Page 75 of His Illegitimate Duchess

“These are the things that some of the mothers left with their babies on admission as a way of, I suppose, later being able to identify them or prove their relationship with the child if they ever return to claim them.”

“And do they ever?” Lizzie asked in a hoarse voice, then cleared her throat. “Return to claim them?”

“Almost never,” the mistress replied, and Lizzie turned away, pretending to look at the items on the other shelf.

Colin was tempted to send the woman out and let his wife cry out her pain like he was certain she wanted to, but he didn’t dare say a thing. He resorted to silently cursing the day when they had embarked on this endeavour of helping their fellow man.

This was a mistake, he thought angrily. She is suffering too much.

“What about their names?” His wife’s words startled him.

“What do you mean?” The mistress frowned slightly.

“Do the mothers name them or does the hospital?”

“Even if the mothers do, we rename them,” Miss Florence said matter-of-factly, like they were not discussing taking away the first gift a mother gives her child.

Lizzie went completely still.

“What happens when they grow up and have to leave?” Colin asked, eager to move away from the painful topics.

“Well, there is a small benevolent fund to help them start their life, and we typically guide them towards an apprenticeship as soon as they are old enough. The late Captain Coram, the founder of this institution, was adamant that both boys and girls needed to be educated. Let’s go see the babies now. ”

Miss Florence led them into a large, bright room filled with dozens of cradles filled with mostly crying babies.

“These are all new admissions and are waiting to be placed with wet nurses across the country. We have several wet nurses we use in the city, but it is not enough for all of them. You can rock those who seem most agitated, or change them if they are soiled. Don’t console them too much, though, we don’t want them to get used to being held or soothed. ”

Elizabeth and Colin exchanged a glance after she left.

“What are you thinking?” He asked her when he noticed her square her shoulders.

“I am going to soothe as many of them as I can,” she said with a defiant lift of her chin.

“But Miss Florence said,” Talbot started to protest, but Lizzie shook her head.

“I know what she said, and I think she’s wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“Whenever I hug Emma, I imagine my love for her coating her bones, fortifying her against the world, making her stronger somehow. I truly believe it remains inside us, every gentle feeling, every kind word we are given. Isn’t it better for these children to be held with love and to feel safe, even for a brief moment? ”

“Very well, wife, we shall do it your way,” Talbot said with a nod. “Let me just warn you that I’ve never held a small child.”

“It’s easy, come here,” Elizabeth lifted a particularly agitated, red-faced newborn and gently rocked it before depositing it into Talbot’s waiting arms. “Mind the head.”

The baby was still crying. It was so small and frail.

Colin found himself rocking left and right in an attempt to soothe it.

It seemed so desperate, so unhappy, that his heart ached for it.

Colin at least had nurses and staff looking after his every need growing up, even if he didn’t necessarily have his mother’s love, but these children, they had no one.

He looked up to see his wife lovingly nuzzling a baby’s head.

This could have been her, he realised suddenly. If her mother had decided to leave her…

Colin shuddered at the thought of his precious wife crying inconsolably like this, left alone in a room filled with other unwanted children.

What if every one of them is as precious and special as she was? He thought as he looked around the room, but the horror of what that would imply was almost unbearable, so he shoved it from his mind with all his strength.

“I wish there was a way to give these children to families who don’t have any,” Lizzie said after a while.

“That sounds like it would be a perfect match,” he smiled at her.

They picked up and held as many babies as they could, and Colin, feeling foolish but unable to resist, touched the hand or cheek of every baby he passed by, committed to Lizzie’s philosophy of imbuing them with care and affection.

More than an hour later, Miss Florence came back and informed them that the Coopers had finished and were waiting for them downstairs.

They thanked her and said their goodbyes.

“Are you feeling all right?” Colin asked his wife when she’d stopped and leaned against the wall after they exited the newborn room.

Elizabeth shook her head.

“Body or heart?” He asked, and she put her palm on her heart.

He stepped closer and squeezed her hand. Neither of them was wearing gloves. She briefly squeezed back, and then they headed for the stairs without saying anything else.

“I apologise for abandoning you in there,” Doctor Cooper said when he saw them. “But it was for your own safety. Mrs. Cooper had smallpox as a child, and I was inoculated with the vaccine.”

