Rough Justice

by Gilda O'Neill

  Anyway, it was lucky she had been there; efficient as Walter Thanet might have been when it came to fund-raising, and the eliciting of public support for the good works of the establishment, Clara was thankful that his skills in bathing vomit from little girls’ naked flesh would not be called upon. It wasn’t that she thought that the youngsters would suffer: even if, perish the ridiculous thought, something should occur, from what she had read and had heard they were from a class where such things were seen as normal and had no effect on them whatsoever. But all that was of no matter – what was most important was that nothing should happen that might arouse the interest of any do-gooding busybodies, resulting in a scandal and the place being brought to the attention of the authorities. It was, after all, not only the children’s home, it was her home too, the place where she had lived for so many years. If it were to be closed down because of Mr Thanet’s indiscretions – that didn’t even happen, of course – where on earth would she go? She had every intention of making this place her home until they carried her out in all her glory, and, if she had anything to do with it, nothing was going to prevent that from happening.

  Accustomed as she had become to children being quite filthy when they were admitted to the home, Clara Sully still could not prevent herself from gagging as she stripped off Nell’s clothes in preparation for immersing her in the tin tub that she had filled with hot water and a good grating of carbolic. Dirt and disorder disgusted her. It was one of the reasons – along, of course, with the accommodation, the excellent regular meals, the free laundry and the succession of girls to clean her rooms – that she had taken to this work in the first place. It had become Matron Clara Sully’s mission to introduce a little decency into the lives of those less fortunate than her. It didn’t stop her feelings of revulsion, though, and not only at the dirt. The matron would also never cease to be appalled by the women who led the sorts of lives that resulted in them having children, which were then discarded.

  Despite all those many years of experience, when Clara Sully peeled off the child’s final petticoat, she was shocked at just how thin the little girl actually was. Obviously, this tiny scrap of undernourished childhood was the unwanted offspring of some wanton creature who had neither the means nor the intention of caring for her, so why hadn’t she bothered to dispose of the child earlier? The matron knew the answer. It was obvious. Those idle wretches were too lazy even to do that. She’d like to meet some of those women face to face, and give them a good talking-to, teach them some firm lessons about keeping themselves to themselves. She would make sure she instructed them in how to avoid any kind of unpleasantness with men, and so stop them breeding more of their type. It was the only answer. If she could have caught them early enough, that was what she would have done – drilled into them the unquestionable necessity of keeping themselves pure and, as she liked to think of it, unopened.

  Just as she herself had done.

  Although the child weighed barely more than a basket of vegetables, Clara puffed from the effort of lifting the still silent Nell into the bath. From the expression on the little girl’s face, it was probably the first time she had ever been immersed in hot water. She looked terrified.

  ‘I’m Matron, Matron Sully.’ Clara filled an enamel jug full of bathwater, ready to pour over the child’s hair. ‘Now, are you going to tell me your name? You’ll be living here with us now, and I have to know what to call you. The,’ she hesitated over the next word, ‘lady who brought you here said you were called Nell. Is that correct?’

  Nell said nothing; she just nodded, kept her eyes wide open and her mouth tightly closed.

  ‘Is your tongue sore? Or your teeth?’

  The matron was beginning to feel that she might come to regret accepting the child into the home, because it looked as if she might have some sort of deformity of the mouth, and that wouldn’t go down well with the charitable ladies, they liked their orphans to be pretty and presentable. It certainly wouldn’t be unusual for an unwanted child to have a defect. But she had to look on the bright side, maybe she hadn’t learned to speak yet. As she was so scrawny, it was difficult to judge just how old she was. She could be anything from perhaps as young as eighteen months to as much as four years old.

  Clara pulled an elbow-length gauntlet onto her hand and up her bulging forearm. ‘Let’s have a look in there, shall we?’

  She poked a thick rubber-clad finger at the child’s mouth.

  Nell shook her head.

  Clara wasn’t impressed. She was showing the child kindness and concern and how was she being repaid? With blatant disobedience, that’s how.

