Chapter Twenty

C assie and Honoria were to spend a fortnight in London with her mother's cousin, Marianne Howarth. Then they would travel to Chichester to meet Grandmama for Hermes's first outing in the flat races.

The Howarth town house in Brunswick Square proved to be a good place for Cassie's project of forgetting Raven. Marianne, who had at first written to say that of course they could come, but that she might be occupied with other duties, was now keen to show them her favorite parts of London, and to share her expertise about shops and spots of historical importance. She was a tireless promoter of the benefits of living in Brunswick Square.

Cassie and Honoria had a room on the third story facing the square itself. In the first week of their visit, Marianne took them to Hatchard's and Lackington's for books and to the shops on Oxford Street, including the Pantheon Bazaar. She led them through her own neighborhood to the Reading Room of the British Museum where Honoria was able to procure a reader's pass. With so much activity and with the conversation of the household centered around Marianne's grown children and their prospects, Cassie never thought of Raven above three or four times an hour.

Like others before her, Marianne believed Brunswick Square with its modest modern town houses, airy open space, and conveniences which attracted a class of professional men, to be an ideal place to live in London. The square had a village atmosphere with neighbors greeting one another, stretches of grass dotted with plane trees, and at one end open fields and a view up to Hampstead. Cassie found the walking excellent.

It felt very different from the London she remembered from her unhappy Season. It might be possible, she thought, to take a house in the neighborhood. Honoria could write, and Cassie could find something to do, she was sure. As well as being home to prosperous professional men and their families, the neighborhood was home to waifs of every sort. A quaint old church ministered to the climbing boys with a splendid Christmas dinner each year. Cassie suspected that more could be done.

The greatest neighborhood institution was the Foundling Hospital, which had taken in London's unwanted infants for nearly a hundred years, educated them, and sent them off in the world to be apprenticed or to enter service. The hospital had associations with musicians and painters, and its chapel was famous as the place where the great composer Handel himself had performed. As Cassie entered for Sunday services, she congratulated herself on the progress she'd made in a mere week. She was learning to live in a world in which Raven would soon be married to Amabel.

The chapel impressed with its soaring ceiling and great windows letting in light. At the east end, the children, girls in their white caps, boys in their uniforms, sat on the upper level, ranged in tiers with the pipes of a great organ reaching up behind them. As Cassie climbed the stairs to the second level boxes, a bright yellow plaque on the wall caught her gaze. It named Mr. Jedidiah Cole as a benefactor who had provided a fund for clothing and blankets for the children. Instantly, her progress in forgetting Raven came to an end. Cassie tugged Marianne's sleeve and pointed to the plaque.

"Marianne, do you know the story behind this philanthropy?"

"Of course. Mr. Cole's grandson was a foundling here. It's one of those stories the governors like to tell the public. Sadly, few of the foundlings are ever reunited with their original families, though I imagine the mothers must hope."

Marianne continued up the steps while Cassie remained standing transfixed by a sudden rush of thoughts, unable to take a step. Raven's past could hardly matter to her any longer. The smart thing was to let thoughts of him go. But she could not. Of course, the mothers must hope, but what did the children think? What hopes did they have of finding their families? Raven had lived here. He had been a boy in this place, separated from his family, anonymous in his uniform. She took a deep breath and concentrated on climbing. Marianne, with her usual expertise, found them seats in the very front of the upper box, with an excellent view of the crowd below and of the foundlings themselves in their neat rows. All Cassie could think was that Raven had been one of them. And that he had never accepted the place in society marked out for him by the institution.

Marianne exchanged words with Honoria. When she turned back to Cassie, she said, "Honoria tells me you've met Mr. Cole. No wonder you noticed the plaque. Shall I tell you the story?"

Cassie pressed her hands together in her lap. It was not in her power to say ‘no.'

"Mr. Cole is a fairly recent patron of the hospital. It turns out that his daughter bore a son to a young officer bound for the Peninsula War, who died there. She presented herself and the infant to the hospital without confessing her true identity, though she did name the father's regiment. As is their practice, the governors of the hospital particularly want to accept the orphaned offspring of military men."

"What became of the mother then?"

"No one knows. In theory a mother can reclaim her child if she leaves a token, half of which is affixed to the child's papers. She keeps the other half. Many write notes, or leave a bit of cloth, or half a coin. In practice, so little is done for these mothers that their circumstances rarely improve."

Below them the chapel was filling up. "Mr. Cole's daughter did not go back to her family then?"

"Not that I have ever heard. The hospital actually lost the child when he was quite young."

"Lost him? How?"

"Once a year they take the boys to Primrose Hill for an outing. On one occasion, several boys disappeared. The hospital covered up the scandal, and it isn't clear whether the boys left on their own, or whether they were lured away by the sort of unscrupulous persons who want to sell small boys to the sweeps or the mills."

"So how did Mr. Cole ever reconnect with his grandson?" Cassie knew very well that the old man had connected with Raven and had made Raven his heir.

"Ah, well, I don't suppose you've heard of the Duke of Wenlocke, have you?"

"I have." She could not say that she had met him, but the duchess had called at the dower house and Cassie remembered the handsome duke from Raven's ball. Jay Kydd had told her that Wenlocke had once been a lost boy himself. The other boys had looked up to him as a sort of shepherd, keeping them safe in London.

"It was Wenlocke who reunited them," Marianne said. "He has quite an interest in the children of London. When he shows up at a school or a hospital, I suspect that the governors, whoever they are, start scraping and bowing at the thought of the money he might bestow on them."

