The Throwaway Children (35 page)

‘Thirsty,’ rasped Rita. ‘So thirsty.’

‘Come on, Reet,’ Daisy said. ‘We got to get out of here. You can have a drink of water when we get up to the kitchen.’ And when Rita didn’t move, Daisy pulled at her urgently. ‘Come
on
, Reet. We got to get out of here.’

Somehow she managed to get Rita to her feet, pulling her towards the stairs. Together they negotiated the steps and got back up to the kitchen where Rita collapsed onto a stool; Daisy shut the cellar door and bolted it firmly. Then she filled a tin mug at the sink and handed it to Rita.

Rita gulped down the water, emptying the mug before she paused for breath. She gave Daisy a wan smile. ‘Thanks, Dais,’ she said.

Daisy looked at her friend anxiously. ‘You all right, Reet?’

‘Cold,’ replied Rita, ‘and hungry, but all right.’

‘See if I can find you something to eat,’ Daisy said and opening the pantry door, she peered inside. There was very little food, but she found the end of a loaf of bread and a heel of cheese wrapped in a piece of cloth, and brought them out. ‘Not much,’ she said, passing it over.

Rita wolfed down the food, tearing at the bread and cramming the small piece of cheese into her mouth. ‘This’ll do,’ she said. ‘Then I’m off.’

‘Off?’ Daisy was startled. ‘Off where?’

‘Out of here,’ Rita said through a mouthful of bread. ‘You should come too. We’re in dead trouble now.’ She shook her head at Daisy. ‘You shouldn’t have come down for me, Dais. Now you’ll be for the high jump, too.’ She swallowed hard and added, ‘But I’m so glad you did. You’re a real friend.’

‘Couldn’t leave you there, could I?’ Daisy looked down at herself. ‘I can’t come with you. I ain’t even dressed.’

‘Go and get your clothes, then,’ said Rita. ‘I ain’t staying here another day, and you shouldn’t neither.’

Daisy hesitated. She’d always lived in a place like Laurel Farm, she hadn’t the courage to walk away from it, as Rita had from Laurel House, and was planning to do again.

‘We ain’t got no shoes,’ she pointed out.

‘No.’ Rita looked down at her bare feet, still too cold to feel. ‘They took mine as well, I expect. Never mind, that ain’t going to stop me. I just got to fetch something from the dorm and then I’m off.’ They made their way silently along the passage. It was almost complete daylight now, and soon the rest of the house would be awake.

In the dorm, Rita opened her locker door. Inside were the shoes and socks that Mrs Garfield had made her take off yesterday. She grabbed them, quickly putting them on, then she up-ended the mattress and pulled out her precious journal, checked that her photo was still inside it and tucked it under her arm. To her surprise she realized that Daisy was struggling into her clothes. Just the overalls they all wore, but she had no shoes. ‘What you doing, Dais?’ she whispered.

‘Coming with you, Reet,’ came the soft reply.

The two friends hurried down the passage, and out through the back door.

‘Just a minute,’ hissed Daisy, and turned aside to a little lean-to shed. Moments later she reappeared wearing a pair of rubber boots. They were several sizes too big for her but at least her feet were covered. Rita gave a muffled laugh when she saw her.

‘Had to wear them yesterday when we was mucking out the chooks,’ explained Daisy. ‘Come on.’

‘This way,’ Rita said, leading the way through the trees. ‘Better not go out through the gate. We’ll climb out.’

Together they slipped through the trees, past the sleeping cottages, towards the boundary fence.

‘And just where do you two think you’re going?’

The two girls froze, their hearts pounding. The voice came from the garden in front of Larch Cottage. Mrs Watson had been sitting on an old wooden bench, and now she came across to the two girls.

‘Just for a walk, miss.’ Rita tried to sound nonchalant.

‘Oh, no, I don’t think so,’ said Mrs Watson. She’d recognized Rita at once. ‘Too early for a walk, don’t you think?’ She reached across and took Rita by the arm, her fingers warm against the girl’s chilly flesh.

‘Good gracious, child, you’re freezing!’ she exclaimed. She turned Rita to face her and saw the dirt on her face and her matted hair. ‘And you’re filthy. What on earth have you been doing, Rita?’

Rita didn’t answer, but Daisy piped up, ‘She’s been locked in the cellar all night. You’d be cold and dirty if you was left in a cellar that long.’

‘That’s enough,’ snapped Mrs Watson. She didn’t know the child’s name, one of the new kids from England. She turned back to Rita. ‘Is that true? That you’ve been locked in the cellar all night?’

Rita was glowering at Daisy for interfering, but she nodded.

