Chapter 19-Margaret
The carriage delivered Margaret and the large pots of stew to the decidedly wrong side of town at half past ten on Tuesday.
It had been an entire month since Margaret had been able to come personally—the Season had taken more of her time than she’d imagined.
That day, she’d had to decline a luncheon invitation to make the journey.
Margaret emerged from the carriage first, followed by Chloe, and then the footmen began unstrapping the large pots from the footboard, where’d they’d been tied down for the journey. A sharp plink, plink, plink caught Margaret’s attention.
The large empty lot on the other side of the church had long been a matter of dispute for the neighborhood.
Years ago, a deplorable tenement house rested on the site.
Though at first the lodgings may have been respectable—the intent could hardly have been as terrible as the outcome—they soon devolved into the unique misery that overcrowding and underwashing breeds.
It was home to no one but harlots, thieves, and those too poor to make their lodgings elsewhere.
Tragedy had struck in the very early morning hours a few years ago.
No one knew how the fire started, though there was blame and suspicion enough to go around for all the poor souls who didn’t make it out in time.
Nearly a dozen people perished, and the charred husk of the place had only remained long enough to attract rodents before it was torn down.
Since then, it had been a balding spot in the neighborhood marked only by the few weeds that dared sprout on such ignominious land.
Now, however, Margaret noted that new trenches had already been dug, a stone foundation laid, and sturdy stone walls were gradually sprouting from the footings. Several teams of stonemasons crawled over the site.
Each group consisted of three workers—one man set a stone and another slopped more mortar onto the wall, while a third hammered at raw stone with a chisel, bringing it to the correct shape or size before it was placed.
All around them, young boys—apprentices, most likely—carried stones from a pile in the corner to the workmen.
Margaret blinked when she realized that she recognized two of the young boys.
Until recently, they had been unemployed lay-abouts who slept and ate at the orphanage.
Their grouping had been an advertisement for the limitations of such an institution—though it could feed and shelter them, it couldn’t help them make their way in life in the manner parents might.
Though familiar to her, neither of the boys noted Margaret; their heads were bent to their respective tasks. She smiled at the sight. What a joy it was to see idle hands turned to honest labor!
She was still smiling as she ducked into the low entrance of the kitchen, her maid and two footmen trailing after her. Chloe carried a basket full of fresh bread; the footmen bore one of the large stockpots between them.
Though long and larger than most of the rooms in the orphanage, the kitchen was made claustrophobic by the low ceilings and the haze of smoke that never seemed to clear, no matter that the window at the far end and the kitchen door stood permanently open to entice a breeze.
“Is it not the most wonderful thing, Miss?” Mrs. Fuller said, her eyes bright as she hurried over.
Margaret jerked to a stop in her shock. She had seen the woman nearly every week for the past few years, excepting those days that had been so dark and cruel as to have seen Margaret herself go too hungry.
She had never witnessed more than a half-smile upon the woman’s face, not even when Margaret had brought stew for the first time and informed her it would be a weekly tradition.
“Whatever do you mean?” Margaret asked, her head tilted.
“You haven’t heard!” Mrs. Fuller held a hand to her heart, as if in raptures that she would get to be the one to relay whatever delightful information she was privy to. “Why, the lot next door, Miss. It’s been sold.”
Margaret nodded toward the old, soot-blackened stove, indicating that the footmen might set the pot there as usual. They hefted the large thing onto the warming burner and ducked out the door to retrieve the others.
“That’s wonderful,” Margeret said.
The lot had been a blight upon the area for too long, attracting vagrants who had been ousted from everywhere else. They often lay on the ground on discarded tarpaulins until late into the morning—frightening lumps of inactivity that only attracted more of their kind.
“If that were all, it would have been enough,” Mrs. Fuller said, clasping Margaret’s hands.
Margaret looked down, stunned. It wasn’t that she felt the action impertinent—she and Mrs. Fuller had been acquaintances for years. It was more the intensity of the grip that shocked her.
Mrs. Fuller continued, “The orphanage has attracted a patron. Forgive me for being indelicate, Miss, but he is a very wealthy patron, indeed.”
“I don’t understand.” Margaret frowned.
