by Kelly Bowen
The conversation was interesting, though as far as Ada could see, none of this talk was putting any shillings in St. Jerome’s coffers.
“Save up your mending for the next week,” Mrs. MacHeath said. “I will pay a call on you on Wednesday, and you will provide me a tour of the facilities. In addition to advising you on possible economies, I will begin instructing the children in the rudiments of sewing.”
Hold your horses, Mrs. Colonel. “My lord,” Ada said, “do you have sewing supplies for forty children? That’s rather a lot of thread, not to mention needles, thimbles, sewing boxes—”
“Never mind that,” Mrs. MacHeath said. “If I put out a call to the officers’ wives, we can assemble you enough supplies to outfit an army, and enough cast off fabric to make quilts for every child three times over. We could sell a few of the prettier ones at the regiment’s annual charity auction. You leave that to me.”
“You can sell quilts for St. Jerome’s?” Lord John asked.
“Oh, my yes. Anybody can stitch together squares of fabric, my lord, and the officers’ wives will cheerfully do the batting and backing until the older children learn that skill. With forty pairs of hands to support the effort, you could have a quilt shop, if you only had somebody to manage such an undertaking.
“The children could earn a bit of coin,” she went on, getting up to pace, “and when, I ask you, is it a bad idea to provide a child valuable skills? The colonel always said that marching and fighting were fine on the day of battle, but where would the regiment be without its cobblers and seamstresses?”
Lord John rose as well. “I will look forward to your tour of the facilities, Mrs. MacHeath. Please send a note around letting me know what time suits you.”
“Might I join that tour?” Ada asked, rising, lest she be the only one left in camp. “And should we invite some of Mrs. MacHeath’s friends to come along?”
“Not too many,” Mrs. MacHeath said, coming to a halt beneath the wolverine. “An abundance of generals makes for a poor battle plan, the colonel used to say. I will invite Mrs. McMurtry, and Mrs. Pine. Lady Platcher’s brother owns linen mills, so we should invite her as well, but no more than that.”
“I will look forward to your note,” Lord John said, “and you will doubtless want to be about planning St. Jerome’s quilting projects. The children will benefit from the skills you can teach them, but please also give some thought to the marvelous stories you’ve collected as wife to a career officer.”
Mrs. MacHeath put a pale hand to her throat. “Stories, my lord?”
“Those herbs,” Ada said. “That is the greatest exercise of cleverness I’ve heard of in years. The children will love it. I’m sure you have a story associated with the wolf-bear creature too.”
“The wolverine? The colonel called him Wellington. I don’t suppose the children should hear that.”
John bowed over her hand. “I suppose they should. His Grace would be flattered as well. Miss Ada, shall we be on our way? I cannot wait to tell the staff of Mrs. MacHeath’s ideas.”
They took their leave, and when they did, Mrs. MacHeath was smiling and waving as if parting from her dearest friends.
Ada wasn’t sure what, exactly had transpired in the course of that call, but Lord John was also beaming as if his most precious dream had come true.
“I am astounded,” he said, settling onto the bench beside Ada. “I am dumbstruck, and I will go to my grave having witnessed at least one miracle in my life. That was amazing.”
“What amazed me,” Ada said, “is that she forgot to order the tray once she began talking about her dear colonel.” Something Ada might do, though her present passions were butterflies and compost heaps.
“Who needs tea when we can have a quilt shop instead? She can supply the fabric, teach the children the skills, and find ladies willing to take on the finishing work. St. Jerome’s will have income, Ada. Not a lot of income, and the children will have to demonstrate ability before they can work on the fancier quilts for sale, but we’ll also save money because we’ll no longer have to buy our blankets. Oh, this is marvelous.”
He was gushing like a young scholar appointed to captain his cricket team.
“You are pleased, then?” Ada asked.
“I am thrilled, and this only came about because you got her maundering on about her sainted colonel. That was brave of you, but then, you are brave, and wonderful, and oh,”—he smiled at her so warmly, Ada felt it in her middle—“I could just kiss you, Ada Beauvais.”
