Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4
A messenger delivered the list of orphanages from Adelaide’s mother just as Howard was leaving for work on Wednesday. “Look at all of these addresses, Howard,” she said in dismay. “It’s three pages long!”
He took a moment to study the list, which included a brief description of the work each orphanage did. “It does look daunting, darling. I wish I could help.”
“It’s like searching for a needle in a haystack! Where do I even begin?”
“Start with the ones that are closest to Jack’s tenement. I’ll hire a carriage for you, on my way to work. But don’t go alone. Try to find someone to go with you.”
He kissed her goodbye, and Adelaide went in search of Susannah. “I would like you to come with Jack and me again, later this morning,” Addy told the maid.
Susannah, who had been clearing the kitchen table, immediately turned to Mrs. Gleason. “What about my chores? Don’t they need to get done?”
“There isn’t anything too pressing, is there, Mrs. Gleason?” Addy asked. “Susannah is a hard worker, and the house looks tidy and clean to me. Do you think you can spare her for the morning?”
“Of course, Mrs. Forsythe. It will be good for her to get out and see a bit of the city. Take off your apron, girl, and get ready to go. Jackie-boy is refilling the woodbox for me, but I’ll see that he’s ready to go when you are.”
The December morning was cold and gray, and Adelaide spent most of the drive in the flimsy carriage shivering on the poorly padded seat, trying to stay warm. Susannah rode with her face pressed to the window, gazing like an excited child at the variety of buildings and neighborhoods they passed. Jack seemed unable to sit still, bouncing from one side of the carriage to the other with restless energy and anticipation. There were endless delays as trolleys and wagons tangled with barrows and pushcarts and pedestrians at nearly every intersection. When their carriage halted for a third time in a jumbled snarl of traffic, Adelaide told Jack he could ride up front next to the driver for the rest of the way. She could hear the seat springs creaking as he bounced with excitement.
“This is it, ma’am,” the driver announced at last. A small sign in front of the building read The New York Infant Asylum.
“According to my mother’s information,” Addy told Susannah as they climbed from the carriage, “the asylum cares for abandoned foundlings who are often left on their doorstep. They also take infants born to unwed mothers, and babies who are brought in by mothers who are simply too poor to care for them.”
“It’s so big!” Susannah said. “Who would have ever guessed there’d be so many unwanted babies that they would fill a whole building!”
“It is tragic. And I’m sorry to say this is just the first of a dozen such orphanages in New York.”
Jack’s exuberance died away as he slowly climbed the steps, eyeing her suspiciously. “You ain’t gonna leave me here, are you?”
“No, we came here to look for Polly.”
“Is this where they brought her?”
“I don’t know, but we’ll soon find out.”
Jack gripped Susannah’s hand as they walked through the main door. The odor of strong cleanser and bleach made Addy’s nose prickle. Children’s voices and the heartbreaking sound of crying infants tugged at her heart. She used the Stanhope family name and her connection to their charitable foundation to gain an audience with the asylum’s head matron. She was a harried-looking woman in a faded skirt, seated in an office that looked as though it had recently been ransacked. She didn’t offer them a seat because there weren’t any. Addy began the speech she had rehearsed. “We’re searching for a missing orphan—”
“Polly and me ain’t orphans!” Jack shouted. He dropped Susannah’s hand and stood with his arms crossed, glaring up at Addy.
She began again. “This is Jack Thomas, who was taken in by Children’s Aid after his mother passed away. But his three-year-old sister, Polly, wasn’t brought to the same institution, and she has gone missing. We wondered if you could look through your records and see if, perhaps, she was brought here.”
“Of course. What can you tell me about her?”
“Polly would have been brought here on Octobertwenty-sixth of this year, or perhaps a day or two later. She and Jack hid when the authorities came to their tenement, but only he initially was found and brought to Children’s Aid.”