Cassie had more questions, but the service was about to begin. The children rose to their feet. The congregation followed. The organist began the first hymn, written by the poet Cowper. The famous chaplain led them in prayer and preached and the children sang and the hour passed. It was a powerful service, but one in which Cassie felt a bit lost, not a part of the community as she was in St. Andrew's at home with Mr. Montford putting them all into a Sunday snooze. And she had to admit to herself that she had not been her most attentive, consumed as she was with thoughts of Raven again.

It was only when they were walking home that Marianne again took up the subject of Wenlocke.

"Oh, we've met him and his duchess," Honoria announced cheerfully. "They were guests of our tenant, Sir Adrian Cole, just this month."

Marianne looked both surprised and annoyed at being unable to astonish them with her superior knowledge. It was her story, and here they were, mere country guests, appearing to know more of the matter than she, a true Londoner, did.

Cassie smoothed her cousin's ruffled feathers, explaining that their meeting had been of the briefest sort at a crowded ball and not an occasion for them to learn what they really wanted to know about the handsome duke. They really were dependent on Marianne if she could enlighten them.

"Very well," she said. "I have it on good authority from my friend Eloise, who is a patroness at a school in Bread Street, where one of Wenlocke's sisters-in-law is the headmistress, that Wenlocke, who was kidnapped himself as a boy, has made it his mission to investigate the parentage of the boys who were with him when he was… on his own."

"On his own? In London? A boy?" Honoria shuddered.

"His family searched for him for years, I believe, before he was found and reunited with them and came into his title. Now, you see why he finds the families of the other boys."

"And Sir Adrian was one of them?" Honoria asked.

"Yes. It turned out that Mr. Jedediah Cole advertised for his daughter when she disappeared. He had no suspicion of the child, you see. He merely thought she had eloped. He did not think of the Foundling Hospital, but Wenlocke, well, he knew that young women of good character could find themselves of necessity turning to the hospital.

"And the hospital had Sir Adrian's records?" Cassie asked.

"They keep excellent records," Marianne insisted.

"How remarkable!" Honoria marveled. "Sir Adrian has such an air of confidence and determination. One would never think he had been like these wretched waifs one sees in your neighborhood, Marianne."

Cassie could think it. Raven was tough under his polished exterior. She had seen him stand up for Dick Crockett. He knew bullies. She had seen him climb a wall to rescue the Montford boys. He knew the dangers boys could get into. She had borne his anger at her over Hugh. He knew that things could be snatched away from one in spite of care and effort. He had distanced himself from the boy he had been. He knew how London rated its ragged, barefoot boys, only fit for the lowliest work, easily discarded. And he had defied that rating.

When they reached Marianne's town house, a courier had left a message from Grandmama. Y OUR HORSE NEEDS YOU. C OME AT ONCE. I HAVE TAKEN A HOUSE IN S T. M ARTIN'S S QUARE, C HICHESTER, FOR THE LAST FORTNIGHT OF J ULY.

*

A week after the ball, the young people at Ramsbury Park exhausted the local entertainments. On a warm afternoon, they had retreated to the white-and-gold drawing room for ices when the idea of an outing to Chichester to see the races occurred to Hugh. Amabel immediately took up the idea and turned to Raven laughing, excited. "Oh, do say you will go."

Raven frowned. He planned to return to London, and he distrusted Hugh's motive for wanting to attend the race. According to Jay, Hugh had been on the point of opening Hermes's stall when Jay had come across him the night of the ball. The dowager, Kydd, Snell, and Dick Crockett had left for Chichester with the horse two days after the ball. Raven did not expect Cassie to attend the race, but he was not ready to see her if she did.

Hugh lay sprawled on another couch, but sat up and fixed his gaze on Raven. "Such a prodigious frown, Cole, from the man who wants to make my sister happy."

Raven bit back a retort. Whatever the truth of Amabel's character, whether she was vain or shallow, Raven doubted that Hugh had the least interest in her happiness. Hugh was a bitter medicine best taken in small doses, but, Raven admitted, a corrective one. In the first week of his engagement to Amabel, his idea of their marriage had changed rapidly like the projected scenes in a theater. He had thought that he would bring Amabel to Verwood, that she would find a place in his life. Now he saw that Verwood would never please her. She needed a great deal of gaiety and excitement. Even Ramsbury Park was not enough for her, and she could not be pried out of her own circle, which he had been permitted to enter as a suitor. He already suspected that Hugh was right on one point, that Amabel would not like Raven half so well as a husband.

It was one of the ideas that had only occurred to him in the week since the ball. He liked Cassie. Perhaps that was why he had been blind to her as a woman to love. He had not understood the role of simple liking in his ties to others. He liked Jay and Wenlocke and the others, Finch, Swallow, and Robin. And he liked his grandfather, too. With them, he shared experiences. Though they never spoke of feelings, he understood that his friends saw the world much as he saw it. They laughed at the things that made him laugh, and frowned at the things that made him frown.

Hugh sauntered off to see what he could do about making the outing happen, and Amabel turned to Raven on their couch.

"We've been so dull here," she pleaded.

"Have we?" Raven asked. "We've had tennis and picnics and riding."

"You don't like the idea of going to the races, do you?" she asked.

"But you do," he said. He would make the best of it. As long as Cassie was not there.

"You don't like it because it is Hugh's idea." She pursed her lips in the little pout Raven had so much wanted to kiss for weeks. "He is my brother, so you ought to respect him and treat him decently. He's a little wild, but he will have my father's place someday, and I intend to be on good terms with him always."

"I know," he said. "We'll go. Amabel wills it so." He managed a smile.

"Then I will talk to Mama. She will listen to me."

Amabel had no trouble convincing her mother to support the scheme, so Hugh was sent ahead to find accommodations in the town, and the ladies began packing. Raven would make it his first object on arrival to warn Jay Kydd of Hugh's presence.