Thursday’s Child. Noel Streatfeild
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Lavinia’s opinion and anyway she was too tired and too miserable to have much fight in her. So, clutching her possessions, she followed the last girl and, in spite of having her arms full, succeeded in making the necessary bob.
‘I don’t like the look of that girl,’ Matron observed to Miss Jones, who was following the children. ‘She has a proud air, she must be humbled.’
‘Quite so, Matron,’ Miss Jones agreed. ‘I thought the same the moment I saw her, and the scene she made in the waiting room was disgraceful.’
Lavinia followed Matron into her sitting room. It was, she noticed, a surprisingly comfortable room to find in that desolate place, and though it was March there was a cheerful fire burning in the grate. Drawn up to the fire was a table laid for a meal. Evidently, thought Lavinia, she is going to have her supper. Matron sat down at her table, but she did not ask Lavinia to sit.
‘I have good news for you,’ she said. ‘The Countess of Corkberry, who has always taken a kindly interest in this place, needs a scullery maid. You are to receive five pounds a year, but Her Ladyship has agreed to advance part of that sum so that you may have a respectable wardrobe. I understand you have a tin trunk at the railway station. Does it contain any clothes suitable for a scullery maid?’
‘I don’t really know what a scullery maid wears,’ Lavinia confessed, ‘but I have some plain frocks, perhaps they will do.’
‘Nonsense!’ said Matron. ‘You will need print dresses, aprons and caps and a black outfit for Sundays. All the staff have to attend church.’ She looked at Lavinia’s fair plaits. ‘And of course you must put your hair up.’
‘My hair up!’ Lavinia gasped. ‘I’m only just fourteen.’
‘Fortunately in sewing classes our girls work at wardrobes for our leavers who are going into service, so you can be fitted out – at your expense, of course. I should think two days will be enough to provide everything. A carrier will bring your box here tomorrow.’
‘Two days!’ said Lavinia. ‘I had hoped perhaps a week to see the boys settled in.’
‘Two days,’ said Matron. ‘We have no room for you here. For tonight a mattress has been put on the floor at the end of the girls’ dormitory …’ Matron stopped for there was a knock on the door. ‘Come in.’
The knock had been made by a girl who looked no older than Margaret. She was wearing the orphanage uniform but her hair was screwed up inside her cap. She was carrying a laden tray.
‘Ah, Winifred! Supper,’ said Matron. ‘Good.’
Winifred put in front of Matron a large steak, a dish of potatoes and another of cauliflower. Then from a cupboard she fetched a bottle of porter.
Lavinia felt saliva collecting in her mouth at the sight of such good food.
‘That will be all, Lavinia,’ said Matron. ‘Winifred will direct you to the girls’ dormitory.’
Margaret, shivering with tiredness and lack of food, had accepted without question the bed pointed out to her. She had followed the other girls into an inadequate washroom in which were jugs of cold water and tin basins, in one of which they all cleaned their teeth. She had been shown a tiny shelf over her bed on which she was told to put her toothbrush and mug, her Bible and Prayer Book.
‘And when Miss Jones says “Pray” you stop whatever you are doing and kneel by your bed,’ her guide whispered, ‘or she hits you with a hairbrush.’
Margaret had just pulled on the ugly coarse greyish-coloured nightdress, which was lying on her bed, when the order came for prayer. She hurriedly dropped to her knees and buried her face in her hands. Evidently it was Miss Jones who decided how long prayers should be, for a few moments later there was another bark from her. ‘Up, girls, and into your beds.’
Margaret had hidden the tin Hannah had given her in her bed. In the dark she hugged it to her. It was a little bit of Hannah. Putting her head under the scratchy inadequate bedclothes, she stifled her sobs.
‘I can’t bear it. They’ve taken all my clothes. I’ll never wear lace on Sundays. Oh, Hannah! Hannah!’
But when a little later Lavinia crept up to the dormitory and found Margaret, though her face was wet with tears, she was asleep.
When Margaret woke up the next morning she could not at first think where she could be. Accustomed to a room of her own, she was puzzled by the sleeping sounds which came from the orphans. Then, as if a cold heavy weight had dropped on to her solar plexus, she remembered. This was the orphanage. St Luke’s Orphanage that the archdeacon had told the rector was ‘an exceptionally pleasant place’. Pleasant! Rage filled Margaret. Then she remembered she had three carefully hidden stamps – wait until she wrote to the rector and told him what the archdeacon had dared to describe as exceptionally pleasant.
Margaret sat up and looked down the dormitory. There was not much light because the curtains were drawn, but peering over the twenty-five beds which lined each wall she could see at the far end of the room a mattress on the floor covered, as were the beds, with a grey blanket. ‘That,’ she thought, ‘must be Lavinia. I bet she won’t mind if I wake her up.’
To think of something meant for Margaret doing it immediately. In a second she was out of her bed and, holding up her long greyish nightgown, was running down the dormitory. She sat down by the hump under the blanket which was Lavinia.
‘Lavinia! Lavinia! Wake up. It’s me. Margaret. What shall I do? I can’t stay in this dreadful place. You won’t leave Peter or Horatio here, will you?’
Lavinia had the gift of waking up clear-headed.
‘You’d better go back to your bed,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sure you aren’t allowed to be here.’
Up went Margaret’s chin.
‘I don’t care. I’m doing no harm. Did you hear what I said? I’m running away. I can’t stop here.’
Lavinia sat up.
‘I’m only going to be here for two days. I’m to be scullery maid for somebody called the Countess of Corkberry.’
‘Two days!’ said Margaret. ‘I thought you said a week.’
‘I did, and that’s what I hoped, but it’s not to be, but I’ll be back every other Sunday.’
‘They said you could?’
Lavinia spoke with quiet authority.
‘Either I have every other Sunday or I won’t work for the Countess.’
Margaret looked approving. That was the way to talk.
‘I wish I could be a scullery maid. I’m a good cook and it’s sure to be better than being here because it couldn’t be worse.’
‘Well, you can’t be,’ said Lavinia, ‘you’re too young. You would have to pass a labour exam before you could go out to work. I quite see that you want to run away, but please stick it out for a bit. You see, I want you to keep an eye on Peter and Horatio.’
Margaret weakened. She wanted to leave that morning. But perhaps she could bear a week or two, especially knowing Lavinia would come back every other Sunday.
‘Well, I might stick it out for a bit, but …’
Margaret got no further for Miss Jones had flung open the door and was clanging a huge bell. She stopped in mid-clang, her mouth gaping, unable to believe what her eyes told her.
‘Margaret Thursday! What are you doing out of your bed?’
Margaret