by Sandy Raven
The barmaid came and cleared the plates, and brought him and Graham another ale. She also informed them that the sleet stopped falling, leaving a nasty freezing fog in its wake.
“If I can’t get out tomorrow morning,” Trey said, “I’ll be back tomorrow evening.”
“Same here,” Graham said. “I don’t have as far to ride, but it’s bloody miserable in this weather.”
“One of the miserable realities of my injury, is that I can’t ride for more than a few miles at a time,” Trey confessed. “The leg…” He explained the location of the injury and how it occurred.
“It’s a miracle yer alive then,” Graham said. “Aye, ye have a leg that pains ye when ye ride or sit for long, but— If he’d hit the artery you’d have died within minutes.” Both men were silent a while. Trey stared into the mug and ran his finger around the top, and reminded himself again, that he was glad to be alive. “Everyone spoke of your bravery that day. They all praised the fact that you went on to fight for hours afterward until you fell from your horse in exhaustion.”
“It wasn’t hours, but more like fifteen or twenty minutes.” Trey downed the remaining ale, he hated reliving that day, but felt he could with Graham. “I did fall from my horse, from loss of blood. Two of my men saw my horse standing without me on his back. They rushed over and found me on the ground beside my horse. He was standing over me. Protecting me. They threw me over his back and took me to the medical tent.”
“We both got lucky that day, my friend.” Graham motioned for the server again. “I was uninjured, but captured by two of Boney’s best men. One smashed my head from behind with the butt of his rifle. They carried me between the two of them, but one of our men who’d seen what happened followed us. He was a marksman. He killed one Frenchie and clipped the other on the shoulder. They dropped me and I came to, slowly. The man that saved me got me a horse from a fallen soldier and… I’m here today.”
“And you have children,” Trey mumbled.
Graham’s eyes widened. “Did that injury… I mean, can you… You’re married.”
“I can do the deed.” He wondered how honest he could be without humiliating himself. He thought Graham would understand what he’d gone through. He’d had his own brush with death at the hands of the French. “Only one other man knows this… the real reason I’m in Edinburgh.”
“On my honor, I’ll never speak of it.”
“If Wellington trusted you, I suppose I can too, right?” Trey gave a nervous laugh. “I’m here to see a physician, a biologist that studies cells, at the university hospital here. The man came highly recommended as someone who might give me a definitive answer as to whether or not it was possible to sire a child at all.”
“Have you seen him?”
“Yes.” Trey stared down into his ale. None of this very easy to speak of.
“And?”
“It’s highly unlikely.”
“But the bayonet didn’t get you… there? Did it?” Graham’s face turned an odd shade of green. Under any other circumstance he’d find it amusing. But this was his life, and his inability to sire children.
“It came close. Very close. But the doctor thinks it was the fever afterward when the glands were swollen that killed my chance of… having children of my own. Sometimes, I wish the bastard had hit that artery. Better to be dead and never have met Caroline, than to return home and have to tell her this.”
“Does she know anything?” Graham asked as the server approached with their fresh mugs of ale.
Once the woman was gone, Trey shook his head. “I’ve never told her. She knows about the injury, but… I was uncertain about—the other—until yesterday.”
“Will you tell her? It would be the right thing to do, you know.”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Trey replied, and held up a hand to stop any scolding Graham might have. “There’s more to it than just telling her. This news will break her heart. I cannot do that to her.”
Trey would give anything to not have to hurt his Caroline. If there were any way, any…
“This isn’t meant to be a replacement for a child of your own, but… I know of a foundling home, here in town,” Graham said. “If you’re interested. You can adopt. The people there would be thrilled to have you and your wife as potential parents. I can vouch for you, even though I’ve never met your wife.”
“I don’t know…”
“Your brothers each have sons, so it’s not likely that you’ll need a blood heir for a title or anything.”
Trey was silent a while. He knew what Caroline wanted and he wasn’t sure another man would understand. Still, he tried explaining. “A few of her friends have had babes, and she wanted to… do the same.” He felt this unfamiliar knot working its way up his throat and he swallowed it down. “I cannot give that to her. I would do anything in the world for her. Give her anything she desired that is within my power to give her. But I cannot give her the one thing that every other man in this room could.”
“I don’t think she’d care where the babe came from,” Graham said. “Let’s go to the foundling home and talk to the director. Tell her your story. You’re a bloody war hero, and I’m willing to bet my father-in-law’s distillery that there are dozens o’ babes in there needing a home.
“And,” Graham added, “if you get a babe, and bring it home with ye, she’ll forget about wantin’ to carry one in her belly. Besides, it’s not exactly the easiest thing to do, givin’ birth.”
“I have to admit, I like your idea better than mine.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask what were you thinkin’?
“I was thinking of hiring someone to do what I couldn’t.”
Graham started to cough, spitting out the ale in his mouth. When he recovered, he chided Trey. “Without asking your wife? How could you even think it? And you’ve only been married a year! At one year of marriage, I would’ve killed the man who touched my wife.”
“I never said it was an easy decision.”
