Copyright

Harper

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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First published in Great Britain by Harper 2015

Copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

Cover photographs © Henry Steadman (children); The Bridgeman Art Library (East End background)

Cathy Sharp asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008118440

Ebook Edition © September 2015 ISBN: 9780008118457

Version 2015-07-22

Dedication

For my wonderful agent, Judith Murdoch, who gave me the chance to write these books, and for my equally wonderful editor, Kate Bradley, for inspiring me.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Read on for a Gripping Extract of the Next Novel in the Halfpenny Street Series, Coming in Spring 2016

About the Author

About the Publisher

ONE

‘Mary Ellen, I need you,’ her mother’s voice called from the front door of their terraced house as she approached. ‘Hurry up, love …’

Mary Ellen sighed and walked faster. She’d been all the way to the busy market in the heart of Spitalfields and her basket was heavy with the items her mother had asked her to bring. There was a ham bone, which would be made into soup with some turnips, potatoes, pearl barley and carrots, all of which she’d bought from the market, because they were cheaper, and her arm ached from carrying them.

She hoped Ma wasn’t going to send her anywhere else until she’d had a drink of water, because it was hot and sticky and she was feeling tired after her long walk. She’d been up at six that morning to wash the kitchen floor and the sink, before going to school for a few hours. After returning home for lunch, Ma had sent her shopping because it was only sports and games in the afternoon, and Ma said she didn’t need to bother with them, though Mary Ellen knew her teacher would give her a black mark next time she attended school; but that might not be for a few days, because Ma had been coughing all night. Mary Ellen had seen spots of blood on her nightgown when she’d taken her a cup of tea before she left for school that morning.

‘I’m sorry, love,’ her ma said as she reached the door. ‘You’ll have to go back out for my medicine. I’ve got none for tonight and I can’t seem to stop this …’ She couldn’t finish her sentence because the coughing fit seized her and she sounded terrible. Her body bent double with the pain and her face went an awful pasty white. Mary Ellen could see bright red spots on the handkerchief that Ma held to her lips, and her heart caught with fear. ‘Mary Ellen …’

Ma gave a strange little cry and then sort of crumpled up in a heap at Mary Ellen’s feet. She bent over her, trying to make her open her eyes, but her mother wasn’t responding.

‘Don’t be ill, Ma,’ she said, tears welling up. She didn’t know what to do and she’d been living alone with her mother since her big sister Rose went off to train as a nurse. ‘Please … wake up, Ma …’

Mary Ellen was conscious of the slightly grubby lace curtains twitching at the neighbouring house, then the door opened and Mrs Prentice came out and looked at her for a moment before asking, ‘What’s up wiv yer ma, Mary Ellen?’

‘She’s not well,’ Mary Ellen said. ‘She told me to go for her medicine but then she just fell down.’

‘I expect she fainted,’ the neighbour said. ‘I reckon your ma has been proper poorly. Your Rose should be ashamed of herself. You not even nine yet and ‘er goin’ orf and leavin’ her to cope on her own … and you with no pa.’

‘Pa died before we moved here,’ Mary Ellen said defensively, because she knew some of her neighbours thought she’d never had a father. Her tears began to spring in her eyes once more. ‘Ma’s never been well since …’

‘We’d best get someone to go fer the doctor, and I’ll tell my husband to go round and fetch your Rose when he comes home …’ Mrs Prentice went into her house and shouted and a lad of about thirteen came out and stared at them. His trousers were too big and falling off him and his boots had holes in the toes, but he smiled at Mary Ellen.

‘What’s wrong, Ma?’

Mary Ellen’s mother was stirring. Mrs Prentice signalled to her son and between them they helped Ma to her feet. She stood swaying for a moment, seeming bewildered, and then straightened up.

‘I’ll be all right now,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Lil. It’s just the heat.’

‘Not from what I’ve seen,’ Mrs Prentice said. ‘Get orf and fetch the doctor to her, Rip, and then yer can cut orf down the Docks and tell yer father to fetch Rose O’Hanran back tonight.’

‘No, you mustn’t,’ Ma protested faintly. ‘Rose is busy; she hasn’t got time … and I can’t afford the doctor …’

‘Likely he won’t charge yer, as long as it’s all goin’ ter be free soon, that’s what the papers say anyway, though I’ll believe it when I bleedin’ see it,’ Mrs Prentice said. ‘Go on in, Mary Ellen, and make yer ma a cup of tea. I’ll bring her in and settle her down and then you can go and fetch that medicine.’

Mary Ellen nodded. The last thing she wanted was another walk to the High Street, but she had to go, because Ma needed it.

‘Ma, you’re ill.’ Rose’s voice was sharp and the sound of it sent a tingle down Mary Ellen’s spine as she sat on the bottom stair behind the half-opened door into the kitchen, listening to her mother and sister. She was supposed to be in bed. ‘You’ve got to see the doctor. You can’t go on like this – and you know I can’t come home and look after you. I’m taking my final exams next week and if I miss them I’ll have to do at least another term and perhaps an extra year.’

‘I don’t expect you to come home,’ Ma said, sounding weary and defeated to Mary Ellen’s ears. ‘I saw the doctor weeks ago, Rose. He did some tests and it seems I have consumption. According to Dr Marlow I’ll have to go to an isolation hospital in Norfolk, by the sea – and what is going to happen to Mary Ellen then?’

Mary Ellen stiffened. No one knew better than her how tired Ma was; she’d been neglecting all the things she’d once taken pride in and that included looking after her younger daughter. It wasn’t that her mother didn’t care; Mary Ellen knew she was loved, but Ma couldn’t raise the energy to fetch in the bath and see that her daughter was clean. Instead, she told her to wash in the sink and got cross if Mary Ellen’s clothes were dirty too soon. Instead of baking pies and cakes and making delicious stews, she gave Mary Ellen three pennies to fetch chips and mushy peas from the pie shop most days.

Mary Ellen was hungry all the time and Ma said there was no money to buy good food, because Pa’s employers had stopped paying the pension they’d given her. Mary Ellen didn’t understand why it had happened; she just knew that her mother could barely manage. Pa’s firm had said because of the accident Ma was entitled to a generous amount, but now it seemed they’d changed their minds and they’d cut it to just a pound a month. They’d offered her a job cleaning offices but Ma was too ill to work.

Mary Ellen thought Ma’s illness had got much worse in the past few weeks. At first it had been just a little cough, but now she coughed all the time and there were sometimes spots of blood on her mouth. Rose didn’t come home often so she didn’t see how tired Ma looked; she wasn’t the one who had to scrub the kitchen floor and wash their clothes in the copper in the scullery. Ma tried to help her with the mangle but she was so tired afterwards that she had to go to bed. It was Mary Ellen who had to peel vegetables when they did have a proper meal, and her mother just watched her as she put the pans on the stove and told her when the soup was ready.

She didn’t mind helping out, but because of her mother’s illness Mary Ellen had missed school three times this week and two the week before. If they weren’t careful the inspector would be knocking at their door and Ma would be in trouble.

‘Mary Ellen will have to go into a home,’ Rose said and the determination in her words sent chills through her sister. ‘I’ve got a couple of days off after I’ve taken my exams next week. I’ll come and arrange to take her in myself, to that place in Halfpenny Street – and you must agree to go away for that treatment.’

In the semi-darkness, Mary Ellen hugged herself, tears trickling down her cheeks. She didn’t want to be sent away; she wanted to be with her mother and look after her. Forgetting that she was supposed to be in bed, she jumped up and rushed into the kitchen, temper flaring.

‘I won’t go away and nor will Ma,’ she cried. ‘You’re mean, Rose O’Hanran. I hate you.’

‘Oh, Mary Ellen, love,’ her mother said. ‘You should be in bed. You don’t understand. Rose is only trying to help us. I can’t look after you properly … you would be better in St Saviour’s, if they’ll take you.’

‘I’ll go round and ask Father Joe if he thinks they’ll take her,’ Rose said. She looked at Mary Ellen in the yellowish light of the gas lamps and sighed. ‘Your hair could do with a wash, child. Come here, and I’ll do it before I go and see Father Joe.’

Grabbing Mary Ellen’s arm and ignoring her protests that she’d washed her own hair only two days previously her sister filled a jug with water from the kettle and added cold, then bent Mary Ellen’s head over the sink and poured the water, rubbing at her hair and scalp with the carbolic soap they used for everything.

‘Your neck is as black as ink …’

‘Liar! I washed it this week …’ Mary Ellen retorted.

‘Well, you didn’t make much of a job of it.’

‘I hate you, Rose.’

‘Stop quarrelling, the pair of you,’ Ma said wearily.

‘I shan’t come back when I’ve been to see Father Joe,’ Rose said as she rubbed at Mary Ellen’s head, her nails scratching as she bent to her task. She poured out the rest of the jug, washing away the soap and making Mary Ellen gasp because it was too cold and the soap stung her eyes. ‘I need to get some sleep and I’ve got to work on my revision every day. I don’t want to fail my exams after all the work I’ve put in …’

Mary Ellen’s eyes watered. She didn’t want Rose to come back home, because in that moment she hated her. Rose was selfish and mean and they didn’t need her, because Mary Ellen could look after her mother.

Rose was giving her hair a rough rub with the towel. Next, she took a comb and began to pull the teeth through the long hair, making Mary Ellen yell because it tangled and hurt her.

‘Don’t make such a fuss,’ Rose said crossly. ‘You’re not a baby.’

‘I can do it myself,’ Mary Ellen said. ‘You’re a brute and a bully, Rose. Just go back to nursing and leave us alone. I’ll look after Ma.’

Rose looked at her and her face softened a little. ‘You’re not old enough, love,’ she said in a kinder tone. ‘You’ve done your best, Mary Ellen, but you’re not nine yet and you need to go to school. Ma told me how you make her a cup of tea before you go and do as much of the work as you can when you get back – but you’re missing school and Ma will be in trouble if it continues. I’m sorry, but you will have to go into a home – just until Ma is better. You do want her to get better?’

‘Yes.’ Mary Ellen looked at her mother in alarm. ‘Ma … I don’t want to go to that place …’

‘I know you don’t, love. Come here.’ Her mother held out her arms. ‘I don’t want to go away either, but Rose is right. I am ill and if I stay I could make you ill too – so they will make me go soon even if I try to stay. You do as Rose says. Rose, give me that comb.’ She took it and began to smooth it through Mary Ellen’s hair without pulling anywhere near as much. ‘You get off, Rose. I’ll see the doctor tomorrow and make arrangements to go to that hospital … and you can ask at St Saviour’s if they’ll take our Mary Ellen …’

Mary Ellen’s throat was tight and painful, but she knew it was useless to resist. Ma’s illness was getting worse all the time and neither of them had enough food to eat. It was summer now but in the winter this damp old house would make Ma’s chest even worse.

Holding back her tears, she bowed her head, accepting defeat. ‘I’ll do what you want, Ma,’ she said.

‘There’s my good girl,’ her mother said and kissed the top of her head. ‘I’ll put some milk on and we’ll have a cup of the cocoa Rose brought us. It was good of her, wasn’t it?’

Mary Ellen nodded. ‘Yes, I like cocoa.’

‘You like ham too,’ Rose said and smiled at her. ‘When I come on my day off I’ll bring some ham and tomatoes. You’ll like that, won’t you?’

Ham was a rare treat these days, because even if you had the money it was hard to find in the shops, but the manager of Home and Colonial, the grocers where Rose had worked until she left to train as a nurse, had a soft spot for his former employee and he would find her a couple of slices.

‘Yes, I’ll like that,’ Mary Ellen agreed, but a slice of ham and tomatoes wouldn’t make up for the way she was being cast out of her home … it wouldn’t take away the grief of losing her mother and not knowing if she would ever see her again.

‘Wotcha! Lovely day, ain’t it?’

Mary Ellen O’Hanran ignored the cheery greeting as the delivery boy whizzed by her on his shop bicycle. Ma would say he was common and tell her to ignore the likes of Bertie Carter. Even though they were forced to live in the dirty little houses crammed close to the Docks, they did not have to lower their standards.

‘You know better, Mary Ellen, and don’t you forget it. We may live here, but we came from better things and one day we’ll be back where we belong,’ her mother had used to say when they first came to Dock Lane, but that was nearly four years ago, just after her father had died and her mother had still been fit and healthy.

Even the last rays of a late summer sun could not cheer the grime of the dingy street, its narrow gutters choked with rubbish. Peeling paint on the doors of terraced houses and windows that were almost uniformly filthy from the dirt of the slums were at odds with the spotless white lace curtains at number ten Dock Lane. A scrawny tabby arched its back and hissed at a scavenging rat amongst the debris, and the cheeky delivery boy whistled loudly as he swerved to avoid two snarling dogs fighting over a scrap of food further down. He waved as he turned the corner of the narrow lane, before disappearing out of sight. Mary Ellen stared after him, a small, lonely figure with her fair hair curling about a thin, pale face in wayward wisps that had escaped from her plait.

A single tear trickled from the corner of her eye but she dashed it away with her hand, refusing to give in to the feeling of misery that kept threatening to overcome her, because Ma had shouted and told her to keep out of the way. Ma never shouted, but she was so tired, at the end of her tether. She was lying down on her bed after another bout of terrible coughing, her face so pale and drawn that Mary Ellen was afraid she might collapse again. In the distance, the towering cranes on the East India Docks and the smoking chimneystacks of merchant vessels out on the river were outlined against a clear sky. The sound of a ship’s horn blasted suddenly through the mean streets and the foul stench from the oily water had worsened with the heat of the day. The noise of the trams clanging their way through the main thoroughfare echoed in the stillness of the unusually quiet lane. For once there were no gossiping women standing at their front doors, the heat having driven them all inside, thick lace curtains closed to shut out what had been a relentless sun.

Mary Ellen’s home stood out from the crowd, because until these last few weeks, when she’d got so ill, Ma had kept her doorstep scrubbed and her curtains washed despite the constant struggle against the filth of the East End of London. Mary Ellen had scrubbed the step herself this morning, and Ma told her it looked lovely, but the soap had stung her hands and her knees hurt where she’d grazed them on the stone. Yet Mary Ellen would do it again tomorrow, because Ma had been used to better and her pride made her battle against the poverty and wretchedness of her surroundings.

Hunting for the right kind of stone, Mary Ellen was set on playing a game of hopscotch to while away the hours until Rose came home as she’d promised, and it was time to go in for her tea. Maybe one of the other children in the lane would come and play with her, though because Ma kept herself to herself, her neighbours thought they were stuck up and the other kids often refused to notice the O’Hanran girl.

‘Who does she think she is, with her airs and graces?’ their mothers whispered to each other when Ma put her spotless washing out to dry in the back yard. Hair in wire curlers peeping out beneath their headscarves, they made faces at the woman whose hair shone like silk and wore no apron over her dress when she came into the street. ‘Just because her father owns a shop over the river she needn’t think she’s better than the rest of us.’

Mary Ellen bet some of them were gloating to see her mother’s pride tumbled in the dust and tears of anger stung her eyes when she thought of what was going to happen when Rose came home. She knew where she was going, because she’d passed St Saviour’s on her way to visit the park with her school, St Mary’s. There she’d seen the St Saviour’s girls, all dressed in grey skirts, white blouses and dark red coats.

The other kids at St Mary’s laughed and pointed at the orphans, calling them the ’Alfpenny kids, because that was the name of the street the home was in, and now Mary Ellen was going to be one of them. The idea filled her with dread.

Why couldn’t she stay at home? Rebellious thoughts filled her head, though sometimes, her mother looked so pale and fragile that Mary Ellen grew frightened. When she saw the blood on the handkerchief that Ma tried to hide, she prayed to that God in the sky her father had impressed on her was there to save them, especially little children.

‘Ah, whist, me darlin’,’ Tom O’Hanran would say, as he sat her on his knee and stroked her head, his breath always smelling faintly of good Irish whiskey. ‘Sure, Jesus in His heaven and Mary Mother of God will smile on you, my Mary. You’ve the charm of the Irish and the smile of an angel, and no one could help but love you.’

‘Now then, Tom O’Hanran.’ Ma would smile fondly on them. ‘Don’t you be spoiling her with your daft stories. Mary Ellen has to learn that life does not always flow smoothly for the likes of us.’

Mary Ellen still missed her father. Sometimes it hurt so much that it was like a big hole in her chest, but Ma didn’t talk about him so she had to keep her grief inside.

Ma was English, not Irish, and in the opinion of her shopkeeper father she had disgraced herself by marrying a wild Irish Catholic, who would, he prophesied, ruin her. Ma had been in love with her handsome husband in those days, and she’d even converted to his faith at the start, though after his death she had lapsed and no longer sent her children to the Catholic Church. Ma seldom went to church at all, but when she did, she chose the Methodist one because the minister did not scold her for changing her mind over the matter of religion. In a huge city teeming with people of all faiths, the minister had long grown used to accepting those in need, whatever their denomination, and did what he could to help the poor of the area, regardless of whether they attended his church.

Ma’s father had disowned her when she married, and he had not relented when she became a widow, even though he could have helped her to stay in the nice little cottage she’d gone to when she wed. Mary Ellen’s elder sister Rose said that Grandpa would’ve given Ma money if she’d grovelled and begged him, but Ma was too proud to beg. Instead, she’d been forced to come here to this slum and fight her battles against an encroaching illness and the tide of dirt that threatened to engulf them.

Rose still attended the Catholic Church, not out of devotion but because, she said, they had allowed her to take a scholarship under their aegis that had enabled her to enter nursing college. Rose was determined to better herself, to make a good life, and her only way of getting the chance she needed had been to take advantage of being a good Catholic. Father Joe had been a friend to all of them and he took an interest in Rose’s future, telling Ma that she should be proud of her daughter’s hard work.