‘All night? Mrs Garfield left you in the cellar all night?’

‘She did, miss.’ Daisy would not be silenced by either of them.

Mrs Watson looked at her. ‘What
is
your name?’ she asked.

‘Daisy Smart, miss.’

‘Well, Daisy Smart, will you kindly be quiet? I’m speaking to Rita.’ She looked at the two girls for a moment and saw that Rita was shivering.

‘You’d better come inside,’ she said and still holding onto Rita, led them into Larch. She took them through the living room into her own quarters beyond and made them sit down. Here she stirred the embers in the fireplace, adding some dry twigs as she coaxed the fire back to life.

‘You need a hot drink,’ she said, ‘and then, you’d better tell me exactly what’s been going on.’

‘You’ll have to sack Garfield,’ Joe Manton said. ‘The Watson woman is right, that child might have died in that cellar.’

‘That’s a bit overdramatic,’ replied his wife. ‘She’s all right, a bit cold… hungry and thirsty, that’s all.’

‘Daphne, if that other child, what’s her name…?’

‘Daisy Smart.’

‘If Daisy Smart hadn’t gone down and found her, she might well have been in a far worse state. The woman was dead drunk on the floor when you went to find her. She wouldn’t have come round for hours.’ He looked across at his wife, his expression serious. ‘Let’s face it, Daphne, it’s not the first time she’s been drunk. Oh, I agree,’ he said, as his wife tried to interrupt, ‘I agree never as bad as she was today… goodness only knows how much she’d had… but we can’t keep turning a blind eye.’

‘There was an empty gin bottle lying beside her,’ conceded Daphne.

Joe shrugged. ‘That says it all. You can’t leave her in charge of a house full of children. Imagine what would have happened if that girl had been taken really ill, or worse! Doesn’t bear thinking about. We’d have had the authorities down on us like a ton of bricks, they’d have crawled all over the place. Probably closed us down.’

‘I know,’ agreed his wife reluctantly, ‘I know, you’re right, of course, but I don’t like being blackmailed by that woman.’

‘Well,’ answered Joe, getting to his feet, ‘there’s nothing you can do about it. You simply sack the Garfield woman. You never liked her anyway!’ And he left Daphne sitting in her chair, deciding what to do.

They’d been awoken early that morning by a pounding on their front door. Daphne had got up, still bleary with sleep, and opened the door to find Mrs Watson, fist raised about to hammer again.

‘Mrs Watson!’ she’d cried. ‘What on earth’s happened?’

‘It’s Mrs Garfield,’ began Mrs Watson.

‘You’d better come in.’

‘No,’ insisted Mrs Watson, ‘you’d better come with me.’ She sounded so urgent that Mrs Manton flung an overcoat over her nightdress and followed her to Oak. The girls stared in astonishment as the superintendent, still in her nightclothes, and Mrs Watson entered the cottage, marched through the living room and into Mrs Garfield’s quarters.

Daphne Manton stopped short at what she saw. Mrs Garfield lay on the floor, eyes closed, her breath coming in stentorian rasps, an empty gin bottle beside her.

‘She’s out for the count,’ Mrs Watson said in disgust, ‘and must have been for hours.’

‘Well, at least there’s no harm done,’ Mrs Manton said calmly.

‘No harm done!’ exploded Mrs Watson. ‘She had a child locked in the cellar all day yesterday and all last night. She was too drunk to remember to let her out. Mrs Manton, that child could have died!’

‘Oh, I hardly think so—’ began the superintendent.

‘You’re wrong,’ Mrs Watson interrupted. ‘That child was left in the dark with no food, no water, no sanitation, in a cellar which, if ours at Larch is anything to go by, has a population of rats, for nearly
twenty-four hours
.’ She confronted her employer across the prone figure of Mrs Garfield. ‘I will not be party to such treatment, Mrs Manton. Unless you get rid of this…’ she prodded the oblivious house-mother with her toe, ‘…this apology for a woman, not only will I not stay in this place, I will report this to the authorities.’

‘Then you’ll be out of a job yourself,’ pointed out Mrs Manton, surprised at Mrs Watson’s temerity. ‘I thought you needed this job.’

‘I do,’ snapped Mrs Watson, ‘but not at the expense of a child’s life.’

‘The child is not dead.’

‘No thanks to this woman. Who knows how long Rita’d have been left there if her friend hadn’t had the guts to go down and bring her out? None of the other kids dared, and she…’ she prodded Mrs Garfield again, ‘…she probably won’t surface again for hours yet, and won’t remember the child in the cellar when she does.’ She held Mrs Manton’s eyes and said softly, ‘That is my ultimatum, Mrs Manton. Either she goes or I do, and if I do, my first stop will be the state authorities.’

