Where Love Shines Page 10

  Yet there was no denying his interest in hearing the great Shaftesbury speak, and he would like to please Livvy, who had continued to urge him in that direction. As to the matter of pleasing the determined Miss Jennifer Neville, he had mixed feelings. Certainly there was no one to whom he owed more. And yet that was the root of the problem. His feelings about Jennifer were one of the most complicated things in his life.

  Lady Eccleson had decreed a light early supper. Richard adjusted his eye shades and, running one hand along the wall for guidance, left the comfort of the library for the dining room. For two weeks or more now he had taken the step of eating dinner with the family. Livvy was right. He couldn’t spend the rest of his life eating in his own rooms.

  And he was willing to admit that he was finding the transition easier all the time, especially as Kirkham stood at his elbow to serve him and see that everything was cut into manageable bites. Inwardly Richard fumed at being fed like a toddler, but he suppressed his rage, as he did at so many things in his life. Again he felt the desire to reach out and smash that stone wall he had run into. But the wall would not be smashed.

  Instead he turned toward Livvy’s voice and gave a vague reply to her question about his plans for the evening.

  Lady Eccleson’s response, however, was anything but vague. “Nonsense. Of course, you’re going, Richard. You’ve moped here quite long enough. The speech will inspire you to turn your efforts to doing good. That’s the answer, you know. It will take you out of yourself.”

  The entrance of Branman carrying a small white card on a silver platter saved Dick the effort of a reply. “A guest for Mr. Richard, ma’am.” Apparently unsure what to do with the card, Branman presented it to his employer.

  She peered at the card. “Richard, do you know a Captain Morris? It seems he would pay you a call at this most inconvenient hour.”

  Richard’s hand flew to his eye patches, then stopped. Dr. Halston had been most explicit. If there was to be any chance of further healing he must not expose his raw nerves to additional weakening from strong light. He knew it to be a bright evening, and Aunt Charlotte’s dining room windows faced the west. He must swallow his pride. He lowered his hand with the wry thought that at least the patches covered some of the scars. “Of course, I know Morris. Send him in, Branman.”

  “Do as you wish, Richard, but I’m sure you’ll excuse Livvy and myself. We shall leave within the half hour.”

  “I should like to greet Captain Morris again, Aunt Charlotte,” Livvy said. “Perhaps he has brought you good news, Dick.”

  “Be that as it may, you must say good evening to your poor mama before we go out, Livinia. My dear Caroline has been most low upon her couch all day. It seems to me that her expensive new doctor is doing her very little good.” Charlotte Eccleson swept from the room in a rustle of silk, which Dick for some reason pictured to be a dark peacock blue.

  As Livvy walked by him, smelling of orange-flower water, she stopped to squeeze his hand. “Oh, Dick, I do hope it’s good news. But I must go to Mama.” She hurried off.

  The door was barely closed before Richard heard a heavy male tread following Branman’s almost soundless step on the parquet hall floor. Dick took a deep breath and stood to face the door.

  “Richard, my dear fellow—” Morris stopped suddenly. Dick held out his hand in the direction of the speaker. Morris took it in his left hand. “I had no idea. That is, at Horse Guards—”

  “At Horse Guards I was being vain and foolish. The fact is that if I’m to have hope of ever seeing anything again, I must see nothing for now.” He quickly changed subjects as he gestured toward a chair for his guest. “Good of you to call.”

  “Yes, short notice, I’m afraid. Thing is, I’m on my way to Tattersall’s. Special sale of military horses. I find it hard to believe there are enough left to make a sale. Of course, they aren’t necessarily from the Crimea, but I thought, well, there’s just a chance… Should be some good horseflesh to look at—er, that is…”

  Dick laughed. “I quite take your meaning. Good of you to think of me. Truth of the matter is, you’ve rescued me from one of Aunt Charlotte’s compassionate meetings. Pull the bell, will you? We’ll take Kirkham with us. Do you remember my batman? Showed up on the doorstep one day. A real godsend.”

