‘You might fool the rest of ’em, the poor blind mares, but you can’t pull the wool over my eyes. You’re nothin’, you came from nothin’ an’ you’ll return to it. Gutter scum, plain an’ simple.’
‘How dare you.’
‘An’ one day you’ll suffer for what you’ve done to this bairn an’ others like her; God’s arm is long an’ He won’t be mocked.’
‘Get out, get out.’
‘Aye, I’m goin’, an’ I want that doctor afore dark.’
The doctor arrived just before tea time and when Maggie saw him walk into the infirmary she knew God was on her side. In spite of her brave words earlier she had been sitting worrying about Dr March; she needed medical verification to take the matter further and the Home’s doctor was an old ally of Matron, as well as being a nasty bit of work in his own right. But the tall young man who strode ahead of Matron didn’t look the sort to be bought off.
He wasn’t.
‘Where’s Dr March?’
Maggie had risen at the doctor’s approach and now he glanced at her briefly as he said, ‘Sick. Is this the young lady who has fallen? Sarah, isn’t it?’
It was a cultured voice, definitely not of Sunderland origin and in strict contrast to Dr March’s broad twang.
‘Fallen?’ Maggie’s tone was high. ‘Is that what she’s told you?’
‘Are you saying this young lady hasn’t fallen off a wall into broken glass and brambles?’
‘Doctor, please, I’ve told you what occurred.’ Matron was at her most regal, but Maggie was pleased to note it was water off a duck’s back as far as the young doctor was concerned.
‘Well?’ He didn’t acknowledge the woman behind him had spoken by so much as the flicker of an eyelash as he held Maggie’s gaze.
‘Judge for yourself, lad.’ Maggie whipped back the worn, coarse cotton sheet, which was all Sarah could bear on her seared tortured flesh, to reveal the thin little body criss-crossed with lines, some blue-black and others red and stiff with dried blood. ‘I’ve not seen a thorn bush in me life as could do that.’
‘Neither have I, Mrs -?’
‘McLevy, Maggie McLevy.’ She had heard his sudden intake of breath when the cover was thrown back, and seen the tightening of his mouth, but now he pulled the sheet back into place and his voice was gentle when he said, ‘How did this happen, Sarah? Can you tell me?’
The pain in her body had been bearable since Mother McLevy had given her half a teaspoonful of the medicine she kept for when her rheumatism was bad - the laudanum, tincture of opium, had been a heavy dose for a child - but now she found her mind was muzzy when she tried to answer the doctor. ‘She . . . she beat me.’
‘Who beat you, Sarah?’ The voice was still gentle but when Sarah heard the Matron speak from behind the big figure bending over her, the tone was razor sharp as it said, ‘Quiet, woman.’
‘Quiet, woman.’ He’d said ‘quiet, woman’ to the Matron? Sarah forced her eyes wide open now and tried to focus on the male face close to hers.
‘Don’t be frightened, no one is going to hurt you.’ The incongruity of the statement, considering the flagellation the child had endured, and which his mind was still struggling to accept, made his voice terse when he added, ‘Never again anyway. You can speak freely, Sarah, and you have my word that whoever did this will be punished.’
The word ‘punished’, when linked with the Matron, had always had the power to make her feel sick in the past, but now she found that that particular demon had been scourged along with her flesh, and no longer had the mastery over her. ‘I didn’t want . . .’
‘Yes?’ It was soft and encouraging.
‘I didn’t want to take me drawers down.’
‘You didn’t want . . . ?’
‘To take me drawers down, to be caned. It - it’s not proper, but Matron said I’d got to and I didn’t want to.’
Her voice was thick, the words faint but perfectly distinguishable, and as Maggie’s eyes met those of the doctor over Sarah’s head, he shut his for one infinitesimal moment, red-hot anger flooding his body. What the hell had been going on here? This was 1937, not the dark ages. He’d thought this sort of thing had gone out along with forcing children up chimneys to be burnt alive and other such barbaric niceties the Victorian era had perpetuated.
