Miss Westlake's Windfall (15 page)

Ada supposed the check went a lot further than her puny, lumpy efforts, but writing a check—or having one’s son do so—seemed a lot easier to her. When Ada could, she put a ha’penny in each sock or mitten. When she couldn’t, she put in a peppermint candy.

Today she had nothing but a troublesome sack of money she was determined to get out of her house and put to good use. No one was going to claim it, she acknowledged, except sneakthiefs like the chandler’s boy, who tried to tell her that he’d lost his father’s deposit money on his way to the bank. In an apple tree? She sent him away with a flea in his ear, telling him—and everyone she knew would get wind of the tale—that the money was being held by her man of business pending its rightful owner’s return. Ada was beginning to fear that her house would be broken into next, if word of her windfall passed beyond the boundaries of her own neighbors.

The money ought to be in a safer place, and would be, after today.

With Garden George asleep in the back of Lulu’s cart, Ada drove between the gates of the orphanage. A group of children were huddled together in the side yard, and another five or so were bunched near a hedge, out of the cold wind. Ada wondered why they were not at lessons or chores, unless the Kirkendals had progressive ideas about fresh air during free times. Ada believed in the benefits of healthy exercise herself—wasn’t she always urging Jane off the sofa and out to pick berries or gather lavender?—but not on such a cold day. In addition, she saw no brightly colored caps or mittens. Ada’s efforts were done in plain boiled wool, but Tess always found scraps of red and yellow, orange and green. The children looked cold and miserable, dirty and disheveled, in fact, with nary a single cheerful smile among them.

Two of the older boys got into a fight over who would hold Lulu’s reins, as if the old mare was going to bolt, and started pushing and punching at each other, exchanging blows and foul epithets.

“Here now, lads, none of that,” Garden George stirred himself to say. “Not in front of a lady.”

“Or the younger children,” Ada added, stepping between the combatants, earning a handful of dirt tossed in her face. “Why, you bl
—
”

“Not in front of the children, missy.” George went to Lulu’s head and spit tobacco juice on the ground. The boys disappeared.

“Where is Mrs. Kirkendal?” Ada asked a shivering girl near the front door.

“Gone.”

“I can see she is gone, the way there is no supervision out here. When will she be back?”

The girl hunched thin shoulders under a thin scarf, not one of the thick woolen ones Ada had so painstakingly knitted. “Never, I s’pose. I wouldn’t come back neither.”

Ada was getting a very bad feeling about this. “What about Mr. Kirkendal?” She preferred dealing with the matron, who always offered Lady Ashmead’s lackeys poppy seed cake, but she could talk to Mr. Kirkendal just as easily.

“Himself’s in there.”

Ada was relieved, until the girl said, “But he can’t talk to you.”

“What, is he sick?”

The child just shrugged.

“What about the other staff? That nice young teacher, Mr
.
— What was his name?”

“Gone.”

That was definitely not his name, nor what Ada wished to hear. “Mr. Barnell, that was it.”

“Gone. Run off with herself. And the funds.”

Oh, dear. Ada clutched her fur muff and its contents closer. Perhaps the money was heaven-sent after all, to help these poor unfortunate children at their time of need.

“Well, I shall just have to speak to Mr. Kirkendal, no matter how he is feeling. We cannot let this situation continue, can we?”

The girl shrugged again and turned away, expressing her opinion of the outcome of Ada’s efforts. “Wait, dear,” Ada called to the pinch-faced girl. “Why are none of you wearing your warm hats and mittens?”

The girl jerked her bare, nearly blue thumb in the direction of the door. “Himself sold them. For laudanum.”

“For the pain?”

“For the laudanum.”

Ada asked Garden George to come inside with her. He was old, but he could still wield a pitchfork. Regrettably, Ada hadn’t thought to tell him to bring one.

Walking through the empty house, Ada wished she’d asked how long Mrs. Kirkendal had been gone. Ages, it appeared, from the dust and the dirt. Ada could see where paintings had been taken off the walls to be sold, and carpets lifted from the floors. If this was the state of the public rooms, she dreaded to think what the children’s dormitories must look like, or the kitchens.

