Orphan at My Door

by Jean Little

  Orphan

  at My Door

  The Home Child Diary

  of Victoria Cope

  BY JEAN LITTLE

  Scholastic Canada Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Diary Entries

  Epilogue

  Historical Note

  Images and Documents

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  Books in the Dear Canada Series

  Guelph, Ontario,

  1897

  This diary belongs to:

  Victoria Josephine Cope,

  264 Woolwich St.,

  Town of Guelph,

  Province of Ontario,

  Dominion of Canada.

  May

  Monday, May 24, 1897, 10 in the morning

  The 24th of May

  Is the Queen’s birthday.

  If we don’t get a holiday,

  We’ll all run away.

  But we did get a holiday from school. We always do. And, because I was born on May 24, I always get a holiday on MY birthday too. This morning, I turned eleven and Queen Victoria turned seventy-eight. Happy birthday to her majesty and to me, her majesty’s namesake and loyal subject, Victoria Josephine Cope.

  Next month we are going to be celebrating the diamond jubilee of her reign. She was crowned sixty years ago, when she was eighteen. Mother always says, “only eighteen,” as though she were a baby of five or six. But I think eighteen is plenty old enough to be a queen.

  I have to go, but I could not wait to write something in my brand new birthday diary. I wonder if I should call it “Dear Diary” and talk to it as though it is a person. I’ll have to try that and see how it feels. I’ve never kept a diary before, not an important one with a ribbon to mark my place.

  I’ll be back as soon as I can, dear Diary. It is hard to get time to yourself if you are a girl. Tom and David have definite chores and, once they have finished them, their time is their own. But housework you never finish. My Grandma Sinclair used to say, “A man can work from sun to sun, But woman’s work is never done.”

  It is too true.

  Still my birthday, Early afternoon

  Mother has fallen asleep. It is strange. She never used to lie down in the daytime, but lately, whenever I am not at school, I have noticed her taking a nap right after the noon dishes are done. I thought only babies and old people slept in the afternoon. When Mother is asleep, the house feels empty somehow.

  It is really far from empty though. The boys are out with their friends, but Father is in his office, and I can hear Peggy’s footsteps tramping back and forth in her room at the end of the hall. I wonder what’s wrong with her. She is not singing. She usually sings “Annie Laurie” or some other sad song over and over until you want to scream at her to stop. You should hear her do “Last Rose of Summer,” Diary, and you’d fully sympathize with my feelings. Whenever Tom and I complain to Mother, she tells us not to ruffle Peggy’s feathers. “She’s a good-hearted, hard-working girl and they are not easy to come by,” she says.

  But never mind Peggy. At this very moment, nobody in the world knows where I am or what I’m doing. I feel as though I have been given a birthday present of some time which is my very own.

  So, dear Diary, I came straight to you.

  When I grow up, I want to write books like Louisa May Alcott. After all, I’m named Josephine after Jo March in Little Women and my Grandma Cope. Jo is Mother’s favourite character, although Mother seems much more like Meg to me. When I told her that, she smiled a little and said, “I’m still Jo inside, Victoria. But would you really want a mother who kept jumping fences?” Maybe I would.

  I will start by describing my family. Writers have to describe people all the time. It will be good practice for me.

  My father, Alastair John Cope, is a doctor who wants to make the world better for poor people. It is a good thing rich people like him too, or we might be poor ourselves. He is tall and quite handsome. His eyes are hazel like mine and his hair is the same sandy brown as mine. So is his moustache, although it has some grey mixed in. He is kind but he does like to tease a little too much.

  His office is in our house. There’s a side door and a sign saying: Dr. ALASTAIR COPE, M.D., Physician and Surgeon.

  My mother’s name is Lilias Jemima Cope and she looks after us all. She has hair exactly the colour of our dining room table. I think it’s mahogany. Her eyes are forget-me-not blue. She is serious and stately, although she does have a sense of fun. I heard Father say once that she was like a tall sailing ship, and he was right.

  Moses, our tabby cat, just jumped up to see what I’m doing. So I’ll tell about her next. Her name is Moses because my brother Tom found her in the river. Someone had tried to drown her, but she was clinging to an old apple basket. He fished her out, put her in the basket and brought her home to Mother. Everyone loves Moses, although she is no mouser. Everyone also thinks that Moses is a strange name for a girl, but since she was saved from drowning and brought ashore in a basket, like the Baby Moses in the Bible, it seemed the only name possible.

  So now, back to the rest of my family. I have two older brothers, David and Thomas. I had another one, Douglas Alastair, but he died before I was born. He only lived three days. He was Mother and Father’s first child and, even though we don’t talk about him, Mother always puts a tiny bunch of flowers on his marker when we go to the graveyard on Sundays. On his stone there is just his name and the words “With God.”

  I wonder what Heaven is really like and what happens to babies who go there. There are so many of them buried in the graveyard. Their little stones have brought tears to my eyes. They died before they even knew who they were. I can’t understand how God lets it happen, but Father says even God must obey the laws of Nature.

