Charity

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘I’m Mrs Perkins. From what I gather,’ she said in a plummy voice, peering over her glasses, ‘you are unmarried. Four months pregnant, without any parents. Is that so?’

  ‘Yes,’ Charity murmured.

  ‘Your job?’

  ‘A waitress.’

  ‘What sort of accommodation do you have?’

  ‘A bedsitter in Hammersmith,’ Charity said weakly.

  The woman tutted.

  Charity thought Mrs Perkins was the kind Lou despised: middle class, with no experience of hardship in her own life to draw on. Such a woman would put people into categories. Charity was probably labelled ‘delinquent’.

  ‘The father has deserted you, I suppose?’

  Charity could only nod.

  ‘His name and address?’

  ‘Why do you want that?’ Charity was immediately on her guard.

  The woman looked askance at her. ‘So we can take him to court to make paternity payments, of course.’

  ‘I don’t know his address.’

  The woman looked hard at Charity.

  ‘When will you girls learn some sense?’ She sighed. ‘Does he know you’re pregnant?’

  ‘No.’ Charity was sure that was a trick question. ‘I couldn’t tell him because I don’t know where to write.’

  Mrs Perkins scribbled down what seemed to be far more than Charity had told her.

  ‘What had you in mind to do when the baby arrives?’ The almoner fired the question as if from a gun.

  Charity didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Well, were you thinking of taking the baby back to your room? Have you a job in mind? Do you have any idea how much it costs to bring up a child? Or were you hoping someone would miraculously solve these problems for you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Charity hung her head. ‘I mean, I haven’t thought that far ahead.’ How could she explain to this woman that she’d been in a state of numbness since Hugh’s last letter?

  ‘Well you should, my girl. And quick!’ Mrs Perkins pointed her pen towards Charity. ‘Let me make a couple of points. One is that a new baby requires not only money to buy food and clothes, but a great deal of care and attention. You can’t shut it in a bedsitter on King Street for long because if it cries it will disturb your neighbours. You can claim National Assistance to live on, but believe me they will give you precious little.’

  ‘I’ll get a job.’ Charity imagined a baby in her poky room, and shuddered.

  ‘What sort of job? Waitressing? How much do you earn at that?’

  ‘Five pounds a week.’ Charity’s voice began to shake.

  ‘But where would the baby be while you were at work?’

  Charity could see what Mrs Perkins was getting at.

  ‘You haven’t thought about it, dear, have you?’ Suddenly the older woman’s voice softened. ‘I don’t mean to be harsh, but I see so many girls like you, Charity. Reality is wheeling a pram through the streets in the early morning and leaving your baby at a nursery all day while you work. Then going to collect it at night when you are exhausted. By the time you’ve bathed and fed it, it’s time for bed, then the whole thing starts again the next day. You’ll have no time for friends, no nice clothes for yourself, it will be work and still more work, washing nappies at midnight, wondering where you’ll get the next shilling for the gas. Every decision has to be made by you. If the baby’s sick you can’t go to work. If you can’t work you get no money.’

  Charity’s stricken face proved Mrs Perkins’s point.

  ‘There is of course an alternative,’ the almoner said gently, her pale eyes fixed on Charity. ‘That is adoption. At this stage in your pregnancy it often sounds like the perfect solution and one most girls are eager to grasp.’

  ‘Give the baby away?’ Charity’s eyes flew open in horror. ‘Oh no, I couldn’t do that.’

  ‘Don’t be too hasty.’ Mrs Perkins took off her glasses and polished them. ‘I have never yet met a girl who gave her baby up easily, however much she claimed before its birth that she would. But in the end it is the bravest, the most caring mothers who do, because they can see beyond their own pain and want the best for their child.’

  Charity shook her head.

  ‘No, I couldn’t.’

  ‘No one is asking you to. No one will force your hand, Charity. The final decision will be up to you, and you alone. But I can tell you now there are couples out there desperate for a child to love, people who have beautiful homes, stable marriages and everything in the world to offer. Every adoptive couple is checked and rechecked for suitability. It’s a lucky child who ends up in one of these homes, a child matched to its new parents by what is known about the real ones. Nothing is left to chance.’

