Honourable Doctor, Improper Arrangement

The night air was cool, much pleasanter than the stuffiness inside. The moon hung just above the rooftops.

‘It seems almost near enough to touch and make a wish,’ Kate said, gazing up at it.

Simon put his free hand over hers as it lay on his sleeve. ‘What would you wish for if you could wish for anything in the world?’

‘The same as you, I expect. A world where children can grow up strong and healthy. A world without cruelty.’

‘A tall order, but you are right. I wish it too.’

They strolled on in companionable silence until the strains of another waltz drifted out to them from the ballroom. He turned and held his arms out to her, and without speaking she stepped into them. He guided her unerringly into the dance. It was cool and dark and they were alone, with the canopy of a star-filled sky above them and the muted strains of the music guiding their steps. It was magical.

When the music faded they stood still, looking at each other in the semi-darkness, silent, a little breathless, unwilling to break apart. He still had hold of her hands, which he raised one by one to his lips. She felt the warm pressure on her skin and a little shiver passed through her. Was this a man who could break hearts?

Although the Hartingdon Home and The Society for the Welfare of Destitute Children are figments of my imagination, they were inspired by the work of Thomas Coram who, appalled by the sight of destitute children living and dying in the slums of London, founded the Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children, which became known as the Foundling Hospital.

His particular interest was in illegitimate children who had been abandoned, or could not be looked after by their unmarried mothers. He was a persuasive man and appealed to the aristocracy for support. Notable fundraisers were the composer Handel, who gave concerts to raise money, and the painter Hogarth, who displayed his pictures on the walls of the hospital. Other artists followed his example, and the pictures were on show for the public to view, when they were encouraged to donate to the charity.

The charter founding the hospital was signed by George II on 14th August 1739, and the first children were admitted in 1741, seventy-six years before the time of my story, but it was still going strong and was so popular that mothers queued up to leave their children there. A selection procedure became necessary, and it was limited mainly to children of mothers who it was judged could be redeemed from their ‘wickedness’ to lead useful lives. The children’s names were changed and they rarely had contact with their mothers again. At a time when a quarter of children did not live beyond the age of five, when health care and education were almost non-existent and the only help was through the Poor Law, these children were given a home, good food and an elementary education to fit them for work.

The charity later became known as the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children, and is now known as the Coram Family. It still exists, 270 years after its inception, though in a much changed form. Its history, some of its records and the tiny artifacts that arrived with the children are on display, together with priceless pictures, at The Foundling Museum in Russell Square. Well worth a visit.

Born in Singapore, Mary Nichols came to England when she was three, and has spent most of her life in different parts of East Anglia. She has been a radiographer, school secretary, information officer and industrial editor, as well as a writer. She has three grown-up children, and four grandchildren. Mary loves to hear from her readers, and you can contact her via her website www.marynichols.co.uk

Recent novels by the same author:

TALK OF THE TON

WORKING MAN, SOCIETY BRIDE

A DESIRABLE HUSBAND

RUNAWAY MISS

RAGS-TO-RICHES BRIDE

THE EARL AND THE HOYDEN

HONOURABLE

DOCTOR,

IMPROPER

ARRANGEMENT

Mary Nichols

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Chapter One

1817

Dr Simon Redfern, strolling in Hyde Park, stopped to watch the young lady with the children. They looked healthy and well dressed, and were playing a complicated game of tag, running round and round, shrieking with laughter in which the young lady played a full part. She seemed too young to be the children’s mother and he concluded she was perhaps a nursemaid or a governess, but if she was, she was unlike any nursemaid he had ever met, because she was completely uninhibited, holding her pretty muslin skirt up with one hand and displaying a neat turn of ankle. In his experience, nursemaids and governesses were sticklers for correct behaviour.

As he watched, an open carriage drew up and the four children abandoned their game and ran to it, scrambling in beside an elegant lady who was evidently their mother. She had a few words with the young lady and then drove off. The governess, if that was what she was, picked up a parcel from the ground where she had evidently left it while she played, and walked on alone.

