The Orphans of Bell Lane

by Ruthie Lewis

  *

  Life at Bell Lane settled into a routine that Grace did not find unpleasant. George had clearly learned his lesson; he brought his pay home each Friday and counted it into her hand, and there was never a penny missing. His gratitude to her for lifting the burden of financial management from his shoulders was plain to see. And once she had control of their finances, she found that with George’s wages and her own small savings they could comfortably get by.

  She woke each morning early, lit the fire in the kitchen stove and made breakfast for the children and George before he went off to work. Most mornings she went to the market, sometimes taking the children with her; when the weather was bad she left them at home, and kindly Mrs Berton kept an eye on them. In the afternoons, she gathered the children in the parlour and gave them lessons, teaching the twins to read and setting Albert to doing sums.

  Mrs Berton noticed this. ‘I don’t suppose you could teach my daughter?’ she asked. ‘Rebecca is twelve, and I’ve taught her a little, but I don’t have much lettering myself.’

  ‘I would be delighted,’ said Grace. ‘It would help to repay the many kindnesses you have done for the family.’

  Word began to spread. Another neighbour, Brigit Doyle, had a brood of three, two young children and a boy called Billy, close to Albert’s age. The two lads were friendly, and Billy began joining in the lessons.

  In the market one day she saw a thin little girl, barefoot in a ragged dress, selling matches. On impulse she stopped and bought some. ‘What is your name, child?’

  The girl curtseyed. ‘Lettice, ma’am.’

  ‘Where do you live, Lettice?’

  ‘In Jamaica Road, ma’am. In a loft above a stable.’

  ‘In a loft . . . Do you not have a home?’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘Do you go to school?’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘Would you like to? I can teach you to read and write and do arithmetic, and then maybe one day you could get a job and you wouldn’t have to sell matches anymore. Would you like that?’

  The girl looked up at her, innocence beneath the layer of grime on her face and hope in her dark eyes. ‘I’d like that very much, ma’am.’

  ‘I live in Bell Lane,’ said Grace, not entirely sure what she was doing or why she was doing it. ‘The fourth house on the left. Come this afternoon and we will begin.’

  She was not at all sure Lettice would come, and indeed they had been at their lessons for half an hour before there came a timid knock at the door. Grace opened it to find Lettice along with two boys, aged about eight and ten, barefoot like her and in ragged trousers with the knees worn through.

  ‘These are Gabriel and Isaac,’ said Lettice. ‘They lost their parents too. They live in a shed in Cherry Gardens. May they come too?’

  Grace smiled at them. ‘You are all welcome,’ she said.

  *

  ‘Honestly,’ she said to George that evening, ‘I don’t know what came over me. I just saw them, and had to help them.’

  George smiled. ‘And you say I’m a soft touch. You can’t walk past any waif or orphan without wanting to help.’

  ‘I suppose that is true,’ Grace admitted. ‘But every time I see a child like this, I think of the workhouse. I don’t want any child to have to endure that. I do want to help them, George, and teaching them is the only thing I can think of to do. It’s all I know.’

  ‘You talked once about starting your own school,’ George said.

  ‘I have thought of it, but I don’t have the money.’

  ‘Maybe the church would help,’ George suggested. ‘You could talk to Reverend Hobbes, the rector at All Saints.’

  Grace agreed, though she had not been favourably impressed by Reverend Hobbes when arranging her sister’s funeral. Nevertheless she called next morning at the rectory and a maidservant showed her into a parlour where the vicar and his wife – Mrs Rev’rend, as Harry had called her – sat drinking coffee. Mrs Hobbes had a lined, wrinkled face and a very short neck, and she reminded Grace of a turtle poking its head out of its shell. Another woman was with them, a tall, plainly dressed woman with a severe face. She and Mrs Hobbes both looked as if they disapproved of just about everything.

  ‘Miss Perrow,’ said the vicar. ‘Yes, I remember you, of course. How may I be of service?’