“I’ve heard about that,” Colin said and turned to Elizabeth. “It is a modern variolation that has a much higher success rate.”

“Unfortunately, it is not as widely accepted as it should be,” the Doctor said. “Did you know it was mandatory in Napoleon’s army and is now in many other countries, yet here, in its birthplace, it isn’t.”

“How did you obtain this inoculation?” Lizzie asked.

“My friend, Doctor Jenner, performed the transfer. He is the inventor of this revolutionary inoculation,” Cooper said proudly.

“My cousin died from being variolated as a child,” Talbot said. “And my father thus never allowed them to do the same to me.”

“This method is much safer than ingrafting, I assure you. You should consider it,” Doctor Cooper said.

“Especially if you’re going to continue doing voluntary work in places such as this,” Mrs Cooper added.

The Talbots promised they would think about it just as they arrived in front of the Cleveland Street poorhouse.

As soon as they entered, Colin felt sick. He felt around his waistcoat pockets and managed to retrieve a perfumed handkerchief, which he held to his mouth to distract himself from the stench of illness and death.

“I warned you,” Doctor Cooper said quietly.

“I know,” Talbot replied as he wrestled with nausea. “I wasn’t complaining.”

“So there are several wings, since this is a rather large building, although it may not be obvious from the front. There is an infection ward, the infirmary, the wing for war invalids, the consumption patients, and the children’s wing.”

“Why is there a dedicated children’s wing?” Lizzie asked, confused.

“Mostly for the injured, disabled, and disfigured child labourers from textile mills or mines,” Mrs. Cooper explained, and something poked at Talbot’s memory. “Let us go there first,” she suggested, and they agreed.

“Hello Richard, hello Samuel,” Mrs Cooper greeted the two boys closest to the door warmly.

“Mrs. Cooper! Hello. What did you bring us today?” The boy who had a stump where his right hand was supposed to be asked cheerfully.

“Samuel, that’s rude!” the older boy, who had to be Richard and was missing part of his scalp, chided him.

It took all of Talbot’s mental strength not to stare at their gruesome injuries, so he looked around the room instead. What he saw were scores of emaciated and maimed children.

That boy cannot be older than eight, he thought with horror.

The Coopers introduced them to the children as Mr and Mrs Talbot, and they were asked all sorts of invasive questions, but also received a lot of unwanted information about the little patients.

Lizzie laughed more than she had in weeks, and Colin also found himself relaxing slightly.

He intellectually struggled with the ludicrous idea of enjoying his afternoon in this cesspit of disease and suffering, and yet he did.

They then moved over to the consumption wing, which mostly held elderly paupers and was likely the culprit for the large portion of the smell.

The duke’s kind made sure not to cross paths with the unseemly underbelly that, behind the scenes, performed the backbreaking labour that made their way of life possible.

Some men of his father’s generation or slightly younger, who had gone to the war, had mingled with and seen the humanity of those other people, but Colin’s generation never had.

But was he to blame that their society was one that didn’t allow people to rise above their birth station?

Most people , he amended mentally. He was curious about Mrs. Mary Cooper, whose speech and comportment with the prostitutes had hinted at very low origins, and yet now she was a gentleman’s wife.

To Colin’s astonishment, the Coopers, once again, knew and addressed everyone by name, extending them the kindness, courtesy, and respect one habitually reserved for friends or peers, and not for a group of unwashed homeless people who were waiting to die.

Dear Lord, thank you that this is not my lot in life, Colin thought gratefully.

Mrs Cooper took one look at Elizabeth’s face and said, “I believe that’s quite enough for one day. Why don’t you take Her Grace out while Dr. Cooper and I finish up with Hettie here?”

“Don’t take the good-looking man away,” the woman who was, apparently, Hettie, said between rough coughs that shook her entire body.

Her hair was matted and dirty, and the skin on her face looked coarse.

There is so much squalor in the world, Talbot thought, but what he said was, “I thank you for the kind compliment, Miss. Don’t let my wife hear you.”

The old woman threw her head back and laughed heartily, which ended up turning into more coughing.

“You don’t happen to have any cheroot on you?” She asked with a wink, and Talbot found the entire situation utterly ridiculous.