Eliza was thinking, What attributes ? There's barely enough there to fill a chemise! But, "Don't pay no mind to Bates," she told Mary. "He's a cheeky, but he means no harm."
"I've met worse," Mary said. "He was nice enough to get me here."
"Not too nice, I hope," said Eliza. "I fancy him myself, so keep clear, if you don't mind."
That was when Mary flashed such a bright, warm smile Eliza knew later what made the men go soft on her.
"Oh, nothing to worry about there!" laughed Mary. "He's a bit old for me, wouldn't you say?"
She was cheerful, Eliza could see that, and it was a relief to share the load, after doing it herself for all those weeks since Hazel.
"I wonder could you help me out?" Mary asked. "I've a note to write home and ... my letters are not so well formed as they might be."
So Eliza wrote down what Mary told her, about leaving the other position and coming to the Allyns of Neville Street for an opportunity . Eliza wasn't sure of the spelling, but Mary insisted she use that word. Eliza could see that the story was longer than the few lines written, but it didn't seem right to poke about just yet.
Many was the time later that Eliza thought Mary might have been her friend, if only she'd left Bates alone.
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OLIVER 1884 All Foundlings Being the Same
Oliver Chester knew that the anguish of adjustment was the same for every boy coming in from fostering; each faced a suffering he'd never imagined. Some were embarrassed, some toughed it out, some took longer than others to recover, depending on what sort of family they'd come in from. But Oliver remembered those nights in the dark and those queues to wash and eat. He saw their little noses twitching with the effort not to cry and he felt weak all over again. Never enough food, cold rough sheets, unexplained routines, and the towering Big Chaps who seemed as though they might very well murder you. It had been just the same in his time.
That was why he preferred to wait, actually. He liked to teach the older ones, once they'd left what was called the
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Infant School. By the time they got to be Big Chaps--all of eight or nine years old--they were broken in and no longer spilling sadness at odd moments, though there were still one or two each year who managed to crack his heart.
But as long as he prepared his lessons and delivered his lectures and meted out work for revision, he escaped knowing most of the boys. They wore uniforms, after all; it was best that they be uniform as well. He managed to prevent them from having any curiosity about him, or the outside world.
It was the challenge of his life, actually, to evade curiosity, though it pestered him when he least expected to have his thoughts interrupted. It was an irony, Oliver Chester realized, that a history master should avoid his own history, but after all, wasn't that what he'd been taught to do from the start?
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JAMES 1884 What the Chaplain Told Them
There were fourteen new boys brought in that Sunday evening, though James was surprised when he counted; it seeming like more than that. After the haircut, each boy was given a scrubbing. At the Peeveys' they'd had their baths in the barrel every week, or in the stream during the summer. Each night before supper they'd got what Mama P. called licked behind the ears , using a wet cloth.
This scrubbing at the Foundling was like being given a new skin, only the old one needed to come off first. The soap was gritty and smelled horrible. The brush felt as though it were made from thorns. The boys yelped, raw and shivering. James had managed not to cry again since Mama went away through that door, but he was very nearly leaking tears by the end of the bath.
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There was supper of bread and hard white cheese, and afterward they were taken into a room with softly gleaming wooden walls and a carpet on the floor like thick blue moss. The children sat on two benches, rigidly listening to a man with a puffy face and bristling side whiskers. While he spoke to them, he frequently tapped his own left cheek, as if he were pointing to himself. James began to count.
"Good evening, boys." One .
A mumbled response from only a few prompted the man to repeat, "My name is Mr. Byrd. Good evening, boys." Two .
"Good evening, Mr. Byrd."
"Ah, much better." Three . Was he touching a sore spot, James wondered. "I am the chaplain of the Foundling Hospital and will be your counselor on many matters for many years to come. Although you are no doubt weary this evening"-- four --"it is important that you go to your prayers and to your new beds with certain thoughts in mind." Five . James glanced at the boy next to him, wishing it were Martin, so their elbows could bump to share the oddness of this man's finger. Martin would cross his eyes and pretend to choke--
"Each of you is known to us as a child of shame."
