asking me to call on your mother, for you’re not our usual sort of volunteer, but my brother remembered you very well. You made quite an impression on him.”
“He made a lasting impression on me.”
“He does tend to do that, though he divides opinion. People either love him or loathe him.”
“I can’t imagine why anyone would take against him.”
“Certain individuals resent him hindering their efforts to make money from suffering,” Mrs. Elmhirst said dryly. “Sebastian is a thorn in the side of the Board of Guardians for the Poor, too, which is where he is now, though he has promised he will be home in time to take tea with us later. I thought the best way to introduce you to the parish would be to take you on a little tour. I’m glad to see that you are dressed plainly.”
“I am as eager as my mother to avoid attracting attention here. You see before you Miss Scott. Let us say I am visiting from Edinburgh, where my brother—no, my father—is a minister in one of the poor parishes there, and he has sent me here on a mission to learn from your excellent example. How about that?”
“Goodness, what a fertile imagination you have. You will be a great asset to the children’s storytelling group. Now,” Mrs. Elmhirst continued, addressing Molly, “I think it would be best if you waited here. Our dear indispensable Esther, who is our chief cook, bottle washer, and everything else besides, will be glad of the company. If anyone calls, Esther will know what to do,” she added, turning back to Margaret. “We operate an open house policy here. People come to us with problems at all hours of the day and night. Sebastian prides himself on never turning anyone away. Occasionally, some of them are even ecclesiastical matters!”
“That sounds like an excellent plan,” Margaret agreed. She had been instantly drawn to Father Sebastian, with his charming smile and easy manner. His sister’s smile was similar, lighting up her face and reflected in her eyes, giving her an unexpectedly endearing and rather mischievous look.
“Now, Miss Scott, are you ready for your introduction to the parish?”
“Oh yes, please, but I wish you will call me Margaret. I hope we are going to be friends.”
“In that case, you must call me Susannah. Shall we?”
The rectory sat in the shadow of the church, the front step leading directly onto the street. “It was in a dreadful state of disrepair when Sebastian moved in,” Susannah said, leading the way onto a series of narrow streets. “Though we have made it habitable, there is always another call on our funds which prevents us doing any more than keep it watertight. The houses generally are very cheaply built, and I’m afraid most of the landlords are reluctant to spend money fixing roofs or supplying fresh water. And damp—that is the very worst problem here. Sometimes water is literally running down the walls.”
Her father, Margaret knew, owned an immense portfolio of property, including any number of parochial houses and estate cottages, but he had factors to manage it all. She couldn’t recall him ever mentioning repairs or costs, but if he had, would she have listened? “I am so horribly ignorant,” she said, frowning, “but surely there are laws requiring landlords keep their properties in good repair?”
“There are regulations, but enforcing them is another matter entirely, and a fine balance has to be struck. If a property is actually deemed unfit for habitation, the tenants are made homeless, you see, and alternative accommodation is in very, very short supply. Poor Sebastian spends an enormous amount of time lobbying landlords directly, or via the vestry—that is the parish committee responsible for inspecting houses and sanitation—but with limited success. The men who sit on the committee are very often landlords themselves, and so have an interest in maintaining the status quo.” Susannah smiled ruefully. “They are united in their hearty dislike of my brother. Not that Sebastian gives a fig about that.”
“Aside from telling stories to children,” Margaret said, rather overwhelmed, “I’m not quite sure how I can best be of assistance to you. I’m happy to try my hand at anything, but I’ve no practical skills or experience.”
“Can you sew?”
“Plain stitching, hemming, yes, but anything more intricate—no. Mama once said that my sampler was the finest example she’d ever seen of how not to embroider.”
“There’s not much call for embroidery here, but if you are willing to help with some plain sewing, perhaps teach some of the little ones?”
“I’d love to do that. What else?”
“A good many of Sebastian’s older parishioners cannot read or write, and need assistance sending and receiving correspondence. You could act as his scribe, if you don’t consider that too menial a task. It would relieve some of the burden on him.”
“Oh yes,” Margaret said enthusiastically, imagining herself sitting opposite Father Sebastian at his desk as he dictated letters. “I can absolutely do that. What else?”
Susannah laughed. “Your mother agreed you may spend a few hours a week helping out, no more. I am sure the duchess would consider sewing or letter writing appropriate activities, but as for anything else . . .”
