Chapter Fourteen #3
She swallowed. “Do you think it’s possible your real mother might be right here, perhaps behind the doors and windows of one of these houses or shops?”
He shrugged. “It’s possible. But London is large and she could be anywhere in it, or not in it at all. She could be dead. She could have returned to France if she thought it safe.”
“And left you?”
He gave an awkward shrug again, uncomfortable at the thought that she might have cared so little as to leave him behind.
Uncomfortable, as well, that she’d chosen to give him away in the first place and never return to find him.
Surely it would have been easier for her to find the duchess than it would have been for the duke to have found one French émigrée in a maelstrom of other French people.
Not liking the way his thoughts were running, he pushed them away in irritation, a bitter taste in his mouth.
Best to change the subject. “This is a very mixed area and will get more so as we keep going. Lots of Irish in the rookeries. They come over here with nothing and gravitate towards this part of London. And they discover they have nothing still. But they have little choice in the matter if they want somewhere cheap to lay their heads. Or not so cheap in many cases. The landlords’ agents exploit them by charging high rent.
They let and sublet until there might be forty people in one room, trying to eat and sleep and…
other things.” He shook his head. “Some even pay a penny or so for a night spent slumped over a rope. You can get more people into a room if you stack them like that.”
From the look on her face she thought he was exaggerating. She’d soon see.
At last they reached Crown Street, off which Denmark Street opened.
She could do with another history lesson.
“This whole area was once very well-to-do. But the rich moved out and the poor moved in. Now the rich live in Mayfair, and these houses have dozens of families living where once was just one family and their many servants.”
A frown marred her brow. “You do know I’m not responsible for what I am, don’t you? And neither are you. I have to say you’ve taken on the demeanor of one of the preachiest of rectors to their congregation. You need to remember that I’m listening, and I’m not arguing with you.”
He had to admit she was right. He was getting carried away. He raised an eyebrow in inquiry, suspecting where this was going.
Her frown increased. “I can’t help it that I was born where I was. I can’t help it that I’m rich and grew up in luxury. And it’s not my fault if wicked landlords exploit people who have nowhere else to live. I’m not a landlord.”
She paused, as though scrabbling to draw her thoughts together.
“But that doesn’t stop me wanting to do something to help.
What little I can. But I have lots of questions.
Why, for example, do they continue to come here if it’s so awful for them?
Why not go elsewhere? Into the countryside to work on the land?
From what you’ve shown me so far, life there would be much better than life somewhere like here.
” And she gave her own hand a wave at her surroundings, which were not, of course, anywhere near as bad as they could have been.
They were not yet within the rookery itself.
This was an area where more people worked and less of them spent their few pennies on blotting out their lives with gin.
Gabriel pressed his lips together in irritation.
“They come here to the city because they had nothing where they come from. There’s no work for them in Ireland, and no food.
Many people come from the English countryside, too, because fewer are being employed on the land.
They come to London because they’re starving.
” He paused. “You’re making the mistake of thinking of the people on your father’s old estate, no doubt.
Men with work on the farms, women taking in laundry, well-fed servants.
The people who come here aren’t people like that.
No one would take them on as servants. They’re the poorest of the poor, uneducated, and employable only in the meanest of professions, Phoebe.
I mean, Will. Who do you think goes round in the dark emptying the night soil from all the big houses?
People who live in places like St Giles, that’s who. ”
The frown didn’t leave her face. “I think I begin to understand. But you must remember this is all new to me and a lot to take in.” She glanced around herself with some wariness. “Are you taking me to Denmark Street again?”
He shook his head, still irritated by her naivety.
“No. There isn’t an actual boundary where the rookery starts and the more respectable areas end.
It’s a blurred and wavy line. But we’re as much on the edge of it as we could be, so we’re going in.
Remember who you are and who I am. Only speak if you’re spoken to and keep it to one-word answers or your accent will give you away.
And stay close.” He offered her his coat to hang onto again. “Come on.”