  She didn’t tell Charity she worked on a committee for an adoption society, or that she was one of the people who vetted prospective adoptive parents. Instead she paused and took a small booklet out of her desk.

  ‘Take this home and read it,’ she said, and passed it over. ‘Meanwhile I’ll get in touch with someone from the Moral Welfare Association, they are a group of people who help girls such as yourself. A lady called Miss Frost will be in touch with you soon.’

  Charity found herself just wandering around Shepherd’s Bush instead of going home. Darkness had descended without her noticing; the air was damp with a slight hint of fog.

  Christmas was on everyone’s mind. Women struggling with heavy baskets of shopping. Men in suits carrying carrier bags along with their briefcases and umbrellas. Schoolchildren dawdling home in groups, pausing to look into shops bright with tinsel, decorations and coloured lights, but Charity felt nothing but apathy.

  A huge Christmas tree had been erected on the green, lit up with hundreds of coloured bulbs. A green-grocer’s wares spilt out on to the pavement: piles of tangerines, cupped in silver paper, pineapples, nuts, apples and bananas. A toy shop on a corner had a working model of Santa Claus waving his arms in its brightly lit window and two small children stood with their noses pressed up against the glass, faces bright with excitement.

  Was it only two years ago she’d been like one of those children? She could remember taking Prue and Toby into Lewisham one afternoon on the bus and seeing Santa Claus at Chiesman’s in his grotto. He had given her a hand mirror, only pink plastic with a lady in a crinoline painted on the back, but she’d thought it wonderful. Just a few weeks later the fire had burned everything – that mirror, her parents, their home – and finished her childhood for good.

  Next Christmas her child would be over six months old. It seemed only minutes since James was that age. Mrs Perkins didn’t have to tell her how hard it was to bring up a child. She knew.

  She walked back past Greystones and glanced down into the basement. They had a tree in the window and she could see Joan sprawled out in a chair, smoking a cigarette while she watched television.

  Once she’d considered herself better than those other girls, but now she could see there was little difference. They were all in trouble in one way or another.

  *

  She read the little booklet that night. Not once but four times. It spelled out in simple language exactly what being an unmarried mother meant and the stigma on the child. It explained there were benefits she could claim and National Assistance for her and her baby, but it underlined the message that few landlords would give her a flat and the Council rarely considered unmarried mothers on their waiting lists.

  Adoption was explained fully, and mother and baby homes. Charity put the booklet down and sobbed into her pillow. She had lost everything she cared for now. The children, Hugh and even Lou and Geoff. She daren’t pass on her new London address in case Geoff took it into his head to pop over and see her. However much she wanted their sympathy and kindness, she wasn’t going to risk Uncle Stephen discovering her predicament, or bringing shame to her brothers and sister.

  ‘So this Miss Frost is coming to see you here?’ Marjorie looked surprised. ‘Was that her idea or yours?’

>   ‘Mine.’ Charity hung her head. ‘I thought if she saw the house I was living in she’d turn against me straight away.’

  ‘But you’ve made your room so pretty,’ Marjorie said. ‘Half the bedsitters in London are as grotty as your house. She’ll have seen far worse.’

  ‘But it’s smarter here.’ Charity glanced round the restaurant with its snowy tablecloths, gleaming cutlery and smart Regency striped wallpaper. ‘I feel safer with you around.’

  Christmas had passed painfully. She accepted the invitation from Marjorie and Martin because there was nowhere else, and although they did their best to make it a jolly occasion, Charity was relieved when it was over.

  Charity lay awake as 1962 came in. She could hear people singing Auld Lang Syne out in King Street and the sound of their revelry made her want to cry with loneliness. Now it was twelfth night and they were taking down the Christmas decorations.

  Hammersmith Broadway looked even more mucky and dismal than usual as Charity walked to work that morning. It had begun to snow yesterday and for a short while everything looked magical, but now the snow had been shovelled up into black heaps on the pavement and a further frost had made it as hard as concrete.

