Slowly, Sarah won them over. By the end of the class, they were interrupting each other with questions, raising their hands and waving them to capture her attention, if only for a few moments. When the class was finished and she dismissed them, they jostled each other, pushing and shoving, as they all tried to gather around her at once.
Their faces revealed a variety of ethnic backgrounds, the tongues a babble of different accents, but the eyes were all exactly alike. Every pair held an eager desperation for Sarah’s attention and approval. This, she knew, was why she’d come. Here was her chance to touch these girls’ lives and show them they had other alternatives than the ones they saw around them. She wanted to help them choose the right path so they didn’t end up selling themselves in the streets or worse.
Finally, the bell summoned the girls to their noon meal, and they reluctantly took their leave of her after extracting numerous promises that she would return. Only then did she notice the red-haired girl, Maeve, still lingering. She hadn’t joined the group that had surrounded Sarah but had hung back. When they were alone, she came forward.
“Did you have a question, Maeve?” Sarah asked kindly, hoping to break through the animosity.
Only then did she correctly identify the expression in Maeve’s brown eyes. She was defiant and… and haughty. Sarah could think of no other word to describe her. She came right up, looked Sarah straight in the eye, then turned and walked out of the room. Clearly, she wanted Sarah to know she didn’t need her attention the way the other girls did. She didn’t even want it. Sarah couldn’t help wondering why she had felt compelled to inform her of that.
After gathering her things, Sarah went to find Mrs. Wells to take her leave. Everyone was in the dining room. Plank tables had been set up there, and girls of all sizes and shapes lined the benches on either side of them.
“Won’t you join us, Mrs. Brandt?” Mrs. Wells asked before Sarah could say a thing. If she still harbored any reservations about Sarah’s motivations for being there, she hid them well. Her smile was warm and friendly.
“I don’t want to…” Sarah gestured helplessly. “Imppose.”
“You mean take food out of the children’s mouths?” Mrs. Wells guessed. “Nonsense. We’re just having soup and bread. One serving of each won’t make any difference at all. Please, have a seat.”
She indicated an empty place at the end of one of the tables, across from Maeve and the child Aggie. Maeve didn’t look pleased by Sarah’s choice of seats, but Aggie glanced up when Sarah sat down across from her. Her expression was still solemn, but her eyes danced with mischief.
“Aggie, behave,” Maeve warned sternly, giving Sarah a look that accused her of encouraging bad behavior.
“Maeve, please get Mrs. Brandt some luncheon,” Mrs. Wells said.
Maeve’s expression changed instantly. She smiled, practically beaming with pleasure as she looked up at Mrs. Wells. “Yes, ma’am,” she said, rising so quickly she would have knocked over the bench if the other girls’ weight hadn’t been holding it in place.
“I can serve myself,” Sarah protested, but Maeve didn’t even glance at her. She took her orders from Mrs. Wells and sought only to please her.
“You’re our guest,” Mrs. Wells said, sliding into the bench beside her. She had, Sarah noticed, gotten her own bowl of soup.
“Aggie seems young to be here,” Sarah observed, noticing the next youngest of the girls was at least several years older than the child. Aggie couldn’t be more than five and perhaps as young as three.
“She’s a foundling,” Mrs. Wells explained, giving Aggie a small smile which the child did not return. “We found her sleeping in our doorway one morning several months ago. She was painfully thin and filthy and dressed in rags, and she wouldn’t speak. We tried to find her family, but no one in the neighborhood knew who she was – or at least no one admitted it.”
“She’s still very quiet,” Sarah said, then smiled at Aggie. “Do you like living here, Aggie?”
The little girl did not return the smile, but she nodded slowly, deliberately, proving she’d understood Sarah’s question. Sarah had wondered if the child might be deaf, which would explain her being mute, but apparently, she could hear just fine.
“She still doesn’t speak,” Mrs. Wells explained. “And we don’t really know her name, of course. I named her Agnes, after my mother.”
“Sometimes children stop speaking when they are badly frightened by something,” Sarah said as Maeve returned with her soup and a slice of bread. Sarah didn’t even want to imagine what a child like Aggie might have seen to scare her speechless.
Maeve carried the soup carefully, not allowing so much as a drop to spill. She set it in front of Sarah with the air of one delivering a precious gift, then looked at Mrs. Wells for approval. She didn’t care if Sarah was pleased or not.
“Thank you, Maeve,” Mrs. Wells said, and the girl fairly beamed with pride.
Squaring her narrow shoulders, she took her own seat again, bumping Aggie slightly but deliberately in the process. The smaller girl cast Maeve an annoyed glance, but she didn’t make a fuss. Once again Sarah saw the mischievous gleam in her eyes.
Aggie got up from her place, walked around to where Mrs. Wells sat, and gently tugged at the woman’s sleeve. Mrs. Wells looked down.
“What is it, Aggie?”
The child gave her a beseeching look and held out her arms. No one could have resisted such an appeal. She reached down and lifted the child into her lap. “You haven’t finished your soup,” she said and pulled the child’s bowl over so she could feed her.
Sarah happened to glance over at Maeve and caught a look of sheer loathing in the girl’s honey brown eyes. Jealousy was an ugly thing, Sarah thought, looking to see if the other girls shared this emotion. To her surprise, she saw that most of them were staring at the cozy couple with unabashed envy. When she looked back at Aggie, she caught the little one giving the rest of them a superior smirk that Mrs. Wells couldn’t see.
The hair on Sarah’s arms rose as a chill raced over her. So much for her illusions that the mission was a haven from the evils of the world. If she’d thought of this as Eden, it was an Eden where the serpent operated freely.
Did Mrs. Wells suspect the petty rivalries that existed? Did she realize she was sowing seeds of discord among her charges simply by favoring one who appeared to be weaker and more helpless than the others? Surely not, Sarah decided. Someone as caring as Mrs. Wells wouldn’t consciously foster such rivalries, and she certainly wouldn’t let the rivalries continue if she knew about them. But no wonder so many of the girls backslid, as Mrs. Wells had lamented. They’d come here seeking acceptance and found only more of the rejection they’d known outside.
Sarah was wondering how she could tactfully point out what was happening when Mrs. Wells asked, “How is your soup, Mrs. Brandt?”
“It’s delicious,” Sarah lied, then took her first spoonful. Fortunately, it was tasty enough that she didn’t have to retract her praise.
“We are fortunate that several of the grocers supply us at a very reasonable cost, and my father was a butcher,” she said, feeding Aggie another spoonful of soup. “He always sold the better cuts of meat to his customers, so I learned early in life how to use the parts no one else wanted. We pinch every penny we receive in donations.”
“You must be sure to mention that on Thursday night,” Sarah said. “Which girls will you be bringing with you to the party?”