The Courteous Cad (6 page)

“How many can they be? Is it an entire army?”

“Enough for Mr. Sherbourne to injure several a week, I should think. Someone ought to—oh!”

The sudden realization that Mr. Walker might be among the throng brought a gasp to Prudence’s lips. She set her hands on the sill and leaned out, searching for a man who would stand head and shoulders above the others. His dark hair would be threaded with silver. His massive shoulders would—

There!
She covered her mouth with her hand to keep from crying out again.

Mr. Walker, who had held her in his arms, kissed her lips, whispered his love . . . now walked beside a small woman in a mobcap and cotton apron. He smiled at the woman, saying something Prudence could not make out. His companion laughed. A thin girl held her hand. A taller boy followed close behind.

“What is it, Pru?” Mary stepped to her side. “I heard your gasp of shock. Let me see.”

“It’s nothing.” Prudence straightened, blocking the window. “Your brooch is crooked, Mary. You should return to the mirror and try again.”

“Stand aside, sister. You’re quite pale, and I must have a look at what has distressed you.” Shouldering Prudence aside, Mary peered out the window. “Just as I thought! It’s that boy again. The one who knocked you into the puddle. It appears he does work at the mill, after all. It must be his brother they carry along. Poor child.”

Relieved and confused all at once, Prudence joined her sister. In the distance, Mr. Walker and his companions were just rounding a corner, nearly indistinguishable in the flood of other laborers. Pulse pounding, Prudence gripped the sill as he vanished from sight.

How could he have found another woman so quickly? It was not a year since their sad parting. Prudence had danced with many men and received countless callers since that day, but none could fill the empty place Mr. Walker had left in her heart. No man ever would.

“You should give him the leavings from our breakfast, Pru.” Mary shook out her skirt as she left the window. “We have two kippers, several buns, a nice cheese, and plenty of fresh butter. Wrap it in a napkin and take it down to him. Make haste, or he will soon be out of sight.”

Give Mr. Walker their breakfast scraps? Bewildered, Prudence could hardly fathom such an act. Would he not be offended? But Mary was gathering up the remaining items on the table and tying them into a white cloth. She pushed the bundle at her sister and bade her fly.

“Tom Smith! Tom Smith!”

Mary’s voice rang out as Prudence left their chamber and hurried down the steps. She burst into the street and came to a halt. At the inn’s front door, Tom stood looking at Mary. He and a little girl supported a frail boy by his arms.

Seeing Prudence, he tugged off his cap and attempted a bow. “Mornin’, ma’am. If you please, we must hurry to the mill, for if we are late again, the overlooker will beat us.”

“Beat you?” Shaking off her preoccupation with Mr. Walker, Prudence shifted her attention to the three children. “Here, Tom, take this. It is fish and bread for your dinner.”

“Thank you. We are much obliged.” He tucked the package under his free arm and was turning away when Prudence stopped him.

“Is this your sister, Tom? and your brother?”

“Aye, she be Martha, and here be Davy what I told you about yesterday. The other sisters are gone ahead of us already, five of them.”

Each arm draped around a sibling’s shoulders to bear his weight, the younger boy was gaunt and pasty white. His great gray eyes, identical to those of his brother and sister, regarded Prudence from under a fringe of long black lashes. Like their brother, Davy and Martha sported a sprinkling of freckles beneath the dirt and grime on their cheeks.

Prudence gathered her skirts and crouched to face the boy. “Davy, were you truly injured at Thorne Mill?”

“Aye, ma’am.” He bent and drew his pant leg up to the knee.

At the shocking sight of twisted bone and scarred flesh, she gasped. “Was Davy taken to the doctor, Tom?”

“Not yet, ma’am. Until your shillin’ yesterday, we had no money for it.” He returned his cap to his head. “Davy’s leg were caught in a machine, you see, and the skin and flesh peeled off. The bone weren’t broke so much as bent. It happened six months ago, and we all prayed that God would put his leg right again. But our hope is gone now. So we help Davy back and forth to the mill between two of us. I always hold him up on the right side and our sisters trade out for the left.”

