Read Online All Through the Night by Connie Brockway - Free Book Online Page A

leading to the main part of the building and entered, squinting in the dim light.
    The Home had been a popular theater in a former incarnation. It still wore some signs of its former glory. Giant gilt pillars strained beneath the mostly collapsed balcony and chipped, garishly painted boxes hovered in the dark above a long-abandoned stage. The velvet curtains had long since come down and been slashed into squares to be used as blankets. All the chairs and most of the benches had been removed.
    Now hundreds of people—more than she’d ever seen in here before—sat on the floor and leaned against waterstained walls, murmuring together in a low incessant pitch, like the ghosts of long-dead choruses. Their collective breaths created a cloud of vapor in the cavernous room.
    It was cold and dark and dank, and in spite of all those crowding together in the room, it still seemed like an echoing, empty shell.
    It never failed to depress her, yet she knew that for many it was a refuge of unparalleled comfort. So much want. So much need. Blank eyes followed her as she made her way toward the back of the room and the tiny kitchen. Occasional hands lifted, bestowing blessings and curses in equal portion. She couldn’t blame those who cursed her. What right had she to wear a woolen coat, when they had no shoes?
    “We must get mittens for the children, Will,” she said softly.
    The boy shrugged, matter-of-factly kicking out of his way a man reeking of alcohol. “If you be thinking to warm their hands, won’t do no good. The mittens will be stolen within the hour and the yarn unraveled and sold for food. What’s—”
    “What are cold hands when you’re starving?” Anne finished for him, fighting off a sense of futility.
    “That’s right, Missus Wilder,” Will said cheerfully.
    “I’m not very good at this, I’m afraid,” she said apologetically.
    “Aw, that’s all right, Missus Wilder,” the boy said magnanimously. “You gots too soft a heart is all, and them what has soft hearts don’t think so smart.” He tapped his finger against his forehead and Anne found herself wondering if Jack Seward had once been a boy like Will, tough and unsentimental and frighteningly able to deal with whatever horrors life handed him.
    Jack with his stark, blasted archangel beauty and sharp, knowing eyes. She bit her lip, struggling to clear his image from her thoughts. She’d no right to think of Jack as anything but her enemy. In the past weeks she’d lost sight of that.
    Will led her into the kitchen area. There were fewer people there. The stove squatting at the opposite end of the room did not heat this far, and its sullen glow was little augmented by the few tallow candles guttering noisily in wall sconces. Those near her huddled together, pooling whatever warmth their bodies could generate.
    Rumor said Jack had spent his first years in a place like this. Only worse. Much worse.
    “Where is Mr. Fry?” she muttered, scanning the room.
    “Perhaps he went back up front,” Will suggested.
    “Find him, Will. Tell him I have to talk to him about the finances. Before these people arrive.” Mr. Fry couldn’t reveal how much money she’d given him. She hadn’t the subscriptions to warrant such sums, and they would know it.
    “Aye, missus.” Will sketched a short salute and darted through the crowd, winning curses from those he stepped on in his haste.
    “Mrs. Wilder?” An elderly woman plucked at her sleeve with gnarled fingers.
    With a sense of despair, Anne looked down at the eager, attentive face turned up toward her. “Yes, Mrs. Cashman?”
    Mary Cashman’s son John had sustained a severe head wound while under Matthew’s command. It had resulted in his discharge from the navy. His fate more than any other gutted Anne with guilt.
    “Did you ‘ear anythin’ from the Admiralty Board yet, ma’am?” the old woman asked hopefully.
    “Not yet, Mrs. Cashman. But we will not stop until we have your inheritance.”
    Cashman