The Irish Healer (15 page)

Rachel leaned back against the carriage seat and rested her hands—encased in their new gloves, another gift from Claire—at the waist of the gown. “You have been too kind to me, Claire.”

“For listening to your concerns about Molly? Or for giving you that dress?”

“For everything you’ve done.”

Claire waved off Rachel’s thanks. “Think nothing of the gown. It used to be one of mine. I instructed my maid to remake it from an old day dress, had her add a few trimmings, and now it’s perfect for you to wear to the interview. Mrs. Chapman will be impressed.”

“By a dress?” Rachel asked skeptically, though her mother had often told her a good cut of material, a row of mother-of-pearl buttons, and a neckline edged with a modest amount of guipure lace could transform a woman.

“By the woman in the dress.”

“I will do my best, Claire.”

“I know you will.” Claire glanced out the window as the carriage slowed. “Here we are.” She reached across the narrow
gap between the facing benches and gripped Rachel’s fingers. “Erase that look of terror from your face. These women know nothing about you, other than you are my cousin, but they’ll scent nervousness like a hound on the trail of a fox. Believe you are the answer to their prayers, and they shall believe it too.”

Rachel breathed deeply and nodded her head. She would forget about Molly, think only of what she needed to accomplish today. Her future depended upon her poise and self-assurance. So she placed a confident smile on her face and climbed out of the carriage behind Claire.

The school was a narrow three-story building leaning against its neighbor like a drunk in need of support. Broad windows filled the expanse of the first two floors, though Rachel doubted they let in much light, given the dirt crusting their panes. However, the front steps were clean and the sign declaring it to be The School for Needy Boys and Girls was freshly painted in bright blue letters.

Claire told her coachman, Benjamin, to wait for them and marched up to the door on the right marked Girls. Within a few moments, a young girl of about ten, dressed in a faded woolen gown that reached no further than the tops of her ankles, answered Claire’s knock. She curtsied politely and showed them up the uncarpeted stairs. The aroma of cooking meat drifted up from a distant kitchen to intermingle with the smells of vinegar and lye that seemed to permeate the very walls. Voices swelled and receded. Somewhere, an adult shouted for attention.

“Watch your step here, miss. Tread’s loose,” the girl alerted them, heading ever upward. Each time she took a step, a hole in the bottom of her shoe revealed itself.

“Can we wait a moment?” Rachel asked. They reached a landing and Rachel spotted, across a hallway, an open door to one of the classrooms. “I would like to go see.”

“Ma’am doesn’t like to be kept waitin’, miss,” the girl called to Rachel’s back.

The classroom was a large area that had been divided into at least two spaces by a partition at the far end, probably to separate boys from girls. On a raised platform, a teacher and her student assistant were instructing a small clutch of girls in their sums. Another group read Bibles, the hum of their voices like a hive of bees, while another sat sewing, and another copied lines of text onto slates. They looked studious, or at least skilled at feigning interest. One dared to flick a glance at Rachel, standing in the doorway. The girl did not smile but looked bored, as if she were used to women coming to stare at them like animals on display.

Rachel looked away from her, scanning the remainder. Young, so many were young, not a one over ten, maybe eleven at the most. Clean, for the most part, though their dresses did not fit well and their stockings, where they peeped beneath skirts, were worn and much darned. One child coughed quietly into her hand, thick and raspy, and Rachel wondered if anyone tended to their ills or cared precisely how well they were fed. Did they have someplace warm to sleep at night? Did their parents resent or welcome the time spent at school, time not spent earning pence to help the family? Was the girl nearest her bruised along her chin, as if she’d been hit hard? Surely not by any of the teachers. Maybe by a father, or a mother . . .

An accustomed compulsion spread through Rachel’s chest.
She had to do something to help them. That desire was un-dimmed, no matter how she had failed Mary Ferguson.

“Miss, you have to come along.” Their young escort plucked Rachel’s sleeve. “Ma’am will be angry that I’ve taken so long to bring you up.”