  Kirkham drove them down Park Lane to Grosvenor Place and pulled into the narrow, congested lane to London’s celebrated horse mart. This special sale had drawn a great deal of attention. The small courtyard was filled with every sort of fashionable conveyance, all pulled by the smartest of horses. Richard hated the awkwardness of being led through a crowd that he once would have strode through like Prince Albert himself. But with Morris on one side and Kirkham on the other, they at least gained their seats above the sale ring with a minimum of bumping into people.

  Once in the security of a seat, Dick could indulge in the pleasure of the sound and smell of horses. By listening carefully, he concluded there were three animals now in the ring. When their showmen rode them around individually, he could judge their speed and weight by hearing and feeling the thud of the hooves on the soft dirt. He had always before taken such sensations for granted. Now he felt each thud go through him as surely as if he were atop the horse himself. And it brought back all too vividly how it had felt to be astride Legend. Even in the showroom he could almost feel the wind in his face and see the green of park and field rushing by, alternating shade and sunshine, as he sped between trees.

  And neither his captain nor his batman had to tell him that none of the horses in the ring was his long-legged, high-spirited Legend. They sat through the showing of five lots. Occasionally Kirkham would go so far as to say, “Aye, now there’s a fine ’un.” And two or three times Morris offered a bid on an animal that took his eye, but he did not follow to the conclusion of the bidding. And no one suggested that there was an animal in the ring worthy of taking Legend’s place.

  At last Dick felt he could sit there no longer. “Let us walk through the sale stalls and be done with this.” Neither of his companions offered an objection. Richard remembered the large barnlike room behind the sale ring—the floor paved with Moroccan tile, the stalls of dark Spanish mahogany, the beams overhead stained dark against the cream-colored plaster, the row of gas-lit chandeliers hanging the length of the room. He smelled the clean straw in each stall and the tangy scent of horsehair and leather. He needed only the lightest touch of Kirkham’s hand on his elbow to guide him to the first stall.

  With a gentle nicker the horse put his soft muzzle in the palm of Dick’s hand. Dick reached up and scratched behind the forward-pricked ears, murmuring softly to him, “Hello, boy. Easy now, let’s just feel your neck.” Dick ran his hand down the powerful neck. The smooth coat was warm and silky. It felt so good under his hand. When he reached the withers where he could reliably judge the animal’s height, Dick caught his breath. He knew that feel. This horse was exactly the right height. He felt even more slowly now, talking to the animal all the time, the gentle dip down the back, then up over the rounding rump. The silky tail. Still letting the horse hear the reassurance of his voice, Dick ran his hand down the near back leg—a long, strong-muscled leg—to the well-trimmed fetlock. He tugged slightly just above the hoof.

  “Come on, boy. Let me feel your feet. Have they taken good care of you?” The horse lifted his foot to Dick’s pressure. Supporting the hoof against his own knee, Dick examined the hoof and the firm frog inside it. He set the foot down gently and stood up, running his hand back up the leg with short patting strokes.

  At last he turned slowly away. “A fine animal. I just hope Legend has been as well cared for, wherever he is.”

  “He’s a superb beast, Greyston—probably the best here. And he is for sale…” Morris didn’t finish his thought.

  Dick nodded. “A fine one indeed. But not the right one.”

  They made their way on through the sale barn and turned left through the subscription room run by the Jockey Club. This ro
om was a mecca for patrons of the turf, from noblemen to innkeepers. Here the betting throughout England was regulated, forms for races could be obtained, the results of all races posted, and one could place money on any horse running in any race—and collect the winnings if lucky.

  Tonight there was a considerable stir in the room over the just-announced results of the Shrewsbury meet, which had come in by telegram. A horse named Windflyer owned by a Mr. John Parsons Coke had won at odds of seven to two. It seemed that the name Windflyer was on the tongue of every person they passed, either in praise or complaint, depending on which way the punter had placed his money.

