Folly (5 page)

44

"Sit yourself down," said Cook. "You can peel apples while you tell us how you've come to be here."

That was Cook testing Mary's skill with a knife, and she showed herself well enough able. And out pours the story: how she'd helped the baby stop crying, how it was only wind, how Miss Lucilla--who she called Mrs. Overly--had begged her to come to London with a promise of an upstairs situation, how Bates had been so kind, how Lady Allyn took one look at her and--no wonder!--declared her unfit as a nursemaid, how Miss Lucilla blushed and pouted, how Mary felt what she called "drumming terror" that she'd be sent out into what she called "those London streets," how Lady Allyn had relented and allowed that Mary could work in the scullery on trial, and how Mrs. Wiggins was to be judge of what Mary called "any hope for a future" ...

"And where'll she be sleeping?" asked Eliza, as if Mary weren't sitting there with the face of doom.

"With you, dear," said Cook, who only used
dear
once a month when she had a need for something.

Mary arrived with her dress and her stockings, though they were worn enough they might have been made of cheesecloth. She had on a pair of boots she said used to be her dad's. Later, she traded them with the boy, Nut, from the workhouse, whose feet were near big enough to fit. The shoes he'd got were chapped like old skin but the right size for Mary. That was how they got to be friends--no one else would talk to him, the little beast, but Mary

45

would, having brothers and knowing little boys. According to Mary, they weren't always thinking about toads or farts, but sometimes about their mothers--not that Nut had one of those--or battles or a fistful of sugar from the breakfast bowl. Mary was good at pinching sugar and letting Nut lick her thumb. As if he were a baby, scoffed Eliza. He must be fully nine or ten, just smaller in mind.

Eliza wasn't too pleased to have Mary sleeping in her bed when she'd had it to herself for the three months since Hazel was so foolish as to get caught in the study filling a flask with gin at Christmas. She'd been a hard one, that Hazel. Eliza wasn't saying Mary was anything like Hazel. Her method was not so plain to see. But one thing
was
clear: Mary was new to service, and if it hadn't been for Eliza, she'd have been lost. She did learn quick, but every time she watched Eliza first.

"Have you even read the book, Mary?" asked Eliza, the second night they were tiptoeing around each other before climbing under the blanket.

"The book?" And she looked scared, so Eliza knew she couldn't read, along with her other useless qualities.

"Aye, the book.
Baylis Handbook, Law of Domestic Servants
."

"No," said Mary. "No, I've not had the pleasure."

Ha.

Next morning, she was stumbling over the order of things when Bates come along and said, "If you're not catching on quick enough, Mary, just give His Lordship a

46

glimpse of your ... attributes ... and you won't get a scolding."

Eliza was thinking,
What attributes
?
There's barely enough there to fill a chemise!
But, "Don't pay no mind to Bates," she told Mary. "He's a cheeky, but he means no harm."

"I've met worse," Mary said. "He was nice enough to get me here."

"Not too nice, I hope," said Eliza. "I fancy him myself, so keep clear, if you don't mind."

That was when Mary flashed such a bright, warm smile Eliza knew later what made the men go soft on her.

"Oh, nothing to worry about there!" laughed Mary. "He's a bit old for me, wouldn't you say?"

She was cheerful, Eliza could see that, and it was a relief to share the load, after doing it herself for all those weeks since Hazel.

"I wonder could you help me out?" Mary asked. "I've a note to write home and ... my letters are not so well formed as they might be."

So Eliza wrote down what Mary told her, about leaving the other position and coming to the Allyns of Neville Street for an
opportunity
. Eliza wasn't sure of the spelling, but Mary insisted she use that word. Eliza could see that the story was longer than the few lines written, but it didn't seem right to poke about just yet.

Many was the time later that Eliza thought Mary might have been her friend, if only she'd left Bates alone.

47

OLIVER 1884 All Foundlings Being the Same

Oliver Chester knew that the anguish of adjustment was the same for every boy coming in from fostering; each faced a suffering he'd never imagined. Some were embarrassed, some toughed it out, some took longer than others to recover, depending on what sort of family they'd come in from. But Oliver remembered those nights in the dark and those queues to wash and eat. He saw their little noses twitching with the effort not to cry and he felt weak all over again. Never enough food, cold rough sheets, unexplained routines, and the towering Big Chaps who seemed as though they might very well murder you. It had been just the same in his time.

That was why he preferred to wait, actually. He liked to teach the older ones, once they'd left what was called the

48

Infant School. By the time they got to be Big Chaps--all of eight or nine years old--they were broken in and no longer spilling sadness at odd moments, though there were still one or two each year who managed to crack his heart.

But as long as he prepared his lessons and delivered his lectures and meted out work for revision, he escaped knowing most of the boys. They wore uniforms, after all; it was best that they
be
uniform as well. He managed to prevent them from having any curiosity about him, or the outside world.

It was the challenge of his life, actually, to evade curiosity, though it pestered him when he least expected to have his thoughts interrupted. It was an irony, Oliver Chester realized, that a history master should avoid his own history, but after all, wasn't that what he'd been taught to do from the start?

49

JAMES 1884 What the Chaplain Told Them

There were fourteen new boys brought in that Sunday evening, though James was surprised when he counted; it seeming like more than that. After the haircut, each boy was given a scrubbing. At the Peeveys' they'd had their baths in the barrel every week, or in the stream during the summer. Each night before supper they'd got what Mama P. called
licked behind the ears
, using a wet cloth.

This scrubbing at the Foundling was like being given a new skin, only the old one needed to come off first. The soap was gritty and smelled horrible. The brush felt as though it were made from thorns. The boys yelped, raw and shivering. James had managed not to cry again since Mama went away through that door, but he was very nearly leaking tears by the end of the bath.

