Mrs. Chisom paused on the threshold, bustle swaying, and turned back to Ellen.
Ellen stifled a groan. Ofcoursethis woman was the type who had to have the last word. “People like us, who have been blessed with good fortune, must tend to the downtrodden, even if the straits they find themselves in are of their own making.” She bestowed a smile upon Ellen, magnanimous as a saint. “My friends and I are happy to help Dr. Hart’s cause.”
They are poor because of weak character,she’d practically spelled out.Therefore, I am virtuous because my husband is a banker and I have three silk dresses, four plump children, gaslights in the house we own, and the leisure time to perform good deeds.She turned, her bosom jutting like the prow of a magnificent ship, and left.
Ellen had the sudden, childish urge to stick her tongue out at the woman’s back as she stepped out of view of the open door.
Mark shouldered in with the third box. “Last one,” he said unnecessarily and shut the door with a kick of his foot.
Ellen watched her husband set the crate down with the others and dust off his hands, then brush lingering sawdust from his coat sleeves. Her lips quirked upward, imagining the look on Mrs. Chisom’s face if she discovered the man who’d moved her boxes was an aristocrat, the son of a baron. After the lecture about strong moral fiber and the strong implication of its connection to good fortune, she’d no doubt struggle to gracefully admit that Mark—and perhaps Ellen by extension—must have the most noble character of all.
Dust motes and sawdust drifted around Mark. He folded hisarms, a facsimile of Ellen. “Well,” he said, imbuing the word with a wealth of meaning.
“Well.” Ellen bit her lip to hide a smile when she met his gaze.
“I believe I’ve just listened to enough preaching to last for several Sundays,” he commented. “No church required.”
Ellen nearly snorted. “They’re not all as…forceful, I suppose, as Mrs. Chisom.”
“She’s certainly deciphered the workings of the world and where everyone fits,” Mark continued.
“And places herself near the top,” Ellen muttered. She looked down at the boxes. “As priggish as she was, the donations are usually worth the bother.”
In the silence that followed, Mark mused, “I didn’t think women of such piety were supposed to have such large bubbies.”
Ellen gasped. “Mark!” It was so unlike her studious husband to say something like that. At least to another woman. To hiswife. She remembered suddenly he’d spent the better half of a decade in the Navy.
Mark flashed a wicked grin. “Come now. You were thinking it, too.”
Ellen sniffed, the soul of propriety. “I thought no such thing. And it is below our dignity to comment on someone’s body, especially if they cannot help it.” But then she ruined it with a laugh.
Mark grinned back, surprise and delight filling his eyes, as if he’d won a prize he’d striven for but secret thought he’d never grasp. “Oh I wasn’t critiquing her bosom, just her self-righteousness.” After another moment of silence, this one far more tense and filled with…something, Ellen wasn’t sure what, Mark spoke again. “Should we go through it?”
Ellen mentally shook herself from wondering what Mark thought aboutherbubbies. She knelt beside the crates, moving her skirt out of the way. “Might as well.”
The door flounced open, and Ellen’s first reaction was horror that Mrs. Chisom had returned to expound more on virtue. Thankfully, it was Amelia.
“Did I miss them?” she asked, pulling the hat off her head and tossing it into the nearest chair.
“You’re lucky you did,” Ellen retorted.
It was Mark’s turn to snort beside her.
Mrs. Chisom wasn’t entirely wrong about wanting to be careful who and how they helped. For example, Ellen would—and had—willingly handed over sixpence to Tina O’Malley, but she’d never give Seamus so much as a ha’penny.
“Ah, one of those types?” Amelia asked knowingly, stepping forward to kneel beside Ellen. “Let’s see what’s in here.”
Mark stood to the side, arms folded, content to silently watch and lend a hand if requested.
The lids were lifted easily, not set with nails, and revealed wadded bits of packing paper and sawdust. Ellen and Amelia delicately sifted through it, coming up with several bundles wrapped in old cloth.
Ellen unwrapped a pile of linen nappies. “These will be useful.” She held up the first nappy to the light and noticed a few stains. “Hmm.” She assumed some stains would be inevitable on used nappies, but these seemed worse than she’d expect. Did they try to get the stains out before donating them?
“Oh, a breast pump!” Amelia exclaimed, pulling a trumpet-shaped glass item from her cloth. “We never have any of these!” The red rubber bulb at the end, which Ellen assumed provided the suction, looked rather like the end of a bicycle horn. Amelia’s face fell as she held up the device, turning it in the light. “It’s…cracked. I don’t think we can use a cracked pump. Wouldn’t the milk leak right out?”
Ellen shrugged at Amelia’s searching look. “We’ll have to ask Mrs. Daugherty.”
Amelia’s mouth curved downward and she set the medical device to the side. “Hopefully the other items are in better shape.” She turned to another box and sifted through the packing.