“Find a chubby-cheeked babe that is in need of a mother and present her to your wife. Do not tell her about your condition at all, and maybe one day a miracle might occur.”
“I will give it some thought,” Trey said. “When I left the doctor’s office yesterday, I’d set my head to—to one path, without considering this other.”
“Giving her a babe to raise as her very own can be your gift to her for Saint Valentine’s Day.”
“You make it sound like a kitten or puppy. Bringing her a babe will never give her the experience of having a child grow within her own body.”
“That’s something that’s overrated,” Graham snapped back. “My wife hates being pregnant, but loves each child.”
Trey thought about what his friend was saying. Loving a babe was an instinct he’d already seen in Caroline. He knew she would be a wonderful mother. But would adopting a babe really satisfy her desire to have one of her own?
And, if by some miracle she did get pregnant, would she love the older child less because he or she was adopted? Caroline was not the kind of person to do something so uncaring. It wasn’t in her sweet nature.
Should he do this without consulting her? Wouldn’t she want to be a part of the process of adopting a child, or even children?
“You have given me much to consider, Graham, though I don’t think I should proceed without first presenting this to my wife. She deserves to know the truth about my… situation.”
“I agree she needs to know, but I think you tell her later. After she has a child to shower her love upon. That way she’s not so mad that you hid this from her.”
“While I think you may be right, shouldn’t she be a part of the adoption? At the very least, she should know what I am considering, no?”
“If that is what you wish,” Graham said. “I think you should get some information and present this option to your wife. Even if you don’t adopt from here, but in Lincolnshire, speaking to someone knowledgeable is certainly worth your time.
”
Trey was silent, mulling over everything Graham was saying. And he was right. He could see someone and learn about how one goes about adopting children. Then when he brought the topic up with Caroline, he would have informed answers for her.
“Would you like to speak to this woman I know?” Graham asked. “She is the director of the Presbyterian Orphans Home.”
“A woman director? How do you know her?”
“She’s my sister,” Graham said. “Our father was a ruling elder, then deacon in the Church of Scotland. Lenore is a widow, who has no children… of her own.” He cleared his throat. “She has thrown herself into her work. She loves the children who come through her home, and works hard to find them good homes.”
“Right. Well… I suppose I could speak with her.” It wouldn’t hurt, Trey thought. After all, he was still stranded in this cold, damp, city. What else was he going to do tomorrow?
“Meet me here after breakfast,” Graham said. “Say, ten o’clock?”
“Fine,” Trey said, feeling much better than he had when he’d entered the place. “I’m staying a few doors down at the Caledonia.”
“After breakfast then.” Graham drained the last of the dark ale in his mug, and stood. “You’ll see Wilson, this will be a far better idea than the one you had. Far, far better.”
Chapter Four
Trey followed Graham into the office of the director of the Presbyterian Orphans Home. The stone building sat in a cluster of buildings near a church and a cemetery, at the edge of town on the Fountainbridge Road. Trey thought it a depressing setting to raise children.
Graham’s sister was a tall, handsome woman who looked more like she could be the wife of an influential businessman. Her brown hair was gathered into a loose knot at the back of her head and under her prim gray and white hat, he could see traces of silver hair mixed in with her brown waves.
Her smile was much like her brother’s, wide and genuine, and the glint in her intelligent brown eyes almost identical. One knew immediately upon seeing the two together that they were siblings.
“Well, Malcolm,” the woman said, “this is a surprise. I wasn’t expecting to see you until Roddy’s birthday next month.”
“If I have an opportunity to see my siblings, I will see my siblings,” Graham said, just before kissing his sister’s cheek in greeting. “I spent the past two nights with Niall because of the nasty weather. He’s glad to see me heading out this morning.”
“I’d wager so.” She looked over at Trey, and greeted him.
“Mrs. Lenore Donalson,” Graham said, “I would like to introduce to you a good friend of mine from the war, Captain Reginald Wilson.”
The woman extended her hand and Trey shook it. “How do you do, Captain Wilson? How may I be of service to you?”
Graham met his gaze and Trey nodded. “Captain Wilson would like to hear from you about the process of adopting children.”
And for the next hour, Mrs. Donalson asked Trey about his life, his wife, his business, what type of home they had, and whether they had tried to have children naturally.
“Well, of course, but it will never— I cannot—” Trey collected himself and said in as detached and straightforward a tone as possible, “I will never be able to sire children because of an injury sustained during the war.”
“I’m sure it is very difficult to answer, Captain, and rest assured no one will ever learn from us, as that is not written in the notes I’ve been taking.”
“May I ask then why you need to know something so… personal?”
“Because I want to make sure when I send a child to your home, he or she will be loved the same should a natural child be born later, because that sometimes happens.” Mrs. Donalson set her quill in the inkwell and leaned back in her chair and gave him a pointed stare. “I have had children returned to me after a few years for just that reason. I have had one come back on her own when she could escape because she was being relegated to servant status upon the birth of a natural child to the couple.
“As I have no children of my own, each of these children are dear to me. While I am not their mother, nor can I ever be their mother, my love for each child is immeasurable. So if I seem a wee bit… invasive in my questioning, it’s for the good of the child.”