“So why don’t you?”
Those words were out, unplanned and unladylike, but if anything, Lord John’s smile became even more brilliant.
John wished Ada had been present when he’d written Mr. Hewitt a bank draft for all rental arrearages plus two months in advance. Uncle Bascomb’s money had been the first to arrive, and the first to depart, but two weeks after Miss Ada had begun her project, other pledges were steadily arriving.
Miss Deever had come to read for the first time, and Mr. Palmer had walked her home.
Mrs. MacHeath’s network of officers’ wives had begun sending over sewing supplies and fabric, and those were accumulating in the unused gallery. The great quilt project was scheduled to get under way by week’s end, and all of the patrons upon whom John had called had offered some sort of support.
“Cora had an accident.”
Henrietta stood in the doorway to John’s office, a shame-faced Cora beside her. Cora had the occasional dry day, but she made up for that progress by having the occasional wet night.
“She had an accident yesterday,” Henrietta went on, “and she had one the day before. Miss Gillian despairs of her.”
A single tear hit the toe of Cora’s boot.
“Well, I do not despair of our Cora,” John said. “Cora, when you’ve tended to your clothes, I’d like to have chat with you.”
Henrietta looked like she wanted to say more: Can somebody else be Cora’s honorary big sister? But John wasn’t about to have that discussion while Cora was damp and uncomfortable.
“Thank you, Henrietta.”
Henrietta huffed a sigh and led Cora by the hand into the corridor.
“Girls.” Miss Ada met them at the doorway. “Greetings.” She curtseyed, and Henrietta bobbed while Cora continued staring at the floor. “Not having a good day today, Cora?”
Cora shook her head.
“We all have trying days, but they pass. Don’t let me keep you.”
Henrietta dragged the smaller girl toward the stairs. “Good-day, Miss Beauvais.”
Miss Ada watched them go. “The olfactory evidence suggests that Cora is still having difficulties. Did you try putting her on a schedule?”
“As brilliant as that suggestion was, after more than a week, it has yielded no results.” John rose and rolled down his cuffs, glad for some bit of busyness. Ever since he’d made a passing remark about kissing Miss Ada, his mind had fixated on that idea.
Her reaction had been to interrogate him: Why don’t you? she’d asked.
Because one doesn’t presume on a lady’s good graces, he’d said, and that answer had been so inadequate that he’d commenced babbling about his Aunt Selma’s collection of porcelain shepherdesses.
He’d not kissed Miss Ada because he was a penniless younger son with forty children to support, and Miss Ada deserved her country manor.
“Where are we off to today?” she asked.
“Another one of your old schoolmates,” John said, “but I wanted to show you first how much progress we’ve made.”
Miss Ada took off her bonnet and gloves, a simpler undertaking now that she’d styled her hair with tresses curling over one shoulder.
“We’ve used up more than half our time,” she said. “I can’t imagine a dozen calls have resulted in all that much money.”
John drew her over to the window, the better to enjoy how morning sun found red highlights in her dark hair.
“This is the list of pledges,”
he said, “and the tally at the bottom is the funding we have collected. We have made enormous progress toward our goal.” Part of that progress was simply because Ada compelled him to leave the orphanage, call on his patrons, and state St. Jerome’s position to them plainly.
The patrons did want to help, apparently, but they also needed a gentle reminder. John had been too absorbed in accidents, cricket squabbles, and rental arrearages to offer that reminder.
Miss Ada took the list from him. “This cannot be right.”
“Adelicia Beauvais, I am an Oxford-educated scholar, and simple addition is within my grasp. You have raised an enormous amount of money in a very short time.”
She sank into his reading chair. “But this is… this is nearly half of what I had to earn in the thirty days. This is… a lot of money.”
For the first time in their acquaintance, Miss Ada looked uncertain. Bewildered, even.