  She shoved her glasses up to the bridge of her nose with the back of her hand. ‘Come on, open up you little madam. Let me see if there’s anything nasty or catching in there, or I’ll have to tan your hide for you.’

  The matron had no actual interest in anything the child might have to say for herself, or even if she had the ability to speak, but she had to exert her authority over her. She had seen children – especially the pretty ones – probably even younger than Nell, running rings around less disciplined members of staff.

  Following a surprisingly difficult struggle, Clara got her finger into Nell’s mouth, but, astonished, she immediately pulled it out again.

  ‘Did you try to bite me?’

  Clara pulled off the glove; on her finger was a single ruby bead of blood. She frowned. It was like a pinprick.

  ‘Show me, child. What have you got in there?’

  The matron was going to get to the bottom of this. With her determination sharpened by anger, she forced open Nell’s mouth.

  Clara let out a little laugh of surprise as she hooked out a gold and pearl brooch fashioned in the shape of a capital N.

  ‘So that’s why you’ve had nothing to say for yourself. You were hiding this.’ Clara Sully shook her head. ‘So, you’re a little thief as well as being someone’s unwanted brat then, are you? I’ll never cease to be amazed by the ways of you gutter-prowlers from the slums.’

  Nell struggled to get to her feet in the slippery bath. ‘Mine,’ she pleaded. ‘Mine. Mummy said.’

  ‘Mummy?’ The matron’s piggy eyes narrowed until they were little more than slits. Surely that Jenkins woman was too old to be her mother, and anyway it was hardly likely that her sort would have something as fine as a pearl brooch – or let it out of her sight if she did. She was beginning to feel as if she had been more than taken advantage of – she had been thoroughly duped. It was a feeling she definitely did not care for.

  ‘Your mummy, where is she?’

  Nell shook her head and, she couldn’t help it, the tears started to flow. ‘Mummy gone,’ she snivelled. ‘The chair. Hurt.’ She could barely speak through her sobs. ‘Fire. Hot.’

  The matron tutted crossly. For goodness sake, she didn’t have time to figure out all this nonsense; she had a child to bathe and dress, and, more importantly, forms to fill in and details to enter into ledgers. She pinned the brooch to her apron bib, and patted it. It was surprisingly lovely. Feminine. Delicate.

  Clara Sully had never owned a piece of jewellery before. But now that she did, it made her lips twitch into what was almost a smile of pleasure.

  Why should only those bold women with powdered cheeks and rouged lips have nice things? Things that men gave them as gifts for their unspeakable – she shuddered at the thought – attentions. Women that they called pretty, something they had never called her. But what did she care?

  Clara patted the brooch again, and told herself that by wearing it she was striking a blow against all those men who chose to ignore women like her – women who didn’t have bouncing blonde curls, or big bold eyes, and who had no interest in being drawn in by men’s wicked ways. She was a proud and brave pioneer against such evil.

  Yes, that’s what she was, no matter that the look on the child’s face said otherwise. She was a pioneer.

  October

  1927

  Chapter 5


  Matron Clara Sully stood in the doorway of her office peering round Mr Thanet, the senior governor, as if she was hiding from someone she was secretly spying on – which she thought she was. Both she and Mr Thanet were watching Nell. Tall, grown-up, beautiful Nell. She was smiling sweetly as she squatted down in front of a little boy, fully aware that the matron was there.

  Nell was whispering to the boy, so quietly that Matron Sully couldn’t hear what she was saying, but the matron knew it would be something that would have got the girl into trouble if she had been able to hear her words. She thought she was so clever, sweedling up to Mr Thanet – can I do this for you, Mr Thanet? Can I do that? Is that quick enough for you, sir? – all the while acting as if butter wouldn’t melt in her devious mouth. But she couldn’t fool Matron Sully, she was always one up on her, and could always see through her and her crafty ways. She knew what the girl was up to. She wanted to steal her job.