  They were nearly out of the room when Dick stopped. A man to his left was arguing loudly, apparently to someone at a pay window, demanding his winnings. Dick was certain he had heard that gravelly voice before. But where? “Morris, do you hear that man? Do you know him?”

  They stood still and listened. “I tell you, man, John Parsons Coke is my partner. One thousand pounds of Windflyer’s winnings are mine. And I want them—now. Do you want me to have you up before the Jockey Club?”

  “No.” Dick could feel Morris shaking his head. “I don’t know him—short fellow, bald, well-dressed, more sober than most punters. Looks like a lawyer or banker.”

  The description brought no name to Dick’s mind. “Not army? I think I heard that voice in Scutari.”

  Kirkham scoffed. “Not military. Not ’im. Too stout to do credit to a uniform. Shoulders slouched under the clever tailoring. ’e looks too soft.”

  “I don’t recognize him, I’m sure,” Morris said. “But the name Coke—there was a fellow in the Lancers by that name.”

  “Ah!” Richard was disgusted with himself. Why hadn’t he remembered? “Sergeant Coke! Could be him. I remember he was interested in sport.”

  “Shall I ask the man at the window who he is?” Kirkham offered.

  “No.” Dick shrugged. “It’s not important. Just seemed to jog a memory I was trying to place. Sounds are so much more important now. I’m trying to get them right.”

  Dick left Tattersall’s with a slow step. He shouldn’t have come. The sounds, the feel, the smells—they had all made him miss so much more acutely what he had lost. Perhaps he should have listened to Jenny and gone to the compassionate meeting. Much safer.

  Ten

  Yes. Jennifer leaned forward in the high-sided pew. As soon as the earl came to the heart of his message, her former distraction over Richard’s absence vanished.

  Yes, she thought again. This was what she wanted to hear. What could she do? What could all these people do to ‘dive into the recesses of human misery and bring out the wretched and ignorant sufferers’? Surely the Earl of Shaftesbury could give her the direction she needed.

  “So many people have asked me,” the speaker continued, “‘How has this come upon us? How can such conditions exist in the greatest country in the world, in the greatest city in the world?’ And those are, indeed, fair questions. Understand, my friends, that in the space of one generation—our parents’ generation—England moved from being an agricultural society to an industrial one. For the first time in history we now have more people living in our towns than on farms. And the only place for this great influx of humanity to find shelter is most often in the vermin-infested rookeries existing behind the main boulevards of our city. I have seen with my own eyes as many as twenty people of all ages and both sexes crowded into one filthy room.”

  An uneasiness rippled through the audience. This was not what these good people wanted to hear. But the earl did not slacken his pace. “Many say to me, ‘But we have had our parliamentary reform; we have passed laws to deal with all this.’ And I say we have barely made a beginning. And that beginning will be lost if we do not press ahead. Eight years have passed since the passage of the Factory Act, and still I must fight for the freedom of children where loopholes in the law allow tyranny.”

  Jennifer thought of the little group of urchins that gathered around her at the ragged school. She thought of Joshua, covered in soot and blood. How many small children were even now being rubbed with brine before hot fires to prepare them for such unspeakable work? And that was only one example. Shaftesbury began to speak of others, sparing nothing for the delicate sensibilities of the women in his audience.

  “Recently I went to a brick field. I saw at a distance what appeared to be eight or ten pillars of clay. As I approached, I was astonished to find that these were children, filthy with clay, who ran screaming at the sight of a gentleman. I followed them to their work. There I saw little children, three parts naked, tottering under the weight of the wet clay they carried—some of it on their heads and some on their shoulders—and little girls with huge masses of wet, cold, dripping clay pressed on their abdomens. I watched as they carried their loads to the kilns. There they had to enter places where the heat was so fierce that I was not myself able to remain more than two or three minutes.”

  Then Shaftesbury’s narrative moved from the brick fields to the potteries. Jennifer stirred. This was what Richard must hear. Why had he not come tonight? She scowled at the empty space in Lady Eccleson’s pew. If Richard had heeded her, he would understand the reform needed in the industry from which his family made their wealth.

