'Oh, Polly, you can picture! Will you be my special friend?'
'I should like to be your friend more than anything, Hetty,' said Polly.
I stayed cuddled up with her until dawn, then I hurtled back to my own bed only a few moments before the big girl monitor burst into the room.
I helped Polly smooth her apron and tippet into place when we got dressed. When I placed her cap upon her head, I whispered, 'There, all your new curls are tumbling down past your shoulders.'
When Ida smiled at me at breakfast, I said, 'This is my new friend, Polly.'
Ida nodded at Polly in a kindly way.
'Ida is quite the nicest maid in the whole hospital,' I told Polly.
Ida blushed deeply, the pink in her cheeks making her look almost pretty. 'Hetty is quite the most artful girl in the whole hospital,' she said sprinkling sugar on my porridge. She sprinkled a little on Polly's plate too.
I made sure Polly sat next to me in lesson time, and I resolved to help her with her ABC very patiently. But I didn't need to! Polly's schoolmistress foster mother had taught her charge well. Polly could read as fluently as me, though I was now top reader of the entire infants class. She could write neatly too, in a curly copperplate that sent Miss Newman into raptures.
'Look, girls, mark this penmanship! See with what style Polly writes her lesson, and not a single mistake!' she said, showing us all Polly's page.
If Polly had not been my true friend, I would have been a little irritated. Half the girls groaned jealously. Sheila and Monica started making up a vulgar verse together about Polly Penmanship. I quelled them with a terrifying look. No one should be allowed to tease my friend!
Polly proved gifted at darning too, sewing neatly and smoothly, an accomplishment that proved more popular. Our clothes were not marked in any way. We were handed out our clean clothes randomly on Sunday. If you were given badly darned stockings, the toes all cobbled together, you knew you'd be driven mad by the irritation, forever forced to take your boot off to ease the stocking this way and that.
Polly and I pictured together every playtime. We'd spread our arms and pretend we could fly. We might look as if we were simply running up and down the playground with our arms outstretched, but we knew we were swooping high above the sooty rooftops of London town. One day we'd fly to visit Polly's foster mother and sit at Miss Morrison's skirts and eat seedcake for our tea; the next day we'd fly to my village and sit with Jem in my squirrel house and eat gingerbread.
I told Polly about Madame Adeline and Tanglefield's Travelling Circus. I invited her to take part, though privately I was a little unsure about her as a circus performer. Although she got no more food than the rest of us, she remained a very sturdy child, flat-footed in her institution boots. But I need not have worried. Polly had as much imagination as me.
'There was a parrot at Miss Morrison's. He was called Polly too, though I think he was a boy. He used to squawk dreadfully and nip everyone, but he was very good with me. It was my special job to feed him, and he'd say, "Good girlie, good girlie." So I'll be a bird trainer at the circus and teach parrots to sing songs, and great hawks and eagles and albatrosses will fly about my head and do such tricks,' she said. She waved her hand and I saw her performing birds and marvelled.
I shared my purloined Police Gazettes with Polly, and we gasped and giggled together at their grisly stories. I wondered if Polly would wish to terrify the dormitory with her own version at night, but she was a tactful girl and left the public tale-telling to me.
She did still cry at times, long after the other girls slept, but I always slipped into her bed and cuddled her close and comforted her.
13
Polly and I even got ill together that winter. I'm not sure which of us started sniffing and sneezing first, but within a day we both had red and running noses and hacking coughs. Matron Pigface Peters gave us a rag each to wipe our noses, but they were made of harsh, hard cloth and rubbed us raw. Our heads were aching and our arms and legs hurt. All we wanted to do was lie down, but we were forced up into our everyday routine. It was especially cold and we stood shivering at playtime, barely able to stand.
'Run around, children! You need plenty of fresh air to blow those horrid colds away. Don't pull those long faces at me!' said Matron Pigface.
'But we're so cold, Matron. Mayn't we stay indoors just this once?' I snuffled.
'Cold? Of course you're cold if you loll around like that! Do some skipping! Take some exercise, you lazy little girls. And stop that shivering! You've got your good thick coats.'
