Page 31 of What Cannot Be Said

The woman let her hand fall to her side, her features settling into an expression of sympathetic concern. She looked to be perhaps forty-five, although the dark hair beneath her starched white cap was little touched by gray and her plump face showed few lines. She stood watching as Hero, dressed in a carriage gown of moss green and a shako-style hat adorned with a single artfully curling plume, descended the steps. Then the woman stepped forward and dropped a quick curtsy. “Good morning, and welcome to Pleasant Farm. I’m Prudence Blackadder. May I help you?”

“How do you do, Mrs.Blackadder?” said Hero, settling her skirts around her. “I’m Lady—”

“Oh, no need to be giving us your name, my lady,” said the woman in a rush. “That is, unless you’s wanting to, of course. Been doing this now for going on twelve years, I have, which means I know how to be discreet, I do. If you’re wishful of having a look around, you’re more than welcome. But if not, I’ll understand that, too. There’s many who’d as soon make their arrangements and then be on their way, never to look back.”

Hero stared at the woman, puzzlement giving way to understanding as it dawned on her that Prudence Blackadder had leapt to the inevitable conclusion that Hero was here to make arrangements to abandon some unwanted infant into the woman’s care. The result of an illicit affair, presumably—either her own or some relative’s or dear friend’s.

“Well,” said Hero, her gaze drifting around the quadrangle’s cluster of neat stone-walled barns and sheds, “I would like to see where you keep the little ones you’re currently caring for.”

“Of course, my lady,” said Mrs.Blackadder, extending a hand toward the flight of shallow steps that led up to the house’s main front door. “Right this way, if you please. I’ve told my Lucy to put the kettle on, so’s after you’ve had a good look around we can go into the parlor and have us a nice cup of tea while we take care of details.”

“Thank you,” said Hero as the woman ushered her into a picturesque, low-ceiled entry hall that probably dated back a hundred years or more, with flagstone flooring and a large fieldstone fireplace that ranged across most of one wall. The newer part of the house stretched away to the left, but the woman led Hero down an old corridor to an oak-wainscoted room with heavy dark beams overhead that was probably the original house’s sitting room.

“We’ve not too many of the wee ones at this moment,” said the woman as she stood back to allow Hero to enter the room first. Drawing up inside the doorway, Hero counted eight baskets and several larger cots. The cots and two of the baskets were empty; the rest contained tightly swaddled infants, none of whom looked older than three or four months. All were sleeping soundly.

Hero looked around. “And where are the older children?”

“Older children?” Prudence Blackadder’s small, nearly lashless gray eyes widened. “Well, you may’ve seen little Eliza there by the kitchen door when you drove up, while I sent Jane off to feed the geese before you came. And of course the boys are down at the barn with my Joseph, putting up the hay.”

“Oh? How many older boys do you have?”

“Two.”

Hero felt her stomach tighten. The woman was currently looking after six tiny infants. But despite having been—as she herself said—taking in babies for nearly twelve years, she currently had only one toddler and three half-grown older children. By law, the parishes were required to leave their foundlings and orphaned infants in the country until they turned four. So then why, with the exception of the one- or two-year-old child in the yard, were all her babies so small?

“Now, if you’ll step into the parlor, my lady,” Prudence Blackadder was saying, “we can have a nice little chat.”

The parlor was new and spacious and expensively if garishly decorated, with thick, vividly colored Turkey carpets on the floor and a superabundance of heavily carved chairs and settees opulently covered in red damask. Yards and yards of the same damask covered the walls and hung at the windows, while a pair of large, rather hideous Sèvres vases graced a marble mantelpiece. Fostering infants was obviously a lucrative business—particularly if the infants left in one’s care could be kept liberally dosed with opium to dull their appetites and make them sleep. And when no one cared or even noticed if they quietly died.

“My, what an... extraordinary room,” said Hero. “Have you recently had it redone?”

“Last spring,” said the woman, smiling proudly as she led the way to a grouping of chairs gathered around a table loaded down with a tray bearing a heavy silver tea set and delicate china cups and saucers. “Do have a seat, my lady, and we can get comfortable.”

Hero chose a chair that put her back to the windows. “Thank you.”

“Just so you know,” said Prudence, settling herself before reaching for the teapot provided by the unseen Lucy, “this can be handled in one of two ways. There’s some who like to pay by the month and come every now and then to visit their little ones, like Eliza and Jane. But most prefer to make one up-front payment and then leave the child in our loving care. That way they can put it all behind them and leave the past in the past, as the saying goes. Frankly, we’ve found it to be by far the best option for everyone involved.”

Hero yanked off her gloves and set them aside. “Yes, I can see how that would be more convenient. For everyone.”

Prudence smiled and handed her a cup of tea. “And when should we be expecting this infant you’ve decided to entrust to our loving care?”

“Well, before we get to that, I did have one or two questions.”

Prudence Blackadder looked up from pouring her own tea. “Oh?”

“Your name was given to me by several different sources, obviously. But I must admit to being a trifle concerned about some of the things I’m told Lady McInnis was recently heard saying.”

“Oh, that woman!” Rearing back, Prudence Blackadder threw both hands up into the air, then let them fall to her lap. “She was a foolish woman—foolish to the point of being demented, that one. Came here a week or two ago, she did—on fire, like some demon-possessed madwoman. Accused us of all sorts of unchristian evils. But it’s the outside of enough to hear she was spreading her malicious lies all around, too. I’m sure I’ve no need to tell you, my lady, that there’s not a morsel of truth in any of the wicked things she was saying. The thing is, you see, a good many of our babies come to us from St. Martin’s workhouse. The Lord knows we do our best with them, but the sad truth is they’re a weak, sickly lot. I fear most are born in sin and abandoned by their unnatural mothers.” She gave a sad sigh. “Unfortunately they are not long for this world.”

“Is that why Lady McInnis came here? To accuse you of neglecting the babies given into your care?” Hero almost said killing them, but caught herself in time.

“Who knows why she came?” said Prudence, setting the creamer down with a thump. “I tell you, the woman was mad.”

“Do so many of your babies die?”

Prudence touched the corner of her apron to one eye, as if wiping away a tear. “There’s no denying we always lose some, I’m afraid. Many of the ones who come from the workhouse are in their last days before they reach us. But it still breaks my heart every time.” She sighed again. “Although our good reverend, he’s always telling me not to take it too hard, for he says he has no doubt most would only have grown up to be hanged anyway.” She leaned forward to whisper, as if imparting a dread secret. “It’s in the blood, you know.”

“So I’ve heard.” Hero took a slow sip of her tea. “I must say, I’m impressed with how quiet your babies are. No one would guess you’ve six just down the corridor. I haven’t heard a peep out of any of them. However do you manage to keep them sleeping so soundly?”

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