Nurse Trent's Children
Page 18
“Thank you,” said Jeremy Malcolm dryly.
He had entered the room behind Cathy, and Cathy knew the dryness was because she had failed, in her absorption in Christabel, to acknowledge his presence.
Miss Watts squinted across at him, then deliberately put Christabel on her feet and put on her spectacles and looked again. After a while she shook her head and took them off. Christabel, however, had escaped in search of Avery.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Cathy to Elvira, who stood up to follow her. “It’s her first day back. Tomorrow we can plague her about clothes.”
“Do you do that?” demanded Miss Watts sharply. “Do you plague these children?”
“I don’t believe so, but you can discover that for yourself during your stay here.”
“I certainly intend to. Indeed, it’s what I’ve come for.”
Cathy glanced questioningly once more at the superintendent, but still received no enlightenment.
“There is also a board meeting tomorrow,” said Dr. Malcolm. “As an old girl you must attend.”
“I shall.” The gray head nodded twice. “If I remember rightly quite a lot of things were gleaned at board meetings, and I don’t suppose things have changed.”
“Nothing is changed at Redgates, absolutely nothing,” said Dr. Malcolm a little wearily, and Cathy knew he was meaning that path between the brothers’ and the sisters’ blocks. He drank his tea quickly, shook hands with Miss Watts and went.
She stood up and peered through the window to see him enter his car.
“Something ringing bells?” asked Elvira shrewdly.
“Yes, but don’t tell me. I like to remember people for myself.” The rest of the day went pleasantly.
Miss Watts settled herself in her room; then she did an inspection of the grounds, where she discovered old Jeffreys, who had not been so old in her time, and stopped for a reminiscent chat.
Meanwhile, Avery and Christabel embraced, quarreled, embraced and quarreled again, and it seemed like the old days when Cathy had two babies, not one, to attend to when the rest of the children were at school.
Miss Watts looked in at brothtime, again at the evening meal, and she watched Cathy as she put the children to bed.
The next morning she was up when they were, sampling their porridge, nodding her head over their packed school lunches, but still not saying a word.
I wonder what she is thinking, thought Cathy between the extra dusting and extra flower arranging and extra sprucing up for the meeting of the board. There was no doubt about it, these official occasions did cause a lot of trouble.
At four the cars began to arrive, and, last as usual, as though timed for a grand entry, came the most expensive car of all. Out of it stepped Fayette, beautiful, smiling, bland, charming, but her sharp eyes taking in every detail and falling at last on Miss Watts in suspicious inquiry.
As they moved toward the assembly room one of the arched eyebrows was raised again in Miss Watts direction. Miss Watts, Cathy could see, was walking purposefully ahead, no doubt with the intention of letting everyone know that she, too, was going to attend.
“This is for board members,” said Fayette softly, sweetly, but deliberately.
Miss Watts only half turned on her, but it was sufficient. How often, Cathy quailed, had she subdued her young nurses with a quick look like that, how often had she put her senior nurses out of countenance. It seemed that this time Mrs. Dubois had met her match. Unchallenged, the older woman went into the room and took a seat at the long table.
There began an animated conference between Miss Watts and Colonel Manning and Miss Marriott. They all remembered the old days and would have continued doing so had not Fayette Dubois called the chairman’s attention to the time, and he, rather apologetically, for he was enjoying the conversation, rang his bell for silence.
The meeting got underway.
The usual routine business was dealt with—the amounts of butter and eggs consumed, the current rise in the price of vegetables.
Then David Kennedy was called upon in regard to Andrew St. Clair, who had had a bad report from his employer.
“Andrew is not happy in his work,” David said simply and directly.
“What nonsense. He chose it.” It was Fayette speaking, of course.
“Yes, he chose it, but only because it was indicated to him. He was told of the higher remuneration he would receive and, naturally, he was dazzled.”
“He is not a child.”
“He is not a man. He is only seventeen.”
“Old enough to settle down.”