‘You’ve a good daughter there, Mrs O’Hanran,’ he’d said when he came to visit. ‘Respectable and devout, she’ll make a wonderful nurse.’

Ever since she was Mary Ellen’s age, Rose had dreamed of becoming a nurse one day, and the recent terrible war which had ended only two years earlier had made her even more eager to take up the profession.

‘When I see men fresh home from the war, with legs missing and awful scars, some of them so weak that they will never recover, I want to help them,’ Rose had told her young sister. ‘I only wish I had been old enough to go out to the Front – somewhere the fighting was at its worst – to help nurse the men. I could never work in an office or a dress shop when there is something more worthwhile to be done. Hitler is beaten, and London will recover from the Blitz in time, but the injuries some of those men received will never be healed.’

Rose wanted to help sick people, but she hated the slum area they’d been forced to live in after Pa died, and Mary Ellen knew she wanted to become a nurse so that she need never come back here. She was ashamed of their home and wanted something better. Mary Ellen didn’t care about such things, she just wanted to be at home with her mother … but after today she would be sent away and she wouldn’t be able to see or touch Ma …

Mary Ellen had often sat unseen on the stairs in the evenings and listened to her mother and sister talking in the kitchen. At nights, Ma lit the gas lamps and made a pot of tea, which they drank together, discussing subjects that they considered her too young to comprehend, but life hadn’t been easy since Pa died, and Mary Ellen understood grief all too well. She heard things that worried her, though she often made sense of only a fraction.

Yet she knew that Britain was still struggling to pay back its war debts and there were not enough decent jobs for able-bodied men, let alone those who could not do a full day’s work.

Everyone had hoped rationing would end with the war, but instead it seemed that every month they were told there would be less of something else. ‘Only one ounce of bacon per person per week now, and three pounds of potatoes,’ Ma complained when Rose came home with whatever she could find. ‘We shall all starve before they’ve done – and what was it all about, that’s what I’d like to know.’

‘Governments falling out like spoiled children,’ Rose said in a harsh tone. Ma sometimes complained that Rose was becoming a radical and too critical of politics and things that were best left to men, but that just made Rose toss her head and retort, ‘You’ll see, Ma. Women are going to have more to say in the future. It’s time ordinary people had enough to eat and decent homes to live in – it’s time women were equal to men, in wages and everything else.’

Ma would laugh and warn her that pride came before a fall, but Mary Ellen thought that her sister was right. Why shouldn’t women have more say in their lives? And it wasn’t right that people went hungry. Yet when she said so both Ma and Rose told her she was too young.

‘It’s not really the Government’s fault,’ Ma said. ‘There isn’t enough of everything to go round and things haven’t got going yet after the war.’

‘And who is to blame for all the shortages, the way the shops are empty even though the war has been over for months and months; more than two years? Who says we have to go on being rationed? No one has enough to eat, Ma. I can’t even buy a decent pair of shoes for work. What did all those men fight for if it wasn’t to make life better for us all? If those fat idiots in Westminster stopped rabbiting on and sorted things out perhaps we shouldn’t have to put up with all this austerity. With a country to rebuild there should be plenty of work for everyone and money to live decently – but it’s still hard to find work for most of the men, even though it may not be as bad as it was after the first big war.’

Mary Ellen sort of understood, because she was good at listening to people talking and because she was small and quiet they didn’t always realise she was there. She heard Mr Jones the butcher talking about the fact that he couldn’t get supplies of lamb from his usual suppliers.

The big freeze in January and February had made it seem that life in Austerity Britain could not get worse. And the floods in April with the resulting catastrophic loss of livestock, with millions of sheep drowned and arable crops flooded, had only aggravated the situation.

Yet here in the East End, which had taken much of the damage during those terrible nights of war when waves of bombers flew like great birds of prey over the city, disease and poverty still haunted the streets. Life had always been hard for these people and somehow they endured, though they never stopped moaning about the bloody Government. Moved by the pity and despair she saw in the faces of wounded men, returned to a life without work and precious little to eat, Rose was fired with a zeal to do what she could to put things right, to make life better for others as well as herself. A nursing career was the only way she knew to leave the poverty of the East End behind her and find the kind of life she wanted: a way of forgetting the drabness of life in Austerity Britain.

Mary Ellen admired her sister. Rose was dark-haired and beautiful, with her pert nose, full red lips and firm chin. She was also one of the most determined people that Mary Ellen had ever come across.

Mary Ellen finished chalking the squares for her game of hopscotch and then selected a flat stone from amongst the filth in the gutters. Her chores finished for the day, she’d come out to play while Ma had a rest on the bed, and they waited for Rose to return home from work with food for their tea.

Mary Ellen threw her stone into the first square and hopped into the one after it. She was preparing to perform a hop, skip and jump before turning to go back and pick up her stone when a voice spoke from behind her and made her start and lose her balance.

Turning, she saw a boy of similar age to her own. He was a little taller, dressed in long trousers that had been cut down from an old pair of his brother’s, a washed-out shirt and scuffed black boots. His dark auburn hair was tousled and unwashed, his nose red and dripping and there were streaks of dirt on his face where he’d rubbed it with his filthy hands. As she watched he wiped his nose on the back of his hand and then, to her disgust, slid his hand down his trousers. Ma might be ill and they might be poor, but Mary Ellen was clothed in an almost clean cotton pinafore skirt and blouse her mother had made before she became ill, and she had better manners than to wipe snot on her dress.

‘That’s rude, that is, Billy Baggins,’ she said. ‘What did you make me jump for? I shall have to start again now.’

‘I didn’t mean to, Mary Ellen,’ he answered meekly. ‘Can I play?’

‘You’ll have to find a stone,’ she said, looking at him curiously but without malice. Billy Baggins had no mother and his father had recently been killed in an incident on the Docks. Mr Baggins had been a bully with a loud voice, who hit both his sons whenever he was drunk, but at least he’d kept the family together and they hadn’t starved. Since his death, Billy’s elder brother had cleared off to no one knew where, and Billy had been collared by the authorities who had said he was going to be put into care.

Mary Ellen had felt sorry for him, because he might look unkempt and his manners were rough, but she knew he was kind and generous. When her own father had died, Billy had been the only one who understood how she felt, sharing his sherbet dip with her as they sat on the doorstep and she battled with her tears. He was her one real friend in these lanes and she’d missed him when he’d gone off to stay with his nanna. She knew how bad he must feel now that his own father was dead and all he had was an old lady and his rogue of a brother. ‘I thought you’d gone away?’ she said now.

‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘I’ve been stayin’ with me nanna in Whitechapel, but she was taken into hospital sudden and I came home ter see if Arfur had come back.’

‘Has he?’ Mary Ellen asked sympathetically, but with little expectation of a good outcome. Everyone knew that Arthur Baggins was a bad ’un.

‘Nah, didn’t fink he would’ve,’ Billy said. ‘Came ter make sure ’cos the bloody council bloke will ’ave me in a home afore you can sneeze if I don’t watch it.’

‘That’s bad, that is,’ Mary Ellen said, feeling her eyes sting with tears she would never dream of letting Billy see. They weren’t just for him, because it was going to happen to her too – and she hadn’t got anyone else she could go to, because her grandfather hadn’t even opened the door to them when Ma had tried to tell him she was ill. She hated the thought of leaving her home and being with people she didn’t know, and her voice wobbled as she asked, ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Don’t know,’ he said and pounced on a stone with glee. ‘This is a good ’un, this is.’ He showed it to Mary Ellen, who nodded her agreement. Because she was feeling sorry for him, she told him he could have first go. He grinned, showing a gap in his bottom set of teeth. ‘You’re the best friend I’ve got. I wish I could stay wiv you and your ma.’

‘Ma’s not well.’ Her heart felt as if it were being squeezed, because she was afraid of what was going to happen to her. ‘She’s got to go away … and that means I can’t stay here.’

‘Why ain’t your Rose ’ere then, if yer ma is bad?’

‘She’s going to be a nurse. She’ll work in a hospital and live in the home for nurses. She’s too busy to look after me, she said so.’

‘That’s bad fer yer then, Mary Ellen.’

‘Yes,’ Mary Ellen agreed unhappily, moving from one foot to the other. ‘Rose said they’re going to put me in St Saviour’s. I heard them talking about it the other night. I think Ma might go away to the hospital … somewhere a long way off …’

‘That’s rotten luck,’ Billy said. Then he threw his stone, did the feet-apart jump and the hopping motions, as he went up the squares and down again to retrieve his stone without a fault. ‘I reckon that’s where they might send me, St Saviour’s. I wouldn’t mind being sent there if I thought you would be there an’ all …’

‘No,’ she replied doubtfully, watching as he threw for the next square and set off again. He performed the actions perfectly. She wasn’t going to get a turn for ages at this rate. ‘What do you think they do to you at that place? Is it a house of correction? I don’t know what that is but I heard someone say they ought to send your Arthur there when they thought he broke into the corner shop …’

Billy looked anxious, because his brother had been in trouble with the police over that years ago, but no one could prove he’d done it and so he’d got away with the crime.

‘Nah,’ he said and threw his stone, which missed. He swore, a word that would have earned him a cuff round the ear from Mary Ellen’s mother. ‘It’s your turn. Proper put me off, that did – but St Saviour’s ain’t a punishment house. Those places are for bad boys, not orphans. Not that you’re an orphan, yer ma is still alive. Still, sometimes they put yer in a home even if both of ’em are still around. I heard as they’re all right at St Saviour’s – not like some places where they treat yer rotten. Nanna told me I should go there. She warned me she was too old to have the care of a young lad, and I reckon it’s the worry of it wot’s made her bad.’

‘I put you off; you can throw again,’ Mary Ellen offered, because he looked worried about his nanna, but he insisted it was her turn. She threw, hopped up the squares and executed a perfect turn, coming back to balance on one leg as she picked up her stone. ‘I reckon we’d be all right there together – it wouldn’t be as bad as if we were on our own and didn’t know anyone.’

‘All right,’ he said and gave her a wide grin. ‘If they say that’s where I’m goin’ I’ll let them put me there. I can always run orf if I don’t like it.’

‘Where would you go?’

‘Don’t know; I’d probably just hang about the streets until I could find Arfur. There’s plenty of bombsites wiv ’ouses half standin’ where you can hide. Me bruvver won’t have left the East End and he might let me stay wiv him if I asked,’ he said hopefully.

‘It would be better than living on the streets alone, I suppose.’ Mary Ellen didn’t much like Billy’s brother. He was mean and vicious and made her feel nervous when he looked at her. ‘Besides, you’re nine, aren’t you? How long can they keep you at places like that?’

‘If Dad was alive I should’ve gone to work down the Docks as soon as I was twelve, that’s wot he told me. I ain’t sure if it was legal but he said he’d be damned if he kept me any longer than me twelfth birthday. He was an old devil but I wish he was still around.’

‘You’ve only got three years until you can work then,’ Mary Ellen said with a sigh. ‘I’ve got ages more before I can train to be a nurse like Rose.’

‘Work’s a waste of time if yer ask me,’ he said, watching as she completed a second turn. ‘Arfur says he can earn more in one night than me farvver made in a month.’

‘What does Arthur do?’

‘I dunno,’ Billy said, but Mary Ellen thought he was lying. She could always tell, because his ears went red and so did his neck. Rose said Arthur was a thief for certain, but she couldn’t say that to her friend. She threw for a top square and missed, and Billy chortled, stepping in to throw his own stone. This time he landed it exactly where he wanted and set off up the squares. He was on his way back when Mary Ellen saw her sister coming down the lane and knew it was time to call a halt. Before she could speak the delivery boy screeched to a stop beside her.

‘Wotcha, Billy,’ Bertie Carter called. ‘I ain’t seen yer for a while. Where yer been?’

‘To stay wiv me nanna,’ Billy said, his attention turned. ‘What yer doin’, then?’

‘Got a job delivering sausages,’ Bertie said. ‘Me bloody pa’s drunk all his pay again so ma told me to get out and find a job.’

Mary Ellen saw Rose glaring at her and knew she would be annoyed to see her talking to two boys she would describe as being rogues.

‘I’ve got to go, Billy,’ she said. ‘It’s time for my tea now.’

‘All right,’ he agreed but looked disappointed. ‘It was nice seein’ yer, Mary Ellen. Don’t forget, if they put me in that home I shall be there waitin’ fer yer …’

‘I’m orf,’ Bertie said. ‘Yer can come wiv me, Billy. I’ll get a bag of chips on me way home and you can share ’em.’

‘All right,’ Billy agreed.

Whistling, he ran off after Bertie, the pair of them reaching the end of the lane just as Rose came up to Mary Ellen. She stared after him with a look of annoyance on her pretty face. ‘Was that that Baggins boy?’

‘Yes. His nanna’s gone into hospital and he came to see if his brother is back, but he isn’t – and they’re going to put him in a home.’

‘In my opinion they should have done it long ago,’ Rose said. ‘If he’s left to run the streets he will turn out just like that good-for-nothing brother of his …’

‘Billy isn’t like his brother.’

‘Ma told you not to have anything to do with him, Mary Ellen, and now I’m telling you. He comes from bad blood and we do not want you getting into trouble because of him. Go in now and wash your hands. Then you can help me set the table and get the tea on …’

‘I thought we were going to have ham and tomatoes tonight?’

It was Friday night and before Ma got ill they’d always had ham for tea, because it was pay day, but now there wasn’t enough money for treats like that unless Rose brought them.

‘There was no ham left by four this afternoon, and Mr Brown wouldn’t cut a new one until tomorrow. I bought a bit of fish and I’ll mash some potatoes to go with it.’

Mary Ellen pulled a face behind her sister’s back. She didn’t like fish and she’d been looking forward to a slice of ham all day, because all she’d had at midday was a slice of bread and dripping. Rose could be mean sometimes, finding fault with Billy for no reason, and then bringing fish for tea when she knew Mary Ellen hated it.

She would rather have a piece of bread and jam and if Rose hadn’t brought a fresh loaf, she would make toast of the old bread and put the last of the strawberry jam on it.

TWO

‘Angela, this is a welcome surprise.’ Mark Adderbury rose to his feet, offering his hand as his guest entered the study of his old, rambling, but rather lovely house, which adjoined the surgery attended by his private patients. Situated at the edge of the small but charming Sussex village where they both lived, its appearance was testament to his status as a respected and expensive psychiatrist. He’d come down for a long weekend and did not return until the following day. ‘What may I do for you?’

‘I haven’t come as a patient,’ Angela said with the sweet smile that won hearts but these days did not quite reach her eyes. Mark understood the sadness that lay behind those expressive eyes, because when her husband John had been killed in the war, he too had felt the sharp pang of loss for his best friend. It had been then that Angela had drawn closer to him, glad of his sympathy and understanding. ‘I wanted to ask your advice.’

His eyes moved over her, noting the style of her dress, the New Look which Christian Dior had introduced that April, with its longer full skirt and shaped waist that gave women’s figures that hourglass shape. The rag trade in London had copied it within hours, getting cheaper versions into their shop windows to tempt women who were sick to death of the Utility dresses that were all that had been available during the war. However, by the look of Angela’s dress, she had probably bought it in Paris when she stopped there on her way back from Switzerland, where she’d been on behalf of some patients; military personnel with private means, whose families had sent them for a rest cure after their traumatic experiences.

In her capacity as an administrator for the military hospital in Portsmouth, she’d sought Mark’s advice when it was deemed necessary to find a clinic which might just be able to mend the minds of some badly damaged war heroes. Yet Angela had known only too well that it wasn’t just their minds that had been damaged; in many cases they had lost a leg or arm, sometimes both, but there was help for amputees these days. It was the men with faces so severely burned that they looked like something from a horror film that Angela had felt for the most, skin blistered, eyes damaged, sometimes sightless – and some poor devils didn’t even have a nose. Yes, there were wonderful surgeons ready to reconstruct a face, but it would mean endless pain and operations. She’d told Mark afterwards that she believed a lot of men would rather be dead than endure the look in the eyes of friends and family … and he knew she’d broken her heart over the hopeless cases.

He’d told her about the clinic, of which he was a co-owner, and she’d managed the rest herself, though she’d complained bitterly because she wasn’t able to offer the same service to deserving soldiers who didn’t have private means. He suspected that she’d paid for one or two of her lame ducks to have the special treatment out of her own pocket; he’d often done the same himself and thought that having money to spare came in handy sometimes.

It was a pity that the job of hospital administrator had been her last, because she had excellent managerial skills. The hospital had been loath to lose her but Angela’s mother had wanted her to come home, and since she was recovering from a severe bout of flu and seemed very low, Angela had obliged her – perhaps because she too needed to rest and recover her spirits.

Mark saw the signs of strain in her face and the dullness of those eyes that had once seemed to glow with life and vitality. Only five years ago she had been considered beautiful, with her dark blonde hair, azure eyes and sensual mouth, the only daughter of middle-class parents, her father a much respected family lawyer. Angela had been expected by her parents – some would say required – to make a brilliant marriage, and indeed she had, though rather later than had been hoped. For years she had led a butterfly existence, playing at being her father’s secretary and enjoying the social whirl, despite her mother’s frequent hints that it was time she settled down. Even though she was presented to several eligible men, Angela just hadn’t found anyone she could bear to think of as a husband and stubbornly refused to give way to her mother’s urging, even though they argued often. However, after meeting Captain John Morton, a handsome and charming Army officer, at a Young Farmer’s ball at the age of twenty-nine, she had fallen madly in love, been swept off her feet and married him within a month. Much to her mother’s displeasure, she had chosen a quiet wedding without any fuss and drama. Angela told her closest friends that her mother had never forgiven her for cheating her out of a big society wedding, but as she had also been fond of saying, ‘With a war going on we just didn’t have time to waste, besides, it would have seemed wrong when everyone was suffering.’

