“All right.” Biedermeier waved away the forged studies.
James released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“But I want to discuss some ground rules for this little experiment. How long will it take? I don’t plan to just give you free rein indefinitely.”
Good question. How long would it take for him to confirm that Biedermeier was breaking the law in his employment of the children? And he did want to make a genuine study. “I think three months should be sufficient time to see results.”
“What exactly are we talking about here? Cutting the children’s hours?”
“Well, yes, in order to make room for instruction. I hope you won’t cut their pay as a result.” James didn’t expect the man to outright admit that he wasn’t paying the children, but it couldn’t hurt to probe a little. “It doesn’t seem fair, since their participation in the study will require they cut back their hours.”
“Their wages will remain unchanged. And who will teach them?”
“I will.” He’d thought about it and come to the conclusion that he could not involve a genuine teacher in this charade. The best thing was to keep tight control on the situation himself and then to present the Society with a fait accompli. The only open question was how he would explain his absence to Mr. Phillips. He would travel back to London for the Society’s meeting this Saturday and manufacture an excuse to be absent for the next several weeks.
“Are you qualified?” Startled from his thoughts, James glanced up. “Forgive me, Dr. Burnham, but if I’ve learned one thing in business it’s that it’s critical to know as much as you can about a potential collaborator. It seems to me that it will be important to get a highly qualified teacher if we are to be successful.”
“Mr. Biedermeier, are you familiar with the scientific method?”
“I can’t say that I am particularly.”
“In order for an experiment to be scientifically credible, it must be controlled. All influences on the children must be quantified and applied in a consistent manner. The best way to achieve this is for me to act as their teacher. I assure you, I’m more than qualified. I’ll take some basic observations of each child to begin with and administer some tests, including a measure of productivity I’ve developed. I’ll apply the protocol, and in three months’ time, repeat my initial observations. It’s very straightforward, really.”
“And the study will be published?”
“Yes, with your permission, of course.”
“What will it be called?”
Here James did not hesitate. “A Report on Increased Productivity and Improved Health Among Child Laborers Resulting from Visionary Techniques Applied at the Biedermeier Gun Works, Birmingham, England.”
Biedermeier smiled. “Then we have an arrangement, Dr. Burnham.”
Chapter Ten
As she lifted the heavy brass door knocker, Catharine began to have second thoughts about her unannounced visit to the offices of the Society for the Comfort and Elevation of the Poor and the Betterment of Their Children. Last night, pacing her bedchamber, unable to sleep, it had seemed a fine idea, the perfect antidote to several anxious days spent reliving the past—not just the events of recent weeks, but the distant past as well. Now, standing at the bottom of the small flight of stairs that led up to the unassuming town house, doubt took hold.
Still, she had to do something besides sit in her house and fret. Pulling a crumpled letter from her reticule, she scanned the now-familiar handwriting.
Lady Cranbrook,
I plan to depart for Birmingham today and have secured an appointment with Mr. Biedermeier. I shall report back when I can. I trust you will keep me apprised of any developments that might be relevant to my work. I enclose my direction should you need to reach me.
Sincerely,
James Burnham
So cold. So impersonal, though what could she expect, given that the note she’d sent him shared those same qualities? She read the first line again. The news that he’d departed for Birmingham guaranteed that he wouldn’t be here today. It was the only thing that had emboldened her to come.
The note arrived two days after she’d stood at the window in her upstairs parlor and watched James walk away. Though Blackstone and others might accuse her of being indiscriminate with her affections, she did have a code of sorts. She never dallied with married men or with those who were promised to others. Miss Andrews, while a bit dim, didn’t deserve to start her married life with an unfaithful husband. And bless Dr. Burnham for keeping his word about going to Birmingham despite the snub.
She took a deep breath and rapped the knocker against the door several times. She was Catharine, Viscountess Cranbrook. She was a woman to be reckoned with. But why, a little voice asked from deep within, was she constantly having to remind herself who she was? Since she’d come back from the war and undergone her transformation, she’d never had any problem asserting herself. She had simply stepped into her new persona as if she were born to it. So why did it feel so ill-fitting all of a sudden?
The heavy door swinging open interrupted her maudlin thoughts. It was just as well. If she’d learned one thing since she’d become the Viscountess Cranbrook, it was that overthinking only led to unhappiness.
It wasn’t a servant who greeted her. A gentleman of about forty, dressed unremarkably in buff pantaloons and an olive green coat gazed at her quizzically but smiled. “May I help you?”
Catharine stood as tall as she could. “Yes, thank you. I am Lady Cranbrook.” She watched the man’s eyes widen slightly. “Is this the Society for the Comfort and Elevation of the Poor and the Betterment of Their Children?”
“It is indeed. And I’m honored to make your acquaintance, my lady. I am Alan Phillips, the Society’s president, at your service.”
“I am a friend of Mrs. Robert Watson, and I should like to assist in your efforts, if I may.”
It was only the slight raising of his eyebrows that betrayed Mr. Phillips’s surprise as he ushered her into a dim, plain foyer. The plaster was crumbling in spots, and a round table in the center held a plant that was very, very dead. It seemed that Daisy was right in more ways than one: the Society cried out for a woman’s touch.