“I quite agree, but not in something he does not like.”
“I hate to repeat myself, Mr. Kennedy, but I must. Andrew chose his trade.”
“Lots of children choose things and then change their minds. Some adults do, too. Because a child is an unprivileged child it does not mean he must forgo the privilege of a second choice. We’ve gone into the subject pretty exhaustively. I believe we have reached a solution.”
“Really?” The lovely blond head had inclined forward.
David looked a little out of his element. Homespun, thought Cathy fondly, recalling his description of himself that day.
“Andrew is interested in being a pastry cook,” said David.
“A pastry cook?”
“I do not take credit for having discovered Andrew’s bent. Mr. Marsdon did that.” David bowed lightly in the direction of the vocational guide.
Mrs. Dubois turned her attention on Mr. Marsdon.
“What an odd finding,” she commented coolly.
“Not entirely, Mrs. Dubois. Whatever else people choose to do, they always eat. I should think in time Andrew would be comfortably placed.”
“In time?”
“Meaning,” explained the vocational guide not very happily, “that for the moment Andrew’s remuneration will drop sharply. It’s an apprenticeship that does not pay as much as the other.”
“Then of course it is out of the question.”
“Why?” It was Cathy who spoke.
“Because we may be a charitable institution, but we don’t function entirely for charity,” said Fayette clearly. Cathy remembered she had said that once before.
The housemother glanced sensitively away, but not before she had seen Dr. Malcolm. He was sitting staring complacently at the ceiling. Only the knuckles of his hands told of any emotion. They were white and drained of blood in his big clenched brown fists.
Her swift evasion brought Miss Watts into her line of vision. The woman was sitting forward, her attention riveted on Mrs. Dubois. Her eyes, too, were enigmatic.
“Perhaps,” said David, “we can leave the matter of Andrew for a while. He has agreed to stay his month out with Clinton’s and there is still a week’s grace.”
“He has agreed...” took up Fayette, her brows rising sharply. “Isn’t that a curious choice of a word, Mr. Kennedy?”
David mumbled unhappily that it was his policy to have the boys agree rather than obey, and he subsided with relief when the chairman accepted the postponement of Andrew’s fate and suggested the debate of the next issue.
The next issue was Rita.
Fayette took the initiative. She started on Rita’s long history of sullenness and impudence and finished with her dishonesty and deceit in skipping lessons at a business school to which the board had paid top fees.
Cathy intervened. “She is not interested in clerical work.”
“Another peg that won’t fit,” sneered Fayette. “It appears obvious to me that Redgates is specializing in temperamental children—or is it children with a temper? What does Rita think she is? A princess to dictate what she wants?”
“She doesn’t want clerical work.”
“So she takes the deceitful way of avoiding it. She simply doesn’t go. I’ve had a report from the principal of the school. This is what it says...” Fayette read.
After she had finished, the paper was folded and replaced in her bag.
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“It is obvious that Rita has not the brains for secondary education; indeed, she has only the brains for such work as she has been fitted for here at Redgates. The sweeping of floors, the washing of dishes.”
Cathy spoke again. “Rita has not been taught that. None of the children are taught that.”
“Then why not, pray?”
“There is no need for them to do it. The daily domestics come in—there are Elvira and Mrs. Ferguson”
“If the girls were properly trained we could do without Elvira or without Mrs. Ferguson. In fact, with organization, you should be sufficient, Miss Trent. After all, you would only have to supervise the girls’ work. However, this is getting away from the question under debate. I repeat that Rita is not worthy of any secondary education.”
“Her elementary school reports do not coincide with that finding. She was first in the primary class in the year she left Gullybank Junior,” said Cathy.
Colonel Manning interrupted nervously, “Has she any bent, Miss Trent?”
“We have not had her interviewed by Mr. Marsdon, but Elvira and I believe—”
“Experts, surely,” put in Fayette.
“We believe we have discovered in Rita a distinct flair for the domestic—”
“What did I tell you?”
