Chapter 11 #2
Mrs. Forbes flashed a sudden smile, making her drab face pretty.
“Howie Banks? I remember him. Cheeky lad. He were older than me and had no interest in a girl in pigtails, but I was sweet on him. Went off to join the army when he were only about seventeen or eighteen, I think.” Her face fell.
“Never tell me he were killed out in Crimea. He was a pleasant lad.”
Mr. Fielding shook his head. “No, he survived that. Unfortunately he did pass away a few days ago.”
“Aw, I’m sorry about that.” Mrs. Forbes betrayed sorrow but not undue grief.
“I’m glad to hear he came home after the war, in any case.
But if you’re asking about him, I don’t know much.
Never saw Howie Banks after he left for the army.
” Her eyes narrowed anew. “If you know he’s dead and gone, why do you want to know about him? ”
Daniel, who’d been twitching at my side while he listened to all this, stepped forward.
“We’re interested in knowing what he knew about the children who lived here.” Daniel spread his arms. “Do you recall me at all? I’d have been very young, maybe two or three? Mr. Banks remembered me, or said he did, though I’m not certain how. I don’t know what name I went by then.”
Mrs. Forbes looked Daniel up and down. She frowned, no spark of recognition in her eyes.
“No, love.” She shook her head. “But if you were so small, I’d hardly put that together with what you are now, would I?
Mrs. Kerr looked after a number of wee boys.
There was a blue-eyed little gent everyone called Robbie, I remember.
Was left there by who knows who one night—he might have been about two year old.
Carried around a tatty old picture book he wouldn’t let go, though he was too young to know how to read the words in it.
Lived with Mrs. Kerr about a year before she went away to die. ”
Daniel went very still. If Mrs. Kerr was taking in children thirty or so years ago, then a two-year-old boy would be about the right age for Daniel.
“Ah, well.” Mr. Fielding shrugged as though it was of no moment. “Thought we’d take a chance.”
“She didn’t keep no records of names and such,” Mrs. Forbes said. “Didn’t want someone to come and put them in a workhouse, so she kept up the fiction they were all hers. No one believed that, of course, especially as they’d come and go, but she were a good woman at heart.”
“I am pleased to hear it,” Mr. Fielding said.
Daniel remained silent, but I sensed his deep disappointment. The boy with blue eyes could have been him, but that was by no means certain.
“Tell you who might know.” Mrs. Forbes went thoughtful.
“Fellow called Patterson. He’d come round—I think he was her paramour, or perhaps only a friend.
I’m not certain. My pa believed he gave her money.
Otherwise, how’d she feed all those mouths?
Mr. Patterson emptied the house out after she left, but the children were all gone by then.
He might know what became of them.” She shrugged. “If he’s alive himself, that is.”
“Do you know his full name?” Mr. Fielding asked, drawing a small notebook from his pocket.
“I don’t rightly recall,” Mrs. Forbes said apologetically. “It were so long ago. Might have been Gordon. Or Graham. Maybe. My pa would have known, but he’s gone too, poor love.”
“It is a help,” Mr. Fielding said after he scribbled the name. “I thank you, Mrs. Forbes.”
“No matter.” Mrs. Forbes gave him a winsome smile. “I hadn’t thought about Mrs. Kerr and Howie Banks in years. Brought it all back to me. Sorry I couldn’t help you, love,” she added to Daniel.
Daniel nodded at her, as though it were of no moment. I squeezed his arm again, conveying my sympathy.
Mrs. Forbes peered hard at me, as though trying to work out what a respectably dressed woman was doing with a vicar and a workman. We might easily pass for a few of Mr. Fielding’s parishioners, I supposed.
“If you recall anything else.” Mr. Fielding stepped forward and handed Mrs. Forbes a card. “Any letter sent to that address will reach me.”
Mrs. Forbes carefully looked over the card, then slid it into her pocket. “It ain’t likely, but all right. Good day to you, now. I must be getting on.”
“Of course.” Mr. Fielding gave her a polite bow. “Thank you for speaking with us, Mrs. Forbes. And God bless you.”
Mrs. Forbes sent him a skeptical look, but nodded, said her final farewell, and shut the door.
We didn’t say a word until we’d left the lane and emerged to Green Street.
“Do we hunt for Mr. Patterson now?” I asked. “If he closed up the house, he might know what became of all the children there.”
“Another round of parish registers, I suppose,” Mr. Fielding said, sounding neither glum nor eager. “That was thirty years ago. He might be long dead.”
“I don’t see much point in it.” Daniel gazed idly at passing carts on the busy road.
“Banks couldn’t possibly have recognized me as the small lad from Mrs. Kerr’s house, if I was even there.
The little boy with blue eyes could have been me, but most probably wasn’t.
I don’t recall myself carting around a book—I certainly didn’t have one when I lived on the streets.
Hell, I don’t even know if the age is right, because I’m not sure exactly how old I am now. ”
Mr. Fielding and I exchanged a glance behind his back. Mr. Fielding’s held compassion but also impatience.
“Maybe he recalled a birthmark or oddly shaped mole on your hand,” Mr. Fielding suggested. “Not that I’ve seen any, but who knows?”
“Mr. Ramsay said that Mr. Banks saw you with James,” I reminded Daniel. “It was James that put him in mind of you.”
“James is nineteen,” Daniel countered. “That I do know. He does not look like a child of two.”
“Debating it in a street in Bethnal Green is not going to help us,” Mr. Fielding said. “Especially when those toughs who waylaid me might return with friends. Shall we discuss this in more salubrious surroundings?”
“Mrs. Holloway should go back to the Millburns’.” Daniel’s tones were clipped. “Visit your daughter, and forget about Mr. Banks and his fantasies.”
“Mrs. Holloway shall do as she pleases,” I returned.
“I can’t forget about Banks, who was killed, the poor man.
We should at least discover why. Did the same toughs who came after Mr. Fielding in the park kill him?
Why should they? Why should anyone follow Mr. Fielding and assault him?
He might have simply been going about his work as a vicar. ”
Mr. Fielding gave Daniel a look of approval at my questions.
“She has a point, dear brother. I obviously stirred something up as I bustled about parishes of the East End. Is there some deep secret Mrs. Kerr took to her grave that will ruffle feathers? Or is Naismith simply telling me to stay away from his territory?”
“You don’t work for him, do you?” I asked Mr. Fielding bluntly. “In return for him letting you run your church in peace?”
Mr. Fielding gaped at me, aghast. “Good Lord, no. What would make you think I’d ever bend my knee to that appalling villain, a man who’d murder his own mother?
Which people say he did, by the way. She might have been an awful woman, but a powerful man like Naismith could have simply sent her to the far side of the earth instead.
No, I’d never work for Naismith. Filth like him shouldn’t be allowed to exist.” He spat on the pavement.