Page 51 of The Duke's Bride in Disguise
Chapter Eleven
There was no better way to forget one's troubles, than by focusing on the troubles of others, Raff thought the next day as he made his way back from the docks.
He had spent the morning with Douglas McCasey and his enchanting wife, Annalise, in their bijou lodgings in Bloomsbury. The couple, who had met in Paris, were both passionate about the plight of London's poorest children, and had described to Raff the abject horrors that many orphaned children were forced to endure.
The lives led by the climbing boys had particularly perturbed Raff. As Emily had already explained to him, the boys were often taken from orphanages at a young age—some could be as young as three—and sent to work seven days a week, from dawn to dusk.
The task of climbing chimneys was both physically painful and dangerous; some boys suffered from skin lesions, which festered and became infected, others from respiratory ailments which plagued them for life, and many poor boys died from falls. Others, McCasey had told him, died as a direct result of their master's treatment; from beatings, starvation, or because they had set a fire below some poor young boy, to encourage him to climb, but had accidentally asphyxiated the poor boy in the process.
"Some boys simply lose their strength, halfway up the chimney," McCasey had concluded gravely, "Their bodies give up and they fall to their deaths, but there is no one to mourn their passing. They are discarded and then replaced with another poor boy, and the vicious circle continues."
The findings that the McCasey's had presented to Raff, had left him with a sick feeling in his stomach. He thought on what Emily had said, that he had a duty to use his power to help those less fortunate, and knew that she was right.
"I will put everything I have behind your cause," Raff had vowed, "I will need to press Parliament to instruct a committee to examine the hardship of these poor boys' lives—of the lives of all the children who are indentured into servitude, for that matter—and from there, we will hopefully have the will of the House, to change the laws."
"How wonderful you are," Annalise had cried, gifting him with a bright smile. She certainly was a striking woman, Raff had thought, finding himself a little bedazzled by her smile. He knew that she had been an actress in Paris, but her accent had a definite English lilt to it—a rather moneyed lilt, in fact. Raff had tried, somewhat, to press her on her background, but she and McCasey had swiftly moved on to discuss a particularly nefarious master sweep, whom they thought would be an excellent candidate for the committee to investigate.
Mrs Bridger, also known as Mother Brownrigg, employed over a dozen climbing boys, who lived with her on Swallow Street. The boys, Raff was told, began work in the wee hours of the morning and returned to their lodgings in the late afternoon, having worked for nearly twelve hours straight.
Raff, keen to discreetly observe the poor boys, had made his way on foot down toward Swallow Street, which was situated close by to the West India Docks. There he had loitered discreetly—well as discreetly as a man dressed in such finery could manage. He had ignored the light-skirts from the nearby bawdy house, who had eyed him appreciatively, paying no heed to their calls, and eventually they gave up, focusing their attention instead on the dozens of sailors, shipmen and tars who teemed through the street.
Raff had been waiting a half hour when he saw them; a straggly line of boys, feet bare, clothes tattered and every inch of them covered in black soot, being herded down the decaying street by a trio of older boys. They made such a sorry sight, that people visibly recoiled upon spotting them. Some of the lads, Raff noted, looked half-starved, and none of them had any of the vigour of normal children.
They look just about ready to give up on life, Raff thought with alarm, yet none of them could be older than ten.
He watched from under the brim of his hat, as the door to number three Swallow Street was thrown open by a plump woman, who waved an angry hand at the boys.
"Quit your dawdlin'," she roared down the street, "There's work to be done in here."
