Hetty Feather

  Ida had to serve the next table, and as soon as she was gone, three fine ladies stepped right up to our table and watched us eat.

  'My, they're so neat and dainty! See how they spoon their gravy so carefully!' said one.

  Of course we were neat and dainty. We knew that if we spilled anything down our Sunday tippets we'd get our knuckles rapped.

  'Aren't the little ones sweet! Do you see that one with the high forehead? That's a clear sign of intelligence,' said another, singling out Sheila, who smirked at her in sickening fashion.

  'I'm rather taken with the very little one. She's not much more than a baby,' said the third. 'Poor little scrap, I doubt she'll survive the winter.'

  I scowled at her, which was a mistake.

  'Oh dear, look at that expression! She's a surly little thing. No, no, my one's smiling prettily,' said the second lady, fumbling in her purse. 'Here, my dear, a little treat for you.'

  She put a wrapped sweet beside Sheila's plate. Sheila popped the sweet down the front of her tippet before anyone else could see. Aha! So that was why she'd smiled so.

  I knew how to play this game now. The three ladies trotted further down the dining hall, and their place was taken by a gentleman and a lady, arm in arm.

  'Oh, I do like the little ones,' said the lady.

  I sat up, opened my eyes wide, and smiled.

  'That's a dear little love, the one at the end. Look, she's smiling!'

  'Bless the child, she's taken a shine to us!'

  I grinned and gurned deliberately while they oohed and cooed – but they sauntered off without giving me anything. Sheila saw my face and laughed at me. She patted the tiny bulge in her tippet where her sweet was and licked her lips.

  But then another lady and gentleman came nearer, both so fat that his waistcoat buttons were a-popping and her corsets were strained to bursting point. They were exclaiming over the meagreness of our portions, though this Sunday fare was practically a feast to us.

  'I'm sure the children are half starving!'

  I sucked in my cheeks and looked mournful.

  'See the little one at the end! What a shame, she needs feeding up. Here, my dear, this is for you.' The gentleman pressed a slab of toffee in my hand. I gave him the greatest grin of my life and tucked it into my tippet immediately, with a triumphant little nod at Sheila.

  Dear Ida came back with a second course for us, a milk pudding with a splash of red jam. Ida served out the pudding and the preserve, so I got a whole spoonful of raspberry jam. My spirits lifted considerably. I hoped Gideon was faring equally well in the boys' dining room. Ladies often made a pet of him so I thought he might get singled out and given sweetmeats.

  I collected four more boiled sweets myself, so that I was growing quite a chest under my tippet. I planned to eat my feast in bed, but as soon as we got outside after our Sunday meal, the big girls pounced on us little ones.

  'Come on, give us your sweets, fair dos!' they said, feeling up our cuffs and down our tippets, practically turning us upside down and shaking us in their search for our sweets.

  One girl snatched my precious slab of toffee, another gathered up my boiled sweets. I cried and tried to fight them off but there were too many of them.

  'Poor little Hetty! Leave her alone, she's my baby!' Harriet shrieked, rushing to my rescue.

  She managed to save one last sweet, a barley sugar. 'There you are, my pet. Eat it up quickly before someone grabs it. Shame on you, girls, descending on the babes like a swarm of locusts!'

  She swept me off with her. I cuddled up close and sucked my barley sugar while she petted me.

  I learned to be more wily the next Sunday, stowing my sweets under my cap. They made my shorn hair a little sticky but I didn't care. It had a good scrubbing on bath night. Meanwhile sucking my sweets helped the long nights seem less lonely.

  I dreamed of home when I eventually fell asleep. It was so sad to wake and find myself imprisoned in the bleak hospital dormitory. I wondered how they were managing at home without me – especially Jem. I knew he would be fretting, frantic to know if I was all right. It gave me an added incentive in my writing class with Miss Newman. As soon as we could master our pens sufficiently, we were allowed to write home.

  It was a long letter and it made my hand ache terribly. Miss Newman wrote it on a board and we copied it out laboriously:

  Dear Mother

  I now have the greatest pleasure in writing these few lines to you, hoping to find you quite well and happy, as it leaves me at present. Please give my love to all the family.

