The Foundling

by Halls, Stacey

  ‘You must be Clara! I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you.’ She pulled her into a hug. Charlotte was stiff as a broom handle, her dark eyes huge in her pale face.

  ‘I’m Charlotte,’ she protested, and Keziah laughed.

  ‘So you are. Ain’t you the little mort! She’s the picture of you, Bess.’

  Charlotte moved away and attached herself to my skirts.

  ‘Charlotte,’ I said, ‘this is my friend Keziah, and her sons, Jonas and Moses. She sells dresses to very fine ladies in the East End.’ Charlotte looked around at the shabby room and at the boys sitting at the table, who were watching her quietly. I pulled down her wet shawl and stroked her hair. ‘She’s met a lot of people lately, haven’t you? More today than in a year, I’d imagine. Here, you sit there with Moses and Jonas, while I talk to Keziah.’

  She shook her head, and I crouched down. ‘What’s wrong?’ I said. ‘You aren’t shy! Remember Biddy Johnson. Why don’t you tell the boys about her? Go on.’ I tried to lead her to the table, but she shook her head again and looked ready to sob. I sighed. ‘All right, come and sit with me, then.’

  Keziah hung our shawls over the bar in front of the fire and we sat either side, me in the rocking chair, with Charlotte on my knee. The solid chair with its steady rhythm had always comforted me, and I pushed on it now absentmindedly as I told Keziah of the events of the previous night and this morning. Her dark eyes were grave, and as she listened she took off her cap and teased at her little ropes of woolly hair.

  ‘You can stay here, long as you need,’ she said, when I had finished, and I thanked her. Charlotte felt heavy on me, and I realised she was asleep. Now I could talk freely.

  ‘Mrs Callard’s got a body-snatcher after me,’ I whispered. ‘I saw him at Black and White Court and he almost filched us earlier.’ I swallowed, as the question I’d been leading up to pressed at my throat. ‘Do you think they’d hang me, Kiz?’

  ‘They can’t hang you for taking back your own child!’

  ‘They don’t know that’s what she is, though. Mrs Callard’ll swear she’s hers.’

  Keziah bit her lip, and I could see the boys watching wide-eyed from the table. She glanced at them, then at Charlotte. ‘You’re sure she’s yours?’ she murmured.

  ‘Yes. Look what I found in her house.’ From my pocket I pulled both pieces of the little whalebone heart. Keziah took them from me, bewildered. ‘Mine’s the one with B and C on it. Mrs Callard had the other one.’

  ‘D for Daniel. Then this is all you need! There will be a record of this at the Foundling place?’

  ‘Yes, they wrote it down. But I stole it from her house!’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t understand how she knew what the token was, but didn’t recognise me. It don’t make sense.’

  Keziah opened her mouth and closed it, and sighed. ‘I don’t know, Bess. None of it makes sense.’

  I was suddenly deeply tired. The light was fading at the window, and I rested my head against the chair back, just for a moment, as Keziah left to wipe the boys’ hands and build a fire. I let my eyes travel about the room, noticing the damp walls and the stains in the laundry hanging above our heads. Keziah’s bowls had always been chipped, and her chairs missing a spindle here and there, yet somehow my eye was now drawn immediately to all the faults and snags. If I had not been so tired, I would have felt angry that a woman who worked six days a week from dawn until dusk, and her husband dusk till dawn, had not even a scratch of Mrs Callard’s wealth. Mrs Callard, who was irritable and proud and short with everyone she spoke to, when all she did was climb up and down stairs in her silk slippers and have tea brought to her on a silver tray.

  There were footsteps in the court beyond, but a thin red curtain covered the window now. I realised that it served to hide me, too, and began to understand for the first time what Keziah lived through every day. She had to hide her sons, and now I had to hide my daughter. But the difference was I still had hope of an end to it: that one day we would be able to move freely through the streets with our heads bare, and not be afraid of who we met. There was no end to it for Keziah and her children; they would always live like rats beneath the floorboards. I’d known it, but never really understood how it felt until now. Why her ears were pricked constantly for her boys, and how her heart beat always for them. I watched her tidy the hearth, sweeping cinders into a pan, and felt a powerful rush of love and loyalty. I held my daughter, heavy on my chest, and I understood that love and fear were no different. Not really.

