Never Look Back (21 page)

Although she was shocked, his hangdog expression made her want to laugh. She had seen that look on her brothers’ faces when she caught them out at something.

‘I cannot bring myself to think how she’ll react,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I daresay she’ll threaten to take Tabitha and go back to England. But I have to do it, Matty. A man cannot turn his back on such mammoth suffering and still call himself a man. If Mrs Milson had married a soldier she would expect him to go into battle. I am one of God’s soldiers, and this is my battle. Would she have me desert my duty just for peace and harmony at home?’

Matilda’s heart swelled up with admiration for him. He wasn’t brash like Darius Kirkbright, who truly believed a wife should comply with her husband’s wishes. Giles was a sensitive man who believed marriage should be a true partnership. Now she saw why he hadn’t been talking about his work at home, and she could understand perfectly how troubled he must be by being forced to conceal what he was doing, just to keep his wife content.

‘You are right to fight for those poor people,’ she said softly. ‘But you are wrong to keep it from Madam, however much she might not like it. She has a kind heart, sir, she loves you for what you are too, and though she probably will throw a fit, I think she’ll accept it in time, and help you too.’

He put his elbows on the table and covered his face with his hands for a moment. Matilda watched him, knowing he was wrestling with his conscience.

It was some time before he spoke again. ‘My dear Matty,’ he
said eventually, ‘you are wise beyond your years sometimes, and I agree in principle with everything you’ve said. But I know my wife better than anyone, and I know what would happen if she got only the briefest glimpse of what you saw today. Her fear of dirt and disease is deeply rooted, the real reason she refused to come out of the cabin on the ship was because of those steerage passengers. It was just their presence which made her sick.’

Matilda was tempted to laugh and say he was being silly, but then she recalled Lily had been looking at them fearfully while they were all still on the deck as they sailed down the river Avon. She had always refused Tabitha permission to go up on deck at times when they were allowed up there too. And that was why she was so hard when that little boy died.

‘Maybe that’s so, but she’s got better since then,’ she said stoutly.

‘No Matty, she hasn’t.’ He shook his head. ‘She feels safe in this house, and mixing with the gentlefolk at church. Aside from her glimpse of the dock area when we arrived she imagines that all of New York is much the same as it is around here. I don’t doubt she would assist me in fund-raising for the poor, or the opening of a Foundling Home, just as long as I glossed over the details of the recipients of that charity. I know if the real horrors of it all were revealed to her, she’d –’ He broke off suddenly, as if afraid to say what he feared.

Matilda was just about to retort that Lily would never leave him for that, when suddenly she realized that wasn’t what he imagined at all. Just the deeply troubled expression in his eyes spelled it out, what he was afraid of was pushing his wife over the edge into insanity!

If any other man had hinted at such a thing she would have laughed at him. But Giles Milson was a man who really knew about people, and his own wife better than anyone. She had witnessed Lily’s hysterics and her dark moods so many times herself, and a gut feeling told her he could be right.

‘Is there anything I could do to help?’ she asked.

He gave her a long and thoughtful look before replying. ‘Matty, you’ve put me in a precarious position. On the one hand I’m very glad to find I have an ally in you, but on the other it also means that if I am to continue with my work I have to ask you
to assist me in shielding Mrs Milson from this. But that will put you in an impossible situation too.’

‘Not really,’ she said with a shrug. ‘I know what you are doing is a good thing. Keeping quiet about it is the least I can do. I just wish I could do something more practical.’

When he didn’t reply Matilda wondered if that was the wrong answer. Should she swear never to tell Madam?

‘You could do something more,’ he said eventually. ‘You could work alongside me.’

Matilda’s mouth fell open. ‘How? I’m just a nursemaid.’

‘It’s the talents that come with nursemaiding I need,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘I saw how you reacted to that sick child on the ship, remember. I watched you pick him up, wash him and try to feed him, I saw your tears when he died.’

‘You don’t mean you want me to help in Five Points, do you?’ Her voice rose in her surprise.

