Daniel began to explain. I stepped out to ask the landlady for a pot of tea for us all, and when I returned, Mr. Thanos was already bent over the books at his desk.
The landlady came with a tea tray, and I took it from her and sent her off, busying myself pouring out cups while Mr. Thanos read. Mr. Fielding paced, his fists balled. Daniel took a cup of tea from me with a soft word of thanks.
Mr. Thanos glanced up when I set a cup by his side. He seemed to recall we were in the room with him and turned a puzzled expression to Daniel.
“Why did you want me to look at these?”
Mr. Fielding drew a breath to angrily retort, but Daniel cut in. “To tell us what they mean, of course. What they say about decisions the Foundling Hospital has made.”
Mr. Thanos removed his spectacles, still puzzled. “But it’s plain as day.” He spread his fingers indicating the page open before him.
“Not to us,” Daniel said with a patient smile. “What have you found?”
“Well, if they were hiding great secrets, they did it poorly,” Mr. Thanos said. “Any accountant, or at least someone proficient in numbers, would see it. Plain as pikestaff.”
“For God’s sake,” Mr. Fielding muttered.
“See what, my friend?” Daniel asked, keeping his voice genial.
“That whoever keeps these books is claiming great success in placing children in good homes.” He tapped his page. “This person then puts the word out that with more contributions, the Hospital can presumably do the same again.” He indicated a second ledger. “He records those additional donations here.” When we said nothing, Mr. Thanos regarded us in perplexity. “Do you not see? There is a swindle going on—whether it has to do with bawdy houses, there is no telling from these notes. Someone is claiming great success in helping the children, and then squeezing more contributions out of willing donors because of that success. But the additional contributions never reach the Hospital. The records don’t match. Whoever is receiving the money is pocketing it for himself.”
21
Neither Daniel nor I bothered to ask whether Mr. Thanos was certain. He would be.
“Bloody hell.” Mr. Fielding ceased pacing, his face mottled. “Are you telling me some of the governors are placing the children in brothels, patting themselves on the back, and eagerly asking for more funding from generous donors?”
“And then keeping the money for themselves,” Daniel finished grimly.
“That’s horrible,” I said. “They’re procurers, worse than. We must stop them.”
“We will.” Daniel’s expression held a severity that meant whoever he set his sights on was in grave danger.
“I know the treasurer,” Mr. Fielding said, frowning. “I always thought him a meek little straitlaced man. Would faint if untoward behavior was mentioned. Strange.”
“Why is it strange?” I demanded hotly. “It’s awful. Criminal.”
“Because I am usually good at assessing a man’s character. Or a woman’s. Have to be, don’t I?”
“As a vicar?” Mr. Thanos asked, bewildered.
“He means as a confidence man,” Daniel broke in, voice dry. “Tricksters learn their marks quickly, and then decide their strategy for duping them.” He turned to Mr. Fielding. “I’m surprised you didn’t tumble that there was fraud going on. You usually have a nose for it.”
“I agree. And here, I’d thought—” Mr. Fielding broke off, as though realizing we stared at him.
“Here, you thought you could swindle them?” Daniel asked without surprise. “Of course. Why else would you convince them to elect you to the board of governors? How did you plan to do it? You once told me you helped look over the accounts. Why, so you could fiddle them?”
“I never had the chance to.” Mr. Fielding’s response was bitter. “The books were guarded like the crown jewels. Now I know why. It took the fear of horrific scandal to convince Russell to turn them over to us at all.”
“What about Nurse Betts?” Daniel asked. “Did you take up with her to find a way to skim from the funds?”
“Daniel,” I admonished. The jab was unkind, though probably not inaccurate.
“At first.” Mr. Fielding drooped as he admitted this. “I was trying to discover how the whole charity was run. In places like the Hospital, money is often lost between funders and the staff who actually spends the cash. If I latched onto the free-floating brass, who’d be the wiser? I wouldn’t be taking money from the children, you understand. Just the sundry funds that went into budgets that were never spent.”