‘No one is going to make you do anything you don’t want to do again, Sarah.’ Twice, during his exchange with the child, the figure behind him had begun to speak and twice he had brought his hand out in a cutting gesture behind him. ‘Has she had any medication?’ He spoke directly to Maggie now and she answered him without prevarication.
‘Some of me laudanum, she needed it.’
‘She really needs to go into hospital.’
‘I don’t want to.’
Both pairs of eyes returned to the mound under the sheet, and the doctor’s voice was gentle again when he said, ‘Hospital is the best place for you, Sarah, and you’ll be well looked after.’
‘I don’t want to leave the Mother.’
‘Now, Sarah, lass. You listen to the doctor—’
‘I don’t want to go, Mother McLevy.’ Sarah cut across her friend’s voice, her own high with apprehension. ‘And you said’ - the deep blue eyes in the white little face fastened on the doctor now - ‘you said no one was going to make me do anything I didn’t want to do, didn’t you?’
If the situation had been different Maggie could have laughed at the look on the young doctor’s face. As it was, she put out her hand and touched his sleeve as she said, ‘I can nurse her. I’ve had some practice in me life afore now an’ I know what to do. She’ll be better here, with me - less upset like.’
‘And you can make sure she isn’t bothered in any way?’
His meaning was clear, and Maggie nodded grimly as she said, ‘Oh I can promise you that, Doctor. Indeed I can.’
‘Yes, I think you probably can.’ His smile was brief, but it left Maggie thinking that she bet he’d caused quite a stir among the female populace of Sunderland high society. ‘I’ll help you dress the wounds now. The bandages will need changing twice a day and the salve that I give you will stain the bedding but use plenty of it, it will help prevent scarring. There’s a nasty lesion on her neck, watch that, and no more of the laudanum please. I’ll give you a sedative which will dull the pain and keep her quiet for the next forty-eight hours, after that it won’t be so painful. I’ll call by tomorrow to see how things are.’
‘Thank you, Doctor.’
He turned now, very deliberately, and faced the tall figure behind him over whom he towered by at least six inches. ‘I shall make a full report to the governors on the state of this child, you understand that, Matron? And also to the authorities, with a recommendation that a thorough investigation is carried out.’
‘What are you suggesting?’ But she was frightened. This young upstart wasn’t like Dr March. Dr March she could handle; they understood each other, and the considerable amount of whisky he poured down his throat in her sitting room after each visit oiled any wheels that needed oiling. But this one . . .
‘Suggesting? I am not suggesting anything, Matron, I am telling you that I intend to make a formal complaint to the governors about what I have seen here today, and also to contact the child welfare authority so that my observations do not get . . . mislaid.’
‘They won’t let you. The governors won’t let you do that.’
‘The board will have no say in the matter one way or the other, and incidentally’ - there was a telling pause, and he narrowed his eyes at her before he said, ‘I think you should know Dr March’s illness is of a nature that will make it impossible for him to return to work in the foreseeable future. Now would you please leave. I intend to treat this child’s injuries.’
‘I shall need to speak with you when you have finished here.’
‘I have nothing further to say to you, Matron.’ His lip curled on the last word, his voice deepening and betraying the anger which he was s
truggling to keep under control.
‘There are things I need to make clear—’
‘If I have my way you will never be in charge of young lives again, is that clear enough for you? Now get out.’
When she made no effort to move, he took hold of one arm, manhandling her to the door where she jerked free, her face turkey red and her eyes hot as she hissed, ‘Let go of me - who do you think you are? I’ve been Matron here for twenty years—’ ‘Twenty years too long.’ He glared back at her, his hostility matching hers before he bundled her out of the door and slammed it shut on her furious voice. ‘Now then.’ Maggie watched his back straighten and his shoulders flex before he turned to face the room. ‘Let’s make you a little more comfortable, shall we, Sarah?’
