“The darker passions?”
“Those foolish women who allow themselves to be led astray by the blandishments of men will always pay the price and so will their unwanted offspring.”
The bitterness in the headmistress’s voice spoke volumes,
Concordia thought. She would have been willing to wager a great deal of money that at some time in Edith’s past, she had fallen victim to some man’s faithless promises.
Concordia cleared her throat. “Yes, well, as I was saying—”
“Rest assured that here at the Winslow Charity School for Girls we strive with extreme diligence to instill the tenets of self-discipline, restraint and self-control in each and every student,” Edith said.
Concordia suppressed a shudder and reminded herself that she was there to study the interior of the mansion and this office and to observe Edith Pratt, not to engage in a philosophical argument regarding the proper method of educating young girls.
“An admirable goal, Miss Pratt,” she said neutrally.
“I assure you it is not an easy task. Young girls are prone to excessively high spirits and reckless enthusiasms. Here at Winslow we make every effort to suppress that sort of thing.”
“I’m sure you do an excellent job of crushing high spirits and reckless enthusiasms.” Concordia realized that she was clenching one hand into a fist on her lap. She forced herself to relax her fingers. “As I was saying, the result of my husband’s dalliance was an infant girl. She was named Rebecca. The mother evidently died a couple of years ago. My husband saw to it that the girl was sent to an orphanage. He never mentioned the matter to me. Indeed, I had no notion that he had a second family until after his death. It has all been extremely trying.”
“No doubt.” Edith’s severe features tightened into a genuinely baffled frown. “How does this concern you, Mrs. Thompson?”
“In his will my husband expressed regret for having allowed Rebecca to be put into a charity home. He evidently felt that the girl should have been brought up in her father’s house.”
“Nonsense. Your husband could hardly have expected you to raise his illegitimate daughter. That would have been asking far too much from a decent, well-bred lady endowed with any delicacy of feeling whatsoever.”
But what of the feelings of the innocent child? Concordia wanted to scream. Doesn’t the little girl’s pain and suffering matter? It was the duty of the adults involved to take care of that poor little girl. It wasn’t Rebecca’s fault that she was born on the wrong side of the blanket.
Concordia could feel her pulse pounding with the force of her emotion. Get ahold of yourself, she thought, or you will ruin everything. This isn’t a real-life tragedy. You are acting a part in a play.
But she knew all too well that the tale rang true because there were, indeed, many real-life Rebeccas in the world.
“Perhaps,” she said through her teeth. “But the fact remains that my husband deeply regretted the decision to put the child in an orphanage. In his will he requested that I make every effort to locate Rebecca so that I could provide her with a small inheritance and a photograph of her father.”
“I see. You say there is an inheritance involved?”
Edith was suddenly showing a good deal more interest in the matter, Concordia thought.
“Yes. Not a large one, you understand.”
“Oh.” Edith’s brief spark of concern faded.
“The problem,” Concordia said, determined to stick to the script, “is
that there is no record of which orphanage my husband chose for the girl. I am, therefore, attempting to call on as many of them as possible in hopes of identifying the one in which Rebecca was placed.”
“Well, if she was sent to a workhouse or one of the orphanages that takes in children who lack respectable connections, she will likely have gone into service by now.”
“Rebecca is only nine,” Concordia said, forgetting her role again.
“Old enough to be put to work in the kitchen of a respectable household, certainly,” Edith said. “Children who are destined to become servants must be taught early in life that they will be expected to work hard if they wish to obtain good posts and keep themselves off the streets.”
“Do you send your girls into service, Miss Pratt?”
“I should say not.” Edith appeared deeply offended. “Winslow accepts only orphans from the better classes. Our young ladies are educated to become governesses and teachers. They usually remain here until the age of seventeen.” She frowned. “They could certainly start to earn their keep at an earlier age, but it is difficult to convince a school or a family to employ a teacher who is younger than seventeen.”