‘You know you can count on me as your friend,’ Mark said now, giving her his comforting smile, which, he was well aware, his wealthy patients declared was worth every penny of the exorbitant fees he charged for consultations. ‘You are feeling less tired now, I think?’

‘Yes, absolutely,’ Angela replied. ‘In fact I have so much energy that I am bored to tears. I just cannot live at home and help my mother with her charity work or I shall go mad …’ She laughed softly, and his heart caught because it was a while since he’d heard her do so – not since John was killed. ‘Not literally. I’m not going to have a breakdown or anything. I just want something to do with my life – something worthwhile. I’ve had enough of endless society engagements and dinners with my mother’s friends. Besides, Mother wants to find me another husband and I can’t … I won’t let her bully me into another marriage.’

‘I agree that three years is too soon for you to think of anyone else, because you were so much in love with John,’ he said, although he wished it were otherwise, because he would have liked the chance to offer her love and a reason to be happy again. ‘Do you want me to speak to her for you?’

‘No, thank you. I need work, proper work that takes me away from here – away from my comfortable life. I want to live in the real world rather than Mother’s. I find most of her friends shallow and selfish and I want to help those in need. I’m not hysterical, even though Mother looks at me as if she thinks I am when I say something like that. She thinks she helps people because she sits on the board of a charity and raises funds for her pet projects but she has no true idea of what goes on.’

‘A little unkind, wouldn’t you say?’ Mark raised his brows. ‘Your mother does help others less fortunate in her own way; she just doesn’t wish to get her hands dirty. That’s what you’re after, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ Angela’s smile was rueful. ‘It sounds awful put like that – as if I’m a middle-class do-gooder trying to earn my Brownie points.’

‘Have you considered that that is how you may appear to people who truly have to get their hands dirty to survive? If I were to find you a job – or at least point you in the right direction – you would almost certainly come up against prejudice because of your background.’

‘Do you know of something that might suit me? All I want is a chance … something to make it worthwhile getting up in the morning. Something to take away this emptiness …’

Her eagerness touched him, the sudden glow in her eyes making him realise that she was truly in earnest. Although the perfect beauty she’d once enjoyed had gone, she retained the clean symmetry of good bones, her face a little angular these days, but perhaps more arresting because it told of her suffering – and she had the best ankles Mark had ever seen on a woman. It couldn’t hurt to help her on her way. She might change her mind once the reality of hard work came home to roost, but there was no harm in letting her try. He realised now that it had been in his mind to ask her for a while, because she would be perfect for the role of the new Administrator of St Saviour’s – and of course it would give Mark the perfect excuse to see her more often. He smiled inwardly, because he knew his own feelings had played their part in his decision.

‘As it happens, I do know of something. I was actually thinking of mentioning it to you, Angela. You may not be aware, but I am on the board of a charity that runs a children’s home in the East End of London …’

‘Daddy told me a little about it. It’s why I came to you, because I thought you might know of someone needing help? I don’t have to be paid.’

Mark nodded, because he knew that John had left her well provided for; Angela didn’t need to work, but he could see that she needed the discipline of it. Outwardly, she appeared to have coped well with her bereavement, but one had only to watch her to see the grief that lived inside her. She’d come home for her mother’s sake, but he’d never approved of her giving up work for such a reason; of course if John had lived he would have expected it, but then she would have had a busy life caring for a home and a husband she adored.

Mark had been attracted to Angela from the first time he saw her, at a charity dance her mother had arranged when she was about twenty-two and he just twenty-six. He’d still been married then, of course, and working in a London hospital, down for the weekend to look at a house he hoped to purchase with a small inheritance from an uncle. He’d simply admired the bright and beautiful girl that she was from a distance, arranged to put a deposit on his house and gone back to London the next day, visiting occasionally to oversee the renovations at the property. He’d acquired the house mostly for Edine’s sake, thinking it might suit her health to live in the country, but he’d often wondered since if it had been a mistake. Over the years Edine and he had met Angela and her parents at various social affairs, but by the time Mark had suddenly found himself free, Angela had been in the throes of falling in love with his best friend. It was really only after John’s death, when he’d held her in his arms and let her cry against his broad shoulder, that he’d realised how deep his feelings ran.

Mark felt the ache like a yearning hunger deep in his guts. It was hard behaving like a perfect gentleman and a good friend, when what he really wanted was to take her in his arms and kiss her until she melted into him, submitting herself to his loving … but that was the daydream of a man in love and Mark had to face reality.

He got up and went over to the sideboard to pour a small glass of sherry for each of them, and brought the tray back to the desk, giving himself time to think over how to answer her.

‘St Saviour’s has recently been given a Government grant, which is wonderful, but it means big changes, and that’s where you could help, Angela. Sister Beatrice is an excellent nurse. She has been in charge of the home for the past two years and we are delighted with the improvements she’s made on the nursing side; but good as she is, she dislikes paperwork – and she does tend to drag her feet a bit when it comes to change. Her desk is always piled high with papers in no order whatsoever, and her reports are always late and usually leave much to be desired. She is a nurse first and foremost: a dedicated, hard-working and intelligent woman, but the office work is beginning to slip. Some of the governors are growing concerned and I think she may find the new order hard to accept.’

‘She sounds a wonderful person, Mark.’

‘She is, but we do need to bring St Saviour’s into the modern world, Angela. Right-thinking people are questioning the way some homes have been run in the past – especially after that fiasco when all those children were sent overseas. Three thousand of them went down on that ship the Germans torpedoed and it caused an outcry against the high-handed men who sent them off without a thought for what the children wanted. In my opinion it’s time we started to think about the wishes of the child involved. Look at the way they were just shipped off to the country at the start of the war – and some of them went missing; others had a terrible time. Instead of being kept safe and cared for they were treated little better than servants.’

‘That was awful,’ Angela said. ‘If they were going to send them off like that, they could at least have made sure the homes they went to were properly vetted.’

‘From what I heard, people just turned up and selected who they wanted and took them off. Some mothers didn’t even know where their kids were … but that’s not what concerns us now. I want to make sure that our home is run for the benefit of the children in order to give them a better future – education comes into that and it helps if their minds are stimulated, not just at school, but in their home too. I want us to show them there is another way of life …’

‘You mean take them to places of interest, outings that they will enjoy but will open their minds too?’

‘Yes, but perhaps there are other ways you could encourage them to think for themselves, Angela? I should like you to consider what we could do to change both the way St Saviour’s is run and any improvements to both the old and the new building. You have a clear mind and I’m sure your views and your sense of order would help Sister Beatrice. I am not asking you to take over from her, Angela, but she is struggling to cope with all the responsibility, and once the Board approves any changes, it will be your task to implement them. You are not supplanting Sister but you could help her find her way.’

‘I did quite a bit of reorganising at the hospital.’

‘Yes, so I’ve been told, and they were grateful for the changes you suggested. The difference is that change will not be welcome to everyone at St Saviour’s, Angela.’

‘I’m prepared for that,’ she said and sipped her sherry thoughtfully. ‘I need a challenge, Mark. At the moment life feels a bit empty …’

‘You will have more than enough to do if you take this on. Make no bones about it, Angela; the children you will meet are often the casualties of violent and broken homes. Some are so damaged mentally that I’m not sure we shall ever get them right, others are physically ill. St Saviour’s takes in any children in need of help, no matter what their background or religion.’

‘That’s perfect,’ Angela said and leaned forward, her face alight with interest. Mark caught a breath of her perfume; it was light and sensual and made his guts ache with the need to take her in his arms.

Mark continued, ‘It is a poor area; many of the old houses are not far off being slums. Hitler got rid of some of the worst, but there are still too many narrow lanes and rundown streets. St Saviour’s itself is in Halfpenny Street, but there are lots of alleys and lanes leading off it, though locals refer to the whole area as the ’Alfpenny or if they really want to bamboozle you, as the Two Farthin’s.’

‘That’s clever.’

Angela laughed and Mark nodded his appreciation of her humour. ‘Yes, they’re unique, these people. It doesn’t seem to matter what hardships they have to endure, they will come up with something to laugh at.’

‘I can’t wait to find out for myself. Please go on, Mark; it’s fascinating.’

‘The house was once a Georgian mansion, quite beautiful inside, I believe, but all that grandeur was lost when it became a hospital for contagious illnesses. The people of the area have never had enough to eat and rationing hasn’t made that much difference to some of them, because they couldn’t afford to buy more even if food was plentiful. Indeed, at St Saviour’s our children eat better than they ever have in their lives; they wear decent clothes and have shoes without holes. Of course, you’ll find decent families living in the vicinity, businesses and shops too, but it’s the kind of area where in the old days diphtheria would have swept through like wildfire. Thank goodness we have a vaccine for that now, but there are plenty of other diseases to cope with. Polio is a terrible illness and there’s too much of it about these days.’

‘Terrible,’ she agreed. ‘I do understand that it is a poor area, but that is why I think I might be able to do some good.’ Angela gave him a hot, urgent look, her eyes full of passion. Mark wished she felt as passionate about him. ‘What would I be asked to do?’

‘Your job would be mainly in the office, but they cannot afford as many carers as they would like, and you would undoubtedly be asked to help out – perhaps with trips outside, pleasure outings, if you like. If Sister Beatrice likes and trust you, she may allow you to help with the children. Mrs Burrows – or Nan, as everyone calls her – is a surrogate mother to the children. She is the one who looks after those most damaged by trauma, and she often puts the young ones to bed, and cares for them if they are ill – at least, with small things that do not require they be placed in the nursing ward. Make a friend of her and she will put you right.’

‘Oh, if only they will take me. It sounds just exactly what I should like. If I had trained as a nurse I could have been of more help, but Mother hated the idea and when the military hospital discovered I was good at keeping order they made me one of the administrators; it was a bit of a shambles when I arrived. They were always inundated with casualties and often out of their depth. We had to provide temporary wards wherever we could find space and that took a lot of co-ordinating, so I think I can manage to bring in some changes at St Saviour’s. However, I also did an extensive first aid course and I know a little about helping out in a crisis.’

‘A lot of your time will be spent dealing with the setup of a new wing and the paperwork, also some fundraising. With the grant from the Government’s department to help with repairing war-damaged infrastructure, we’ve been able to purchase an old building just next door. We’ve had the architects in and the plans have been approved. The builders expect to move in shortly, perhaps next month if things go well. It has to be completely gutted and refurbished, which is a big job and will cost a great deal of money. We have also been given a small grant to help with running costs for the first year; it’s a part of the grand new welfare scheme that is coming in next year. Even with the grant we are going to need to raise a lot of money in the future … I’m hoping you will take that on, Angela? We need to get some wealthy people interested – and you know quite a few through John’s family.’

Mark saw the colour leave her face and wished he hadn’t spoken, because it was obvious that her grief lay hidden just beneath the surface, but he also knew from experience that grief had to be brought out and dealt with.

‘Do you think it sounds like something you want to tackle?’

‘Do you think they will give me an interview?’ she countered, and her stricken look had gone. ‘It’s just what I need, Mark.’

‘You’re sure you feel able to cope with an area like Halfpenny Street? Local legend has it that the street earned its name from the ragged orphans that would do any job, not matter how demeaning, just to earn a halfpence or two. It is part of the Spitalfields, Stepney and Bethnal Green area, at the heart of the East End, once a prosperous area when the rich silk merchants lived there. However, when the richer people moved out, the area went into a slow decline and was taken over by less well-off immigrants, Used as a fever hospital, the building was damaged inside but the shell survived and is the only one that has managed to do so in this particular area. We took it over in a neglected state and made it habitable again. However, it is a dingy area, teeming with all kinds of people, all nationalities these days. The Huguenots were there from the start, of course, but then it became very much a Jewish centre; you will see evidence of that in the old synagogues and shops. Many of the synagogues are now used as factories or storehouses. There are lots of little manufacturers and craftsmen working in the lanes and streets around the home, and most look grimy and neglected.’

‘What does any of that matter if I can be of use?’

‘You are prepared to do whatever they ask at St Saviour’s?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘You are quite sure it’s what you want?’

‘I’m absolutely certain. I need to feel useful, Mark – to do something other than sit around and try not to be bored stiff by Mother’s friends.’

Mark wanted to please her, to see that quick smile he found so attractive. ‘I shall speak to the Board tomorrow; it’s our monthly meeting and if I recommend you … I can’t promise you, because Sister Beatrice is going to resist, but I think I know how to bring her round.’

‘Thank you so very much,’ Angela said, her face lighting up. ‘You are wonderful, Mark. So much to do but you always make time for me. I almost didn’t ask because you are so busy …’

‘As I’ve told you before, I am your friend and always here for you.’ He wanted to tell her that he cared about John’s cruel death too but she wouldn’t want to hear that just yet. Mark had served overseas with the Army Medical Corps for a while; he and John had both been at the horror of the nightmare that had been Dunkirk and survived it, but then Mark had been transferred to the Military Hospital in Aldershot. John had served out in Egypt for some months. He’d been home for a short visit, which was when he’d met and married Angela, returning to his unit for another tour of duty overseas, before his last leave. John’s unit had been one of those that stormed Normandy in the D-Day assault and it was there that he’d been so horrifically wounded that his CO had hardly recognised him.

Sent out to France in the vanguard of the advancing troops, Mark had worked with the other medics as part of a team, because this time round there was an understanding that it wasn’t just physical injuries the men suffered from, but deep psychological harm too. When John’s body was brought into the makeshift hospital, Mark was working with one of the surgeons on the burns cases, trying to prepare men for the ordeal they faced when they returned home, and he was there when John was carried into the ward, his injuries so severe that he was not expected to survive the night. Indeed, it had been a mercy that he’d never regained consciousness, but the memory was one that Mark could never share with his friend’s wife, because it was too shocking and painful.

‘Well, I must not take any more of your time.’ Angela rose to her feet. His gaze took in the grace of her movement as she uncrossed her legs, the smooth whisper-thin nylon stockings and sensible Cuban-heeled black shoes. Mark stood too and they shook hands.

‘Good luck. I imagine you will get a letter quite soon asking you to go up for an interview.’

‘I can’t wait,’ she said and went out.

Mark turned to stare out of the window at his very beautiful and extensive gardens. He was comfortably off, able to live much as he pleased these days. Indeed, he had no need to work all the time, and certainly the unpaid work he did at St Saviour’s was unnecessary to his career, but he too had known the urge to do something useful, to give back a little of what hard graft and Fortune had brought him. Perhaps it was merely a salve to his conscience, because he knew that many of the middle-class and rich women who patronised his clinics were not truly ill – at least their symptoms were real enough, but the mischief lay in the idleness of their comfortable lives. If more of them had Angela’s strength he would soon be out of a job, he thought with a wry smile.

Mark was thirty-eight, and had an unhappy marriage behind him. It had ended because his wife died in a diabetic coma, brought on by her total lack of discipline. She had disregarded her diet, eaten foods that were too sugary, and forgotten her insulin, often leading to an emergency dash to the hospital. He suspected that these frequent crises were cries for help, which had sometimes been ignored because he was working too hard to think about her unhappiness. In fact he suspected that she had deliberately taken her own life, because she’d known what her reckless behaviour would lead to, and it was her way of paying him back for neglecting her. He blamed himself for not recognising the signs of depression that ought to have been plain; his only excuse was that the pressure of work with men who were suffering terrible trauma had led him to imagine that Edine was happy enough in her comfortable home.

Mark knew that he had neglected her. It hadn’t been his fault that their son was born deformed, but he knew that in some peculiar way his wife felt it was. Unable to accept what had happened, she accused him of paying more attention to his patients, as if that had somehow caused the child’s death. He blamed himself on both counts, though he knew it was ridiculous. Had Edine’s misery and depression contributed to his son’s tragic condition? Or was it partly her illness that had starved the boy of the oxygen he’d needed at birth?

The child had died only a few days later in the hospital. Mark had been told the hole in little Michael’s heart had never closed and by the time the doctors realised what was wrong, it was too late. Considering his other deformities, it was perhaps a merciful release. The pity of it was that Edine could never have another child, because the boy’s birth had damaged her inside.

It had all gone wrong after that.

Nursing his own disappointment and grief, Mark had buried himself in his work and neglected his wife without realising what he was doing. She’d turned away from him and he’d believed she blamed him for what had gone wrong, but he should have tried harder to reach her. Edine’s miserable death would lie forever on his conscience. He did not deserve another chance. Why should he be alive and able to love again when both his wife and their child were buried in their graves? It must have been his fault somehow. Because he’d been too selfish or too busy to realise how unhappy Edine was, to take more care of her, something had gone wrong inside her. He did not deserve to be happy again or to be loved by Angela. Besides, he was not even sure she saw him as a man, but rather as a friend of the man she still adored.

Angela’s perfume still lingered, haunting him, making him wish for something he knew was beyond his reach, for the moment anyway.

Sighing, Mark went back to his desk and pulled out the folder he’d been dealing with earlier. In this case the woman was suffering from a mental condition that might result in her having to be shut away for the sake of her family and her own safety. He was reminded of Edine and the way she’d brooded towards the end and the guilt was hard to bear. Sometimes he could see her resentful, sullen face, blaming him for her unhappiness. Why hadn’t he realised that her frequent illnesses were a cry for help? Yet this was a different case, and he must not allow personal feelings to come into it. It was rather a sad matter, and he didn’t want to make the decision himself. Mark would ask a trusted colleague to examine his patient and give him his thoughts.

Walking back to her parents’ house, a modern red-brick building set some distance from the village, Angela was feeling more cheerful than she had for weeks. Of course Mark Adderbury couldn’t promise that St Saviour’s would take her on, but he obviously had some influence with the Board, having been a member since it was opened just four years earlier to deal with an influx of orphans created by the war. So many lives had been lost in the terrible bombings, both during the Blitz and from the terrifying V2 rockets in the last year of the war. Sometimes whole families had been killed, but at others children lost mothers, aunts, and grandmothers. In the worst cases their fathers were also killed while away fighting for King and Country and they had no one to take them in. Angela knew from something that her father had once told her in confidence, that the first matron employed to run the children’s home had been sacked after two years for various misdemeanours, including embezzling the funds. Mark had been very angry at the time and they had been more careful in their choice of the nursing sister who replaced her.