“And then you fell in love with Nurse Betts,” I said gently, before Daniel could make another remark.
Mr. Fielding dropped into a chair by the fire. “I did. So help me God, I did.”
He spoke as a man surprised he’d experienced a softer emotion, surprised he could feel such grief. I sent Mr. Fielding a look of sympathy, and Daniel closed his mouth, understanding in his eyes.
Mr. Thanos cleared his throat. “But look here—there’s no mention in these books of bawdy houses at all. Some of this is in code, which I will need to break, but the words I can read make note of a farm. Nothing about brothels, I am happy to say.”
“Farm might be their word for brothel,” Mr. Fielding said. “Can’t bring themselves to name it.”
“Possibly,” Mr. Thanos had to concede.
Daniel took up his cap. “Keep going through the books, Thanos. I will double your regular fee if you can do it by morning. Kat and I are going to find out whether those children were truly in that house in Seven Dials.”
Mr. Thanos nodded and turned back to his desk, already absorbed in the problem.
Mr. Fielding heaved himself from the chair. “I am going with you. The children will trust a clergyman.” He gave Daniel an encompassing glance. “You look like something that crawled from the dustbin.”
I thought Daniel rather handsome in his work clothes with his hair awry, but I understood. A collar indicated a level of morality—not always an accurate gauge, of course, but it was human nature to believe so. A reason, I thought, Mr. Fielding had bothered to become a cleric in the first place.
* * *
* * *
Daniel took us not to Dudley Street where I’d encountered the builders, but to the church of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. The children found in the bawdy house had been taken there, he said, and now were under the watchful eye of the vicar and a few constables.
Six children sat on benches in the vestry house next to the church, warming their feet and drinking tea.
I expected to find dejected, forlorn, and wasted beings, but instead I saw six very different young people. The youngest, who could not have been more than eight or so, drank her tea with determination, as though expecting it to be taken from her at any moment.
Two older girls in their teens who looked much alike huddled together. The three boys ranged from a lad of ten, the youngest, to fifteen, the oldest, who was tall and wore a haughty sneer. The youngest boy sat cross-legged on the bench, peering at us with interest, while the middle boy drank his tea with supreme indifference.
The similarity they shared was their shell, either of defiance or blankness, behind which each had withdrawn. The world had betrayed these children. Instead of letting them enjoy innocence, it had immersed them in vileness, used by people who, in a fair world, should have protected them.
I could not stop the tears that stung my eyes. Daniel took my hand, his grip strong, he no less moved.
When Mr. Fielding walked into the room, he changed. His hard and angry expression dissolved, and he took on a look of kindness I’d never seen in him before.
I knew that part of his transformation was to become a man who would reassure the children. I also knew he possessed true compassion for them. He’d been these lads, and he understood.
Mr. Fielding scraped a chair from the
wall and sat down but did not try to go near the children, nor did he take on a look of condescension. He simply observed them with his no-nonsense gaze.
“Which of you are from the Foundling Hospital?” he asked once he had their attention. “And you can tell me plainly if you like—do you want to go back there?”
The children stared at him. The smallest girl, after darting him a glance, went back to her tea—I would do everything in my power to make certain she never had to worry about anything again.
The oldest boy glared defiance, but it was the middle boy, who was about twelve, who spoke up. “Ain’t no foundling, guv. Me mum and dad kept me, damn my luck. I left ’em. Couldn’t stick it.”
Mr. Fielding raised his brows. “If you tell me you were in that nunnery by choice, lad, I won’t believe you.”
“Who would be? But I didn’t come from no Foundling Hospital, and neither did them. They was on the streets, same as me.”
I stepped forward. I could not speak as matter-of-factly as Mr. Fielding, my voice barely working at all. “Were there any other children there?”
The lad shook his head. “Naw. Just us. At least since I been. I don’t know how long.” His bravado faltered the slightest bit.
