by Iona Whishaw
London, 1902
By now the three-year-old boy was cold and beginning to whimper. His sister clung to him and pressed against the wall of the building. She was completely lost. A black pall of fear overcame her, as the dark began to descend on the city. She watched people hurrying home, saw lights beginning to burn inside windows. So many people. At first she searched their faces, hoping her mother’s would be among them, imagining herself shouting “Mummy” at seeing her, imagining the release from this fear. The lane they were in was narrow, and the building jogged out into the pavement, leaving a dark corner. She tucked herself as far into the corner as she could and pulled Andrew close to her, wrapping her shawl around both of them. She closed her eyes and began to sing softly, her voice shaking, “Lavender blue, dilly dilly, lavender green. When you are king, dilly dilly, I shall be queen.” She drifted into sleep imagining the world of green and sunshine that had been her mother’s childhood in the country.
A wavering light held above her woke her and she cried out, clutching Andrew closer.
“There now. No need to get fearful. Where’s your mother?” A policeman stood above her. Terrified, she shook her head and tried to sink farther into the corner. Andrew began to stir.
“Come on. Up you get. You can’t stay here. All sorts could happen to you. I’ll take you someplace with a warm bed and some food, and you’ll be looked after. Come on. Upsy-daisy.” He reached out and pulled her hand.
“Do you know where my mummy is?” she managed, her voice tiny, resisting his pulling.
The policeman sighed. “No, love, more’s the pity. You and all the other ones we find on the streets.”
“But we were supposed to wait by the river,” she said, anxiously looking around. The street was empty and dark. The air was clammy and smelled of smoke and oil.
“Not at this time of night you ain’t!” The policeman shook his head. He watched the little girl clamber up, shaking her brother to wake him. The remains of one bun fell out of his hand, still wrapped in paper. The girl’s eyes widened in alarm, “We didn’t take it! A man bought them for us.”
“See. That’s what I mean. Why would a man buy you a sweet bun? You shouldn’t take nothing from strangers. Come on. We got a conveyance here.”
Isabel picked up her brother and staggered after the policeman. The end of the lane issued onto a larger street, and the dark square of a police van was visible under the sickly light of the gas lamp. The horse that pulled it stood motionless, as if brought low by this nightly task.
The policeman hung his lamp on a hook at the front of the van and took the little boy from his sister. “You are a smelly one, ain’t you?” he said, putting him over the ledge into the van. The boy began to cry loudly in alarm. “Keep your hat on. Here’s your sister. Come on. Up you get.”
Once inside, the girl found that there was a bench against the side of the van, and she sat her brother down and pulled him close. The policeman held up the light and she gasped in alarm. The light shone on three other children, cowering in the back of the van, two boys and a girl. One of the boys looked older than her and was scowling at the policeman. Back in the dark, as the van began to move, the scowling boy spoke.
“This the first time you been took up?”
The girl nodded, and then realized he would not see her and said, “I just got lost.”
“Sure.”
“Where is he taking us?”
“That’s all right. It’s a home. They got beds and food and all. I just didn’t want to stay on account of the schooling and I want to find my sister. I didn’t find her. She got work somewhere and I guess they don’t let her out. Maybe this time I’ll stay. I couldn’t get nothing much to eat on the street on account of getting chased away all the time.” He lapsed into silence and the girl felt herself somewhere between relief at the thought of a bed and food and safety, and gnawing anxiety. What if her mother did not know where to find them?
The van stopped with a jolt and the policeman took the gate down and dropped the stairs. “Come on, you lot. Out.” He turned and went to the door and pulled on a bell. By the time the door was opened, the five children were standing at the bottom of the steps behind him.
“Don’t you never sleep?” the woman who opened the door said crossly.
“Now, Sister. Don’t be like that. These ones don’t bite. And look, here’s an old friend.” He pointed at the older boy, who grinned at her.
“Yeah. Well, you can help this time, young man, and none of your temper.” The older boy led the way into the house past the woman.
“No more tonight, right?” she said to the policeman as she closed the door.
They were led downstairs, past a kitchen, to a cold anteroom. The woman disappeared through a door that seemed to issue into a hall.
“No need to be scared,” the older boy said. “They take your clothes and give you a bath. The boys and girls is slept separate.” At this the girl pulled her brother to her. Her brother turned and tucked his face into her side. The older boy squatted down and pulled him around. “You going to come with me. I’ll look after you, don’t worry. You’ll see your sister in the morning at breakfast. What’s your name?”
The little boy whispered something, still holding a fistful of his sister’s skirt.
“All right then. See, here’s Matron. We’ll go now. Say goodnight to your sister.”
The girl watched, anxiety making her nearly nauseated, as the boy took her brother with the other two boys. When he disappeared she began to cry, a small girl again, with no one to be strong for.
“Now, what are you making a fuss about? You’ll be fine here. You’ll have food and a warm bed, now then, cut the caterwauling and try to be grateful,” Matron said, pushing her toward the bathroom.
