they came and fled disgrace; and some had run away from the usual assortment of troubles: grief, poverty, brutality.
Lydia would describe the place for her readers in her usual style. She would sketch in plain and simple terms what she saw, and she would tell these women's stories in the same way, without moralizing or sentiment.
This wasn't all Lydia did, but she didn't think it was her reading public's right to know about the half-crowns she surreptitiously distributed to her interviewees, or the letters she wrote for them, or the people she'd later speak to on their behalf.
If, moreover, it frustrated Grenville of the Argus that she could do so little, or if her heart ached the whole time she listened to the women, these emotions would not enter her published work, either, for such feelings were nobody's business but hers.
The last interview was with the newest arrival, a fifteen-year-old girl who cradled an infant too weak and scrawny even to wail like the others. The boy lay limply in his mother's arms, now and then uttering a weary whimper.
"You must let me do something for you," Lydia told her. "If you know who his papa is, Mary, tell me, and I'll speak to him for you."
Pressing her lips together, Mary rocked to and fro upon her dirty heap of straw.
"You'd be amazed at how many fathers agree to help," Lydia said. After I'm done with them , she could have added.
"Sometimes their pas take 'em away," the girl said. "Jemmy's all I got now." She Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion
paused in her rocking and gave Lydia a troubled look. "You got any?"
"Children? No."
"Got a man?"
"No."
"Ever fancied one?"
"No." Liar, liar, liar , Lydia's inner devil mocked. "Yes," she amended with a short laugh.
"I was yes and no, too," Mary said. "I told myself I was a good girl and it was no use wishing for him, as he was miles above my touch and such like don't marry farm girls. But all the no was in my head, and every way else I fancied him something fierce. And so it ended up yes, and here's the tyke to prove it. And you'll be thinking I can't take care of him as he needs, which is true." Her bottom lip trembled. "All right, then, but you needn't speak for me nor write for me. I can write it myself. Here."
She thrust the child at Lydia, who stiffly exchanged her notebook and pencil for it. Him.
Lydia saw little ones all the time, for children were one commodity London's poor owned in abundance. She'd held them in her lap before, but none so young as this, none so utterly helpless.
She looked down at his narrow little face. The babe was neither pretty nor strong nor even clean, and she wanted to weep for him and the short, wretched future awaiting him, and for his mother, who was destitute and scarcely more than a child herself.
But Lydia's eyes remained dry, and if her heart ached as well from other causes, she knew better than to give those futile yearnings any heed. She was not a fifteen-year-old girl. She was mature enough to let her head rule her actions, Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion
even if it couldn't altogether rule her heart.
And so she only quietly rocked the infant as his mother had done, and waited while Mary slowly dragged the pencil over the paper. When, finally, the very short note Mary took such pains with was finished, Lydia returned Jemmy to his mother with only the smallest pang of regret.
Even such a small regret was inexcusable, she chided herself as she left the Bridewell's grim confines.
Life was no romantic fable. In real life, London took the place of the palace of her youthful romantic imaginings. Its forgotten women and children were her siblings and offspring, and all the family she needed.
She could not be their Lady Bountiful and cure all that ailed them, but she could do for them what she'd been unable to do for her mother and sister. Lydia could speak for them. In the pages of the Argus , their voices were heard.
This was her vocation, she reminded herself. This was why God had made
Lydia would describe the place for her readers in her usual style. She would sketch in plain and simple terms what she saw, and she would tell these women's stories in the same way, without moralizing or sentiment.
This wasn't all Lydia did, but she didn't think it was her reading public's right to know about the half-crowns she surreptitiously distributed to her interviewees, or the letters she wrote for them, or the people she'd later speak to on their behalf.
If, moreover, it frustrated Grenville of the Argus that she could do so little, or if her heart ached the whole time she listened to the women, these emotions would not enter her published work, either, for such feelings were nobody's business but hers.
The last interview was with the newest arrival, a fifteen-year-old girl who cradled an infant too weak and scrawny even to wail like the others. The boy lay limply in his mother's arms, now and then uttering a weary whimper.
"You must let me do something for you," Lydia told her. "If you know who his papa is, Mary, tell me, and I'll speak to him for you."
Pressing her lips together, Mary rocked to and fro upon her dirty heap of straw.
"You'd be amazed at how many fathers agree to help," Lydia said. After I'm done with them , she could have added.
"Sometimes their pas take 'em away," the girl said. "Jemmy's all I got now." She Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion
paused in her rocking and gave Lydia a troubled look. "You got any?"
"Children? No."
"Got a man?"
"No."
"Ever fancied one?"
"No." Liar, liar, liar , Lydia's inner devil mocked. "Yes," she amended with a short laugh.
"I was yes and no, too," Mary said. "I told myself I was a good girl and it was no use wishing for him, as he was miles above my touch and such like don't marry farm girls. But all the no was in my head, and every way else I fancied him something fierce. And so it ended up yes, and here's the tyke to prove it. And you'll be thinking I can't take care of him as he needs, which is true." Her bottom lip trembled. "All right, then, but you needn't speak for me nor write for me. I can write it myself. Here."
She thrust the child at Lydia, who stiffly exchanged her notebook and pencil for it. Him.
Lydia saw little ones all the time, for children were one commodity London's poor owned in abundance. She'd held them in her lap before, but none so young as this, none so utterly helpless.
She looked down at his narrow little face. The babe was neither pretty nor strong nor even clean, and she wanted to weep for him and the short, wretched future awaiting him, and for his mother, who was destitute and scarcely more than a child herself.
But Lydia's eyes remained dry, and if her heart ached as well from other causes, she knew better than to give those futile yearnings any heed. She was not a fifteen-year-old girl. She was mature enough to let her head rule her actions, Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion
even if it couldn't altogether rule her heart.
And so she only quietly rocked the infant as his mother had done, and waited while Mary slowly dragged the pencil over the paper. When, finally, the very short note Mary took such pains with was finished, Lydia returned Jemmy to his mother with only the smallest pang of regret.
Even such a small regret was inexcusable, she chided herself as she left the Bridewell's grim confines.
Life was no romantic fable. In real life, London took the place of the palace of her youthful romantic imaginings. Its forgotten women and children were her siblings and offspring, and all the family she needed.
She could not be their Lady Bountiful and cure all that ailed them, but she could do for them what she'd been unable to do for her mother and sister. Lydia could speak for them. In the pages of the Argus , their voices were heard.
This was her vocation, she reminded herself. This was why God had made
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