Hetty Feather Read online

  'Like you, you mean?' I said spitefully.

  'You might not think much of my position, Miss High and Mighty, but it suits me perfectly,' said Ida. 'I work hard and I keep respectable and I save my wages.'

  'Yes, but what for? You do the same thing day after day, week after week, year after year. You must be mad, Ida. You don't have to stay here. You're not a foundling. You could walk out and get a better job anywhere.'

  'I've got a good job here and I was very lucky to get it too, coming from the workhouse,' said Ida. 'You're talking nonsense, Hetty. I know you must be missing Polly sorely but there's no need to take it out on me. I've tried my best to cheer you up.'

  'I shall never be cheerful here, never never never,' I declared.

  I simply could not stop myself. Ida was my only true friend left in the hospital and yet I seemed determined to alienate her. I stayed rude and sulking all day, doing the barest minimum of work.

  'Judging by today, I doubt you can even be a servant when you leave here, Miss Hetty Head-in- the-Air,' Ida sniffed. 'No one in their right mind would ever take you on as a skivvy, let alone a cook. Now, are you going to snap out of it and be a good sweet girl tomorrow?'

  I snapped my fingers and then presented her with my own glum face. 'Does it look like it?' I said.

  'Well, go away and stew, you stupid girl. I'll pick someone else to come and help me.'

  'As if I care,' I said, and marched out of the kitchen.

  I cared dreadfully when Ida picked Sheila. I knew she'd done it deliberately to annoy me. Ida didn't like Sheila any more than I did. She just wanted to pay me back. It was bitterly painful to peep through the kitchen hatch and see Ida and Sheila stirring a vat of rice pudding together, laughing away. When Ida saw me looking, she popped a handful of raisins into Sheila's grinning mouth. She gave a little nod, as if to say, That will show you, Hetty Feather.

  It showed me all right. It looked as if I'd lost my last friend at the hospital through my own stupid behaviour. I should have gone to Ida privately and apologized, but I was too proud. I stalked around by myself, dutifully keeping an eye on little Eliza but otherwise taking no notice of anyone.

  I sat listlessly in the classroom, never bothering to answer a single question now. I felt so dull and slow I could scarcely lift my pen to write any words. I found my grades slipping. I had been first equal with Polly at everything, but now I was sliding down almost to the bottom of the class, along with Mad Jenny and Slow Freda and Stutter Mary, the three sad girls who could barely read and write.

  I tried even less with my household tasks. Every Sunday I daydreamed in chapel and ate my dinner stony-faced, staring down all the chattering ladies and gentlemen. There seemed no point in smiling. They would never pick me to be their new little adopted daughter. I was small, sour, red-haired Hetty Feather.

  I could not even get interested when everyone started talking about the Queen's Golden Jubilee in June. What did I care for our fat little monarch? Miss Morley's lessons became very focused on the Royal Personage. At long last she used the coloured maps on the classroom wall, showing us all the different lands the Queen ruled over.

  When she told us the Queen was also Empress of India, half the class assumed she lived in that huge hot sub-continent. Miss Morley laughed at such ignorance. She said the Queen mostly lived here in London, at Buckingham Palace – and she would quite definitely be in London on 23 June, the day of the Golden Jubilee.

  Miss Morley seemed utterly obsessed with Queen Victoria. She gave us dictation about our Loyal Sovereign, she told us the history of her fifty-year reign, she even had us calculating how many seconds would tick by during the Royal Procession if it started at eleven and ended at two. I assumed this was a specific obsession peculiar to Miss Morley – but it seemed to be shared by all the staff. Even little Eliza started babbling about our Great Queen and showed me a picture that she'd drawn in the infant class. I admired it wearily, though her Queen Victoria looked very like a fat stag beetle with a crown upon its head.

  We even prayed for Queen Victoria in chapel on Sunday, which seemed to me a little bizarre. Why should all us foundlings, born in shame and destined to live our lives as servants, pray for such a fabulously rich and fortunate old woman who owned whole continents? She should surely be on her padded knees, praying for God's mercy for us.

  At the end of the service Matron Bottomly marched to the front of the chapel and ascended the pulpit, her beaky nose pecking the air. She was smaller than the vicar, so only her head was in view, sticking up comically like a coconut on a shy. I had such an urge to aim my hymn book at her!

  'I have a very important announcement to make, children,' she said. 'As you all know, our dear Queen has ruled over us for fifty wonderful years. Next Thursday is the day of the Golden Jubilee, when the whole country will celebrate her glorious reign. We are going to celebrate too! You have all been invited to a festive gathering at Hyde Park in London. You will be given a splendid meal at this venue and join in all kinds of fun and games, and then Her Majesty the Queen herself will come and greet you!'

  There was a great 'Ooooh' of excitement and astonishment, though perhaps we were more thrilled at the sound of the splendid meal and the fun and games than the prospect of seeing the Queen.

  I was excited too, I could not help it. We were going to escape the dreary hospital for a whole day! Oh glory!

  'Settle down now, children. You must be especially well behaved. Any child who is seriously surly or disobedient will not be included in the trip to see the Queen,' said Matron Bottomly – and her ridiculous coconut head turned so that she was looking straight at me.

  Oh, I understand you very well, Matron Stinking Bottomly, I thought. It would give you such huge delight to be able to deny me my rights. How it would please you to declare before everyone that Hetty Feather was too wicked to attend the Jubilee Celebrations.

  I smiled demurely back at Matron Bottomly. For once in my life I wasn't stupidly going to cut off my nose to spite my face. My behaviour over the next few days was exemplary. I tried hard in lessons on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but not so hard that my knowledge irritated Miss Morley. I meekly wrote down her exact words during dictation. I figured out each silly sum, finding how many days it would take Queen Victoria to sail to India if her mighty ship steamed along at a certain terrific rate of knots. I wrote a neat, unimaginative essay on 'What I should say should I meet Her Majesty the Queen'.

  I had myself performing copious curtsies, simpering 'If you please, ma'am,' repeatedly. Miss Morley gave me a big red tick and wrote Excellent at the bottom of my page. She actually wrote Excellant, but I decided not to point this out. I sewed aprons exquisitely, using tiny stitches and turning each corner with a perfectly sewn double hem, as if I was making the finest robes for the Royal Household. I dusted every corridor and corner of the hospital, my feather duster reaching up to the picture rails and down to the wainscoting. I practically lined up every infant foundling and gave them a good dusting too.

  Oh, how irritated Matron Bottomly must have been when Thursday morning dawned bright and sunny, and there I was, smiling, as good as gold. She was probably tempted to give me a slap for sheer cussedness. She did not have the imagination to invent some wicked misdemeanour on the spot. She simply gave me a hard poke in the back and said, 'Mind your manners while you're out, Hetty Feather. All of London will be looking at us.'

  We were all issued with clean clothes from top to bottom that Thursday, breaking with all known custom. Our caps and aprons and tippets were laundered and starched so snowy white they looked brand new. Matron had had every big girl ironing all day Wednesday, when we'd all shuffled round in our stockinged feet while every big boy polished our boots. We were given bread and butter for our breakfast because the nurses were so fearful the little ones might spill their porridge down their crisp white chests. Every child had mouth and hands dabbed at with a damp cloth after breakfast, and all the infants were forced into the privies and frightened into c