Noel Streatfeild 2-book Collection

Lavinia could see she was meant to curtsey and say ‘Thank you’, and she wished she could have, but she must arrange her days off.

‘Please, ma’am,’ she said, ‘what about my time off?’

Mrs Tanner frowned.

‘Her Ladyship does not give time off to you young girls, but sometimes, if there are no guests, you may go out together in the afternoon providing you do not leave the grounds.’

Lavinia swallowed nervously.

‘I quite understand, ma’am, but you see I have two little brothers at the orphanage. The younger is only six. So I can only take a place where I am permitted to visit them. I had thought perhaps every other Sunday.’

Mrs Tanner, as she told Lady Corkberry later, was so surprised she did not know how to answer.

‘A personable young woman, m’lady, very nicely spoken. I did not know what to answer because I understand she wants to keep an eye on the brothers. Still, it wasn’t for me to go against your rules so I said I would speak to you.’

Lady Corkberry was a good woman. Taking Jem into her house when he had pneumonia was not an isolated kindness. She expected to serve her fellow men when the opportunity offered; that, in her opinion, was what great positions and possessions were for. It was not her custom to meet her junior maids for she left their care to those immediately in charge of them, but this was an exceptional case.

‘Very well, Tanner, I will see the young woman in the morning room after breakfast tomorrow.’

Although it was her first day, Lavinia found that after she had unpacked and changed she was expected to work, but not before she had eaten. Midday dinner was over in the servants’ hall, but there was plenty of food about. Mrs Smedley, a large red-faced woman, pointed to a table by the window.

‘Sit there.’ She nodded at a dark-haired, anxious-looking girl. ‘This is Clara. You share her room. Give her some dinner, Clara.’

Lavinia remembered her instructions.

‘Thank you, ma’am.’ She sat while Clara put in front of her a huge plate of cold meat with a large potato in its jacket, a jar of pickles, a loaf of bread, at least a pound of butter and a great hunk of cheese.

‘Eat up, girl,’ said Mrs Smedley. ‘You’ll find you need to keep your strength up here.’

After the food she had eaten at the orphanage Lavinia needed no encouragement.

‘My goodness,’ she thought, ‘if all the meals are like this it will be a great temptation to take some leavings in my pocket for the boys.’

Mrs Smedley was right about Lavinia needing to keep her strength up for she did find herself very tired before she stumbled behind Clara up to their attic. There had been guests for dinner, and after running to and fro waiting on Mrs Smedley all the evening there had been a great mound of washing-up to do in the scullery. Then, after a supper taken standing, the girls set to at their housework. Blackleading the range, hearthstoning the kitchen and scullery floors and a long passage.

‘Terrible, isn’t it?’ Clara groaned. ‘And we’ve been one short until you came. Sometimes I’ve been that tired I haven’t known how to get up the stairs.’

But in spite of going to bed late and rising early, Lavinia looked, Lady Corkberry thought, remarkably fresh and pretty when Mrs Tanner brought her to her the next morning.

‘The young person Beresford, m’lady,’ Mrs Tanner said, giving a curtsey.

It was clear Mrs Tanner meant to stay, but Lady Corkberry did not permit that.

‘Thank you, Tanner. You may leave us. Your name is Lavinia Beresford?’ she asked.

Lavinia curtseyed.

‘Yes, m’lady.’

‘And you have two brothers in the orphanage?’

‘Yes, m’lady. Which is why I asked if I could have time off every other Sunday. I must see they are all right.’

Several things were puzzling Lady Corkberry.

‘You speak very nicely. Where were you at school?’

Pain showed in Lavinia’s face.

‘We did lessons at home with my mother.’

Lady Corkberry looked sympathetic.

‘She taught you well. A pretty speaking voice is a great advantage.’ She hesitated. ‘You say you must see your brothers are all right. Surely you know they are all right at the orphanage. It is highly spoken of.’

Lavinia did not know how to answer. She did not want Lady Corkberry descending on the place for Matron would, of course, guess who had talked, which might make things harder for the boys. So she hedged.

‘It’s not what they are used to. It will be better when they settle down.’

Lady Corkberry could feel Lavinia was hiding something, but she did not want to bully the child.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Every other Sunday.’ Then she smiled. ‘Perhaps one day in the summer I might have the little boys here for a treat. You would like that?’

