The Barefoot Child. Cathy Sharp

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СКАЧАТЬ your high society friends, Arthur.’

      ‘I have other friends. I would help you and your daughter achieve whatever you asked, Hetty – but I know well you will not ask.’

      ‘I’ve won my independence, Arthur,’ Hetty said. ‘It was hard won and I would not give it up for any man – even you.’ That last was a lie, but she would never permit him to see her true feelings, because his heart belonged to another.

      Arthur laughed and took his leave of her. Hetty smothered her sigh and went through to the bedroom where three trunks had been deposited. Arthur would never learn the truth of Sylvia’s birth from her, or that she herself was entitled to hold her head high as the daughter of a gentleman. Hetty had never asked for favours since a man of high birth had spat in her face and told her to find her own way in the world. Disgraced, alone, and with only a few shillings to her name, Hetty had chosen the only way she knew of surviving – but she was determined that her daughter would have a better life.

      Sylvia had been given a good education and she would grow up to be respectable; and if she married, it would be to a working man who respected and loved her.

      Hetty knew that Arthur Stoneham had once wronged a woman, but he had been young and careless and, afterwards, he’d tried to repair the damage but it had been too late – and for that he’d never forgiven himself. The man who had wronged Hetty was cruel and took pleasure in her downfall, but with Arthur’s help she had won back her freedom and her self-respect. For that she loved him, though he did not know it and never would. She smiled a little wryly as she began to unpack her things. It was a huge task that she’d taken on to please Arthur Stoneham and she only hoped that she would manage it well.

      ‘So, my friend,’ Toby Rattan said as he met Arthur that evening in the exclusive gentleman’s club they frequented. ‘Is it all settled – is Hetty installed as the mistress of your refuge?’

      ‘Yes, and I think she is happy enough,’ Arthur said. ‘I shall send her a few things she might like to furnish her rooms with; Hetty Worsley is a woman of sense and she will make it her home for the foreseeable future.’

      ‘You do not think she will end her days there?’

      ‘I very much doubt it – nor would I ask it of her,’ Arthur said. ‘I hope she will find content in marriage one day, but first she may make the lives of others happier.’

      In recent months Toby had taken more interest in such affairs, though he’d given up in disgust at the intransigent guardians of the workhouse, who had installed a harsh-looking woman and her husband to run the workhouse in Whitechapel.

      ‘And as for that block of ice they installed at the workhouse …’ Toby’s voice trailed off in revulsion. ‘She has not an ounce of humanity in her.’

      ‘I think in some ways she may prove worse than Joan Simpkins – though I do not accuse her of the vile crime of selling children into whorehouses.’

      ‘Then she will suit your fellow guardians, Arthur, for they are a harsh lot, despite their good works. Some of them probably think you are too lenient towards the poor, for you give and expect nothing in return.’

      ‘Yes, I dare say,’ Arthur said wryly and twisted his delicate wineglass, watching the way the glass spiralled up the stem. ‘A good vintage, this claret, Toby. I had some of it last Christmas from your father. How is he these days?’

      ‘A little better again, I think. His chest was bad with the bronchitis this last winter, as you know, but I think he makes progress now. I certainly pray for it.’

      ‘Yes, I imagine you do,’ Arthur acknowledged. Toby and Arthur’s friendship went back years, since their schooldays, and they had remained friends even through the years of Arthur’s wilderness, when he had lost himself in drink to forget the wrong he’d done a gentle girl, Sarah, the girl he ought to have married had he not been too young and arrogant to see it; Sarah, who had borne his child. He’d paid for his arrogance with regret after she’d died and now suffered from uncertainty over what to do about the young girl that he believed to be his daughter by Sarah.

      He’d rescued Eliza Jones from the fate that Joan Simpkins had planned for her – well, Eliza had, in fact, rescued herself from an evil man by her own ingenuity, escaping to the protection of a young gipsy boy with whom she’d formed a friendship, but with the shadow of murder hanging over her. It had been Arthur’s duty and pleasure to find her and tell her that she had merely stunned the man who had sought to defile her, and that he had been arrested for his vile crimes.

      Eliza had allowed him to take her back to Miss Edith, the apothecary with whom she lived now. She was learning that profession and helping Miss Edith, who was unfortunately ill much of the time. Now sure that Eliza was his daughter, Arthur felt unable to claim her. She was doing well, despite her unfortunate beginnings in the workhouse, and seemed happy in her new life, though he seldom visited. Arthur longed to give Eliza gifts of pretty clothes and trinkets of value, but knew he must not, for it would be misunderstood.

      ‘Well, are you planning to attend?’

      Arthur’s thoughts had strayed and he suddenly became aware that Toby was addressing him. ‘Forgive me; my mind was elsewhere.’

      ‘I was asking if you intended to accompany me tomorrow evening, to the lecture about the situation in the Transvaal and where the end of the Boer War leaves us as a nation.’

      ‘Ah, yes, I remember you had an interest in that business. Your father has some financial concern out there, I think?’

      ‘He bought shares in some land, which was to be used by the railway – but now he thinks British interest is lost to the Boers and his investment will be sunk.’

      ‘I daresay,’ Arthur said. ‘It was, in any event, a risky investment for your father, Toby. Look what has happened here – they said the railway would be a blessing but with all the fatal accidents we’ve had since they were built I sometimes wonder if we should have done better to stick to horses.’ The coming of the railways had changed the face of England, destroying with their noise and the bustle of the traffic they brought, the tranquillity of sleepy country towns that had existed for centuries. ‘Would it really be feasible in Africa with all its problems?’

      ‘I think it may be the only way to conquer its vastness.’

      ‘Yes, perhaps …’

      ‘Queen Victoria herself approves of the train as a form of transport. Besides, the railways will be a big help to the poor in time.’ Toby was insistent. ‘My father is certain of it. It enables men to seek work further afield and thus alleviate some of the hardships when work is scarce in the country or the mines, which has often resulted in starvation in the past – and food can be brought fresher to London. That must be of benefit even to you.’ His eyes twinkled with good humour.

      ‘And what of the overcrowding it brings to towns, the noisome slums created by the sheer force of people who have nowhere to live?’

      ‘We must simply build more homes and do away with the rookeries of these slums,’ Toby said. ‘Come now, you must see some benefits?’

      ‘Food is fresher brought in by train, I admit. Yet I still prefer to travel by horseback,’ Arthur said thoughtfully. ‘I like to be in control and not at the mercy of some drunken fool of a train driver as I heard was the cause of one recent accident on the railway.’

      Toby could СКАЧАТЬ