Mr. Kirkendal might have had a hard time finding someone to take over his wife’s many duties, especially without funds, but this was beyond the pale. All he had to do was apply to Lady Ashmead, who would see that Chas set matters right, and so Ada intended to tell the man, as soon as she found him.

Mr. Kirkendal was in the establishment’s office, but he was beyond badgering. His head lolled back on his neck and a trail of drool hung from his mouth. He smelled, besides, and his linen was soiled. When Ada nudged him with her boot, he opened glassy, unfocused eyes. He reached for a cup filled with a murky liquid, but Ada pushed it farther across the littered desk, out of his reach.

“Get up, sirrah, and tell me what you have done with the children’s mittens!”

“Mittens?”

It sounded insignificant to Ada too, but she was so angry she couldn’t think. All she knew was that she’d believed her meager efforts, whose cost in time and money she had begrudged, were doing the children some good. Guilt ate at her, that innocent babes, with no one to look after their interests, were suffering while she was arguing with her sister-in-law over a blue domino for a ball. “Yes, mittens and ... and everything else you stole from them.”

“ ‘Twas m’wife who cleaned the bank accounts,” Kirkendal whined. “M’wife and that blasted Barnell.”

“That was some time ago. What have you done about it since? The children are cold and I daresay hungry.” Ada kicked his foot again when it looked like he was about to nod off once more. “What have you done about it, I said?”

“I... I...”

“You did not go to the trustees, did you?”

Hunching lower in his seat, the head of the orphanage admitted, “Couldn’t. The books wouldn’t have stood examining, even before the faithless witch left. They’d have had me transported, likely.”

“What about Lady Ashmead, your patroness?”

Kirkendal shivered. “She’d have had me hung. Likely saying it was no wonder m’wife left me, while she watched.”

Ada seldom agreed with Lady Ashmead, but now was one of those times. “She’d have been right. You are a sad excuse for a man, robbing from orphans. It’s no wonder you are trying to kill yourself with these noxious potions.”

“You don’t understand. It was m’wife who managed everything, the books, the shopping, the children, toadying up to Lady Ashmead. I couldn’t ... I couldn’t do it on my own.” He dabbed at his eyes with a grayish handkerchief, then looked at her more closely, hope dawning across his unwashed, unshaven face. “But you are here now, Miss Ada. Always been good to the children, you have. You’ll help me, won’t you?” he begged. At her frown of distaste, he added, “We can get the older girls to help fix the place up
.
”

“What, do you think a dust mop is going to solve your problems?”

“I heard in the village about the money you found. You can pay off the merchants so we can get food and firewood delivered. We’ll come about, ma’am, with just a little help from your kind heart.”

“You think I would give a shilling to a... a...”

“An opium eater,” George put in from the doorway.

“To a man who hides in a vial of forgetfulness? You would only use it for your needs, letting the children go on suffering.” She turned in disgust. “I will leave it up to Lord Ashmead to find punishment befitting your misdeeds—after he sees to the children’s welfare, that is.”

Kirkendal grabbed at her arm so she could not leave. “Don’t tell him, miss. Don’t tell him. He might kill me.”

George was making his slow way across the room when a very welcome voice came from the doorway: “If you don’t take your hands off the lady this instant, he will kill you for sure.”

Kirkendal’s hands fell to his sides, and he started blubbering.

Ada had never been so glad to see Chas in her life. Freed, she ran to him, and his arm went around her, but his eyes never left Kirkendal. If the man made one suspicious move toward Ada or a weapon in the desk, Lord Ashmead’s stance seemed to say, he’d be maggot bait by morning.

“His wife ran off with the bank account and the instructor,” Ada started to explain. “He was afraid to come to you for fear of losing his position, because previous irregularities would have come to light.”

“His position? The dastard ought to fear losing his head, letting this place go to wrack and ruin without consulting the trustees.”

“Then he sold what he could to pay for his own need for laudanum.”

Chas was appalled by what little he had seen, furious that Ada had been exposed to such depravity. “If you could not face your sins, the least you could have done was blown your brains out like a man, instead of turning to morphia. The children would have been better off.”

“Medicine,” Kirkendal pleaded. “It’s medicine, I swear.”

“He sold the children’s clothes, and blankets, too, I fear. They’d have been wrapped in them outside, otherwise.”