We had our coats, but we had no woollen scarves or mittens. We had no underwear, so the icy wind blew straight up our skirts. We staggered miserably up and down, our faces grey, snot running freely. By bedtime we were both wheezing and dizzy with fever. I could not croak out a story for everyone. I could barely breathe. I lay there, head throbbing, while my bed seemed to rise up and down, voyaging to the ceiling and back. I lifted my head and was violently sick all over my pillow and coverlet. I crouched, shivering and sniffing, desperate to know what to do. I was sure I'd be punished for making such a terrible stinking mess. I had to try to clear it up, but I didn't know how.
'Oh, Hetty Feather, have you been sick?' Sheila called. 'I can smell it from here. How disgusting you are!'
'She couldn't help it,' said Polly. 'I feel sick too. Oh no—!' She vomited as well.
'Stop it! You're both disgusting,' said Sheila.
Some of the other girls woke too and groaned and complained.
'Ssh! I hear footsteps. It's Matron!' Monica hissed.
I started crying then, unable to lie down in my bed, terrified I might be whipped for being out of it. But it wasn't the dreaded Matron Pigface Peters. Lovely Nurse Winnie was on night duty. She came in with her lamp.
'Oh dear, oh dear, who's been sick?' she said. 'Is it you, Hetty? And poor Polly too!' She came up to me and felt my forehead. 'You have a fever, dear. You need proper nursing – and you too, Polly. Come along with me, girls.'
She ushered us out of the dormitory and down the corridor, into a room we'd never been in before, like a small dormitory with twelve beds.
'This is the infirmary, girls. Let's strip off those soiled nightgowns and get you washed and clean again, poor lambs.' She was so gentle with us that we both started crying, unused to such tenderness. When we were in our clean nightgowns, we were tucked into bed in the infirmary with new softer rags to blow our noses and bowls beside us in case we were sick again.
'There now. Try to get some sleep. I'll go and check the other girls and strip your soiled beds. Don't cry so. You'll feel better soon.'
'We're not going to be punished?' I said.
'Goodness, Hetty, you're both ill with the influenza. Of course you're not going to be punished.' Nurse Winnie sounded shocked. 'Dear goodness, what must you think of us!'
'I think you're lovely, Nurse Winterson,' I said.
She was truly angelic to both of us: she held the bowls when we were sick again; she lifted us onto the chamber pot; she wound wet towels round us to bring down our fever; she gave us sips of sugared water; she read aloud to us when we were restless; she clasped our hands when the doctor came to examine us. By this time the infirmary was full of sneezing sick girls, with further beds lining the corridor.
'Half the hospital has gone down with this wretched virulent influenza,' he said as he listened to Polly's chest. 'However, you're a sturdy child with excellent lungs. You'll be running around in a day or so, as right as ninepence.'
He looked graver when he undid my nightgown to listen to my chest. He bent closer, till his pomaded hair was right under my nostrils. He kept prodding me with the cold end of his stethoscope, shaking his head. 'This child is nowhere near as robust,' he declared. 'Severely undernourished. She has a sparrow's bones, no meat on them at all. She needs feeding up!'
'I eat the same as Polly, sir,' I said, but he took no notice.
'Give her black beer in the mornings, and full cr
eam milk and plenty of porridge – or you'll lose her,' he said bluntly.
I shivered, with excitement as much as fear, because I could not help delighting in the fact that I was the child so sorely ill. I hated it when Polly was sent back to the dormitory the next day, almost fully recovered. I was so worried she might form a friendship with another girl in my absence – but I could not help basking in the attention of dear Nurse Winnie at nights. Mercifully Matron Pigface Peters went down with the influenza herself and kept to her room. Several of the nurses were also ill, so during the day we were looked after by anyone available. Sometimes it was a big girl. One glorious day Ida came with a specially ordered bowl of creamy porridge for me. She sat beside my bed and insisted on feeding me, spooning porridge into my mouth as if I was a little baby. I was still feeling sick and kept shaking my head, but Ida tapped my mouth gently with the spoon, coaxing me.
'There's a good girl, Hetty. Another few spoonfuls just for me, eh? And look what I have for you here – a little slab of my own home-made toffee. You may suck on a square when you've finished your porridge.'
I cried a little then.