Her father had told her that Mark had been the one who pushed for Sister Beatrice and therefore if he recommended Angela for the post of Administrator, surely his word would carry some weight? Her mother would be horrified at the idea of her daughter working at a place like St Saviour’s, but her father would understand.

Angela had never doubted that her parents loved her. Daddy was wonderful, always trying to understand yet doing everything wrong, petting her as though she was still his little girl. What no one understood was that she’d lost her soul mate, the only man she’d ever loved.

For a moment the pain of her grief caught her off guard and she had to fight to get her breath. She must not let her grief overpower her. She must face what had happened to her, face the fact that the man she’d adored was never coming back to her … face the knowledge that his body had been so badly mutilated that it was only his identity tags that convinced his CO it actually was John. Of course Angela should never have known the truth of his death. Her official letter had been brief, merely telling her that he had died in action and was a brave soldier.

Angela should have accepted that but in her despair she’d cajoled her father into discovering more. He hadn’t wanted to tell her the truth, believing it would make her grief worse, but she’d wanted to know even though it had caused her unbearable pain. For some time she’d felt numb, and that had helped her to carry on at work as if nothing had happened. Perhaps she would have gone on like that if she hadn’t come home after the war ended, but her father had telephoned her, telling her that her mother had flu and was very depressed. She’d come home on a short visit and stayed on because her mother cried and begged her not to go back, and since the war was over there had seemed no reason to return. Angela had promised to stay for a while, and at first it hadn’t been too bad, but now that her mother had recovered she wouldn’t stop plotting and planning to get her married again.

Mrs Hendry was determined that her daughter was going to enter the circles she had only ever watched from the edge. John’s family was landed gentry, and Mrs Hendry thought that Angela should use his parents to launch herself into society and make a second marriage. She would have had a brilliant social life if John had returned from the war, of course, because he was set to enter politics. They would have lived in London most of the time, enjoying a full life of children, a loving relationship, and entertaining their friends, but his death had left her with nothing and she felt so empty – and the one thing she didn’t want was the kind of marriage her mother craved for her.

Angela might have stayed with John’s family had she wished, but they were busy people and though they tried to make her welcome she knew she didn’t fit into their world of hunting and shooting, high society. Had there not been a war on, Angela doubted that she and John would ever have met. He was home on leave from the Army some three years or so after the war had started, and would not normally have been in the district. Like Angela, he’d been invited to a dance by a friend and because he was at a loose end tagged along for something to do. The truth was, their worlds were far apart and only love had brought them together. She was just a well-educated, middle-class girl with faintly socialist ideas, pink rather than red, her father teased, and without John she was a fish out of water in his world.

Mark had been the person who got through to her after she came home, becoming a frequent visitor. He’d taken her out to dinner a few times, telling her about some of the work he did with damaged and vulnerable children in a London clinic; he’d woken something in her with his stories of suffering. She’d never had cause to think of poverty, of people living on the edge, dying of terrible illnesses that were the result of dirty living conditions and poor diet. His words had made her aware of a desire to do something in return for all that she’d been given, all that she’d taken for granted until a cruel fate swept away the only thing that truly mattered. The feeling of numbness had left her, but that made her more conscious of what she’d lost – of the emptiness of her life. The kind of position Mark had outlined was perfect for her, almost as if it had been engineered for her sake.

He wouldn’t do that, would he? She decided it was unlikely.

Feeling a flicker of excitement at the prospect of a new job and a new life, Angela knew she had to keep it to herself. Mother wasn’t going to like it when she discovered that she was going to live in London and work in a slum area. Daddy would support her, of course; he was such a darling, but he didn’t like arguments in the house. Once Angela was sure of her ground she would fight her own battles. She wasn’t a child any longer.

Walking into the highly polished hall of her parents’ house, Angela saw that her mother was just setting a bowl of the most beautiful roses on the half-moon table. An antique handed down through her father’s family, it was just one of the beautiful things in a house that was furnished in the best of taste, because Phyllis Hendry did everything well. Having set down the roses, she turned and saw her daughter enter, her brow furrowing in slight annoyance.

‘Where have you been all morning? Mrs Finch called to invite us to a dinner she is giving next week. Did you not promise that you would give her a cutting from our garden?’

‘Yes, I had forgotten. She wanted a piece of the white lilac, because she has the blue but particularly admired our white blossoms in the spring. I’ll take a few cuttings to her this afternoon. There are some other bits and pieces she might like …’

‘We have tea at the Robinsons’ this afternoon,’ her mother reminded her. ‘Really, Angela, can you not even remember our social engagements from one day to the next?’

‘I’m sorry, it had slipped my mind. Do I have to go? I have nothing in common with Mrs Robinson.’

‘You accepted her invitation. It would be rude to cry off now. Besides, you may take those cuttings to Mrs Finch in the morning, unless you have engagements of your own?’

Angela shook her head, heading towards the stairs. Her mother took it for granted that she would resume the life she’d led before she married John, but she couldn’t. Angela found the whole idea tiresome. Endless tea parties, mindless chatter about unimportant matters, and women who thought that social position and money were everything, bored her. What her mother found shocking she often thought vaguely amusing, and when the last vicar’s wife had run away with her lover Angela had silently cheered her on, while all her mother’s friends tore her character to shreds. In fact she no longer fitted into the snug and comfortable world her mother had made for her family. She wasn’t the same person that had frittered her time away before her marriage, and she could only pray that soon she would have a chance to do something worthwhile with her life …

THREE

Sister Beatrice pushed the clutter of paper, pins, elastic bands and pens on her desk to one side with a sigh. She had never expected there to be quite so much accounting to do when she’d accepted the post as Warden of St Saviour’s. She felt it to be such a waste of time when the children and staff needed her. The home was understaffed as it was and she could not spare the time to write endless reports and keep the accounts, which, as a devout nun, she found distasteful. Having made her point clear at the last meeting of the Board, which she was forced to attend each month – another waste of time – she hoped that they would accept the admittedly skimpy report she’d written up in the early hours of that morning.

She’d set aside the evening to do it, but three new inmates had been admitted; suddenly orphaned by the loss of their mother to some kind of violent poisoning, probably from food contaminated by flies or worse, the children had nowhere else to go. Had Nan been on duty she might have stuck to her plan, but the woman she trusted most in the world had gone down with a bout of influenza the previous day and was at home in bed. Sister Beatrice did not consider any of her nursing staff competent to admit three terrified children late at night. Sally, a dedicated young carer but with no nursing training, had washed them and put them to bed, but they had first to be examined to make certain they did not have any symptoms. If the illness that had taken their mother was not food poisoning, as she’d been informed by Constable Barker, but an infectious disease, it could have wreaked havoc amongst the other inmates. However, since the woman was a known prostitute and drank too much, it seemed likely that a nasty bout of food poisoning would be enough to kill her.

Sister Beatrice had examined them all herself, and apart from some bruises to their arms and legs, a couple of untreated sores on the eldest boy’s leg, which needed bathing with antiseptic and the application of a soothing salve, and the fact that they all looked emaciated, she passed them as fit. No sign of disease, thank goodness; no lice either, which was quite often the case with children from the slums around Halfpenny Street. She’d asked if they were hungry, or if they’d eaten anything that made them feel sick, and the elder boy had piped up.

‘We ain’t had nuffin’ but a crust fer two days, miss. Ma said she had no money to buy food, but then she and her fancy man went out drinking and they ate jellied eels from the stall near the pub. Ma said it was that as made her bad … and she ate two dishes of it, greedy pig. Didn’t bring so much as a chip home fer us.’

Assuming that the jellied eels were quite possibly the cause of the food poisoning – she’d always thought them nasty things – Sister Beatrice mentally thanked Providence that the selfish mother had not brought any of her treats back for the children. The evidence of the children’s near starvation and the bruises told her that they were victims of neglect and brutality, which was rife in the lanes about St Saviour’s. It was more than likely that the mother had had a succession of men and probable that the children had suffered at their hands; she didn’t think from looking at them that they all had the same father, since their colouring was quite different. However, she thought a decent meal and some loving care would put right the most obvious symptoms of their distress, though in cases of abuse the mental trauma often didn’t come out immediately.

After two years of running the home, and years of experience in the Abbey of All Saints’ Infirmary, she ought to be used to cases like these, but the sight of obvious abuse never failed to rouse her to fury. Hers was a nursing order, and though Beatrice had given up all thought of having a family of her own when she entered the convent, she had a deep need to help those unfortunates she thought of as the forgotten ones: the lost children, abused by those who should love them and abandoned by society.

She must be careful not to be side-tracked by her indignation. Her order forbade her from speaking out in a public way, but inwardly she burned with resentment at the way unfortunate children had been treated in the past. It was not so long ago that they had been sent down the mines at a tender age and used shamefully. Even as recently as the beginning of the terrible war they had all endured, when children had been sent off to the country, to people they did not know and sometimes against their parents’ wishes.

Beatrice had been reading an article about the distress this had caused to some unfortunate children, who had been put to work rather than being cared for, and it was that which had aroused her anger, because it seemed that there were either no proper records or they had been lost in the war. And then there were the misplaced children in Europe, homeless and orphaned, what chance had they of finding a safe haven?

‘May God protect and keep you,’ Sister Beatrice murmured to herself, crossing her breast. Only the Good Lord knew what would happen to them. At least here at St Saviour’s the children would be safe from the horrors left behind from a cruel war.

She fingered the silver cross she always wore as a sign of her faith and pondered the injustices of what at times seemed an uncaring world. It was not for her to make judgements. Her duty was to serve and she did her duty to the best of her ability.

‘Help me not to fail, I beg you, Lord. Prevent me from the sin of pride and give me the grace to serve with humility.’

Sometimes, Sister Beatrice was weighed down by her fear of failure. When faced with ignorance, poverty and cruelty, she wondered if she could ever do enough to make a difference, or was she like the little Dutch boy who had stood with his finger in a hole trying to keep out the flood of the sea? Perhaps God had His purpose for her and to do His will she must be humbled.

This would do no good at all!

Smothering a sigh of annoyance, she reached for the dark grey coat that would cover her habit. Having reached the age of forty-nine, she no longer glanced at her reflection, other than to make sure her cap was straight and her uniform worn as precisely as she demanded from her staff. Once, she’d been considered attractive, more than that if the truth be told, but beauty was skin deep, and in Beatrice’s opinion only brought unhappiness.

‘Sister Beatrice, may I have a word with you please?’

She turned, frowning in annoyance as the pretty young woman came into her office. ‘Staff Nurse Michelle, what may I do for you? I am in a hurry …’

‘Oh, are you going out?’

‘It is the monthly meeting and I’m already running late so make it quick.’

‘One of the new inmates is running a fever. I thought you ought to know.’

‘You had better put them all in the isolation ward just in case.’ Sister Beatrice picked up her battered but once-good leather bag and her gloves. ‘I shall visit them there when I return. Surely you can cope, Nurse?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Staff Nurse Michelle looked as if she wanted to sink, but raised her chin. ‘I thought you should know. I shall keep an eye on them myself just in case they have contracted something infectious.’

‘Well, you did the right thing, but I am in a hurry. Get on with it!’

The girl scuttled, making Beatrice smile grimly. Staff Nurse Michelle was usually reliable, as she ought to be, having trained as a nurse at the outbreak of war and done service in both civilian and military hospitals. She shouldn’t be so nervous of being reprimanded, but she was still fairly new to St Saviour’s and would get used to their ways in time. Perhaps she was in awe of her superior, because she wore the clothes of a nun?

Did her nurses think she was too strict because she tried to follow her conscience and do the work of the Lord? Was she too set in her ways, too accustomed to the years of suffering to accept that things were changing? At times her uncertainty pricked at her, but she took refuge in her faith. God would provide.

Sister Beatrice had suffered enough reprimands during her years of training at the convent infirmary. Her sin had been one of pride and she feared that she had been a disappointment to Mother Abbess many times, before she learned to control her anger and her pride. She’d worked many years with the sick and dying in the infirmary before she’d been permitted to care for the children. And it was only by special dispensation that she had been allowed to take up her position here, and because the Church wished to have a representative in a position of authority. It was the Bishop’s intention that she should maintain the strict moral discipline he believed desirable. Too many children’s homes had been called into question in recent years and she’d been told in confidence that it was her strong sense of discipline that was needed here.

‘With you at the helm I am sure our standards will not slip, as they have at other institutions, Sister Beatrice. I am relying on you to remember the old values. Children need to learn what is right and proper, but they must also be protected and cared for.’

‘Spare the rod and spoil the child?’

‘Exactly.’ The Bishop smiled at her. ‘I know I can rely on you to see that St Saviour’s does not fail in its duty to these poor ignorant children, Sister.’

‘If God grants me strength I will do what I believe to be right, my lord.’

‘I know we can trust you, Sister Beatrice,’ Mark Adderbury had told her later. ‘I’ve watched you working with sick children and I know you to be stern but compassionate – exactly the qualities needed. You will be their guardian and also their champion.’

Sometimes, she wondered if she’d been a fool to be flattered by Mark Adderbury into taking on the position of Warden. He was such an eminent man, so well respected, and charming. His smile could make most women melt and even she – who ought to know better – had experienced a few heart flutters when he smiled at her.

They’d met at the children’s hospital, which was part of the Church-run infirmary, where she had been the Sister in charge of the traumatic cases: children who had been the victims of violent abuse, children who often had lost the power of speech and would only stare at the wall by their bed. Mark Adderbury had been the visiting specialist and she’d admired his professionalism, his manner with the young patients, and the success rate he’d had amongst what had been thought to be hopeless cases. Of course he had as many failures as successes, but even one child brought back from the hell of despair was cause for celebration in Beatrice’s eyes.

Walking along the busy London street, her eyes moved over dingy paint and dirty windows. The narrow lanes about Halfpenny Street were, she supposed, marginally better than those many of the children came from in that the gutters were not choked with filth. When the charity – formed by several well-meaning persons of influence and wealth, including a Catholic Bishop and an Earl, though the latter did no more than contribute to the funds and allow his name to be printed on their headings – had bought St Saviour’s for a song, it had cost a small fortune to make it habitable again. However, its situation made it ideal for taking in the orphaned or mistreated children from the surrounding slums and giving them a safe home where they would be fed, cared for and given a new start in life. Although various council-run homes existed, and of course Dr. Barnardos had places all over London and the rest of the country, there were none quite like St Saviour’s, in her opinion. Everyone seemed intent on getting the children out of the city, sending them to scattered locations in the country, where they would lose touch with any friends they might have and would eventually lose their London identity. Here they gave their children individual attention, with each child loved and cared for, which wasn’t always the case in other homes. Beatrice liked to think that it was a place of hope for those poor forgotten children who might otherwise have lived on the streets.

St Saviour’s was the first place a harassed council and busy police force thought of when needing somewhere to place these children. Some would move back when their families were able to cope; some would go to new homes with kind people who took them in and cared for them. The worst cases sometimes went into specialist homes because their minds or bodies were beyond repair but St Saviour’s took as many children as they could squeeze into their premises. Because she knew only too well how desperately the home had been needed, Sister Beatrice could not truly regret having given up her life at the Catholic convent, which was situated in a quiet suburb on the outskirts of London, though she sometimes missed the peace of the evenings spent in prayer or quiet contemplation. She’d been convinced of her vocation and content to do the work God had given her; it was only since coming to St Saviour’s that she had sometimes wondered if she was strong enough for the task. However, Mark Adderbury was right when he said that not all children in need were ill. Many were simply undernourished and ill-treated, and it was these that St Saviour’s had mainly been set up to help because the established homes were overflowing and some had closed during the Blitz and taken their children out of London. This particular area had been chosen because it was at the heart of one of the poorest in the city, and would provide an instant refuge and in some cases a home for life.

The disastrous war the country had just come through had left many additional orphans in London, which was why the scheme had found favour amongst so many of Mark Adderbury’s friends and acquaintances. Sister Beatrice had no doubt at all that his was the driving force that had got everything up and running in the first place. She’d found herself responding to his charm and promising to think about it, and after inspecting the home, which she instantly saw was in need of better management, had allowed herself to be persuaded. On the whole, she found her work satisfying and often rewarding, but she had not reckoned with that wretched paperwork.

Entering the rather dark and austere church rooms, where the meetings were held each month, she saw that the committee were already assembled and waiting for her. The Bishop looked annoyed, glancing at the gold watch he carried in the pocket of his dark waistcoat, and one or two of the others seemed frustrated because she’d kept them waiting. Mark Adderbury rose to his feet instantly and drew out a chair for her, his easy smile making her forget that she found these meetings a waste of time.

‘I’m afraid my report is sketchy,’ she announced. ‘We had an emergency last night and I had to write it earlier this morning …’ Taking a deep breath, she went on, ‘I am aware that the committee has been petitioning the Government for extra funds. If the new building is to be converted to more dormitories, I may not have time to complete a monthly report or keep the accounts accurately. I should need a secretary …’

‘This really cannot continue,’ the Bishop said fussily. ‘I do understand that the position carries many responsibilities but we must have our reports and the accounts were late last quarter. There are limited funds and I really do not see how we can find the money for a secretary …’

‘I disagree,’ one of the committee members said. ‘With the new grant we ought to afford more staff.’

