So I walked back with them to their lodgings, a big pink-washed house in a street leading off the promenade. I was still crying, and cowered away when their landlady came to the door. I knew I must look a terrible sight in my grubby dress, my face covered in tears and my nose running.
I thought they would send me to the kitchen to beg a morsel there – but not a bit of it.
‘This little girl is a friend of ours, Mrs Brooke,’ the mama said firmly. ‘She will be having supper with us.’
‘Certainly, Mrs Greenwood,’ said the landlady, though she took in my cheap maid’s dress and raised an eyebrow.
‘Come, girls, let us tidy ourselves before supper,’ said the mama.
She led the way upstairs to their rooms. She and her husband shared a big blue bedroom, while Flora the baby had a cot beside their bed. The girls’ room was next door, a pretty pink, with two single beds with patchwork quilts, and a proper dressing table and a washstand with pink-and-white patterned china.
Mrs Brooke brought jugs of hot water for each room and we washed in turn. The girls put on fresh clean sailor dresses, while I wore my Sunday green velvet. I felt it was too hot and formal for the seaside but the girls admired it enormously, stroking the velvet and fingering the yellow fringing.
‘I would give anything to wear such a grown-up dress,’ said Charlotte enviously. ‘And you’re allowed to put your hair up too, Hetty!’
‘It doesn’t stay pinned up for long though,’ I said, and I brushed it out loose so that it fell a long way past my shoulders.
‘You look like the lovely advertisement for Edwards’ “Harlene” Hair Restorer!’ said Charlotte.
‘Oh, let me have a turn brushing it!’ Maisie begged. Her own hair was limp and straggly, and she marvelled at mine.
‘I wish I had lovely long hair like yours, Hetty! It’s just like a mermaid’s.’ She pulled my green skirts tight around my legs. ‘There, now you have a mermaid’s tail too!’
I could hear the baby wailing fretfully, so I decided to make myself useful and went and knocked next door.
‘Excuse me, Mrs Greenwood – would you like me to take care of the baby while you get ready in peace?’ I offered.
‘Why, Hetty, you’re such a kind girl!’ she said. ‘All right, dear, see if you can work your magic with little Flora all over again. I have changed her napkin so I don’t know why she’s crying so. Perhaps you might ask Mrs Brooke to prepare her another bottle of boiled milk?’
‘Certainly,’ I carried the cross little baby carefully down the stairs and found my way to the kitchen.
Mrs Brooke was cutting thin slices of bread and butter, while fat yellow slabs of smoked haddock poached pungently on the stove.
‘Please may I have a bottle for the baby?’ I asked.
‘Certainly … miss,’ she said. The word came out grudgingly, but she said it all the same.
I took the bottle of baby milk and fed Flora in the window seat of the sitting room. She was clearly thirsty because she attacked the bottle with great vigour, making comically loud sucking sounds. I held her close, wondering at her intent little face, her long lashes and tiny delicate ears. I especially liked her perfect little toes peeping out beneath her rucked-up petticoats.
I thought of poor dear Mama and how she’d been forced to give me away when I was even younger than little Flora, denied the chance of holding me close like this.
We had had so short a time together. She had missed my first five years altogether, she had kept a wary distance when I came back to the hospital – and then she’d been cruelly banished. I’d planned for us to be together when I was grown up. I’d thought we’d have many, many precious years ahead, enough to make up for the sad time apart, but now …
I started crying again. Flora stopped sucking and stared up at me, her forehead puckering. She waved her tiny starfish hands, almost as if she were trying to comfort me.
‘I’m sorry, little Flora,’ I whispered, sniffing. ‘I’ll try to concentrate on you again.’
She drained her bottle completely, her eyes closing as she took the last few mouthfuls. She gave several contented sighs, snuggled her head right into my chest, and fell fast asleep. I held her close, and wouldn’t put her down even when Mrs Brooke banged a gong and the family assembled in the dining room for supper.
I ate a few morsels of fish carefully with one hand while still holding the baby. There was fruit pie for pudding. The pastry was a little pale and uninteresting compared to my own. I was in such a turmoil I could eat very little.
‘There now, children! Are you quite full now?’ said Mr Greenwood, consulting his pocket watch. ‘Good heavens, is that the time? Off to bed with you this minute!’