“In two weeks,” John said, “you have created more wealth and security for St. Jerome’s than I was able to generate in all my tenure as its headmaster. You tried harder, you brought more ideas to the undertaking, and you have been prodigiously talented at inspiring people to open their purses.”
She stared at the paper in her hand. “You’ve checked these figures?”
“Several times each day.”
“I have simply been my un-charming, un-beautiful, blunt-to-a-fault self. I don’t understand this.”
John sank to the hassock before her, for they were no longer lord and lady, standing on manners moment by moment. They were allies, possibly even friends.
“You are honest and forthright,” he said. “You are willing to admit that St. Jerome’s needs help. You don’t dissemble or posture, and that makes you trustworthy. I’d still be avoiding a call on Uncle Bascomb but for you, and I’m his favorite nephew.”
Miss Ada set the tally down as if it were a royal decree from a far away kingdom. “I don’t know what to say. I took on the situation at St. Jerome’s because it was asked of me. I never expected I’d be able to make a difference. I have arrived to the place in life where people ignore me, you see. They aren’t trying to educate me or finish me or marry me off. Now, all that’s wanted is for me to retreat somewhere obscure and quiet, where I won’t bother anybody and nobody will bother me.”
John sensed her words had ramifications beyond the obvious, but the moment didn’t call for a cheerful rejoinder. Cheerful rejoinders could be just another way to ignore a woman who should never have been overlooked.
He put his arms around her, slowly and gently, lest he mistake her mood. She rested her head on his shoulder, and he resumed breathing.
“I would miss you,” he said, “if you retreated to the countryside. Promise you won’t abandon us when your thirty days are over.”
Abandon me. He allowed himself to stroke her hair, to brush his thumb over the silky warmth of her nape and for a moment, he allowed himself to hope that he and she might have more than a few shared memories and carriage rides.
Ada sighed—another first from her. “I doubt I will ever see that country retreat, my lord. Time grows short and we have far to go. You need not worry that I will decamp to parts distant anytime soon. Besides, Mrs. MacHeath has yet to teach me how to build a fire from old linen and magic herbs.”
For Ada, that was a cheerful rejoinder and it left John’s heart aching.
Chapter Five
Oh, to be held, not simply grabbed in a passing hug. Lord John’s embrace was shelter and warmth, security and a steadying sort of closeness. He wasn’t offering perfunctory social affection, he was filling a need for which Ada had no words.
His hand on her hair was both soothing and stirring, and his touch made her want to reciprocate with similar caresses.
She sat up, because foolish fancies served no purpose. “We should be on our way.”
A timid knock sounded on the door jamb. “I changed my dress.”
Cora hovered in the doorway, Henrietta nowhere to be seen.
“Come in, Cora,” Lord John said, “and please close the door.”
Cora did as she was asked and came to stand by his hassock.
“Cora, are you happy here?” he asked.
She darted a glance at him, and even Ada could read her puzzlement: How does headmaster want me to answer?
“Cora, come here,” Ada said, gesturing for the girl to stand beside the reading chair. Ada fished her silver comb from her reticule and turned the child by the shoulders so she would not have to face Lord John during this inquisition.
“How can you be happy,” Ada asked, “when you have no friends?” She undid Cora’s braid and drew the comb carefully through curly golden locks.
“Cora?” Lord John asked. “What have you to say to that?”
“I stink. Nobody wants a friend who stinks.”
Clearly not the reply his lordship had been expecting. “I stink too sometimes,” Ada said, dividing Cora’s hair into three shiny strands, “when I’ve been working with my compost heaps.”
“What’s a gone-post heap?” Cora asked.
“Compost,” Lord John said, “is a combination of dirt; vegetable matter such as dead weeds, straw, or rotten potatoes; and other organic matter.”
Ada leaned close to Cora’s ear. “He means manure. Manure makes everything grow, though some object to the smell.”
