fourteen

Mercy could sense Dr. Colville’s eyes upon her. In fact, he’d watched her the entire time she told him about her siblings and parents, also her grandparents who’d long since died.

Like so many others, the promise of steady work in London had lured her family to moving there. They arrived not knowing just how dire living in the city would be, how much they’d struggle to survive from week to week, hoping each rent day they’d have enough to pay the landlord’s collector. The low wages left little for food, which they bought from the slum shops when and if they could afford it.

For a while, they’d been lucky enough to do piece work, getting supplies from a nearby match factory to make matchboxes. The small cardboard box pieces had to be glued together in a difficult and painstaking process. Eventually her mum and grandmother got fast enough that they could make over one thousand boxes in a day, which earned them enough to buy a loaf of bread.

Sometimes they had to work up to sixteen hours a day to reach their daily quota. When Patience and Mercy were old enough, they too helped with making the matchboxes. But then the match factory closed, hard times hit, and Twiggy and their grandmother weren’t able to find any more piece work.

With Granddad hurting his back and unable to do manual labor, her grandparents had been the first to move to the workhouse. They’d both died there within a year. Thankfully, Twiggy had found a position at the rag factory. Even with both her parents working, they still had trouble paying rent and having enough to buy food, especially with each new babe Twiggy birthed.

“It sounds as though you have loving parents,” Dr. Colville said.

Mercy hesitated. “Twiggy loves her babies. But beyond that, she never had enough energy to go around.”

“Not even for you?”

“Patience raised me and loved me more than Twiggy ever could.” Mercy’s chest ached at the thought of her sister. It had been nigh onto three weeks since she’d seen Patience, and every passing day made their parting all the harder.

“Then she’s to thank for your tender and compassionate heart?”

Mercy peeked sideways at him only to find herself mesmerized by his eyes. She’d only ever seen velvet before on the coats of the wealthier ladies among their group. Right now, Dr. Colville’s eyes were like dark brown velvet—soft, rich, and thick. And sincere . . .

“Aye, anything good in me is all because of Patience, that it is. She taught me to live aright. Whenever I felt sad, she helped me to see there’s always someone a mite worse off. She said that when we serve someone else, we’re too busy to think much on our own problems. Leastways, our problems don’t seem so big in comparison.”

“She sounds wise.”