‘Oh, Papa, please mayn’t we stay up a little longer! It’s still sunny outside. Are you sure it’s bedtime?’ Maisie wailed, as if the world were suddenly coming to an end.
Mr Greenwood’s mouth twitched under his moustache, and Charlotte burst out laughing.
‘Oh, Maisie, can’t you tell when Papa is joking?’
‘Don’t you remember, Maisie?’ Mrs Greenwood said, fondly pinching her daughter’s cheek. ‘We always go for a little walk along the sea front after supper.’
‘Oh, so we do! Oh hurray, hurray!’ said Maisie.
So we all went for a walk. I insisted on carrying little Flora, who was muffled in another shawl against the sea breeze. My heart beat hard against the baby, thinking that at any moment they would say goodbye to me and send me on my way to nowhere – but they seemed to take my company for granted. I left my suitcase and Mama’s box back at the boarding house so at least I had an excuse for returning with them.
We set off down the road to the sea front.
‘Now, which way shall we go, my dears?’ said Mr Greenwood, standing before the painted map.
‘Oh, please,’ I whispered, my mouth so dry I could barely make myself heard. ‘Could we – oh, could we—?’
‘Let’s see the pierrots!’ Charlotte shouted.
‘No, no, let’s listen to the band,’ Maisie clamoured.
‘We can do both – and take a little stroll along the pier,’ said Mr Greenwood.
Mrs Greenwood was looking at me. ‘Where did you want to go, Hetty?’ she asked.
‘I – I wondered if I might possibly just run along to the infirmary. Perhaps Mama will be looking out of her window. I should so like to reassure her that I am all right.’
‘You’re a good thoughtful girl, Hetty. We will come with you, and then perhaps your mother will see you’re among friends,’ she said.
‘Among very dear friends,’ I said. ‘Oh please, may we?’
It was a good fifteen minutes’ walk away. I knew everyone must be longing to see all their favourite seaside entertainments but they walked cheerfully beside me. Maisie skipped in circles, while Charlotte talked nineteen to the dozen about her school, and her best friends, and her favourite teachers, and the very worst cruel teacher ever, who made even great girls of Charlotte’s age stand in a corner with a dunce’s cap upon their heads. I did not think this very cruel at all compared to Matron Stinking Bottomly and Matron Pigface Peters, but I simply nodded or shook my head or tutted at appropriate times.
‘Where do you go to school, Hetty?’ Charlotte asked.
‘I have left school now,’ I said, truthfully enough.
‘Oh, you lucky thing! How I wish I could leave school too, but Papa says it’s important for a girl to have a good education, worst luck!’
I still nodded from time to time, but I was no longer listening to her sweet silly prattle. Inside my head I was chanting, Mama, Mama, Mama.
We approached the grim grey infirmary, and I stared hopefully up at the windows, but they all seemed so dark. I could not see in it at all, or tell whether anyone was looking out.
‘I have to go closer,’ I said, and I ran into the garden, through the shrubbery, looking around frantically, wondering if I could still work out which was the right window. Then I reached i
t at last and looked through the glass. I could see the ward. I could see the row of beds. Oh glory – there was Mama, propped up on her pillows in the garish red bed jacket, her face chalk-white, her eyes shadowed with dark circles. She was staring anxiously at the window, and when she saw me, her whole face lit up.
I smiled and blew kisses and held little Flora up, making her wave her tiny fist, hoping that Mama would think I had miraculously found a new position as a nursemaid. Mama seemed astonished at the sight, and tried to swing her legs out of bed to run to the window, but this made her cough. A nurse approached her bed and pushed her back against her pillows, but she did it gently, and she wiped Mama’s brow when the coughing fit subsided at last.
I sent Mama a final kiss and she weakly blew a kiss back to me. ‘I love you!’ I said – and her own lips mouthed the three words with me.
Then I ran back to the Greenwoods, hugging little Flora hard. ‘I saw her! She was looking out for me,’ I said, tears running down my cheeks.
‘I’m so glad you saw her, Hetty,’ said Mrs Greenwood. ‘Now, dear, Mr Greenwood and I have had a little discussion. We will be happy to look after you for the next fortnight while we are in Bignor. You can share a room with the girls. I am sure Mrs Brooke will have a spare settle bed.’