  David is sixteen and in high school. He is supposed to be highly intelligent because he likes to play chess and he wins prizes in Mathematics. It is too bad somebody told him how clever he is because it went to his head. He thinks he’s better than the rest of us. He treats Tom and me as though we were babies.

  David gave me plaid hair ribbons for my birthday, but I overheard Mother telling him she’d bought them for him to give to me. “Vic won’t expect a present from me,” he’d said. He was right about that.

  “Well, she’s getting one,” Mother told him. “You sign this card, young man, and I’ll do the rest.”

  He did what she said, but when he left, he banged the door behind him. I got the ribbons and card at breakfast, and thanked him with a molasses sweet smile. He nodded but could not look me in the eye.

  Tom says David has made friends with some rich boys and they are turning him into a snob. Mother is worried about this, but Father says to give him time and he’ll come to his senses. It sounds a bit like, “Give him enough rope and he’ll hang himself.” Father says that about people sometimes. I’m not sure what he means by it.

  Maybe I shouldn’t talk about David that way, but I promised myself to be honest in this diary. The truth is, I love David but I don’t like him much. I used to think he was wonderful. I remember his teaching me to play scissors, paper, stone. Then he found out how highly intelligent he was and he had no more time for little sisters.

  Thomas — I usually call him Tom but Mother and Father call him Thomas — is almost fourteen and just finishing his Entrance. He and I are good friends most of the time, and if I get in trouble, he always stands up for me. He gave me a book for my birthday — he picked it out himself — and bought it with his own money. He found it in the secondhand stall in front of the bookstore. It is The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley, and it looks wonderful. I started reading it right after breakfast and it
is terribly sad. Tom knows I love sad books. It is all about a little chimney sweep, also called Tom, who has a cruel master. It is hard to believe anyone could be so unkind to a little boy. I have not read all that much and I have cried buckets already.

  This morning, before breakfast, Mother gave me this diary. It is the first book I have ever had with a ribbon to mark my place. She said I am to write in it every day, if possible, and that if I miss a day or two, just to start in again and don’t feel that I have to fill in everything that happened since last time.

  “Too many people give up keeping a journal once they miss a few days,” she said. “Promise me you’ll keep going.”

  I promised.

  Then she said, “No embroidery, Victoria. Just write down what really happens each day. When you grow up, you will love having the true story of your twelfth year.”

  I wanted to ask her why she does so much embroidery herself if she hates it. Our pillowcases are stiff with her roses and pansies and violets. But I didn’t.

  I dearly love making up stories. When my Great-Aunt Lib visits and catches me telling one, she calls them lies. Mother calls them “falsehoods,” but I don’t understand why. Jo March certainly likes making up stories, and Mother loves Jo. But she is forever telling me that detestable fable about the boy who cried wolf. I abominate that boy. Stories are not the same as lies.

  Since I plan to become a writer, I’ll put in lots of talking. I hate books where there are whole pages without anyone saying a word. I also like listening. Writers have to be able to make the talking sound real or the book is no good.

  For my birthday Father gave me a little writing desk I can put across my lap when I sit in bed and write in my diary. It is a shallow wooden box with a lid, so you can keep your pens and blotter inside. It has the sweetest little inkpot that fits into a hole in one corner. Father says he thinks Jane Austen had one like it.

  I had better stop for now. My hand is aching and I am making ink blots. I’ll be back, Diary.

  Still my birthday, After supper

  Here I am again, dear Diary. Moses is sitting next to me watching to see what I am up to. She wants to play with my pen.

  We had Burnt Leather Cake for dessert, in honour of my birthday. I used to be fascinated by it because it had such a strange name, but now I just plain like the taste of it. Everybody else likes devil’s food cake better.

  Peggy came in to eat her cake with us. She got the wedding ring in her piece of cake, and when she saw it she burst into tears. Why? It isn’t as though she has no beau. She’s sweet on the blacksmith’s apprentice, Joseph Connor. If she’d found the thimble, like me, she would have had something to cry about. The thimble means you are going to be an old maid and sew on hundreds of buttons. Something like that.

  Everyone laughed when they saw that thimble. I suppose it was because my sewing is so lumpy and bumpy. Bloodstained too. I’m worse than Snow White’s mother.

  When I was a baby, Mother embroidered a sampler to put on my bedroom wall. It says:

  Be good, sweet maid, and let who can be clever.

  Do noble things, not dream them all day long.

  I have not told Mother, but I confess here that I would rather be clever than a goody goody sweet maid. I’ve been told many times how overjoyed Mother was when she at last had a baby daughter. She probably thought I would like ruffles and ribbons and be dainty and pretty. What a sad disappointment I must have been!

  “If I write the truth in my diary, are you going to read what I put down?” I asked Mother. It was going to be a dull book if she said yes.

  She laughed. “No, Victoria,” she said. “Diaries are private. But I want you to do your best to tell the truth anyway. You dream of becoming a writer. But writers have to make the truth interesting, you know.”

  I did not know she guessed I dream of becoming a writer some day.

  She’s calling. She’s saying I forgot to put the dishes away. I did NOT forget. I thought Peggy would do it since it’s my birthday. I’ll be back soon, Diary.