‘The grant is to provide and maintain additional accommodation for the children,’ the Bishop said. ‘Really, if it is too much for you to administer the …’

‘Perhaps I may have the answer,’ Mark Adderbury said smoothly. His air of authority held them silent, every eye trained on his distinguished figure as he rose to his feet. ‘We should not expect such a caring and dedicated nurse to be bothered with reports and accounts and I propose that we should appoint a new administrator for St Saviour’s. She would be there to assist in any way necessary, typing reports and keeping the accounts would be a part of her duties, but she would also oversee the building work and the setting up of the new wards, and be in charge of raising funds, leaving Sister Beatrice free to do what she does so well – caring for the children and her staff with all the dedication we have seen.’

‘But the cost …’ began the Bishop, who was cut short by Mark Adderbury once more.

‘There are to be two grants, sir. The first and largest is a single one-off grant from the Government for the setting up of the new building; the other is a provisional yearly grant. Our good work has been recognised and we shall be given a generous grant for the coming year, which would pay for the new administrator. After that, we must apply for future grants – but I have every hope that Mrs Morton will raise additional funds to carry us through so that we do not have to wait in line for council funds, which are always stretched to the limit.’

‘Sounds good to me, Adderbury. Who is this lady – and what experience has she had?’

‘I’ve known her some time and a few days ago I asked her if she would be interested in perhaps taking on the post. Mrs Morton is a war widow, like so many others – but she has worked as an administrator for a military hospital; she was in the Wrens during the war and took an extensive course in first aid. Although she has no actual nursing experience on the wards, she does have good office skills and I know she was very well thought of in Portsmouth. Indeed, during one air raid, in which the hospital was damaged, she worked side by side with the nurses and was of great assistance in saving the life of one of the doctors. In fact they wanted her to stay on after the duration, but for personal reasons she left …’

Administrator! Over her dead body. Beatrice looked at him in annoyance. Was he implying that she couldn’t do her job?

‘I might be glad of help in the office but I do not need help in running the home itself.’

Her flat announcement brought all eyes to her. Some of the committee looked impatient, for Mark Adderbury’s suggestion had met with favour, but he was smiling at her, his manner as calm and reassuring as ever.

‘Mrs Morton would not dream of usurping your position. We all know that we have a treasure in you, Sister Beatrice. For my part, I have been afraid that we might lose you because too much pressure was being put on your shoulders … No, no, Mrs Morton will naturally co-ordinate her ideas with yours but I believe you will find her helpful. We do need to move with the times, because now that the war is over things are going to change. In fact some of the changes are mandatory. Mrs Morton will help you guide St Saviour’s into the new and better future we all long for, and oversee the setup of the new wing. She is a friendly person and has independent means, and if she were to become attached to the project she might be inclined to contribute.’

He paused to draw breath. ‘As we all know, we need every penny we can get – and Mrs Morton has experience in fundraising. Her family is well connected, and I am sure she would be happy to write to people she knows to ask for funds. Her late husband’s family are wealthy people, and she would have a wide-reaching net …’

Sister Beatrice glared at him. Begging for money was the one thing she had flatly refused to do, for she did not know anyone who might contribute to their charity and she could not have begged to save her own life. Pleading for money was against her religious beliefs and her principles and she didn’t think she would be much good at it.

‘Well, I think that settles it,’ Bishop Trevor said. ‘Will you write to Mrs Morton and ask if she would take the position of Administrator, Adderbury? Since you know her personally, I believe we may dispense with the formality of an interview. I think we all have complete confidence in your judgement. After all, someone like that does not come along very often.’

There was a murmur of approval and the motion was passed, leaving Beatrice with nothing to say. Of course she could have threatened to resign. That would have thrown them, but she was at heart a sensible woman and there was no point in cutting off her nose to spite her face. The Board – particularly Mark Adderbury – was pushing for big changes to come into line with new thinking, and she had to let it happen … even though it touched a raw nerve inside. She knew that her methods and perhaps her standards might be considered old-fashioned by this young woman, who sounded very efficient and clever. Once she became established at St Saviour’s, Beatrice might find her own position threatened.

Well, it was in God’s hands, she thought. She’d been called to this position of trust and if she was found wanting then it must be because God had another purpose for her – and yet she did not feel resigned to giving up even a part of her authority. She truly loved her work at St Saviour’s and the thought of all the changes ahead made her nervous. Would she be able to cope in this brave new world?

FOUR

‘She was in a right old mood this morning,’ Michelle said as she flopped down in one of the comfortable but shabby armchairs provided for the carers and nurses in their staff room. Accepting a cup of hot milky coffee from Sally’s hand, she smiled at her. ‘I only told her because if she discovered I’d put the children in the isolation ward without her permission she would have cut up rough.’

Sally was as attractive as she was pleasant, with reddish brown hair cut short so that it framed her face and brushed her smooth forehead with a pretty fringe. Her eyes were a greenish blue and honest, instantly making her everyone’s friend. In contrast, Michelle had hair that was almost inky midnight blue-black, cut in a shoulder-length pageboy which she wore clipped back under her cap for work; her eyes were a deep blue that could cloud over when she was distressed. Dressed in their different uniforms neither of them appeared at their best, but anyone seeing the girls for the first time would be bound to take a second glance, for they were both outstanding in their separate ways. The different uniforms were necessary, because the nurses were in charge of the sick bay and the isolation ward, and the carers were expected to check with the nurse on duty before attending to sick children. They each had their own table in the dining room, although Michelle often sat with Sally or another carer rather than by herself if she was the only one on duty. Some of the nurses were inclined to look down their noses at the carers, especially when they came from a different class. Michelle, however, was an East End girl, and in the few months she’d been there, she’d made friends with everyone.

‘Don’t worry about Sister. It’s the monthly meeting; she’s always a bit touchy on those days,’ Sally said, eyes bright with amusement as she sank down with her own tea and a vaguely gingery ginger biscuit made by the kitchen staff. ‘She’s not a bad old stick, you know. She can be harsh, and she’s strict to work for, but she really cares for these kids deep down.’

‘Yes, I do know,’ Michelle said, the last of her ill temper vanishing as she looked at her colleague. ‘Are you going out tonight? A few of us are visiting the Odeon in Bethnal Green. We can get a bus that takes you right outside the door, and it’s Gone With the Wind this week – it’s come back again.’

‘Oh, I’ve seen that,’ Sally sighed dreamily. ‘It was lovely and I’d love to see it again – but I’m going dancing at the Pally with my brother Jim, Madge and Brenda tonight …’

‘Who is Madge?’

‘Jim and Madge have been courting for two years,’ Sally said. ‘She would’ve got married ages ago, but he’s saving up so that they can start off right with a decent house and proper furniture. He says he’s never going to settle for a dump like we had before we got re-housed. We’ve got a lovely modern council house now, much better than the old back-to-back houses they’ve replaced. In some ways Hitler did us a favour, bombing the area. It meant the council had to get us moved so that they could pull the lot down – so we were first on the list.’

‘We’re still stuck in a two-up and two-down back-to-back with no bathroom. Hitler missed us, though the houses in the next street got a direct hit.’

Sally Rush’s family were lucky. One of the council’s first projects after the war had been to clear the area where they had lived: a small cluster of six old houses close to the Docks. It was just the start of a huge clearance scheme, which was going to take years and hundreds of thousands of pounds to complete. The problem was that the furnaces couldn’t produce enough bricks, and timber was scarce, and so in a lot of areas they were putting up temporary prefabs.

‘What do you think of all the fuss about Princess Elizabeth’s wedding?’ Sally said, glancing at the newspaper lying on the table next to her. ‘Fancy her going to marry Philip Mountbatten. He’s the son of a Greek prince, isn’t he? – and very handsome …’

‘Yes, he looks nice,’ Michelle agreed. ‘I wish I’d been there outside the palace when it was announced in July. They say the crowds went mad with delight at the news.’

‘I wonder what she’ll do about a wedding dress. You have to save coupons for ages to buy a proper gown. I know there’s a little more material about now, but she will need yards and yards.’

‘Oh, I expect they’ll find some extra coupons for her – she deserves it. I reckon the whole royal family have been bricks. They could have gone off to the wilds of Scotland and been safe in one of their big houses, but they chose to stay here with the rest of us.’

‘Yes, I love the King – he’s so like everyone’s favourite family doctor …’

‘Sally! You can’t say that about the King!’

‘Why not? He’s kind and comforting and I don’t think he would mind.’

‘Probably not,’ Michelle agreed, smiling, then, ‘What about going dancing together another week?’

Whatever Sally was about to answer was lost as they heard a child’s scream of rage and then the door of the staff room was flung open and a rather scruffy-looking boy with red hair rushed in followed by Alice Cobb, another of the carers. A little plumper than the other two, she was very pretty. She was wearing a big rubber apron over her uniform and it was obvious that her intention had been to bathe the lad. Her pretty face was blotched with red, her soft fair hair sticking to her forehead, and she was obviously feeling hot and bothered.

The lad looked angry rather than frightened, and seeing a cake knife lying on the table, picked it up and held it in front of him like a weapon as Alice advanced on him purposefully.

‘Put that down, Billy,’ Alice said in a severe tone. ‘You’ve been told you have to have a bath when you’re admitted for the first time. Nurse needs to examine you to make sure …’ She gave a little scream and flinched back as he made a threatening gesture at her. ‘I shall tell Sister on you and she’ll send you to a home for bad boys. We don’t want the likes of you here.’

‘What do you think you’re doing, Billy Baggins?’ Sally asked and got calmly to her feet. ‘You should be ashamed. Your father would skin you if he saw you threaten Nurse like that …’

‘He ain’t around to skin me no more,’ Billy said but grinned and lowered his arm. ‘Wot you doin’ ’ere, Sally Rush?’

‘I work here, that’s what,’ she said. ‘Give me the knife, Billy. You know you’re not going to use it. You’re not a bad boy so don’t be a dafty.’

‘She wanted me ter take orf me clothes in front of ’er!’ he retorted indignantly. ‘Then she yelled at me when I kicked her shins so I hopped it …’ He looked at the cakes on the table. ‘Blimey, they look good. I ain’t had nuthin’ decent since me nanna went in the hospital.’

‘Well, you can have a corned beef sandwich with pickle and a rock cake when you’ve had your bath,’ Sally said. ‘Come on, I shan’t look at your willie so you can stop making a dafty of yourself. You don’t want to go where they give you nothing but bread and water, do you?’

‘Nah.’ He gave in and passed her the cake knife by its handle. ‘I reckon I don’t mind you givin’ me a bath – if yer promise not ter look.’

‘I promise,’ Sally said but didn’t give way to the smile that Michelle knew was hovering. ‘Nurse might have to examine you if you’ve got sores but she’ll let you keep your underpants on.’

‘Ain’t got none. Ain’t got no sores neither. Me nanna made sure of that when she looked after me. I ’ad a bath only last month, afore she went in the ’ospital.’

‘You will have clean pants now. Your clothes need a good boil, so you’ll be issued with new things. Clothes that fit. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

‘Suppose so …’ He stared at her, clearly still reluctant, but when Alice took off her apron and handed it to Sally, he submitted, asking as they headed to the bathrooms, ‘You promise you’ll give me that sandwich and a cake?’

Michelle smiled at Alice as she flopped down in an empty chair and kicked off her shoes, sympathising with her friend. ‘Sally has a way with the stubborn ones, doesn’t she?’

‘He took offence when I asked him if he had lice …’

‘A lot of the kids think you’re looking down on them if you ask questions like that, you know. He looked scruffy but that was mainly those old clothes. I should think his grandmother kept him clean until she was taken into hospital. Is she still alive?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ Alice said. ‘I only know Constable Sallis brought him in. He said he’d been found wandering the streets and the magistrate said he should come here if we could take him, while they decide what to do with him. I suppose they are waiting to see if his family can be found – Constable Sallis said he has a brother but he’s gone missing.’

‘Probably in trouble with the law,’ Michelle said and stood up. ‘I think I’ll go and see how Sally is getting on – but first I need to look in at last night’s new arrivals. Are you coming to the cinema this evening?’

‘No. I’ve got the afternoon off and then I’m on again for the evening shift tonight. I wish I was coming. I wanted to see that film. I missed it last time and I shall probably miss it this time as well.’

‘If you want, I’ll swap duties with you,’ Michelle offered. ‘I don’t mind, Alice, honest.’

‘I daren’t. Sister Beatrice would have my guts for garters if she caught you doing my job. Thanks for offering though, you’re a mate. Why don’t you come round ours on Sunday? We could go for a walk in the park and have tea out. Anything to get away from our house when the kids are home.’

‘All right, I’d like that,’ Michelle said. ‘Cheer up, love, you did your best and some of the kids we get are that stubborn.’

‘That one is – he’ll end up getting the cane off of Sister if he doesn’t watch it.’

Michelle nodded and left her. She doubted whether Sister Beatrice would have minded if they changed duties, if she’d even noticed, but Alice was too often in trouble to risk it. Shrugging, she turned her steps towards the isolation ward. She thought the elder boy, whose name was Dick, probably just had a bit of a chill, but she was glad she’d acted quickly. The last thing they needed was for an infectious disease to spread through the home. She was sure that Sally was all right; she was better at managing the children than Alice.

Going into the ward, she checked as she saw that Sister Beatrice was sitting by the eldest boy’s bed. She was wearing a white apron to cover her habit and checking her patient’s pulse. Looking up as Michelle approached, she nodded her approval.

‘Well spotted, Staff Nurse Michelle. Dick has the early stages of chicken pox. I hope we may avoid an outbreak because of your prompt action, though I think his brother and sister have probably taken it from him. I’m putting you in charge of them and taking you off other duties. You can choose one of the carers to help you and you two will be the only ones other than myself to enter the ward. Remember your hand washing routine, and you must change your apron in the side room before leaving, and send your clothes to the dirty laundry, so that you do not carry the infection to the other nurses.’

‘Yes, Sister,’ Michelle said. ‘I don’t mind giving up my evening off if it will help.’

‘You may decide the shifts as you please, but no one else is to enter until the infectious stage is over. Chicken pox is not normally dangerous, but I do not want half the children in the home going down with it or the staff. We just couldn’t cope with such an outbreak. I take it that you’ve had it yourself?’

‘Yes, Sister. I know Sally has had it but I think she has plans for this evening.’

‘One of you must be around all night,’ Sister Beatrice said. ‘Take it in turns, but I expect both of you to remain here. You can get some rest in the room next door, but I don’t want this boy neglected. In his state it could be dangerous – he is seriously undernourished. He will not fight off the infection as well as a healthy child would.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Michelle said. ‘I am quite happy to stay this evening, and for as long as you think it necessary …’ She wasn’t sure that Sally would feel the same, but she would much rather work with her than any of the other carers.

‘Good, that is what I like to hear. I shall send Miss Rush to you.’

Michelle watched as Sister left the room. Sister had been bathing Dick’s forehead, and Michelle took over, wringing the cloth out in the cool water as the boy moaned and writhed, obviously feverish and in pain. He hardly seemed aware of her, calling out and begging someone not to hit him.

Michelle’s heart felt as if it were being squeezed. How could these people be so cruel to their children? She’d learned from the younger boy that their own father had died three years ago, and the man who had lived with them was an unofficial stepfather. No doubt their mother was under this man’s domination, powerless to stop him beating the children – but he wouldn’t do so again, because now they were here and safe. By the way the little girl wept for her mother, she at least couldn’t have been entirely bad, just weak and unable to protect her children from the unsuitable men she had living in her home. Unfortunately, it was something they saw over and over again and it never failed to make Michelle angry.

Little Susie was whimpering again. Michelle went to comfort her and saw the telltale signs of red spots on her face. She had taken the sickness too, though it looked as if Jake was all right so far. He got out of his own bed and came to stand by the side of his sister’s.

‘She’s got it too, ain’t she?’

‘I’m afraid she has, but she isn’t quite as bad as Dick.’ Michelle looked at him anxiously, because he was the most undernourished of them all, his spirit much stronger than his poor little body. ‘How are you – any headache or feeling hot?’

‘Nah, I never get nuffin’ like the others,’ Jake said proudly. ‘Shall I sit wiv me sister?’

‘You get back in bed, there’s a good lad,’ Michelle said. ‘Would you like some comics to look at? I’m sure we’ve got some Rupert Bear copies in the cupboard somewhere, or there might be a Beano … one about an ancient caveman?’

‘I’d rather ’ave an adventure story,’ Jake said, ‘but if there ain’t none the comics will do.’

‘I’ll have a look in a minute, after I get Susie to swallow this draught …’

‘Wot is it?’ he asked, looking interested. ‘Susie don’t like medicine, but Ma always takes an Aspro for ’er ’eadaches.’

‘It’s just a special medicine we use in hospital but you can’t buy in the shops – that will stop her feeling so bad, helps to cool the fever. You can’t use Aspirin for children with chicken pox, you see.’ She held the glass to the little girl’s lips, but Susie had clamped them shut and refused to swallow.

‘You ’ave ter be firm wiv her,’ Jake said, leaning over and pinching his sister’s nose so that she was forced to open her mouth and gulp the mixture down. ‘That’s wot me dad used ter do wiv me when I were a nipper. He were a good ’un, me dad. We were all right afore he died …’

Michelle smiled as he retired to his bed, lying on top of it in the striped cotton pyjamas the home had supplied. She would find something for him to read if she had to send one of the carers out to buy him an adventure story.

Sally entered the ward just as Michelle was looking in the cupboard for the promised comics. The nurse turned her head, giving her colleague a wry smile.

‘Are you furious with me for picking you to help?’

‘No, of course not,’ Sally said. ‘I’ve rung my sister Brenda at her office and told her I shan’t be going dancing with them tonight. We can share the nursing.’ She looked at Dick as he flung out his arms and muttered something unintelligible. ‘Are they all ill?’

‘Jake says he is feeling all right,’ Michelle said, pouncing on a pile of comics and two much-read Biggles books in triumph. ‘I knew we had this somewhere. Give them to Jake; it will save him from being bored for a while.’