‘So – so can I be your nursemaid after all?’ I said, dazed.
‘No, we don’t want you to be a nursemaid, though it will indeed be lovely if you continue to care for Flora so splendidly. We want you to stay with us as our guest, our little friend.’
THE GREENWOODS WERE so kind to me. I couldn’t quite believe they were real. It was almost as if I’d made them up. I felt as if I’d made myself up too. I wasn’t Hetty Feather any more. I wasn’t even Sapphire Battersea. I wasn’t a foundling child. I wasn’t a maid. I was a little Greenwood girl now.
I helped look after baby Flora, which was no hardship at all. I’d grown to love this funny little baby, and although lugging her around everywhere made my arms tired, it somehow helped the ache in my heart. But caring for Flora was seen as a favour, certainly not a duty. I had no duties at all – this was the strangest part.
I didn’t have to get up early and fight with the range and prepare breakfast. We didn’t have to slip out of our soft beds until seven thirty. I woke around six even so, because it had become such a habit.
I lay still, thinking of Mama, lying just a few streets away. I sent her many loving thoughts and liked to fancy she was sending hers back to me. I felt as if we were somehow having our own private conversation through the ether.
Then Mrs Greenwood would put her head in, her hair still tumbling around her shoulders. She wore a tartan shawl over her long nightgown, and looked more like Charlotte and Maisie’s big sister than their mother.
‘Time to get up, girls,’ she said, softly and sleepily, and she’d stoop over each tousled head and kiss their cheeks. She gave me a little pat on the shoulder at first, but after a few days I got a kiss too. We’d take turns getting washed and queuing for the water closet. It wasn’t quite as grand as Mr Buchanan’s, but serviceable enough, and no sign of any spiders!
Then we’d dress to go down to breakfast. I didn’t have a frock suitable for the seaside. My green velvet was too warm and elaborate, and I didn’t want to spoil it on the sands, yet my plain grey maid’s dresses showed the whole world that I was really a servant.
‘I think you had better borrow one of Charlotte’s dresses,’ said Mrs Greenwood. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Charlotte?’
‘Of course I don’t! It will be fun to see Hetty in one of my frocks. Come, Hetty, have a look. See which one you like the best.’
I couldn’t believe she could cheerfully offer me the pick of her wardrobe. At the Foundling Hospital we had never willingly shared anything, not even a tangerine at Christmas, a sweet from a visitor, an undarned pair of stockings. We guarded such treasures fiercely for ourselves. And it wasn’t as if Charlotte or Maisie had any number of fine frocks. The Greenwoods weren’t rich at all. I learned that Mr Greenwood was an ordinary clerk in an Arundel insurance office, though the Greenwood female folk were as proud of him as if he were King of Arundel Castle.
I am not sure if they were a religious family or not. We did not attend church on Sunday, but perhaps this was because it wasn’t part of seaside routine. I know one thing: the Greenwoods were the most truly kind and Christian-like people I had ever known.
I picked a pale primrose muslin from Charlotte’s wardrobe. It was a little long and loose on me, but I thought it quite beautiful. Charlotte and Maisie clapped their hands when I shyly paraded in front of them in my new gown.
‘It looks lovely on you, Hetty – much better than on me,’ said Charlotte generously.
‘Yes, I totally agree, and it won’t matter if it’s a bit long, because you can tuck your skirts up in your drawers on the beach,’ said Maisie.
Charlotte tried to lend me a pair of her shoes as well, but they were several sizes too big, while Maisie’s were too small.
They sold very cheap white sand-shoes at a stall on the promenade. I wondered about buying myself a pair, but I didn’t feel I could waste any of my precious hoard of coins. I knew I’d be fending for myself again after this fortnight. I wore my hideous old boots the length of the street from the lodgings to the sea, then I whipped them off and ran around barefoot.
Mrs Greenwood saw me gazing at the sand-shoe stall every day and asked me quietly if I’d like a pair, but I shook my head resolutely. The Greenwoods were already spending a lot of money on me, though they insisted it was a mere trifle. I’m not sure if they came to an arrangement with Mrs Brooke about my bed and board. I fervently hoped it wasn’t too exorbitant.