  ‘I wish to start a free school here in the parish,’ said Grace. ‘I am an experienced teacher, having taught for several years at the Clare School, and I would like to give lessons to the poor children of the district. I feel it important that they receive an education to give them a chance to better themselves in life—’

  ‘Better themselves?’ interrupted Mrs Hobbes, looking more like a turtle than ever. ‘What is the use of that?’

  Grace blinked. ‘Even the poorest child has hopes and dreams, ma’am, but lack of education is holding them back. I want to remedy that. I understand the Church of England often supports free schools. Is there any chance that the parish would assist me now?’

  ‘ “Even the poorest child has hopes and dreams?” ’ repeated Mrs Hobbes, incredulous. She looked at the other woman. ‘My dear Mrs Lane, did you hear? What an utterly absurd notion.’

  ‘There is no harm in education,’ said Mrs Lane, looking more dour than ever.

  ‘No harm in education?’ said the rector. ‘My dear Mrs Lane, you mean well, but I fear you are much mistaken. Education, in the wrong hands, is the very work of the devil. You might as well put poison in the hands of a child. There is no knowing what mischief they will get up to, wittingly or not. By educating the poor you are playing into the hands of those agents of Satan, the communists and anarchists and trades unionists and Methodists, all those wretches who are determined to pull the house down around our ears and reduce civil society to ashes. No, Mrs Lane; the ignorance of the poor is the only thing that stands between us and anarchy. The poor must be kept in their place.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Grace, ‘I am shocked to hear you speak so.’

  ‘Oh, she is shocked!’ declared Mrs Hobbes. ‘Goodness, Mrs Lane! Do you suppose she herself is one of these agitators? Come to preach about communism, or votes for women, or some such pernicious nonsense? Perhaps that is what she plans to teach at her school.’

  ‘My aim is only to teach them to read and write, ma’am, but I can see that we shall not agree. I will detain you no further,’ said Grace, and she curtseyed and marched out, fuming.

  *

  She was still seething when she returned home. Over lunch George tried to calm her.

  ‘Don’t fret, lass. He’s not going to help you, so you’ll have to go somewhere else.’

  ‘That’s not the point, George. He talks about keeping the poor ignorant, when he is one of the most ignorant men I know.’

  By the time lessons began that afternoon she was calm once more and absorbed in the task of teaching the children. They had been working for perhaps an hour when someone knocked at the door. Frowning, Grace moved to answer it.

  A boy stood in the street, looking at her. He was about ten, she reckoned, ragged and thin. His clothes were dirty, but his face and hands were clean. ‘Pardon me, ma’am,’ he said shyly. ‘But are you the lady that is giving lessons?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Grace. ‘I am Miss Perrow. What is your name?’

  ‘Jimmy, ma’am, Jimmy Wilson.’

  ‘And why have you come, Jimmy?’

  ‘Begging your pardon, ma’am,’ said Jimmy nervously. ‘But I really want to learn. I want to read and write and study and do all them things. There’s nothing I want more in the world, ma’am. I don’t want to live in Rotherhithe. I want to go someplace else, but I heard tell that the only way you can get ahead in life is to study. Please teach me, ma’am. I’ll work ever so hard, I promise.’

  There was no mistaking the appeal in the boy’s voice and eyes. Grace smiled. ‘You wish to learn?’ she said. ‘Well, Jimmy, you have come to the right place. Come and join us.’

 
*

  From the moment he walked into the room, Grace was glad she had accepted Jimmy. She had never had a pupil like him. He soaked up knowledge as a sponge soaked up water, and his enthusiasm for his lessons infected the others, even poor Lettice who was often too tired to concentrate properly.

  But she could take no more pupils. Nine children plus herself could barely fit around the coal stove in the little parlour room. If she accepted any more, she would need more space. She was brooding on this on her way through the market one morning, when a sudden commotion interrupted her.

