Mercy walked forward, putting her hand on Caroline and turning to Henri. “Where’s Moira now? Did she return to the Hawk and Eagle?”
Henri’s face paled as if he’d witnessed a ghost. “I think she left town.”
Caroline’s face grew hard. “How could you lose her?”
Henri shook his head and laid a hand on the swaddled infant Caroline held away from herself. “When she handed me this baby, I . . . Well, I was in shock. I didn’t think to run after her until it was too late. The madam at the Hawk and Eagle had no knowledge of her return. I asked around, but no one has seen her.”
Mercy pressed the baby closer to Caroline, encouraging her to cradle the now wriggling infant before she dropped her. “Maybe she’s gone off in search of a better life, as you’ve always wanted her to do.”
Caroline’s face contorted as if she believed Mercy a fool. “No, she wouldn’t . . . not without my help. . . . She couldn’t.” She stared at the baby, who’d started fussing. “Didn’t even want to . . .”
The baby squalled, and neither Caroline nor Henri did anything to soothe her, both of them staring at the infant as if dumbfounded. Mercy wedged in and took the baby, turning the little girl onto her shoulder and patting her with her one hand.
Caroline stared at the child, as if mesmerized by Mercy’s ministrations. “How am I going to care for her?”
“I don’t know.” Mercy shushed the infant, though she’d already stopped crying and was back to sniffling. “Perhaps it’s a good thing you work at an orphanage. We can get her into a good home.”
“No,” Henri barked. “I mean . . .” He pulled at his tie. “It’s her niece.”
“But I haven’t the resources to care for a child.” Caroline worried her apron in her hands. “I can’t work, raise her, and continue helping women in the red-light district. Where is she going to live—in the basement with me? I can’t burden the staff with her just because I work here. Besides, the Lowes are always saying these children should be placed under the care of two parents.”
“But the orphans had no stable family members to go to, if they had any at all.” Henri rubbed his brow as if his head ached. “You’re her family. She belongs with you.”
“He’s right.” Mercy looked at the little face on her shoulder, the babe’s chubby cheeks now slack with sleep. “Mr. Lowe allowed Florence to go with her grandmother even though she was a widow.”
Henri took Caroline’s hands. After a few moments, she took her wide, stunned eyes off the baby and turned to him.
“You never gave up on Moira. Don’t give up your niece.” Henri let go of her hands and paced. “I plan to help. I pledged to support that women’s home you and Miss Wisely wanted to start last year, but after the idea folded, you never asked anything else of me.”
Caroline stared at him as if he’d said something stupid.
The front door jiggled.
Was her brother coming home early for once? Maybe he could be of help. Mercy started for the front door, but her boss, Nicholas Lowe, entered before she got there.
The tension tightening her back and shoulders melted. He’d be far better at helping Caroline and Henri think through things than Timothy would be. Nicholas had known them far longer than anyone in this mansion. Though he and Henri no longer seemed to be friends—something concerning Caroline and her sister had caused a rift—Nicholas had never treated Henri poorly whenever he’d come around.
Her boss glanced between Henri and Caroline and then her, his brow furrowing at seeing the baby. “Who’s this?”
“Moira’s child.”
His eyebrows rose.
Henri turned toward him and pointed. “Tell Caroline she can keep the baby and remain housekeeper.”
Mercy held her breath. She’d never seen anyone have the audacity to give Nicholas a command. They might have been good friends once, but Nicholas wouldn’t like being told what to do. And yet, what would Caroline do if he said no?
“Of course,” Nicholas said softly, but there was a strange, probing look in his eyes as he took in Henri.
Why had he obeyed the shorter man’s command without even looking affronted?
“Good.” Henri nodded emphatically and then turned to look at the baby again. “Seems first thing I can do is find a wet nurse.” He blew past Nicholas without a word and strode out the front door.
She’d never thought she’d see the day her boss would seem at a loss for words. And yet there he stood, his baffled look mirroring Caroline’s. Maybe he was confused about what Henri had to do with the situation.