Mr Greenwood paid for me to have a daily donkey ride with Charlotte and Maisie. Oh, those dear, funny, patient donkeys! They were led about by a strange man who barked out fierce instructions to all us children: ‘Sit very still! Don’t feed the donkeys! Don’t ever kick them. Don’t tweak their ears!’ But when he spoke to his five donkeys, his voice was soft and crooning, and he patted their noses gently.
They had special names: Rosie, Maudie, Sally, Jessie and Polly. I always chose to ride on Polly, because I had had a dear friend Polly at the hospital. Polly-Donkey was the smallest and sweetest, ash-grey with a dark cross on her back. She seemed to like me too, and gave me a little whinnying greeting when I patted her. Perhaps it was because I lived up to my name and was light as a feather! Charlotte and Maisie were quite slight too, but some of the children on the beach were great stout creatures and it must have been hard for the little donkeys to bear them on their backs.
Mr Greenwood paid for the use of a bathing machine too, and the hire of a ridiculous swimming costume for me with long drawers and a frilled hat. Charlotte and Maisie were a little timid when it came to climbing down the steps and immersing themselves in the sea, but I couldn’t wait. The cold was a shock – and the salty taste another – but I managed to keep my head above the waves most of the time. I did not know how to swim. I splashed wildly with my arms and legs but I did not progress anywhere. However, I found that if I lay on my back and stuck out my stomach, I could float!
‘Look at Hetty! She’s a real mermaid now!’ Maisie shouted.
Mrs Greenwood didn’t take to the water at all. She sat decorously on the sands with baby Flora, but Mr Greenwood bathed with us. He looked very comical in his striped costume, but he swam with strength and dignity. He also played the fool, pretending to be a whale and spouting a great plume of water into the air, while Maisie clapped her hands and squealed.
‘Aren’t papas silly!’ Charlotte said to me.
I could only smile, because I did not have one. I did not think Mr Greenwood silly at all, I thought him excessively kind and generous. On hot sunny days he bought hokey-pokey ice creams for all of us. Mine was delicious, but it reminded me terribly of Bertie. I had not written properly to him, because I could not bear to tell him that Mama was so ill. I simply sent him a postcar
d of the sea front with a brief message: Dear Bertie, Wish you were here. Love Hetty. I wrote exactly the same message on another postcard to Jem. I did not put a return address on either because I did not have one. I stuck my last two stamps on the cards and posted them.
Whenever the tide was out, Charlotte, Maisie and I made sandcastles, sharing big wooden spades. Maisie got bored of digging very quickly, but she was good at finding shells to pattern our castles. She loved to run into the sea for pail after pail of water to fill the moat around the base of each building.
While we worked, I made up a story that we were three fairy princesses, each with her own castle. We took turns telling how our castles were decorated inside. Charlotte wanted marble throughout, with a four-poster bed with velvet curtains. Maisie wanted her walls studded with pearls, and she had a pearl dressing-table set to brush her long wavy princess hair. I chose coral for my palace, shiny and strange, in myriad patterns. I had a soft seaweed-green sofa stuffed with duck’s down, where I reclined in a coral-pink embroidered tea gown, writing my memoirs.
‘Aren’t any of you princesses going to run off with handsome princes?’ said Mr Greenwood, eavesdropping on our chatter.
Charlotte and Maisie giggled coyly.
‘I might just run off with Michael Fairhill,’ Maisie said, grinning.
‘Oh no, Maisie, that’s not fair! Michael’s my sweetheart,’ said Charlotte.
‘Girls, girls, don’t talk that way,’ said Mrs Greenwood. ‘Michael is our next-door neighbours’ son, Hetty. He’s a dear kind boy and he’s played patiently with my girls since they were babies, but he’s nineteen now, so of course he’s not really their sweetheart.’
‘He is so, Mama,’ said Maisie. ‘In fact I am perfectly sure he is going to marry me when I am a little older.’
‘No he is not. He’s going to marry me, because I’m the eldest,’ said Charlotte.
‘Stop squabbling, girls! You sound ridiculously like the Ugly Sisters!’ said Mr Greenwood. He looked at me. ‘What about you, Cinderella? Do you have a sweetheart?’
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