Cathy turned on Fayette, holding tight to her fast-diminishing temper.
“Not your sort of domestic work, Mrs. Dubois, creative domesticity. We think she would do well at fancy cooking, cake decoration—”
“So.” The green eyes were slitted now, the lips thin and unamused. “Andrew a pastry cook, Rita there to decorate his little efforts. Quite a loving team, isn’t it? Is it housemother you are playing, Miss Trent, or Cupid?”
Cathy did not answer.
Fayette went on, “The whole thing is ridiculous. Rita is an ill-managed little brat, and it is my intention to take her into my own household and teach her a few essentials. It is time she was taken in hand, and with the board’s approval I’ll start the discipline tomorrow.”
No one answered.
Cathy in her frozen sadness for Rita did not notice the small figure at the window, listening, waiting...
“I have had reports typed out about Rita’s behavior,” went on Fayette. “I did this because I did not want you to think I had a bias against the girl, which definitely I have not. To me she is simply a case, an instance. I feel nothing personal for Rita at all.”
She was taking slips out of her handbag and passing them around. Cathy received hers almost unfeelingly. She glanced down, knowing the substance before she read it.
The report was brief. It showed the dates of Rita’s nonappearance at school, her failure at tests, her complete lack of attempt to make any headway. It finished with a thumbnail account of Rita’s character. The trouble was, it was all correct, every word of it. Only it was so different, so very different.
“Is this right, Miss Trent?” snapped Fayette.
“Yes, but—”
“I did not ask for comments. Well, ladies and gentlemen...”
Again Cathy glanced to the left, to Dr. Malcolm. Again she saw the contemplative stare. Again she looked at Miss Watts. The little woman was sitting even more forward now. Her eyes were slitted as Fayette’s had been.
“I think,” said Miss Mariott, “perhaps another chance...”
“She has had more than enough chances.”
“Perhaps Mr. Marsdon could interview her?” The colonel suggested this.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I have a good home waiting for Rita, with every modern convenience and every opportunity for her to find her correct niche in life. I shall provide her wardrobe, see to her health, look after her in every way she should be looked after. She is, as you are all well aware, on the threshold of starting her own life. She has reached the age when she is no longer entitled to the privilege of our care. How much better than placing her in an apartment it would be to place her with me.”
“You mean as a domestic servant, Mrs. Dubois?”
“If you prefer to put it that way, Miss Trent.”
“Paying, of course, the appropriate wage.”
Again the slitting eyes. “Of course, Miss Trent.”
There was an uncomfortable pause, then Fayette resumed, “If we don’t do this we send Rita out unprepared. She has not absorbed sufficient clerical knowledge to enable her to snare a job. It is the only course.”
“Need she be sent out at all? We have room...”
“Miss Trent, must I repeat that Redgates is not functioning entirely for charity?”
“Surely it is not functioning for profit.”
Fayette ignored her. “Well, board members?” she asked.
They hummed and they hahed. Some asked questions. Some scribbled notes. Eventually they all agreed that Rita should go with Mrs. Dubois tomorrow.
Somewhere, by the window, a curtain moved. Cathy, glancing up, thought she saw a figure, then decided she was wrong. It was only the wind.
“The next subject under debate,” said the chairman, “is the future of Denise Lane.”
Cathy started. How had Denise come into the debate?
“I’ve had a letter from Mrs. Latrobe,” said Mr. Bell. He took off his glasses and put them on the bench. “It’s really quite touching. She wants to adopt Denise.”
There was a babble around the table. Cathy heard: “not permitted” ... “against regulations” ... “rules set down and must be kept” ... “can’t make a precedent of one ward.”
Mrs. Dubois was touching up her lips deftly and artistically. She did not join the babble.
“I would like to propose that for once the board overrides its regulation regarding adoption. I sincerely believe that in Denise we have an extraordinary case,” said Cathy.
“In what way, Miss Trent?” asked the chairman sympathetically.
