Supposing we cannot find his parents, what shall we do? she asked.
I shall have to take him to a home which looks after destitute children.
Do you mean the Foundling Hospital?
No, that only takes the children of unmarried mothers and only then if the mother can be enabled to find work and redeem herself. I am thinking of the Hartingdon Home.
Hartingdon? she queried in surprise.
Yes. Do you know of it?
No, but can it have anything to do with Earl Hartingdon?
Not the Earl, but his daughter. Lady Eleanor is its main benefactor, through a charitable trust. Why, do you know her?
We are distantly related, she said with a wry smile. She did not know Eleanor well and, on the few family occasions when they met, she had found the lady aloof and distant. She could not imagine her stooping to handle an urchin such as she had just rescued and spoiling her fashionable clothes. I did not know she had given her name to an orphanage.
It is more than an orphanage. It is the headquarters of The Society for the Welfare of Destitute Children. We also find foster homes for some of the children.
We? she queried.
I am one of its trustees and, though we take children into the Hartingdon when there is no help for it, I firmly believe that a loving home is far more beneficial to a childs well-being than an institution.
A loving home, yes, but how many foster homes are? You hear such dreadful tales about foster mothers beating and starving the children in their care and not only in London. The countryside is as bad, if not worse. I cannot understand why the women do the job if they have no feeling for children.
It is a way of earning a few pence, he said. And it can be done in conjunction with looking after their own.
But that is half the trouble. If it comes to a choice between feeding their own or feeding the foster child, there is no question who will come first, is there? She spoke with such feeling, he looked sharply at her and wondered what had brought it about. Did you know that less than half the children sent out like that survive?
Yes, I did, he said quietly. I deplore the practice of sending little children away from home to be fostered, just as much as you do, Mrs Meredith. The gentry do it in order not to have a troublesome baby on their hands, but they are usually careful to choose a woman who is known to them and whom they can trust. At the other end of the scale there are poverty-stricken mothers, with no husbands, or husbands that cannot be brought to book, who cannot cope with unwanted children and farm them out for a few pence a week. That is where the trouble lies.
It was coming upon one such foster mother quite by accident that had set Simon on the course he had taken. The war against Napoleon had ended and he had been making his way to Grove Hall, his uncles estate, simply because it was the only home he had known; until he set up an establishment of his own, there was nowhere else to go.
He had stopped for refreshment at a wayside inn and was sitting outside in the evening sunshine enjoying a quart of ale while his horse was fed, watered and rested, when he saw three small children being driven along the road by what he could only describe as a hag. The children were in rags and the woman was filthy. She had them tied to each other by a rope, and was hauling them along like cattle. She stopped in the inn yard, tied the children to a rail normally used for tethering horses and went inside.
She was there a long time, while the children, unable to move about, sank to the ground and waited. They were so thin as to be skeletal, eyes sunk deep in their sockets and their arms bruised by fingermarks. They were so listless they did not even try to fight against their bonds. He walked over to them, squatted down and tried to talk to them, but they looked blankly at him. It was more than he could stomach. He went into the parlour where the woman was sitting with a pot of ale and a meat pie in front of her. Madam, are you not going to share your pie with your children? he had asked mildly.
He was answered with invective and a desire that he should mind his own business. If you thinks Impaid well eno to indulge them with meat pie, you thinks wrong, she told him. Theyll get their gruel when I get emome.
He had begun arguing with her, telling her she was a disgrace to womanhood and more besides. He had been so angry he did not notice the rest of the inns clientele had turned on him until one of them spoke. You leave us alone, mister. If it werent for coves like you, taking your pleasures wherever you fancy, thered be no need for parish nurses. The brats have been abandoned by their mothers and, if Mother Cody hant taken em in, theyd be dead in a ditch long afore now.