  ‘Miss Frost might not be like her name,’ Martin said and slung an arm round Charity’s shoulder when he overheard the news of the intended visit. ‘But just in case she is, you want us to thaw her out?’

  Charity giggled.

  Martin was very astute. That was exactly what she meant, but she couldn’t have put it into words.

  ‘We’ll support you,’ Marjorie said stoutly. ‘If she gives me a chance I’ll tell her what a little gem you are. Now stop worrying, she might be nice.’

  Charity just knew the woman in the dark blue pork pie hat was Miss Frost, even before she spoke. She was a big woman; not fat, but big-boned and angular. Her coat was shabby, a different shade of blue from the hat, and she wore thick brown lisle stockings and fur-lined boots with a zip up the front.

  Charity approached the woman as soon as she sat down.

  ‘Are you Miss Frost?’ she said, hoping she was mistaken and it was just another customer after tea and a cake.

  ‘I am.’ The woman unwound a thick grey scarf from her neck and peeled off fur-lined leather gloves. ‘You must be Charity Stratton?’

  Charity nodded. ‘I’ll just get you some tea,’ she said in a small voice. ‘Would you like a toasted teacake too?’

  Marjorie, who had watched the interchange from the kitchen door, swept over to the table.

  ‘Good afternoon. It is Miss Frost, isn’t it?’ She smiled down pleasantly as Charity hovered, not knowing whether to sit, stand or run. ‘I call Charity my little gem; goodness knows how we’re going to manage once she leaves. Do sit down and talk, Charity.’ She winked at her carefully so the older woman didn’t see. ‘I’ll get you a tray of tea myself.’

  Charity had no choice but to sit down now, but Marjorie had at least shown the woman that her employers were aware of her predicament.

  Miss Frost had the most piercing eyes, a chilly bright blue. At first glance Charity had thought her old, but this was mainly because of her dress. Close up she saw she was mistaken. The woman was in her late thirties and she had smooth unlined skin, stretched over prominent cheekbones. ‘It’s always much easier for my girls when they have an ally.’ The way she pronounced ‘girls’ as ‘gels’ made Charity think of Joyce Grenfell.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Bell have been very kind to me,’ Charity said.

  Miss Frost didn’t reply to this, just gave Charity a long stare.

  ‘Have you any plans you would like to air with me?’

  Charity wasn’t sure what this meant.

  ‘Well, is there any family who would help you?’ Miss Frost prompted. ‘Any chance of marriage with the father?’

  Charity shook her head on both counts.

  ‘Well in that case I recommend a mother and baby home,’ Miss Frost said carefully as Marjorie brought the tea. ‘We have one home in Hampstead which I think you would fit into very well. I would book you in there for the beginning of April and you would stay in total twelve or thirteen weeks, depending on whether baby arrives on time.’

  ‘Is there any alternative?’ Marjorie asked. She had appeared with the tea just in time to hear about the home. ‘You see when Charity first came to London someone sent her to Greystones House. She had some very nasty experiences there.’

  Miss Frost turned her piercing eyes on to Marjorie.

  ‘That hostel is an abomination,’ she said indignantly. ‘The Moral Welfare Association does not run its homes along those lines. We are a charitable organisation, our committee members have worked hard to provide good, clean, comfortable homes and all our staff are fully qualified in this work. Daleham Gardens, for example, is a beautiful house with a delightful garden. In the six weeks antenatal period, the girls learn mothering skills, while sharing the running of the house. During this time Charity will be fully counselled about both keeping her baby and giving it up for adoption. When her time comes, she will go outside the home to have her baby at Queen Mary’s on Hampstead Heath, then return ten days later.’

  Miss Frost never faltered once in this long, glossy description of the home, almost as if she were reciting it from a brochure. Yet behind her stern face and piercing eyes Charity recognised a woman with a kind spirit.

  ‘May I sit down and join you?’ Marjorie said. ‘Please say if you think I’m butting in, but I really want to hear.’

  Charity threw her a grateful glance.

  ‘Of course, Mrs Bell. As someone close to Charity it is admirable that you should know the procedure.’