Kate had declined Elizabeth’s offer to be taken up because she was on her way to Hookham’s library and could easily reach it on foot. She was out of breath from running with the children and her cheeks had a rosy glow that her grandmother would deprecate but which made her look very attractive. She tucked strands of her nut-brown hair into the coil on the back of her head from which they had escaped and replaced her bonnet, which had slipped down on its ribbons. She had no idea what she looked like and walked down to the Serpentine to use the water as a mirror.

‘Oh, my goodness.’ The reflection that looked back at her was unladylike in the extreme. She was flushed, her hair was untidy and the ribbon securing her bonnet was crushed into a sad pretence at a bow. She tried to straighten it and it was then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the child, sitting on the edge of the lake, with his little legs dangling over the water. He could not have been more than three or four years old and was dressed in filthy rags and had nothing on his feet at all. She looked about for his parents or someone looking after him, but there was no one that she could see. It was up to her to rescue him before he fell in. Not wanting to startle him, she moved slowly and then grabbed him from behind.

He started to squirm and yell and it was all she could do to hold him. ‘Hush,’ she said. ‘I won’t hurt you.’ But he screamed the more and pulled the brim of her halftied bonnet down over her eyes.

‘Allow me.’ Her burden was taken from her and she swung round to face the gentleman who had spoken, pushing her bonnet back as she did so. He tucked the child under his arm. ‘If you do not leave off that noise, you will feel my hand on your rump,’ he told him, with a pretence at severity. The child looked up at the man and, deciding he probably meant it, subsided into silence.

The man was, Kate judged, about twenty-seven or -eight, a little above average height, dressed in a plain brown frockcoat and leather breeches tucked into brown boots. His starched muslin cravat was tied in a simple knot. Not one of the haut monde, she decided, but definitely not the child’s papa. He was holding the lad firmly as if he were used to dealing with recalcitrant children, so perhaps he was a schoolmaster. He was a very handsome schoolmaster, if he was.

‘I thought he might fall in,’ she said, looking about her, as much to avoid the amused gaze of his grey eyes as to ascertain that no one was claiming the child. ‘He seems to be all alone.’

‘Do you know who he is?’

‘No, do you?’

‘No. We had better try to find out.’ He fetched the child out from under his arm and stood him on the ground and, without letting go of him, squatted down beside him, so that he was able to talk to him on his own level. ‘Now, you imp, can you tell us your name?’

The boy knuckled his eyes, depositing more dirt on an already filthy face. ‘Joe.’

‘Well, Joe, we should like to know where you live.’

Without speaking, the boy pointed in the general direction of the park gate.

‘That is not much help. Can you take me to your home?’

This was answered with a silent look of incomprehension.

‘Judging by his clothes, he must come from a very poor area,’ Kate said. ‘How did he get here?’

‘I imagine he walked.’ He looked up at Kate, standing hesitantly beside him. The expression of concern on her lovely face did her credit, he decided; not many young ladies would bother about a little urchin and would certainly never think of touching one. ‘Do not look so worried, miss, I will take charge of him, if you have other things to do.’

Kate hesitated. How did she know this man was trustworthy? And supposing he could not find the child’s parents, what would he do? London was a huge place and the boy’s little legs must have carried him quite a long way if he lived in the rookeries of the city, which his ragged clothes indicated he almost certainly did. ‘What are you going to do with him?’

‘Try to find his parents.’

‘How?’

‘That is a good question,’ he said, noting her wariness. ‘I shall take him to the areas where I think he may be known and ask if anyone recognises him.’

‘It will be like looking for a needle in a haystack.’

‘Probably. Have you a better idea?’

‘No. But will you be safe?’

‘Oh, I think so,’ he said. ‘I am a doctor, you see, and sometimes I have to venture into places that respectable young ladies can know nothing of.’

‘Of course I know of them,’ she said sharply. ‘I do not go about with my head in the sand.’

He looked down at the boy, now contentedly sucking his thumb, the only bit of him that was clean, and looking from one to the other, as if wondering which one to cling to. ‘You want to go home to your ma and pa, don’t you, my lad?’