  We stayed with Keziah all that week, trying to be helpful and not nuisances. I gave her a few coins towards food and rent, and made myself useful, darning her clothes for the market and looking after the boys when she went out to work. William kept his usual routine, sleeping or rehearsing during the day and taking his violin out before nightfall. We slept in the big chair by the fire. Charlotte was withdrawn, and in quiet moments I would see her looking about the room with interest. She was unused to sleeping, eating and living in one room, but Keziah kept a warm, tidy home and cooked good, simple food from the markets. Charlotte had only ever lived with three people, two of whom worked for her, but she gradually began to relax in the Gibbonses’ company, for theirs was a traditional home, with a mother and father and two children, like the ones she had read about. It was the reason I found comfort in them, and I think she did, too.

  On the second night she showed an interest in Keziah’s piles of clothes and frippery in the corner of the room. Jonas submitted good-naturedly as she began putting caps and coats on him while we watched from the chairs before the fire. His older brother decided they would open a shop, turning over an old crate to use as a counter and charging a penny an item. Keziah and I used thimbles and buttons as coins, and Charlotte played happily for an hour or more, wearing a striped gown that was ten sizes too big and a man’s cocked hat, and handing over garments as we pretended to inspect them for fleas and stains. William brought home a bag of roasted chestnuts while they played, and we shared them before closing the shop and putting the children to bed. In the morning Keziah went out to work and William left to rehearse with his quartet, and I played shops again with the children. The boys liked having Charlotte as a playmate; she grew less shy around them, and found a pack of cards and taught them gin rummy and patience. They told her about Mrs Abelmann’s canary, and she asked to see it, but of course the answer was no. She read to us while I yawned and closed my eyes for an hour, and I woke to find them on their bellies in the bedroom collecting bits of dust and seeing who could gather the biggest piles. The afternoon came and went, followed by night, and still nothing from Lyle. Long after we’d cleared the supper things away and everyone had gone to bed, I was woken from a fretful sleep by the sound of William letting himself in. He closed the door quietly, and sat on the bench to remove his shoes in the dark.

  ‘William?’ I whispered.

  He paused, and I waited, pinned beneath Charlotte, who was breathing deeply, while he moved around to find a rush to light. In the paltry flame, I could see he was wearing a grey wig and a smart blue jacket.

  ‘What time is it?’ I asked him.

  ‘Just after two,’ he whispered. He took the chair opposite, and glanced at the bedroom door but did not go inside.

  I rubbed my eyes, and though it was dark, I could see he was troubled.

  ‘What is it?’

  He seemed to weigh up what to tell me for a moment.

  ‘Tonight I was playing at the Assembly Rooms in Piccadilly,’ he said levelly. ‘We were positioned by a large dividing door where people moved through the rooms. While we were changing our sheet music, I heard a conversation between two guests, standing just the other side. They were talking about a missing child.’

  The rush spat and flickered.

  ‘One of the men – a lieutenant-general, I think; I didn’t catch his name – was telling the other about a little girl stolen from a house in Bloomsbury, the child of a rich widow. Every watchman in the area is alerted,
and looking for her.’

  My heart was beating fast.

  ‘They are looking for a woman of around five-and- twenty, with dark hair and eyes, and a printed cotton dress.’

  I shrank back into the chair, shifting beneath Charlotte, who was still asleep. We were silent a full minute while I let the enormity of what he’d told me sink in.

  ‘Did you hear anything else?’ I asked eventually.

  He shook his head, and the rush sputtered.

  I rubbed hard at my face. ‘Oh, where is Lyle? He said he would come soon. But even then, if they’re looking for me all over, how will I get to Lambeth?’

  William was thoughtful. Then he said: ‘They won’t be looking for a little boy. Charlotte could wear Moses’s clothes, and put her hair beneath a cap.’

  ‘Good idea. That’s something, at least. Only thing is, what if Lyle’s sister can’t find me work after all? Oh, I hope he comes soon, else I won’t know what to do.’

  I thought William would get up, but he looked grim and serious, as though there was something else.

  ‘William?’

  He shifted in his chair and looked guilty. ‘I don’t know how to say this, Bess.’