Sally took the pile of comics and sat on the edge of Jake’s bed, smiling as he grabbed them eagerly. Clearly he’d been taught to read at school, even though he probably wouldn’t have had much help from his mother. ‘My brother likes these Biggles books. He still reads them even though he’s grown up and I bring them in for the children when he’s finished with them, though Sister would have my guts for garters if she knew …’ Sister Beatrice didn’t like books and comics brought into the sick ward, because of the germs they might hold. She thought the violence portrayed in some of the comics unacceptable.

‘I shan’t tell her,’ Jake said solemnly and drew a finger across his throat. ‘I’m awful thirsty, miss.’

‘Do we have any lemon barley in the rest room?’ Sally asked Michelle.

‘There’s bound to be something – and you can put the kettle on and make us a cup of tea …’ Michelle pulled back the covers and smoothed her cool cloth over Susie’s heated body, dried her gently and applied calamine lotion to the spots to help stop the itching.

Sally went into the next room and filled a kettle for their tea, but when she looked in the cupboard there was nothing to make a drink for the thirsty little boy. Michelle looked impatient when she told her.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, can’t the kitchen staff ever do their job properly? You’ll have to take off your apron and wash your hands, then go down there …’

Just as Sally was about to obey, there was a knock at the door. Discovering one of the kitchen girls with a loaded trolley, including a jug of iced lemon barley, some milk in a jug and a bottle of concentrated orange squash, she laughed.

‘You must be psychic,’ she said. ‘I was just coming to fetch some of this.’

‘Sister Beatrice told me to bring this to you – and I’m to bring another jug up before I go off for the evening.’

Carrying the loaded tray to a table, Sally set it down and filled a glass for the thirsty child. Then she went through to the little room next door just as the kettle boiled. She made a pot of tea and took back two steaming mugs.

‘Fancy Sister Beatrice thinking of all this,’ she said as she put Michelle’s tea on a table and sipped her own.

‘She’s very efficient,’ Michelle said. ‘Just don’t get on the wrong side of her, that’s all …’

‘Well, I think she’s a brick,’ Sally said, sipping her tea, ‘but I wouldn’t dare tell her so.’

Michelle smiled, finished her tea and went back to Dick, who was tossing from side to side again. Poor little boy, he was really feeling very ill and it was no wonder that Sister was worried about him. In cases where the patient was already weakened, chicken pox might lead to pneumonia, and Dick just wasn’t strong enough to go through that; none of them were.

FIVE

Alice left St Saviour’s at just after eleven that evening, shivering a little because it had turned colder and her coat was thin, almost threadbare in places. She was saving for a new one from the market, but there was always a crisis at home and her mother needed most of Alice’s wages. Although she didn’t really grudge the money, it made her as mad as fire when her father got drunk on pay night, having spent more than half of what he earned all week. The rows in their house on a Friday night were awful, and she was glad that she could get out of it because she was working the late shift.

She walked quickly, wishing that she could have afforded to catch the tram that would take her to the end of their road, which was not far from Commercial Street. She had to cross over the wide thoroughfare, which, during the day, was always choked with traffic, horses and carts, buses and lorries, delivering goods to the shops. Her way took her down Brushfield Street towards Gun Street and Artillery Lane, where her family were housed in part of an old town house that had been turned into multiple dwellings by the landlord. To reach home she would have to pass the ugly building that served as a night refuge for women; these destitutes were always poorly dressed and often drunk, their faces grey with the exhaustion that came from poverty. Nearby was what Alice knew to be one of the finest Georgian shop-fronts left over from a grander past, because this area had once been most respectable. London was such a hotchpotch of the ugly and the beautiful, sometimes standing side by side.

As she turned the corner, Alice thought about the home she shared with her parents and brothers and sister, which was within walking distance of Halfpenny Street. The house had once been a large property but was now partitioned off with entrances to the front and rear; the latter reached through a narrow passage at the side. All six of her family were crowded into three rooms, with a tiny scullery; the only toilet was in the back yard and shared by two other families. The stench from the old-fashioned closet on a warm night was almost unbearable and Alice never used it, preferring a pot behind the screen, which she emptied in the morning before leaving for work, averting her head and trying not to breathe as she did so. She and her sister Mavis, who was just a year younger and working in the cardboard factory, shared one half of the front bedroom. Behind a curtain hung from a thin brass rail her two younger brothers, Saul and Joseph, slept in one small bed, head to tail. If Alice woke in the night it was usually to the sound of her brothers quarrelling.

Her parents had the smaller bedroom at the back, and since the walls were painfully thin it was possible to hear what went on when they retired for the night. If they weren’t shouting at each other the bed springs would be pounding, Alice’s mother protesting unfairly at what she termed her lout of a husband’s brutality, because he wasn’t a violent man. To Alice’s knowledge, he’d never hit her mother and it was more likely that she would use her rolling pin on him.

Sometimes, Alice wished that her father would leave home again, for his sake, because she couldn’t bear to see him looking so miserable. He wasn’t all bad; she knew it was her mother’s tongue that drove him to the drink and wondered why he stayed, yet she knew his leaving would not improve her mother’s temper. Mrs Cobb was a scold with a nasty tongue and she used it on her family and neighbours, quarrelling regularly with everyone that shared the crumbling building.

Houses like theirs ought to have been pulled down long since. The council had talked about it long before the war but nothing was ever done. Even Hitler hadn’t obliged them by dropping a bomb on the place, though his Luftwaffe had left gaping holes everywhere you looked.

Why couldn’t her family be moved to one of those smashing new council houses like Sally Rush’s lived in? Alice envied them their warm home – and it wasn’t just the lovely new stove that made Sally’s home seem warm. Her parents didn’t row all the time.

If only she could find somewhere else to live, Alice thought. She’d asked Sister Beatrice if she could have a room in the Nurse’s Home, but had been told that she lived too close to need it. It wasn’t the walking she minded, though on cold nights it was far enough, but she longed for some peace and privacy.

‘Where are you off to at this hour, then?’ Accosted by a voice she knew, Alice refused to turn round, though she fluffed up her hair, wanting to look her best even though she ought to ignore him. She didn’t want anything to do with Jack Shaw, because he was no good. He might have film star looks with his black hair, slicked down with Brylcreem, and bold blue eyes, and he always had money in his pocket to spend, but that was only because he ran with the local bad boys. Alice’s father had warned her when he’d seen her talking to Jack once, and since then she’d tried to avoid speaking to him.

‘Aw, don’t be like that, Alice luv,’ Jack said, coming up to her and swinging her round to face him. ‘Why are yer avoiding me these days?’

‘I don’t want anything to do with the likes of you, Jack Shaw. I keep meself out of trouble – and you’re bad news.’

‘Now where did you get that idea?’ Jack said, grinning at her. They were standing in the light of a street lamp, giving him a yellowish and slightly malevolent look as he gazed down into her face. ‘I could be good news for a girl like you. I’m going places, Alice, and I might take you with me if you’re nice to me.’

‘Go away and leave me alone,’ she said sharply. ‘I’ve asked you politely, but if you persist I’ll scream.’

Jack laughed, seeming delighted with her resistance. ‘A fat lot of good that will do you round ’ere,’ he teased. ‘There’s girls screamin’ all the time, most of ’em because they like it – they make out they don’t want it, but they do … just like you do, Alice Cobb.’

‘You just shut your filthy mouth,’ Alice said fiercely. ‘I know how to protect myself and I’ll kick you where it hurts if you touch me.’

‘She’s a feisty one,’ Jack said and his grin broadened. ‘Maybe that’s why I like you, Alice. You ain’t easy. I know you ain’t been with anyone and that’s why I’m interested. If you went out with me, you’d soon see I’m a proper gent. Jack Shaw knows how to treat a girl right. I’ll give you a good time, and I’m not talking about a quick one up against the wall either. I’ll take you to a dance or a nightclub and dinner – and then we’ll go back to my place. I’ve got somewhere really cosy but I only take special girls there.’

‘I don’t want to be one of your special girls,’ Alice said. She glared at him as he edged closer and then made a grab for her. Even though she tried to escape, he had her in his arms, pressed hard against him as his mouth closed over hers. His kiss surprised her, because she’d expected the kind of slobbery mess that some of the lads at school had tried on with her; instead his mouth was firm but soft, exploring hers sweetly in a way that made her heart jerk with fright because it aroused new feelings. His tongue explored the shape of her lips, trying to force entry but she kept it firmly shut and suddenly brought her knee up sharply. He yelled as she made contact with him and jerked back, clearly hurt and shocked. ‘I warned you. Just stay away from me, Jack. That was just a friendly reminder, next time I’ll really hurt you.’

Alice walked away swiftly, knowing that he was watching her. She half-expected him to run after her and give her a good hiding but he didn’t, though after a moment he called out, ‘I’ll have you begging me yet, Alice Cobb, and you just see if I don’t. I’ve got something you want even if you don’t know it yet.’

Alice didn’t dare to answer in case he changed his mind and decided to punish her for daring to protect herself. She knew that some of the gang he ran with would have slapped her about if she’d done the same to one of them, and a little shiver went through her as she wondered whether he would take his revenge another time.

He was mixed up in bad things, Alice knew he was, and she wasn’t going to let the sweetness of that kiss blind her to his character. Alice had no intention of ending up like her mother, tied to a smelly house with four children, no money, a drunken husband and no prospects of a better life. When she got married, if she did, she wanted to live in a decent place – perhaps out of London, in the suburbs. She wanted no more than two children and the money to raise them properly … but in her heart she knew that life wasn’t so simple. Girls like her too often gave their hearts to the wrong men and ended up having to get married to a man who would make them miserable – or even worse, ending up having a backstreet abortion in one of those filthy houses everyone knew existed but pretended they didn’t. Alice didn’t want that. No sweet-talking charmer was going to do that to her. She had too much of her mother in her.

Alice smiled as she recalled an incident from her childhood when her mother had chased her father up the lane with a rolling pin, and she’d battered him when she caught him. Sid Cobb went off for a while after that but in the end he’d returned to his wife and family. If she’d been him she would have stayed away, but it seemed her mother had something he liked even if he did drink half his pay every Friday night. Alice wasn’t sure whether it was her cooking or what they got up to in bed; they made enough noise to waken the dead sometimes.

She was still thoughtful, torn between anger and the memory of that sweet kiss, as she paused outside the house where she lived. The smell of stale cooking, the stink from the back yard and the odour of mildew greeted her as she opened the front door and went in. Immediately, she heard her mother screaming abuse at someone, but this time it didn’t seem to be her father. As she hesitated in the parlour that led in off the street, the kitchen door opened and a woman with long, straggling dark hair and a filthy apron came storming out.

‘I’ll swing for your ma one of these days, Alice,’ she said. ‘I swear I’ll take the meat cleaver to her if she clouts my Bertie one more time.’

‘I’m sorry, Matty,’ Alice apologised, because she liked the woman, despite her frowsy appearance. Matty Carter cared about her children and did her best to keep them clean, though she was losing the battle in this awful place, which three families shared, because her husband drank more than Alice’s father. In Mr Cobb’s case, he’d been driven to it by his nagging wife, but Matty never nagged her husband; he was just a bully and a brute. ‘What happened?’

‘He was fighting with your Saul as usual, and she waded in and gave Bertie a black eye.’

‘Oh dear, she shouldn’t have done that – I’m sure it was half a dozen of one and six of the other.’

‘Alice, you’re a treasure and that vixen doesn’t deserve you,’ Matty said and smiled at her before going out of the door and banging it behind her.

‘Alice, is that you?’ her mother’s voice screeched at her from the scullery. ‘About bloody time too. Where the hell have you been to until this time, girl?’

‘I worked late at the home, Ma. I told you this morning,’ Alice said. ‘You shouldn’t wait up for me, just leave the key on the string and I’ll let myself in.’

‘I’m waitin’ up fer yer father and he’ll catch it when he gets back, I’m tellin’ yer.’

‘It’s not Friday night …’ Alice said.

‘I bloody know it’s not and I want ter know where he is.’

‘Perhaps he had to work late?’ Alice suggested, though it wasn’t likely.

‘He’s took money from my pot to go drinking, that’s what he’s done. Saul give me half a crown from his wages from the delivery round and that bugger’s took it. I’ll teach him when he gets back, you see if I don’t …’

Alice sighed, because she could smell the beer on her mother’s breath and knew she drank whenever she got the chance; it was a case of the pot calling the kettle black, but she wouldn’t dare to suggest it.

‘Why don’t you try understanding him for once? Perhaps you wouldn’t quarrel so much then.’ Alice wished her father didn’t drink so much and would stand up to her shrew of a mother sometimes, but a part of her still remembered the man he’d been before his wife’s nagging drove him to despair.

‘You’ll feel the back of me ’and if you cheek me, girl. Get through to yer room or I’ll give you a hiding an’ all!’

Alice sighed as she went through to the shared bedroom. She tried not to disturb anyone but she knew almost at once that they were all awake, the boys lying in their beds and giggling, waiting for Pa to come home with bated breath. Alice sometimes wondered what sort of men they would turn into; their parents’ example certainly wasn’t a good one.

‘Listen to her,’ Mavis whispered as Alice undressed and crawled into bed beside her. ‘Rantin’ and carryin’ on. I shall be glad when I can get out of here. I’ve had enough.’

‘You don’t earn enough to get your own place.’

‘Who says I’ll need to? I’ve got a lad and he wants me to get married – and I’m goin’ to as soon as we can.’

‘Mavis! You’re only seventeen. Surely you want a bit of fun before you get married – besides, who is he? You haven’t brought him home.’

‘Bring Ted Baker here? You must be mad,’ her sister said. ‘I don’t want him to run a mile before he even gets the ring on my finger. His father owns a small newspaper and tobacconist shop and there’s a flat over the top. It’s in Bethnal Green – and Mr Baker says we can have the flat and I can work in the shop until we have kids. He’s all for it, says he likes me.’

‘Keep him away from Ma then,’ Alice advised and yawned. ‘I’m so tired. Go to sleep, Mavis. We’ll talk about it another time …’

Closing her eyes, Alice remembered the way Jack’s mouth had tasted, not beery and foul like so many of the lads she’d met at the local dance, but pleasant. He’d had a faint taste of peppermint about him, and he smelled nice too – but he was a bad one. Her father had warned her, and she knew she mustn’t let the memory of a kiss break down her reserve, even if it had been sweet …

SIX

‘Yes, how can I help you?’ Sister Beatrice looked up as the woman entered her office. She was elegant in a pale grey fine wool dress and darker grey suede court shoes with a matching belt around her waist. Her short blue jacket had a fashionable pleated swing back, and she carried a small clutch bag in her hand. ‘I don’t recall – did we have an appointment?’

‘Well, I was told to report to you as soon as I arrived.’ The young woman offered her hand, from which she had just removed her leather glove. ‘I’m Angela Morton.’

‘Good grief, are you here already? I didn’t expect you for at least another week.’

‘Mark’s letter said he was anxious for me to start as soon as possible, but I couldn’t come until last night.’

‘Well, your office isn’t ready yet. I’ve asked the caretaker to install a desk, chair and filing cabinet in the room next door. It’s small but I think adequate for your needs.’

‘I am sure it will be fine,’ the young woman said breezily. ‘I’m so happy to meet you – and grateful for this chance to do something useful. My mother thinks I’m mad, but my father sort of approves …’

Beatrice answered sharply, irritated by her confident manner. ‘Well, I dare say they both think their daughter should spend her days doing something more suited to a girl of your class.’

The smile left Angela’s face. ‘I’m just turned thirty-four, a widow, and I’m tired of sitting at home doing nothing much. I think it’s time I started to do something worthwhile with my life.’

‘Indeed?’ Beatrice was aware that she’d been sharp and stood up, extending her hand to the younger woman. ‘I’m afraid you’ve caught me at a bad time. We have three very sick children in the isolation ward with chicken pox at the moment. I’ve done what I could to stop the infection spreading, but one of my kitchen staff seems to have gone down with it. The stupid girl told me that she’d had it, but it turns out she’d had the measles. She ought not to have taken it even so, but she ignored my instructions and went into the ward when my nurses were busy. I know she thought she was saving them time, but some people have no sense …’

‘Oh, what a shame,’ Angela said. ‘Has she taken it badly?’

‘I’ve no idea. She was sent home when she started to show signs of fever. It is a nuisance because none of the other girls in the kitchens have had it, and I’m afraid of sending any of them up in her place, so it looks as if I shall have to run after Michelle and Sally myself.’

Beatrice wondered why she felt a need to explain. There was something about this woman that pricked at her, made her feel inadequate despite all her years of experience.

‘Would you allow me to help? I did have the chicken pox when was I was ten, and the measles. It would give me something to do until I can start work on the accounts.’

Beatrice was silent for a moment; she was reluctant to hand over even this small task to the woman she still thought of as an intruder, but she had too much to do as it was and it would keep Angela out of her hair for a while.

‘Well, if you’re certain, you may take up their trays, but stay outside the ward. I do not want another casualty going down to it – and God forbid that it should spread to the other children. Although it is usually not serious, it can affect the weaker ones badly – and we have enough to do without an epidemic.’

‘Yes, of course. I can understand your concerns, Sister. I have had some experience of hospital routines, even though I’m not a nurse. And I took an extensive first aid course in the war because I thought it might help in a crisis – and it did.’

Beatrice sighed and heaved herself to her feet. She was feeling a little under the weather herself, just a bit of a sore throat, which she was dosing herself for, but this was an unwanted distraction.