  Up ahead was a butcher’s stall, and out of nowhere a swarm of small figures erupted, climbing onto the stall shrieking like banshees and brandishing knives. To Grace’s astonishment they were all girls, dirty and ragged with tangled hair, and she realised it was the group she had seen in the churchyard a few months ago, only this time there were more of them. Some waved their knives at the butcher and his assistant, who backed away hastily with their hands in the air, while others grabbed joints of meat and strings of sausages off the stall and then ran, haring away down the street. People were shouting, and in the distance Grace heard a police whistle. She stepped behind a wagon to get out of the way, but then came a sudden patter of running bare feet and a girl hurried around the end of the wagon, holding a little boy by one hand and clutching a shin of beef in the other. She had already started chewing on the meat, and there was blood and flecks of raw meat on her lips.

  When she saw Grace she let go of the little boy’s hand and drew a long, rusty but wickedly sharp knife from her belt and pointed it at Grace. Strangely, Grace felt no fear. She met the girl’s eyes calmly, and was reminded suddenly of looking into the eyes of wild animals at the zoo; trapped, haunted, desperate.

  The police whistle sounded again, closer. The girl, judging Grace to be no threat, thrust the knife back through her belt, grabbed the boy again and ran off, disappearing down a muddy lane still carrying the shin of beef. Deeply saddened by what she had seen, Grace turned towards home.

  *

  I knew right away who she was. It was that nosy mort who’d watched us in the churchyard, back in the summer, after we’d nicked a loaf of bread. First meal we’d had in a day, too, and she came along and stared at us like we were animals. I didn’t like that. I don’t have parents or a home, but I’ve got dignity. Ask my knife, if you don’t believe me.

  She looked different this time. Proper square-rigged she’d been back then, dressed like a lady. Now she didn’t look no different from anyone else. Her eyes were the same, though. I remembered them, all dark and serious. I pointed my sticker at her, but she didn’t budge an inch. Just stood there, looking at my little brother and me.

  I could have cut her, but I didn’t see why I should. Apart from staring at me, she hadn’t done me no wrong. So I grabbed Joe’s hand and we legged it. She didn’t follow, and she didn’t send the bluebottles after us, neither. I wondered why.

  But never mind her. That was a good day. We lit a fire out in the fields where no one would follow us, not far from the railway, and we had our beef hot. Proper scran we had, first time in a long time. We filled our bellies, and then went out looking for trouble.

  We found it, too, right where we hoped we would. There was a gang of little dollymops down in Deptford, who called themselves the Alloa Queens. They weren’t queening by the time we’d done with them. Cut two of them, pushed the rest into the Surrey Canal, and sent them home crying to their mummies. They deserved it. They’d cut one of our girls a month back, and we’d been laying for them ever since. Nobody messes with the Angels.

  It was a mild night for the time of year. We went back to Rotherhithe and slept out in the fields, in the open. It wouldn’t be warm for much longer, though. Things aren’t easy when it gets cold. I’d barely got little Joe through last winter. I wondered whether I could do it again.

  Chapter 5

  By coincidence, the vicar’s sermon the following Sunday was based on a text from the Gospel of St Matthew, ‘God blesses those who realise their need for him.’ Yes, thought Grace, listening. The Lord aids those who aid themselves. If the church will not help me found a school, I will help myself.

  She would not need much; desks and benches, chalks and slates, a few more books. She could acquire those. The main thing holding her back was space. She needed a room. Any room would do, anywhere, so long as it was large enough to accommodate twenty or thirty children.

  The following afternoon, once George had returned to work, she went out to explore. The autumn wind sweeping across Rotherhithe was sharp. Watery sunlight struggled to penetrate the clouds of smoke and steam that hung over the docks and factories. The streets were slippery and further south the sunlight glinted off pools of water in the Rother Fields. When the tide was high and the wind was in the east, as it was now, the fields and even the area around the docks often flooded.

  She walked through the old part of Rotherhithe along the riverfront, seeing the masts of schooners and coasters and barges on the river rising through gaps in the brick houses, passing taverns and wash houses and another church, St Mary the Virgin, the sailors’ church and one of the oldest buildings in the parish. Further on was the seaman’s mission and then the warehouses behind Albion Dock. To the south more clouds of smoke rose where the new dock was being dug, and where George was working.