“But how can your brother work when he is in such poor health? He must be in pain every moment.”

“If Davy don’t work, ma’am, there ain’t enough for us all to eat. As I said yesterday, our father be dead these three years. With him went our garden and sheep, for none could tend them but he. Our mother be ill with mill fever a good bit of the time.”

“Do you go to school?”

Tom cast a worried glance in the direction of the mill. “No, ma’am. We work till sundown, and the mill has no school. If these questions lead to wantin’ your shillin’ back, I’ll give it to you, but truly we must go.”

“The overlooker has a thong and a stick,” Martha spoke up, her voice high and childlike. “I can bear the thong, but Dick the Devil kicked me from my stool last week. If he goes after me with the stick, I may perish.”

“Dick the Devil? Is that what you call the overlooker?” A shiver of horror went down Prudence’s spine. “Go quickly, then, children. I am sorry to have kept you.”

“Good day, ma’am. God bless!” Tom called over his shoulder as he and his sister dragged their brother down the street.

Wrapping her arms around herself, Prudence watched the children until they and the other mill workers disappeared around a corner. Tom, Davy, and Martha Smith. Five more sisters besides these three. Eight children laboring from sunup to sundown under threat of a beating from Dick the Devil.

Prudence reflected on her own idyllic childhood—riding horses across meadows, swinging from the branch of a great oak tree, sitting on a flat green croquet lawn to study Latin verbs with her tutor. Her stomach had rarely groaned with hunger, for tea and scones were always at the ready. She wore colorful silk frocks and slippers especially crafted to fit her feet. Her bonnets were trimmed in ribbon and lace to match her gowns. Singing and painting lessons, evenings around a pianoforte, embroidery and beading—these had been her leisurely pursuits.

True, she had known hardship. Like the Smith children, Prudence had lost a parent too early. Her mother had died, and her father grew bitter and cold. Sarah was sent away to school, then married off to a man she did not love. Prudence and Mary mourned their losses. But sorrow had been eased by outings to the theater, expeditions to the lake country, sea bathing at Brighton, and a hundred other pleasures.

God had blessed her greatly. Until this moment, she had never even known of any man so cruel as Dick the Devil. God’s blessings . . . the devil’s cruelty.

At the disturbing vision of a world divided cleanly in two—one side good and the other evil—Prudence trembled. A shiver coursed through her. Tears welled in her eyes.

“Is the coach late today?” Mary’s voice rang out. She stepped into the street and looked it up and down. “I shall be quite put out if we do not reach our destination by teatime.”

Pondering her revelation, Prudence did not respond. Instead, she began walking. At first, her steps were hesitant. But as determination took hold inside her, she gained speed.

“Pru, where are you going?” Mary called. “I expect the coach just now. What has come over you?”

She rushed forward and grasped Prudence’s wrist. “Speak to me, sister! Oh, dear, you are very chill, indeed. So much like my poor late husband at the onset of his influenza. You must come out of the mist at once. Return to the inn with me, and we shall sit by the fire until the coach arrives.”

“Stop pulling me, Mary.” Prudence removed her sister’s hand and began walking again in the direction of the worsted mill. “I am not ill. Not in the least.”

“But where are you going? Truly, you are not well. Your cheeks are flushed. Your eyes are glazed. Oh, heaven help us!”

Prudence stopped. Excitement coursed through her as she took her sister’s shoulders and gazed into concerned brown eyes. “Mary, I have just heard the voice of God. Not two minutes ago. In the street. He has revealed my mission.”

“What nonsense are you talking, Pru? Did Tom Smith do something to you again? I knew he was not to be trusted!”

“No, Mary, listen to me. I know what I am to do with my life. God has given me a crusade, a battle I must wage for Him.” She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. “I am to save England’s children from the worsted mills.”

Mary’s eyes narrowed. “Did that boy offer you tea or a biscuit? Did you drink something?”

