by Renee Duke
Halfway through the morning, the teacher noticed how much trouble Minnow was having copying letters onto his slate. Believing his arm to be broken rather than sprained, he had someone take him off to have it attended to by Dr. Barnardo, who happened to be visiting the school that day. He had still not returned when lessons ended and the other boys were able to go outside and meet up with Pip and the girls.
“How you like it?” Nolly asked them.
“I liked it a lot,” said Pip.
“’Tweren’t as bad as I thought,” Hetty admitted. “Teacher’s a bit of a tartar, but she said I caught on quick.”
“Quicker than me,” Gladys said sadly.
“You’ll catch on, too,” said Paige, determined to encourage her.
Minnow came out a few minutes later, his arm tightly wrapped and splinted, and supported by a softer, much cleaner, sling. Beside him walked a small-statured middle-aged man with a tall silk hat.
“I think that might be…yes, it is,” said Jack. “It’s Dr. Barnardo. We saw his picture at the Ragged Museum, remember?”
The famous champion of children smiled at all of them, and asked their names. “I understand from Minnow here that it would be…inadvisable for him to go back to his own home at the moment. I have offered him a place in my Stepney Boys’ Home. I think that will prove to be of more benefit to him than occasional attendance at this school. Should any of you require similar assistance, you are equally welcome.”
“The Stepney Boys’ Home? You sure about this, Minnow?” asked Gladys.
Minnow nodded. “Dad’ll turn me out once he knows I can’t work—and probably break me other arm into the bargain. T’nt like I’m going in the workhouse. Dr. Barnardo says I’ll get regular meals at his place and learn a proper trade, like carpentry, or summut. You should come too, Noll. You’ve no real home to go to. You sleeps rough most nights. This’d be better. Especially with winter coming on.”
“S’pose it would,” Nolly conceded, “but…well, would we still get to go to school, Min? I can’t read yet, and I wants to. I really likes listening to Bible stories. Be grand to be able to read ’em m’self.”
Hearing this, the deeply religious Dr. Barnardo beamed. “A most worthy ambition, young man. Rest assured, instruction in the three R’s will occupy part of your day. I will follow your progress. As soon as you become suitably proficient in reading, I shall give you a Bible of your very own.”
“Really?” Nolly’s eyes shone. “Right, then! I’ll give it a try.”
Dr. Barnardo looked inquiringly at the others, who, in turn, looked at each other.
“You wouldn’t have to be out selling cresses in all weathers, Glad,” Nolly told the frail looking little watercress seller.
His words caused her to look decidedly thoughtful, and Dr. Barnardo was quick to bend down to her level and offer further inducement. “We train our older girls up as servants, Gladys, my dear, and place them in respectable homes. But to begin with, you’d go to our Girls’ Village and live in a nice house with several other little girls and a mother to look after you.”
“Do she drink?” asked Gladys.
“No, she does not.”
“My mum does.”
“As do many,” Dr. Barnardo said sadly, standing upright again, and starting to twirl his upswept moustache. “I take it you live with her?”
“Sort of. She’s inside at the moment. Peelers nicked her for pinching summut. I’s been kipping on next door’s floor the last few days.”
“Indeed? All the more reason for you to come with me, then. What about the rest of you? Wouldn’t you like a good home?”
“Uh, no thanks, gov,” said Jack. “Me and me cousins already got one. But you and Pip could go for it, Hetty.”
Not having heard him speak like that before, Hetty raised her eyebrows. “We’s all right at the moment,” she said, pulling Pip closer to her.
“Your satchel money won’t last forever,” Dane pointed out, “and mudlarking in winter is—”
“—what we’s used to,” Hetty finished. “We’ll come to school when we can, but that’s all.”
Dr. Barnardo inclined his head. “Should you change your mind, just talk to the staff here. They’ll be happy to assist you.”
Watching her friends go off with him, Hetty looked so forlorn, it seemed as though she might change her mind. But, no. After a moment she tossed her head.
“Right, then. Time’s getting on. We’d best head home. What was that you said about having one?” she asked Jack. “And how come you’re not talking like a toff no more?”
“I thought I’d fit in at the school better if I didn’t. As for a home, we do have one. We just stopped with you because you wanted us to help you find that solicitors’ place. And we stayed on afterwards to see how you’d get on at school. You will keep going, won’t you?”
“Said so, didn’t I?”
“And will you at least think about going into a Barnardo Home? You’d be much better off, honestly you would. That village for girls that Gladys is going to sounded quite nice.”
“Yeah, for girls. What about Pip? They’d put him somewheres else. Or try to. No way I’d let ’em.”
“That could be a problem,” Paige had to admit. “But there must be some way you can live more comfortably and still stay together. I think we should go back to … where we come from, and see what we can find out. As soon as we have, we’ll come and see you again.”
“You do that,” Hetty said, a little huffily.
Taking Pip’s hand, she marched away.
Chapter Eight
It seemed as good a time as any to return to modern-day London. They had to stop by Hetty’s doss to retrieve their sack but were then able to make an unobserved transfer from inside it. The entrance to St. Paul’s was still clear when they materialized there.
