Page 62 of Impetuous

“Why?” he retorted sullenly. Miss Yorke patted him on the shoulders. “Well, you may continue with your studies then, or do something else if you prefer, since the other boys are off now.”

She led Cassandra down the hall, saying in a low voice once they were out of earshot, “Dennis is still a very angry young boy. Understandable, of course. His legs were run over by a milk wagon. He fell from it trying to cadge a ride.” She shook her head and smiled. “But he will get better. They always do after they have been here awhile. He will realize how much good life he has left ahead of him.”

They entered another room, this one floored in stone, where three children were up to their elbows in clay, laughing and squealing while they formed images under the watchful eye of a strong-armed woman. It was clear that two of them were blind. The third made strange guttural noises. Miss Yorke explained that he had been deaf from birth.

Cassandra had a sinking sensation in her stomach. How could so many of Philip’s illegitimate children have physical problems? Blind, deaf, crippled, branded with a lurid birthmark…and she had not even seen them all yet.

Miss Yorke was going on about the belief that she and Sir Philip shared of how much children could learn and grow with artistic expression, such as modeling in clay and drawing or music. “We make sure that all of the arts, even dance, are included in our curriculum. It is amazing what can be accomplished if one gives children the chance. Thank God that Sir Philip was willing to give these children a chance.”

Miss Yorke’s eyes glowed. Cassandra suspected that the governess might have a tendre for her handsome employer.

“Sir Philip has done a great deal for his children,” Cassandra said carefully.

“My, yes. Most people pay no attention to such children, just hurry past them on the street—if they even notice them. But Sir Philip is the soul of kindness. Not only does he clothe and feed them, and even give them an education, he takes the time to come and visit them. To talk and play with them. That is most uncommon. Most charity, if given at all, is limited to money. But Sir Philip gives of himself. He is genuinely interested in their progress.”

Cassandra’s uneasy feeling was growing by leaps and bounds. Why were there only boys?

Miss Yorke showed her through the spacious kitchen, where a woman was busily cooking a pot of stew, and they stopped to look out the back door into the yard, where Sir Philip was engaged in a game of cricket with several boys. Quite a few more sat by, watching the game. Cassandra noticed a young boy with a horribly contorted spine and two boys on crutches.

“There are so many of them,” she murmured.

“Yes.” Miss Yorke seemed pleased, though she frowned. “We are bursting at the seams. Lionel will be leaving soon. He is so talented that Sir Philip was able to get him apprenticed at the Wedgwood factory. But even then, we will have over twenty boys. I don’t know what we are going to do. We have already converted the attic into a dormitory room for the younger boys.”

As Miss Yorke led her back down the hallway into the small room that served as her office, Cassandra asked bluntly, “Where do the boys come from?”

“All over.” Sarah gestured her toward a chair. “Would you like some tea?”

Cassandra shook her head. “No, thank you. You were saying…”

“Oh, yes, where the boys come from. I believe Sir Philip caught John trying to pick his pocket in London.”

“Pick his pocket!”

Miss Yorke nodded. “You see how good Sir Philip is? He could have had him thrown in jail. Instead he took him into his household, had the servants take care of him and feed him. But he could tell that it was not the best solution. And he could see how many more boys like John there were in London and, indeed, all over the countryside. That is when he came up with the idea for Silverwood. He knew that the owner of this house had died, and that the heirs wanted to sell it. He thought it would be a perfect place to raise boys. So he bought it and hired me—saving my life, as I told you, in the process of saving the boys, too. We started out with four boys, but Sir Philip continues to bring back unwanted children. Dennis, whom you met, is the most recent. Sir Philip found him begging on the streets of Manchester. He found several of the others doing the same thing, or stealing so they could eat.”

Cassandra felt numb. “But I—I had been told that Silverwood housed Sir Philip’s illegitimate children.”

“Oh! That vicious rumor!” Miss Yorke’s eyes flashed. “It still persists. People seem to prefer to believe the worst about people rather than the best. Of course they are not Sir Philip’s illegitimate children. They are simply poor orphans whom everyone else has abandoned.”

Tears pricked at Cassandra’s eyelids. Sir Philip had done a tremendously kind and humane thing, and she had accused him of being a vile seducer, of insulting his mother by placing his by-blows in a home so near to Haverly House. Cassandra wanted to sink through the floor. How could she have been so hasty in her judgment, so ready to believe the worst of him? He must despise her now for the things she had said to him.

She stayed on, listening to Sarah talk about the boys and Sir Philip’s philosophy of education and the various subjects they taught them. She contributed very little to the conversation, for she was too stunned to think very clearly. Her mind hummed with regrets and painful memories of the things she had said and the way she had acted toward Philip. She felt sunk in guilt, and when Philip finally came back into the house, she could not even look him in the face.

They stayed for luncheon with the boys who, because it was summer, ate beneath the trees on two long trestle tables. Cassandra watched them pack away an incredible amount of food with an air of being seriously at work. Only toward the end of the meal did they begin to talk and laugh and jostle each other.

She was amazed at the happy spirit among them, children of the most unfortunate circumstances. She was also struck by the ease with which Sir Philip mingled with them, tousling one’s hair, patting another on the shoulder, making fish faces for the youngest, Harry. Something warm and sweet swelled within her as she watched him, mixing with the bitter rue that had plagued her since the moment she had realized how much she had wronged him. Tears sprang into her eyes, and she had to turn away so that no one would see them.

After the meal, they left. Cassandra bade Miss Yorke and the children goodbye and walked out to the trap beside Philip, still silent and unable to look at him. He gave her a hand up into the vehicle, and they drove down the drive away from the house, giving a final wave as they turned out into the lane.

Cassandra gazed out at the scenery, her hands clenched in her lap. She swallowed, then said tightly, “Obviously I owe you an apology.”

He glanced at her. “I didn’t take you there for an apology.”

“Nevertheless, I have to give one. I was wrong, terribly wrong. I insulted you, blamed you for—for—seducing young women when all the time you were doing something magnanimous and kind. No wonder your mother and sister seemed so proud of you! I should have known when I heard the way they talked about Silverwood and you.” She turned and glared at him. “Why didn’t you tell me? You knew what I thought! Why didn’t you explain it the other day? Why did you allow me to go on thinking that—that—”

“I find that people usually believe what they want to,” Philip said in a world-weary voice. “It is a constant source of amazement to me that what people want to believe is always the worst.”

“I didn’t want to!” Cassandra cried. “I tried not to.”