  Every building she passed was occupied, and carpenters and bricklayers were hard at work raising new ones, filling the gaps between existing houses. She looked longingly at these new houses, but knew she could never afford the rent. Retracing her steps, she walked down Lower Road, past the new factories going up on Commercial Road, then back past the engine works and the glue factory to Jamaica Row and along towards the Blue Anchor. Everywhere Grace found the same thing; every building full and new ones going up. She reached the border between Rotherhithe and the neighbouring district of Bermondsey, and wondered if she might have better luck there. Bermondsey was older and less prosperous, with many trades and industries shifting east to Rotherhithe, and the chance of finding an empty warehouse or even a shed was better, but she knew the streets of Bermondsey were even more dangerous than those of Rotherhithe.

  And besides, she told herself, this is a school for Rotherhithe children. I will not have them walking a mile or more to attend lessons. This school should be part of their neighbourhood, as familiar to them as home.

  She turned and walked over the waste ground south of Jamaica Road. At the moment this was open heathland, but soon it too would be covered in factories and houses. The wind began to blow harder, and a grey wall of cloud came sweeping in from the east, blotting out the sun and trailing sheets of rain. Caught in the open, Grace looked around for shelter. The nearest she could see was the railway viaduct, a short distance away. Composed of a series of heavy brick arches, the viaduct lifted the line about twenty feet above ground level.

  Grace just managed to find shelter in one of the arches before the rain began to fall hard. A train thundered and rumbled overhead, steaming away towards Sevenoaks, and she was briefly reminded of her former life. She pushed the thought away and looked around. The brick arches were solid. The ground under her feet was firm earth but dry, even though a hard rain was falling. She saw some lumps of charred wood where someone had made a fire.

  Seal off the arch to keep the weather out, she thought, and light a fire, put in a stove perhaps, and this would become a room more than adequate for her needs. And best of all, it would cost her nothing.

  She stood still for a moment, staring around her as the rain fell outside. Was it possible? Was it simply too wild a notion to think that she could create a school, here, under the arches with the trains thundering past overhead? It was as far from the Clare School or the school in Sevenoaks as was possible to imagine.

  On the other hand, she thought: why not?

  That evening she sought George’s advice when he returned home from work. She had expected George to be sceptical, but he surprised her. S
he knew that he had only a passing interest in education – taking lessons made his children happy and kept them occupied, but he hardly expected them to derive much benefit from it – but the challenge of turning this derelict space into something usable intrigued him.

  ‘You’ll need something to keep the wind out,’ he said. ‘It’ll be perishing cold under them arches, otherwise.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’ asked Grace. ‘I thought first of building a wall and putting in a door, but I am not certain we can afford the bricks and mortar.’

  George shook his head. ‘Sailcloth would do. They sell old sails for a song down at the docks. See, when the sails are worn out and no longer serviceable, they have to dispose of them. They send some of them to the workhouses, to be picked for rags.’

  Grace looked at her fingers, half expecting to see them bleeding again. The workhouse had been a long time ago, but some memories died hard. ‘A lot of the rest just get burned,’ George said. ‘I know one of the chandlers that disposes of them. We’ll get the sheets from him, and Mickey Doyle and I will rig a frame for you.’

  ‘Would Mickey be willing to help?’ Mickey Doyle, Brigit’s husband, was a deal porter, one of the dockers who unloaded timber from the big ships that came in from Canada and Russia.

  ‘Of course. He’s already proud to bursting about all their Bill has learned from you. I’m still worried, Grace. Even with the sailcloth, it’ll still be right cold under that arch.’

  ‘We’ll need a stove,’ Grace said.

  ‘Stoves cost money,’ George pointed out.

  ‘I know . . . But if I can find one, could you and Mr Doyle rig us a flue, to take the smoke away?’

  ‘Nothing easier,’ said George happily. ‘Mickey and me will go over to the arch on Sunday and fit everything out. Just leave it to us.’

  *

  She wrote to Mela, telling her what she had decided to do.

  What do you think? Is this even possible, or have I taken leave of my senses? Our local vicar thinks the latter, and has tried hard to talk me out of it. My dear friend, I need your wise counsel and advice. Reassure me that I am doing the right thing, or if I am completely and hopelessly cracked, talk me out of this venture before I go any further.