Chapter Seven #3
“The girls spotted a mouse in their dayroom, Mother. You should have heard Myra screaming! I think ‘twill be tomorrow afore we can get her down from that chair. Deathly afraid of the creeturs, she is.”
“I’ll speak to Sister Agatha about pressing more peppermint oil,” Louisa answered. “That seemed to do the trick in the storerooms.”
“Thank you, Mother.” Sister Anna nodded her head respectfully and withdrew.
“You are too young to be a Mother Superior,” Gabe remarked.
“I am honored they would trust me with the responsibility,” Louisa answered. “I have been here fifteen years. I came as a penitent, stayed to work in the bakehouse, made my way into the schoolroom, and then, after becoming assistant to the previous Matron, here I am.”
She turned on her heel and poked her head into another room. Gabe couldn’t make sense of the plan of the place, though it seemed well laid-out and accommodating.
“Hello, girls! I hear you had an adventure today?”
There were a dozen heads in the room, and all of them swiveled in Louisa’s direction, faces sprouting smiles. Every one of them began talking at once, a chorus of young and eager voices like melodious chirping of birds.
There were no prohibitions on talking, then, not like a usual workhouse.
No prohibition on friendships, for he saw two young girls holding hands as they came forward.
And no lack of affection, for as each of the girls tried to tell Louisa about the ordeal of the mouse, several moved close to her, crowding her skirts.
One small girl, who an older woman lifted down from a chair, ran to Louisa, buried her red face in her apron, and commenced sobbing.
Louisa patted the girl’s back and made soothing noises.
“There, there, Myra. You know, mice need food just as you do, and he was probably looking for company, the little thing. Did he quite put you out of sorts? Only think that he must have been as equally terrified of you, and left in such a fright he won’t dare show his whiskers again. ”
“I h-hope he will not,” the child sobbed, smearing her tears into Louisa’s clean linen. “I hate their pointy noses and their claws. And they bite!”
“I think they’re adorable.” An older girl planted her hands on her hips. Her cap was pushed back on her head, her apron crooked, but Louisa made no move to admonish her. “Mother, mayn’t I catch him and keep him as a pet? I have already named him Sir Mousely.”
“Oh, we can’t have it in our rooms!” the little one howled. A chorus of other voices expressed varying combinations of disapproval and interest.
“I am afraid we mayn’t make Sir Mousely a pet, my dear Susan, as there will be several objections. But we might think of adopting a cat, who can be part of our household and also encourage Sir Mousely to keep to his own quarters?”
“A cat! Oh, please say we might! How soon will the cat arrive, Matron?”
“I will speak to the Sisters about it. Off to the exercise yard with you now, girls. It is time to take some air. You may practice your curtsies to the Duke of Barkham as you go and say ‘how do you do, Your Grace.’ Susan, since you were so brave in the matter of Sir Mousely, will you choose the game?”
The girl with the askew apron immediately took charge of the group, her disappointment over being denied the rodent disappearing in her new authority as she lined the smaller girls up for their curtsies.
Gabe bore all the gracing with more courtesy than he was ever inclined to show in his own drawing room.
As the last little skirt scuttled out the door into the gardens beyond, Louisa pulled a face and blew out a long breath.
“I’ll be in the basket with Sister Agatha with this cat notion, as she detests animals. But it would be a wise to have a mouser about, and the girls would adore having something to take care of.”
“This is not like a regular workhouse at all,” Gabe marveled, following as Louisa passed through a dining hall empty save for a set of rocking chairs before a hearth, with a set of old beldams rocking and drowsing within them.
All the workhouses he had seen—well, the two with which he was acquainted—had been dour, dark places where the residents toiled through the daylight hours, took a mean meal, and then crawled into sleeping cots which were little more than clumps of straw on the floor.
Louisa passed a dormitory lined with sturdy cots, all with a plump pillow at their head and a thick woolen blanket piled at the foot, a wooden trunk beneath, small tables with wash basins and space for meager personal items, and an older girl sweeping the floor, singing to herself.
She turned to him in the shadow of a doorway leading to another set of gardens, and something tore in Gabe’s chest at the look of despair on her face.
“I can’t allow this to be taken away. This is their home, and mine. It cannot—it cannot all come to an end because of me.” She clasped her hands over her face, shoulders shaking.
Without a thought Gabe stepped forward and curled his arms about her, pulling her into his chest.