The Surplus Girls' Orphans

by Polly Heron

  He grinned at the ensuing skirmish. A game of pirates would be fun, but he would much rather have the evening free to go round to Wilton Close. He had called there during his dinner-hour. The door had been answered by a middle-aged lady with grey hair, whose face would probably have been kind if she hadn’t looked so worried. He had made it sound like he had an official reason for coming from St Anthony’s, not wanting to land Molly in hot water for having a follower calling.

  ‘Miss Watson isn’t here today,’ the lady told him.

  ‘Do you know when she’ll be back?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. She’s out all day.’

  Looking for a new job? Having an interview, maybe? She deserved it if anyone did.

  It was time to start the game.

  ‘Everyone sit on the floor and listen.’ A soft thudding sound echoed round the dining room.

  ‘When the game starts, the floor will be the sea. The tables and chairs are rocks and shipwrecks. You have to keep out of the sea. If so much as your little toe touches the water, you’re out. If one of the pirates catches you, you’re out. When there are two sailors left, they’ll be the next pair of pirates.’

  ‘Who are the pirates to start with, sir?’

  He chose the head boy and the head girl.

  ‘Catherine can’t be a pirate,’ called out Johnson Two. ‘She’s a girl.’

  ‘It’s a well-known fact,’ Aaron replied, ‘that girl-pirates are more ferocious than boy-pirates. Right, if your birthday is in January, February or March, find a rock and stand on it…’

  Soon the game was in full swing, with the children moving nimbly from one piece of furniture to another while trying to evade the pirates. Presently only a handful of sailors remained. Aaron was pleased to see Danny was among them. He deserved a spot of fun after everything he had been through. Wait a minute. It looked like he was putting himself in the way of being caught. No, that couldn’t be right. But it was. He was letting Catherine catch up with him. Yet Aaron could have sworn he was enjoying the game. Hang on a sec – was he putting himself in danger to save Johnson Three from capture? That was kind of him, giving the smaller lad a chance to carry on playing.

  Shortly afterwards the second game was under way, Aaron keeping an eye out for cheating or accidents. Where was Danny? He had probably nipped out to the BB, but he ought to have asked permission. Aaron’s gaze sharpened. Was Jacob Layton…? Yes, he was missing too.

  ‘You two.’ He crouched beside a couple of boys who were already out, sitting with their backs against the wall. ‘Nip up to the junior common room and see if Cropper and Layton Two are there, will you? And if not, try the dormitories.’

  ‘We’re not allowed in the dormitories until bedtime.’

  Aaron said in a jokey way, ‘There’s a lot of things you’re not allowed to do, but I wouldn’t put anything past those two. They’re not in trouble. I just need to know where they are. Get a move on or you’ll miss the start of the next game.’

  Those were the magic words. The boys raced away, returning a few minutes later to report that there was no sign of Cropper and Layton Two.

  ‘We even went to the BB.’

  ‘Thanks, lads.’

  He smiled at them, but couldn’t prevent a prickly feeling scuttling across his skin.

  *

  As if from a huge distance, Prudence was aware of Mrs Atwood speaking. Well, no, not so much speaking as weeping, hiccupping and stammering. She made an effort to focus, but how could she when her heart, frozen at first, was now pounding fit to burst? In any case, did she want to focus? Did she want to listen? How could this possibly be real?

  Mother: Prudence Winifred Hesketh. Father unknown.

  All those years of being unsympathetic and critical towards others, positively judgemental at times. But the person she had always, albeit in darkest secrecy, judged most harshly was herself.

  When Mrs Atwood had uttered the fatal words, Prudence had sat back down. No, not sat. That suggested she had been in charge of her knees, and she hadn’t. They had turned to mush and she had dropped, simply dropped. If she had been further from the armchair, she would landed in an undignified heap on the floor.

  Mother: Prudence Winifred Hesketh. Father unknown.

  Father unknown: that was a lie. The father had been very much known, thanks to her and her utter stupidity.

  With a wrench, she homed in on Mrs Atwood’s babbling.