  I remain

  Your affectionate girl

  Hetty

  We were told to copy it exactly, neither adding nor deleting anything. Older girls who were fluent enough occasionally tried to add a few more personal lines, but Miss Newman had to approve them before they could be sent.

  I was exhausted by the time I reached 'affectionate' and didn't concentrate hard enough. If I didn't insert enough fs and ts, or got my i and o the wrong way round, Miss Newman put a line through it and I had to start all over again. I longed to add my own personal message:

  I detest it here and I miss you so and Sheila is mean and I hate Matron Peters and she stole my rag baby and I don't wear drawers nowadays.

  However, I'd seen other girls have their letters confiscated if they so much as commented on the monotonous food or complained about being stared at on Sundays. I simply inserted two words after Please give my love to all the family – especially Jem.

  After I'd signed my name, I filled the rest of the page with kisses.

  Now that I could write, more or less, I tried hard to copy some of my picturings down on paper so that my stories were preserved. It was very hard to find any paper. I dared to steal a sheet from Miss Newman's special supply in the stationery cupboard, but it was mostly kept under lock and key. Harriet once obligingly tore a couple of pages from her exercise book, but my steadiest supplier was dear Ida. She slipped me paper bags and greaseproof paper from the kitchen. I stuffed them down my tippet and went around crackling all day until I could hide them in my mattress.

  It was hard to find a place to write privately. Sometimes I sat up in the middle of the night and scribbled in the dark with a stolen stick of charcoal, though in the morning I saw my lines of writing wobbled up and down and sometimes crossed right over each other.

  It wasn't enough to write my stories. I wanted to read new stories too. I had the Bible, and some of the stories were exciting, but the words were very hard to decipher. Miss Winterson lent me her book of fairy tales, and I read them over and over again. I went to the ball with Cinderella in my glass slippers, I let down my long hair like Rapunzel, I swam in and out of underwater coral palaces with the little mermaid.

  Ida spotted me reading on my lap during dinner time. 'Watch out or one of them nurses will be after you, Hetty,' she hissed.

  'I just love reading, Ida. I don't know what I shall do when I have to give the fairy-tale book back to Miss Winterson.'

  She chewed her lip. 'I'll see if I can find you some stories, Hetty. It's a wonder a tiny girl like you can read so well. You need encouragement.'

  'What's that you're saying?' Matron Pigface came waddling up, snout quivering.

  I quickly sat on my book, not wanting to get Nurse Winterson into trouble for lending it to me. I thought Ida would mumble something and move on, but she stood her ground.

  'I said she needs encouraging, Matron,' she said.

  'And why's that, pray? Matron Pigface enquired.

  'Because she's clever,' said Ida.

  'Clever as a cartload of monkeys, I'll grant you that,' said Matron. 'She needs watching all the time, that one. She doesn't need encouraging, she needs suppressing.'

  Ida still didn't give up. 'She learns so fast. I think she could become a real scholar.'

  Matron Pigface snorted with laughter. 'A foundling? Don't be ridiculous, girl. She'll be a servant, like all the others. That's all she's fit for and do
n't ever think otherwise. Now get back to the kitchen and stop wasting time! You're here to serve the food, not give your impertinent opinions. And don't let me see you favouring Hetty Feather or I shall make sure you lose your position.'

  Ida swallowed. 'Beg pardon, Matron,' she said, and scurried off.

  I sat uncomfortably atop the book of fairy tales, fearing that I'd got Ida into serious trouble.

  Ida didn't serve my table at supper. She stayed up at the end where the big girls sat. Matron Pigface bustled past me. She said nothing, but the look on her face said it all. There! You've lost your friend now. You've been put in your place, Hetty Feather. I'm mistress here.

  But the next morning at breakfast Ida hovered at my table. I looked round anxiously for Matron Pigface but couldn't see her.

  'It's her day off,' Ida whispered. 'I wish she'd stay off for ever. I can't abide her.'

  'I call her Pigface,' I said.

  'Well, you're very bad,' said Ida, but she grinned. 'Here, Hetty, shove this down your tippet.' She pulled a paper out from under her apron. 'It's Cook's, her special Police Gazette. She's read it now. She says there's lots and lots of stories in it.'