The girl tried to stop sniffling. “Miss, why did you tell that big boy to keep his temper?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that, love, he’s soft on the little ones. It’s only when them bigger ones gets too big for their boots, he can go after ’em. If he takes it in his head to champion your little brother, it’s better’n having two parents.” Barely comforted, the girl looked anxiously down the hall where her brother had disappeared.
Later she would remember her pile of clothes being collected and taken away, her locket being taken, and being told it would be kept safe, the scrubbing in the lukewarm bath, shivering in the coarse nightgown she was given because her hair dripped down her back, imperfectly dried. She would remember also that first morning when she woke and found herself in a long dormitory with girls of all ages up to sixteen, chattering, getting dressed, helping one another with buttons and ties. She found a neatly folded pile of clothes on the bed, and her own shoes tucked under it. She found out later that many of the children who came in did not have shoes and were given them when they got there.
She saw that the other girls folded their nightgowns and put them under the small pillow, and then made their beds and stood at attention at the foot of the bed. A matron with a chapped red face walked up and down the row, scowling. Isabel and the girl who came in with her got told impatiently how to make the beds properly, and then they all tumbled into a large dining area with rows of tables and benches. The boys were on one side and the girls on another. The noise level was deafening. The girl searched frantically among the boys for her brother. A woman dressed in black rang a brass handbell vigorously and the room fell silent.
“Bow your heads,” she said loudly, and then began, “Bless us o Lord and these thy gifts,” and the whole room took up the grace, “which we are about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord, amen.” And then the room subsided in a noisy scraping of benches. She would remember all of that, and standing before a matron at a desk, her tiny brother by her side, his head not reaching the top of the desk, telling her their names, and the scratching of the pen on the ledger, the tiny clink of the nib in the ink bottle, the smell of carbolic and boiled cabbage that permeated every corner of the building. Bu
t she would not remember the months she spent there, time rolling into a pattern of sleeping, eating, walks by the river in rows, the schoolhouse where they spent the mornings, the afternoons of stumbling on needlework and tangling crochet string. She would not remember when she gave up on her mother. At first she had tried to see her in the street as they walked, and then at night she would try to remember her face, and then she simply stopped thinking about her as a person, and replaced her with an ache that she could not shed.
When she looked back, she could remember only a sense of greyness. People were neither kind nor rough. They were efficient. The food was bland, but she never remembered being hungry. She made friends of some of the girls and was wary around others. It was a world of dim light, both day and night, as the winter came on and then moved slowly into spring.
“NOW THEN, CHILDREN. I have a very nice surprise for you!” A lady dressed finely in black and grey stood before them, her gloved hands clasped. There were twenty-five of them, boys and girls, sitting in what was usually the classroom. The girl had been allowed to be with her brother only every afternoon before dinner, but he had been especially allowed to be with her now. Otherwise he was in a nursery with other very young children. Some of the older girls helped with the small children, and one of them would report to her in the evenings about how her brother was doing during his hours there.
“How would you like to go on the most wonderful adventure of your lives? You will get an opportunity to start all-new lives, free from want. You will be able to be useful, and work to get ahead, and one day have homes of your own. How would you like to go out to Canada?”
This was a difficult proposition to respond to. One boy finally put up his hand. “Please, Miss. What is Canada?”
The woman laughed and said, “It is the most wonderful place! There is great open land available and there are God-fearing and loving families who will take you in. You will have to work, mind you, but that is as God wants it. We must all work.” And thus it was that the girl came to be on a steamer bound for Canada with her little brother, the older boy who had taken them under his wing, and forty other children.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” MABEL asked, watching Gwen approach along the rutted road. “We’ve all been working here while you were swanning about.”
“I remembered something. I went to see Miss Winslow, if you must know.”
Mabel put down the trowel she was attacking the perennial bed with and got up off her knees with a small grunt. “Went to see her about what?”
“I just remembered something about the locket,” Gwen said defensively.
“What about the locket?”
“I’m not sure I want to tell you. You were always so upset with me for being anti-Isabel when we were girls.”
“Oh for God’s sake! You do hang on to the past. If you must know, I couldn’t care less about her.” Mabel said gruffly.
“You’ve changed your tune.”
Mabel turned toward the house, pulling off her gardening gloves, covering her sudden confusion, the compression she felt in her chest. The old fear and anger welled up in her. She had never told Gwen. It was all so bloody unbearable. “I’ve got to go get the potatoes on. You can tell me or not.”
Once inside Mabel busied herself peeling potatoes and boiling them, and attending to the chicken she’d put in the oven earlier. Once the potatoes were mashed and the table set, she went out to call her mother, who was still wellington-deep in the vegetable garden, though the oncoming dusk made it hard to see anything. When they were all sitting, Gladys frowned at her daughters, a bite of chicken midway to her mouth. “What’s going on with you two? There’s atmosphere. I’m not keen on atmosphere at dinner.”
“Gwen’s remembered something about the locket and gone down to tell Lane Winslow, but apparently can’t trust us with it.” Mabel said.
“It’s nothing,” Gwen said, and tried to look nonchalant. The scrutiny became too much. “All I told her was, I do remember Isabel wearing a locket. I saw it at school one day.”