The director turned to the overflowing shelves behind her and selected a large leather account book with the date 1901 stamped on the cover. She turned to the pages near the end and ran her finger down the listings for October. “It seems we didn’t receive any children at all on Octobertwenty-fifth, twenty-sixth, or twenty-seventh. Two children were brought to us the following week, one a little boy, and the other an infant girl of about eighteen months.” She turned the page to the listings from November. “During the first week of the month we did receive a three-year-old girl, but she was with her younger brother. That doesn’t sound like the child you’re searching for. Another three-year-old girl came to us on Novembertenth, but she was brought in by her very distraught mother, who begged us to care for her.”
“So many children,” Susannah murmured.
The matron perused the last few pages before looking up at Adelaide. “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Forsythe, but none of our children sounds like the girl you’re looking for.”
“I understand. Thank you for taking the time to help us.” Adelaide turned to Jack, knowing how disappointed he would be, but he was no longer by Susanna’s side. He had vanished as if into thin air. “Susannah, where’s Jack?”
She looked around in a panic. “I-I don’t know.”
“Run outside and ask the driver if he’s seen him.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She returned a minute later, breathless and shaking her head. “The driver didn’t see Jack come out but he admits he wasn’t paying much attention.”
“Then Jack still must be inside, somewhere. I’m so sorry,” Addy told the matron.
“He couldn’t have gone far. I’ll show you around and we’ll see if he turns up.” They began on the main floor, passing through common rooms and a dining room where seven toddlers sat in a row at a wooden table, eating porridge. In another room, three ladies held infants in white gowns and were feeding them from bottles.
“A little boy did come dashing through here a few minutes ago,” one of the women said. “He didn’t look like one of our children, and he scampered off before we could catch him. He went that way, I think.”
The director led them through the building, and it seemed from all the workers they talked to that Jack was going from room to room, floor to floor, searching for his sister. He hadn’t called out her name as one might expect, but had dashed into each space, looked closely at every child, searched in every conceivable hiding place in the room, then bolted away again before anyone could catch him. They finally found him in an infant nursery, peering at the sleeping babies in a row of cribs. Susannah expertly blocked his path and grabbed him as if capturing a slippery piglet on the loose. “You’re a very naughty boy to run away like that!” she told him.
“Let me go! I gotta find Polly!” He struggled to break free, arms and legs flailing. Addy wouldn’t have been strong enough to hold him, but Susannah was.
Addy’s frustration and embarrassment made it difficult not to lose her patience as she confronted him. “Jack, your sister isn’t here. The matron checked their records. We’ll have to try another orphanage.” He finally stopped tussling and seemed to calm down. Addy turned to the matron. “I am so sorry for causing such a commotion. We’ll be on our way, now. Thank you again for your help.”
Susannah dragged Jack by the arm all the way to the carriage. But as she eased her grip to duck inside, Jack broke free again and dashed off. “Jack, stop! Come back! Shall I chase him, ma’am?”
“No, let him go.” Adelaide watched him skirt around the asylum’s grounds, searching beneath bushes and peering into every crack and hole he saw. Again, she was surprised that he didn’t call Polly’s name. At last, he slouched back to the carriage looking sad and defeated. She didn’t have the heart to scold him, even though it frustrated her that every delay was costing Howard money for the carriage rental. “You can’t run off like that, Jack. If you can’t mind what I say, I’ll have to search for Polly without you.”
“But Polly is really good at hiding. I taught her how.”
“Well, we’d planned to go to another orphanage this morning. Do you think you can behave this time or should we return home?”
“We gotta go. I gotta find her.”
“Then hold Susannah’s hand and do not let go. If Polly is there, she’ll be listed in their record books. She won’t be hiding anywhere.”
Jack was better behaved as they inquired at St. Christopher’s Home on Riverside Drive and 112th Street. According to Mother’s notes, the home fostered destitute children from the ages of two to ten, but they found no record of Polly in their registry. The director, a matronly, gray-haired woman, was kind enough to give them a tour of the facility, allowing Jack to take a good look at the children Polly’s age. He didn’t find her.
“We’ll try again another day, Jack. I promise,” Addy soothed. “There are more orphanages on the list. We won’t give up.” The day felt even colder as scattered snowflakes drifted from the gray sky. Jack held back his tears until the carriage began to move, then he broke down and sobbed. Susannah folded him in her arms and held him close. She was crying, too. “Are you all right, Susannah?” Addy asked as she handed her a handkerchief.