‘I shall take you down to the kitchens myself. Have you thought where you will live? If you would like a room in the Nurses’ Home for the time being it could be arranged. It is situated at the back of the home and once housed the Warden of the fever hospital. These days, it is divided into rooms with a shared kitchen and a communal sitting room. I use it myself, because there are too many nights when it would not be convenient for me to be away from the children, though I do have my own room at the convent, which is my home. Some of my nurses stay in the Nurses’ Home during the week and go home when they have a two-day leave – but you have no parents in London and might not wish to live there permanently.’

Beatrice gave her a challenging look, because Angela was obviously used to better things.

‘I should like to take a room if there is one available. It would be better than the hotel and I could look round for an apartment at my leisure.’

Beatrice was surprised; she’d expected a flat refusal.

‘I’ll arrange it for you. Now follow me and I’ll point out the various rooms as we go …’

Hearing the knock at the door, Michelle went to open it, and looked blankly at the elegant woman standing there with her trolley. Michelle was feeling hot and irritated, because Sally had gone for her break an hour ago and all three children were now suffering the debilitating effects of an illness that might not be serious as childhood diseases went, but was certainly causing her patients a great deal of distress.

‘Who are you?’ she asked sharply. ‘Who gave you permission to come here?’

‘Sister Beatrice,’ the woman replied. ‘I’m Angela Morton and I’m here to help out with the office work – and anything else that is needed.’

‘The new Administrator? Oh, right, I didn’t realise. Sorry, I’ll take that now. For goodness’ sake do not come in here, even if we don’t answer the door promptly. Just leave the trolley here and one of us will fetch the tray.’

‘Of course, if that’s what you wish. I should tell you that I have definitely had the chicken pox years ago, and the measles. I do know the difference – and I helped nurse my young cousin when he took it a few years back.’

Michelle sighed impatiently. ‘You just don’t understand, do you? We have probably more than sixty children here at any one time. If you carry the infection to another person in this home, we could have half of them down with it in days – and we do not have enough nursing staff to cope with an epidemic. I just hope the kitchen staff hasn’t taken it from Maisie, because it could spread through the place like wildfire …’

‘Yes, I perfectly understand. Please do not worry. I shall not risk carrying it back to others. I’m sorry that I distressed you. You must have more than enough to cope with as it is.’

‘To be honest, I could do with more help, but I dare not risk it.’ Michelle picked up the tray and took it inside, kicking the door to with the heel of her shoe. She felt a bit mean for tearing Angela Morton off a strip like that, but Jake had taken the chicken pox despite his proud boast that he never did get ill, and, as luck would have it, he was worse than either his sister or his elder brother.

Sister Beatrice had done her best to contain the sickness to the three children in the isolation ward, and so far her precautions were working. The trouble was that there just weren’t enough trained nurses to cope if a really nasty infection were to spread to the dormitories. Even Sister took extreme precautions when visiting the children, covering up her uniform in the rest room and donning a clean apron before going about her business afterwards.

Neither Michelle nor Sally had had an evening off since Dick first went down with the sickness, several days earlier. They were taking it in turns to rest, but for a lot of the time it needed both of them to keep the children cool and comfortable. If Sister Beatrice had not taken her turn, Michelle thought she couldn’t have coped.

Holding back another sigh, she poured herself a mug of tea, but before she could take more than a sip, Jake was calling out. She put the cup down and went to sit by his bed, soothing his heated brow and watching him with sympathy. He felt so ill and on top of all that he’d suffered in the short years of his life, the sickness was taking its toll on him. He’d certainly got much worse in the last few hours. Seeing how pale and vulnerable he looked, a shiver of fear went through her because she was already fond of him. He was such a likeable little boy and his serious looks had tugged at her heart.

‘Please get better,’ Michelle murmured fervently, hardly knowing whether she was entreating him or praying to God. ‘Don’t die … please don’t die …’ Michelle was afraid that he was slipping away from them, despite all the love and care he’d been given, his once-vital spirit all but extinguished. Yet what more could she do to save him? Although a bright, intelligent boy, his physical strength had been affected by the years of neglect. Her throat caught with tears and she felt a surge of rebellion and despair.

She left him as Susie started to whimper and gave the child a drink to ease her headache. Susie was actually on the mend; she’d only taken it lightly and apart from a tendency to scratch her face because the scabs itched, she was causing less anxiety than either of her brothers.

The door from the rest room opened and Sally entered. ‘I thought I heard the tea tray. How is Jake now?’

‘Still restless. I’m worried about him, Sally, but there’s nothing more Sister Beatrice can do if she comes – and she was up half the night with him, because she insisted we get some rest. Unless, do you think we should have the doctor?’

‘Why don’t you go and speak to Sister about it? The poor little thing seems to be getting worse all the time and perhaps we should have the doctor out.’

‘Normally, we try to manage ourselves. Sister doesn’t like to waste the doctor’s time,’ Michelle said but she was uneasy, fearful that the child might slip away from them.

‘I know,’ Sally agreed. ‘Shall I sponge him down while you drink your tea?’

‘Yes, please,’ Michelle said. ‘He has so many spots now, far more than either of the other two … if Sister Beatrice hadn’t looked at him herself last night I should wonder if what he has is something worse …’ She hesitated. ‘Perhaps I’ll go and talk to her and suggest the doctor just in case of …’

‘What?’ Sally stared at her in horror. ‘You don’t mean smallpox? No, it can’t be … that’s a killer. My father’s mother died of it years ago.’

‘Well, it has crossed my mind – but I’m sure I’m wrong. It’s just a severe case of the chicken pox, but I’ll ask Sister to take a look and tell her that I’m worried about him. If he needs a doctor we shouldn’t leave it too long. Can you hold the fort while I speak to Sister?’

‘Of course I shall,’ Sally said. ‘You look almost all in, Michelle. After you’ve spoken to Sister, why don’t you take your tea into the rest room and have a little sleep?’

‘If you’re sure you can manage …’ Michelle arched back, feeling the ache in the small of her spine. ‘I’m so tired, but you must call me if Jake takes a turn for the worse … and I’ll ask Sister now if we should call the doctor out …’

Angela looked round the room that had been offered to her. It was clean but basic with none of the comforts she was used to, but it would do for a while and would be useful on those nights when she stayed over at the home to help out, even if she found an apartment she liked. There was no point in staying at a hotel that entailed a long bus ride when she had the use of a bed here. As soon as she got used to St Saviour’s and its occupants, she would look for a nice little flat she could make into a home.

A rueful smile touched her mouth, because so far she hadn’t been made to feel welcome here. Sister Beatrice had greeted her politely but she’d sensed an underlying hostility that she couldn’t explain. Why would the woman want to put a barrier between them from the start? Angela had been sent to help her, and was very willing to do whatever was asked of her, even though Mark had made it clear that her main task was to bring St Saviour’s in line with more modern thinking … but the stern Sister wasn’t the only one to show dislike. Cook had told her that she must ask for what she wanted and not go making tea or sandwiches herself.

‘That’s our job,’ she’d said, scowling as Angela began to lay out the tray. ‘Just ask for what you want, and we’ll give you the proper menu for the nurses and carers. The children have different, of course. Sister Beatrice decides what special diets they need, if any – so don’t go getting food for them without my say-so. You might end up doing more harm than good; besides, I don’t want my precious rations being wasted. We can’t afford to waste a scrap.’

‘Of course not, Mrs Jones. I wouldn’t even know where to start …’

She’d let her gaze wander around the large kitchen with its array of copper-bottomed pans hanging above a huge range, the painted wooden dresser and shelves crowded with an assortment of crockery. A large scrubbed pine table occupied the middle of the long room and was littered with dishes and wire trays, which held freshly cooked pies and jam tarts. The food, she’d discovered, was kept in a huge cold pantry and there was a refrigerator for the perishables. It made a loud chirring noise and sounded as if it were overloaded and might give out at any moment. She guessed that it was some years old. They could really do with a new one, more modern and efficient. Perhaps she could make that one of her first priorities, raise some money towards it – that was if a new one could be found. The shops were still struggling to buy in goods like refrigerators, which had been considered a luxury and expendable when metal was in such short supply during the war.

Yes, already she’d begun to make a mental list of changes, but once she got inside the building next door destined for the new wing, her job would really begin.

‘Well, just remember what I’ve said and we’ll get on all right.’ Cook glared at her. ‘We’re short-staffed at the moment so you’ll have to wait until I’ve done this semolina pudding for the children …’

Angela had waited patiently, wishing that she could just prepare the tray herself, but she didn’t want to tread on anyone’s toes, and would rather not make an enemy of the cook right from the word go.

She’d thought the nurses in the isolation ward would at least be glad to get a plate of both chicken paste and tomato sandwiches, a pot of tea, and the jugs of cold lemon barley for their patients. However, that very pretty nurse had snapped her head off and made her begin to wonder why on earth she’d ever accepted this post. Mark Adderbury had spoken of her being needed and wanted, but it certainly didn’t look that way at the moment.

Perhaps she should have taken the offer to return to her old posting in Portsmouth, and yet there were too many memories there – of happier days when she’d met and married John … but that hurt too much and she was determined to put her grief behind her and throw herself into her new life.

Angela’s mother had been upset that she was leaving home again and had done her best to dissuade her; they had argued so many times over foolish little things that in the end Angela had just packed her cases and left. Her father had been staunch in his support but the arguments had left a little shadow hanging over her.

Putting aside all thought of her mother’s reproachful looks as she left, Angela opened her bag and took out the key to the building next door. Its last purpose had been commercial, some sort of offices she understood, and Mark had warned her that it was in a bit of a state.

‘Take a look straight away and refer to the drawings I’ve sent you,’ he’d said when he telephoned to make sure she’d received his letter. ‘I’d like your opinion, Angela. The architect has opened it up and made a lot of the small rooms into much larger ones. It’s more economical that way, I suppose, to have larger groups of children together, but I’m not sure it’s right. If you have any suggestions then we should like to hear them – before the builders move in, please.’

‘Yes, of course. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this, Mark. You’ve been such a good friend to me since … John died.’

‘You know I was fond of him, and he would expect me to help you.’

Mark’s reply had been non-committal, and she’d sensed something … as if he were holding back whatever he wanted to say. Perhaps he understood how sensitive she still was on the subject of her late husband; it still hurt so much and she’d grown a protective barrier to keep everyone away from the source of her pain.

She sighed as she went out of the main building and into the rather dilapidated one next door. The door stuck and she had to put some force into getting it open. A brief inspection told her that the frame had moved out of true, possibly caused by an explosion a few doors down where builders were presently taking down a fire-damaged bakery. The front of their new wing looked as if it might need a bit of rebuilding, but inside was worse.

Angela’s heart sank as she looked about her at the debris. Whoever had left this place had done so in a hurry. Broken furniture lay about and there were old newspapers scattered on the floor, cabinets hanging off the walls and plaster from the cracked ceilings was scattered everywhere. Its condition was daunting to say the least and would cost a great deal to put right.

No doubt the architects and builders had taken all this into account. Her job was to make certain that the plans drawn up were to the best advantage of the children who would live here. She frowned as she saw the clean, clinical layout of the upstairs floors. Down here, there were recreation rooms, and that was a definite improvement. Angela gave that a big tick, because safe space for the children to play was at a premium; they did have a small garden, she’d already observed, but on cool or wet days they needed more to do and this large room at the back with space for them to play various games was excellent. At the front a modern reception area and an office had been planned, which seemed a good use of the available space. She wasn’t so sure about the layout upstairs. With only one shower room for the girls and one for the boys, it did not provide for any kind of privacy and modesty, and in her opinion that ought to be a consideration; there ought at least to be separate cubicles. It would add to the cost, she imagined, which might not go down well with the Board, but perhaps it might not be necessary to knock down so many walls …

As she went upstairs to investigate, Angela was still wondering whether she would be able to break down the resistance of the staff here. Perhaps Cook had taken the lead from Sister Beatrice, who was clearly hostile. It was obvious she felt challenged by Angela’s appointment, far more so than Mark had imagined. A wry smile touched her mouth as she recalled what he’d said about the Warden.

‘You’ll manage her, Angela,’ Mark had told her. ‘She is a little stubborn and set in her ways – but once she sees that you have the good of the children and the staff in mind she will accept you.’

Angela could only hope that was true. She’d been filled with hope when she arrived, keyed up by his encouragement, but after just a few hours she was beginning to wonder if she had done the right thing. No one seemed to want her here; they thought her one of those middle-class do-gooders. Mark had warned her that might be the case at the start. She’d dismissed his warning, but now she knew that it wouldn’t be easy working with people who resented her.

Well, she’d taken the first step to her new life. Whether she’d chosen well or not, her path was set. She would find a niche for herself here, however long it took … and the main thing was to go over this place with a fine-tooth comb and then write her report so that any changes she decided on, and there were a few already, could be sorted out before the builders moved in.

SEVEN

Rose stood outside St Saviour’s, looking up at the forbidding stone walls and three storeys of tiny windows with what seemed to be attic rooms above. She had always thought it was like a prison from the outside, and, indeed, when the old house underwent major alterations in the late eighteenth century, the fever hospital had been intended as a place to keep some people in and others out. Back in the bad old days, men, women and children had been brought here to die. They had been shut away because they were known to have infectious diseases and the authorities of the time saw them as a danger to others. When diseases like smallpox, typhoid or cholera raged through a city they decimated the population, leaving swathes of dead in their wake. In most cases nothing could be done to save those who had contracted these virulent infections, and so they were often locked away from the population and left to die. The warders who were supposed to treat them gave them food and water and precious little else according to the tales that still circulated in the lanes surrounding the old place. It had been a house of fear and death then, but now it had become a place of hope – at least Rose trusted it would be.

Above the door was a stone heart split in two by an arrow, as if warning of the perils of life and death, and underneath in some ancient script the words: St Saviour’s Hospital – Make peace with God and render unto Him all that is due for He is the Light and the Way.

A cold shiver went down Rose’s spine as she thought of her mother’s probable fate. She wouldn’t be treated as harshly as the people who’d been incarcerated here in those far-off days, but she was being sent to an isolation unit near the sea, because she had tuberculosis. Her illness had progressed to the stage where she coughed up great lumps of blood and she found it difficult to get her breath. Dr Marlow had told them that she ought to have come to see him long ago, and to Rose, when she’d spoken to him later alone, he’d confessed his doubts about her mother’s chances of getting over the disease.

‘If she’d come to me earlier there might have been a good chance that they could save her, but now … well, I’ll be honest with you, Rose, it is one chance in ten that she will recover. The best we can do for her is to put her somewhere pleasant and quiet, where she will receive treatment and kindness …’

‘Is it really as bad as that?’ Rose had asked, a sob rising to her throat, because she couldn’t bear to think of Ma being so ill. ‘She kept saying it was nothing, just a little cough, but then I saw the blood on her mouth – and she’s so exhausted all the time.’

‘Your mother was a very strong woman. Had she not been she would have collapsed long before this, Rose. I wish I could offer you more hope but …’ He shook his head. ‘There is treatment for her illness these days, but I think it may be too late for her.’

‘I think she knows it,’ Rose said in a choked voice. ‘She is worried about Mary Ellen, and so am I. I’ve been offered a place on the staff at the London Hospital if my exam results are satisfactory, but I’m required to live in the Nurses’ Home for the first year or so. If I go home and look after my sister, I might never get another chance – and all that training would have been wasted.’

‘You must not do that,’ he protested, concerned. ‘Being a nurse and rising in your profession is your one chance of getting on, of making a good life for yourself and your sister. It is what your mother wants for you. Have you considered my suggestion?’

‘Putting Mary Ellen in St Saviour’s? We spoke of it. I let my mother think it was my suggestion. She wouldn’t like it if she thought I’d been talking to you behind her back. Do you think they will take Mary Ellen? I heard they were bursting at the seams …’

‘Have a word with Father Joseph,’ the doctor advised. ‘He stands on good terms with the Warden. I’m sure Sister Beatrice will squeeze one more in, she always does. Remember, it’s going to take me two to three weeks to find the right place for your mother and the child may as well stay at home until then.’

Apparently, the Catholic priest had had a word in Mary Ellen’s favour, because a week after she spoke to him, Father Joe had visited Rose at work and told her she should go to see the Warden of St Saviour’s after she’d finished her shift on the wards the next day.

‘I’m not promising anything, Rose, but I think Sister Beatrice will find a place for her, though I know they are pressed for space, not to say funds.’

‘Everyone is,’ Rose agreed. ‘There was so much devastation, so many factories, houses and commercial buildings bombed and burned to the ground. The manager at the Home and Colonial, where I used to work, reckons that it will take years before they clear the bombsites, let alone rebuild all the houses. We just don’t have the raw materials we need.’

‘I dare say it will take years,’ Father Joe agreed. ‘And the trouble never seems to end. There was a fire at a bombed-out factory a couple of weeks ago, caused by an unexploded bomb going off and rupturing a gas main. The people in the streets nearby thought the war had started again.’

‘God help us, I hope that won’t happen; we’ve had enough.’

‘Now then, my child. Don’t you be taking the Lord’s name in vain. Remember what I’ve told you, and don’t be late for your appointment with Sister Beatrice.’

That had been the previous day. Now, standing before the daunting building, Rose took a deep breath and stepped up to the door to ring the bell. Nothing happened, so after a couple of minutes she rang again. A young woman who looked as if she had been scrubbing the floor, her hands red from being in hot water and soda, opened it. She looked Rose up and down, sniffing as she asked what she wanted.

‘I’m here to see Sister Beatrice. Can you take me to her?’

‘I daresn’t do that, miss,’ the girl said. ‘I’ve got to finish me work afore I goes home, see – and me ma will go on somethin’ awful if I’m late, ’cos she wants ter get orf ter ’er job at the pub.’

‘Well, can you point me in the right direction please?’ Rose asked, stepping into the rather dim hallway without being invited. The floors were some sort of dark slate tiles and there was a grand staircase with mahogany banisters at the end of the hall, its wooden steps covered in a dull red carpet.

