‘Miss Denning offered me a lift so I could come and see you with her,’ she said. ‘I hope Granny won’t mind us turning up when it’s nearly tea-time?’
‘She hasn’t started it yet,’ Dulcie said. ‘We were all doing a jigsaw together in the kitchen. Come in there because we haven’t lit the fire in the parlour yet.’
By the time they got into the kitchen, Granny was sitting at the table, her legs tucked away. She greeted both women as if there was nothing unusual about them coming together, then asked if they’d like some tea.
‘I was hoping for a private chat with you, Mrs Taylor,’ Miss Denning said, looking pointedly at the two children. ‘Maybe Dulcie and May could find something to do upstairs for a little while?’
All hope that this was purely a friendly visit vanished then for Dulcie. Grown-ups only got children out of the way when they had something serious to discuss.
‘Go on then, buzz off, you two,’ Maud said in a jocular manner, giving Dulcie a nudge. ‘You can come down in a minute when I call you and make us all some tea.’
‘I don’t want to go upstairs,’ May pouted. ‘It’s cold there, and there’s nothing to do.’
‘We’ll play tents,’ Dulcie said immediately – she didn’t want May to start showing off on top of everything else.
‘You’ve come to take them away, ain’t you?’ Maud said once she could hear the girls in the room above the kitchen.
Susan couldn’t reply, she let Miss Denning tell her. But as she saw Maud’s wrinkled old face crumple and the bleakness in her faded eyes, she knew this old lady had nothing more to live for.
In her many visits to the house Susan had come to see Maud was like a crab, a hard shell on the outside, inside as soft as marshmallow. She wouldn’t cry today, not in front of Miss Denning, she’d bottle that up until after the children were taken, then she’d let it go. She guessed too that Maud was sitting at the table instead of in her usual chair just to hide her legs. Last time Susan had come they were swollen to twice their normal size and she could barely walk, but she’d made light of that just as she made light of the struggle it was to keep the girls’ clothes and the house clean, and to do the cooking and shopping.
Susan knew now that when Reg was arrested, Maud’s pride took a severe tumble. He was the one she could boast about – his craftsmanship, his honesty, sobriety and the fact that he had always looked after her. While she had lost none of her love for Reg, and strongly upheld his innocence to her neighbours, she was dented, and the only way she could keep her head up was by transferring all that fierce pride to his daughters, and caring for them. Without them she would be like a three-legged chair, unable to hold her head up in her community. The girls’ removal would be like signing her death warrant.
‘How soon have they got to go?’ she asked when Miss Denning had finished. She seemed calm and collected – to an outsider it might have been taken as complete acceptance. But Susan knew it was her pride holding her together – everything she felt, the pain, anxiety and the humiliation, would be suppressed for the children’s sake.
‘I thought it would be best to collect them in the morning,’ Miss Denning said. ‘As it’s Saturday they’ll have the whole weekend to settle down before starting at their new school on Monday. But you can visit them there, Mrs Taylor. It’s quite close to Downham station.’
‘I wish they were going to a family,’ was all the old lady said.
Susan took Maud’s hand and held it tightly. ‘I do too, and Miss Denning. But it is only a small convent, and the grounds are lovely.’
Maud seemed to rally herself a little and she straightened up in her chair and tried to smile. ‘You’d better call the girls, Susan, it’s enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey up there.’
Susan felt like Judas as the girls came down the stairs. Whatever was said now by Miss Denning, Dulcie at least was going to believe it was she who had failed them.
It was Susan who put the kettle on after seeing Dulcie back up to her grandmother and slip her arm around her shoulders. She might not know what was coming, but she’d sensed her granny was upset.
May knelt up on a chair and began her jigsaw again, but even she kept taking surreptitious glances at Miss Denning.
‘Well, girls,’ Miss Denning began, her voice rather too loud for such a small room.
‘I’ll tell ‘em,’ Maud said, giving Miss Denning a scathing look.
The Children’s Officer nodded.
Susan found it so very touching how Maud reached out for May and drew her off her chair so she had both girls right in front of her. She put one hand on each of their cheeks and gently stroked them.