“Oh dear,” Mrs. Fuller said, the smile sliding from her features. “How thoughtless of me. Forgive me, Miss Preston. You have done so much for us here. Bringing food, paying for the building to be repaired and repainted. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful; truly I don’t.”
“Impossible.” Margaret shook her head. “You’ve been so appreciative that I’ve been more than repaid for whatever small things I’ve done on behalf of St. Alban’s.”
Margaret was telling the truth. Mrs. Fuller was so thankful that Margaret often went away feeling more guilty than if she’d done nothing.
In her mind, the gratitude she received was out of proportion for the efforts she’d made.
It prodded at her as surely as if a broomstick had been pressed against her back; it made her want to do more to be worthy of such admiration.
Mrs. Fuller swallowed and appeared to choose her words carefully. It was a marked change from her initial burst of enthusiasm. “You know that we have long had difficulty with our building. Despite the refurbishments and repairs, it is…listing.”
Margaret nodded. Mrs. Fuller’s words were no surprise to her. It seemed an impossible problem—a problem that would persist right along with the building itself. Margaret flushed, suddenly embarrassed that she’d thought a fresh layer of paint a priority.
“Not that we don’t appreciate everything you and others have done,” the woman rushed to add, her eyes wide.
“Of course.” She shook her head. “I’m only sorry I wasn’t in the position to do more. I’m glad St. Alban’s has a new patron. There’s no other house more deserving.”
Mrs. Fuller nearly sagged in her relief. “I’m so very happy to hear you say it. It was the only possibility that marred my perfect happiness—the idea that you might be offended.”
“Not at all. I’m only impatient for you to tell me the whole of it, so that I might rejoice with you.”
“St. Alban’s new patron has purchased the lot next door. He’s building the orphanage an entirely new building—rightly done, in stone and thick timber—twice as large and far more well-appointed than this one.”
It was stunning news. This part of town never seemed to draw anyone’s eye.
It was too far from the good part of town to be convenient.
Though the need here was greatest, patrons often preferred to be able to drive past the good they did when fancy struck.
It would certainly be difficult for anyone to feel accomplished when driving past the leaning building of St. Alban’s.
“I saw the gentleman myself when he came to inspect the footings last week, though of course we weren’t introduced.
Such a tall and handsome man you’ve never seen before, Miss!
Not that such a thing is important, mind you, but it does make one happy to see that such a patron is so young and likely not to forget the charity in which he’s dedicated so much of his funds to. ”
A sneaking suspicion itched at the back of Margaret’s neck. “When was the purchase made?”
Mrs. Fuller named a date a full week before the Season had started.
Margaret’s shoulders relaxed and the first real smile flitted over her features. “How wonderful. Whoever the gentleman is, he couldn’t have bestowed his charity on a more deserving recipient than St. Alban’s.”
“I wasn’t supposed to overhear, perhaps, but they said the building should be finished within a matter of months, before the gentleman returns to his home in Morley.”
Margaret relaxed completely then. Morley was a village north of London, but nowhere near Scotland. For a moment, she’d suspected that the Duke of Ettrick had somehow found out her connection to this place and…
And what, Margaret? the voice within her sniped. You think a gentleman like that would truly make such an extravagant gesture for someone like you?
Margaret shook her head to rid herself of the voice; it would wax eloquent as long as she’d allow it.
“I’m so glad,” Margaret said as heartily as possible, to dispel any disquiet her moment of pause had given. “I cannot wait to see the improvements. You must let me know if you need assistance furnishing the place.”
“Oh, no,” Mrs. Fuller said, her eyes wide with wonder again.
“The gentlemen is to take care of everything. Orders have already been placed for matching single beds for both the girls’s and the boys’s dormitories.
Can you imagine? We’re to have real dormitories and proper separation.
Why, Mr. Thurgood and I won’t have to sit upright in chairs watching over our charges all night to ensure safety and decorum. ”
It took Margaret nearly half an hour to disengage from the grateful effusions of Mrs. Fuller, by which time Margaret was tired of smiling and saying pleasant things, but exceedingly curious about the structure itself.
She waved off the footman, who already had the steps on the carriage let down, and informed him she wished to take a quick walk around the block.