A Breach of Promise - Anne Perry [121]
“I’ll have several girls brought for you,” she said cheerfully. “You can take your pick. Very glad of a place, they’ll be, and the price’ll go towards carin’ for more abandoned waifs, so we can give ’em a start in life … that’s no more than a Christian duty.”
He loathed what he was about to do. The words would barely come off his tongue.
“I’d like nice-looking girls. At least one will be a parlormaid, in time.”
“O’ course you would, sir,” she agreed. “An’ nice-lookin’ is wot I’ll provide. We don’ send ’omely girls for that sort o’ position. They goes for scullery maids an’ the like, or ter wash pots or such.”
“I heard you even took in disfigured girls,” he said relentlessly. He wished he could take the girls she would bring. God knows what would happen to them. Perhaps the uglier ones would be better off … eventually.
“Oh … well …” She prevaricated, her sharp, cold eyes weighing how much he might know. He was a customer, and he looked from his clothes as if he might have money. She did not want to offend him. “I don’t know ’oo told you that.”
He met her gaze squarely, allowing a slightly supercilious curl to his mouth. “I made my enquiries. I don’t come blind.”
“Well, it’s only charitable,” she excused herself. “Got ter take ’em all in. Don’t keep ’em, mind. If they’re bad enough, put ’em in ter work in the mills or someplace like that, w’ere they won’t be seen.”
He looked skeptical. “Really?”
“ ’Course. Wot else can I do wif ’em? Can’t carry no passengers ’ere.”
The bell was answered by a child of about ten, and the woman sent her off to fetch three girls she named.
“Now, Mr. Meacham,” she resumed. “Let’s talk money. This place don’t run on fresh air. An’ like you said, I gotta feed the useless ones as well as the ones wot’ll find places.”
“Let’s see them first,” he argued. He could not bear to think of the wretched children who would be paraded in front of him, like farm animals for him to bid on; he knew he could take none of them. “How long have you been here?”
“Thirty years. I know me job, Mr. Meacham, never you fear.”
“That’s what I heard. But I want to be sure what I’m getting. I don’t want any unpleasant surprises … when it’s too late to bring them back.”
“You won’t!” she said sharply, narrowing her eyes. “Wot you ’eard, then? Someone blackenin’ me name?”
“I heard you took in some pretty badly deformed girls in the past … real freaks.” He hated using the word.
“When was that, then?” she demanded. “ ’Oo said that?”
“Long time ago … more than twenty years,” he replied.
“So I did, then,” she agreed reluctantly. “But it was their faces wot was twisted up. See it as quick as look at ’em, yer did. Didn’t fool nobody fer an instant.”
“Why did you take them?” he pressed, although he knew the answer.
“ ’Cos I were paid!” she snapped. “Wot jer think? But it were all legal! An’ I don’t cheat no one. No one can say as I did. Sold ’em for exactly wot they was—ugly and stupid—both. I were quite plain about it.”
“No one has said you weren’t,” he replied coldly. “So far as I am aware. I should still like to know what happened to the Jackson girls. I am acquainted with their only living relative, who might be … obliged … if they were located.” He rubbed his fingers together suggestively at the word obliged.
“Ah …” She was obviously considering her possible advantage in the matter. She glanced at his polished boots, his beautiful jacket, and lastly at his face with its keen, hard lines, and judged him to be a man with a sharp eye to money and a much less discriminating one to principle—like herself. “When they was old enough ter work, I sent ’em ter the kitchens at the pub.”
“Coopers Arms?” he said hopefully.
“Yeah. But they din’t keep ’em. Too ugly even fer ’im. I dunno wot e’ did wi’ them, but you could ask ’im.”
“How long ago is that? Ten years?”
“Ten years?” she said scornfully. “Yer think I’m made o’ money? Fifteen years, an’ I waited even then. They was six an’ eight. That’s plenty old ter fetch fer yerself. I’d ’a sent ’em sooner if they ’adn’t bin