“Henri said Moira found him, gave him the baby, and left.” Mercy patted the baby’s back. “He wants to help since he promised to support the women’s home you and Evelyn had planned last year.”
Evelyn and her parents had run the orphanage before Mercy’s family had taken over the job. Evelyn had also campaigned for a home to be built in the red-light district to help women have a safe place to abandon their vocation, learn a trade, and perhaps be reunited with their children, if any were in the orphanage. But the project hadn’t gotten anywhere before Evelyn married and moved to Kansas City.
Nicholas shrugged. “I have no problem with him helping.”
Caroline shook her head. “But you don’t know what it’s like trying to work while caring for an infant.”
Nicholas raised his eyebrows again, a bemused expression on his face. “I don’t?” He had two children under the age of four.
“Well, I mean, of course you do. But not as a single woman.” She wilted. “Oh, how am I going to do it?”
“I’m sure Mercy and Patricia will help. And they’ll have more free time now that I’ve hired a tutor for Max and Robert.” He gestured toward a man Mercy hadn’t noticed standing outside the front door.
She swallowed. It couldn’t be.
Aaron slid into the entryway. The way he scrunched his face and pulled his mouth to the side indicated he knew exactly how unwelcome a sight he was to her.
Nicholas walked back a pace to stand beside him. “This is Aaron Firebrook. He’ll be tutoring and tending the garden until the start of next school year at minimum. Aaron, this is the mansion’s housekeeper, Caroline O’Conner, and one of the orphanage directors, Mercy McClain. Though I imagine you met Miss McClain when you interviewed at the school.”
He swept off his hat. “I did. And I promise”—he looked straight at Mercy—“I didn’t know you worked here.”
“Excuse me.” She handed the baby to Caroline, afraid her own trembling now exceeded the housekeeper’s. “May I have a word with you, Mr. Lowe?”
He shrugged. “Of course.” But he didn’t move.
“In your office, if you would.” She turned to Caroline, refusing to look at Aaron. “Excuse us.” She then headed for the office.
Nicholas’s long stride helped him catch up to her halfway down the hallway. He passed in front of her to open the door. “What’s the problem?”
“Aaron—or George, rather . . .” She stopped in the middle of his office, turned, and crossed her arms over her chest. “Mr. Firebrook must have failed to tell you—as he also failed to tell the board—that he was the worst school bully that ever lived. He has no business overseeing children.”
Nicholas leaned on the front of his desk and rubbed his jaw. “He actually did tell me he wasn’t the best kid. We talked about Jimmy, and he thought his childhood might help him relate to the boy.”
What? Aaron thought his ability to harass people was an asset? She kept herself rooted in place instead of rushing back to the entryway to tell him exactly how helpful his overbearing ways were not. “He was beyond not being the best kid. He exploited everyone’s weaknesses for laughs.”
“When did this happen?”
“All throughout his school years, as far as I know. Last time he bullied me was in 1896—when my family left town.”
Nicholas shrugged. Shrugged! “Harrison vouches for him. He must have changed after that.”
She paced the floor. “If Geor—Aaron couldn’t keep his thoughts to himself about my arm, Camille’s splotchy skin, Fred’s mental faculties, and every other student’s foibles and flaws, do you think he can handle the children here with any sort of empathy?”
Nicholas crossed his arms and cocked his head to the side, studying her as if she’d been the bully rather than the victim. “I don’t know him well enough to say one way or the other.”
Surely he could see that the time it took to interview Aaron was wholly inadequate for deciding—though she couldn’t blame him for wanting to give Aaron a chance. She’d heard how perfect and practiced Aaron’s answers could be. “Well, then take it from me. He shouldn’t be in charge of children.”
“But as you said, that was years ago.” He resituated himself on his desk and frowned. “I’m afraid you wouldn’t have considered me qualified to run this orphanage or help those in the red-light district eleven years ago. I myself wouldn’t have liked or trusted me. It’s possible for people to experience real change, especially when God gets ahold of them.”
