Chapter Fifty-Three
THE ABBESS LIED TO them. Even when she was handed her own letter, she denied writing it, denied ever meeting Eloise Wolfe, even though she admitted Lady Wolfe was such a generous benefactor that her donation allowed their foundling house to expand into an actual orphanage. But the abbess was stern, abrupt, and so obviously not telling the truth, at least not about the letter. She even tore it up into small pieces and tossed it aside! Now Brooke didn’t even have that to show Dominic.
It was the last thing Brooke expected to happen when they got there. All she’d wanted was confirmation or at least a letter that Ella had written, but she got neither and had lost what little evidence she’d had. Seeing how disappointed she was, Harriet got furious and lambasted the devout woman before dragging Brooke out of there. But a young nun ran after them as they were getting into their coach.
“There was a lady who came here in the fall that year with her maid.”
“You were listening to our conversation with your abbess?” Harriet asked.
“I was in the next room. I—I—”
“Don’t blush,” Brooke said quickly with a smile. “Eavesdropping is a habit of mine, too.”
“What can you tell us about that girl?” Harriet asked. “D’you know if she was Eloise Wolfe?”
“I never saw her. No one did other than the abbess. She stayed with us many months. Crying was heard from her room occasionally, but none of us attended her, only her maid did. She was in complete seclusion to protect her identity, at least until the birthing, when the midwife was summoned. The couple who were to take the child were sent for, but that was before the yelling, or the abbess would probably have waited.”
“What yelling?”
“We were all called to chapel to pray for mother and child when the midwife was heard to yell there were complications—too much blood loss. I’m sorry, but the mother rarely survives when that happens.”
“You can’t tell us for certain?”
“Only that there was a freshly dug grave in the graveyard the next day, and not just a small one. One or both of them had died.”
“Surely your abbess at least told you and your sisters the outcome after you prayed for a good one?” Harriet asked. “This might be my grandchild we’re talking about.”
Brooke started to remind Harriet that was impossible, but the nun answered first. “You don’t understand. Only ‘ladies’ demand complete anonymity when they come to us, and that includes into death, which is why the grave has no marker and why the abbess will never speak of it or reveal their identity. She’s bound to silence.”
“But you aren’t?”
“I am, but I have too much compassion, or so I’m told. You obviously knew the girl and grieve for not knowing what happened to her. I’m so sorry I can’t tell you what you hoped for. The common women who come here to give up their babies, they aren’t secluded and we aren’t kept from them. Too often they die in childbirth, too. And I’ve said too much. I’ll get in trouble if I’m seen talking to you. I must go.”
Brook nodded and thanked the nun. She’d expected so much more from this trip. But as she got into the coach, Harriet said behind her, “We’re going to Sevenoaks. Ella might have died with those complications, but the child might have survived. I have to be sure.”
The young nun hadn’t even been talking about Ella. Ella had died two years ago. If an orphaned baby was being raised in Sevenoaks, it belonged to some other lady who’d had a similar indiscretion. Harriet was pulling wishes out of a hat, hoping Ella had somehow faked her death even when they’d found her body. But Brooke was too despondent to remind her mother of that.
But Alfreda, who’d been waiting for them in the coach, wanted to know, “And how will we find this baby in a haystack?”
“I’ll speak to the mayor and every priest in Sevenoaks. Someone will know if a couple came home with a baby last year in, when might it have been? April or May? Or if they came home disappointed instead. If they were waiting to adopt one, it would be exciting news for them that they would share with their friends and neighbors. Now let me take a nap, I’m exhausted. I was so excited last night, letting myself hope for the best today, that I got no sleep a’tall.”
Brooke was utterly dejected, berating herself for wanting to go to that orphanage in the first place. She should have taken that letter straight to Dominic instead of handing it to a nun to watch it be destroyed. It wasn’t conclusive proof of an accidental death but it had been something. And he’d never believe Brooke if she still tried to tell him about it. She wasn’t tired herself, but she leaned against Alfreda for comfort.