After changing back into their own clothes, they went into the gift shop in search of Uncle Gareth. As his son had predicted, he was examining a row of books.
“All set?” he asked, looking up. “We’d best be going, then.”
By the time they got outside, Mr. Marchand was waiting for them by Queen Anne’s statue.
“Find what you were looking for?” Uncle Gareth asked his brother-in-law as they made their way to the Underground.
“Not really. The Foundling Hospital did great work, but it started doing it in seventeen-thirty-nine. My documentary’s about the Victorian era. That’s when I, mistakenly, thought the gathering up of waifs and strays began.”
“The actual gathering up did. Foundling Homes usually had children brought to them. Victorian reformers like Thomas Barnardo and Annie MacPherson went out looking. They also made child rescue the ‘in’ thing. The upper classes responded well to rousing speeches and distressing photographs. Some got involved in the cause personally, others just gave money so they could get Barnardo off their backs. He was a tenacious fellow, and a dab hand at making the rich feel guilty.”
“His Homes were good places though, weren’t they?” asked Dane.
“For their time. Modern thought eschews putting children in large, rigidly controlled group facilities. Back then, it was standard practice. People concentrated on the physical and moral welfare of children, not their emotional well-being. Even well-to-do Victorian families had little patience with tears, fears, and other forms of ‘silliness’ exhibited by distraught juveniles. And a lot of institutions for the ‘deserving poor’ wouldn’t take in kids who were handicapped, or happened to be non-white. Barnardo Homes were a bit different. Dr. Barnardo thought all children were deserving. He took in every creed and colour, and even managed to accommodate the handicapped.
“He had some other innovative ideas, as well, such as a village community for girls and a system for fostering out infants and toddlers to individual families. His Homes for older girls and boys might have been a little more impersonal, but most of the staff were dedicated, and as kind as they could afford to be when dealing with hundreds of rambu
nctious youngsters.”
“The street kids probably did all right,” Mr. Marchand asserted. “They were pretty tough, and most of them went into the Homes voluntarily. The regimentation might even have brought some stability and security into their lives. It would have been different for kids who were there because their parents couldn’t afford to look after them. No matter how much better off they were in regards to food and shelter, they would have missed their families.”
“So would street kids,” said Paige. “Especially if they were, say, a sister and brother used to looking out for each other. But they would have been separated, wouldn’t they—with the girl going into one kind of Home, and the boy another?”
“That’s how it was,” said Uncle Gareth.
“No exceptions?”
“No. Well, not unless someone of influence took an interest in a particular set of siblings and expressed a strong desire that they be kept together. But even if they were in the same Home, siblings might not have seen much of each other if there were a few years difference in their ages. And if one or more members of a family were selected for the child migration programme, they often never met again.”
“What was the child migration programme?” Paige asked.
But by then they were at the underground station, where it quickly became apparent that rush hour was in full swing. Like the others, she was forced to focus on getting through the busy turnstile and onto a descending escalator packed with what seemed like a thousand people. She was therefore unable to obtain an answer until, having just missed one train, they were standing on a platform waiting for another.
“You all right, Gareth?” Mr. Marchand asked when Paige repeated her question and he did not immediately respond.
Uncle Gareth nodded. “Yes. Just…somewhat…out of breath.”
“Past dashing for trains, are you?”
“A bit. A few years from now you might find your body objecting to certain activities too.” He took a few deep breaths. “There. That’s better. Now, back to the question in hand. The child migration programme shipped children off to places like Canada to become farm labourers and domestic servants. Most child welfare organizations thought it was a marvellous idea. Their Homes were getting overcrowded and they firmly believed that going to a new country would be in their charges’ best interests. Fresh air, honest work, and the chance to put their unhappy pasts behind them and make something of their lives—what could be better than that?”
“They were known as the Home Children. And there were a lot of them,” said Mr. Marchand. “Their descendants make up about twelve per cent of Canada’s current population. I did a documentary on the subject a few years ago. You and Dane could have been in it if you’d looked a little more starved and abused. I considered cutting back your meals and beating you every day for a month, but your mother wouldn’t go for it.”
“Is that what most of them were, starved and abused?”
“No. Lots of them went to warm, loving families and made a real success of their lives. Others might not have been regarded as sons and daughters, but they were treated okay and grew up to be solid citizens. Unfortunately, more than a few landed with people who just looked upon them as cheap labour. They got just enough food to keep them going and had to sleep out in barns. It might have been a bit better than trying to survive on the streets of London, but not much. And for those who were really unlucky, the streets probably looked good in comparison to what they went to. Inspectors were supposed to keep tabs on all the kids and get them out of bad placements, but it was difficult in a country as big as Canada. Some died from the mistreatment they received, or ran away and were never heard from again.”
“Even the ones who got good homes had some loss and abandonment issues,” Uncle Gareth put in. “The organizations responsible for uprooting them failed to grasp the importance of family ties, or the depth of feeling even children might have for the land of their birth.”
“So you guys think it was a bad idea?”