“No, missus.” One of the older girls raised her head. “We been a year. She gets us off the streets, lasses and lads with nowhere to go. Says we can have a good meal. Then we can’t never leave.”
“Of course she’d say that,” Mr. Fielding said. “Coldhearted bitches know exactly how to pretend to be sweet, eh?”
The two younger boys grinned. The lad who’d been speaking to us said, “Ya shouldn’t use words like that, vicar.”
“Why not? It is only the truth. She’ll be banged up for this, mark my words.”
The boy shook his head. “She won’t. She’ll give a backhander to the magistrate and be let off. She done it before. She’ll move somewhere else, open another house. Maybe look for us again.”
The sisters fearfully clung to each other at his pronouncement. Mr. Fielding kept his gaze on the boy. “Not this time, lad. I’ll make certain of it.”
The grim finality with which he spoke reassured me at least. I had no doubt Mr. Fielding, and Daniel with him, as well as Inspector McGregor, would make certain this madam and anyone working in the house were given their just deserts.
The older girl raised her head again. “Where do we go now?”
I wished I had an answer for her. The Foundling Hospital took in babies at risk for death in poverty, not older children. Besides, if someone at the Foundling Hospital was spiriting children away and collecting money for it, how could I be certain they’d be safe there?
“We’ll find a place,” I said with confidence I did not feel.
The boy snorted. “No, ya won’t. Reformers come for me before, and I legged it. Not going back to a workhouse.”
The fifteen-year-old boy lost his sneer and looked haunted. “Never. I’ll take me chances on me own. I’m big enough to fight now.” Tall, perhaps, but he was spindly.
If these children were not taken in by a workhouse—a fate I’d wish on no one—then they would be on the streets again, prey to those who hunted them. There had to be something we could do, and I was already beginning to have ideas on that score.
But the question remained: If these children hadn’t come from the Foundling Hospital—where were the foundlings?
Nurse Betts had been looking for them. I had as well, and had run into the bullies at the building site.
“Do any of you know a fellow called Luke Mahoney?” I asked.
All of them stiffened. The middle lad spoke up again. “Aye, we know ’im. In thick with the missus, ain’t he? He fetches and carries for her, beats down those who won’t pay, and stays on the lookout for the coppers.”
That explained why he’d blocked my way to the bawdy house. He’d worried that I, a respectable-looking lady who might have been a missionary or a member of the Salvation Army, or some such, would discover the nasty secret he was shielding.
Daniel came out of his silence to ask the next question. “Do you know where Luke lives?”
“Oh aye,” the oldest boy said. “But you don’t want to go after him, guv. He’ll kill you as easy as look at you. Don’t matter you have a woman with ya. He’ll do her too.”
Mr. Fielding’s face went blank. I knew he was convinced Luke’s hand had struck down Nurse Betts, never mind she was found far from here. He would not be sparing with the man, and I, having had the pleasure of meeting Luke, wouldn’t dissuade him.
“Tell us anyway,” Daniel said.
“A lane off Great White Lion Street,” the lad said with a shrug. “Just ask. Everyone knows ’im.”
I remembered the barmaid at the tavern I’d stepped into, who’d readily recognized the description. Luke must be dangerous indeed to cow the inhabitants of Seven Dials.
I turned to the constables, who had remained unobtrusively in the back of the room, making more tea and letting us speak.
“May they stay here?” I asked. “For a time?”
The constable who answered was a good-natured lad. “Not up to me, ma’am. But for as long as the vicar of this church will let them sit, they’re welcome.”
“He’ll send us to the workhouse,” the voluble boy said. “Vicars always do. It’s their duty, innit?”
“Not all vicars, lad.” Mr. Fielding rose. “They can be transported to my church, Constable—All Saints in Shadwell. Tell your sergeant. They’ll find a billet there. I can’t say my housekeeper is a soft woman, but she’s got a good heart. See that they arrive,” he told the constable sternly. “All of them.”
