Tears pricked at his eyes, but he forced them back. He pulled Lord Manigan’s funds from his tailcoat pocket, slid half under the woman’s pillow. He wouldn’t be in London much longer anyway. He hoped. “There is enough here to make things better.”
Her head lolled to the side. “From … you?”
“From a friend of mine.”
“Who …” A cough. “Who are you?”
“No one you need concern yourself with. Close your eyes. Rest.” He pulled the blanket closer to her neck, the pungent whiff of urine intensifying. “The doctor shall be here soon and everything shall be fine.”
“Bless you.” Her strength seemed to be depleted. She closed her eyes and, with coughs rattling her chest, breathed the words “Just have to forgive dem. Even if you got to do it over and over again … just got to forgive dem.”
He bent closer, unsure if she spoke to him or herself. “Mrs. Shaw?”
“Lot of people … hurt us … done us wrong. Husband … left us. Got to forgive dem. Got to forgivehim.Over and over and over …” She lost consciousness then, and the hand in his finally slackened.
He didn’t pull away. Instead, he glanced from her still face to the children devouring bread in the corner, and a strange emotion splintered through him.
After all they had suffered. All they had lost. All the hurt that had been done to them by a husband who could have stayed and met their needs. Why should she murmur of forgiveness at a time like this?
He didn’t know. He understood very little of that kind of strength.
But he couldn’t help wondering if, should life ever become so bitter to him as it was to Mrs. Shaw, he would have anything that strong inside himself.
“You left them funds.” Isabella stared at him from across the carriage, and the compassion she’d been so afraid to cope with spread across his face unabashed.
“How often do you visit the street?” he asked.
“But once or twice a season.”
“Left to their own devices, they’ll be in the workhouse within a month.” His throat bobbed. “Or dead.”
Such poignancy unsettled her. She squirmed in her seat. “You talk as if it were our responsibility to aid them.”
“Ours and anyone else who stumbles upon their plight.”
“You forget there are many such dreadful cases tucked away in London flats or begging on the streets. One cannot help them all.”
“One can help some.”
“Yes, but—”
“Mrs. Shaw is not so very different from you, Miss Gresham.” His gaze held hers, and the gentle seriousness of his voice arrested her complete attention. “We may scorn the poor and lift our noses at them and blame their helplessness on dastardly sins.”
Her skin prickled.
“But the truth is they are no worse and no better than we ourselves. They are simply less fortunate.”
“Yes.” A rasp. “Of course.” All her life, she had delighted in looking at all things lovely while skimming past unpleasantries she did not wish to see. She did not enjoy bearing hurts she had so little control of.
Besides that, Father and all her other friends spoke so haughtily of the poor. “Unfortunates who,” Father was wont to say, “might have made something of themselves if they were not so afflicted with laziness.”
In some ways, she had gone through life adopting such beliefs. Like all her friends, she had skirted past the poor, sniveled her nose at their stench, all while still performing her duties of charity.
But under Mr. Kensley’s gaze and still tortured by his speech, part of those beliefs unraveled. Shame pulsed through her.
Straightway, after entering the abode, Mr. Kensley had soiled his clean breeches on the grimy floor. He had held the hand of one who smelled wretched. He had spoken to her, calmed her, addressed her needs, and not wiped his hands of her when he left three hours later.
Indeed, he worried after them still. In all her acquaintances, was there a gentleman who would have behaved this way? And spoken to Isabella in such a manner? Or chastised her in a way that didn’t stir anger, but remorse?