  ‘There you are, Sam,’ Nell said softly. ‘You do it like that and you won’t keep tripping over them. I thought you were going to come a right cropper when you were getting down from the breakfast table just now.’

  She leaned closer. ‘And keep them neat in a double bow like that and you won’t keep annoying Matron, and she won’t keep getting so cross with you. Now wipe the dripping off your chin, stand up straight, and get yourself off to the schoolroom, before you get yourself another caning for being late.’

  The little boy threw his arms around Nell’s neck and kissed her, hugging her to him.

  Nell ruffled his hair as she looked into his serious little face. It saddened her when the younger children, or the less clever older ones got into trouble with Matron, she could be so spiteful to them. If she could have, she would have folded them all in her arms and cared for every one of them just like the lady she remembered from long ago had cared for her. But Nell knew she couldn’t take the blame for everything in her efforts to protect them from Matron’s temper. Unfortunately for Sam, tripping over right in front of Matron wasn’t one of the things for which she could claim responsibility.

  ‘What a delightful girl Nell has grown up to be,’ Walter Thanet said, smiling down at the scene before him. ‘Always so willing and helpful, no matter what the task before her. Such an asset to the home.’

  Nell turned round and returned his smile, pleased to be rewarded with such kind words. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Matron Sully pressed together her already thin lips, her jowly face quivering from the strain of controlling her displeasure. She was fed up with hearing from the governor what a treasure the girl had become, and being told by the charitable ladies how patient she was, and how pretty, with her soft blonde curls, her wide, pale grey eyes, and her no longer scrawny body. Well, the very sight of her made Clara Sully feel queasy, filling her with what had become over the years a poisonous combination of resentment and, much as she hated to admit it, guilt. Not that the guilt was warranted, of course, it was just another of the girl’s vile tricks that she used to upset her, Matron Sully, the person who had been kindest to her.

  The matron put her hand to her chest, covering the pearl and gold pin. She knew full well that the girl had only wheedled her way into Mr Thanet’s good books to make her look bad, and all because she had never forgiven her for taking the brooch off her on the day when that Jenkins woman had brought her to the home. Yet she was so sly she had never so much as mentioned the incident. Not once. Oh no, she had been far craftier than that, and had chosen instead to cast sidelong glances at the bib of the matron’s starched white apron, where the jewel was pinned.

  But Clara Sully had never stopped wearing the brooch, because it would be a bad day all round when she let a mere girl get the better of her. Especially a girl who would do better to be grateful that she had been taken in at all, what with her coming from a baby farmer and not being a true foundling, instead of acting with such impertinence to the one who had rescued her. But that was the trouble with young women today – no gratitude. Any right-minded person would be able to see immediately how kind she had been to the nasty little wretch, and that her generosity alone – never mind all the time she had taken to instruct her in the ways and the manners of decent people – made Matron Sully fully entitled to wear the brooch whenever she wished. Yes, it would be obvious to anybody, but not to Nell.

  The matron nibbled at the inside of her cheek, still staring at the girl as she fussed over the little boy, hitching up his socks.

  How had that pathetic, scraggy toddler blossomed into such a scheming, irritating beauty? And why did she have to pretend to be so cheerful all the time? That girl should have just a tenth of the worries that the matron had, and maybe then she’d stop this phoney grinning like a fool. What with all the talk of adoption societies going on all over the place, if the board didn’t watch out, the home would be a thing of the past, and then what would Clara Sully do? She had given her life to caring for these selfish, unappreciative little monsters, and how did they repay her? Insolence and begrudging her any little thing for herself, that’s how. Why shouldn’t she have a modest token by way of payment?

  It wasn’t bloody fair. It wasn’t bloody fair at all.

  The matron turned away hurriedly so that Nell wouldn’t be able to glimpse her burning red cheeks, alarmed that such a profanity had slipped into her mind.

  What if it had actually slipped from her mouth, and Mr Thanet had heard her?

  That was the effect the spoiled little madam had on her. She was worse than a witch.

