Hetty Feather Read online

  'I snatched her ruler away when she'd struck Polly. Oh, how I wish I'd struck her with it. I hate her. I hate them all.'

  'I hate them too. You must try to be brave, dear Hetty. They will have to let you out tomorrow. If they don't, I will go to a governor's house and report them for wicked cruelty,' Ida said wildly.

  'I'm not sure I can manage a whole night,' I wept. 'It's so dreadfully dark and I'm so scared all by myself.'

  I thought of little Gideon then, all by himself in the squirrel house the night we went to the circus. No wonder he'd been so traumatized. Was I going to be shocked senseless too?

  'You're not alone, Hetty,' said Ida. 'I will stay. I cannot get in, but I am only the other side of your door. I will wait until you go to sleep.'

  'But you will get into trouble if they catch you.'

  'They won't catch me. If I hear anyone coming, I'll run along the corridor and hide, and then creep back afterwards. I'm not leaving you here so frightened.'

  'You're so good to me, Ida.'

  'I'd give anything to look after you properly, Hetty. For two pins I'd slap those evil witches until they gave me the key, and then I'd let you out and have you sleep in my own bed – but I have to keep my position. I'd never get any other work without a good reference, and I'm not going to end up in the workhouse. I'll tell you a secret, Hetty. I spent three years there, and it was a dreadful, dreadful place. No, I'm doing well for myself now and saving up my wages. I've the future to think of.' She paused for a long moment. 'Shall I tell you . . .?'

  'Tell me what, Ida?'

  'No, no, maybe not now, not yet.' She was silent.

  'Are you still there, Ida?' I asked anxiously.

  'Yes, of course I am. You curl up, my dear, and try to go to sleep. Did they give you a mattress?'

  'I've got a blanket, but it smells so horrid.'

  'Put your cap over your nose – that will smell of fresh laundering and hair oil, good smells. Now, you're the girl for picturing. Picture you're lying on a soft scented pillow, so fresh and dainty, and you have a feather mattress and a beautiful warm quilt. Oh, you are getting so cosy now, aren't you, dear?'

  'I didn't think you could picture, Ida!'

  'I can do lots of things, Hetty. Now nestle under your splendid quilt. Shut your eyes, dear. You're getting very sleepy. You're going to go fast asleep and have happy dreams, such happy dreams. One day all your dreams will come true, Hetty. All my dreams too . . .' Ida's voice murmured on and on, and somehow the stout door splintered away and we were together, both of us in our soft feather bed, lying on fresh pillows . . .

  Then I woke up with a start, my neck twisted, my whole body aching, locked in the dark all alone. But somehow it wasn't quite as bad as before because Ida's voice echoed in my head, helping me picture the bed, and after a long time I fell asleep again.

  Then I heard the key in the lock. The door opened and I was blinking in daylight.

  'Well, well, well, Hetty Feather!' Matron Bottomly peered in at me, a look of triumph on her ugly face. 'You look suitably chastened, child. Are you truly sorry, or do you need another twenty-four hours to teach you your lesson?'

  'I am very sorry, Matron,' I said meekly, my head bowed, because I could not stand the thought of further imprisonment.

  'I am glad to see you truly penitent at last,' said Matron Bottomly, smiling grimly. 'I'm pleased that vicious spirit of yours is broken at last. Now perhaps you will show suitable respect to your elders and betters.'

  Oh, how I hated her, talking about me as if I was a tamed wild beast. Of course I wasn't the slightest bit sorry I'd stuck up for poor Polly. I had no respect whatsoever for Matron Bottomly or Miss Morley. They were undisputedly my elders but they certainly weren't my betters. They were cruel, wicked women, not fit to look after children. How dare they beat us and lock us up like criminals and act as if it was for our benefit!

  16

  I resolved to run away.

  'Oh, Hetty, I will run away too,' Polly said, hugging me.

  Her hands were still scored with red weals from Miss Morley's ruler, and her eyes were red too, because she'd cried bitterly the entire time I'd been incarcerated.

  We tried to concoct a sensible plan of action. We fancied ourselves the cleverest girls but we lacked inventive ideas. We knew so little of the world outside the hospital. We only knew our foster homes – and so we thought of our lost foster mothers.

  'If Miss Morrison knew the way we are treated here, I'm sure she'd take me back into her care. She'd take you too, Hetty, because you are so bright and clever.'

  'If Mother knew they'd kept me locked up in an attic all night, she'd definitely take me back – and my goodness, Jem would rise up and seize Matron Bottomly and kick her up her stinking bottom,' I declared. 'And of course you could stay with us, Polly. You might care for my brother Nat, who is almost as dear as Jem, and then you can marry him when we are older and we can live in adjoining cottages.'

  We alternated futures, flying between one household and another, the way we'd pictured our pretend visits as little children. It had been so easy when we were small girls, but now it seemed incredibly difficult. We could fly there in an instant in our imagination, but it was a far harder task working out each step in reality. We had no clear idea how to get to our foster homes. I knew we had to go on a long journey by train, but I did not even know the names of the stations – and though I had a little money (Jem's sixpence and my Christmas pennies), I knew they would not be nearly enough to pay the fare.

  'How will we actually get out of the hospital?' said Polly.

  We rarely set foot outside the grounds. We had been taken to tea at a governor's house several times, and once some girls had been picked to go on an outing to Hampton Court – but not us. We were always carefully guarded, and the grounds were regularly patrolled by staff. Surely if we simply started running, they would seize us and bring us back? I could not stand the thought of further incarceration in the attic room.

  'We have to make firm plans,' I said, though I did not have any idea how to do this. I'd lived in the hospital so long that the outside world had faded like a dream. I had pictured home often enough, but I'd added so many details that now I wasn't sure what was real.

  The mother and father in my mind were now like good guardian angels. Yet contrarywise I could also remember Mother paddling me, Father shouting angrily. My brothers and sisters seemed like siblings in a storybook, not really connected to me. Martha was now simply the girl in spectacles who sang sweetly in the chapel on Sundays.

  I even felt I'd lost contact with Gideon. I'd dared my dressing-as-a-boy trick twice more in the infants school, and last year at the boys' sports day I'd looked hard for him. He eventually spotted me and risked edging close to say hello. I did not recognize him till he did so. He was so tall now, and had filled out a little, seeming less sad and spindly.

  'Hello, Hetty,' he said softly.

  'Oh, Gideon, it's really you!' I said.

  I did not care about hospital rules. I threw my arms around him. However, it felt odd, as if I was embracing a stranger. We asked each other politely if we were all right, but then stood smiling shyly, at a loss for further conversation. I was so glad he was still talking properly, but I did not like to point this out in case it embarrassed him. Eventually I asked him if he ever thought of Mother and home. I wished I'd held my tongue because his brown eyes grew misty. He shook his head, though I was sure he was lying. Then one of the boys' teachers looked our way and Gideon ran off hastily.

  I had glimpsed him since, going in and out of the chapel, but was not even sure it was really him – there were so many tall thin boys with brown eyes.

  I decided I could not include him in my escape plans. We had been parted too long. It was almost as if he wasn't my brother any more. There was only one brother I was sure of. My vision of Jem shone like a lantern in my head. I was sure I still knew every freckle on his dear face, every curl of his hair, every curve of his ear. I knew the soun