“Are you really going to let us go all the way to Sevenoaks for nothing?” Alfreda whispered to her a while later when Harriet was softly snoring.
“You could have told her,” Brooke whispered back.
“It wasn’t my place, but if that baby survived, you need to mention that it can’t possibly be any relation to her.”
“I will if it comes to that, but we probably won’t find any baby there, so she’ll conclude on her own that it died with whoever its mother was, which is undoubtedly what happened. But I’m in no hurry to get back to London today; in fact, I’d as soon return to Leicestershire.”
“Now don’t say that. You won’t be finding any husband there.”
“Who says I want one now? Maybe come the winter Season I’ll feel differently, but now—pretending to enjoy these social events has been extremely difficult when all I can do is think about him. This was a crushing disappointment today, Freda. It was my only chance to end his rage over what he thinks happened to his sister, my only chance to win him back.”
“Back?”
“I was very hopeful that our marriage would be a turning point for us, but I didn’t get to find out.”
Alfreda must have sensed tears were imminent because she abruptly changed the subject with an interesting tidbit. “Gabe seemed out of sorts when he visited me prior to leaving London. He was quite gloomy, actually, and wouldn’t fess up to why.”
Brooke glanced aside. “I didn’t know he left, or that you’ve seen him since we changed households.”
“Of course I have.”
Brooke perked up. “How was Dominic? Did he say?”
“Unapproachable. Not pleasant to be around.”
“But Dominic got what he wanted. Why isn’t he gloatingly happy?”
“Gabe doesn’t know. The wolf is apparently keeping it to himself, what’s put him in another black mood. Likely his mother is the cause and he can’t berate her while she’s still recovering.”
“I suppose he might be angry that he had to give up his coal mines to obtain his goal,” Brooke guessed. “As for Gabe, if he was in the doldrums, it was probably because he was leaving town with Dominic and knew he wouldn’t see you anymore.”
“No, he said they’d be back, he just didn’t know when. But he seemed out of sorts on our trip to London, too. That he didn’t want to discuss any of it finally got me so annoyed I showed him the door.”
“He came to the house?”
“To my room.”
“Oh,” Brooke said without blushing.
“Freda, are you getting married?” Harriet asked in surprise, not sleeping after all.
Alfreda snorted. “He’s too young for me.”
“No, he’s not,” Brooke put in.
“Well, I’m happy enough just enjoying him when I feel the mood to.”
Harriet rolled her eyes before trying again to nap. Brooke closed her eyes, too, wondering if Dominic hadn’t made an effort to see her before he left London because he was angry about something else, specifically his mother’s high-handedness. He might want to get over that before . . . Who was she kidding? He had no reason to ever approach her again, and she’d lost hers.
But Alfreda must have been stewing over the previous subject because, an hour later, she said in another whisper, “I thought this trip was just to prove that Lady Eloise’s death was an accident. You know if that baby didn’t die with its mother and is in Sevenoaks, you’re going to have a devil of a time stopping your mother from demanding it be given to her. Why is Harriet drawing the wrong conclusion? You did tell her Eloise’s body was found in Scarborough, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but she got it into her head that Ella faked her death so no one would look for her.”
Alfreda snorted softly. “With her own body?”
“With a piece of Ella’s—” Brooke sat up and stared wide-eyed at Alfreda. “Jewelry. The body was only identified by that, and her maid stole her jewelry that day. That could have been the maid who died on that beach, killed and robbed for the rest of the jewelry and tossed in the sea to disappear! Ella might really have sailed to that orphanage that day.”
“The woman who went there to have her baby had a maid with her.”
Brooke sank back into her seat, having forgotten that. Now she was grasping at straws just like Harriet—unless . . . “She could have gone there with an older servant she’d known all her life, rather than a young maid she might not have trusted yet. And they could have been far enough down that coast to have missed that storm completely.”
“She still died, either way.”
“Yes, but if her baby is in Sevenoaks—my God, Freda, if I could bring Dominic her child, it would change everything!”
“And put your two families at war for a new reason.”
Brooke ignored that to say excitedly, “Tell the driver to drive faster!”