'Don't cry, dearie. Does your chest hurt bad? Perhaps you need a piece of flannel at your throat?'
'No, no, it's just you're being so kind to me. It's almost as if I was at home,' I wept. 'I miss Jem so much – and Mother.'
'What was your foster mother like, Hetty?' Ida asked.
'She was just . . . Mother.'
'She was kind to you?'
'She was very kind. Though she paddled me when I was a bad girl.'
'I'm sure you could never be truly bad,' said Ida. She lifted me up off the pillow to drink my milk. She had her arm round my shoulders, and I leaned against her gratefully.
I decided I was in no hurry to get better when Ida and Nurse Winnie were making such a fuss of me, especially when Nurse Winnie smuggled me a reassuring note from Polly.
Dear Hetty,
I do hope you are not too ill. I miss you so dreadfully, it is HORRID without you.
From your very loving friend, Polly.
Dear Polly (I replied),
It is ENORMOUSLY horrid not being with you, but I am trying hard to bear it. I will get better soon, I promise. Nurse Winnie is my friend and Ida is my friend too, but you are my most very SPECIAL friend in all the world and I am very affectionately
Your Hetty
I was still not very strong and I had to labour long and hard over my letter. I asked Ida how to spell the great big words like enormously and affectionately, but she blushed and looked wretched.
'I'm not very good at writing, Hetty. I can't rightly say,' she said.
'Well, never mind, I'll ask Nurse Winterson,' I said, sad that I'd embarrassed her.
'I never had much schooling, see,' Ida said. She looked at me earnestly. 'That's the good thing about the hospital. You girls get a proper education. You're brought up almost like young ladies.'
'Yes, but we're not young ladies. We have to be servants,' I said, wrinkling my nose. 'I don't want to be a servant.'
Then it was my turn to blush because I realized I'd been tactless. 'I am sorry, Ida,' I said, taking her hand.
'There are worse positions in life,' she said flatly. 'And you're very bright, Hetty. Perhaps – perhaps you'll get a position as a lady's maid and wear a fine uniform and never have to do any hard work. Should you like that?'
I considered. 'Perhaps I should like it if she was a very kind lady, and let me dress up in her silks and velvets and gave me cake at tea time,' I said.
Ida laughed. 'You have wheedling ways, but I doubt any lady will let you do that.'
'Then I won't be a servant at all. I shall run away to the circus.'
'Oh yes?' said Ida. 'And what will you be there? A performing monkey?'
'I shall be a fine lady on a white horse,' I declared.
'With rings on your fingers and bells on your toes?' said Ida, not taking me seriously.
'No, I shall join my real mother, Madame Adeline, and she will give me a costume of pink spangles and we will ride our horses together in the circus ring,' I said.
'Whatever makes you fancy your mother is a circus lady?' said Ida.
'Oh, I am absolutely certain of it,' I said. 'Madame Adeline told me herself. More or less. And when I am big enough I shall go and find her, just you wait and see.'
'Well, you're not big enough yet, Hetty. You're still the smallest girl in the whole hospital. You must eat up all the milk puddings I bring you, every last morsel, and then you will get better.'
I did get better, though I think it was due to the love and attention of Ida and Nurse Winnie, not their milk puddings and medicine. But one of our sick girls, Sarah Barnes, grew worse. The nurses wrapped her in soaking sheets, but she was still burning hot when I touched her and she could barely sip her sugared water. She was so weak they had to lift her onto a chamber pot like a baby. And all the time, morning, evening, all through the night, she coughed and coughed.
I slipped out of bed and went to stand beside her, shivering. 'Poor Sarah,' I whispered. 'Is your throat very sore?'
'Yes!' she mumbled. 'Yes, it hurts.'
'Shall I get Nurse?'
'No. No, I want—'
'Who?'
'I want my mother,' Sarah sobbed.
I told Nurse Winnie and she looked stricken.
'Poor lamb! I wish she could see her foster mother, but it's strictly against the rules.'
'But she's so ill.'
'I know, Hetty, I know,' she said wearily, and she covered her face with her hands.
'Nurse Winterson . . . is Sarah dying?' I whispered.
'I hope not. But she is very, very poorly,' said Nurse Winnie.
