Her Patchwork Family. Lyn Cote
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From the corner of her eye, Felicity noted that the little girl had stopped rocking and was listening to the conversation. Her intense brown eyes studied Felicity with an unnatural solemnity in one so very young. Felicity smiled bravely, trying to shove off the oppressive gloom of these three. “Still, I wished to thank thee.”
He made a dismissive gesture. “No doubt some, many of my colleagues, would not agree with my giving a miscreant into another person’s hands as in Tucker’s case.”
Felicity nodded, drawing up her strength. She glanced sideways at the little girl and saw so much pain in the little girl’s face—unmistakable unhappiness. The child’s misery thumped Felicity in her midsection. She tore her gaze back to the judge. “I wonder if thee has followed the career of Mary Carpenter.”
Ty raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, I’m not acquainted with the lady.”
“Just fifteen years ago in England, she wrote Reformatory Schools for the Children of the Perishing and Dangerous Classes, and for Juvenile Offenders. Mary Carpenter said good free day schools and reformatory schools were urgently needed.”
As she spoke, Felicity realized the child had her chair turned away so she couldn’t see her father. The child looked only to her. Felicity’s unmanageable heart contracted.
“We have good free day schools here in Altoona,” Louise said with a touch of irritation in her tone.
Felicity turned and smiled though she could sense that they wanted her to leave. The little girl was still watching Felicity with an unnerving intentness. For a child with a family and a home to look so forlorn, so lost, was unnatural. Felicity wanted to gather the child into her arms and hold her, comfort her. “Louise Hawkins, I’m sure Altoona has excellent day schools. But what of a reformatory school for young ones like Tucker Stout who have no parents and who fall afoul of the law?”
“I thought you were just here to start an orphanage—” Tyrone began, sounding unaccountably frustrated.
“I prefer to call it a children’s home,” Felicity interrupted, yet smiled to soften her words. “A place where children will be loved and cared for.”
“You got a home for children?” the little girl asked. Both her father and grandmother jerked and swung around to look at the child.
Felicity smiled. “Yes, I do. Hello, I’m Felicity Gabriel. What is thy name?”
The little girl tilted her head to one side. “My name’s Camie.”
“Hello, Camie.” Impulsively, Felicity offered the child her hand.
Looking uncertain, Camie rose, still clutching the doll and sucking her thumb.
Felicity kept her hand out, open palm up as if offering it to a cautious stray. Camie edged closer and closer to her, keeping as far away from Tyrone as possible. Oh, dear. A troubled child. A troubled man. And a gulf between them. Felicity sensed the father and grandmother tensing. Were they afraid that the child would do something abnormal? Camie finally reached Felicity and took her hand. “Do you like little girls, too?”
“Little girls and boys. I want them to be well cared for, loved and happy like I was when I was a child.” Felicity leaned forward and smoothed the moist tendrils around the child’s face.
Camie tilted her head again like a little sparrow and then lifted her arms in silent appeal. Felicity gathered the little girl onto her lap and kissed the top of her head.
Camie nestled against her, hiding her face against Felicity’s gray bodice. Though the added body heat was unpleasant, Felicity smoothed her palm over Camie’s back, trying to soothe the tense child.
When Felicity looked up, she was shocked to see tears in Tyrone’s eyes. Louise was dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. Why was this a matter for tears?
Something was very wrong here—something had happened to this family and something needed to be done to help them. Felicity did not want to ask for an explanation in front of the child, or pry.
The four of them sat in silence for many minutes. The child’s stiffness didn’t leave completely, but the little girl did rest against her. Stroking Camie and crooning whispered words, Felicity watched Tyrone master himself, bury his reaction. She longed to smooth his worried forehead and speak comforting words to him also.
Finally, Louise broke their silence as oppressive as the summerlike heat. “I think setting up an orphan—I mean a children’s home—is admirable.” Louise’s voice had softened. “I had heard that Mildred had left her estate to someone in the east.”
Felicity nodded. “Perhaps thee would like to help the work she wanted me to carry out.”
The softly spoken suggestion appeared to surprise Louise. Tyrone sat forward, staring at Felicity, hawk-like.
Felicity continued stroking Camie’s back and said, “I have a housekeeper and a groom. I will of course hire staff as necessary, but I would like to have men and women from the community volunteer to help out. So often in children’s homes, the children are kept clean, fed and schooled. But who is there to rock them and read them stories? Teach them how to play games? Would thee be interested in such work?” She included Tyrone in her glance.
“I never thought of that,” Louise said.
“My mother helps me with my daughter.” Tyrone’s face had frozen into harsh, forbidding lines that didn’t seem to fit him. “Camie’s mother passed away while I was at war.” His anguish came through his words. And yet she sensed immediately that this wasn’t just the grief over losing his wife. Something had been added to that grief.
“I’m very sorry to hear of your loss.” She squeezed Camie, reiterating her sympathy. “Perhaps Camie would like to visit and play with our first little girl, Katy, some afternoon?”
Tyrone looked away.
“Perhaps,” Louise replied, looking at her son with uncertainty.
Felicity hoped that this lady didn’t deem her granddaughter too good to play with Katy. Her welcome here had been cordial enough, yet the sense that she was treading on just a skim of ice kept her cautious. “I think it’s time I left.” Felicity stroked Camie’s cheek and looked into her eyes. “I have to go now. I have a little boy and girl at home to put to bed.”
Camie sat up. The sudden look of alarm on the little girl’s face was startling. Felicity almost asked what was the matter but checked herself. At this point, these people are just acquaintances. I must not pry or meddle.
The kind of do-gooders that Tucker mistrusted were people who thought their good intentions allowed them to stick their long pointy noses into other people’s private lives, to trample the feelings of those who needed help, wielding their “good” deeds like weapons. Felicity did not want to be like that. Ever.
She urged Camie, who was trying to cling to her, to slip down and then she rose. “I will see thee again, Camie.”
“I’ll walk you to the front,” Tyrone said gruffly.
Felicity accepted this with a nod. “Good night, Louise, Camie.” She couldn’t stop herself from cupping the little girl’s cheek. “I hope to see thee again soon.” Tyrone followed her down the steps of the back porch and around to the front walk. There, Felicity turned and offered him her hand. A mistake. When he took it, in spite of her sheer summer glove, her awareness of him multiplied.
“I saw you out with Tucker Stout the other night,” he said in a harsh tone. His unexpected, unwelcome words rolled up her sensitivity to him like a window shade, snapping it shut. Recalling that she had been in nightdress at the time, Felicity felt herself blush.
“Maybe I should come over and impress on him why he shouldn’t run away.”
Looking at him sideways, she glimpsed his face, which had turned a dull red. Perhaps he was regretting causing her embarrassment.
Felicity