“Yes, of course!” Gladys exclaimed, putting down her fork. “You came home one day very upset that a poor girl like Isabel should be sporting a gold locket. You were very undemocratic in your views with that family. But, good God, if that was her locket, and that poor child buried out there was wearing it . . . What if it was her! Weren’t there other children? Was there another girl? You know, I don’t think I went over there once in all the time they were here. I don’t know why. I think I was always cast down by how pathetic they all seemed. And I didn’t care one bit for that older boy, Bob, though he did come to help with the cellar. I suppose he was nice enough, for doing that.”
Mabel pushed her plate away and got up. “None of them were ‘nice,’ Mother. They were poor and miserable and selfish and secretive. I’m going to listen to the wireless.”
This surprising outburst caused Gwen and Gladys to look at each other with raised eyebrows. Gwen began to pile the plates together. “Well, that’s that, then,” she commented.
“What on earth has gotten into everybody?” Gladys asked. Her voice was raised over the music of Glenn Miller pounding out of the sitting room radio. “What a God-awful racket! Turn it down,” she called in to Mabel.
“Mother, in case you’ve forgotten,” Gwen said, “our cellar is torn to bits, and the body of some hapless child was found in it. That sort of thing is bound to be upsetting. For all we know it could even be Isabel with that locket. She was small. There. What do you think of that? You might show a little respect by being a bit more upset about things yourself!”
REGINALD MATHER STOOD at the door looking at Lane and not inviting her in. His dog had put himself between Reginald’s legs and the doorjamb, and he was stretching his nose curiously in her direction and seeming much more disposed to be friendly. Lane smiled at him, “Reginald, I promise to take only a moment of your time. You know about the poor child that was dug up at the Hughes house.” She hesitated; saying she’d been “asked by the police” to get information would not impress him. “Inspector Darling has asked me to see if I could find out any information about some of the early families. For example, the Anscomb family, you know, that used to live up the hill past . . .”
“I know where they lived. Another opportunity for you to interfere where you don’t belong. Why don’t the police come and do their own damn work?” It was a fair question.
“I know, Reginald. This is just preliminary. Just anything you can remember.”
Reginald looked behind him and then stepped out onto the porch. “Alice is resting. We can talk out here.”
Lane chided herself for always thinking of Alice as “poor Alice,” and thanked him.
“I don’t have much to tell. They came here before the war, maybe 1906, 1908, sometime, and tried to grow apples. Failed of course. People always think it’s a piece of cake and find out they have to do a bit of work.” A harsh judgement from a man who had never succeeded at it, or any other grand schemes, Lane thought crossly. “Poor as dirt, drifting from one place to another. Came out from the prairies with all those children. Ridiculous!”
“Do you remember anything particular about their time here?”
“They sent the oldest kids to school. I was already busy with this place. I tried to help when they first came, but the dad was too proud. I saw the wife when I was there once. Skinny woman. You could tell she’d been nice looking at one time. They had two little ones, one maybe seven years old, and the other a baby. Her older girl was pretty too. I bet she ended up like her mother, producing babies and worn to death. There was an older boy, maybe eighteen, and a little fellow of about six or seven. Hell, he could have been eight for all I know. Hard to tell.” Here he glanced nervously at the door. Somewhere inside, his own not-always-well wife was resting. “I went back to the old country for a spell before the war, so I didn’t mix with ’em much. It’s when I met my Alice. Brought her back just before the show. Couldn’t
fight myself. The knee. Can’t tell you much more.”
Lane remembered from the summer before that he’d said he’d not been able to fight. At the time she’d had to chide herself for not fully believing in his knee. It had not been a generous impulse on her part.
She could think of no follow-up question, so it was with some relief she thanked him as warmly as she could and let herself out of his gate. He grunted a bare acknowledgement and stood on the porch with his hands in the pockets of his dark woollen trousers, watching her leave. He was older than Gwen and Mabel, but still a tall and imposing man, his posture erect, his black and white moustache bristling. Lane had learned in the summer that his family had exiled him to the Dominion, and he seemed to carry a permanent chip on his shoulder. She never had found out what he’d done to disgrace his family enough to be sent away as a remittance man, but he’d managed to create a scandal in his new home as well with his womanizing. His brusqueness had become worse since the previous summer when his activities had been exposed by the death that had first brought Lane and Inspector Darling together. Lane knew Reginald blamed her for the life sentence his son had garnered for his part in that murder.
On her way down to the bottom of the hill to see Robin Harris, who lived just by the turn-off of the Nelson road, she sorted the meagre facts offered by Reginald Mather, trying not to ignore a slight touch of distaste at his remark about Mrs. Anscomb having once been pretty. Reginald had had an eye for the ladies. As was her habit, she created a set of shelves in her mind and stored information on them in a kind of internal visual landscape. It allowed her both to remember things she heard and to organize them in ways that might offer more insight into the problem at hand. At this early stage it was impossible to know what might be relevant, except the assertion by Gwen that Isabel Anscomb had worn the locket, or one like it. Lane placed this prominently at eye level and would wait for other information to gather around it. It did not do to put speculation where facts ought to be.
