Louise M Gouge Read Online Free PDF

charge of the horse while the footman helped the ladies down.
    “We will be here awhile,” Mrs. Parton told them, “so you may go around to the kitchen for a bite to eat. Miss Gregory, shall we go in?”
    Beatrice followed her employer up the concrete steps to the large front door. A black-clad woman of perhaps thirty years opened it. “Welcome, Mrs. Parton. Please come in.” The matron’s eyes exuded warmth and welcome.
    In the front hall they were met by the smells of lye soap and a hint of lavender. The floor was well scrubbed, and not a speck of lint or dust lay upon the polished oak hall tree or the framed pictures that adorned the long, wide entryway.
    The matron spoke quietly to the young girl beside her, and the child hastened up the staircase. Soon the soft rumble of running feet disturbed the silence as over a hundred girls of all sizes and descriptions descended the steps and formed lines. Each girl wore a gray serge uniform and a plain white pinafore bearing a number.
    Once again Beatrice swallowed a wave of sentiment. Like these girls she had no parents, but how vastly different their circumstances were. How sad to be an orphan, a seemingly nameless child with only a number on one’s clothing for identification. Beatrice steeled herself against further emotion, for tears would not help the children and might inspire them to self-pity, an exercise she knew to be fruitless.
    A slender middle-aged matron in a matching uniform offered a deep curtsey to their guests, and the girls followed suit.
    “Welcome, Mrs. Parton.” Another matron, silver-haired and in a black dress, stepped forward. Authority emanated from her pale, lined face.
    “Mrs. Martin.” Mrs. Parton’s face glowed as she grasped the woman’s hands. “How good to see you.” Her gaze swept over the assembly. “Good afternoon, my dear, dear girls.”
    Mrs. Martin lifted one hand to direct the children in a chorus of “Good afternoon, Mrs. Parton.”
    “Children, this is my companion, Miss Gregory.” Mrs. Parton brought Beatrice forward.
    Again the girls curtseyed and called out a greeting.
    “Now,” Mrs. Parton said, “what have you to show us?” She and Beatrice sat in upholstered chairs the matron had ordered for them.
    The girls’ sweet faces beamed with affection for their patroness while they recited their lessons or showed her examples of penmanship, sewing and artwork. Mrs. Parton offered praise and dispensed many hugs as though each was her own dear daughter.
    Beatrice followed her example in commending the children. Over the next hour she found herself drawn to one in particular. Sally was perhaps fourteen years old, and Beatrice observed how well she managed the younger children. How she wished she could offer the girl employment, perhaps even train her as a lady’s maid if she was so minded. But alas Beatrice had no funds for such an undertaking.
    As they left the building, Mrs. Parton told Beatrice that the true beneficence happened later when her steward ascertained the institution’s needs and budgeted the funds to cover as many of them as possible.
    “I take such pleasure in helping them,” Mrs. Parton said on their way back to her Hanover Square town house. “Not unlike Lord Greystone.”
    “How so, madam?” Pleasantly exhausted from the afternoon’s charitable exercise, Beatrice still felt a jolt in her heart at the mention of the viscount’s name.
    “Why, he is the patron of a boys’ asylum in Shrewsbury, not far from his family seat.”
    Beatrice experienced no surprise at this revelation, for Mrs. Parton had already mentioned the viscount’s generosity. Of course she could not expect that generosity to extend to the sister of a wastrel, lest his name be tainted. She knew very little of Society, but that one lesson had stood at the forefront of her thoughts ever since she had met him the night before. Perhaps she could glean from that experience a true indication of his character. He might perform