Sarah started crying again that night, calling for her mother. She wouldn't quieten, no matter how Nurse Winnie tried to soothe her.
I got out of bed and crept nearer. I had the fanciful idea that I could picture Sarah's mother for her, tell her that she was coming very soon, that she loved her little daughter – but Nurse Winnie took hold of me and forced me back to bed.
'I know you mean well, Hetty, but you must not get too near poor Sarah, especially while she is coughing so. You must not risk re-infecting yourself. You're still quite a sick girl. Now go back to sleep, there's a good child.'
I tried to do as I was told, pulling my blanket high over my head to cut out the sound of Sarah. When I woke up in the morning the room was strangely quiet. I sat up. Sarah's bed was empty, her sheets pulled off, her mattress bare.
'Where's Sarah? Is she in the washroom?' I called anxiously.
'No, Hetty.' Nurse Winnie came over to me, her face very white, purple shadows under her eyes. 'No, Hetty, Sarah's gone to Heaven. She's with the angels now.'
I sat still, stunned. I'd asked if Sarah was dying, but I hadn't really meant it. Sarah was such a real girl, with her cough and her running nose and a tendency not to reach the privy in time. Yet now she was an angel in a long white dress, with wings sprouting out of her small shoulder blades? I was accomplished at picturing, but it was very hard imagining Sarah lolling on heavenly clouds, a halo over her lank brown hair.
'Don't be sad, Hetty. Sarah is happy now, and her poor cough is better,' said Nurse Winterson – but she didn't sound at all sure.
I lay down again, my heart beating fast. They said I was getting better, but might I die too? A new nurse came to take over from Nurse Winnie, a little sharp-faced woman I'd not seen before. It seemed she usually worked in the boys' wing, but was now working a shift with us because three of our nurses were ill themselves.
Nurse Winterson told her the news about Sarah. She was whispering but I could still hear her.
'Let's hope she is the only one we lose,' said Nurse Winnie.
'One of our boys is failing fast,' said the new nurse. 'A sad little lad, much troubled. Calling for his mother, and his father, and all his brothers and his sisters—'
'That's maybe my brother! I must go to him!' I said, ge
tting out of bed.
'No, Hetty, don't fret, it won't be your brother,' said Nurse Winnie – but the sharp-faced nurse seemed taken aback.
'He has a sister Hetty!' she said.
'I have to see him. He's calling for me! I have to see him before he goes to the angels like Sarah,' I said frantically.
'Hush, child, it's not allowed,' said the sharp- faced nurse.
'I will allow it,' said Nurse Winnie.
She wrapped my blanket around me and lifted me in her arms. She must have been exhausted after a long traumatic night, but luckily I was very light.
'You can't take her!' said the other nurse.
'Yes, I can,' said Nurse Winnie.
She carried me out of the infirmary, along the corridor, all the way to the boys' wing.
'Oh, Nurse Winterson, I love you dearly! Thank you so much. I need to see my brother Gideon so badly,' I said.
'I know you do, Hetty. I will make sure you see him.'
She pushed open a door with her hip and we entered a room with the familiar smell of carbolic and sickness. There were boys in the beds, sniffing and coughing, and a nurse bending over a boy at the end, looking grave. She was startled at the sight of us.
'Don't be alarmed. I have brought Hetty to see her brother,' said Nurse Winnie.
'Gideon! Oh, Gideon, I'm here!' I cried.
But it wasn't Gideon lying in the bed.
'Oh goodness! It's Saul! But . . . is Gideon all right?' I begged the nurse. 'My brother Gideon? He's very frail, with a weak chest. Where is he? Oh please, he hasn't died and gone to join the angels?'
'Hush, child, keep your voice down. Saul is very sick. But Gideon is perfectly healthy. He has not caught the influenza,' said the nurse.
'You promise that's true?' I said, not certain I could trust her.
'Hetty!' said Nurse Winnie. 'Now, dear, do you have some words of comfort for your brother Saul?'
He was the wrong brother. I really wanted to rush out of the infirmary and find Gideon so I could see for myself that he was truly well – but I knew that in the circumstances this would not be looked on favourably. So I took a deep breath and stared down at Saul.
Hetty Feather Page 14