That is no reason to treat them like animals. He had refused to be intimidated, although the dreadful woman was threatening him with the knife she had been using to cut up her pie. Had she been a man, he would have had no compunction about disarming her and knocking her to the ground, but he could not do that, repulsive as she was, and he could not beat a room full of men, especially as no law had been broken. Instead he had given her half a guinea, told her to spend it on food for the children, and left, musing about those poor mites. How many more were there like those three? And should women like that not be regulated and their homes inspected periodically?
If he had not been so disappointed by his reception when he arrived at Grove Hall, he might have put the matter from his mind. His aunt, who was never as hard and unbending as his uncle, was pleased to see him, but the presence of Isobel, at one time betrothed to him, but since married to his cousin, stirred up all his old anger and he knew, much as he loved the place, he could not stay there. He needed an outlet for his restless energy, something to make him feel he was doing some good and it was then he remembered those children. It was not enough to say something should be done, he must do it himself, and thus was born The Society for the Welfare of Destitute Children, intended, in some small way, to address the problem, not only of the children, but also his own restless spirit. The first children he had rescued were the three he had seen at the inn, though Mrs Cody demanded an exorbitant sum by way of compensation for the loss of her livelihood.
Then I am surprised you condone it. Kates voice brought him out of his reverie.
We are very careful where we send the children in our care, he said stiffly. The women are questioned closely and their homes inspected.
So they may be, she said. And no doubt the women put on a good show when they are being interviewed. What happens when you turn your back on them?
You are very scathing, he said. You ought not to brand them all with the same iron. Some do their best.
I am sorry. I am a little too outspoken sometimes.
Do not be sorry. It is good to speak ones mind occasionally.
She laughed. I do it a little too often, I think. But the question does not arise here because you cannot take this child anywhere if his parents are looking for him.
I shall do my best to reunite them. The Home is full to overflowing as it is; finding more room will be difficult.
The area around Covent Garden was extremely busy, with stall holders, costermongers, porters and farmers with loaded carts all rushing about as if they did not have a minute to lose, and he wondered why he was persevering. He could just as easily have taken the boy straight to the Hartingdon Home and squeezed him in somewhere, but, like Mrs Meredith, he imagined the boys mother frantically searching for him. On the other hand, she might not be searching; she might have abandoned him as many another mother had done who could not cope. In which case, the Home it would have to be.
They went from stall to stall, spoke to several of the little urchins who congregated there because there was a chance that they might either be given or filch some food from the stall holders, but no one recognised Joe. Now what? Kate asked. She had been right about the needle in a haystack. London was a very big haystack and perhaps they were looking in the wrong area after all.
Let us try over there. He pointed to the steps of a church, surprised that she was still with him. He had expected her to have given up and gone home long before now. He wondered what she would have done about the little urchin if he had not been there. She was evidently very fond of children and not afraid of a little dirt.
Young Joe gave a sudden cry of recognition and wriggled to be put down. Simon set him down and he ran to a woman sitting on the tail of a cart, nursing a mewling infant, surrounded by squashed fruit, cabbage leaves and horse droppings. She looked up from contemplating the babys head to address the boy. Where ave yer bin, you little devil? she said, clipping him round the ear with the flat of her hand. Ill tan your hide, that I will. I told you not to run off, didnt I?
Kate was surprised how young she was. Her hard life made her look older than she was, but she could not have been more than twenty. She must have conceived Joe when she was about sixteen and was probably at that time a pretty little thing, probably could be again if her circumstances were different.
The woman stopped berating the boy to look up at Simon and Kate, her eyes widening at what appeared to be a couple of gentry. Did you fetch him back?
Yes, he had wandered quite a long way from here, Simon said.
Then I am beholden to you. She paused. I reckon Ive seen you around ere afore.
You may have, he said. I am Dr Redfern.
Ive eard of you. I eard tell you take children and give them a good ome, clothes and food and learnin.
Yes, but only under certain circumstances and if their parents agree.
Oh, is that why you brought im back, sos you could take him?
No, I thought you might be worried about him.
So I was, but I cant keep an eye on im and do me work at the same time. I have to mind the stall. And theres the babby to look after too.
Do you want me to take him?
Be better than runnin wild about ere.
