wanderamaranth | Best Intentions, Chapter Six (Reply)

Long’s Orphanage Home for Boys, the sign read, and Helen Kingsleigh supposed that was technically true. It was entirely plausible the original proprietor of the establishment’s last name had been Long, and the male children residing within were more likely than not orphans. It was the word ‘home’ that gave her pause, that dreary winter London day, because the ramshackle building didn’t look like a fit dwelling for mice, let alone motherless children. The things that would typically make housing a home--a sense of cheer, the warmth of a fire peeking through the windows, even a wreath upon the front door--were all conspicuously absent.

Underneath that sign sat another, fresher sign, recently painted in an untrained hand: Assistance Sought. Inquire Within.

She wasn’t precisely sure after taking notice of the signs why she didn’t simply pull her caplet tighter around her shoulders and bustle on towards a more genteel street, the way that innumerable other woman of fashion (and men, and quite a few of both sexes who were not considered so, as well) had done. Perhaps it was that the amount of packages under her arm were not nearly as numerous this year as she felt they should have been, or it could have been something more mundane, such as the way the light struck the faded clapboard shingle. Either way, Helen stood for nearly fifteen minutes out in the snow, staring at the building. When she finally did stir from her silent reverie (prompted by a jostled arm against her elbow and a hasty apology from a gentleman in a battered derby hat) her fingers and toes had gone numb.

That evening, she’d shuffled through her wardrobe, looking for a drab brown dress that she’d ordered when initially fading out of her widow’s weeds. The milliner that had constructed it had not been especially talented, but during that time the last thing Helen had truly been concerned with was fashion, so she’d worn it anyways until Trudy abused it as ugly so many times that she’d retired it simply so she no longer had to hear of its numerous faults.

“Take off the lace on the collar,” she murmured, once she found it in the back of her wardrobe. “Remove the tortoiseshell buttons, and…yes, that should work.”

Exactly one week to the day since she’d first considered the shingle for Long’s Orphanage Home for Boys, Helen Kingsleigh walked up the front steps, wearing her altered, much simpler brown gown, a pair of Alice’s old battered boots (that she’d been much to fond of to be rid of them, she remembered around a lump in her throat as she pulled them on) and an overcoat she’d purchased ready-made from a random shop. A brisk knock on the door yielded no results, so she just turned the handle and stepped inside.

She almost turned right back around and left due to the stench.

In the end, though, it was the very same stench that had nearly sent her running that convinced her to remain. If she could barely stand to walk through the front door of the establishment, how must those whom had to resign themselves to actually living there feel?

Just beyond the foyer, down the hall and to the left, a small sign hung by a yellow faded door that read Nathanial Long, Administrator. The response she received upon knocking briskly upon that door was much different than when she’d attempted the front door.

“Come in!” an harried voice called, and Helen did just that. A small, wizened scrap of a man with a sharp, angular face and a riot of black curls that were just beginning to recede atop his skull sat behind a high desk, scribbling furiously. He looked up, blinked myopically at Helen, and then turned his attention back to his paperwork again. “We are not the sort of establishment to cater to bored High Society ladies looking for a charitable cause to champion.” he said, his voice a surprisingly pleasing tenor. “I thank you for your time, but may I suggest The Children’s Mission two streets to the east? They are much more likely to be responsive to your genteel attempts, madam.”

Helen blinked, looked down at herself, and frowned. Had she really been amongst London Society so long that she couldn’t even appear to be lower in rank than what she was? She cleared her throat and stepped closer. When she spoke again, it was in a voice that she’d had to re-discover this past week, one that she had once worked so hard to completely cover.

“I’m thinking perhaps ye’re misunderstanding mae position in Society, sir.” she brogued, and once again the man looked up, this time in surprise. He picked up a pair of spectacles that rested just to the right of his papers, and placed them on the end of his nose. Only then did he take note of her several-years-out-of-fashion gown, old boots, and untailored overcoat. “I beg your pardon, madam, but I have no interest in amusing a northern malcontent, either. Perhaps you should go home to your husband and children?”

“Mae husband is dead, and mae children gone,” Helen replied. Those things were true enough, and although she was going to be lying quite a bit during her time here, she saw no need to do more than necessary. “I saw yer establishment and thought tha' mayhap as it could use a womanly touch. Perhaps…” she shifted on her feet, and she didn’t have to feign her nerves as she said, “you’ve an open position, sir? Somemat that one such as myself could apply myself towards?”

“Was it a paying position you were looking for, Mrs…?”

“MacTavish, sir. And aye, twas precisely what I was looking for.” Helen reigned in her temper, at the very nerve of the man thinking she had come to him for employment! She reminded herself that it was exactly what she’d wished for him to think--exactly what she wished for him to provide for her! If this Mr. Long knew what circles she was involved in with Society, he’d likely just get an atavistic gleam in his eyes and suggest she make a sizable monetary donation--the idea of her actually working here would be unthinkable to him.

“Mrs. MacTavish, then. Forgive me for saying so, but the type of assistance needed here at the Orphanage may not be the type that you are best suited to provide.”