“I did not mean to delay.” Rachel turned away, caught Claire watching.

“They are pitiful, aren’t they?” Claire asked, resuming her place at Rachel’s side as they continued up the staircase. “The ragged schools are so much worse. The children there do not even have shoes or mended clothes. At least here, there’s hope.”

“Do they treat you well in this school?” Rachel asked the girl leading them ever upward.

“As well as can be expected, miss.”

Claire tutted quietly at Rachel’s side. They arrived at the second floor and paused before a closed door. The girl knocked and a muffled voice told them to enter.

The office was small, carved out of a bigger space, the makeshift walls not even reaching the ceiling. Hushed tones of women tending to young children trickled over. From behind a table being utilized as a desk, a woman in a starched white bodice and a rusty-red twill skirt stood. She was of middle age, her hair feathered with gray, her features unremarkable except for the intensity that radiated from her eyes, piercing as a magistrate’s.

She gestured for the girl to depart. “Miss Harwood, it is a pleasure to see you again.”

“Mrs. Chapman, may I present my cousin, Miss Rachel Dunne.” Claire’s firmly applied fingertips pushed Rachel forward.

Rachel swallowed, her throat suddenly so parched she expected her tongue to stick to the roof of her mouth. “Mrs. Chapman, I am most grateful you have agreed to speak with me about a position as a teacher.”

The headmistress indicated she and Claire could take a seat. “You did not tell me she was Irish, Miss Harwood.”

“My cousin is very well educated, Mrs. Chapman,” Claire responded, her voice cool. “I believed that to be all that was of consequence.”

“If by well educated you mean she does not have a significant accent, I can hear that.”

“Which is no small indication of her schooling, you must agree.”

Rachel shifted on the hard chair, the legs rocking on the uneven floor. “I can read, having had access to numerous volumes of literature, and write with a good hand, Mrs. Chapman. My mother was a rector’s daughter and a very strict instructor. I kept the books for my father’s business, so I can easily teach the fundamentals of arithmetic. I also can execute decent needlework and . . .” Carelessly, she had almost admitted her knowledge of herbs and physics. “And other skills necessary for young girls to know.”

“This is all well and good, Miss Dunne, but you have no certificate. You have never managed a classroom or learned the art of instruction of children.”

“However you will find me more than willing to work hard, and I am well used to being around children. I believe I know how to handle them.” So long as they were not seriously ill and in need of nursing, she would have no difficulty whatsoever.

“The girls might not be problematic for you, Miss Dunne. They respond quickly to correction. However, some of the boys are of rough temperament, having spent many years in the streets before we took them in. I think you might not be so ready to ‘handle them’ as you believe. We have had other teachers flee in terror.”

“I shall learn how to manage them.” Rachel leaned forward, eager to impress upon this woman the sincerity of her desire to work hard. To help.
I must help, some way, somehow. It is all I know to do
. “I am not afraid of rough boys. I have a teenage brother. I will do whatever you require.”

“Do you have a reference as to your character?” Mrs. Chapman’s glance encompassed both Claire and Rachel. “Your cousin has vouched for you, of course, but you must understand that I require recommendations from people who are not relations.”

Her hand, with its cording of veins and sinews, extended above the papers on her desk, waiting to be supplied that which Rachel lacked.

Claire’s shoulder moved forward as if to shield Rachel from the woman’s grasp. “Her current employer, Dr. James Edmunds of Belgravia, will supply a recommendation at the end of her service.”

“I will not consider your cousin, Miss Harwood, without such an item. There are several teachers here who will not welcome a non-English girl, and I cannot begin to contemplate hiring her without a reference of highest quality” Mrs. Chapman’s hand withdrew. “As it is, Miss Dunne, you will only be brought in as an assistant teacher. Until you have the ability to attend school and obtain a certificate, you will never be offered greater.”

“I do not presume I would receive greater, Mrs. Chapman.”