A flush spread over Lavinia’s face.

‘Oh, I would, m’lady. It will be something for them to look forward to.’

‘Very well. Now go back to your work. I will see what can be arranged.’

Chapter Eight

A LETTER

Because she enjoyed the school and truly was getting to love both Miss Snelston and Polly Jenkin, Margaret, though she still meant to run away, had no immediate plans to do so. This was not only because of her promise to Lavinia and that she was growing fond of Peter and Horry, but also because of her Sunday underclothes. Whenever she thought of that lace-edged petticoat and those drawers she was so full of rage she felt she could not run away until in some way she had paid Matron back. Poor Susan, on the walk to school, would have been bored to exhaustion with the lace on Margaret’s Sunday underclothes only Margaret was always inventing new things she would like to do to Matron and Susan enjoyed hearing about those.

‘I would like a great enormous saucepan full of frying fat,’ Margaret would whisper through the hood of her cape, ‘and I’d push her in and fry her and fry her until she was dead,’ or, another day: ‘I thought of something in bed last night. I would shut her up in a cupboard with thousands and thousands of hungry rats so they would eat every bit of her.’

But Margaret did not only plan horrible ends for Matron, she collected information about her from the children, particularly those who had been in the orphanage since they were babies. As a result, she gradually built up a picture of the way Matron managed things. She learnt that in May each year Matron had a holiday. She went up north, it was said, to visit a brother, and that was when – so the story went – she sold any clothes belonging to new orphans which were worth selling.

‘She goes away with a great big box,’ a child called Chloe told Margaret, ‘and it weighs ever such a lot because Mr Toms has to carry it’ – Mr Toms was the Beadle – ‘and he swears ever so, but when she comes back it’s so light anyone could carry it.’

‘Clothes wouldn’t weigh all that lot,’ said Margaret.

‘It’s not only clothes,’ Chloe whispered, ‘it’s food. Our food. Last year we nearly starved before she went so she could take a huge joint of beef to her brother, and sausages and pounds of cheese and that.’

‘How do you know?’ Margaret asked.

‘Winifred, of course. They think because she works in the kitchen she’s one of them, but she never is, she’s still one of us.’

Margaret, turning over these scraps of information in her head, saw that they made a pattern. Somehow, before Matron went away in May, she must get back the clothes Hannah had made for her. And somehow she must get hold of her jersey and skirt before she ran away.

Meanwhile, Margaret did what she could to look after Peter and Horry, often getting punished for it. Punishments in the orphanage were tough. They ranged from being sent to bed without supper to beatings, but in between there were other terrors, such as being locked in a cupboard, being tied to a tree in the garden or being shamed by being sent to church on Sundays without a white fichu or, in the case of the boys, a white collar; this told the whole congregation a child was in disgrace. By suggestion, the children had learnt to look upon being disgraced in church as the worst punishment of all.

The very morning Lavinia left Margaret had secreted Peter’s two books under her cape and carried them to school. At school she had put them in his desk.

‘You can read all through playtime,’ she told him, ‘and other times, perhaps, if you ask Miss Snelston.’

Peter was delighted to see his books again, but he absolutely refused to keep both in his desk.

‘I must have a book in the orphanage, Margaret, it’s awful as it is, but with no book I think I’d die.’

‘But when could you read?’ Margaret asked him. ‘I know we are supposed to have free time every day, but mostly we don’t.’

‘It’s better for us boys, I think,’ Peter explained. ‘At least that’s what the boys say. They say Mr Toms doesn’t seem to mind if they don’t do much as long as Matron doesn’t know. They say he hates Matron.’

‘I bet he does. Who wouldn’t?’ Margaret agreed. ‘But where will you keep a book?’

‘I’ll find a place,’ said Peter confidently. ‘Out of doors somewhere, but of course safe from rain.’

Margaret looked in surprise at Peter. He was such a thin, pale little boy, most of his face seemed to be eyes. Yet he wasn’t at all weak, at least he wasn’t about things he cared about – like books. She had been thinking of him as a small boy, but now she remembered he was as old as she was.

‘Will you take a book home tonight?’

‘Of course,’ said Peter calmly. ‘Those horrible cloaks aren’t good for anything except hiding things in.’