She nodded briskly, then seemed to change her mind as she swiped at her reddened eyes. “No. I’m not. Back home on the farm we used to take the baby calves from their mothers to wean them and sell them. Those mother cows would cry and bellow with grief for hours whenever that happened. It would break your heart to hear them. And they’re only animals. Today, when I saw all those babies... it was like I could hear their mothers crying for their lost children.”
Adelaide couldn’t reply. She had witnessed an enormous need today and recognized her own helplessness to remedy it. So many children without parents, without love or a home. They had warm beds and three meals a day, but according to the director, there was little hope that even half of them would ever be adopted. Most of them would never have a real home. The fruitless day left her more certain than ever that the suffrage movement could make a difference. By helping women have better lives, they would be helping their children.
Jack burst into tears again when Mrs. Gleason met him at the kitchen door. “Polly wasn’t there!” he wailed. “We couldn’t find her!”
Mrs. Gleason opened her arms. “Come here, Jackie-boy. You go ahead and cry, honey. You have every right in the world to be sad. Life has been very cruel and unfair to you.” Addy watched with tears in her eyes as the cook held him tightly, rocking him. “Do you remember the little baby who was born on Christmas, Jackie?” Mrs. Gleason asked.
“Baby Jesus?” he sniffed.
“Yes. Baby Jesus. He came into the world to show us how very, very much God loves us. We are His children, part of His family. People sometimes leave us or disappoint us, but Jesus never will.”
Addy tiptoed from the room, knowing Mrs. Gleason could handle Jack’s broken heart much better than she could. She took her time, changing from her traveling suit and freshening up, in order to give them time together. Then she returned to the kitchen to retrieve Jack, remembering her promise to tutor him. She found him sitting at the kitchen table with paper and pencil and an open newspaper. Mrs. Gleason also sat at the table peeling potatoes, skillfully removing the skins in one long, thin strip. Addy stood in the doorway, watching.
“Can you find the price of rice on that page, Jackie-boy? It starts with an r .”
Jack’s tongue stuck out as he leaned close, searching the page. “Here it is! Seven cents for one pound.”
“Ah, very good. Can you add rice to our list, then? You should be able to copy the spelling easily enough.”
He wrote each letter carefully, saying them out loud as he worked. “R-I-C-E.”
“That’s perfect. You made the letters nice and big so I can read them with my tired, old eyes. Now, what about tea? You know how Mrs. Forsythe likes her cup of tea in the morning. And I’m sure you know what letter tea begins with.”
“T!” he said happily.
“Ah, what a clever boy you are! And what is the price of tea these days? Can you find it?”
Again, the eager search, tongue sticking out as he concentrated. “I found it! It’s fifty cents a pound.”
Mrs. Gleason looked up from her potato peels to pat Jack on the head and saw Adelaide. “And speaking of Mrs. Forsythe, here she is! Can I get you a cup of tea or something, dear? Jackie was just helping me write my grocery list.”
“No, thank you. Please continue.” Addy watched him add tea to the list and knew he was learning more down here with the cook than he would upstairs with her. “You’re a natural teacher, Mrs. Gleason.”
“Well, that’s kind of you to say. I would have liked to be a teacher if things had been different.” She stared into the distance for a moment as if watching a dream float past, then caught herself. “Would it be all right if Jack went to the grocer’s with me? He can help me carry the parcels. And he’s very good at figuring out which coins to give the cashier.”
Jack looked up at her. “Can I go? Please?”
Addy smiled at the pair of them. “Of course. But I’m sure you never imagined caring for a little boy when you took this job, Mrs. Gleason.”
“I don’t mind. Jackie’s a little lamb.” She rose and scraped the peels into the garbage, then stood at the sink, filling a pot with water for the potatoes.
Addy had been standing in the doorway all this time, but she finally stepped into the kitchen and sat down at the table. “I wonder if you would mind teaching me too, Mrs. Gleason?”