Cathy told him, sharply aware of Fayette Dubois’s unfriendly glance. Satisfied as to which path Cathy was pursuing, Fayette spoke.
“A regulation is a regulation. If we are going to waive rules as easily as Miss Trent would have us, there is no use drawing up rules at all.”
Suddenly Cathy was cunning. It was an inspiration, a point she felt sure Fayette could not resist. The miser touch, she remembered, Fayette’s streak of meanness.
“Denise’s adoption would be to Little Families’s benefit,” she stated. “It costs a fair amount to maintain a child.”
“As at present you are maintaining them, yes, Miss Trent, but with a tighter management I believe that Denise’s child endowment, along with the other moneys received, should be quite ample to meet expenses, and even show a little profit. It is just a matter, as I said, of closer financial supervision.”
Cathy said desperately, her cunning defeated, “She would be happier with Mrs. Latrobe.”
“Why? Is Mrs. Latrobe wealthy?”
“No, she is not, but money does not make for happiness in a child.”
A pause, then Cathy went on. “I am proud of Redgates, and I have a great respect for the work it has always done and will, I know, continue to do. But I believe to most children, and particularly some children, no institution can take the place of parental love in a home. Nothing has ever, can ever, or will ever, be a substitute for a house with a father and mother—no matter how poor or humble. For some little ones it is a terrible emotional upset to be away from their parents.”
“You are becoming rather emotional yourself, Miss Trent. The Latrobes are not this child’s parents.” Fayette’s green eyes were pinpoints now.
“I know they are not. Denise was either a deserted child, a neglected child, the child of an unmarried mother, or an orphan. But for all that she is not delinquent, she has no blemish, there is no spot of wrongdoing or misbehaving against her, and yet, because she is a ward of Little Families, that privilege that would be permitted a child in another institution is not permitted her—the privilege of adoptive parents.”
“Rules are rules,” snapped
Fayette, more, Cathy knew, to spite her than to keep the girl. “They must be kept. We can’t make an exception for you, Miss Trent. There has never been an adoption yet.”
There was a stir at the left of the table. Cathy saw that Miss Watts was about to speak. She took her time. She made herself comfortable.
“There has been an instance,” she said clearly and firmly, “and what has been done can be done again.”
There was a stunned silence.
Then Miss Watts continued, “Colonel Manning will bear me out, won’t you, colonel?”
The old man dithered a moment. “Well, er, yes, madam.”
“And Miss Marriott.”
“Quite right, Miss Watts, I remember it well.”
“You mean,” said the chairman, “there has been an instance of this sort in the history of Little Families?”
“There has been an instance here at Redgates. Twenty-five years ago, to be exact. There was an adoption of a female minor. Name of Susan Malcolm. I took her back to England with me. Christabel Harris, at present a ward here, is her daughter.”
“And ... Susan...?” It was Dr. Malcolm who said it. He interposed it eagerly, a little starkly. He seemed oblivious of everything else. He only awaited the answer.
Miss Watts said, “Susan is dead.”
She turned to the members sitting around the table and resumed. “What has been done once can be done a second time. I propose that you interview these prospective parents, find out the child’s reactions, then alter your garment to fit your cloth.”
Fayette had risen. “And who are you to make suggestions? You are not even a member of the board.”
“I hope soon to be.”
“In which case, madam, I certainly shall resign.”
“That is unfortunate then.”
“Very unfortunate, as any member here will tell you. The place is only functioning because of me.”
“I believe they may find a substitute.”
“A substitute for a steady three thousand per annum?” Fayette’s voice had risen to a little squeal.
“I propose to make it a steady five thousand,” said Miss Watts coolly. And then, almost as though at the realization of what she had said, she who had not earned even one thousand at St. Cloud, sank back and accepted the colonel’s glass of water, Miss Marriott’s smelling bottle; then, recovering, looked clearly, fearlessly—and triumphantly—into Fayette’s furious green eyes.