“Good evening, Miss Kilbrid,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”
Glancing up, I recognized the smithy. “Mr. Faber!” I said, surprised by his presence. “What are you doing here? Where is the other driver?” Mr. Faber’s long hair fell unbound past his shoulders and appeared even more unruly than I remembered, leaving me to guess that he had come straight from bed.
“I rode over to the palace with Johnny to find Lady Dinley. The other driver brought my horse back into town.” He turned to speak with Cate and I noticed the sword at his side. “I’ll do a quick walk around to see if anyone is about.”
“Thank you, Tom.” Cate took my hand. “Come, Selah, let’s see who’s still awake inside.”
With the lantern in one hand, she led the way across the narrow lane. Our full silk skirts swished from side to side and our heels clicked nosily against the stone pathway. She stopped at a shallow recess about midway down the side of a brick building and knocked on a large wooden door.
“The children were surely put to bed hours ago as they have to be up before the sun.” The door opened, and our light grew two-fold from another lantern held up by an older man. “Good evening, Mr. Larken,” Cate said. “Johnny told me you had a visitor tonight.”
The man moved aside, opening the door wider. “Thank ye for coming, milady. We’ve had quite a fright this evening. One of the children claimed a sighting, though I never did lay eyes on the lass myself.”
Stepping into a hallway, I saw an old woman standing behind Mr. Larken. “’Tis a relief yer here, milady,” the old woman said to Cate. “All of the little ones are put to bed except for Molly Evans. She won’t stop crying for fear of dying from the pox like poor Hannah. I’ve tried warm milk and soothing words, but she won’t be having none of it.”
Cate sighed. “Bring me to her, Mrs. Larken. I’ll see what can be done.”
We followed after the old man and woman, passing first through what appeared to be an oversized kitchen with the remnants of a fire in an open hearth on one wall. I had time to take in the massive wooden table and stacks of mixing bowls and cooking pots before entering the adjoining room.
The air was pleasantly warm and smelled of sweetness and bread. This second room was as large as the kitchen with two enormous bake ovens flanking the outer wall. Hot coals glowed red from beneath a pile of ash, banked for the night and waiting to be relit in the morning.
Mrs. Larken stopped near the first oven and pointed to a door on the far side of the room. “She’s hiding in the pantry, milady, under a pile of flour sacks.”
Cate looked at me. “Molly doesn’t take well to strangers. Why don’t you stay out here with Mr. Larken? I should only be a few minutes.”
I nodded and Cate began to weave her way across the floor with Mrs. Larken in tow. The light from her lantern illuminated numerous dark bundles as she passed by, lying helter-skelter across the stone floor on top of thin straw mattresses. I counted twenty-seven forms in all, their heads just visible from beneath gray wool blankets. The door opened and the faint sound of crying drifted across the room before the two women stepped into the pantry, closing the door behind them.
“Poor lamb,” Mr. Larken said, his voice thick with kindness. “Little Molly is our newest girl. Come a few weeks back when her mam died of the bloody flux. We do all we can for her, but some take more time to adjust than others.”
I looked again at all the sleeping bodies, not sure what to make of the scene. “Where did they all come from?”
Mr. Larken laughed softly. “Lady Dinley collects them like other ladies collect hairpins. From all over London, I warrant, though she finds most of them in the rookeries. Orphans, the lot of them, and destined for beggary or worse if not for her ladyship’s charity.”
“Like Liza at the dressmakers,” I said, recalling the girl from earlier.
“Aye, but Liza Boote weren’t one of ours. If my memory serves, she was brought up in one of the sewing shops.”
“Sewing shops?” I said, surprised by the revelation. “She owns sewing shops too?”
Mr. Larken scratched at a patch of dry skin beneath his thinning gray hair. “Bakeshops and sewing shops is just the beginning. Lady Dinley has children placed from one end of London to the other in all sorts of occupations. I’ve heard it said that there ain’t a trade in London that don’t have her finger in it.”
The child nearest my feet rolled over and then nestled back into the mattress.
“When it’s cold out, we put their beds in the bake room to keep warm. The king himself don’t sleep so snugly as these little ones do here. Lady Dinley sees to it that all the children are properly taken care of. Not one in her care will spend a night on the street or with an empty stomach. And even those who still got their parents always find a hot meal at her door.”