“My lady, you do us a great honor. Won’t you please come in?” He passed her cloak and bonnet to a footman and ushered her into a sitting room that was only slightly less shabby than the entryway. “Your timing is fortuitous. In less than half an hour’s time, a meeting of the executive committee will take place.”
What awful luck. The last thing she wanted to do today, given her unsettled state, was to encounter the men who led the Society. Tamping down an impulse to flee, she sat in the threadbare chair Mr. Phillips indicated as he seated himself across from her. “Oh, I’m sure I don’t want to intrude on your business, Mr. Phillips. I just thought…well, I’d like to help somehow.”
“We would be honored, my lady.”
She detected nothing but sincerity in the man’s eyes. “Mr. Phillips, may I ask you a question and rely on you to answer honestly?”
“Of course.”
“Are you familiar with my reputation?”
To the gentleman’s credit, he did not break her gaze. “Yes, I believe I am.”
“While I’m sure that having members of the peerage publicly associate themselves with your cause is generally of great value to you, in my particular case I fear it would be a hindrance. Reformers are not likely to approve of my…life. I wonder if it isn’t better for me to help anonymously.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“Money, to be quite frank. I have a great deal more of it than I need.”
“Lady Cranbrook, I’m moved by your generosity and delighted to have you help in any way you see fit and find comfortable. But know that I would be honored to have your name associated with our cause. Members of our executive committee should begin arriving shortly. They will enjoy meeting you and hearing of your generous offer of assistan
ce.”
She wasn’t at all prepared to meet a roomful of men bent on reform. Facing them in all their earnestness—and judgment—was more than she was up to just now. Before she could demur, her attention was drawn by the sound of the front door swinging open. They were arriving. She felt a twinge of panic and rose. “I shall take my leave before your group arrives, Mr. Phillips, and perhaps we can discuss my participation in more detail at a later time.”
“Lady Cranbrook, won’t you at least have a cup of tea before you go?”
The door swung open, drawing their attention. Catharine had been poised to to refuse the offer of tea, but as she took in the arrival of a tall dark man, no words would come out of her mouth.
“Dr. Burnham, you’re somewhat early,” Mr. Phillips said mildly.
James stared openly at her instead of acknowledging the Society’s president.
Before she could stop herself, she blurted, “I thought you were in…” He shook his head slightly, enough to halt her outburst.
Mr. Phillips looked back and forth between the pair. “Forgive me. Introductions are in order. I know you don’t wish to stay and meet the executive committee, Lady Cranbrook, but allow me to make known to you—”
“Lady Cranbrook and I are acquainted,” said James, only then taking his eyes from hers and presenting Mr. Phillips with a deceptively bland smile. “We were introduced last week at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Watson.”
“Ah!” Mr. Phillips said. “That must explain your generous interest in the works of the Society, Lady Cranbrook. Our Dr. Burnham can be quite persuasive.”
“Indeed,” Catharine agreed. “He certainly has a…forceful way about him.”
“Lady Cranbrook dropped by to offer her assistance, but I can’t persuade her to stay for the meeting,” Mr. Phillips said.
“I’m not up to making the acquaintance of the executive committee just now, I’m afraid.” Offering what she hoped was an apologetic smile, she brushed damp palms against her skirts. She had to get away from here. She had to get away from him.
“Well then,” James said, “you’d better be on your way because I passed two of them not five houses down, paused in their progress to have an argument over whether paving the streets of rookeries with cobblestones would have an impact on rates of disease transmission.”
“Oh, dear.” Mr. Phillips walked to the front window and peered out. “Here they are now.” He turned back to her. “Although I’m disappointed that you won’t stay, even I have to admit that Mr. Pinehurst and Mr. Stockhouse bickering over the ideal size of cobblestones doesn’t show our group in its most flattering light.”
Catharine smiled and offered Mr. Phillips her hand. He really was kind. “It was a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
“Dr. Burnham, won’t you escort the viscountess out though the back garden? There is only a dirt path through it, so you should be safe from any among us concerned with cobblestones.”
She could not read James’s expression as he nodded and offered his arm. It was a simple gesture, but the prospect of touching him, even through her gloves and his sleeve, caused a thrill to run through her. She could feel her resolve giving way, and she breathed a small sigh. Despite her best efforts, it seemed there was no escaping him.
Worse, she didn’t want to.
As James trailed Catharine down the back steps into the garden, he thought back to the narrow stairwell that led to her room at Madame Cherie’s. On both the occasions he’d followed her up it, his body had thrummed with anticipation. Then, she’d been dressed as Lady V, masked and mysterious. Today she was Lady Cranbrook, elegant in lavender muslin with a deep purple spencer atop. Her auburn hair was swept up into a high chignon and he could see the chain of her ever-present necklace on the nape of her neck, peeking up over her collar. His heart began to thud, and he suppressed the urge to reach for the chain where it tangled with a few tendrils of hair that had escaped their confines. Lady V or Lady Cranbrook, it hardly seemed to matter what name she used, what she wore, or whether she led him up into a bedchamber at a whorehouse or down into a garden outside a reform meeting, his reaction was the same: immediate and utter attraction. Despite his best efforts to rationalize it away. Despite the fact that he was angry with her, disgusted with her carelessness and her games.