What? Six .
"Your. Mothers. Are. Sinners. It is vital that you never forget that you are the progeny of sin. It is therefore your duty to devote yourselves to goodness and servitude. Thanks to the generosity of the governors of this great
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institution, you have been rescued from the certain peril of becoming sinners yourselves. In your prayers tonight, and on all other nights, you are hereby appointed--"
James giggled. Ap point ed! While he was pointing ! Seven. Eight . A glare from Mr. Byrd.
"--to thank God for your salvation, and to offer humble obedience and gratitude from this day forward for as long as you shall live." Nine .
Mr. Byrd fell silent and for a moment was still. James shifted, sliding his hands under the coarse white fabric that covered his knees. What was the man talking about? The way the words rolled out made it sound important, but James-- ten --had been counting the finger-tapping-the-cheek and had not listened properly. Was he now supposed to be doing something? The man moved his stare from one boy to the next, as if-- eleven --he were examining them. James held his breath. His turn.
"You--"
James jumped, but realized the man was only starting up again. He did not mean "you, James," he meant "you, all you boys." This was hard ! Why had Mama brought him here?
"You carry names given to you through the generosity of the hospital governors. You will be fed and clothed and taught through the charity of the hospital governors." Twelve . "You will not spend a single hour of your life occupied in idleness, dishonesty, or ingratitude. Will you, boys?" Thirteen .
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"No, Mr. Byrd."
"You will instead be industrious, honest, and servile."
The pause informed the boys they were to speak.
"Yes, Mr. Byrd."
"I leave you now with the words of our hospital anthem. Blessed are they who considereth the poor ."
Mr. Byrd bowed his head, both hands this time raised to his chin in prayer.
What did it all mean?
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MARY 1877 What a Letter to Nan Might Say
It were a slow job, getting used to that great tall house, with sixty-four stairs from the kitchen to our attic, and water needing to be hauled to every room all the way up. The place were so strange, some days I'd be dizzy with wanting to be home. Only home weren't home anymore, what with Margaret Huckle being the queen hen, so I were stuck with putting one foot in front of the other to climb those steps.
Lord Allyn's newspapers were usually turned to kindling the day after, or wrapping for the fishbones, but I shredded Monday, April 16 , through Saturday, April 21 , stuffing a fine pillow, though it did rustle when I turned my head and Eliza made a point of sighing if she were still awake. We'd had real pillows in Pinchbeck, with sheep's
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wool or feathers inside, and quilts too; something I longed for now, with Eliza like a great sow, pulling the blanket over just herself more nights than not.
They'd been sending the heavy laundry out since the last girl were got rid of, but Eliza said Lady A. weren't happy with her linens being jumbled up with just anybody's. Who knew what infections might be lurking in the tubs at the laundress's? She'd heard about a washerwoman whose baby
died of scarletina and there she were, using the same scrubbing board as she did for the sick child's bedding!
So my Mondays were determined by the carelessness of a grieving mother--or the story of one. Stories being what keeps the world spinning, while the daily tasks are ever the same. Every day were coal and water, trays and trolleys, sweeping and scrubbing, peeling, slicing, basting, serving. And each day of the week there were a big chore too: Mondays, laundry. Tuesdays, ironing. Wednesdays, turning the mattresses and changing the linens. Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays ...
Time slipped by, Lordy! I'd left Pinchbeck at the start of the year, and here it were coming into September already, though a city autumn were nothing like it appeared at home. First the Rogue and Scholar and then Neville Street had used up all those days. I'd had a birthday in July--secret to myself. On that day, I tore a bit of the butcher's paper into strips and fastened loops with a spot of paste from Cook's drawer, each loop linked through the next,
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making a garland long enough to drape across the bedstead. It were very festive.