‘Who better, Matty? I know you won’t recoil from a dirty child because you were one yourself once. You know too what it is to be lifted out of hunger and poverty. You aren’t squeamish, you have courage and common sense. Do you think you could help in rounding up some of those orphans?’

Matilda wondered fleetingly if he was the one on the edge of insanity. He had told his wife nothing, and now he was proposing to take her servant to help him. She quickly pointed this out to him.

To her further surprise he laughed. ‘But don’t you see that would allay her fears somewhat? She already knows that the church has given funds to open a Foundling Home out in New Jersey. It’s almost ready to receive children. If I tell her that Reverend Kirkbright and I have located some children in need of care and attention, and that we want your help in taking them to the home to ease their distress, she would never imagine they were anything other than ordinary orphans, grieving for their mothers, and she would be only too happy for you to help.’

Matilda didn’t know what to think now. In one way it sounded such terrible deceit. Yet how could it be wicked to rescue sick, hungry children? Especially as the Reverend Kirkbright was involved in the plan?

‘Tell me about this Home?’ she asked.

He leaned closer to her, his eyes shining with excitement. ‘It’s to be called “Trinity Waifs’ and Strays’ Home”, and it will be funded by the parish. It’s a sturdy house, surrounded by open countryside, it was once used as a quarantine hospital. As I said, it’s almost ready, equipped and staffed.’ He paused for a moment, looking into her eyes. ‘Our biggest problem is reaching the right children to fill it, and getting them out of Five Points. As you probably know far better than I do, children living on the streets are suspicious of everyone, even more so of clergymen. With a young woman like yourself with us, someone who can speak their language, listen to their fears, and explain what we are trying to do for them, that problem could be solved.’

Matilda sat for a moment in stunned silence. She applauded what he was intending to do, she wanted to be part of it. Yet she knew this would involve going into that terrible place again and again, and coming home to face her mistress without letting on what she’d seen. Could she really do that?

‘But what about the risk of infection sir?’ she said quietly. ‘No one can reach those children and bring them out of there keeping them at arm’s length. They
will
all be lousy, they may very well be carrying diseases which you or I could bring home to Tabitha. I’m not afraid for myself, only her and Mrs Milson.’

Giles suddenly knew he was right to involve Matilda. Much as he’d always been convinced he was right to rescue these children, keeping it from Lily had put him under such strain that sometimes he felt he couldn’t carry on. By sharing it now, his conviction had come back, and he suddenly saw the road ahead clearing for him. Taking Matilda along with him would ease any of Lily’s suspicions. He felt the way he had at twenty, full of vigour and enthusiasm.

‘We have what you might call a half-way house set up,’ he said. ‘A doctor will be there to help us. And we’ll take every precaution.’ He reached out and took her hand in his. ‘Now, could we be partners?’

She felt a sudden warmth run through her veins like hot syrup. Maybe it would be safer to refuse, to say she’d say nothing to her mistress, but she wasn’t going to assist him in any way. But she couldn’t forget what she’d seen earlier today, or refuse to help a man intent on saving small children.

‘You’ll just tell Madam I’m helping you to take children to the
Home?’ She needed that confirmation if Lily questioned her in private.

‘Nothing more. We’ll make it sound like a Sunday school outing,’ he said with a smile.

She took her hand away from his, spat on it, and held it out again. ‘That’s how they seal bargains down in Seven Dials,’ she laughed.

He smiled, spat on his own hand, then gripped hers.

‘Partners!’ they said together.

Chapter Six

‘This is it,’ Giles said, flicking back the hood of his oilskin cape as he and Matilda approached a crumbling, disease-looking dilapidated corner shop just inside Five Points. ‘You’ll soon see why everyone calls these places “grog shops”. It might say “Groceries” on the window, but inside there’s precious little food in evidence.’

It was a week ago that she saw this area for the first time, but the warm, sunny weather had ended just two days ago with a heavy storm and it had been raining ever since. Now the narrow streets and alleys were a stinking bog of glutinous mud. Even the pigs and dogs were trying to shelter against walls and in doorways, and aside from the sound of rain cascading from broken roofs and guttering there was utter silence, as if all the human residents had gone into hibernation.