“To write a grocery list?” she asked in surprise.
“No, I mean ordinary things. Household things. Like how to cook and keep house.”
She stared at Addy in surprise. “You can’t be serious. You’re a busy young woman with much better things to do than cook and clean. That’s why you hired Susannah and me, isn’t it?”
“I need to start learning how to do practical things. I want to be a real wife.”
Mrs. Gleason shut off the water and studied Addy for a moment as if trying to read her mind. Addy had the uneasy feeling that she could do it. “Is that what Mr. Forsythe wants for you, dear?” she finally asked. “To be cooking and cleaning and doing a servant’s job all day?”
Addy looked away. She knew Howard didn’t want that at all. But how could she explain how useless she’d felt living the life of a spoiled heiress, and now as an idle wife? “You said I must have better things to do with my time, Mrs. Gleason, but I really don’t. I still pay social calls on my friends but I wouldn’t even bother doing that except that I’m trying to win them over to the cause of women’s suffrage.”
“Suffrage? That’s all about voting and politics, isn’t it?” She carried the pot of potatoes to the stove.
“It’s so much more than that. It’s about helping women and children. We visited two orphanages today and many of those little ones were there because their mothers couldn’t earn enough money to support them. Jobs for women are so limited, and then women are paid less than men are to do the very same work. Women don’t have the same opportunities as men to get an education or study for a profession. You just said you would have liked to be a teacher if things had been different—and that’s exactly what I mean.”
“Put butter on the list, Jackie,” Mrs. Gleason said when Addy paused. Then she turned to Addy again. “Go on. You were saying?” She truly seemed to be interested.
“I do try to explain some of these issues to my friends when I go calling, but they only want to talk about superficial things. It isn’t very polite to dominate the discussion when I’m a guest in someone else’s house.”
“Why not invite your friends to come here so you can say what you think?”
Addy gave a nervous laugh. “My friends come from very wealthy families. They live in mansions.”
“You did too, if I’m not mistaken. This is a very lovely home, Mrs. Forsythe. I could tell on my very first day that it was filled with love. I’ve worked in mansions like your friends’ for years, so I know how cold and empty those places can be. You should be proud of this house and the new life you’ve chosen. The news is all over the grapevine that you defied convention and turned your back on wealth to marry for love. Some might call you foolish, but most of the servants I know applaud you. That’s why I wanted to work here.”
Addy was dumbstruck. Was the fact that she’d disdained a loveless, arranged marriage truly a topic of conversation? And admiration? She had accidentally overheard two women talking about her and Howard in the cloakroom at Felicity’s engagement party. One of them had said, “I heard Adelaide Stanhope is living in a cramped town house in a middle-class neighborhood somewhere.”
“I heard the same thing,” the other one replied. “But I might be tempted to make a few sacrifices to marry a man as handsome as her husband.” Addy had hurried away as they’d giggled and gossiped. She’d put it out of her mind until now. But maybe Mrs. Gleason was right. Maybe she needed to show her wealthy society friends what a good life with a good man looked like.
“Does this say butter ?” Jack interrupted, pointing to the newspaper.
“Exactly so! Good lad. Kindly add it to our list.” Mrs. Gleason turned her attention back to Addy. “If nothing else dear, you can give them hope. You’re proof that they can marry for love and have a chance at real happiness, which no amount of money can buy. Wouldn’t that improve the lives of women, as you’re hoping to do?”
Addy laughed. “I would accomplish all that just by inviting them here?”
“There will always be those who’ll criticize you and refuse to understand the decisions you’ve made. Some might be just plain jealous. But one or two of your friends might listen and understand. I should think it would be worth it for the sake of those few.”
“You’re right. But how—?”
“I’ll help you spread a table for tea that’s second to none. We’ll dazzle your friends with your wonderful new life. And then you can tell them about the important work you’re doing to help women. What do you say?”
“You make it seem like anything is possible.”
“That’s because anything is possible.” She opened her arms and Adelaide rose without hesitation and went into her embrace. She could see why Jack loved this woman.
“Thank you, Mrs. Gleason,” she whispered.