"And what's this for?" asked Eliza, tugging on it.
"Just a bit of cheering up," I said. She left it alone, and I almost told her I'd turned fifteen, but then I didn't.
All that time gone and still some days my arms would ache for wanting to hold Nan, before remembering she were likely in that wriggly stage, squeaking to be put down, and near big enough to have her hair braided. Did her hair curl like Davy's? I wondered. Were she boisterous or sedate? Plump or scrawny? Were it a baby sister she'd got or another brother? Did she remember me? Did she love that Margaret Huckle instead?
I'd wish I could write her a letter. I'd think all day sometimes, through all my tasks, telling her the news in my head as if I could write it down. I'd report on the sights, and think of funny stories, and imagine that Thomas or Davy would read my words aloud in the evening at the supper table, lit up by the lantern with the dented tin lid.
Mrs. Wiggins? I'd say. Well ... Mrs. Wiggins's legs look as if they've been poured into her stockings and settled wrong, with swellings and lumps at odd spots. If I poked a hole with the darning needle, or one of the skewers she uses for the roast, we'd certainly see sand dribbling out across the floor in a faint ribbon behind her .
I could hear Nan giggling and I'd carry on. You might like to meet Nut , I'd say, and certainly your brothers would ,
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him being everything we taught them not to be. He's an odd little chap, and most wouldn't notice him on the streets of London. He's small, of course, not having eaten his share of any meal since birth. Grubby little face, tough knuckles scabbed and ready for use. You see that look in his eyes and you're like to step out of his way rather than cross him .
Eliza says he arrived wearing a shirt must have belonged to a man twice his size, worn so thin you could count freckles through it .
It were Mrs. Wiggins asked Bates to fetch her a boy from the workhouse. "There's enough nasty jobs in any scullery to occupy a workhouse brat," Bates claims she said .
"Ha," says Nut to that. "There's nothing called a nasty job if'n you grew up in a workhouse."
He tells us tales sometimes, as fierce and fraidy as one of our dad's, only he says they're true. About the spiders he found crawling in the gruel, about how the spiders'd die after eating the gruel, about how the boys'd mash the spiders up and eat them to double their ration ...
Oh? You want to know more about London? Well, I saw a bear on Saturday, yes I did! But I weren't afraid, because he were an old one and led on a chain, with a patchy pelt and moist eyes that looked more sad than hungry. The bear's boy were hanging about outside an alehouse. He'd got a whistle, blowing out a song without much music in it. The bear rose up to stand on his rear paws, sniffing and shifting his haunches till the whistle stopped. Some toff threw down a penny and the boy fed the bear a wee slice of 57 meat before they ambled off to the next spot. It weren't so much, but I wish you'd seen it .
There's a cow, too, though that's nothing new to you. But here, in St. James's Park? You'll laugh when you hear, Nan. Fancy nursemaids bring children every day to line up and pay a penny for a cup of milk!
But wouldn't you rather taste something you've never tried? You could drink peppermint water, or coffee, or lemonade or ginger beer. If you're hungry, there's no end to the marvels being hollered about by hawkers and street vendors on every corner. Would you like to try pigs' feet? Or a rhubarb tart? Gingerbread? Hot eels? Plum cake? Oysters? A roasted corncob? Whelks? Pea soup?
Oh, but mentioning pea soup, I've got to say, you've never seen such a pea-soup fog as ladles itself over us in the afternoons. It's nothing like a bit of mist in the lane at home. The fog is so thick here it hides the gas jets in the street and you'd swear it's night, so thick you can almost swallow it .
"What are you thinking about, Mary Finn?" asked Eliza.
"Nothing really," I told her.
"Is your head so empty, Mary? You need a beau, so you can moon about him all day, instead of nothing."
