Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

“ W as I an unfortunate waif?”

Scarlett’s question brought the reverend to full attention. He paused for a moment, then said, “Finish your breakfast, Scarlett. We both have?—”

Her pulse began to roar in her ears, and she did not move her gaze from him. “Who was Scarlett from the Home for the Care of Unfortunate Waifs?”

“Have you been looking through my desk?” he asked sternly. “I should surely hope not.”

In a very steady voice, she asked, making each syllable distinct, “Was I an unfortunate waif?”

“My correspondence is none of your concern,” said the reverend sharply, and began to carefully, exactly fold and re-crease the newspaper, thunderclouds gathering on his brow.

“Unless I am the business,” Scarlett replied. She rarely stood up to him, but this time it seemed she must. “Can you tell me, in full honesty before God , that I am not?”

It was the ‘honesty before God’ that got him. He would not lie, she knew, but he would, it seemed, ignore the truth.

“You are getting emotional, and it does no one any good.” He pointed at her sternly. “This is precisely why I did not want you running about the countryside?—”

“Am I your daughter?”

“—until all hours of the night. You run about with that flibbertigibbet Bess?—”

“ Am I your daughter?” she said, more insistently this time.

“—and next we know my breakfast table is full of nonsense about housemaids becoming earl’s daughters, and there is no peace?—”

“Am I your daughter!” She shrieked it, flinging herself up and out of her chair, knocking her plate and the fork laid upon it to the ground with a violent clatter. “Tell me that I was not an unfortunate waif, and I shall leave the matter be!”

“Have I not cared for you all these many years?” he roared, slamming his hand down on the table. “Fed you, clothed you, kept you warm in your bed at night?”

“But am I your daughter?” she shouted back at him with equal intensity. Some combination of sleeplessness, romantic disappointment, and a sense of displacement she never knew she had rendered her a girl possessed. She was unable to stop herself and did not much wish to.

Mrs Hobson, the parsonage housekeeper, came hurrying into the room. “Reverend? I heard shouting. Am I needed here?”

She bent and picked up the plate and fork, all the while shooting worried looks between Scarlett and the reverend. Both were motionless; the reverend had Scarlett pinned beneath a merciless glare. Scarlett, having lost some of her courage, dropped her eyes.

“Mrs Hobson,” said the reverend with calm fury. “Go to my study and retrieve the letter from Mrs Blythe.”

Mrs Hobson abruptly stopped tidying and only stared at them. She opened her mouth for a moment, then reconsidered and closed it again. She then hurried from the room. Very shortly thereafter she returned, bearing the requested item. She extended it towards the reverend; he gestured towards Scarlett, so Mrs Hobson handed it to her and was summarily dismissed. She obeyed, but not without casting a final concerned eye towards them both.

Scarlett opened the letter, wondering whether a re-read would yield a different conclusion than the one she suspected.

My dear sir,

I write to you on the reference of Bishop Newcomer as a Gentleman of exemplary character and Christian goodwill, who might be able to assist us in the rehoming of the female children left homeless following our most unfortunate and devastating fire. Female children, as you may know, are never of much interest to their distant relations, and our poor Scarlett has not proved the exception to that. We are desperate to see her in a loving and God-fearing home such as you and your good wife might provide.

The girl is small for two years of age and does not yet show any appreciable amount of hair—I am told her family were all fair, and no doubt she will be as well. It is entirely possible she will one day be a beauty, but even if she is not, she is an amiable baby, easy and unafraid of strangers. I do not doubt in the least that she should be a credit to your family, and a comfort to your poor wife, should you decide to take her into your care.

There is a Psalm that is particularly dear to us, having been the words spake by our benefactress herself. Psalm 143: Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.

Where, my dear sir, should any of these unfortunate souls find their rest were it not for the generosity of people like you who are willing to take them and call them your own?

We shall hope to see you and Mrs Margrave at the parsonage in Harrowsford no later than the twenty-third of December .

Yours we have given you respectability, an education, a good life.”

“But why was I never told? What if I have brothers or sisters somewhere?”

The reverend smirked. “What if you are some sort of long-lost heiress? This, my dear, is why you were not informed. Every young girl in an orphanage imagines herself a princess in disguise.”

Scarlett flushed. “I am not imagining anything like that, but surely I ought to have known?—”

“You knew what we felt was necessary for you to know. Now—” The reverend rose from his chair. “I believe both of us have more productive things we need to be doing, yes?”

Without one syllable further, he swept from the room.