But in spite of Peter’s confidence, Margaret felt responsible for him, so after tea she nipped out before tasks to see where the book was to be hidden. Peter had been ordered to act as donkey to the big lawnmower, tugging it along by ropes worn over each shoulder while another boy pushed. This suited Peter perfectly.

‘This is grand,’ he told Margaret. ‘Harry’ – he indicated the other boy – ‘says it’s all right if I read while I’m doing it, he’ll shout if I go crooked.’

That was the first time Margaret was caught and punished. She was slipping back into the orphanage when she ran slap into Miss Jones, who turned puce with rage.

‘Margaret Thursday! Where have you been? I distinctly heard Matron say you were to help in the kitchen.’

Margaret thought quickly. Whatever happened she must not mention Peter.

‘I thought I heard a cat crying.’

‘A cat!’ Miss Jones’s face turned even more puce. ‘We have no cats here, with a hundred orphans to feed and clothe we cannot afford to keep a cat.’

‘Thank goodness!’ thought Margaret. ‘Poor cat, it would starve in this place.’ Out loud she said: ‘May I go to the kitchen?’

‘At once,’ Miss Jones ordered, ‘but this will, of course, be reported to Matron and you will be punished.’

‘I think that’s mean when I was only trying to help a cat that wasn’t there,’ said Margaret, and dashed off to the kitchen.

Miss Jones, on her way to Matron’s office, muttered: ‘That is a very unpleasant child. There is something impertinent about her.’

Matron, when told about Margaret and the supposed cat, agreed with Miss Jones about the unpleasantness of Margaret.

‘One of these independent children,’ she agreed. ‘It will take time before she is moulded to our shape. Send her to me when she comes in from school tomorrow, she shall have ten strokes on each hand. That will teach her who is the ruler in this establishment.’

It was very difficult to help Horatio, but he so badly needed help Margaret did all that she could. There were two periods when he needed her most. One was morning washing time and the other was his free time when he came home from school. Two ex-orphans not suitable for farm work were employed on the boys’ side of the home to help keep discipline and to wash the little boys. They were loutish types in their late teens who enjoyed their small power and showed it by bullying and taking pleasure in being rough. It made Margaret mad to see poor Horry come into the dining room, his eyes red from soap, his cheeks shiny from tears. But Margaret, though seething with rage, kept her temper. She could do nothing for the time being for it was past imagining what the punishment would be if a girl was found in the boys’ dormitory.

‘Most likely I’d be beaten so hard I’d die,’ she thought, ‘and that wouldn’t help Horry.’

Then she had an idea. When on the train she had opened her wicker basket to give everybody toffee, she had told Lavinia she had three stamps. Lavinia already had a pretty shrewd idea what the orphanage was going to be like.

‘Hide them,’ she advised. ‘Stick them inside one of your boots, they won’t find them there.’ So far Margaret had not used a stamp for she did not want to write to Hannah or the rector with news which must depress them, for what could they do? And she certainly was not going to tell Hannah what had happened to her underclothes. But that meant she still had her three stamps and one of these she used to write to Lavinia. She took off the boot in which the stamps were stuck to the inside of the toe and took one out, then Miss Snelston gave her a piece of lined paper and an envelope and promised to post the letter.

Margaret had never received a letter. Although she did not know it, she would have been receiving letters regularly from the rector, had not the archdeacon warned him that it had been found that letters upset the orphans and so they were discouraged, so Margaret was very hazy how a letter should be worded. However, she did her best and at last she got over what she wanted to say. She wrote:

Margaret Thursday says when you come on Sunday she would be obliged if you could bring some sweets to bribe that beast Ben who washes Horatio very faithfully Margaret Thursday.

Chapter Nine

PLANS FOR SUNDAY

Quite by chance, Margaret learnt where Matron kept the orphans’ own clothes. It was through a girl at school called Sally, whose father had met with an accident and as a result could only do part-time work, so Sally’s mother helped out taking any little job she could get. One morning in break Sally said to Margaret:

‘My ma is goin’ up to your old orphanage next week.’

‘What for?’ Margaret asked.

‘It’s work she does for the matron – dead scared of your matron my ma is.’

‘I don’t wonder,’ said Margaret. ‘I think most everybody is.’

‘It’s washin’ and mendin’ and that she does,’ Sally explained.