“I understand,” Trey replied. And he did. Would he do any differently if he were in this delicate position? Likely not.
A commotion from above echoed through the old, but well-maintained building. Then the sound of a herd of horses charging down the stairs, and children yelling and crying out, grew incrementally louder as they neared. It was like a cavalry charge, except with children’s voices… a regiment of underaged Huns doing their best to terrify their enemy with their cries… And somewhere in the cacophony was a small child’s wail. He remembered the sound, because it was one his nieces and nephews used to make when they were tired and in want of sleep. From the shrieking and calling out various names, it sounded like there were a dozen or more in their brigade.
Trey looked behind him just in time to see the door crash open. Three girls crowded through, with three others behind them. One of the older two hitched a smaller child higher on her hip. These six little girls, and the youngest of indeterminate sex and age, produced a shockingly phenomenal amount of noise. Immediately upon entering the room, the oldest of the girls—or the tallest of them anyway—stepped forward and bobbed a curtsey to Trey and Graham, then shot an angry stare at Mrs. Donalson.
“Ma’am,” she said, “you promised! You promised us that we would never be separated.”
“Yes,” another girl said, this one smaller with reddish-blond pigtails and a splash of freckles across her cheeks and nose, “we heard, you promised!”
“You said!” shouted three other girls.
“Ewe thaid.” That one didn’t appear to be the youngest of the group, as she was both mobile and had speech, but she wasn’t much older than the one in the arms of the older girl.
It sounded as if all six girls were speaking at the same time, and looked as if the youngest struggled against the sibling that held it, trying to get onto the floor. That child appeared to be about two years old. When it realized it was not making it out of the arms that held it, it resumed the ear-piercing wail he’d heard as they barreled down the steps.
Graham stared at the ceiling in the large office. Trey could see he was having a hard time keeping the smile from spreading across his face. Trey remembered similar incidents from his childhood at home as he was growing up. It was one of the many things he’d adored about having so many siblings. The smile soon spread across his face as well. Graham turned his face away from the girls so they wouldn’t see his amusement and think the men were laughing at them, and then Trey did the same as he attempted to control his growing mirth.
Mrs. Donalson rose from her seat behind the desk, and addressed the eldest girl in a voice that was soft, yet firm. “Rose, please take your sisters to the nursery, and wait for me there. I will be with you in ten minutes.”
“Ma’am, I will not let you separate us.” The girl appeared around twelve or thirteen years old. “My mother’s dying wish was that we remain together as a family. And you will go back on your promise to her if you separate us. My sisters need me.”
The girl’s spunk reminded him of several of his sisters. There was something about growing up as one of many that Caroline didn’t quite understand. She only knew a childhood of loneliness and that Trey couldn’t fathom doing to a child of theirs. Caroline had always said she wanted many children. “As many as the Lord would see fit to give me.”
“Rose, I said go upstairs and wait for me. I’m in a meeting right now.” Mrs. Donalson spoke in tone reminiscent of his sister’s tutors or governesses.
One of the other girls took Rose’s hand and tugged at her to leave with the rest of them. But Rose stood firm, reluctant to leave.
“Mrs. Donalson, ma’am,” said another, “We’re sorry we barged in like this, but Let
ty Miller is going around saying that Rose is going to be shipped off to a work house next week—”
“—On her birfday,” finished yet another child.
Suddenly it made sense to him, and he realized that the girls were incredibly brave to come in like this. Then he knew, Mrs. Donalson might be stern on the surface, but she was sweet butter on a warm crust of bread—trying to make the best out of a serious situation. She loved these children. It was obvious.
“Girls, I’m going to count to three, and if you aren’t on your way back to the nursery, there will be no dessert after dinner.”
The smallest girls were already out the door and stomping up the steps. Rose and one other were tugged on by the last two sisters.
Mrs. Donalson stepped around the desk and closed the door.
“Did that not remind you of Lizzie and Winnie when we were young?” Graham said, the smile on his face one of familiarity with chaotic family situations.
“Rose feels an enormous responsibility to keep their family together. She, ah… swore to her mother… It was a promise she made to their mother when the woman was on her deathbed.” Mrs. Donalson took a deep breath, then wiped her eyes before returning to her chair behind her neatly organized desk. “And I did promise them I would try to find one home for them—to keep them together.”
Graham’s sister was obviously bothered by the confrontation. He thought it likely she would discipline the children somehow, though he didn’t think she was the type who might be harsh in her punishment. Trey knew she loved them, it was very obvious. But, as she’d said earlier, she couldn’t keep every child that came through the doors of the children’s home.
“Mrs. Donalson, may I inquire as to the status of those children? I’m assuming that with the same red-blonde hair, they are sisters—or is the youngest a male?” Trey genuinely wanted to know, because if the girls were about to be split up, he might be able to help.
She took a moment and caught several deep breaths. “It’s a sad tale,” she began, blinking back tears. “The girls have been with me for nearly two years. Their mother died shortly after giving birth to the youngest, Violet, you saw just now on Lily’s hip.” She paused again to collect herself.