As they stepped inside the shop, a scrawny little man with a pock-marked face and filthy apron shuffled out from behind his barrels and crates of bottles. It stank of cheap liquor but it was at least preferable to the far worse smell out on the street.

‘Good day to you, Reverend.’ The man gave them a fawning smile. ‘Brought a little helper today, have we?’

‘This is my assistant, Miss Jennings,’ Giles replied in a crisp, businesslike voice. Although this Irishman had promised to direct him to where the orphaned children congregated, Giles didn’t trust him. During previous conversations he’d had strong suspicions the man’s knowledge of the children’s habits wasn’t prompted by kindly interest, but far more likely because he was in fact a procurer for the many brothels along the Bowery. ‘We’ve brought some bread and apples with us for the children. So if you could point us in the right direction to find them we won’t take up any more of your time.’

‘’Tis almost certain they are in the cellar of Rat’s Castle,’ the man said, looking intently at Matilda. ‘I saw one of the bigger
lads crawling in as I went past this very morning. Don’t suppose they’ve moved on, not in this rain.’

Giles blanched, Rat’s Castle was every bit as bad as the Old Brewery that Kirkbright had told him about when he first arrived in New York. Like that place, only the most desperate for some kind of shelter would go in. A policeman had informed him it got its name because of the innumerable escape routes from it which had been devised by the criminals who squatted there. He also said that on one police raid they had found three bodies of people who had been murdered, along with another four who’d died of natural causes. All these bodies had been left to rot in the cellars along with the stinking effluent of some three or four hundred people

Thanking the man, Giles left with Matilda, but once out on the street he turned to her, his face drawn with anxiety. ‘Maybe we ought to wait for better weather when we can find the children out on the streets. Rat’s Castle is an evil place, Matty. I can’t take you in there.’

Matilda thought for a moment. Lily had fully accepted her husband’s story that he was going out today to visit four children who had been cared for by a neighbour since their mother died, to see if they were suitable for the new Waifs’ and Strays’ Home. There was no reason why she shouldn’t believe this to be true, even back in London Giles often took on such roles from time to time. She had willingly agreed that Matilda should go with him, and had even pulled out a few outgrown clothes of Tabitha’s to help out. However, she would be suspicious if they returned saying they hadn’t located the children. Giles wasn’t any good at outright lies, and Lily would be quizzing them both all evening.

Not liking to voice her real thoughts, Matilda looked up at the leaden sky. ‘We might have a long wait for better weather,’ she said. ‘It’s the start of autumn, sir, and before long it will turn cold. Besides, I’m not easily shocked.’

Giles was heartened by her desire to get on with it at any cost. She looked like a street waif herself today with an oilskin cape like his, a very worn dress and shawl, and her hair tightly braided under a mob-cap. They had dressed for this excursion at Dr Kupicha’s house just beyond Five Points, and they would return there to wash and change back into their own clothes before returning home. The doctor had warned them that this wasn’t
complete protection from carrying any infection home, but it was the best precaution he knew.

‘Well, we’ll just go and reconnoitre the place,’ Giles said. ‘We might not be able to get in there anyway. Not if there’s a few bully boys keeping watch.’

Rat’s Castle stood at the end of a narrow passageway, and as they approached it they paused, both intimidated by its desolate appearance. To Matilda it was very reminiscent of rookeries she’d seen in Seven Dials, and judging by the many windows, pointed eaves and fancy, twisted chimney pots, the half-timbered building had once been the home of someone wealthy. But now there were gaping holes in the walls, the timbers were rotting and all the windows were boarded up. The buildings all around it had been built at a later period but they were equally dilapidated, and what must have been a stable was leaning crazily to one side, rain water gushing down what was left of the slate roof.

There was no front door, just a gaping hole as if someone had wrenched it and its frame out for firewood. Taking a step closer, Matilda saw that the staircase at the back of a dark, rubbish-filled hall had gone the same way. The banisters had gone completely and what was left of the stairs was almost swaying in the breeze.

The smell made her gag, and she had to move back again so she could breathe.