“Indeed,” Concordia said stiffly. Her own age had been one of many things she had been forced to lie about when she sought her first post, she recalled. She had claimed to be eighteen. “Do all of your students eventually find suitable employment?”
“Those who learn to comport themselves in a modest, unassuming manner and who strive to live according to the Golden Rules for Grateful Girls generally find a post, yes.” Edith spread her hands. “Naturally, there is the occasional failure.”
“I see.” Concordia realized that she was clenching her hand again. “What happens to them?”
“Oh, they usually find themselves on the streets,” Edith said casually. “Now then, about your husband’s illegitimate daughter. We have thirty-seven girls here at Winslow. There are two Rebeccas, I believe. I will be happy to check the records to see if either of them has any connection to a family named Thompson.”
“That is very kind of you.”
Edith cast a considering look at the row of filing cabinets. “I am a very busy woman, Mrs. Thompson. It will require some time to conduct a proper search of the files.”
The hint could not have been more obvious.
“Naturally, I insist upon compensating you for your trouble.” Ambrose had been right, Concordia thought. Edith expected a bribe. She reached into her muff and withdrew the banknote that Ambrose had provided for just this purpose. She placed it on the desk.
“Very well, I shall see if there is a file for a Rebecca with a father named Thompson.” Edith made the banknote disappear into the pocket of her gown. “Do you happen to know the mother’s name?”
“No, I do not.”
Edith rose and crossed the room to the filing cabinets. She opened the one labeled P–T. Concordia could see that it was crammed with folders and papers. She felt her insides clench. So many sad little histories trapped in that dark drawer, she thought.
A knock sounded on the office door.
“Come in, Miss Burke,” Edith said without looking around.
The door opened. Concordia saw the faded little wren of a woman who had opened the door for her a short time ago.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Miss Pratt, but you did say that you wanted to be notified immediately when the men who deliver the coal arrived.”
“Quite right, Miss Burke.” Edith slammed the drawer closed and whirled around with an astonishing display of vigor. “You must excuse me for a few minutes, Mrs. Thompson. It is necessary that I have a word with these deliverymen. We are using far too much coal here at Winslow, considering that it is spring. I intend to reduce the standing order.”
“Of course,” Concordia murmured, thinking that it had been rather chilly to date this year.
Edith strode across the office and went out into the hall. With an apologetic nod at Concordia, Miss Burke shut the door.
Concordia found herself alone in the office.
She looked at the filing cabinets. Then she looked at the closed door. Edith Pratt’s forceful footsteps were receding rapidly.
The opportunity was simply too good to ignore.
She jumped to her feet, hurried to the filing cabinets and yanked open the A–C drawer.
There were several Coopers but no Edwina or Theodora.
She closed that drawer and tried the one that should have contained a file for Phoebe Leyland.
That search, too, proved futile.
There was no file for Hannah Radburn, either.
It was as though the girls had never existed.
Disappointment and frustration flashed through Concordia. There
had to be some record of the four. They had all come from the Winslow Charity School for Girls.
Recalling Ambrose’s success with the search of Mrs. Jervis’s desk, she went to Edith Pratt’s heavy desk.
The first thing she saw was a large, leather-bound journal.
She flipped it open and found herself looking at an appointment calendar and schedule typical of the sort most headmistresses kept. It came as no surprise to discover that Edith Pratt maintained meticulous records. The details of daily classroom assignments, weekly menus and the monthly change of sheets on the beds were all carefully noted in small, very precise handwriting.
The sheets were only changed monthly? Outrageous, Concordia thought. Fortnightly was the rule in respectable schools and households. Evidently Pratt had found yet another way to save money. True, the washing, drying and ironing of sheets took up a great deal of time and effort, but it was absolutely necessary to perform the task frequently and regularly in order to achieve a healthful standard of cleanliness.
She studied the entries for the past week but nothing out of the ordinary jumped off the page. Unable to think of anything else, she turned back to the month that Phoebe, Hannah, Edwina and Theodora had been removed from the school and sent to Aldwick Castle.