“Oh, please, I don’t want to do only what is considered seemly. I’m not Lady Margaret here, remember? I’m Miss Scott, the practical daughter of the Reverend Scott, and used to getting my sleeves rolled up and getting wired in as Molly would say.”
The screech of a train on the Charing Cross viaduct rattling overhead towards the river made her jump. Clouds of thick black smoke belched from its funnel, dispersing into the already murky grey pall that passed for the London sky.
“If you are truly determined to muck in,” Susannah continued when the train had passed, “there are no end to the things you can do to help out. We have a mothers’ club on a Wednesday. I pay house calls most days to help with whatever needs done. Some of the dwellings are not for the faint-hearted, Lady—I mean, Margaret. When one is poor, cleanliness can be a luxury.”
“You mean the houses are dirty?”
“I mean the occupants smell, not to put too fine a point on it,” Susannah said, grimacing. “Very few of the houses have running water. People have to queue to fill buckets, as the supply is only turned on a couple of times a week. There is a public baths, but it costs thruppence for a cold tub and sixpence for the water to be heated, which for most people here is a luxury they simply can’t afford.”
“I had no idea,” Margaret said, too appalled to begin to imagine what the more intimate sanitary arrangements might be.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. When I first came here, I thought myself a battle-hardened follower of the drum, but there are still days when I am humbled by the deprivation I see. Here, take this,” Susannah said, giving Margaret a little muslin bag tied with tartan ribbon. “I make up these little sachets for Sebastian to carry with him. It’s filled with lavender. I have a tiny patch of garden at the back of the rectory where I manage to grow a few physic herbs. My nose is quite immune to smells, but poor Sebastian struggles, even after all this time.”
Margaret inhaled the sweet scent of the dried lavender and immediately sneezed. If Father Sebastian didn’t let his sensitive nose stop him, then she most certainly wouldn’t. “You say you followed the drum? Do you mean your late husband was a military man?”
“He was indeed. Frederick’s last posting was as a captain in the Light Division under Colonel Yea in the Crimean War. We had been married for five years, and most of it was spent on one campaign or another. I went with him everywhere.”
“You must have been very young when you married,” Margaret said, her admiration for Susannah increasing tenfold.
“I was a bride at eighteen. Our parents wanted us to wait, but Frederick was committed to his army career, and we were very much in love. All we cared about was being together. I knew nothing of the life of a military wife, and I was next to useless when it came to homemaking. Poor Frederick would come home to a fire that refused to light, a dinner that hadn’t been cooked, and a wife in tears, but he never once complained. Fortunately, army wives are a tight-knit little band, and to my astonishment—and Frederick’s—I eventually proved to be most adept at making do.”
“You were obviously very happy,” Margaret said, touched by the other woman’s tender smile.
“Oh, very, right up until the end. He was—Frederick was wounded in the battle to take the Great Redan and lost a limb. It’s a horribly common occurrence, when facing cannon fire. Unfortunately, gangrene set in, and in the end, he was too weak to survive.”
“You were with him?” Margaret asked, a lump in her throat.
“To the bitter end. In that sense, I was more fortunate than many other wives. Now,” Susannah continued brusquely, “your nose will have informed you that is the vinegar works over there. Here we have one of the parochial schools run by our church, and just across the road another, a British school which is run by Nonconformists. Through there, you can see Nelson Square, which is a little oasis of greenery and has some of the better housing in the area, but we are headed further over to the more deprived streets.”
Margaret scurried after her, her eyes wide, her ears assaulted by the clatter of barrows, carts, and horses; the screeching of the trains rattling overhead; and the rhythmic hammering from the many building sites. Her nose had grown accustomed to the smell of horse manure, which was all-pervasive in every corner of the metropolis, but it mingled here with the smoke from factories, the mud that oozed between the cobble-stones, and the sickly sweet smell of rotting vegetables in the gutters. Surreptitiously, she took another sniff of the lavender sachet.
“And here,” Susannah announced, “we have the workhouse.”
The huge building stood at the far end of the market where Margaret had first encountered Father Sebastian. The red brick was tarnished almost black in places, and the many windows were mean and small. An imposing gate led to an even more imposing portico.
“The size of the building, unfortunately, is testament to the extent of the need,” Susannah said grimly.
Margaret shuddered. “It looks like a prison. You would have to be absolutely desperate to summon the courage to knock on that door.”