“The blighter sold four of the older boys,” George put in, “to the mines up north, according to one of the other lads.”

Livid, Chas grabbed Kirkendal by the collar and shook him. “You took the children in your care and handed them virtual death sentences, to support your own filthy habit?” He dragged Kirkendal to the door, then outside, past the wide-eyed children and down the path to the gate. The viscount gave the other man a final rattle before tossing him into the roadway. “If I ever see you again, I won’t bother bringing charges before the magistrate. I’ll have you put on a ship for New Zealand before the next sunrise.”

Ashmead’s tiger cheered from where he stood at the horses’ heads near the gate, but Lady Esther, still seated on the curricle’s bench, cried out in dismay and hid her face.

Ignoring her, Chas turned to Ada, who had naturally followed him out of the building rather than avoiding the sight of fisticuffs, as a proper female would have done. “You are all right, aren’t you? That poltroon did not hurt you?”

“Not at all, except for turning my stomach. But you will do something about the children, won’t you?”

He raised an eyebrow. “What, did you think I would turn my back on a bunch of starving orphans?”

“Of course not, but you have other commitments.” Ada turned to look at the lady in his curricle, who was now whimpering into her handkerchief. With the expensive, ermine-lined hood pulled up, all Ada could see were a few golden curls and a rosy cheek. “You should not leave your guest out in the cold, but the inside of the orphanage is no fit place for a lady either.”

“Hell and thunderation.” Chas glowered at the offending building, then realized he was only frightening the children further, to say nothing of Lady Esther. She, at least, knew where her next meal was coming from. The children were cowering together as far from him as they could get, not trusting his temper any more than they’d trusted Kirkendal. Ada, though, gazed at him as if he could snap his fingers and make a miracle happen in this dingy yard.

Frustrated that he couldn’t, Chas cursed again. “There is not much I can do from here in any case. I’ll have to return to the Meadows to order out the wagons. We can provide food and blankets, but I’ll have to send someone to the village and the farms to see if we can locate warm clothing. Will you and George wait here, meanwhile, to see that the dastard doesn’t come back to sell anything else?”

“Of course. And I will reassure the children that they have nothing more to fear.”

“Good. I’ll go raid the kitchens—Mother and her company can take pot luck for a bit—and I will return with some of the staff. She hired hordes of extra servants for the house party so I know we can spare as many as it takes, until I can find a permanent solution to this mess.”

“Don’t forget wood for fires, towels so the children can wash, and whatever medicines your housekeeper thinks might be handy.” Then Ada thrust her fur muff at him. “Here, this will help.”

Chas looked back to where Lady Esther was wailing into her handkerchief. “No, thank you. She brought her own. Besides, you are going to be out here in the cold with the children until I can get back. You will need it more.”

“I meant it for you, gudgeon.”

“I have my leather driving gloves.” The viscount was trying to count how many children were in the yard, how many coats and pairs of shoes he would have to find before he could consider thinking of his own comfort. “And I am not cold, just so angry I could tear those filthy Kirkendals apart in my hands.”

“Silly, I am not offering you my hand warmer. It is the money I found. Use it for the children.”

Now Chas turned to look at his old friend, whom he could trust to do the necessary for these ragamuffins while he was gone, and without an ounce of complaint. She certainly would not go off in hysterics or enact him a Cheltenham tragedy, not his Ada. Raising his hand to caress her cheek, he said, “Ada, you have the biggest heart of any woman I know, but this is my responsibility. I should have had my man checking on conditions here, not trusting Kirkendal’s reports. I will make things right for these waifs, I swear. I cannot take your money to pay my debts.”

“Just as I could never take yours for mine.”

Chas wasn’t certain of her meaning, but he suspected it had something to do with that blasted leather purse. Now was not the time to discuss her intransigence or his insanity, however. He said, “I’ll be back with help as soon as possible.” Then he lovingly kissed her forehead.

Lady Esther was crying for real now. Lord Ashmead patted her hand once he had the horses headed for home. “Please do not cry, my dear, although your pity for the children speaks well for your gentle character. They will be fine by evening, I promise, with warm fires, hot food, and kind, decent people to look after them, people who will work harder to find them homes of their own.”