‘You gotta go to a new home,’ she said, her voice cracking with emotion. ‘It ain’t ‘cos I don’t want you ‘ere, only that I’m gettin’ too old to mind you. It’ll be better for you anyway, lots of other kids to play with who ain’t ragamuffins. You’ll have proper baths again, and go to a nice school.’
Neither child said anything, just stared at Maud with wide, unwavering eyes.
‘I’ll let Miss Denning tell you the rest,’ Maud said, turning them around so they could face the woman, but she still kept a hand firmly on each of the girls’ shoulders.
‘It’s the Sacred Heart Convent,’ Miss Denning said. ‘You might even have seen it before because it’s close to Chinbrook Meadows, not that far from where you used to live. You’ll be very happy there, it’s got a lovely garden and an orchard. You’ll go out each day to school and you can have visitors on Sundays.’
‘Will Granny come to see us?’ May asked.
“Course I will,’ Maud said quickly. ‘It’s only a little train ride.’
‘Does Daddy want us to go there?’ Dulcie suddenly burst out, looking suspiciously at Miss Denning.
‘Yes, he does,’ Miss Denning replied. ‘He knows you will be safe and well looked after there. So you must be good girls, work hard at school and make him very proud of you.’
‘I don’t mind going there,’ May suddenly said in a cheerful voice. ‘I don’t like it here, the children are so rough and dirty and I hate the outside toilet. It stinks.’
Susan and Miss Denning exchanged glances. While it was good to see that May didn’t appear upset by the news, her remark must have been so hurtful to her grandmother. Neither of them knew what to say.
‘Fair do’s, May,’ Maud said, surprising them both. ‘The kids round ‘ere are rough and dirty. That’s why I want you to go somewhere better. But what about you, Dulcie? Will you be pleased to ‘ave a garden, and go to school with nice kids who don’t pull yer ‘air? No more finding me teeth for me, or going out to the lav in the rain?’
Dulcie wound her arms round the old lady’s neck and buried her face in her shoulder. ‘I want to stay with you,’ she mumbled. ‘You need someone to look after you.’
Maud looked up at Susan, her lips quivering. ‘You’d best go now,’ she said. ‘I’ll ‘ave ‘em ready for the morning.’
Susan didn’t think she’d ever seen such courage. What Dulcie had said was true. Maud did need someone to look after her, and the child had been doing just that ever since she came here. Maud knew it too. She might be relieved of responsibility and hard work, but she was going to be lost without them.
‘My mother made you both a pinafore dress,’ Susan said, opening her bag and getting them out. ‘Why don’t you wear them tomorrow to look really pretty?’
Later that night she was struck by the different way the two girls reacted to those dresses. May was thrilled, she jumped up and down holding it against herself. Dulcie on the other hand politely asked her to thank her mother for them, folded it up neatly, and gave her a look which said she felt she’d been betrayed.
Chapter Five
Dulcie’s first thought as Miss Denning led her and May up the gravel drive to the Sacred Heart was that maybe it wouldn’t be quite as bad as she feared. The big red brick house looked kind of grand with its large windows, pointed eaves and wide steps up
to the big porch. She knew that to see anywhere on a cold winter’s day was to see it at its worst, but the huge trees all around the front garden suggested that it would be pretty in summer, and the other big houses in the tree-lined avenue all looked as if they were the homes of rich people. It certainly didn’t look the kind of place where anything bad could happen.
She hadn’t been able to sleep last night because she felt so afraid, so she left May in bed and crept downstairs. Granny was sitting by the stove drinking cocoa laced with brandy, and she made Dulcie a cup of it too, then took her on her lap to cuddle her.
‘You’re a right little Jonah,’ she said teasingly. ‘Always expecting the worst. People wot do that get it an’ all. Try and be like our May, sweetheart, she always looks on the bright side. She went off to bed ‘appy and excited about the convent, and you can bet yer boots she’ll get in there tomorra with a cheerful grin on ‘er face, and she’ll bowl ‘em all over. But if you goes in there with that long face, lookin’ like you’ve got a stink under yer nose, you ain’t gonna make any friends. Then you will be lonesome.’