Will your husband agree to that? Kate asked, horrified that she could even think of parting with her child.
You cn ask im if you can find im, she said flatly. I aint seen ide nor air of im these last six months. Im at my wits end.
It was just the sort of family the Society had been set up to help and Simon, having discovered her name was Janet Barber, asked to be shown where they lived.
Mrs Barber led them from the market into the area known as Seven Dials, a notorious slum where seven of the meanest roads in the city converged. Here she took them down Monmouth Street, lined with second-hand clothing shops, pawnbrokers and cheap food shops, and into an alley, where she stopped outside a tenement whose front steps were black with grime and whose door hung drunkenly on one hinge. There, she said, pointing.
Kate, who fully expected the doctor to turn away in disgust, was surprised when he indicated the woman should lead on. They had attracted quite a gathering, but none seemed hostile and she supposed it was because the doctor was well known and respected. They simply stood and stared.
Kate, worrying about the little boy, was even more concerned when she saw the filthy room, which was hardly fit for animals, let alone human beings. There was a bed of sorts, heaped with rags, a table and a couple of chairs, a few pots and pans on a shelf and that was all. Everywhere was covered in a thick layer of grime and the smell was nauseating.
You goin to take im, then? Mrs Barber asked, as Kate stood on the threshold, reluctant to venture inside.
If you are sure, I will take him until you can get on your feet again. If your circumstances improve, then Joe can come home again.
She laughed. Pigs might fly.
He gave her half a crown, which she gleefully accepted, then told the boy to say goodbye to his mother and hoisted him once more on his shoulders. It was not a satisfactory state of affairs and he wished he could do more. He wished with all his heart that such poverty did not exist and that all children were as plump and happy as those Mrs Meredith had been playing with earlier in the day.
I hate separating families, he told her as they set off for the Hartingdon Home. And would not do so, if any other way could be found.
Could they not be helped with a little money, so they could stay together?
That might be possible, but a decision like that is not mine alone. The Committee have to consider all aspects. If the father is a wastrel or a drunkard, then it would be throwing good money after bad. If there is some hope, then we will do what we can and the boy can return to his parents. That is where we differ from the Foundling Hospital. Once children are taken in there, their names are changed and they rarely see their mothers again. We do our best to restore them to their families.
The Hartingdon Home was situated in a converted building in Maiden Lane. It was a busy area, being so close to Covent Garden market, but it was certainly a step above Seven Dials. Joe was handed over to the housekeeper who gave him a slice of bread and jam and a glass of milk, which he downed with relish.
Simon waited until he was settled, then took Kate to the office where he invited her to be seated while he completed the necessary paperwork for Joes admission. Keeping accurate records is an important part of the work, he explained. If it is not done immediately, it might be forgotten. Do you mind?
Not at all. She took a chair on the opposite side of the desk. I am very interested in your work.
We have to record their names and addresses, the names of their parents and occupations and exactly what action we took and why, he said, wondering how genuine her interest was. She did not look like the usual wealthy matron who visited and inspected everything before donating. She was young for a start, and though she looked delightful in her simple gown, she was not dressed to impress. And when they leave, we write down the circumstances and where we have sent them. In another book we have the details of all the foster mothers we use and how much they are paid. And, of course, there are accounts to be kept up to date.
Are you here every day? she asked him.
I come most days, but I also visit the foster homes and report on those.
Kate had lost most of her nervousness and all of her distrust and sat down to watch him at work. His hair, as he bent over the desk, was fair and very thick. One strand fell over his face as he wrote. He had a straight nose and a firm mouth. She noticed his hands, one spread across the ledger, the other holding a pen, strong, capable hands with long fingers and nails neatly manicured. She could easily imagine him comforting the sick and all his female patients falling head over heels in love with him.
He put down his pen and carefully dusted the wet ink before looking up at her and catching her watching him with a slight tilt to the corners of her mouth as if she had found something amusing in what he was doing. He wanted to ask what it was, but decided he did not know her well enough. Now that is done, would you like me to show you round?