“Or Aaron has just chosen a more subtle way to manipulate people than outright bullying, like masquerading as a changed man you can trust—which I don’t.”
Nicholas looked at her for a few moments, then held up a hand. “Give me a minute.” He turned his head to the side and closed his eyes.
She crossed over to the sofa and sat. This wasn’t the first time Nicholas had randomly shut down a conversation to think or pray or whatever he did, so she had learned to wait.
But really, what was his dilemma?
Considering the sensitive nature of the orphans’ backgrounds, Nicholas was fastidious in hiring staff. Not just anyone could be trusted to treat the offspring of prostitutes well, to help them when they spit in a person’s face, to enforce rules when they retaliated, and to do what was best for the children instead of themselves.
Though her own sister-in-law and brother were proving themselves to be terrible at half of those things—in fact, she wasn’t doing that well herself—that didn’t mean they should hire someone who’d only make matters worse.
“I want to give him a chance.” Nicholas looked up and scanned the room to find where she’d taken a seat. “Consider him like John Mark.”
“Who’s John Mark?” And why did that matter anyway? It was what Aaron had done and what he would do that mattered.
“He’s in the Bible.”
“Oh.” It definitely sounded like a Bible name, but . . . “Who’s he again?”
“A man Paul didn’t trust after he’d failed him on one of his missionary journeys. Barnabas thought Paul should allow John Mark to accompany him again—figured he needed another chance to prove himself.” Nicholas walked to the chair next to the couch and sat beside her. “I know you won’t like it, but I’m willing to be Aaron’s Barnabas and let him have a chance. On the way over, he told me how Harrison and a reverend friend of his in California affected his life. Though he didn’t go into his entire life story, I certainly sense he wants to start anew.”
Words? Words were enough to erase the years of agony he’d put countless children through? “You only think he deserves a second chance because you aren’t well acquainted with what he did.”
“And you don’t think he deserves one because you are too well acquainted.” He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Do you believe you’ll be in physical danger?”
Aaron had picked up her papers yesterday, left when she’d asked him to . . . One day’s worth of actions wasn’t enough to base anything on, but even at his boyhood worst, he hadn’t physically accosted any girls. “I don’t think so, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be. But if you were asking me if anyone was in danger of being made to feel absolutely awful, that’s a different story.”
“Look. I understand why it would be difficult to be on good terms with Aaron, but I’m not asking you to befriend him.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “My staff won’t look the other way if they see him treat a child unkindly. And Max and Robert are old enough and self-assured enough to come tell me if something’s wrong.”
“And what about the other boys?” She twisted the folds of her skirt. “Did you not say he’s to be the gardener?”
“Yes, he’ll work the grounds while the children are in school, but they needn’t go near him if they don’t want to. I wouldn’t mind letting him help with Jimmy though, considering the trouble you’ve been having with the boy. Once school’s out, Jimmy will be here for far more hours, and with your brother’s bank job, perhaps Aaron is exactly what we need.”
Right, because what a bully needs is a grown-up bully to guide him.
“But, Mercy, if he does something worth being fired for, I won’t hesitate to fire him. A bad past can certainly be indicative of a less-than-stellar future, but it’s not proof of it.”
She gritted her teeth and forced herself not to narrow her eyes at him, like Jimmy did when he didn’t get his way.
“Are you all right?”
No, but it seemed her feelings didn’t matter. “I don’t think my brother will be keen on your hiring my old tormentor.”
He nodded as if he understood. “I’ll talk to Timothy, then.”
Good. Maybe Timothy would convince him this wasn’t a good idea. Though her brother was much older, he’d been home from work a handful of times when she’d returned from school crying on days when Aaron had been especially mean.
And yet, Timothy didn’t get along with Jimmy and might be thrilled that Nicholas wanted Aaron to take him in hand.
“Is there something more you’d like to discuss?”