“Have you no objection to my working for you other than your general belief in me unsuitableness? I can assure ye, sir, that I am not afraid of hard work. Were that I was a High Born lady seeking charity work givin‘ ye siller instead of asking for it, would ye turn mae away then?” Helen shook her head, and wondered for the first time what her life might have been like if she’d run off to be an actress, the way Josey Pyle did when they were thirteen. Helen fancied that she herself seemed to have a bit of an affinity for it; Josey, from what she could remember, had not. “It’s not a position I would envy any other in, sir, but I am needful of the employment, and yer shingle said...” she finished, quietly.

“Ah….I….excuse me, I’ve been remiss.” He introduced himself. “Nathanial Long, at your service, madam MacTavish. Please, sit down.”

Shaking his wrists so that his shirt cuffs fell, he continued by saying, “Firstly, let me address your questions. It’s not that I object to High Born ladies involving themselves in charitable works--no, certainly not! Nor is it that I doubt the veracity of your stated commitment to hard work. It is only that at our establishment, some of the boys that are here…well, to speak frankly, they are not the sort of children one would want around those with delicate dispositions. We are a reformery as well as an orphanage, Mrs. MacTavish. Would you be willing to apply yourself to working with troubled youth? Some of the boys here are quite coarse, and would take great joy in tormenting a genteel woman.”

“Are you attempting to scare me away, Mr. Long?”

“No, madam! Merely speaking the truth. I have no desire for any lady to come here, and then be…disinclined to pursue that which she wished to do, be it pious, charitable works, or gainful employment, simply because of a few misbehaved children.” Mr. Long dabbed an intricately embroidered handkerchief on the top of his sweating skull.

“Children do not frighten me, Mr. Long. Even odd children.”

His small eyes looked at her again, took in her attire, the way she sat in her chair. She could see him weighing and measuring her, trying to find her worth in Society’s ever-sliding scale of Importance, and finally, he nodded. “If you are certain, Mrs. MacTavish, I would be pleased to have your assistance. When will you be able to begin?”

“Immediately, sir.” Helen said, smiling, and she did not have to feign her relief.

*~*~*~*

Little David Foster had wide gray eyes and a broken smile. Within a weak of working at the Orphanage, he’d attached himself veritably to her side, and Helen had not the heart to send him off with the other children. Mr. Long had been right, for the most part--many of the boys here were little better than thieves and maladroits in the making--but wee David…he was an innocent soul, one that somehow or other in the unfair vulgarities of life had ended up here, amongst older boys who bullied him and younger, sneakier ones who took advantage of his kind disposition. He was not the sort that would survive long in an environment such as that provided to him at Long’s without extra assistance.

So that is what Helen gave him. For weeks, she brought him extra food, medicines, even warmer undergarments, with the strict instructions that he was not to tell any of his dorm mates—or the other children in the orphanage, period—of what she was doing. Helen wasn't certain why this boy in particular pulled at her heart the way he did, but she also knew that he needed extra assistance—needed her—and that was a call she could not deny.

Helen knew what she was doing was completely indiscreet. The chances of being caught bringing items into the orphanage were high, and how would she explain herself then? Yet there was no way that she was going to take extra items from Mr. Long's already meager supplies—she'd feel guilty enough about accepting her pay is she didn't work so bloody hard every day.

Yet still, if she openly brought David items, then she'd be questioned about how poor widow MacTavish could afford such luxuries as what she was bringing. Then where would she be? Her position in the orphanage would be gone, and it had come to mean too much to her to simply walk away. Helen still didn't know what had driven her to be employed at this place, but she knew that she did not want to give it up. Not now.

“Mrs. MacTavish, do you mind telling me what, exactly, it is that you are doing?” Helen jumped, and David squeaked, hiding himself behind her skirts. She'd never had occasion to dislike Nathaniel Long before, but at David's reaction to seeing the man, she felt something very much like hate towards the man.

“I just be feedin' the lad,” Helen said, hoping (but with no real expectation of success) that bravado would see her through.

“Really? And where, pray tell, is this alleged food at?” Mr. Long looked exaggeratedly around the room, peering his small eyes so that they were bare slits in his sharp face. Those eyes alighted on the medicine bottle on the counter, the printed label proudly describing it as a fix for coughs and the catarrh. It also, very clearly, was of a brand and make that the Mrs. MacTavish he had come to know would not be able to afford, as a single bottle was worth two month's of what he paid her. Helen swallowed thickly.

“David,” he said, in a low voice, “would you please go back to the dormitory?”

Large brown eyes looked up at Helen from under his floppy fringe of hair, and she nodded. “Go ye on, Davie,” she said, reaching up to tuck the unruly locks behind his ear.

“Thank ye, mum,” he said, then looked over at Nathaniel. “Sir,” he bowed his head, then scurried from the room. Helen wished briefly for her brave Alice, who would never have left her alone with such an obvious threat implicit in someone's voice, but then reflected that if she were present, Helen would just be telling her to do what David had just done, and so she should count her lack of presence as a blessing instead of something to be mourned, in just this instance, at least.

Mr. Long watched and waited until the door was fully shut before he returned his attention back to Helen. With a sigh, she said, in her normal tone of voice, “I suppose you want answers, then.”

For his part, Nathaniel Long simply blinked long and heavy, clearly nonplussed at the change in her speech and just as clearly trying not to show it.

“Yes, Mrs. MacTavish. I think a candid discussion would be an excellent place to start.”

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