Page 2 of The Duke's Bride in Disguise
"The Foundling Hospital will be happy to give you one, for a bag of coin," Lord Fairfax replied evenly, "And there will be a bag of coin in it for you, of course."
The promise of money did not seem to sway the Scottish woman's doubts, for her face was still creased into a frown of worry. "And what about this poor lass?" she asked, looking down at the blankets in her arms.
"The hospital will, no doubt, have arrangements made for burying her," the marquess replied gently, sensing that this matter would take some great tact and diplomacy on his part. "And they will be happy to know that a poor, orphaned babe, with no future to speak of will go to a home where it will know only love and prosperity."
For a moment, Lord Fairfax feared that he may have overdone it, but then the midwife wiped a tear from her rheumy eyes and nodded.
"Aye," she said with a plaintive sigh, "It's God's work, if something good is borne from this tragedy—how much coin did you say, my Lord?"
"A bagful," the marquess replied with relief, "Come, follow me down the backstairs to the library and I will see you provided for."
And so, the arquess and the midwife disappeared downstairs to the library, where Lord Fairfax furnished Mrs McCafferty with two bags, heavy with coin, and strict instructions to fetch him a girl, no more than a day old, without any mention of his name.
Mrs McCafferty was not a hard-hearted woman, but throughout her career she had attended to thousands of women in labour. She knew that, unfortunately, a lot of babies did not live long after taking their first breath in this hard world. She also knew that London was brimming over with orphans, and that to be given the chance to save a child from a future as an illiterate street-urchin was no less than a miracle.
And so, she set forth into the cold, drizzly London night, determined to save a poor, unwanted girl from the cruel life of a Blackguard child.
The Foundling Hospital, the bastion of charitable goodness that the Marquess of Havisham had directed Mrs McCafferty toward, would not do for tonight's purposes. Run by good Protestants, who were meticulous in their record-keeping, Mrs McCafferty knew that she would not be able to secret a baby from their clutches without first signing at least a dozen papers and revealing who her patron was. Instead, relying on gossip and rumours, she made her way toward Lambeth, to the Asylum for Orphaned Girls.
"Who's there?"
The door to the forbidding building was opened, after much banging on Mrs McCafferty's part, by a woman whose face was as hard and cracked as her voice. She held a candle in her hand as she peered out the half-open door into the night at the midwife.
"My master," Mrs McCafferty adopted the dignified tones of a high-ranking servant as she spoke, "Requires a newborn girl."
"Is that so?" the woman replied with disinterest, "If a newborn is what your master wants, then he may come along in the morning and fetch her himself."
The woman made to close the door upon Mrs McCafferty, but the wily Scotswoman stopped her with her booted foot.
"My master is willing to pay," she continued, allowing the bag of coin in her hand to clunk tantalisingly against the door. The merry jingle of money had a Benedictine effect upon the Asylum's matron, for she opened the door wide at once and bade Mrs McCafferty follow her inside.
"I need a newborn, or as near to newborn as you can give me," the midwife whispered, as she followed the Matron—Mrs Hannigan—down a long, echoing corridor.
"Give me a minute to think," Mrs Hannigan, who had consumed the best part of a bottle of gin before Mrs McCafferty's arrival, replied. Though her mind was quite addled with the drink, it had already fixed on what baby would do for her unexpected customer. The only problem was, that she did not quite trust the Scottish woman to go along with her plan.
"Stay here," she commanded, as she took the bundle of blankets from Mrs McCafferty's arms.
Mrs Hannigan disappeared into one of the asylum's smaller dormitories, which was lined with cribs holding sleeping babies.
Her newest arrivals were located at the end of the dormitory, just under the window. The light of the moon illuminated the two cribs she sought, and she noted with a grunt that some soft-hearted dolt had moved them closer together.
Twins; borne by an upper-class lady just that afternoon. Though the silly girl had seen fit to bleed to death afterwards, which was rather a shame, for Mrs Hannigan had hoped to extract a lot of coin from her.
It was easy to see, even in the soft moonlight, that the two babes in the cribs were as identical as identical could be. For a minute, Mrs Hannigan wondered as to the wisdom of her decision, but the memory of the money coupled with the howling winter wind outside the window, pushed all her doubts aside.
It was not like their paths would ever cross, she thought, as she swapped one baby out of the crib and replaced it with the poor, bundled babe in her arms.
It was rather like playing God, Mrs Hannigan thought with a hiccough, as she returned to the waiting midwife with the slumbering baby girl. One twin would live a life of prosperity, whilst the other twin would grow up to be nothing more than a maid. And never the twain would meet, she thought with a smile, as she handed the baby to Mrs McCafferty.