She glanced up. Nicholas’s eyes were soft with concern, and yet the rest of his face was stiff and no-nonsense, so she shook her head.
“Good.” Nicholas gave her a tentative smile. “I hope you know I wouldn’t do anything to put the orphans, you, or the rest of the staff in danger. But there are plenty of people here to watch Mr. Firebrook. When I introduce him to Max and Robert, I’ll pay attention to how they respond to him.” He patted her shoulder, then rose and left.
Mercy closed her eyes. How am I supposed to live with Aaron across the yard? I know I’ve told people I’m a stronger person for having been bullied, but that doesn’t mean I welcome the trial back!
She got up and followed Nicholas out, though instead of heading to the music room, where she heard young male voices, she turned up the stairs. She’d make sure Owen had returned to his room and see if she could get Jimmy to help clean. Hopefully he wouldn’t blow up at her, because right now, she’d probably blow up right back.
Aaron had been in town less than a week and already he was causing strife.
She let her hand drag on the railing as she forced her way upstairs.
The silver lining—where was the silver lining?
School.
She’d been unsure of how to inform any other districts Aaron applied to about his past, but now she’d have no such need. Once he showed his true colors, Nicholas would become his reference, and a bad reference from one of the county’s richest men would hold more sway than her word—as evidenced by Nicholas ignoring her concerns just now.
She’d have to keep a constant eye on Aaron so he’d not hurt anyone more than what it took to get him fired.
But if Nicholas was right and Aaron had changed?
She’d believe it when she saw it.
5
“Mr. Firebrook?”
Aaron looked up from his efforts to re-explain a multi-step word problem to Robert. Max’s dark, serious brow would have made Aaron think he was kin to Mr. Lowe if he didn’t already know the boy was an orphan.
The seventeen-year-old frowned, put his paper on the desk in front of Aaron, and pointed at the second problem. “I think you marked this wrong.” He ran his finger down columns of numbers in the margin. “I did it three times and got the same answer. I think you missed that this exponent is a negative one half.”
Aaron pulled the paper to
ward himself. Max was the reason he’d been hired to tutor, but what had Mr. Lowe been thinking? The boy didn’t need a tutor to challenge him. He was plenty good at challenging himself. He scanned Max’s calculations. “I believe you’re right.” The young man wasn’t beyond him in knowledge—he was just better than him. He’d feel more comfortable being Max’s classmate than his tutor. “Did you rework the other one?”
“Yes, but I got that wrong. Careless mistake.”
“Good.” He looked at the clock and frowned. Forty-five minutes and Max was finished, yet his brother was still struggling with basic math processes he should’ve already mastered. “You’ve done all I’ve prepared for you. Why don’t you see what the McClains would have you do?”
Max left, and Robert slumped over the table, pushing back his light brown hair. “I hate math.”
Aaron gave the fifteen-year-old’s shoulder a couple encouraging thumps with his fist. “If we can get you to understand a few properties—”
“I’d not even be doing this if it weren’t for Max, you know.” He groaned. “All I need to know is the basics to get a job. But Mr. Lowe won’t let us stay here unless we go to school, and I can’t mess this up for Max.”
Though he’d only known the boys for a couple days, Aaron couldn’t help but smile over how willing they were to sacrifice for each other. Would he have tried harder in school if he’d had someone depending on him? Or maybe it was a good thing he’d never had siblings—he couldn’t imagine how much more guilt he’d be feeling if he’d ruined their lives. “The schools in Boston will likely have a wider variety of math classes to choose from.”
Robert glanced toward the empty doorway, then back at him. “Max might love school so much he wants to attend a university that supposedly has the best math classes in the world, but I’m going to get a job instead.”
Aaron nodded slightly. Who was he to tell the boy what to do after knowing him for less than a week? And Robert could get a job easily enough. Since the brothers cared a great deal for each other, surely Max would keep him from taking a terrible one.
A Chance at Forever Page 4