I only wished I could write that letter. And receive one in return, telling me how Nan and our brothers were thriving. Our letter carrier had the name of Mr. Daniel. He were ever so smart-looking, in his scarlet coat and gold-banded hat. There were a time when I felt a little brighter
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hearing his double knock, meaning he'd put something in the box. If I were close by the door, I'd pop out and wave, and he'd wink and dash off, Eliza never missing the chance to tease, saying, "Ooh, Mary's got a soft spot for a man in uniform!"
I shushed her back then, but it turned out to be true, didn't it?
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JAMES 1884 The First Night Turned into Many Nights
Could it be only his first night? In the cot to his right was the freckly boy from the hair-cutting room. To the left was a slightly bigger boy with surprised-looking eyebrows. He'd been living there since summer, so he knew all there was to know, but not as much as Martin.
"My name is Frederick Mills," he announced. "Only not really. That's the stupid name they've given me and there's a better one that's mine."
"What do you mean?"
"Same for you," he said. "When you were a baby, they gave you a new name. What is it now? James? Don't you wonder what your real mother named you?"
"I ... no," said James. Mama Peevey had called him Jamie. He was pleased with James, or Jamie. He hadn't
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thought much about being Nelligan instead of Peevey. It was a name, that was all. Was there something wrong with James?
"I'm just ... James."
"Huh."
"Who named us?"
"Those gents downstairs. They don't even know us, and they made up names! I think all the time about who I really am. I'm pretty certain my father is ... a prince, or possibly a famous general."
"My name is Walter," said the freckled boy. "Walter Raleigh."
Frederick laughed.
"What?" Walter hopped off his cot, fists up and ready. "Why should that be funny to you?"
"Only I wish it were mine," said Frederick, ignoring Walter's fists. "Do you even know who he was? Sir Walter Raleigh was a knight and an explorer. They've given you one of the best names!"
James looked at Walter with new eyes, hoping for sudden acts of daring. But Walter sat back down and put a thumb in his mouth.
"I want my mother," he said.
James thought of the row of mugs holding Fry's cocoa lined up on the painted table at home, Mama Peevey blowing on each of them so's there'd be no burned tongues.
"I do too," he said. He nearly put an arm around Walter's shoulder.
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"Ah, forget home," said Frederick. "You're here now. Don't be babies. You're starting over. You'll stop thinking about them soon enough."
Not likely , thought James.
"There's more to worry about here than long-gone mothers."
"Like what?" said Walter.
"You keep sucking that
thumb?" said Frederick. "They'll cut it off. Cut it right off, phttt "--he mimed a knife slicing down--"and feed it to the pigs."
Walter yanked his thumb out, his eyes welling up in the same moment.
"Baby." Frederick's mouth shaped a sneer.
James took a quick measurement. Pick your friends wisely, Mister had said. Did he want to be a baby?
"Feed it to us, more like," said James.
"What?" said Walter.
"What do you think that stew was made of? Boys' thumbs, that's what."
Walter made a squeaking little gasp as though James had pulled out a thumb saw. Fiercely, he shoved his hands under his bottom. Remorse tickled in James's throat.
"I'm teasing," he said. "It only tastes like thumbs."
He'd sniffed his chance at bossing, though, as delicious as a brown sugar tart. He suddenly knew he could get along by pretending to be Martin. As days went by, he tried swaggering, and even whispered Martin's naughty words for company.
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"Devil's piss," he favored, and "God's bum." Or "damned," like "My damned bootlace just broke!" They were wicked words, but he said them quietly.
The new boys wore their nightshirts for two whole days until uniforms were assembled for them.
WHAT THEY WERE GIVEN TO WEAR:
White stockings, heels cobwebbed and toes bumpy with darning stitches
Brand-new shoes! Leather stiff as wood, laces stiff as sticks
White shirt, red waistcoat
Brown knickers and jacket, made of thick and fuzzy wool
Buttons, shiny brass, all six of them, like having coins sewn to their chests. Each button was engraved with a little lamb, the symbol of the Foundling Hospital. That lamb was pictured on the crockery too .
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