At least he was Daniel tonight, meaning I did not have to pretend I knew him as a City gent, or a pawnbroker’s assistant, or whoever else he’d decided to be. He disguised himself whenever he worked for the police, but I preferred him as the deliveryman I’d first met a few years ago, who’d heaved a heavy sack to the kitchen floor and given me a smile I never forgot.
“Such language in a church,” I said, disengaging my hand. “I knew you’d not have asked for me if it hadn’t been frightfully important.”
“True. I know you have little time to spare.” His crooked grin was as self-deprecating as ever.
I shook rain from my skirts. “Well, you’d better tell me what you wish to say. I need to make an early start.”
What I wished him to say was that he’d missed me. Perhaps he’d kiss me, and I’d go home warm.
I was a bit disappointed, therefore, when Daniel said, “I need you to meet someone.”
He crossed the room and opened the far door, sticking his head through and speaking words too quiet for me to discern.
The door opened wider to admit a man I’d never seen before. He was as tall as Daniel and as bulky, but there the resemblance ended. Where Daniel’s face was hard and square, this man had narrow cheeks and regular features, so regular they made him quite handsome. His dark hair was neatly trimmed and slicked back from his face, and he had a beard, also neatly trimmed, short and brown.
Instead of a workman’s clothes, he wore a dark suit with a dog collar—a white starched strip around his neck that proclaimed him one of the clergy.
“Mrs. Holloway,” Daniel said, a coolness entering his tone, “may I present the Reverend Errol Fielding.” He paused. “My brother.”
2
I do not know which astonished me more—the fact that Daniel’s brother was a clergyman or that Daniel had a brother at all.
Fielding, Daniel had said, not McAdam, though Daniel had once told me he’d invented his surname.
Mr. Fielding removed his gloves and held out a hand to me. “I am pleased to meet you, Mrs. Holloway. Daniel has told me about you and your cleverness. Just the person, he said, to help me.”
I clasped Mr. Fielding’s hand, and he shook mine firmly. He withdrew immediately, not holding on any longer than was appropriate.
I turned to Daniel. “And you thought to consult me on a rainy night in the back of a chapel?”
“My fault,” Mr. Fielding said quickly. “I thought you’d be more comfortable meeting two fellows in a church instead of a tavern.”
The snug in a tavern would have been more amenable to me, though I admit having to make my way to one alone in the dark and rain might have deterred me. Daniel was acquainted with the vicar of Grosvenor Chapel, who’d given him a place to sleep on more than one occasion, though I saw no evidence of that vicar here tonight.
Daniel let Mr. Fielding apologize without offering explanation or change of expression. This puzzled me, as Daniel usually had a glib word to soften any occasion. The tension with which he regarded his brother told me clearly that Daniel did not like him, or at least did not trust him.
“Perhaps you would prefer to sit, Mrs. Holloway.” Mr. Fielding dragged a chair from the corner, a carved wooden one with upholstery on its seat and back. This was the vicar’s seat, hardly appropriate for a cook.
“Thank you, but no need. Please, tell me the problem, and perhaps we can solve it and all take some rest this night.”
Mr. Fielding gave me a look of surprised respect, and his manner softened. “I apologize for troubling you at all. I came to Daniel with this matter, because he is far and away the most capable man I know. He wished to ask you about it, and thought it would be easier if I explained it myself.”
So far, there had been much apologizing and little explaining, but I did not admonish him. I opened my hands and waited for him to begin.
“I have a parish in the East End,” Mr. Fielding said. “A small church called All Saints in Shadwell, among the most wretched of society. But as I came from a wretched place myself, I fit there.” He flashed me a smile that contained no hint of that dark past. “Daniel and I were raised together, and he tells me you know under what circumstances. We refer to each other as brother, but we were no such thing, though as close as. After the man we called our father died, I eked a living on the streets until I had the fortune to be taken in by a gentleman who’d lost his own son. He raised me and paid for me to be privately tutored, and then managed to get me into Balliol—Oxford—as a charity student, where I studied and took holy orders. Though my foster father is wellborn—the younger son of a marquess, in fact—I am not, and so I doubt I will rise higher than I have, but I will be forever grateful for him.”
His speech sounded a bit rehearsed, but perhaps Mr. Fielding was trying to convince me he was respectable. The gentleman who’d taken him in must have been one of rare benevolence to give a boy off the streets an education at his own expense.
“I find that I like being a shepherd—as it were,” Mr. Fielding went on. “Helping those who were like myself. Though I am no soft touch—I worked hard to relieve myself from poverty and to show my gratitude to my foster father, and I expect no less of my parishioners. One duty I have taken on, which I do without objection, is to serve on the board of governors of the Foundling Hospital in Brunswick Square.”
I knew exactly the place to which Mr. Fielding referred, and a chill went through me.
Years ago, when I’d realized I’d conceived, I’d made myself walk to the formidable gray building that was the Foundling Hospital. It stretched its arms around a vast courtyard, forbidding and confining at the same time. I’d hated the Hospital yet was drawn to it, my young heart terrified I’d have no choice but to leave my child there when I delivered her.
I knew that within the Foundling Hospital’s walls, Grace would have been fed, clothed, and taught a trade, one that would keep her from the streets, disgrace, and an early death. But I’d likely never have seen her again. That was the price a woman paid for depositing her baby on their doorstep. She turned away and left the child, trusting others to do what they could for her.
In the end, I was grateful to the gray brick building and its frowning windows, and the equally gray children I’d seen in the courtyard, dressed all alike, marching along under the guide of a matron or rector. It made me decide to work my fingers to the bone to raise my daughter myself, to never give her up, to hold her in my arms and keep her safe.
No easy task, but I did not regret my choice. Grace, now age eleven, lived with my friends, kind people who forgave me my foolishness and looked after Grace with the wages I sent them.
I did not trust myself to answer Mr. Fielding, so I nodded.