Margaret was amazed.

‘Washing! I can’t think why Matron pays your mother to do that, for all us female orphans do it all day Saturdays. Cruelly hard it is, especially the ironing, you try washing for one hundred orphans, and the senior girls have to do Matron’s caps as well, and all the week at “tasks” some of us mend.’

‘It’s not what you wear my ma does,’ Sally explained. ‘It’s special stuff. Kept locked up at the top of the house my ma says. When it’s done my ma has to pack it ready to travel when your matron goes on her holiday.’

Sally had moved away so she did not see how Margaret’s eyes flashed and her chin shot into the air. Getting Sally’s mother to pack the clothes Hannah had made for her, was she? Mean beast! But Margaret kept her head. Nobody – nobody at all must guess what she planned, though think as she would she could not imagine what she would do with her lace-edged petticoat and drawers when she got them, she just knew that somehow she must get them back. Hannah’s lovely present was not going up north for Matron to sell.

Lady Corkberry, although she was a very busy person, had not forgotten her nicely-spoken scullery maid. In the week before Lavinia’s first half-day she spoke about her to the housekeeper when she came for orders.

‘Good morning, Tanner. Before I forget, that new scullery maid, Lavinia Beresford, is to be allowed to visit her brothers in the orphanage this coming Sunday. She must be home before dark so she may leave immediately after church. Will you see a generous lunch is packed with some sweet cakes which she will no doubt wish to share with the little boys.’

Mrs Tanner was very fond of her mistress and used to her ways. She thought it amazing that a great lady should remember the half-day of a new scullery maid, but she was like that. So she made a note on her pad. Then she had an idea.

‘I was hearing there is something for us at the station at Wolverhampton, m’lady – garden stuff, I believe. It wouldn’t be much farther for the cart to go on to the orphanage to tell them the girl will be coming on Sunday, it would be a pity if her brothers were out.’

‘What a capital idea!’ said Lady Corkberry. ‘Will you see to it?’

‘Of course, m’lady,’ Mrs Tanner agreed.

That was the day when Margaret’s letter for Lavinia arrived. She read it, amused at its formality, but worried by its contents. She had no money to buy sweets and she did not know when she would be paid the balance of the five pounds a year. Over washing-up, she asked advice of her room-mate Clara.

Clara, as usual, looked worried.

‘I wish I could help, but my mother has all my money; sometimes she gives me a tanner for myself, but I haven’t got anything now and won’t have till old mother Smedley gives me my penny for the plate on Sunday.’

Each Sunday before the staff left for church, the heads of departments saw that their juniors were properly dressed, had clean handkerchiefs and money for the plate.

‘My penny for the plate!’ said Lavinia. ‘That would buy sweets.’

Clara, who was drying, nearly dropped a bowl.

‘Lavinia Beresford! You wouldn’t dare take money from the church. Why, you might be struck dead.’

Lavinia laughed.

‘I wouldn’t be, you know. Jesus loves children and he wouldn’t grudge me keeping my penny if it was to help Horatio.’

‘Don’t do it,’ Clara implored. ‘Even if you aren’t struck dead, Mrs Smedley or someone might see, which would be almost as bad.’

Lavinia laughed again, but what Clara had said gave her an idea.

‘All right, I won’t take my church penny. I’ll tell Mrs Smedley why I want it and ask her for a little advance.’

Lavinia got her chance to speak to Mrs Smedley when that lady came down from her room for her afternoon tea. Although, of course, the cakes and scones for the drawing room were made in the kitchen, Mrs Smedley had nothing to do with the actual meal, for food such as scones was collected from the under-cook by one of the footmen, but the cakes were arranged and sandwiches were cut by the butler who, with the footmen, served the tea. So at about five o’clock Mrs Smedley, refreshed by a good sleep, could come down to a kitchen scrubbed and cleaned by her juniors, to find her tea waiting on the table.

Kitchen tea was far more substantial than drawing-room tea. There was always a tasty dish of some sort as well as dripping toast and large slices of rich fruit cake. This meal was eaten by all the kitchen staff, for usually there was a busy night ahead with at least six courses to be served for dinner, so there was no time for them to eat until quite late.