  My mouth felt very dry, and a chill swept the room. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Well, Keziah and me being who we are . . . if somebody sees you here, they might think it odd. We can’t pass you off as family, and if they were to look through the window and see a white child . . .’

  I closed my eyes. ‘Of course. I understand. I’ll go soon, I promise.’

  William nodded and went to bed then, leaving me in darkness, with guilt soaking me through. If I stayed, it would surely only be a matter of time before I was found; Charlotte would open the curtain or, tiring of the situation, scream to be taken outside. And all the while, I was putting my friend and her family in danger. I pictured a mob outside Keziah’s front door with flaming torches in their hands, their faces masks of hatred. There was no appetite like that for a criminal avenged. I’d been myself to hanging day – Paddington Fair, they called it, which brought to mind garlands and picnics. The widow at number seven made ropes for the hangman.

  I thought of Abe, asleep at home. Did he know I was a wanted criminal? He wouldn’t read it in the paper but he could have heard it on the courts from Nancy, or any of the Billingsgate men and their wives, who might have told him there was a search for me. What would he think, when he heard his daughter was a child-snatcher? I hadn’t told him the truth, of course, when I got the job at Devonshire Street. Abe had been bewildered when I said I was going to be a nursemaid, and even then he didn’t know the half of it. My loose design was to arrive back with Charlotte and say I’d found her and the position didn’t suit me, hoping he wouldn’t press for details. Abe was a man who kept to himself, and didn’t pry. I knew I’d have to get a message to him once I was at Lambeth, and tell him not to worry, but Abe was the least of my troubles, and I thanked the heavens that he hadn’t seen Charlotte the night before.

  I slept in snatches that night, imagining the newspapers and what they said. They’d likely have printed my name, and where I lived. I’d convinced Doctor Mead my real name was Smith, telling him I’d come to collect my child under a false one, and that I went by Eliza, not Bess. He had believed me, familiar with the lengths women took to cover up an illegitimate child. To cover up their shame. A broken leg, Ned had called her. I should like to give him two. It was because of him I was shut up in here like a stowaway, relying on my friends’ kindness. Perhaps, though, it was safer here than in lodgings, with no landlady to grow suspicious or neighbours to avoid. I knew how quickly opinions were formed of newcomers, and how solidly they set in their moulds. Well, here I was, and I had a comfortable chair to sleep in tonight, and a bit of money for when we had to find somewhere else to live.

  I didn’t have to wait long. Before daylight fully arrived there was a light tapping at the glass. I had been dozing, with a dead arm from Charlotte’s weight, but I’d not wanted to move and wake her. The knock had been so soft I thought it might have come from the rooms above, but then it came again, unmistakably at the window. I was awake at once, and lifted Charlotte carefully, setting her down in the big chair with the blanket and going to lift the curtain. Dawn scratched at the court, and I peered out, seeing no one at first, then fear turned to relief as I saw it was Lyle, with his cap pulled down over his eyes. I hurried into the quiet hall to let him in, taking the front door key from the hook behind a picture. Neither of us spoke as he followed me inside and set his torch beside the door. Over one shoulder was a large sack that I recognised as mine, and he set it gently on the floor.

  ‘You came,’ I whispered.

  He removed his cap. It was a good-mannered gesture that made me like him all the more, and I realised then how much I’d been thinking about him, how much I’d wanted to see him. I knelt at the sack and began rummaging through it.

  ‘You been carrying this all week?’ I said pointedly.

  ‘I hid it at a storehouse – pal of mine watched it for me. What happened at Paternoster?’

  I told him about the thief-taker and our narrow escape, and he swore and put on his cap again, then removed it and scratched his head. I wanted to ask him what had kept him away this long, but felt powerfully shy, suddenly, and confused by it. I lifted our clothes from the bag and began folding them in a pile on the kitchen table with my back to him.

  ‘In case you’re wondering why I’m only coming now, I realised when I went to fetch your things there might’ve been a ware hawk watching the place. I dunno what I was thinking, walking in there, bold as brass. So I came out and trolled about a bit just in case, and went to a coffee house for an hour. I dunno how them swells drink it – horrible stuff. This your mate’s gaff then?’