  ‘…that’s why I took such an interest in poor Lucy, d’you see? I know you thought me the most frightful busybody, but I had to know. I had to understand – I still do. I thought – I thought the way you treated Lucy…would help me understand what happened to you when – when you were having me.’ Mrs Atwood’s blue-grey eyes now longer swam with distress. Her voice was pitched low, words spilling out. Her hands moved, making gestures, expressing themselves in their own instinctive way. All at once, she stilled. The uncertainty left her. Her voice was sober. ‘I thought the manner in which you dealt with Lucy would show me what you thought of your own past and your own child…’ She spread her hands. ‘Me.’

  Me.

  Vivienne Atwood – her daughter.

  Her daughter.

  The years fell away. Prudence’s insides swooped and her thoughts jumbled together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle box. Like a jigsaw, they would come together; they would build a picture, a story. Her story. Her secret.

  Vivienne Atwood. Blue-grey eyes. Cool, confident manner. Smart clothes.

  My daughter.

  What a name to choose. Vivienne! Prudence wouldn’t have thought of that in a hundred years. She would have chosen – no, she wouldn’t. She hadn’t chosen anything, not even as a secret solace.

  Vivienne Atwood.

  My daughter.

  The gabardine was way too roomy. It was like old times, the youngest lad having to grow into too-large cast-offs. That was one good thing about the orphanage. They put you in clothes of the correct size. The gabardines were Daniel’s idea.

  ‘They’ll keep us dry and – how’s this for a clever wheeze – they’re a crafty disguise. If there’s any bother, the cops will be on the look-out for a pair of grammar school bods.’

  ‘The cops?’ Did the flip of panic in Jacob’s stomach make itself heard in his voice? It was all right for Daniel Cropper, making off-hand remarks about the police. He hadn’t been there to hear that police-whistle earlier. Shit shit shit.

  ‘Well, anyone who sees us, anyone who’s asked if they saw owt.’ Daniel shrugged as if it didn’t matter and Jacob was ashamed of his cowardice. ‘Not that anyone’s out in this weather that doesn’t have to be.’

  Attempting a swagger, Jacob said, ‘It’s the closest I’ll ever get to grammar school.’

  The orphanage set aside the money to send two boys to grammar school – two at any one time, not two per school year. So you could be the brightest lad in the universe, but it wouldn’t do you a blind bit of good if there were already two boys at the grammar. No one else from the orphanage could go until one of them left.

  ‘Who the heck wants to stay on at school until they’re fifteen?’ he added. ‘Not flaming likely.’

  It was a good job the gabardines were too long because the rain chose that moment to come down in stair-rods. He hunched inside his coat, turning up the collar, for all the good it did. His cap moulded itself onto his skull. They must look less like grammar school boffins and more like drowned rats as they squelched their way across the Green. They went past the old churchyard, where the road sloped downwards. Jacob dug his hands in his pockets. One wet hand bumped into Shirl’s packet and he quickly drew his fingers out again. He couldn’t risk getting into a jam for handing over a damp packet.

  The road widened as they passed the Bowling Green. It said Bowling Green Hotel on the sign, but it was a pub an’ all. Daniel gave him a shove that nearly sent him stumbling into its wall.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ hissed Daniel. ‘Don’t look round –
I said, don’t look – but Bunny is over the far side of the road, sheltering under the trees.’

  ‘You’re kidding. Has he seen us?’

  ‘Dunno, but keep your face turned the other way until we get right past.’

  Jacob put on a spurt – or did that look too obvious? He sloshed through a puddle and cold water seeped through his shoes and soaked his socks. A little further on, walls sprang up on either side of the road, with two sets of handsome gates opposite one another. The gates on the other side were shut, but those on this side stood open. Up ahead, through a grey veil of rain, beyond the stretch of farmland, was the corner they must turn to get to the top of the path where they would be met. A few minutes and it would be over. Oh, thank heaven. He would pay proper attention in church for ever more if they could just get this delivery safely over and done with.

  ‘Blimey!’ exclaimed Daniel.

  A bobby had come round that corner, the very corner Jacob had been focusing on. A police-whistle sounded – or was that just in his head?

  ‘In here.’ Daniel grasped his arm and dragged him through the open gates.

  ‘We can’t,’ Jacob hissed. ‘This is rich folk’s property. What if there are guard dogs?’

  But Daniel didn’t let go. ‘This is a hospital now, since the war. Come on.’