50

There was supper of bread and hard white cheese, and afterward they were taken into a room with softly gleaming wooden walls and a carpet on the floor like thick blue moss. The children sat on two benches, rigidly listening to a man with a puffy face and bristling side whiskers. While he spoke to them, he frequently tapped his own left cheek, as if he were pointing to himself. James began to count.

"Good evening, boys."
One
.

A mumbled response from only a few prompted the man to repeat, "My name is Mr. Byrd. Good evening, boys."
Two
.

"Good evening, Mr. Byrd."

"Ah, much better."
Three
. Was he touching a sore spot, James wondered. "I am the chaplain of the Foundling Hospital and will be your counselor on many matters for many years to come. Although you are no doubt weary this evening"--
four
--"it is important that you go to your prayers and to your new beds with certain thoughts in mind."
Five
. James glanced at the boy next to him, wishing it were Martin, so their elbows could bump to share the oddness of this man's finger. Martin would cross his eyes and pretend to choke--

"Each of you is known to us as a child of shame."

What? Six
.

"Your. Mothers. Are. Sinners. It is vital that you never forget that you are the progeny of sin. It is therefore your duty to devote yourselves to goodness and servitude. Thanks to the generosity of the governors of this great

51

institution, you have been rescued from the certain peril of becoming sinners yourselves. In your prayers tonight, and on all other nights, you are hereby appointed--"

James giggled. Ap
point
ed! While he was
pointing
!
Seven. Eight
. A glare from Mr. Byrd.

"--to thank God for your salvation, and to offer humble obedience and gratitude from this day forward for as long as you shall live."
Nine
.

Mr. Byrd fell silent and for a moment was still. James shifted, sliding his hands under the coarse white fabric that covered his knees. What was the man talking about? The way the words rolled out made it sound important, but James--
ten
--had been counting the finger-tapping-the-cheek and had not listened properly. Was he now supposed to be doing something? The man moved his stare from one boy to the next, as if--
eleven
--he were examining them. James held his breath. His turn.

"You--"

James jumped, but realized the man was only starting up again. He did not mean "you, James," he meant "you, all you boys." This was
hard
! Why had Mama brought him here?

"You carry names given to you through the generosity of the hospital governors. You will be fed and clothed and taught through the charity of the hospital governors."
Twelve
. "You will not spend a single hour of your life occupied in idleness, dishonesty, or ingratitude. Will you, boys?"
Thirteen
.

52

"No, Mr. Byrd."

"You will instead be industrious, honest, and servile."

The pause informed the boys they were to speak.

"Yes, Mr. Byrd."

"I leave you now with the words of our hospital anthem.
Blessed are they who considereth the poor
."

Mr. Byrd bowed his head, both hands this time raised to his chin in prayer.

What did it all mean?

53

MARY 1877 What a Letter to Nan Might Say

It were a slow job, getting used to that great tall house, with sixty-four stairs from the kitchen to our attic, and water needing to be hauled to every room all the way up. The place were so strange, some days I'd be dizzy with wanting to be home. Only home weren't home anymore, what with Margaret Huckle being the queen hen, so I were stuck with putting one foot in front of the other to climb those steps.

Lord Allyn's newspapers were usually turned to kindling the day after, or wrapping for the fishbones, but I shredded
Monday, April 16
, through
Saturday, April 21
, stuffing a fine pillow, though it did rustle when I turned my head and Eliza made a point of sighing if she were still awake. We'd had real pillows in Pinchbeck, with sheep's

54

wool or feathers inside, and quilts too; something I longed for now, with Eliza like a great sow, pulling the blanket over just herself more nights than not.

They'd been sending the heavy laundry out since the last girl were got rid of, but Eliza said Lady A. weren't happy with her linens being jumbled up with just anybody's. Who knew what infections might be lurking in the tubs at the laundress's? She'd heard about a washerwoman whose baby died of scarletina and there she were, using the same scrubbing board as she did for the sick child's bedding!

So my Mondays were determined by the carelessness of a grieving mother--or the story of one. Stories being what keeps the world spinning, while the daily tasks are ever the same. Every day were coal and water, trays and trolleys, sweeping and scrubbing, peeling, slicing, basting, serving. And each day of the week there were a big chore too: Mondays, laundry. Tuesdays, ironing. Wednesdays, turning the mattresses and changing the linens. Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays ...

Time slipped by, Lordy! I'd left Pinchbeck at the start of the year, and here it were coming into September already, though a city autumn were nothing like it appeared at home. First the Rogue and Scholar and then Neville Street had used up all those days. I'd had a birthday in July--secret to myself. On that day, I tore a bit of the butcher's paper into strips and fastened loops with a spot of paste from Cook's drawer, each loop linked through the next,

55

making a garland long enough to drape across the bedstead. It were very festive.

"And what's this for?" asked Eliza, tugging on it.

"Just a bit of cheering up," I said. She left it alone, and I almost told her I'd turned fifteen, but then I didn't.

All that time gone and still some days my arms would ache for wanting to hold Nan, before remembering she were likely in that wriggly stage, squeaking to be put down, and near big enough to have her hair braided. Did her hair curl like Davy's? I wondered. Were she boisterous or sedate? Plump or scrawny? Were it a baby sister she'd got or another brother? Did she remember me? Did she love that Margaret Huckle instead?

I'd wish I could write her a letter. I'd think all day sometimes, through all my tasks, telling her the news in my head as if I could write it down. I'd report on the sights, and think of funny stories, and imagine that Thomas or Davy would read my words aloud in the evening at the supper table, lit up by the lantern with the dented tin lid.