“Homeless, penniless, and usually starving. Everything possible is done to discourage supplicants and to make them as miserable as possible while they are in the workhouse.”
“That’s barbaric!”
“Poor relief is funded from the parish rates. In impoverished parishes, such as this, there are many people in need but few ratepayers, and this heaps pressure on available funds.”
“So they deliberately make desperate people miserable?”
“In order to make the alternatives more attractive,” Susanna said bitterly. “Even if it means risking gaol.”
Like the woman who stole the rabbit, Margaret thought. “Do women really abandon their newborn babies on the doorstep, as I’ve heard?”
“Tragically, they do.”
“Because they can’t afford to feed them?”
“That is one reason,” Susannah said, looking uncomfortable. “Lady Margaret . . .”
“I am not a fragile flower to be protected from the realities of life. Please don’t spare my blushes.”
“If you must have it, they are more often than not women whose child has no father.”
“You mean women of the night?”
“No, I don’t. I mean servants who have been abused by their masters, girls who have been foolish enough to succumb to the blandishments of the chap they’ve been walking out with. Young women desperate to save their reputations or their livelihoods but quite unable to do so and still keep their child.”
Margaret stared at the huge workhouse door. If the vile story told about her in the Morning Post had been true, what would have happened to her child? They would have taken it away from her, but what would have happened to it? In that moment, it didn’t matter that there had never been a child. The fury that gripped her made her hands curl into fists. Looking at that door, she tried to imagine a young woman like herself creeping up under cover of darkness, clutching a screaming bundle to her chest.
“Do they leave notes? Names? Do these poor women ever know what becomes of the little ones?”
“I believe it is thought to be for the best not to maintain any ties. Each workhouse has its own method of naming the children.” Susannah forced a smile. “You know, there are worse lives. There is a school attached to this workhouse that provides a basic education for both girls and boys. When they are of age to work, they are found a trade or placed into service. If they are sick, there is a dispensary. The food is nutritious if not exactly tasty—and it’s a lot better than the poor fare our soldiers endure when on campaign. And talking of Christian soldiers, here comes my brother.”
Father Sebastian was dressed all in black, the skirts of his coat flying out as he strode towards them, a smile lighting up his face. “Lady Margaret, welcome to our humble parish.” Doffing his hat, he made a bow.
“It is a pleasure to be here, Father Sebastian. But you should know that I am to be plain Miss Scott.”
“The daughter of a Scottish man of the cloth, who has come to see what examples of our good works she can take back to Edinburgh,” Susannah elaborated, with a wink.
“An excellent cover story. One of your own making? Then you will be a welcome addition to Susannah’s Saturday and Sunday schools.”
“If I can manage to get away, then I would be delighted to attend.”
To her embarrassment, Margaret felt her cheeks colour under his scrutiny. Father Sebastian was not conventionally good-looking. His mouth was too generous, his nose too decided, but he exuded a beguiling natural charm. His hair had a wave that he made no attempt to tame with the foul Macassar oil that far too many men used to sculpt their locks. Though Susannah had informed her that he was twenty-seven years old, he looked boyishly younger. And, goodness, he had the most delightful smile and a way of looking directly at one, as if he was hanging on every word. Unlike some other men she could think of, who treated her conversation merely as a convenient stopgap to allow them to formulate their next sentence.
“Well, now,” he said, beaming, “has Susannah shown you enough of our little patch of God’s earth? Are you ready for a cup of tea?”
“Actually, Seb, I’m going to leave you to escort Miss Scott back to the rectory,” Susannah said. “I have a call to make just around the corner from here. Would you mind, Margaret?”
Would she mind! Repressing this unworthy leap of excitement, she shook her head. “The last thing I want to be is a hindrance to either of you. Unless you would prefer that I came with you?”
“Not on this occasion,” Susannah answered, to Margaret’s secret relief. “Mary Webb’s daughter, who is only thirteen, is with child. I have yet to establish the full story, but it seems she is too far gone for them to consider any form of drastic remedy. It has taken me a while to gain her trust. I don’t want to introduce her to another stranger at this point.”
“Thirteen! That is two years younger than my baby sister. The man responsible should be put in gaol.”
“The law deems twelve to be of age to consent. What I haven’t yet been able to fathom is if the child did in fact do so. Walk back with Sebastian. I shouldn’t be too far behind you.”