  “…In the potteries of our great Midlands there are now 1,000 children between the ages of six and ten who are sweated for sixteen hours a day for as little as half a crown a week. I saw them lugging molds from potters’ wheels to furnaces where the temperatures blaze constantly at 120°. These half-cooked unfortunates have no hope for a better life unless we undertake to do something about their condition.”

  Jenny thought over her schedule for the coming week. It was very full, but clearly she should include time for Lieutenant Greyston. He must be made to see his duty.

  “I will confess to you, my friends, that there are times when I question the mysterious ways of Providence that leave these outcasts to their horrible destiny. And then I am reminded of Christ on the cross, who gave His own mother into the care of His disciple. I am His follower. You are His follower. He has given the care of His children into our hands, we who are to be His hands on earth. And so we must persevere, for however dark the view, however painful and revolting the labor, I see no scriptural reason for desisting. Sins against children are sins against the God who made them, against the Giver of all life.

  “The sins of our fathers’ omissions have been visited on us, and we must act. These, the least and the lowliest, are children of God. We must care for them as our brothers and sisters, beloved in the sight of the One who said, ‘As ye have done it unto the least of these, my brothers, ye have done it unto me.’”

  Her heart so full that she was hardly aware of those around her, Jennifer rose with the rest of the audience. Surely there was no evil, whether social or spiritual, that could not be cured with enough energy. Hadn’t Florence Nightingale proved that at Scutari? Through willpower and incredibly hard work, she had accomplished miracles and saved the British army.

  Now it was all so clear to Jennifer—teaching in the ragged schools, seeing Joshua’s desperate condition, hearing tonight’s speech—now she saw it all as part of a whole. She had found her calling. She would accomplish miracles and save the British working children.

  It was late that night after Jenny had extinguished her candle and snuggled deep beneath her comforter, that the glow faded. Shining visions of saving the suffering children of England were all very well. But what could she do? Rushing off with a head full of romantic notions could result in a worse fiasco than Mary Stanley’s arrival in Scutari with a shipload of silly society girls who had thought nursing soldiers a means to provide interesting tea table conversation.

  The earl’s words had made Jennifer see that the work to be done was, if anything, less acceptable for tea table conversation than conditions in Scutari. And ladies of her class were not allowed to go beyond the bounds of tea table and drawing room. No, she had not found the answer
, but rather more intense questions. She had a desire but no means of fulfilling it. And still that was only half of her problem. She had also tried to understand her motives for doing the work. But surely the work itself was enough. Saving the children was enough. There need be no larger meaning.

  She thought of the motives of those she knew who worked the hardest: Florence Nightingale was answering a direct call from God; Arthur worked for the economic good of England—and his own career; Lady Eccleson worked tirelessly to eradicate squalor because she disliked living around it and because such work was her duty; Amelia Neville did her share because she felt it was right to do what society expected of one; the Earl of Shaftesbury was living out his own love for God and those created in His image.

  Jennifer could claim no high spiritual calling. So what was her motive?

  She awoke the next morning to the pealing of church bells and realized she had been dreaming of pulling filth-covered urchins from fields of slime, from blasting furnaces, and from rooms crowded with sick people. And then the dream had twisted, and it had been Richard she was rescuing, first from a field exploding with cannon fire and then from a dark alley crawling with rats. She shivered in an effort to clear her head of the images. Betsy, the round-cheeked upstairs maid, bustled in to bring her a cup of tea and open her curtains.

  Blinking at the brightness of the morning light, she thought again of Dick. If only he had heard the earl’s speech last night. Surely he would be as fired to action as she. Well, if Richard Greyston would not go to the message, she would take the message to him. She felt ready to ride full charge at the cannons of poverty, filth, and ignorance that killed and maimed so many around her. And she would not be happy until Richard was filled with the same spirit.