‘Where’s the child now?’ demanded the superintendent.

‘I’ve given her a hot drink and put her to bed in Larch,’ replied Mrs Watson. ‘She needs to be kept in bed today to make sure there are no further ill-effects.’

‘And the other child, Daisy Smart?’

‘She’s still at Larch, too. I left her in my room and told her to wait for me there.’ She looked at the superintendent and said, a little less brusquely, ‘I think it would be a good idea if those two girls moved into Larch. Rosie leaving has left us with a free bed, and I can make space for one more.’ Mrs Watson went on, pressing her advantage, ‘Those girls have had a bad start with Mrs Garfield. If you are going to get rid of her, all the girls in Oak will have to move into other cottages until you find a suitable replacement, so I’ll take Rita and Daisy.’

There had been just the faintest emphasis on the word ‘suitable’, which was not lost on Mrs Manton, and her lips tightened before she said, ‘I will decide where each child will go, if the necessity arises.’

Mrs Watson remained adamant. With her dark blue eyes fixed on her employer, she said firmly, ‘The necessity has already arisen, Mrs Manton. My ultimatum stands, and part of my conditions are that Rita and Daisy move into Larch. I shall keep them both for the rest of the day, by which time you will have made your decision. Should you decide to keep Mrs Garfield on, I will leave tomorrow morning, and I will report the happenings here to the authorities.’

‘This is blackmail,’ snapped Mrs Manton.

‘If you like,’ agreed Mrs Watson. ‘But if she stays, I go. And if I stay, there are to be no more “cellars” in any of the houses. No child should be treated as Rita Stevens was yesterday.’

‘Rita Stevens was defiant,’ Mrs Manton retorted, ‘she deserved to be punished.’

‘Very possibly,’ concurred Mrs Watson, ‘but her punishment was extreme and unacceptable.’

‘I am the superintendent here,’ said Mrs Manton, ‘and I’ll be the judge of that.’

‘Exactly,’ replied Mrs Watson equably, ‘that’s what I’m asking you to do. If you think Mrs Garfield’s drunkenness is acceptable and that she chose a suitable punishment for a little girl, far from home, who’d just lost her sister, then you keep her on as a house-mother. But you know what I’ll do if that is your decision.’ She gave a half-smile and added, ‘I must get back to Larch and make sure the girls are ready to go to church.’

Daphne considered Mrs Watson’s ultimatum again now. Damn the woman! Why had she ever employed her? Mrs Manton had made some enquiries and discovered that the so-called ‘Mrs’ Delia Watson was an unmarried mother whose employers had thrown her out when they’d found out about the child. She had moved from place to place, but then a few months later the child had been found dead in his cot. An investigation proved nothing against the mother, but she had remained under a cloud, and no respectable household would employ her. Mrs Manton took the risk, because Mrs Watson was desperate for a job and she came cheap. In the months that she’d been at Laurel Farm, she’d proved herself a competent house-mother. But now? Now she was holding Mrs Manton to ransom and the superintendent bitterly regretted taking her on. She knew Joe was right. They couldn’t risk the authorities being informed and descending on the place. She would have to give in to the woman’s blackmail and sack Mrs Garfield. She sighed. Emily had warned her that Rita Stevens was a troublesome child, and she was quite right! Rita had been nothing but trouble from the moment she arrived. She gave another sigh and made her decision. Mrs Garfield would have to go, with all the upheaval that would cause, and Rita and Daisy would stay in Larch Cottage.

After a quick breakfast she went across to Oak to make sure the girls who lived there were ready for church. The buzz of conversation ceased as soon as she walked into the living room, and they looked at her fearfully.

‘Mrs Garfield isn’t well this morning,’ she told them. ‘Go over to central and put your shoes on, then line up with the others.’

‘Please, Mrs Manton,’ stammered Agnes. ‘We think Rita is in the cellar and we can’t find Daisy Smart.’

‘Of course Rita isn’t in the cellar,’ snapped the superintendent. ‘And I know where Daisy Smart is, so you don’t have to worry about them. Now, off you go, or you’ll be late.’

The girls scurried away to find their shoes, and Mrs Manton closed the door behind them, drawing the bolt. Looking out of the window to check they’d all gone she went through into Mrs Garfield’s room. The house-mother still lay on the floor, still snoring.

‘You stupid woman!’ Mrs Manton told the inert form. ‘You had a cushy number here, and now you’ll have to go.’ As she left the room, she removed the key and locked the door from the outside. She did not want a hungover house-mother wandering round the property when they came home from church.