  The drive was topped with gravel and their footsteps made a crunching noise that sounded like thunder in Jacob’s ears, but as soon as they were past the gates, Daniel pulled him over to the right, where gravel gave way to soft ground – ground that wasn’t meant to be soft. Jacob’s shoes sank into it. Just ahead the ground fell away and there was a river.

  ‘Is that part of the Mersey?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. It’s the brook.’

  ‘Chorlton Brook? But the brook’s shallow.’

  ‘Not after all this rain, dimwit,’ said Daniel. He headed down the bank. ‘Over here: we can hide behind the bushes until the policeman’s gone past.’

  ‘Do you think he’s after us?’

  ‘How can he be? We haven’t done anything yet.’

  ‘We haven’t, but the man we’re meeting might have,’ said Jacob. ‘What if he’s been caught?’

  ‘It might just be a bobby on the beat.’

  ‘Or it might not.’ He wished he hadn’t said that. Now he sounded like a coward.

  ‘Careful.’ Daniel pulled him backwards. ‘Don’t go too far that way. Look.’

  Jacob had been too busy looking back he way they had come. Now he looked ahead.

  ‘Ruddy heck, what’s that?’

  It was a giant hole beside the brook. About four or five feet across and – well, who could say how deep? There was water in it. As he watched, more sloshed over from the swollen brook, spattering the rounded sides of the hole.

  ‘That’s an overflow hole,’ said Daniel. ‘There are several of them along the length of the brook.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘My dad used to be a night-watchman and if there was rain like we’ve had the past few days, he’d hope for the job of watching the overflow holes to see how high the water rose in them. He had to walk from one hole to another all night. He’d come home soaked to the bone in the morning and it’d take him two whole days to warm up properly. He took me on a walk once to show me where all the holes are and we sneaked in here to see this one.’

  The ground shifted slightly beneath Jacob’s feet and he stepped further away from the hole. He tried to peer round the bushes, only to get slapped in the face by a twiggy mass of wet leaves. He spat out some drips, wriggling as others made their chilly way down his neck.

  ‘D’you think it’s safe to go yet?’

  ‘I’ll take a look.’

  Jacob pulled Daniel’s sleeve. ‘No – don’t.’

  Daniel jerked away and it was impossible to know exactly what happened next because it happened so fast, but there was a slither, a whoosh of panic, a wild whirling of arms – and an almighty splash as Daniel fell into the hole and vanished under the water.

  Chapter Thirty

  AFTER THE LONG day she and the others had had, and the sandwiches she had felt unable to tuck into at Maskell House, Molly was as hungry as a hunter. The rain streamed down the windows of the Miss Heskeths’ small kitchen. In the centre of the window-sill was a blue bud-vase and over in the corner, behind the curtain – out of sight of Miss Hesketh’s eyes, perhaps? – stood a bottle of hand lotion. Molly plucked the onions and potatoes from the vegetable rack and started peeling. Potatoes first, and while they were parboiling, she tackled the onions, sniffing lustily and blinking. She melted a pat of butter in the frying pan; the chopped onion sizzled as she added it. Then she dashed outside to cut some herbs, any herbs, she didn’t care which, not in this rain, from the flower pots on top of the coal-bunker.

  Back inside, she filled the kettle and put it on to boil, then went to fetch cornflour from the pantry. The house didn’t have just a pantry-cupboard, but a proper walk-in pantry, which was bigger than the small kitchen seemed to merit. Her hand hovered in mid-air as she located Oxo cubes and cornflour; then she spotted a tin of Bird’s custard powder and took that as well. There were some Granny Smiths in the vegetable rack. Potato and onion soup with as much bread as could be spared without denuding tomorrow morning’s bread-board, followed by stewed apple and custard. That would be satisfying.

  As she stirred the onions, their tang making her mouth water, there was a frantic knocking at the kitchen door, which burst open so suddenly she thought the wind must have blown it, but a woman in a black dress and white apron stood there, shifting from foot to foot as though about to dash inside. It took Molly a moment to place her: the Layton boys’ mother. Molly had seen her when she had been allowed into St Anthony’s to see her boys for half an hour. She worked over the road in the Morgans’ house.

  ‘Mrs Layton, is something wrong? Did you want the Miss Heskeths?’

  ‘You’re the lady that works at the orphanage, aren’t you? Have you seen our Jacob? My youngest?’