“It is shocking but sadly not uncommon, I’m afraid,” Father Sebastian said, as they watched Susannah hurry away.
“What will happen to the baby?” Margaret asked, eyeing the forbidding entrance to the workhouse. “Will it end up there?”
“Unless the grandmother passes it off as her own, which happens more often than you might imagine. But that, I’m afraid, depends on whether she can persuade her husband to go along with the deceit. In the end it will come down to what is considered the lesser of two evils. And money, of course. Everything comes down to money in the end, around here. Shall we?”
Margaret fell into step beside him. “The woman who stole the rabbit the day we met, you remember? You said that was about money.”
“Peggy, like many in this parish, is struggling to keep the wolf from the door. She takes in laundry, and her husband sells flowers at the market. They’ve five little ones. The eldest is seven, I think—Susannah would know. The long and the short of it is, she pawned some of the laundry she’d been paid to wash, giving the cash to her husband to buy blooms, intending to redeem her bond when he sold them later that day. Sadly, her husband drank and gambled the funds away instead, so in desperation she stole the rabbit to raise the money to get the laundry out of hock and keep her job.”
“That’s simply awful! What happened?”
“I managed to smooth things over with the stall-holder. Fortunately, Peggy had the sense to use a legitimate pawnbroker, so she wasn’t in debt to one of the sharks that feed on the unfortunate and needy.”
“Susannah said you make enemies by helping people.”
“You can’t do the work I do without treading on a few toes. Moneylenders, shopkeepers who charge a small fortune for credit, landlords who won’t make repairs, governors and vestrymen who won’t spend a penny more than the bare minimum, they all like to point the finger of blame at me. But I’ve a thick skin, and not only am I sure I’m in the right of it,” Father Sebastian said with a wry smile, “I’ve God on my side.”
“And any right-minded decent person, too, I should hope.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you, but there’s scores of so-called upstanding citizens who would be happy to see the back of me.”
“Did you have words with Peggy’s husband?”
“Heavens, no. He’d view it as meddling in his affairs and it wouldn’t be me who’d suffer the consequences.”
Margaret shuddered. “Surely she won’t end up in that dreadful place back there.”
“A last resort, but a sadly necessary one for some. Husbands and wives are kept apart, you know, and siblings, too. We do what we can, distributing coals and food to keep people in their own homes, but the parish purse has its limits. My bishop is of the opinion that those who can’t help themselves should be left to God’s mercy, but what His Grace doesn’t know won’t harm him.”
“That sounds somewhat heretical!”
“Ah no, I’m simply a practical man who believes there’s more than one way to bring God into people’s lives. You can’t frighten people with eternal damnation if they’re already living in hell, Lady Margaret, and you can’t nurture the spirit if the body is starving. To me, that’s just common sense. We’re very grateful, Susannah and I, for your interest in our parish.”
“I simply want to help,” Margaret said earnestly, “even more now that I know a little of what you do. I have not much to offer, but I am willing to learn.”
“Then that is all that counts, for it shows you have a good heart.”
“Susannah suggested that I could help you with your parish correspondence. One thing I can do is write a neat hand.”
“That is a most excellent idea. Bureaucracy is my biggest bugbear. What else has my sister suggested?”
“Teaching children sewing. Oh, and telling them stories.”
“Clever Sue, to pass that task on to you. She’s an eminently practical woman, my sister, and terrifyingly well-organised, but she’s a bit too—let us say, restrained—to be a good storyteller. While you now, my instincts are telling me that you are the type to throw yourself into it with gusto. Am I mistaken?”
Margaret burst out laughing. “No, you are quite right. I love making up stories for children, and telling them, too, for what it’s worth.”
“Oh, it’s worth a great deal more than some would credit. Life can be tough around here, even for little ones.”
“Then anything I can do to make life easier, I will do. But I don’t just want to dispense charity, Father Sebastian, I want to understand why charity is required in the first place.”
“Finding the root cause and doing something to alleviate it is exactly why I am here.” He smiled down at her. They had reached the rectory. She stopped to allow him to open the front door. He paused in the act of brushing past her and their eyes met. It was the strangest feeling, as if the breath had been knocked out of her. She was sure, in that moment, he felt it, too. But then he opened the door and muttered something about fetching tea, and she decided she must have imagined it after all.