Sapphire Battersea Read online

  ‘What are you doing sitting here, making my steps look untidy, boy?’ said Mrs Briskett.

  ‘Ain’t it obvious, Mrs B? I’ve been waiting to see you three lovely ladies come home from church,’ said Bertie. He blinked his eyes in an exaggerated fashion. ‘My, you’re a dazzling sight – enough to unsettle a simple lad like me.’

  ‘You’re simple, all right,’ said Sarah, swatting at him with her hymn book.

  ‘Why weren’t you in church too, you bad boy?’ said Mrs Briskett.

  ‘Is the church a place for miserable sinners, Mrs B?’

  ‘Of course it is!’

  ‘Ah, but you see, I’m not a miserable sinner. I’m a very cheerful little saint, so I don’t need no churching, do I?’

  ‘You need a good hiding, that’s what you need,’ said Sarah, untying her bonnet strings. ‘Don’t you let our Hetty go walking with that boy, Mrs B – or he’ll lead her astray.’

  ‘I don’t have any evil intentions!’ said Bertie indignantly. ‘I just want to show her around a little, her being brought up in that queer hospital. She needs to see a bit more of the world than your kitchen and scullery, Mrs B, excellent and immaculate though they are.’

  ‘Listen to him!’ said Mrs Briskett. ‘He’s got such a way with words he sets your head spinning. Well, take young Hetty off for a nice little walk, then. Just for an hour or two, mind. We have early supper now, seeing as one of us chooses to go out gallivanting of a Sunday evening, meddling with all sorts.’

  ‘I’ll thank you to hold your tongue and mind your own business, Mrs B,’ said Sarah haughtily, and flounced indoors.

  ‘That gullible girl,’ said Mrs Briskett, sighing and sucking her teeth. ‘Now, you behave yourself, young Hetty, and be back here by half past five – well, six at the latest. And you behave yourself too, boy, or I’ll be after you and I’ll box your ears good and proper.’ She bustled through the back door, still issuing dire warnings.

  Bertie rolled his eyes at me. ‘Them two old birds, fuss fuss fuss! How do you stand it, Hetty?’

  ‘They’re all right. They mean well,’ I said awkwardly. I didn’t like them fussing either, but I found I didn’t care to hear Bertie criticizing them. In a short space of time they’d become almost like family.

  ‘Come on, then,’ said he, stepping out jauntily.

  He was wearing his Sunday best – a brown suit, a little tight, and shiny in the seat, with such a stiff starched collar he had to hold his head up high the whole time. His unruly hair was slicked down flat, perhaps with perfume, because he smelled powerfully sweet.

  Two smirking young girls from church walked past arm in arm, tossing their heads in their dainty bonnets and swishing their fine velvet skirts. They obviously knew Bertie, because they nudged each other and grinned and giggled – and then turned their noses up at me. I pulled a ferocious face again, but I didn’t smooth it out quickly enough. Bertie saw and stared at me.

  ‘Well, that’s a happy face! What are you looking like that for?’

  ‘I’m not pulling a face at you. I’m pulling a face at them,’ I said, nodding over my shoulder at the girls.

  ‘Why’s that, then?’ said Bertie, swaggering. ‘Did you see them making those sheep’s eyes at me? Don’t take it to heart, Hetty. I can’t help if they’re a little bit sweet on me. They work in the draper’s over the road from us, so we’re on nodding terms, but there’s nothing serious between us, I swear.’

  ‘Don’t be so full of yourself, it’s very annoying. I didn’t give a hoot about the way they were looking at you. I minded the way they looked at me.’

  ‘What way was that, Hetty?’ He sounded puzzled, as if he truly didn’t have any idea.

  ‘They looked down their pretty little noses because I’m small and plain and haven’t got any bright fancy Sunday clothes. I just have to go out in my drab daily work dress.’

  ‘What?’ said Bertie. ‘Look, I like you being so small. It makes me feel almost big, see. And you’ve got a dear little face, with the biggest blue eyes.’

  ‘Yes, they are my best feature. Sapphire blue.’

  ‘There you are, then. And you don’t need any bright fancy clothes, not with your flaming hair. It’s all the colour you need.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’ I said.

  ‘Course I do. Now come on, step lively, we’ve a long way to go, and if I don’t get you back by six o’clock, old Mother Briskett will chop the rest of my fingers off and serve them up in a fricassé on toast.’

  I walked beside him, almost running to keep up with his brisk step.

  ‘So do you think my blue eyes make up for my being plain?’ I asked, after a minute.

  Bertie burst out laughing. ‘My, for a little orphan girl you act like a princess at times, wanting all the compliments,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not an orphan.’

  ‘All right, all right – you’re not an orphan. And you’re not plain neither. You’re pretty as a picture. Happy now?’

  I found I was happy as I stepped out beside him. I peered around at all the people on the pavement: girls walking with linked arms, boys in small clusters, couples walking along sedately, with little children running ahead bowling hoops. It still seemed so extraordinary that people were free to wander where they wanted, while all the foundlings were locked up in the hospital month after month, year after year.

  ‘What’s up now?’ said Bertie, seeing my expression change.

  ‘Nothing. I was just thinking back—’

  ‘No, you don’t want to do that. The trick is to think forward, see. Come on, Hetty, step out.’

  ‘Where are we going, then?’

  ‘You’ll see when we get there – but you’ll like it, I promise.’

  ‘Is it … the country?’

  ‘What? No, don’t be silly, I’m a city lad. I don’t want to take you where it’s all messy and muddy, and the folk are a bit backward and suck straws, and all the men lumber about in them frocks.’

  ‘Smocks.’

  ‘Well, they look ridiculous on a gent, whatever you call them. Great lummocks, they look.’

  ‘No they don’t!’ I said fiercely. I remembered my foster father’s smock – the warm earthy smell of it, the tickle of the stitching against my cheek when I cuddled up close. It had seemed the most manly of garments then. I wondered if Jem wore a smock nowadays.

  ‘You know nothing about the country and country ways,’ I said to Bertie. ‘It’s beautiful in the country.’ I thought of the cottage where I’d lived for five happy years. It shimmered in my mind – the cosy thatch, the roses and hollyhocks, the open fire, the inglenook, the little bedrooms under the eaves. I had to sniff to stop myself bursting into tears.

  ‘Hey now, don’t upset yourself! I didn’t mean to cause any offence. Heaven save us if we’re arguing already!’

  ‘I lived in the country when I was a little girl,’ I said.

  ‘Well, that’s fine and dandy, then. You can be my little Hetty Hayseed. Just blink those sapphire-blue eyes and look happy again, eh?’

  ‘My mother was going to call me Sapphire,’ I said proudly. ‘That was her secret name for me.’

  ‘Really? Gawd knows what my mother’s name for me was. Trouble, most likely – or Mr-Bawl-his-head-off,’ said Bertie.

  We walked past the park where I’d met Tommy, the huge hound. I looked for him hopefully, wanting to show off that I knew such a fierce animal, but he wasn’t bounding around today. There was a cricket match taking place, so we peered through the railings to watch for a minute or two.

  ‘Seems like it’s the slowest game on the planet,’ said Bertie. ‘Still, the chaps look good in their fancy whites. Are you a sporty girl, Hetty? You look like a whippy little thing. Good at running, are you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘The girls at the hospital didn’t do sports, only the boys. I think perhaps I’d like to run.’

  ‘Well, when we get out of town you’ll get a chance to run, I promise.’

  W