“I am perfectly fine, sister. Indeed, I am happier than I have been in many years. Can’t you see? I have a purpose at last. I am going to save the mill children!”

“Ah, there is the coach—thank heaven. Return with me and take your seat while I order the trunks sent down. We shall depart this misty, dreary place at last, and you can tell me all about your little crusade on the way to London.”

“I cannot go home, Mary,” Prudence declared as she set her stride again. “I must stay in Otley. I must help these children—Tom Smith and the others. God has commissioned me to better their lives by giving up my own.”

“Prudence Watson, you speak not two words of sense together!” Mary stumbled in an effort to match her sister’s pace. Her voice was shrill. “Stop this foolishness, Pru! At once! Get into the coach before we are left behind!”

“I stay here, sister. Mr. William Sherbourne and his wicked overlookers will rue the day I set foot in their town. The children will have good food to eat, a school, clean clothes, time to play outside. I see it all now, Mary, as though a golden path has been laid out before me. I can do nothing but travel that path, for it is my destiny.”

“Excuse me, ladies,” the coachman called to them. “Do you mean to take your seats? I’m bound for Leeds and late as it is. I’ve no time to dawdle.”

“We shall have our trunks sent down to you in a moment,” Mary assured him. She lowered her voice to a growl. “Prudence, you are a silly girl who should be dancing at balls, flirting with men, and finding a suitable husband. Now get into the coach!”

“Go back to London, Mary.” Joy filling her, Prudence lifted her hands over her head and spun about in a circle. “Tell everyone what I mean to do here in Yorkshire! Tell Betsy Fry most especially, and ask her to pray for me. If she can better the lot of England’s poor prisoners, then I can rescue our nation’s children from slavery.”

“Slavery?” Mary caught Prudence around the waist and forced her to halt. “Those children are working at the mills just as their parents and grandparents before them. A single woman cannot hope to change that, nor should she. God Himself ordained the proper order of things—from kings in their palaces to the poorest paupers on the street. Elizabeth Fry has put this religious rubbish into your head, and I shall tell her what I think of it.”

“Mrs. Heathhill, I believe the coach must depart Otley at once.” A footman approached the sisters, addressing Mary in an urgent tone. “Shall I order your trunks brought down?”

“Oh, hang the trunks!” Mary exclaimed. “Tell the coachman to be off. We shall sort out this muddle and go to London on the next coach.”

“Oh, Mary, thank you!” Prudence threw her arms around her sister. “I am so happy. So truly happy. How can anyone be as glad as I? At last God has spoken to me, and at last I see my future life. I must go to the mill at once. There is no time to lose. Even now, Dick the Devil may be beating poor Martha with his stick. I shall insist on being let inside, and there I shall see . . . I shall see . . .”

Her voice hung on the words as the truth seeped in. She would see none other than Mr. Walker.

William Sherbourne took the proffered hat and gloves from a footman and stepped through the front door of Thorne Lodge. The morning mist curling up from the distant moors might have charmed him had he been in a better humor. At sea so many months, he had pined for the wild, barren beauty of Yorkshire. But his return to Portsmouth brought the crushing reality of a series of misfortunes and errors he had set in motion and could never undo. And Otley—so dearly loved throughout his childhood—had not proven a healing balm.

Randolph’s bliss in marriage and fatherhood tormented William with longing for the same contented state. Edmund’s felicitous match—a lovely woman his equal in religious ardor and intellect—made a mockery of William’s fruitless efforts to better his own lot.

The latest in a string of encounters that had succeeded in humbling and humiliating William had culminated in words he could not forget.

“I have met many gentlemen,”
Prudence Watson had told him the previous night. Her bright green eyes sparked with disdain, and her pretty lips curled in scorn.
“Few can boast many redeeming qualities.”

She referred pointedly to him, of course.

“You,”
she had asserted,
“are determined to make a mockery of everything and everyone. In the short time we have known each other, I daresay I have not heard a single admiring comment about you. Your entire family enjoys goading you to your face.The poor children employed at your mill speak openly of your heartlessness and cruelty.”