‘But I’m so scared,’ Dulcie whispered, snuggling closer to the old lady.
Granny tipped Dulcie’s face up to look at her. ‘Whatcha got to be scared of?’ she asked. ‘There ain’t gonna be no bombs dropping up there, no floods, fires or plagues of the Pharaohs! Just some little old nuns, a bunch of other kids wot ain’t got no one, and you and May will be the prettiest, smartest ones there. I reckon that’ll give you an ‘ead start!’
‘But what if the nuns are nasty to us?’ Dulcie whispered, looking right into her grandmother’s faded blue eyes.
Granny snorted. They’ll have me to reckon with if they are,’ she said fiercely. ‘I’ll be up to visit you, and Susan will an’ all. We ain’t casting you off, love, you’s only goin’ there ‘cos they don’t think it’s nice enough ‘ere. We’ll both still be watchin’ over you.’
Dulcie felt reassured at that and reached out for her cocoa. The brandy made it taste like medicine, so she supposed it would make her feel better.
‘Good girl,’ Granny said approvingly. ‘Now, tomorra you got to put on an ‘appy face, not for me, nor May, or anyone else, just for yerself. ‘Cos that’s a magic trick I learned a long time ago, if you look like you’re ‘appy, you soon get to be.’
Remembering Granny’s words, Dulcie thought it was time she put her advice into practice. She looked up at Miss Denning and smiled. ‘It looks nice,’ she said.
The social worker was caught unawares for a moment by her small charge’s apparent change of heart. Dulcie hadn’t said a word on the drive here from Deptford, but her expression of profound misery had revealed everything she was thinking. In fact Miss Denning shared some of the child’s anxiety for she knew the convent had a rather harsh regime. Yet it was a beautiful place in spring and summer, and Deptford with its squalor and poverty was no place for two gently brought up girls like these two.
The house had been built back in 1880 by a wealthy businessman as a family home, and the extensive grounds which included an orchard, tennis court and a formal rose garden were renowned for their beauty and cared for by a team of gardeners. In the twenties it had been a select preparatory school, and the grounds equally well kept, but when the Church had bought it during the early thirties to turn it into an orphanage, they dispensed with all but one gardener, and as he was unable to keep up the previous standards on his own, he concentrated all his efforts on the front garden to maintain appearances and barely touched the gardens at the back.
Inside the house all signs of its former glory were gone too. While the oak-panelled hall and wide staircase must have been so gracious in the days when the polished wood floors were softened with carpets and lit by a chandelier, now the floors were bare, and the lighting miserly. Rows of iron beds filled the once sumptuously appointed reception rooms, worn cheap cotton curtains had taken the place of the heavy velvets and brocades which once adorned the vast windows. Distemper had replaced hand-printed papers, the only pictures now were of a religious nature, and as the boiler which heated the house was erratic, it was often very cold.
Most of the girls placed here at the age of five had never known a real home, many had been in orphanages since birth, and those who had come later had usually been taken from their mother because of neglect or problems in the family, so few of them had any idea what they had missed out on. Miss Denning knew it wasn’t possible in an all-female environment to simulate an average family home, but she knew the Sisters and wished they would make more of an effort to be kindly, affectionate and sympathetic to their charges.
Yet it was Mr Taylor’s wish his girls should go here, he believed that the cloistered world the Sisters offered, the spiritual guidance and the high standard of education in the school his daughters would attend daily would give them a better chance in life than he’d had. So, hoping he was right, she swallowed her reservations and smiled down at Dulcie.
‘That’s the spirit, Dulcie,’ she said. ‘You will miss your granny of course, but you’ll soon make lots of new friends and I know you are going to like your new school just as well as Lee Manor.’
She ushered them up the three steps to the front door and rang the bell. A few seconds later the door was opened by a fresh-faced nun who appeared quite young.
‘Good morning, Sister Grace,’ Miss Denning said, pleased they should be greeted by the most pleasant and kindly nun in the convent. ‘This is Dulcie and May Taylor, Mother Superior is expecting us.’