Cora twisted about, though Ada kept hold of her hair. “But if you stink, miss, you won’t have any friends.”
“I wash my hands, I change my clothes. I tend to my ablutions, and the scent fades. Lord John is my friend, despite my interest in compost heaps. I suspect he is your friend too, Cora, so you’d best find another strategy if you’re trying to keep us all at arms’ length.”
The little girl’s reasoning was brilliantly simple, also heartrending.
“You have accidents to keep people away,” Lord John said. “Who are you trying to keep away, Cora?”
“Everybody.” She fell silent, while Ada retied her hair ribbon. “Mostly boys, especially big boys.”
“Is it working?” John asked.
“Yes. Nobody wants to be my friend. I have my bed all to myself every night, no matter how cold it gets. Nobody kicks me all night long and steals the blankets. Nobody wants to wear my clothes because I pee on them. Nobody wants to sit near me so nobody can steal my pudding. Because Henrietta says I stink.”
Ada had to blink to keep from weeping.
His lordship appeared quite composed. “Cora, thank you for explaining this to us, but now I have a few things to explain to you.”
“Will you send me back to Cook?”
“No, I will not send you back. Not ever. St. Jerome’s is your home, whether you are fragrant or noisome.”
Cora brows knit.
“He means,” Ada said, “whether you smell like a flower or a compost heap.”
Cora said nothing. She was very good at holding her peace—too good. Even if the other girls cut off her braid in the middle of the night, she’d probably just get up the next day and roll her tresses into the usual bun without saying anything.
“Your bed is yours, nobody else’s,” Lord John said. “Your clothing belongs to you, which is why we sewed your name into every article you’ve been given. Your pudding is served to you alone. If somebody trespasses against your property or your privacy, then you apply to Matron, to me, to a teacher, to—”
“Or to me,” Ada added. “To an adult.”
“Right,” Lord John said, “to an adult, and the matter will be addressed.”
Cora twiddled the end of her braid and faced her headmaster. “Will you send the boys to Cook if they steal my pudding?”
“No,” Lord John said. “I will remind the transgressors that we have rules at St. Jerome’s, and we respect each other’s privacy and property.”
“The transgressor is the thief,” Ada said. “Lord John means he’ll remind the person who steals your pudding about how the rules work. I daresay the thief wil
l also do without his or her own pudding for a few days.”
Cora regarded John in silence, and Ada felt as if the fate of St. Jerome’s might hang on the child’s next words.
“Will you tell them?” she asked. “Will you tell the other children what the rules are so they know that my clothes are for me and my bed is for me?”
“I will make an announcement at supper tonight,” John said. “I will remind everybody, and you will try to stop having accidents. Are we agreed?”
Ada doubted it would be that simple.
“I will try, Headmaster.”
“Fair enough, now run along to the gallery and see if you can help sort the fabric for Mrs. MacHeath’s quilts.”
Cora would have scampered to the door, but Ada caught her in a hug. “I’m proud of you, you clever girl.”
Cora hugged her back, and then skipped away, grinning gloriously.
“I cannot imagine what that child has been through,” Ada said, subsiding into the reading chair. “But you must make that announcement, my lord. Promise me.”
“I do so solemnly promise. You made her smile.”
“You made her feel safe.”
While Lord John left Ada feeling half hopeful, half worried, and entirely at sea.
“You’ve put the Bonhoff sisters at the end of your list,” John said. “Are they the easiest or the most difficult of your old school acquaintances?”
He and Ada had taken to sitting side by side in the coach as a matter of course, and when next he paid calls on his patrons, he would miss her sorely. She was effective at raising money, she kept the social calls to a reasonable length, and she kept John company.
As the horses trotted from one house to another, John had taken to trotting out the petty triumphs and frustrations of his days. Cora hadn’t had an accident since he’d made his announcement at dinner last week, Mr. Palmer and Miss Deevers appeared to share a lively interest in orchids. Mrs. MacHeath’s first quilt should be ready by the end of the month.