  She spun back round, surprisingly quickly for such a big woman. ‘Have you nothing better to do than play with that child?’ she snapped over Mr Thanet’s shoulder, the words fired at Nell like bullets.

  Nell winked at the little boy, stroked his cheek and lifted her chin in the direction of the schoolroom. ‘Go on. Hurry up. But don’t run.’

  For once, young Sam was only too pleased to be off to his lessons. The matron scared the wits out of him at the best of times, but when she was in a mood like this she completely terrified him. He didn’t even need to feel the welts on his backside to remind him of what she could do when roused.

  Nell rose to her feet, being careful not to lift herself to her full height as she was now considerably taller than the matron, and Nell knew that for some reason this infuriated the older woman.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Thanet, Matron Sully,’ she said politely. ‘What would you like me to do today?’

  ‘I’ll deal with this, Mr Thanet,’ said the matron, before the governor could speak. ‘I know how busy you are.’

  ‘Well, I am rather, Matron Sully,’ said Mr Thanet with a pleasant nod, only too glad of the opportunity to slip away for a post-breakfast browse of the newspaper followed maybe by a short nap before luncheon.

  ‘If there’s anything I can do to help, sir?’ Nell kept her gaze lowered, wary of annoying the matron any more than necessary.

  ‘That won’t be necessary, my dear,’ said Mr Thanet, not wanting his morning spoiled by having to do anything that resembled actual work. ‘But, as always, thank you for your kindness.’

  Clara Sully barely managed to keep her lip buttoned as she waited until the governor was out of earshot; she then stepped out into the corridor.

  ‘Right, bedding; first floor,’ she barked, knowing it to be the worst of all the jobs in the home – stripping and then laundering the almost invariably soiled sheets from the cribs and cots of the younger inmates. It was even worse than cleaning the lavatories, especially in such cold weather, because the steamy heat of the laundry made the chilblains of those unfortunate enough to be selected for the task tingle, irritating them so badly that without self-discipline they would scratch them until they bled.

  ‘Right away, Matron,’ said Nell courteously, annoying Clara Sully so much that the woman had to stop herself from slapping the girl around her simpering, smiling face – the privacy of the office, not the corridor, was the place for that.

  The matron had intended to pick out a
couple of other troublesome girls to help her in the laundry, but after that behaviour, why should she? Anything I can do to help, sir? Let the ungrateful wretch do it all by herself for trying to make her look inadequate in front of the governor, for showing her such contempt.

  She watched Nell walking away, so briskly, so artificially keenly that she felt like running after her to give her a good shake.

  This time, the girl really might have pushed her too far.

  Chapter 6

  A dense, wintry darkness had fallen outside the tall narrow windows before Nell had at last finished her work in the laundry – a grim, double-height corridor-like space that ran along the length of the whole of the back of the home. Her hands were red raw from scrubbing and wringing and mangling, and her arms and back ached from draping the piles of wet linen over the drying racks, and from tugging the ropes through the pulleys to lift the racks high into the air. Her clothes and hair were damp through from the steam and the constant dripping down from the sheets above her head. She was doing her best not to think about her chilblains, but she couldn’t deny that she was worn out. Despite her tiredness, she knew that rather than retreating to the dormitory, falling onto her bed and giving in to the deep sleep she so craved, she would have to go into supper or risk inflaming the increasingly bad-tempered Matron Sully to the point where she resorted again to physical punishment. Nell ached enough without being beaten with the cane across the back of her thighs into the bargain.

  She walked slowly along the ill-lit passageway that led from the laundry back into the main building, with the gas mantles popping and fizzing and her footsteps ringing on the flagstones. She paused for a moment to glance at her reflection in the glass-panelled door at the end of the passage, patting at her hair, trying to make herself look at least reasonably tidy – as if she could ever reach the standards Matron Sully expected of her. And then she heard it: the supper bell sounding the first of its six chimes calling the children to eat. She’d had no idea it was that late. She had to move – fast – or she’d be in bother yet again.