In the end, it was proposed that Mary ought to make clothes for the foundlings, which she enthusiastically accepted. When it came to Miss Williams, Lizzie had no real reason to prevent her mother from going, so Catherine had accompanied them to the Magdalen Hospital this Wednesday, and Talbot couldn’t help but think that his wife’s mother was… enjoying herself?
She smiled and laughed and chatted animatedly with the girls. Elizabeth looked as dumbfounded as her husband, while Mrs Cooper smiled at the scene with visible fondness.
“I don’t know how you did that,” Doctor Cooper said somewhere behind him.
Talbot turned around, confused. “Did what?”
“Oh, don’t play coy, Talbot. I thought you might be able to help me tip the scales a little, but what you managed to do was… beyond impressive. Do you know how many donations we received in the last week alone? More than we’ve had in the entire year!”
“I’m happy to help,” Talbot smiled.
“I need to thank the Duchess as well,” Cooper started saying, but Talbot shook his head.
“Please, no. Not a word of this to my wife.”
“Why not?” The Doctor was puzzled.
“I’m afraid she… I don’t want her to think this is but a ploy to use my title and money to get in her good graces.”
“I cannot imagine that Her Grace would jump to such a conclusion.”
“Then count yourself lucky that you haven’t had the experience with me that she had.”
“Very well, I shall respect your wish,” Doctor Cooper said earnestly, then steered the conversation towards calmer waters. “The girls seem to be enjoying Miss Williams’s company, particularly Hannah. I haven’t seen her smile like that since she joined us.”
“Yes, it’s rather interesting, isn’t it?” Colin said thoughtfully.
“Or absolutely to be expected,” Doctor Cooper countered with a pointed look which Talbot didn’t fully understand.
“Can you read me my letter, Doctor?” A young girl approached them.
“Of course, Margaret,” the Doctor smiled kindly. “Do you have it with you?”
“Oh, yes,” she nodded eagerly as she retrieved it from a pouch around her neck. “I so rarely get word from home, it hasn’t left my person in two weeks.”
Talbot smiled at her enthusiasm. A small crowd was starting to form around them since everyone loved hearing news. Doctor Cooper cleared his throat dramatically and started reading:
“Dearest Margie,”
Talbot glanced at the girl, who now had tears in her eyes and a big smile on her face in response to what he assumed was a childhood nickname.
“Father Andrews is here, so we dictated this letter to him. I’m afraid we don’t have good news.”
Doctor Cooper stopped reading and frowned. His eyes flew over the rest of the page, and he then looked at the girl with pity in his eyes.
“Dad suddenly passed away two nights ago. He simply never woke up in the morning.”
A blood-curdling sob left Margaret’s body, and she crumpled to the floor. Doctor Cooper carefully folded up the letter and beckoned his wife over. As Mrs Cooper hugged the girl and helped her get up, Margaret kept speaking through her sobs, “I didn’t… All this time… I had the letter with me, and I never even knew… Every night I slept with that treacherous letter…”
Colin had been intellectually aware that most people of her class did not know how to read or write, but the idea of this young girl sleeping with a letter that contained the devastating news of her father’s passing and never seeing it as more than a series of lines and scribbles was the first time that he saw a real-life example of the downsides of being illiterate in his adult life.
“I’m going to teach them how to read,” Elizabeth said next to him as if she had been reading his mind. “I don’t care if you don’t like it.”
“Why would I not like it?” His head jerked back.
“It’s maybe…” She seemed to lose some of her bravado. “Maybe it resembles being employed too much.”
“You’re a lady doing charitable work, it’s fine,” he said, aiming for humour, but it fell flat. “It’s a wonderful idea,” he added more seriously.