  Bedtime

  Dr. Graham, who is Mother’s doctor, came by today. (Doctors are not supposed to treat their own families. Father looks after the little daily things like our cuts and scrapes, but Dr. Graham takes care of us if we get really sick.) I asked Mother if she were ill, because he seems to come over far more often lately. She said she was fine, just a bit tired. I can’t think why she would be especially tired. Yet I heard Dr. G. tell Father she needs more help in the house.

  Father said something about finding someone to come in daily to give a hand with the heavy work. I was surprised, because Peggy is a good worker. I’ve heard Mother say so. She could do the heavy work.

  Then Father said Mother was going to be upset when she learned about Peggy.

  Learned what about Peggy? I knew better than to ask, so I stayed still and strained my ears.

  “I’m going to Peterborough tomorrow to attend a family shindig,” Dr. Graham said. “Why don’t I go to Hazelbrae for you and ask them to let you have a Home Girl? She’d live in. Write a note appointing me your deputy, and there shouldn’t be any trouble. They know me.”

  What did he mean about Peggy? I could not ask because I was eavesdropping. I’d have had to listen to the same old lecture I get every time they catch me listening. I am certain Louisa May Alcott eavesdropped.

  I wonder what those Home Girls are like. I’ve always wanted a sister, but I suppose they are nothing like us. Orphanages send them here to rescue them from the terrible slums in London. They are like the pickpocket boys in Oliver Twist, I suppose. Or like the little match girl.

  If I write this much every day I will have filled this diary before Christmas. It’s a good thing Mother found a really fat diary for me. Even if I had not much to say, my penmanship is not small and neat. Ask Mr. Grigson. He’s always shaking his head over my copybook.

  I am getting another present from Mother and Father tomorrow. They seem excited about it, but they won’t even give me a hint about what it is. Tom says it is a catechism book. He is as bad as Father when it comes to teasing.

  Just before I came up to bed, Father asked me what I thought of the world. “Now you are eleven and entering upon your twelfth year, you are old enough to think about such things,” he said.

  I think he was teasing, but I told him the truth. “It is a wonderful world,” I said. “And it is a special year to be eleven. A jubilee year.”

  “Promise me you will do your best to stay jubilant, Victoria,” he said, looking serious, “whatever troubles this old world has in store for us.”

  “I promise,” I said.

  What troubles was he talking about, dear Diary? Never mind. I promised. And now my hand is cramping from so much writing.

  Tuesday, May 25, After supper

  My special present came this morning and made me late for school. Mother wrote me a note to explain, and Tom and I ran most of the way there. I was so excited all day I could not keep my mind on my studies.

  Uncle Peter delivered it. His wife, my Auntie Gwen, has a pug dog called Clover. She had three puppies, and Mother and Father got me one of them! (“Because Queen Victoria has one,” Father said.)

  He is perfect. His kennel name is Prince Rudolph, but that sounds silly. I’ll think up a name that exactly suits him. He is very young and keeps making puddles on the floor. He is apricot-coloured with a tightly curled tail and a black mask. I can hold him in my two cupped hands, although he will be about fourteen pounds when he grows up. He has the pinkest scrap of a tongue you have ever seen. His little face is wrinkled and his little ears feel like velvet.

  I keep him with me all the time, except when he is sleeping. He is sound asleep now, so I can write all about the BIG NEWS. Puppies sleep a lot.

  At noon Mother told us that Peggy has left us. She gave notice after I went to bed last night, and this morning she packed and departed without saying goodbye.

  When I came home from school, it was strange not to find her her
e. Mother said she is getting married. She is only fifteen! She was crying at breakfast and she hardly seemed to notice my puppy. No wonder!

  I looked into her room tonight. It is so bare and empty. I started to ask if I could go to the wedding, but Mother said no. When I began to ask why not, she said she did not want to talk about it. I guess she thinks Peggy is too young.

  I wish I knew why the thought of getting married made Peggy, who is usually cheerful, keep crying. I won’t marry somebody who makes me cry. Maybe she was sad to be leaving us, but I don’t think so. She has not been with us that long. She was just turned fourteen when she came.

  “Forget Peggy for the moment,” Father said at supper when I tried questioning him. “I have an announcement. I’ve already sent off a letter with Douglas Graham to Hazelbrae — that’s the Barnardo place in Peterborough — asking for a Home Girl. Now all we need do is find a woman to come in daily to help with the heavier work, and we’ll be set.”

  Mother said that wasn’t necessary, but she did not sound as though she meant it. She looked tired and worried.

  You might not think I remember exactly what they said, dear Diary, but I do. Oh, I might have a word or phrase wrong, but I was enthralled. If only Father hadn’t made Mother hush up about Peggy. But Peggy’s gone, so I’ll give up wondering about her and think about this Home Girl.

  While we ate, my poor puppy was shut out in the kitchen. I could hear him crying at first, and after the talk turned to ordinary things I had trouble paying attention to what people were saying. But he fell asleep before too long.

  “That pup certainly is a homely little thing,” Mother said.

  “Gwen says the uglier they are the better bred they are,” Father reminded her with a laugh. “Prince Rudolph must be the best bred pug in the country, right, Vic?”