‘I reckon it’s up them there stairs and down the corridor to the right. You’ll see the notice on ’er door. I ain’t never bin in there ’cos I’m the downstairs skivvy, see.’

‘Then you’ve no business to be opening the door.’

‘’Ad ter or you’d ’ave stood there all night, I reckon. Nan’s been orf sick fer a week or more and they’re all run orf their feet …’

Deciding that it was useless to reason with her, Rose started for the stairs. She was annoyed because she’d had to take extra time off to come here and so far had not formed a very good opinion of the place. Had there been an alternative, she would not have gone any further. However, people generally spoke well of St Saviour’s and she could only think something must have gone wrong if a young and ignorant kitchen girl was answering the door.

She walked up the stairs without looking back and turned right. Sister Beatrice’s room was at the end, the door firmly closed but with a little plaque on it inviting visitors to knock. Rose clenched her hands at her sides, because if they wouldn’t accept Mary Ellen it meant that she would have to give up her plans to take up the position she’d been offered. Rose couldn’t work as a nurse and be at home with her sister, and if she had to look after Mary Ellen and work in a shop, she would never manage to pay the bills. Besides, she’d set her heart on becoming a nurse. When she had a little more experience in nursing she would earn more than she did as a shop girl, and she could take care of her sister. In her heart she knew that her mother hadn’t much longer to live and Mary Ellen couldn’t be left to fend for herself. A girl as pretty as she was couldn’t be left to wander the streets on her own after school, because anything might happen. Yet you heard of shocking things happening at some children’s homes … Despite her doubts, Rose really had no choice because, if she sacrificed her dreams, both she and Mary Ellen would soon be trapped in the kind of grinding poverty that was impossible to escape. Her sister would just have to make the best of things until Rose could afford to make other arrangements.

Standing outside the Warden’s door, Rose knocked and after a moment was invited to enter. The room was large and furnished with a big oak desk, its green leather-covered top crowded with bits and pieces. Two armchairs with worn arms and sagging seats were beside the fireplace, though no fire was burning, and a small table stood next to one of them, a book lying on top. Apart from some bookshelves and a small cupboard the room looked sparsely furnished, though someone had brought in some plants in bright pots, to stand along the windowsill.

‘Yes, what do you want?’

The question was barked at her, bringing her startled gaze back to the woman behind the desk. She was dressed in the habit of a religious order, her head covered by a hood and wimple, no trace of hair showing beneath it. On her nose was perched a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, over which she peered at Rose in a distinctly hostile manner.

‘Are you deaf and dumb?’

‘No, Sister Beatrice.’ Rose was stung into a reply. ‘I’m Rose O’Hanran. I’ve come to ask about a place for my sister Mary Ellen. Father Joe sent me …’

‘Oh.’ Sister Beatrice blinked and sighed audibly, removing her spectacles. She pinched the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger, looking tired. ‘Why didn’t you say so at once? I can’t remember everything. We are very busy at the moment.’

Rose swallowed hard, nails turned into the palms of her hands as she battled with the urge to tell this woman just what she thought of her. She hated being made to feel she was begging, but what was her alternative? Giving up her dreams wasn’t an option and she wouldn’t do it.

‘Please, would you consider taking her? She has nowhere else to go and I have to take up my place as a nurse in the hospital next week. I could bring her here on Monday morning. My mother has to go away. She has advanced TB.’ Rose spoke as calmly as she could manage, holding back the caustic comments that rose all too easily to her mind.

‘I hope neither you nor your sister is infected? I suppose you’ve been checked?’ Rose nodded. ‘We’ve got enough problems as it is …’ Sister Beatrice made a noise of frustration as someone knocked, barking out that whoever it was might enter. ‘Oh, it’s you, Angela. I’ve been waiting for those updated lists all afternoon …’

‘Sorry, Sister,’ the elegant woman in a silver-grey dress said apologetically. ‘I wanted to get it right and it was rather a muddle …’ She broke off as she saw the indignant look in Sister’s eyes. ‘We’ve had a lot of coming and going recently.’

‘I am well aware of that – tell me, what beds are available on the girls’ ward, aged about …’ She glanced down at a paper on her desk. ‘Eight, this says … is that right, Miss O’Hanran?’

‘Mary Ellen will be nine in two weeks’ time.’

‘Near enough then. Well, what is the situation?’

Rose thought how rude she was and felt sorry for the woman who might be her secretary, though she was very well-dressed for such a position; she looked a bit uncertain as she shuffled her papers while the Sister drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair.

‘We have two emergency beds in the sick ward …’

‘No use, we have to keep those in case we need them. What else?’

‘There is a bed free but in the ward with the nine- to twelve-year-olds …’

‘Well, I suppose that would do at a pinch.’ Sister Beatrice glared at Rose. ‘You are certain she doesn’t have an aunt who would look after her – or a kind neighbour? Children are better in their own surroundings if at all possible.’

‘There is no one I would trust to look after her. If there were I should not be here. God knows, it seems a terrible place … I was admitted by a girl who was scrubbing the hall floor …’

‘I resent that comment, Miss O’Hanran. We pride ourselves on giving our children the best care we can manage and on being a warm and welcoming place for those who need us. If as you say you were admitted by one of the kitchen staff, it is because things are difficult just now. We have three members of staff down with influenza, and we have some very sick children in isolation,’ Sister Beatrice said coldly. ‘Normally, Nan sees to the new arrivals at first and then the nurses and carers take over … well, do you want the place or not? I doubt you’ll find anyone else to take her.’

Rose swallowed hard. She wanted to march out right now and tell her mother that she would stay home to look after Mary Ellen, but if she did that they would never get out of the slums that her father’s untimely death had brought them to. Her chest caught with pain, because even now she couldn’t bear to think of Pa’s death and her mother’s terrible illness. Yet she knew she had spoken out of turn and must apologise.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise. Naturally, your staff problems must make things difficult.’

‘We have limited funds, Miss O’Hanran, but St Saviour’s never turns away a child that really needs us however stretched we are – so do you want her to come to us?’

‘Yes, please,’ Rose said. ‘I shall bring her next Monday morning, which is my only free time before I start my new job, if that is all right?’

‘Yes, bring her on Monday. Mrs Morton can take you down and arrange the time with you. She will be admitting your sister unless Nan is back by then. I simply do not have the time.’

Rose clamped her mouth shut, walking out before she lost her temper and told that awful old woman what she could do with her bed. If only Pa hadn’t died she could have left Mary Ellen in his care; he might have liked a drop of good Irish whiskey but he’d been fond of his daughters, especially the youngest one. Her heart ached, because it was hard to lose the people you loved, and Rose was carrying a burden that was almost too much to bear. Seeing her mother grow weaker, knowing she was probably going to die, had been made worse because she couldn’t share her grief with anyone. She had to keep the truth from Mary Ellen as long as she could.

Hearing hurried footsteps behind her, she turned to see Angela trying to keep up with her. She slowed down, because she needed to find out a few things that she hadn’t felt like asking Sister Beatrice.

‘I’m sorry,’ Angela apologised. ‘I know Sister can be a bit harsh but she has good reason for it today – we lost a child early this morning. He only came in a week ago and went down with chicken pox. Unfortunately, he was very weak and he contracted pneumonia. The nurses did everything they could but we lost him, though his elder brother and sister are recovering, I’m thankful to say.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Rose bit her lip, because that put her firmly in the wrong and she knew she’d bordered on rudeness. ‘I didn’t realise …’ she said, but she hadn’t changed her mind about the nun. She’d made Rose feel like something dragged in off the streets and she wouldn’t take that from anyone.

‘She was up all night with him. I saw her when she left after performing the last offices; Father Joe was with her, because the boy’s family was Catholic. Sister was truly devastated, though she hides it behind a brusque manner.’

‘Well, that explains it,’ Rose said. ‘We don’t want Mary Ellen to go out for adoption. Either Ma will come home after she’s cured … or I’ll look after her once I’m in a position to do so.’

‘Yes, I think we’ve understood that,’ Angela said, checking her list. ‘She is a temporary … but she’ll need to live here until you can provide a home for her. I must take some more details and there are some forms for you to sign and then we’ll discuss what she needs to bring with her … and her feelings about coming here. Perhaps we could go back to my office and talk before you leave?’

‘Yes, all right.’ Rose realised that Mrs Morton had more authority than she had first thought and sighed; a shadow descended as she imagined her sister’s reaction to the news. ‘She can be a bit stubborn, and she isn’t going to take kindly to the idea …’

‘Don’t worry, we’ll look after her. She will soon settle in.’

The trouble was Mrs Morton didn’t know how stubborn Mary Ellen could be when she didn’t like something and Rose wasn’t looking forward to telling her the news.

Mary Ellen stared at the faces looking down at her, mutiny flaring. Rose kept on saying that she had to go into St Saviour’s until Ma returned from hospital, but something in the way her mother looked at her told Mary Ellen that Ma didn’t think she would be coming back. She could feel a sick lump in her chest and she wanted to scream and stamp her feet, but Ma looked so sad and so tired.

‘I don’t want to go,’ she mumbled in a voice barely above a whisper. ‘I want to stay here with Rose and you …’ Her eyes entreated her mother, but Ma looked as if she too wanted to cry and that was worse than all the rest. Mary Ellen longed to make her better, to bring back her loving smile, but there was nothing she could do and that hurt – it hurt so much that Mary Ellen thought she would die of it. How could they just send her away to that horrible place, as if she were an unwanted stray? She wanted to be with her mother, to feel Ma’s loving arms holding her close and see her smile. Her chest felt as if it would burst for the pain of it.

‘I can’t look after you, love,’ Ma said, and tears spilled from her eyes, dripping slowly down her pale cheeks. ‘I don’t want to leave you, Mary Ellen – but I have to go to the hospital. If I stay with you, you may get my illness and I don’t want you to suffer like me. Anything is better than that …’

Mary Ellen didn’t want that either, but she longed for Ma to laugh and take her in her arms as she had in the old days when her father was alive and Ma was always happy and singing.

‘Why can’t Rose stay and look after me?’ Mary Ellen didn’t particularly want to be in her sister’s care, because Rose was so sharp, but it was better than going away to a place she didn’t know – a home for orphans. Surely that was for kids who had no family? Mary Ellen had a mother and a sister and she wanted her own home.

‘Because Rose has worked hard to get that place in the hospital and she needs to work her way up until she’s a senior staff nurse or a sister and then she will earn enough to have a house that we can all live in. I’ll be able to move from here too, Mary Ellen. Let Rose go and do what she has to – and then we can all be together again.’

‘I would rather she stayed here until you come home from the hospital.’

‘Well, I can’t,’ Rose snapped. ‘I have to go now or not at all. Stop complaining, Mary Ellen. Ma is ill and she has to go to the hospital. She doesn’t want to go either but you don’t hear her whining and moaning. I’ve made the arrangements and I shall take you on Monday morning and that’s that.’

‘Well, I think you’re mean and rotten and …’ Mary Ellen broke off with a gasp as Rose gave her a smack round the face. Tears welled in her eyes but she didn’t sob or carry on because the slap had shocked her more than hurt her. Rose had never hit her before and something in her sister’s manner told her that she had reached the end of her tether. In that moment Mary Ellen understood that her sister was suffering too, even though she was trying not to show it. ‘I’m sorry …’

Rose was looking pale, as if she were shocked by what she’d done, and Mary Ellen felt her resistance ebbing. She’d known ever since Ma told them she had to go away that this was coming, but she’d been hoping something would happen and everything would be all right again.

‘Rose, love, don’t quarrel with your sister. It’s hard enough for all of us – and Mary Ellen …’ Ma looked at her sadly, her eyes wet with tears. ‘Please try to understand, my love. I’m really ill. I wouldn’t leave you if I didn’t have to but it’s my only chance.… ’

‘If Ma doesn’t go she’ll only get worse,’ Rose said but her mother shook her head. ‘She’s got to understand, Ma. There is no other way for us. I can’t work and look after her properly – and I need to complete my training. The exams I took are only the first hurdle; there will be so much to learn that I couldn’t possibly look after a child. If I don’t do this, we’ll be stuck in this rotten slum for the rest of our lives. It’s living here that has made you ill. Do you want her to die young too?’

Mary Ellen ran at her mother, clinging to her legs and hiding her face in her skirt. She felt gentle hands on her head but knew Ma wouldn’t kiss her: she didn’t kiss either of them these days and tried not to breathe on them in case she infected them with her illness. She was always holding a handkerchief to her mouth and that was usually speckled with bloodstains.

‘Please, love,’ her mother begged, a break in her voice. ‘You’re tearing me apart. I can’t bear it …’

Mary Ellen heard the pain in Ma’s voice and was immediately contrite. She buried herself in the skirts of Ma’s dress and mumbled that she was sorry.

‘I’ll go,’ she said, voice thick with misery. ‘I’ll go – but Rose had better come and get me sometimes or I shall run away.’

‘Of course I’ll visit when I can and bring you sweets or something,’ Rose told her, relieved and trying to be kind now that she’d won. ‘The time will pass quickly. You’ll see, Mary Ellen, before you know it I’ll be visiting and then I’ll be a nurse and we’ll have a much better house to live in than this old thing …’

‘You promise you won’t leave me there and forget me?’

‘Cross my heart and hope to die,’ Rose said and smiled. ‘You’re my sister and I care about you. Please try to understand. I’ve got a lovely fresh loaf, some real butter, ham and tomatoes for tea. Come on and help me set the table like a good girl. We don’t want to upset Ma, do we, love?’

Mary Ellen stared at her with reproachful eyes. It was all right for Rose, she was going to do something she’d always wanted to do, but Mary Ellen would be stuck in that home – and she knew how forbidding it looked from the outside. She felt abandoned, unwanted, and it was breaking her heart. Mary Ellen just knew it would be horrible there. It would be like being locked away in prison, except that she hadn’t done anything wrong and it wasn’t fair. Ma was going to a hospital where she would have people to look after her, and Rose was going to be a nurse but she would be sent away, because no one loved or wanted her …

EIGHT

Michelle luxuriated in the warm scented bath water, thoroughly enjoying the sensation of being pampered and lazy. She’d bagged the bathroom at the Nurses’ Home first that evening, and the water was still hot, which it wouldn’t be by the time three or four of the inmates had run a bath, because Michelle had used more than she was supposed to and the old geyser that heated it wasn’t really up to all the demands made on it. She was using the remainder of the lilac-scented bath salts she’d had for her last birthday, because it was a special occasion that evening. She had the next two whole days off and tonight she was going dancing at the Co-op hall in Bethnal Green with a group of her friends.

Sally’s friend Keith, an apprentice plumber who often did small jobs for people in the Halfpenny Street area, had asked her if she had some friends who would like to support the dance, which was in aid of the local darts team of which he was a member. So Sally had roped in Alice, her cousin and a friend of his from the Army.

Michelle had hesitated when she was asked along too but something in the way Sally had looked at her had made her give in, because they both needed cheering up after what had happened to Jake. A night out in the company of friends would stop them both brooding over his death. Besides, if Michelle had guessed right, Sally didn’t want to spend all night with just Keith for company. She too had the luxury of a weekend off, because Sister Beatrice said they both deserved it. The Warden hadn’t blamed either of them for what had happened to their patient, though they bitterly blamed themselves. Losing such a lovely little boy had been unbearable and felt so wrong. Surely, if they’d tried harder, they could have done something – though they both knew they had neglected nothing in their care of the boy. He’d just been too weak to fight the pneumonia.

Nurses were not supposed to get involved with the children in their care: it was one of the first things they learned, to toughen up, because otherwise they were going to break their hearts over every child that was lost. Michelle had believed that she’d managed to grow a thick skin; she could mostly cope with whatever the wards threw at her, but somehow Jake had got beneath her shield. Perhaps it was because he was so bright and intelligent, so interested in everything going on around him. He’d watched her nursing the others and one night he’d confided that he was going to be a nurse when he grew up so that he could look after sick people. And then, suddenly, he’d become silent, a pathetic, tortured child, as the fever gripped him and turned into an illness that was so often a killer. A doctor had been summoned, but he’d endorsed all they were doing, praised them for their devotion, yet it still hadn’t been enough. Jake had slipped away from them just before the dawn, his last gasping breath taken. The sight of him lying pale and silent had torn her heart in two.

Michelle felt the sting of tears. Her throat was tight and for a moment she felt overwhelmed by a deep sadness that threatened to undo her, but she fought it back. Jake’s struggle was ended and his pathetic little life was over. The awful thing was that he’d had such a rotten one. With parents who starved and beat him, he’d never had a chance, and yet he hadn’t been bitter. Instead, he’d loved his little sister and wanted to protect her – had wanted to grow up to be a nurse so that he could help sick people.

‘Why?’ Michelle asked of no one in particular. There were plenty of bad people in the world; why, if a soul had been needed, couldn’t it have been one of them instead of that innocent boy?

She shook her head and jumped out of the rapidly cooling water. It was time she got ready for the dance that evening. Sally and Alice were coming back here to start with and they would catch the bus to meet up with the men outside the dance hall. Keith had wanted to pay for all the girls to go in, but Sally said that wasn’t fair on him, because apprentices didn’t have much money to spare so they’d agreed that everyone would buy their own tickets at the door.

Michelle looked through her wardrobe, settling on a pale blue dress with white spots that had a halter strap and a sweetheart neckline, adding a little white bolero with capped sleeves. The skirt was gored and because of the restrictions during the war it didn’t have the fashionable fullness she would have liked, but it finished below her knees and suited her well. Her white leather shoes were almost new and hadn’t yet needed to be cleaned with whitening, though after this evening they probably would. You never knew who you would end up with as a partner in the progressive barn dance; sometimes you got lucky and they danced well, but half of the young men who filled the popular dance hall seemed to have two left feet.

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