Two days prior to the day that the girls recalled having been summoned to the office and told to pack their bags, the name
H. Cuthbert, Dorchester Street
was written down and underlined twice. The words
bill for
4
pr. new gloves &
4
new bonnets
were jotted down directly beneath the address.
She searched the schedule for a few days prior to the date but saw no other useful notes.
Closing the journal, she reached down and opened the largest of the desk drawers. A file labeled
Correspondence
caught her eye.
It was a very slim folder.
She sifted through it quickly. Most of the letters were from potential employers requesting descriptions and details of the physical looks and educational accomplishments of the school’s most recent graduates. There was, Concordia noticed, a strong demand for
modest
young women of
plain
and
unremarkable
appearance. Few wives wanted to hire governesses who might prove attractive to the men in the household.
She was about to drop the file back into the drawer when a signature at the bottom of one of the letters caught her eye. W. Leyland.
Phoebe’s last name was Leyland.
Footsteps echoed loudly in the hall.
There was no time to peruse the letter. Concordia yanked it out of the file and jammed it into the inside pocket of her cloak.
She hurried around the corner of the desk and went to stand at the window, making a pretense of looking out at the street.
The office door opened abruptly.
“That takes care of that little matter,” Edith announced. She was flushed with satisfaction. “There will be no more fires in any of the rooms until the end of October.”
“You were about to check your files for a record of Rebecca,” Concordia said, turning away from the window.
“Yes, of course.”
Edith went to the cabinet containing the
T
s, rummaged around briefly and then shut the drawer.
“Sorry. There is no file for a nine-year-old illegitimate girl named Rebecca who was fathered by a gentleman named Thompson.”
“Thank you, Miss Pratt.” Concordia went to the door. “You’ve been most helpful.”
Outside in the hall it took all of her self-control to walk sedately toward the front door. Every instinct she possessed was urging her to flee the suffocating atmosphere of the school.
The wan-looking Miss Burke opened the door for her and uttered a weak farewell. Concordia got the impression that the woman longed to follow her out of the mansion. But Miss Burke was evidently as much a prisoner of the school as any of the students.
Concordia breathed a small sigh of relief when she reached the street. It occurred to her that during the entire time she had been inside the school she had not seen a single student.
That was not surprising. Hannah, Phoebe, Edwina and Theodora had explained that for the most part the girls were restricted to the upper floors of the old mansion. The exceptions included the two meals a day served in the dining hall and the thrice-weekly twenty-minute exercise sessions outside on the walled grounds at the back of the big house.
At the corner Concordia paused to look back at the dark mansion one last time. There was a flicker of movement in one of the upstairs windows. She glimpsed a pale face looking down at her. She thought about Hannah’s friend Joan, who was somewhere inside the school.
Concordia shivered. She was fortunate. She could walk out of that dreadful place today. But that young girl up there and thirty-six others were trapped in the shadows.
Her eyes blurred as she rounded the corner and started down the street toward the cab in which Ambrose waited. She pulled out a handkerchief.
None of the passersby took any notice of her when she dabbed the moisture from her eyes. Widows, after all, were expected to burst into tears at odd moments.
D
id you take complete leave of your senses?” Ambrose demanded from the opposite carriage seat. “What the devil did you think you were doing?”
It dawned on Concordia that he was furious. His reaction baffled her.
When she had returned to the cab a few minutes ago, she had expected praise and admiration for her display of initiative. Instead, she was receiving a blistering reprimand.
“I merely took a quick look through the files while Miss Pratt was out of the room.” Annoyed, Concordia crushed the black veil up onto the brim of her hat and glared at him. “I fail to see why you are so agitated, sir. Had you been in my shoes, I’m certain you would have done the same thing.”
“What I would or would not have done is beside the point. I gave you very precise instructions concerning how you were to conduct yourself while you were in that place. I specifically said that you were not to do anything that might arouse suspicion.”