  'Oh, Ida, thank you!'

  I don't think Ida was a keen reader herself. She can't have read the Gazette stories or she wouldn't have passed them on to me. They weren't remotely suitable for small girls: tales of grisly murders and violent passion. I read them in a rush of excitement, my eyes popping.

  I became a remarkably fast reader because it was so hard to find a private place where I could read in secret. I had to hide in cupboards and crannies and lurk at the back of buildings, with maybe five minutes to read in peace before the wretched bell started ringing. My eyes flew down each page. It was as if I had a minute to eat a whole meal. I bolted down each story in a great undigested lump – and it frequently kept me awake half the night.

  When the matron put the light out and the whispering started, I stoppered my ears with my fingers and told myself the stories inside my head, but the other girls would not leave me alone. Sheila was especially tormenting, continually making reference to my red hair and temper.

  'Oh, sew your lips up with a darning needle!' I responded. 'You'd better mind I don't lose my temper like mad Flora Jackson. She was a maid in a big house in the country and her mistress scolded her all the time, so one dark night Flora took leave of her senses and seized a ball of string and the sharpest carving knife in the kitchen. She trussed up her nagging mistress in her nightclothes and cut off her tongue, so she could not scold her any more. So be warned, Sheila Mayhew. I know where the knives are kept in the kitchen!'

  There were stifled shrieks up and down the dormitory.

  'How silly you are, Hetty. You certainly don't frighten me,' and Sheila – but her voice was high and squeaky and she certainly sounded frightened.

  'What happened to Flora's mistress, Hetty? Did she die?'

  'Oh no, she was left with her poor tongue cut in half so she couldn't speak any more – she just gurgled, oogle-oogle-oogle!'

  'Ooooh!' the girls shrieked, so loudly that Matron Pigface came stomping back to give us all a severe scolding.

  'Matron Peters had better watch out too,' I murmured darkly when she'd gone at last.

  The next night the girls all begged for more stories of mad Flora and her mistress, and I recited the whole story again: there had been three whole pages devoted to this grisly tale in the Police Gazette. The next night I told them a new story, the night after that another, and when I had used up all the Police Gazette horror tales, I found it easy enough to make up my own.

  Everyone begged for more, even Sheila and Monica, though half the girls woke up shrieking with terrible nightmares. Several took to wetting their beds and suffered horrible public humiliation, trailing their smelly wet sheets behind them – but these were the very girls who cried, 'Tell us a story, Hetty, a really bloody one,' the moment the lights went out.

  I carried on like Scheherazade (Nurse Winnie was reading us Tales of the Arabian Nights during our darning sessions now), but one night I woke up to hear desperate sobbing coming from the bed opposite.

  I was used to hearing the other girls cry – I sometimes cried myself – but this was different. I climbed out of bed and pattered over. It was the new girl, Polly. I seemed to have frightened her into fits.

  I wasn't the new girl any more. There had been three new girls since me – Jane, Matilda and Maria – and each time my heart beat faster in the hope I might make a new friend. I tried to be kind and reassuring, I guided them to the privies, the dining hall, the classroom and the playground. I protected them when Sheila and Monica and the others starting their teasing, I helped them learn their letters, I even showed them how to darn, though I still found it a struggle myself.

  But somehow my attempts didn't work. Jane was a dull, dull, dull girl who stared blankly with her mouth open when I tried to get her to picture things. She was shocked by my night-time stories.

  'You're a very bad girl, Hetty Feather, telling about them things,' she declared, and would have nothing to do with me.

  Matilda was more fun and I liked her big brown eyes and ready smile. She was a little slow at picturing herself, but marvelled when I turned the grey wastes of the playground into the hot sandy desert or the salty ocean as we played explorers or pirates. She begged for more when I told her my gory Gazette stories. Oh, Matilda seemed a perfect friend, and for a week or two I was actually happy at the hospital – but then Maria came.

