William Monk 09 - A Breach of Promise

and piping hot. He thanked her for it and looked again at Connor.
    “What happened to them?”
    “Bleedin’ from the stomach, it was.” Connor sighed. “Ithappens. Seen it before. Good man, he was, always a pleasant word. Jackson loved those two little girls more, maybe, than if they’d been perfect.” Again he shook his head, his eyes welling over with sadness.
    Behind him, Mrs. Heggerty’s face was pinched with sorrow too, and she dabbed her eyes with the corner of her apron.
    “But always anxious,” Connor went on. “I suppose he knew what kind of life lay ahead for them and he was trying to think what to do for the best. Anyway, it never came to that, poor soul. Dead, he was, and them no more’n three and a year old, or thereabouts.”
    Mrs. Heggerty sniffed.
    “What did their mother do?” Monk asked.
    “She couldn’t care for ’em, now could she, poor creature?” Connor shook his head. “No husband, no money anymore. Had to place ’em and go and earn her own way. Don’t know what she did.” He cradled his mug in his hands and sipped at it slowly. “Clever enough, and certainly pretty enough for anything, but there aren’t a lot for a respectable widow to do. No people of her own, an’ none of his to be seen.” He stopped, staring unhappily at Monk. “You’ll not find them little mites now, you know?”
    Mrs. Heggerty was listening to them, her work forgotten, her face full of pity.
    “Yes, I do know,” Monk agreed. “But I said I would try.” He sipped his tea as well. It had more flavor than he had expected.
    “Well, you could try Buxton House, down the far end of the High Street,” Mrs. Heggerty suggested. “She must have been at her wit’s end, poor woman. I can’t think of anything worse to happen to a soul than to have to give up your children, and them not right, so you’d never even be able to comfort yourself they’d be cared for by some other person as you would have done.” She stood stiffly, her arms folded across her bosom as if holding some essence of her own children closer, and Monk remembered the rows of small clothes on the airing rack and the doll propped up on the stairs. Presumably the children were at lessons at this hour of the morning.
    He rose to his feet. “Thank you, I will.” The tea was half finished. Leaving it required some explanation. “I know it’s futile. I want to get it over with as soon as possible. Thank you, Mrs. Heggerty, Mr. Connor.”
    “Sure you’re welcome, sir,” she said, moving to take him back to the door.
    A couple of enquiries took him to Buxton House, a large, gaunt building which in earlier days had been a family home but now boasted nothing whatever beyond the strictly functional. A thin, angular-boned woman with her hair screwed back off her face was scrubbing the step, her arms sweeping back and forth rhythmically, her dreams elsewhere.
    When he rang the bell it was answered by another woman, so fat the fabric strained at the seams of her gray dress. Her florid face was already angry even before she saw him.
    “We’re full up!” she said bluntly. “Try the orphanage over the river at Parsons Green.” She made as if to close the door.
    Looking into her bleak, blue eyes Monk had a sudden very ugly idea, born of knowledge and experience.
    “I will, if you can’t help me,” he replied tersely. “I’m looking for girls about ten or eleven, old enough to start work and easy to train into good ways. I’m setting up house a few miles from here. I’d sooner have girls without family, so they’re not always wanting days off to go home. I could try city girls, but I’ve no connections.” He could easily have been stocking a brothel or selling girls abroad for the white slave trade, and she must know that as well as he did.
    Her face altered like sunshine from a cloud. In an instant the line of her mouth softened and the ice in her eyes melted.
    “I’m sorry, sir,” she said smoothly. “I’m fair mithered to pieces to take poor children I ’aven’t the means ter care for, though God knows I’m willin’ enough. But you can’t feed ‘ungry mouths if you in’t got no food.” She straightened her skirt absentmindedly. “It’d be a fair blessin’ if yer could take two or three girls, sir. Make room for two or three more wot’s infants an’ can’t do a thing for theirselves. I’ve got several as is both willin’ an able ter please, an’ comely enough. Jus’ cominginter young ladies, like.”