“I thought you were in Birmingham,” she murmured as they reached the gate at the back of the small garden.
He opened the gate for her. “I was. I’m just back for today’s meeting.”
“An awfully long journey for a meeting.” She was fishing for information. He didn’t reply, only followed her into the lane. She glanced back at him. “Unless you don’t want your colleagues to know you’re not in town.”
“I haven’t told them. They wouldn’t approve.”
“They wouldn’t approve of helping children?”
He sighed. She wasn’t going to relent. “Shall we walk a little?”
“Aren’t we already?”
They were indeed several lengths away from the Society’s gate. James grinned in spite of himself. “There’s no escaping you, is there?”
She took his arm. “I was just thinking the same thing about you. You were supposed to be in Birmingham.”
He was going to have to explain it to her. As much as he’d hoped not to have to associate with her anymore, she had set him on this path, so he supposed she deserved to know what was going on. “The Society is very…how to say it…concerned with process, with governance. They’d never allow me to just impulsively take on a project they hadn’t already studied and debated at great length.”
Catharine raised her lovely brows. “How surprising. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like that.”
He was beginning to thaw despite himself. “Don’t tease. They’re right, really. If one ran off unthinkingly after every stray whim, then where would one be?”
“I can’t possibly imagine. Perhaps one would find oneself strolling in the sun on an unseasonably warm autumn day. Perhaps one would find oneself on the way to the park?”
The invitation in her sparkling eyes was impossibly tempting, though following her recent snub, it bewildered him. He dipped his head. “If you like.”
“If we walk briskly, we can be at St. James’s in ten minutes,” she said. “And, funning aside, I am anxious to hear about the children. But I don’t want to be the cause of you missing your meeting.”
“It’s all right. I only came because I didn’t want them to know I was away. Mr. Phillips has seen me—that’s what’s important. I’ll make my excuses to him later.”
“And what will you say?”
“That a rich viscountess wanted to discuss with me how she might help the Society in its good works?” She smiled and nodded, and they walked in silence the short distance to Marlborough Road, which would take them to the center of the park.
There was so much James wanted to ask her. Why the sudden interest in the work of the Society? Why had she invited him to her home and then refused him entry? And if she didn’t want to see him, why was she being so companionable now? Was she still at Madame Cherie’s? For the moment, though, he resolved to content himself with the feeling of the sun on his face and the slight pressure of her hand on his arm. To walk in the sun with a lady, what a perfectly, absurdly normal thing to do. He tried to soak in the sensation, because he knew it would not be long before her curiosity got the better of her.
“I can bear it no longer!” She turned to him as if obeying a silent cue. “Tell me about the gun works.”
“There isn’t much to tell yet. I met Biedermeier last week and convinced him to let me conduct an experiment in reform.”
“That seems surprisingly easy, from what I know of him.”
“What do you know of him?” He instantly regretted the accusing tone wrapped around his question.
“From what I’ve heard, I mean. He doesn’t sound like the sort of man who would be easily persuaded to undertake such a radical experiment.”
“I assured him it would improve his productivity and all but promised it would make him famous.”
“And the children?”
The park was afire with mulberry trees, which were beginning to lose their yellow leaves for the season. James gestured for Catharine to precede him around a small puddle before answering her question. “They work very hard. They don’t get enough to eat—or enough sleep. An overseer beats them with a cane when they nod off.” He felt her grip tighten on his forearm. “But honestly, it’s not any worse than other factories or mills I’ve seen. The difference seems to be, if what you allege is true, that he’s not paying them. That they’re essentially enslaved.”
“It’s awful,” she said quietly.
“I spent the week gathering baseline data for the study, for I truly intend to conduct one. I’ve taken their heights and weights, given rudimentary intelligence tests, and conducted interviews with each of them. School begins Monday. They’re inherently distrustful, but I’m beginning to see hints of excitement. Though one can never say whether it’s the prospect of school itself that has piqued their interest or merely the fact that it means a shorter work day.”
“What kind of labor do they do?”
“A gun works is an interesting place. Parts of the process take place off-site, in other, smaller workshops or in the homes of artisans. A gun has dozens and dozens of parts, and they’re inspected at a proof house at various points in the manufacturing process. So some of the boys run around town fetching and delivering parts and half-finished guns. They’ve got the best jobs of the lot, though they do carry burdens heavy enough to tax a grown man. Others, including the three girls, work inside. Many of them do what’s called marking off—the final sanding and polishing of stocks—and some polish the barrels as well.
“Biedermeier produces his own barrels on the premises, you see,” he continued, trying not to squirm under her intense attention. “For the most part, it’s highly skilled work. To make a barrel, a slab of iron is brought to welding heat and turned in a grooved roll until the edges meet, then heated and the seam closed. Several of the boys help in the operation of the fire. It’s something to behold.”
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