  ‘No. Why? I don’t work there any more.’

  ‘Yon caretaker said…’

  ‘Mrs Layton.’ Aaron’s voice: Molly’s heart gave a little skip in spite of the bizarre situation. ‘Evening, Miss Watson.’

  Molly nodded at him. Dressed in a shapeless jacket that apparently did duty as a raincoat, and with his cap jammed on, he walked purposefully up the side-passage.

  ‘Come in, both of you,’ she said. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Danny Cropper and Jacob Layton have taken it into their heads to go out.’

  Molly caught her breath. ‘You mean they’ve run away?’ As Mrs Layton gave a strangled gasp and pressed a hand to her throat, Molly wished she had been more tactful, but how could you ask such a question tactfully? And it was the obvious one to ask, given Danny’s history.

  ‘There’s no reason to think that,’ Aaron said stoutly, with a glance at the frightened mother. ‘I was playing games with the children and next time I looked, they’d gone. I’ve organised search parties and Mrs Rostron has gone to the police station. I came to see if they’d called on Mrs Layton. When I mentioned coming here next, Mrs Layton beat me to it.’

  ‘They haven’t been here.’

  ‘Do you mind if I look in the garden shed?’ He strode away without waiting for a reply, returning to say, ‘It was worth a try. Miss Watson, may I leave Mrs Layton in your capable hands while I carry on looking?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Molly, immediately followed by, ‘No – wait. I’ll come with you. Mrs Layton, let’s take you back over the road so that if Jacob comes to find you, you’ll be in the right place.’

  ‘I’ll take her,’ said Aaron, ‘then I’ll come back for you.’

  ‘I’ll meet you outside.’

  Quickly, Molly removed the onions and potatoes from the heat and went to the sitting room, where she found Vivienne looking like she had been crying and Miss Hesketh, silent and colourless. Not a row, surely? With a hasty ‘E
xcuse me,’ she darted up the stairs. Lucy was in bed. Miss Patience sat beside her, patting her hand. She looked up as Molly came in.

  ‘I’ve started some soup, but I have to go out. Two boys from the orphanage are missing and I said I’ll help look.’

  ‘Oh, my goodness,’ fluttered Miss Patience. ‘Yes, go, Molly dear. I’ll see to things here.’

  ‘Thank you. And – Miss Hesketh and Vivienne are in the sitting room. I’d leave them alone for now, if I were you.’

  Running downstairs, she grabbed her shoes from the shelf in the cloakroom, slipping her galoshes on top, then unhooked her mackintosh and flung it on, tying the belt tightly before reaching for her hat. She opened the front door and ran down the path to the gate just as Aaron appeared from the house over the road. She ran towards him, then stopped dead. What was she thinking? Had it looked as if she expected, wanted, to be caught in his arms?

  They fell in step, Molly hurrying to keep up with his long stride.

  ‘I’ve already tried my cottage,’ he told her, ‘but we’ll go back there now, just in case. Danny has spent a few nights there with me since he lost his dad, so he knows where it is. That’s why I tried your house. Jacob knows where his mum works, obviously, so he may know you live over the road. I thought – I hoped Danny might have taken it into his head to go to you, as being the person who helped him get to the sanatorium.’

  ‘Where are others looking?’

  ‘Nanny Mitchell and the nursemaids are staying at St Anthony’s to look after the kids. I’ve sent the fourteens out in twos to various places around Chorlton, to have a look and come straight back. My cottage is near the Green, so after we’ve tried there, we’ll head down Hawthorn Road. You can get onto the meadows at the end and we can walk across to Limits Lane, where the cottage was burned down that had the Layton family in it.’

  ‘It’ll be like walking on a sponge, going over the meadows.’

  At the other end of the Green, Aaron guided her round the corner towards the last one in a row of cottages. He opened the front door and walked straight through to look out of the back door. Molly glanced round, trying not to be nosy, especially in the current situation, but the chance to see Aaron’s home was too great. Though small, it was neat – well, that was no surprise. He kept his workshop meticulously tidy. The parlour had a settee and there was a drop-leaf dining table under the sash-window, with upright wooden chairs pushed underneath. Designed and made by Aaron? But what caught her gaze, and held it, was a spiral staircase in the corner.