Joe nodded.

‘Are you sure you wish to take responsibility for him?’ Kate asked. ‘After all, it was I who picked him up.’

The child had tugged at her heartstrings and his welfare was important to her, as was the welfare of all children, whoever they were, rich or poor. She couldn’t help it; if she saw a child needing help, she must do what she could. It had got her into trouble with her grandmother on more than one occasion. ‘Giving to the poor is one thing,’ she had said. ‘I applaud that in you, but to touch them is entirely another. You never know what you might pick up. And you will get yourself talked about.’ None of which discouraged her.

‘What would you do if I left him with you?’ he asked.

‘The same as you, I expect, try to find his parents.’

‘How?’

His question gave her a moment’s pause, but she was not going to admit she was floored. ‘Talk to the boy,’ she said. ‘Gain his trust, ask him to take me to his home, as you have done.’

‘You think you can go into the slums knocking on doors?’

‘I would if I had to.’

‘I do not doubt it, but you would soon be in trouble. No, I think you should leave it to me.’

‘Very well, but if you do not mind, I will come with you.’

‘I do not think that is a good idea, Miss…’ He paused, waiting for her to supply a name.

‘I am not a miss. I am Mrs Meredith and I am not a delicate flower, nurtured in a hot house, so you may take that condescending smile from your face.’

‘I beg your pardon, ma’am. Doctor Simon Redfern, at your service.’ He doffed his hat and swept her an exaggerated bow, which made her laugh. It was a pleasant sound and, in spite of himself, had him smiling in response.

‘So, Dr Redfern, let us see where this young man leads us, shall we?’

‘I think you will regret it.’

‘I will regret it if I leave him.’

‘Why? Do I look like an abuser of infants?’

She looked up into his face and felt herself colouring to think that he had so quickly taken her up on what she said. She hadn’t meant that, had she? On the other hand, just because a man dressed like a gentleman and had a smile that would melt ice, did not mean he was not capable of wickedness. But she did not want to believe that of him. ‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘It is only that I feel responsible and I cannot rest until I know he is safely back home.’ She looked down at Joe, who was looking bemused rather than afraid. He was thinner than he ought to be, but he was not cowed. Life had already taught him some harsh lessons. Taking his hand, she asked gently, ‘Will you show us where you live?’

Simon gave a grunt of a laugh. ‘On your head be it.’ He could no more abandon her than she could the child.

He fell into step beside her. She was talking cheerfully to the boy, though she received no reply except a pointed finger, which might or might not have been meant to indicate a direction. When she asked him if they were going the right way, he nodded.

‘I do not think he knows where he is,’ Simon said, as the boy led them from the park and down to the river where the mudlarks paddled, picking up flotsam and jetsam to sell. He called out to the scavengers, asking them if they recognised the child, but they shook their heads. ‘It is a long shot, but we could try Covent Garden,’ he said. ‘Unless you would rather I took him on alone?’

‘No. I have come this far, I am not leaving now. His mama must be frantic with worry.’

‘If she has even missed him.’

‘How cynical you are!’

‘With good cause. You cannot know the half of it.’

She wondered what he meant, but decided not to comment. By this time the child’s little legs were too tired to carry on, so Simon hoisted him on to his shoulders, apparently unconcerned about the dirt being transferred to his good clothes. Kate walked purposefully beside him, determined to stay with him.

‘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 child’s 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 uncle’s 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 I’mpaid well eno’ to indulge them with meat pie, you thinks wrong,’ she told him. ‘They’ll get their gruel when I get ’em’ome.’

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 inn’s clientele had turned on him until one of them spoke. ‘You leave us alone, mister. If it weren’t for coves like you, taking your pleasures wherever you fancy, there’d be no need for parish nurses. The brats have been abandoned by their mothers and, if Mother Cody ha’n’t taken ’em in, they’d 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.’ Kate’s 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 one’s 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 boy’s 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 baby’s 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. ‘I’ll tan your hide, that I will. I told you not to run off, didn’t 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.