Maggie and the doctor were both sweating by the time they had finished; not with the heat, although the day was a warm one for late September and the long narrow room with its row of iron beds had little ventilation, but with the distress Sarah’s pain caused them.
Rodney Mallard was glad he had sent the Matron out of his way before he had begun ministering to the girl. He would likely have strangled her with his bare hands if she had remained. How someone could do this to a child was beyond him. Maggie said much the same thing as she drew the sheet back over Sarah’s body and walked across to the far side of the room, where he was washing his hands in the tin dish that served as a washbasin, a chipped enamel jug standing beside it.
‘Past belief, eh, Doctor?’ She gestured at the occupant of the bed. ‘But I can tell you I was right glad when I saw you walk into this room. I’d have had a fight on me hands with old Dr March. He’s turned a blind eye that often he’ll be needin’ a white stick.’
‘This sort of thing is usual?’
‘I wouldn’t say usual exactly, or at least . . . not as bad as this any road, but she lays into ’em regular, an’ not with her hand.’
‘Not any more she won’t.’ He stared at her for a moment and she stared back. ‘She’ll be out of here within twenty-four hours, you have my word on that. You’ll stay with the child until then?’
‘I said, didn’t I.’ Maggie bristled slightly and the glimmer of a smile touched his face before he said soothingly, ‘Of course, I’m sorry.’
‘You can be sure I’ll look after her, Doctor.’ She was immediately ashamed of her testiness, but it had been a day and a half and with her feeling under the weather too. ‘I’ll sleep with one eye open an’ all.’
‘That wouldn’t be a bad idea, Mrs McLevy.’
They walked over to Sarah’s bed together and stood looking down on the small girl, who seemed very young and very fragile to Rodney. She was fast asleep, a result of the strong sedative Rodney had given some twenty minutes earlier, her long eyelashes lying on cheeks that resembled white marble.
‘She’ll be all right? I mean once the pain lets up a bit?’
‘Physically.’ He continued looking down at the bed. ‘But mentally . . . What does this sort of thing do to a young mind?’
‘There’s worse things than a beatin’, Doctor, an’ they happen to girls as young as Sarah, especially ones lookin’ like she does.’ Maggie’s voice was flat and low.
‘Yes, I suppose you’re right.’ He turned to her now and his voice was as flat as hers as he said, ‘You think me very naive, don’t you?’
‘Naive?’ She felt embarrassed and that didn’t happen often. ‘Not exactly naive, Doctor, more . . .’ - what was the word? Maggie searched her limited vocabulary and found it - ‘more idealistic. You’ve been brought up as a young gentleman, an’ I’ve nothin’ agen that, heaven forbid, but it’s different for the likes of Sarah. I’m not sayin’ there’s not decent folks among the workin’ class either’ - her tone was suddenly defensive - ‘but it’s the same in every place, I suppose; it’s the bairns what suffer.’
‘Why is she here? Has she any family?’
‘Not as I know of. She was abandoned, left as a baby.’
‘I see.’ He glanced round the cheerless room. ‘So she has lived in the institution all her life?’
Maggie nodded slowly. ‘But like I said, Doctor, there’s worse places for a bairn lookin’ like she does. Here she’s clothed an’ fed an’ she has a bed to sleep in at night. When I was a bairn, it was a flea-infested flock mattress on the floor, an’ that shared atween four of us, top an’ tailed. Me mam worked from dawn to dusk an’ still there was never enough to eat, an’ me da drank his wage most weeks afore me mam could get her hands on it. When he was in work, that is.’
‘But you were together, as a family.’
She looked at him pityingly. He was idealistic all right, and the poor blighter was going to have a rough time of it, because one thing was for sure, if he was working with old Dr March he was going to have his eyes opened with a vengeance. Why hadn’t he got something in the better part of town, where all the nobs were? But the lad had a good heart. The thought mellowed her and her voice was quiet when she said, ‘Aye, lad, that we were,’ and left it at that.