Mr. Marchand thought for a moment. “I don’t know, sweetheart. The issue wasn’t exactly black and white. Homes that were full to bursting had to do something with the kids in their care. If they hadn’t, they wouldn’t have been able to take in any new ones. And that would have resulted in a lot being left out on the street, cold, hungry, and easy prey for the kind of adults who would definitely abuse and exploit them. I’m not saying that shipping them out of the country was the right answer. Even if it were, it should have been handled better. But we’re looking at it long after the event, and from a modern way of thinking not in keeping with the Victorian outlook. The Home Children definitely had to work hard on those farms, but so did the farmer’s own children. That’s how life was.”
At that point, the underground train arrived. Passengers crammed into whatever space was available, making further conversation impossible. The train they had to change to for Paddington Station was crowded as well, and at Paddington itself, even the regular trains were full of commuters returning to homes outside London.
“It looks as though we might have trouble finding seats in the same carriage,” Uncle Gareth observed as they were waiting for the one to Slough.
“That’s okay. We can go in a carriage by ourselves.” Paige had had her fill of constant surveillance at St. Paul’s. She also wanted to talk to the boys away from parental ears.
“Uh, I don’t think I’m too comfortable with that idea,” said Mr. Marchand.
“Neither am I,” said Uncle Gareth. “Not after the Weymouth Jaunt.”
Paige and Dane grinned. The Weymouth Jaunt was an oft-told family story, but they didn’t mind hearing Uncle Gareth render it again.
He proceeded to do so. “Little wretch was four. We’d just come back from a week at the sea, and he apparently wasn’t ready to give it up. While we were in Slough getting groceries, he slipped across to the station with a little daypack containing his bucket, spade, and travel bands, and boarded a train for Reading. He knew he had to change there, you see, and again at Winchester. He fetched up at his destination in mid-afternoon, but it wasn’t until he asked a cabbie to take him down to the donkeys that it came to light he wasn’t with anyone. The stationmaster did then manage to get his name and address out of him, and had him escorted home, but, in the meantime, we were frantic. Gus almost called in Scotland Yard.”
Mr. Marchand laughed. “Tania probably would have. I can still see her face when Gus was on the phone telling her about it.”
“Even so, Jack obviously knew what he was doing,” said Paige. “And that was years ago. We’re all seasoned travellers now. We’re not going to miss our stop and wind up halfway across the country.”
Uncle Gareth and Mr. Marchand looked far from convinced. Fortunately, the carriage that pulled up directly in front of them had sufficient seats for the two nervous fathers to be only a few rows back from their offspring.
“So, what are we going to do about Hetty and Pip?” Paige asked once they were underway. “Getting them to go to school is a start, but I don’t think Hetty’s completely sold on that. If she quits, they’re not going to have much of a future. When Dr. Barnardo was offering up places in his Homes, I thought that might be the solution. It still might be, if we could find some way for her to stay with Pip. Uncle Gareth didn’t seem to think that would be easy.”
“The Barnardo Homes were probably okay,” Dane mused. “Bit strict, maybe, but okay. I’m not so sure about that child migration programme.”
“No, because, if they were forced into that, they’d definitely be separated. Probably forever. And while there are times I could warm to the idea, I don’t think I’d like it if you completely disappeared from my life. Especially if I was working from dawn to dusk milking cows and feeding pigs.”
Dane smiled. “Me neither. Even though I like cows and pigs. But if you don’t think they should go into a Home, what do you think they should do?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they should go into a Home. Maybe
that’s what they didn’t do, and in not doing it, perished in the streets of London. Or what they did do, and something bad happened to them as a result. The something we’re supposed to fix. The first medallion rhyme we read said we’d be connecting to kids ‘whose fates be not decided’. Fates that can change if we do something to make them change.”
Dane nodded. “It’d help to know what happened to them in the first place. It was different with the princes. They were historical figures. All kinds of things have been written about them. There’s not likely to be any accounts of kids like Hetty and Pip. Unless they did go into a Home, and there’s a record of it somewhere,” he added.
“Hetty gave her last name as Styles at the school. That’s something to go on.”
When they got back to Jack’s house, Mrs. Marchand told her husband that Uncle Trevor’s friend had called. He wanted him to take his crew to Bristol the very next day.
“You won’t be able to go along though, Gareth,” Aunt Augusta put in. “Dr. Bindal rang me earlier. That specialist he wanted you to see can fit you in at half past ten.”
Paige rubbed her hands together. “Well, well. Another delay in the fulfillment of Dad’s London sightseeing promise. I wonder what that’s worth.”
Her father opened his mouth to reply, but her mother forestalled him.
“Nothing at all, you mercenary little minx. Aunt Augusta and I are both busy tomorrow, but your grandfather’s not. He claims to be fully rested up from his lecture tour and wants to show you certain places of interest in the City. With his passion for all things Roman that probably means the Temple of Mithras and the Museum of London. You’ll be going to Hampton Court first, though. He’s plans to take you to there by car and go back into London by train. Grantie’s lending him her car and chauffeur for the Hampton Court bit.”
“Does that mean we’re going to be staying with her again?” Jack asked his mother.
“Yes. I’ll run you over as soon as you’ve had your tea.”