“Have to talk to the sergeant and the vicar,” the constable said. “But seems like we can do that.” The other constable nodded, mug of tea at his lips.
“And then you’ll send us to a workhouse,” the boy said. “No thanks, guv.”
“You’re an impudent fellow,” Mr. Fielding said. “I believe we’ll get on. No workhouses, lad, I promise you this. You simply stay with me in my house with too many rooms—all of them small—until we decide what is to be done with you.”
None of the children looked optimistic, or elated, and I could not blame them.
But I also knew Mr. Fielding would look after them, in his own way. Feed them and give them a safe roof to lodge under, in any case. I did not think Mr. Fielding’s views on raising children would be recommended, but he understood what they’d suffered, and would make certain that these lads and lasses did not lose by it.
“Yes, go to Mr. Fielding,” I urged them. “He will not let you come to harm. And I’ll drop by and make you fine things to eat. I’m a cook.”
They eyed me dubiously, and again, I could not blame them. They’d learned to trust no one.
“Deliver them, Constable,” Mr. Fielding said. “I am depending on you.”
The constable stood straighter, recognizing a voice of authority. “Yes, sir.”
I gave the children a smile as we filed out, but none returned it. They had been subjected to terrible things by terrible people, and it would be a long time before they found comfort.
* * *
* * *
I managed to remain stoic until we reached the carriage, but there I slumped against the seat and let my tears come.
Daniel’s arms went around me. “I’m so sorry, Kat.”
“It isn’t me you should be sorry for.” I sank into Daniel’s warmth, too grateful for it to push him away. “I wish I had vast riches—I’d build an enormous house for those mites and give them everything they ever wanted.”
“I know. As would I.”
The trouble was, I knew no one with vast wealth. I had no idea how much money Daniel had, if any. Mr. Fielding was a vicar of a poor parish—he could keep the children awhile, but not forever. Lady Cynthia’s father wa
s an earl, but he’d squandered most of the money, and sold off the lands not under the entail, Cynthia had told me. The Bywaters had a bit of money from Mr. Bywater’s job in the City, but they were a penny-pinching family. Lord Rankin, who owned the house in Mount Street, had riches, but he hadn’t been above demanding that his young maids entertain him. I’d nearly gotten the sack one night when I’d gone to stop him.
I raised my head. “You know a chap with money,” I said to Mr. Fielding. “Lord Alois Symington, who took you in. Would he be willing to take in six more? He certainly did well by you.”
“No,” Mr. Fielding said abruptly. His eyes flashed. “I’d never give a child over to that bastard.”
I blinked, and even Daniel stared in surprise. “But . . . he sent you to Oxford . . .”
“Oh yes, His Benevolence did.” Mr. Fielding’s voice took on sharp bitterness. “I angled for it, because it was the only thing that would get me out of his house. I became a vicar and finagled the living in Shadwell so I’d never have to see him again.”
22
I took in Mr. Fielding’s swift breath, his eyes glittering with rage.
“I see,” I said quietly. “There is more to that story, then.”
“There is.” Mr. Fielding sat straight in the seat, every inch of him brittle. “He took me in, all right, but I had to be grateful every day for his charity. He thought the way to bring out the goodness in a boy was to not spare the rod. I was to study hard, go to the school he chose, and make his name. Any transgression was brutally punished. Everyone praised him for his kindheartedness, and was amazed at how well I turned out.”
“How well he made them think you turned out,” I corrected. “I am so sorry, Mr. Fielding.”
Daniel removed his cap and ran a hand through his tangled hair. “So, all these years, when you lorded it over me that Symington believed in you enough to take you in while I had to live rough, hasn’t been quite true.”
“How could I tell you the truth?” Mr. Fielding demanded. “Admit that I’d been snatched from a life in the gutter by a man who beat me, belittled me, and locked me in an attic room night after night? All to release the devil from within me, he said.”
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