  Marjorie sat down and poured the tea.

  ‘The final six weeks are when the girls have to make their minds up.’ Miss Frost lowered her voice just a little. There were only two couples in the restaurant, both deep in their own conversation, but she realised that Charity didn’t want her position made public. ‘At one time adoptive babies were taken at birth from their mothers. Although to the uninitiated this may sound less painful, it is in fact storing up trouble for the mother. By staying with her child for a full six weeks, not only do we discover any problems the baby may have, but the mother has time to make the right decision.’

  ‘But six weeks – it sounds so cruel!’ Marjorie looked horrified.

  ‘No so, quite the reverse. The young mothers have a taste of what hard work a new baby is; they learn it isn’t a doll they can put away and forget about when they are tired. Sometimes the fathers come forward at this stage and very often parents who claimed once they didn’t even want to see their grandchild, step in. We have many happy endings, I assure you.’

  ‘But that isn’t going to happen to me,’ Charity said at last.

  ‘Maybe not.’ Miss Frost took a bite of her teacake and smiled approvingly.

  ‘And what if Charity decides on adoption?’ Marjorie asked.

  Miss Frost sniffed and wiped her mouth delicately with a man’s handkerchief. ‘The wheels are put in motion at four weeks, and providing we have suitable parents, the baby will be handed over at six weeks, almost always away from the home.’

  ‘What happens to me then?’ Charity took a deep breath.

  ‘You leave the home, find a job, get on with your life,’ Miss Frost said, patting her hand on the table. ‘For several months you will get reports on your baby, photographs and letters from the adoptive parents, though of course we don’t let you know who they are, or where. At six months the baby is taken to court and legally made over to the parents with a new birth certificate, etcetera. You no longer have any rights in the child.’

  ‘Could I get the baby back during that time?’ Charity asked. ‘I mean, if I found I could look after it?’

  Miss Frost was taken with Charity. She liked her gentle yet straightforward manner, her cleanliness and her obvious intelligence. So many girls she interviewed for the first time were belligerent; even more seemed dim-witted. In her time she
had dealt with hysteria, blatant lies and girls who refused to co-operate, so to find someone who appreciated her help, listened to what she said and would act on her advice was unexpectedly pleasant.

  ‘Legally yes, though it is ill-advised to do so. The baby’s well-being is of paramount importance. Once he or she has settled down, it would be cruel to take it back. You must make the lasting decision at six weeks and stick by it.’

  Marjorie had to get back to work. Once she’d gone Miss Frost took a large form out of her bag.

  ‘I have to ask you some questions now,’ she said to Charity. ‘This forms the basis of looking into finding the right parents for your child, should that be the option you choose to take. Therefore you must be truthful, Charity. If your boyfriend was of mixed blood, if you knew him to have any disease, you must tell me now.’

  Charity gave a false name, but every other detail of Hugh’s build, colouring and background was correct. On her side of the family Miss Frost wanted her to go right back to her grandparents, and it was only when she got to the point of her uncle being legal guardian that she got frightened.

  ‘You won’t contact him, will you?’ she begged.

  ‘Of course not, Charity,’ Miss Frost said firmly. ‘We understand these things. Many of our girls don’t even tell their parents. The only time someone would be contacted is if you needed an emergency operation such as a Caesarean when we would have to get permission.’

  The form seemed endless; every last detail was recorded painstakingly.

  ‘What happens now?’ Charity asked finally.

  ‘Nothing.’ Miss Frost smiled. ‘I keep in touch with you, call round from time to time. Meanwhile I book you into Daleham Gardens. Next time I’ll call to see your room. I usually do that unannounced, to keep my girls on their toes.’ She handed Charity a card with a phone number and address. ‘If something unexpected comes up – if you are ill, move, leave your job – get in touch with me immediately.’

  It stayed freezing all through January and February too. Charity bought a girdle to hold her stomach in at work and Marjorie gave her a frilly white overall and a matching cap that concealed her shape completely. Every evening Charity climbed into her bed to keep warm and every morning even the insides of the windows were iced up.