Tea over, Mrs Smedley would change from the cheerful woman who had come down for her tea into a fury. Not that she felt like a fury, but she considered that it was part of her rôle to let everybody know who was who as far as the kitchen was concerned. So the moment tea was cleared away she would give out her orders with the rapidity of a machine gun. But though she was very much the general commanding the battle when there was dinner to be cooked, she never really lost her warm heart. For whenever there were guests, which meant extra hard work for everybody, she would open the cooking sherry and pour out for each of her staff a good glassful and see that they drank it.

‘Now, no faces,’ she would say to the girls who hated sherry. ‘Drink it up, it’s a tonic and you’ll need it before the night is out.’

That day Lavinia caught Mrs Smedley at her tea, beaming and rosy fresh from her sleep and enjoying a couple of juicy kippers.

‘Well, dear,’ she asked, ‘what can I do for you?’

Lavinia, seeing how good-humoured Mrs Smedley looked, decided to take her into her confidence as far as she could – that is to say, without actually complaining of the orphanage. For she knew Mrs Smedley was the sort of woman who, if she suspected cruelty, would dash straight to Mrs Tanner demanding that someone visit the orphanage immediately, and how would that help poor Peter and Horry?

‘It’s a note I had from a girl at the orphanage, ma’am. She asked me if, when I go on Sunday, I could bring some sweets. You see, my little brother Horatio is only six and he needs a bit of help I expect at washing and dressing, and this girl thought it would help if I brought some sweets that could be handed out as a sort of thank-you to those who help him.’

Mrs Smedley looked up from her kipper and her shrewd eyes studied Lavinia.

‘There’s stories told about that orphanage. Are they true?’

Lavinia hesitated.

‘I was there only one night. It was all right as far as I could see.’

Mrs Smedley went back to her kippers.

‘Each Saturday before your Sunday off remind me you’re going. I’ll see there’s a nice basket to take with you so you can have a picnic. Now, about these sweets. You want some money, I suppose? Remind me tomorrow when I’ve got my purse. You can have a shilling.’

At exactly this time back at the orphanage Jem was pulling up the horse who pulled the cart outside the entrance. He hitched the reins over a paling and ran up the steps. Miss Jones answered the bell.

‘Yes?’ she said.

Jem handed her an envelope.

‘It’s from Sedgecombe Place.’

‘I suppose that girl we sent is giving trouble,’ Miss Jones thought. Out loud she said: ‘Wait here, I will see if there is an answer.’

Matron was in her office. She cut open the stiff envelope and drew out a sheet of crested paper. The letter was from Mrs Tanner.

‘I am asked to inform you that on this Sunday next Lavinia Beresford will visit the orphanage in the afternoon for the purpose of seeing her brothers. Her Ladyship would be obliged if the little boys could be waiting for her and some place found where they can be by themselves. A. Tanner (Housekeeper).’

But Mrs Tanner had talked to Lavinia before she sent the letter so there was a postscript. ‘Her Ladyship would be glad if you would also allow Margaret Thursday to see Lavinia as she has shown kindness to the two little boys.’

Matron muttered: ‘Tell him the children will be waiting,’ which sent Miss Jones scurrying back to Jem. Alone she looked at the letter as if she could have bitten it. ‘Her Ladyship would be obliged if the little boys could be waiting.’ The nerve of it! She didn’t want that Lavinia coming back here. Carrying tales she’d be, as like as not. And why Margaret Thursday? What kindness had she ever shown Peter or Horatio? It was a sneaking, low-down way of getting the orphanage talked about, that’s what it was. But if there was talk she’d know where it started and she’d have the hide off Margaret Thursday if it was the last thing she did.

Chapter Ten

HALF A SUNDAY

Sunday was a lovely day. All the household at Sedgecombe Place got up an hour later than usual on Sundays, so Clara and Lavinia had not to be down until seven. Lavinia, when she woke, ran straight to the window and looked out.

‘Oh, Clara! The sky’s as blue as blue and that field over there is gold with buttercups.’

Clara came yawning to the window.

‘I’m glad it’s fine for you, but you wouldn’t catch me walking all that way on me half-day. I always say to me mum when I get home all I want is to put me feet up.’

Clara’s mother had been in service in Sedgecombe Place and had married one of the under-gardeners. They lived in a cottage on the estate, so Clara was allowed home most Sundays.