Chapter Three
It was the middle of the night when Sarah awoke from her drug-induced sleep, and she was immediately aware that she hurt, everywhere; and then remembrance came, hot and sharp, causing her to cry out, ‘Mother McLevy?’
‘It’s all right, me bairn, it’s all right.’
Maggie lumbered off the next bed as quickly as her bulk, and the dose of laudanum she had taken earlier, would allow, and bent over the small girl who had raised herself slightly on her elbows. ‘You settle back down, there’s a good lass. I’ll give you somethin’ to help you sleep, eh?’
‘Where . . . where is he?’
‘Who, hinny?’
‘The doctor with the smiley voice,’ Sarah said weakly.
‘Dr Mallard? You mean Dr Mallard, he’s replacin’ old March an’ not afore time—’
‘Where is he?’ There was a fretful note in Sarah’s voice now and Maggie’s hand came to the child’s brow which she found to be over-warm.
‘He’s gone, but don’t fret yourself, he’ll be back in the mornin’. Now, you have a dose of this an’ it’ll make you feel better.’
‘I don’t want it.’
‘Dr Mallard said for you to have it.’ Maggie was nothing if not crafty, and when Sarah took the bitter-tasting mixture without further remonstration she added, ‘There’s a good lassie. The doctor’ll be pleased with you when he comes, now won’t he, takin’ all your medicine.’
‘Where’s . . . where’s Matron?’
Maggie followed Sarah’s train of thought and said, matter-of-factly and without expression, ‘The doctor said for her to keep away, don’t you remember? An’ I’m stayin’ with you till you’re better, all right?’ She didn’t add the doctor had said he would make it his business to see Matron was dealt with. Somehow she couldn’t quite believe herself he would win that particular battle.
‘My mam didn’t want me, did she.’ It was a statement, not a question, and followed with, ‘I hate her.’
‘Now, now, hinny.’
‘I do.’ The beautiful picture she had drawn in her mind was gone, torn away with each lash of the cane, and it was this more than anything else that was causing the grinding pain inside her head. Now there was nothing except real life, and the awareness was almost too much to bear.
With a wisdom born of her roots, Maggie didn’t try to shift the conversation to more comfortable ground or offer platitudes. The doctor had been right, it wasn’t Sarah’s physical state that was at risk, so now she said, ‘You don’t know your mam didn’t want you, hinny, just that she couldn’t keep you an’ that’s quite different. There were times when I was near givin’ away my William after his da had died, an’ that for his sake, not mine, I might add. Your mam probably thought she was doin’ right by you.’
‘You didn’t give him away though, did you?’
‘No, lass, I didn’t, but he might be alive now if I had, ’stead of which the fever took him when he was barely seven year
s old.’
‘I wish my mam had kept me and I’d died,’ Sarah said dully, her tongue feeling too big for her mouth. ‘I do.’
‘Lass, all things pass.’ Maggie sat herself down on the edge of the narrow iron bed, and carefully drew Sarah against her copious bosom, rocking her gently as they both became quiet. She continued long after she knew the child was asleep, her chin sunk into the folds of her neck and her eyes wide open.
What would become of this fierce little individual whom she loved like her own? It was a thought that had come more and more often of late, along with a sense of unease only the dulling effects of the laudanum could ease.
Sarah was too bright, too beautiful. She didn’t fit into the mould the world demanded of its working class, and it was this very thing that had grated on Florrie from the moment she set eyes on the lass. The world could be unforgiving, oh aye, it could that, and not just with the likes of Sarah either. Look at the poor King, or Duke of Windsor as he was called now. All he’d wanted to do was to marry the woman he loved, and he’d lost his crown because of it. What had she read he’d said when he married his beloved Wallis Simpson in June? Oh yes, she’d got it now - ‘After the trying times we have been through we now look forward to a happy and useful private life.’ Well, stepping out of the mould could be got round when you were the King of England, and no doubt his life, and his wife’s, would still be well oiled.
Alone Beneath The Heaven Page 4