The sister gave them a beaming smile, urged them to come in, and said Mother Superior would see them in her sitting-room. After asking Miss Denning to leave the suitcase by the door for the time being, she led the way across the wide wood-panelled hall and knocked at a closed door.
Dulcie’s eyes swivelled around, trying to take everything in all at once. She thought the hall was a bit bare and gloomy, but the life-size statue of the Virgin Mary on the turn of the huge staircase was quite comforting, as was the large picture of Jesus surrounded by children on the wall. The utter silence was daunting, however – she wondered where all the children were.
Mother Superior’s small sitting-room was very warm, though as bare as the hall, furnished only with a battered desk under the window, four fireside chairs and a bookcase. She was disconcertingly old, and the small face encased by the tight white wimple was as wrinkled as a prune. She stayed by the fire, only turning her head to look at them as they came in. Apart from greeting the girls, and telling them to say their names and ages, she then spoke only to Miss Denning, asking what childhood diseases they’d already had, not even asking the girls if they’d like to sit down.
Dulcie glanced nervously at her younger sister as they stood there. May had chattered and giggled all the way from Deptford, she’d even callously said she was glad to be leaving there because Granny’s house smelled funny. But she never could stand being ignored, and Dulcie could see by the way she was sticking out her chin and looking daggers at the two women talking that she was working up for one of her tantrums.
To try to avert this, Dulcie sidled nearer her and took her hand, but instead of the gesture appeasing her, it had the opposite effect. May’s mouth began to quiver. ‘I want to go home,’ she wailed pitifully.
Both women turned their heads in surprise to look at her – it was as if they’d completely forgotten the children were in the room.
‘That’s quite enough of that,’ Mother Superior said sharply. ‘This is your home now and you must behave as all my other girls do. I’ll call Sister Teresa and get her to take you out to meet them.’
‘But I don’t like it here,’ May retorted, squeezing out a few tears.
‘Now, that’s silly,’ Miss Denning said, picking her up in her arms and cuddling her. ‘You haven’t even seen anything yet.’
It surprised Dulcie that May stopped crying, normally she persisted for some time when she had an audience, but perhaps getting Miss Denning’s attention a
nd seeing Mother Superior rise from her chair to ring a bell by the fireplace was enough for her.
Almost instantly the door opened and in came another nun. Mother Superior informed her that they were the children they’d been expecting.
‘I’m Sister Teresa,’ the nun said. ‘Now, say goodbye to Miss Denning and then come with me to meet the other girls.’
She held out her hands to the girls, a welcoming and friendly gesture, yet Dulcie shrank back. She didn’t know why, the nun wasn’t particularly ugly or very old, she was just a big middle-aged woman with a slightly yellowish complexion and very dark eyes like two pieces of coal.
Sister Teresa smiled at her and took a step closer. ‘Everyone’s a bit frightened on their first day,’ she said, and her voice was soft with a faint Irish lilt. ‘But it soon passes.’
She came closer, leaning down to their level, smiled and asked them to tell her their names, and even assured them they would see Miss Denning again soon. May smiled back at her and readily took her hand, so Dulcie had no choice but to follow suit.
‘That’s better,’ the woman said. ‘Now, let’s go and meet all the other girls, shall we?’
Miss Denning gave them both a kiss on the cheek and said they weren’t to worry about their granny, and she’d be back to see them soon. Her hand lingered on Dulcie’s head, and she murmured something about looking out for May and helping her to write letters to her granny.
May became excited again and she started talking to Sister the moment they were out of the room. She told her she had a new pinafore dress under her coat, seven new pairs of hair ribbons in her suitcase, and that Granny had told her she wasn’t to forget to brush her teeth or they’d all go black.
Dulcie thought it was strange that Sister Teresa didn’t laugh, she’d never met anyone before who didn’t laugh at May, but in fact she didn’t even appear to be listening, just hurried them down a long narrow passage. As they got to a half-glazed door at the end and May asked when they’d be having dinner, she stopped short and looked down at her.
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