A Study In Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas Page B

Charlotte reached the common room after supper, Miss Turner already had the evening paper in hand. She read aloud from its pages as the other women knitted, mended hose, wrote letters, or played games of draughts.
    â€œNow listen to this advert, ladies.
Seeking, sincerely and urgently, girl infant left behind on the doorsteps of Westminster Cathedral, on the night of the twenty-third of November, 1861.
” Miss Turner peered over the top of the paper at the other occupants of the room. “This is why you must always be careful and not be led astray, or the same could happen to you—become a sorry woman looking for her child twenty-five years too late.”
    The date sounded familiar. Charlotte searched her memory and recalled that there had been an awful pea-souper on that day in 1861. She sincerely doubted anyone would choose to venture out in such weather to abandon a baby, of all things, but she didn’t say anything.
    At precisely nine o’clock Miss Turner laid aside the paper. All the other women rose and prepared to vacate the room.
    Charlotte took the paper.
    â€œMiss Holmes, lights-out is at half nine,” said Miss Turner officiously. “You should not read past that.”
    â€œI won’t,” Charlotte promised.
    In her room, a small but faultlessly clean space, she quickly found the death notice for Lady Shrewsbury. So Lady Shrewsbury truly was dead. When she’d been energetic and vigorous only the day before.
    Lady Shrewsbury had seemed a great deal more upset at Charlotte than at her own son. But could she have been furious about him, rather than merely peeved? Could that fury have led to her perishing in her slumber?
    Charlotte rubbed her temples, wishing she’d bought a cache of foodstuff. The portions at supper might have been enough for a woman of smaller appetites, but Charlotte had never been one of those women.
    What was really going on? And would people think
Charlotte
might have had something to do with it?

    Charlotte,
    You liar!
    You swore up and down that all would be well, that you would have no trouble landing a post in short order. How inebriated I must have been, to have taken you at your word.
    I have since skimmed through your stacks of books and magazines having to do with female employment. I ended my reading with a pounding headache and a heart that cannot sink any lower.
    The vast majority of avenues open to gentlewomen seeking work are for those who already possess the necessary educational and professional qualifications. Of which you have none. And those other opportunities you mentioned? Most require a period of apprenticeship, for which
you
have to pay a premium with money you do not have. The only positions that do not demand either education or apprenticeship pay so little they are only suitable for young girls working to supplement the family income, not for a grown woman trying to live on her own.
    And I have not even brought up the Working Ladies’ Guild, which you described as so very helpful. It requires that a member personally vouch for you before you can seek employment via its registry. May the Almighty strike me dead for saying this to my own sister but Charlotte, no woman alive will risk her respectability to recommend you to any association or employer.
    Not anymore. Not ever.
    You knew all this. And you lied through your teeth. And I aided and abetted you in this hopeless venture. If I had shoved you in front of an oncoming omnibus, I could not have done worse as your sister.
    Oh, what have you done, Charlotte? What have
we
done?
    Livia
    P.S. I wrote the above shortly before luncheon, but have not been able to leave the house to post it. I hope I will have better luck in the afternoon.
    P.P.S. You were right about our parents’ reactions. Mamma was in a state and Papa coldly angry—and he changed his mind after first saying he would bring you back, exactly as you had predicted.
    P.P.P.S. As you instructed, I told them