  Her bed was beside Matilda's and she sat next to her in class, so Matilda looked after her a little, which I thought only kind and fair, but soon Matilda and Maria were going round arm in arm, whispering secrets. They were friends now and I was the girl who was allowed to trail round after them on sufferance.

  I resolved to give up my search for a friend. It was too painful. I made up my own companions in my head and we got along well enough. My imaginary friends all adored me, and begged to link their shadowy arms through mine, and listened spellbound while I told them stories.

  Polly had appeared at midday, a plump girl with watery blue eyes. She had arrived with long white- blonde hair to her waist, but after a session with Matron Pigface and her dreaded scissors, she now looked like a dandelion puffball under her cap. She cried on and off in a dreary way throughout the day, but none of us took much notice. It was standard new-girl behaviour. She made not a peep of protest when I told my stories in the darkness of the dormitory. When we were settling down to sleep, I did call out, 'Goodnight, Polly,' but she did not reply, so I thought she must be sleeping already.

  She was clearly not asleep now, though she still didn't answer when I whispered her name. She tried to lie still, her face in her pillow, but she could not stop sobbing.

  'Don't cry so,' I said softly, patting her heaving shoulder. 'I know it's horrid here, but you will get used to it.'

  Polly went on sobbing.

  'I'm so sorry I told the story. I did not mean to frighten you so. I won't ever tell about the Meat-axe Murderer again, I promise. And he's all locked up in prison, so he can't hurt you.'

  'It's not the Meat-axe Murderer man,' Polly sobbed. 'I want to go home.'

  I sighed. 'So do I,' I said. The longing for Jem and Mother and everyone overwhelmed me again. I bit my lip hard to stop myself crying too. 'Oh, Polly, so do I.'

  I reached out to pat her shoulder. She jumped at my touch.

  'What is it? I didn't hurt you!'

  'You're so cold.'

  'It is cold. Here. Move up.' I burrowed under her covers, getting right into bed with her. 'Oh, your pillow's soaking wet! You must have been crying for hours.'

  I moved her head and turned the pillow over. 'There, that's better, isn't it?'

  She put her hands up over her head. 'I look so ugly now,' she wept.

  'It does look a little strange, but it will grow soon. I quite like mine now. I look like a boy.'

  'I don't want to look like a boy!' Polly sobbed. br />
  'Oh, I do. They have much more fun. I have a wonderful big brother, Jem. He is going to come and fetch me home when I am old enough, and I have another even bigger brother, Nat. I have two more brothers here, in the boys' wing, and a sister, Martha, who sings in the choir very beautifully. I was very worried about my brother Gideon, so I dressed up in boys' clothes and went and found him, and I shall go again soon to check on him. I have another brother, Saul, but I don't think much of him at all. Don't you have brothers? I have yet another brother who's a soldier – his name is—'

  And then I was stuck. I held myself rigid, hands over my mouth. I couldn't remember! I was forgetting my family already. I had never known this big brother, but we had talked of him often. Mother had always sighed when she said his name and kept his letters tied up with blue ribbon.

  I started trying to say each member of the family, mumbling their names under my breath.

  'Are you praying, Hetty?' Polly asked.

  'Marcus! Oh, I have remembered!' I said, hugging Polly hard in my relief. 'I must never ever forget them. I shall say them over and over again each night. You must remember all your brothers and sisters, Polly.'

  'I have none,' she said. 'My foster mother is Miss Morrison, who used to keep the school, Miss Morrison's Seminary for Young Ladies. She took a fancy to bringing up a foundling babe when she retired. She is my foster mother and I miss her sooooo.' Polly started wailing again. 'Every night I sat on my bed with its lovely rose quilt and she brushed my hair one hundred times.' She clasped her shorn head despairingly. 'There's nothing left to brush now!'

  'We will picture it together,' I said. I started running my fingers through her sad, feathery tufts. 'There, this is the brush, and your hair is growing again, feel, growing and growing, it's past your ears now. I'll keep brushing, my goodness, how it's growing! There, feel it resting on your shoulders now?'

  I felt Polly put her hands up in the dark and I braced myself, thinking she was going to be another Jane. But no, she felt the thin air and then whispered, 'Oh, it's back, and so long, and this time it's curly.'