  ‘Keziah’s asleep,’ I said.

  ‘She’s out for the count.’ He nodded towards Charlotte, who was wrapped in the warm blanket with her feet dangling above the floor. We both looked at her for something to do, and then I remembered why he’d come.

  ‘Any news from Lambeth?’ I asked him.

  ‘Oh, yeah. You’ve got a position at the farm as a dairymaid. Well, Beth Miller and her daughter Clara have. We’ve told the farmer she’s nine, so she might have to stand on her tiptoes. She’ll work alongside you. You’re a sailor’s widow from Shadwell, and you’ll share a bed in the farmhouse.’

  I felt weak with relief. I turned and thanked him, and he watched me closely, clinging onto his cap.

  ‘No more hiding,’ he said. ‘You’ll be golden with our Anna; she’ll look after you.’

  ‘When can I start?’

  ‘The day after tomorrow. Well, I suppose it’s morning now, so tomorrow. I’ll meet you on Westminster Bridge at midnight tonight, and take you there. Anna will be expecting us. It’s not far from the river, two miles or so.’

  ‘Is it far enough?’

  ‘A dairy farm in Lambeth? Put the Thames between you and you’re as good as overseas.’

  ‘And what of the thief-taker?’

  ‘Oh, him. He was after you. His name’s Bloor; he works from a den at Chancery Lane. I staked him out to have a look – plenty of pork pies behind him, but he’s a slick cove. You could outrun him, though, if it came to it.’ He smiled lopsidedly, and I smiled back. ‘Don’t look so worried,’ he said softly, closing the space between us. ‘You’ll be out of here soon.’

  The dim light from the red curtain fell on us, and threw half of Lyle’s dark features into shadow. When he was silent, he looked so solemn, and he was looking at me now as though there was something else he wanted to say. I took an involuntary step towards him.

  There was a cough from the other room; dawn was here now and the house was waking. From upstairs came the distant sound of movement. I pulled my shawl tighter where it had fallen from my shoulders.

  ‘Midnight,’ I said. ‘Westminster Bridge. I’ll be there.’

  CHAPTER 18

  Abe shut up the shrimp stall
at three, and I knew the route he took home with my eyes closed: up Thames Street towards London Bridge, then north along Fish Street Hill to the Monument, before climbing west from Great Eastcheap to St Paul’s. Not wanting to be too close to either Billingsgate or Black and White Court, I settled for the middle, leaning against the railings of an untidy churchyard near Budge Row with my shawl around my head. I arrived at three, hoping he’d kept his usual hours and not gone to the Darkhouse tavern for an ale, or to the dockyard to hear the papers read. I kept my eyes on the steady flow of traffic going west, and at twenty minutes past the hour almost missed his old, defeated form trudging up the other side of the road. I ran quickly across, dodging a cart, and without greeting pulled him into a shady passage. He shook me off, squinting in the dimly lit space. I put a finger to my lips, and his eyes widened. I pushed him along into the court beyond – a smart, cobbled place with a lone tree in the middle, lined with red-brick townhouses.

  ‘Bess—’ he began, but I shushed him and pulled my shawl further over my head.

  ‘I can’t stay,’ I said. ‘I came to tell you I’m leaving tonight. I’m sorry it had to be like this and I’ve not been home.’

  ‘You’ve got the girl, then?’

  ‘You’ve heard?’

  ‘Me and everyone else. Bess, it’s all over the newspapers, all over the courts, about Elizabeth Bright, the nursemaid what stole her charge. All over Billingsgate! I got the porters asking if it’s true; they can’t believe it. “Your Bess, thieving a child?” I don’t know what to tell ’em. I haven’t been able to sleep. You didn’t have her when you came home the other night, though, did you? You was alone.’

  ‘I did. She was in the bedroom.’

  Abe filled his cheeks and blew out sharply, shaking his head. ‘You’re playing a dangerous game, girl. Were you been since?’

  ‘We’re at Keziah’s. But I’m leaving tonight, to go to Lambeth, to a farm there. My friend Lyle, he’s helping me. I’m meeting him on Westminster Bridge and he’s going to take me. His sister’s a dairymaid and she’s found us work, me and Charlotte.’