Rachel’s pronouncement eased the headmistress’s tight frown of displeasure. “When might you begin?”

“In two weeks.” A time that sounded like forever, and certainly long enough to permit Molly to decide to reveal all and send Rachel’s growing house of cards tumbling.

“I will speak to you then, Miss Dunne. But only if you have that recommendation in hand.”

Claire slid her chair back, a rapid scrape across oak flooring, said their good-byes, and departed with haste.

“This is excellent, Rachel. Perfect,” she whispered, leading Rachel back the way they came.

“Molly could so easily ruin this chance for me, Claire.”

“We must trust that our cause is just and that God will lead you safely through these trials.”

“How can you be so trusting, Claire?” Rachel asked, aware that Claire could hear the frustration and doubt in her voice.

“I’ve had to learn to be, Rachel.” The planes of Claire’s face flattened. “It’s all that gets me through.”

“Did all go well with your appointment, Miss Dunne?” Mrs. Mainprice, streaks of flour powdering her chin, looked up from the dough spread across the table in a circle of yeasty ivory. Her shoulders heaved as she worked the pastry.

“My cousin reassures me that I was marvelous. Now for the headmistress to agree with her.” Rachel yanked off her bonnet, a curl of hair unwinding. “I hope Molly and Peg were not forced to do more work because of my absence.”

“
Wheesht
, why are you fretting over the two of them when your interview is so much more important? Truth be told, Molly’s been so unwell she couldn’t budge from her chamber if King William commanded.” Mrs. Main-price stopped just shy of sharply clucking her tongue. “Her stomach’s been ailing her, and my linseed tea doesn’t seem to be helping much.”

Which might explain why Molly hadn’t said anything to Dr. Edmunds as yet.

“I wonder if a tonic my mother used to make for stomach ailments would work for her.” The words were out before Rachel could stop them. A
banaltradh
to her core.

Mrs. Mainprice straightened and brushed loose flour off her hands. “Joe mentioned you knew a bit about the herbs when you fixed him up.”

“Only what I have learned here and there,” Rachel equivocated, her hands beginning to tremble. To busy them, she extracted a hairpin and worked the loose strand back into the bun at the nape of her neck. “The recipe is simple enough. An infusion of dill and parsley in cinnamon water with a tiny quantity of diluted syrup of poppy. It always helped me when I felt ill.”

“There’s dill and parsley in the kitchen garden. I don’t know if I have any syrup of poppy. Ah, the memory fails at times, Miss Dunne. You’re welcome to check the storeroom to see, however.” She beamed at Rachel, adding to her feelings of guilt. “You are a kind soul to offer to help the girl. Her sickness comes at an awful time. I worry that no matter how well your tonic works, though, she will still be too ill to accompany us when the doctor leaves for Finchingfield in three days.”

“I was not aware he was leaving for Finchingfield.”

“He needs to check on progress there, miss. Before the household moves, you know. But as I was saying, now Molly won’t be able to go and do the tasks he’d assigned her.” Mrs. Mainprice brushed a dusty knuckle across her jaw. “Well, now, I’ve just had a thought. What if you came with us in Molly’s place?”

Rachel jabbed the pin into her scalp. “Me? To Finchingfield?”

“Why not?” The housekeeper shrugged. “Take a break from London. Help me inventory the kitchen stores, what Molly was going to help me do.”

“I have only been here a week. Surely not sufficiently long to warrant a break.” But the countryside . . . fresh air, clear skies, grass and trees and maybe flowers even. Such a temptation. A temptation made even greater by the prospect of being away from Molly.

“A week ’twas long enough for me when I first arrived! This trip would be a fine chance for you to see the countryside, which I’m sure you miss,” the housekeeper replied as if she could read Rachel’s thoughts. “’Twill only be for a day and a half.”

Rachel shoved the hairpin home. “Thank you for thinking of me, but I imagine Dr. Edmunds would prefer I stay here and continue to make progress in the library.”