Sapphire Battersea Read online

  So I walked back with them to their lodgings, a big pink-washed house in a street leading off the promenade. I was still crying, and cowered away when their landlady came to the door. I knew I must look a terrible sight in my grubby dress, my face covered in tears and my nose running.

  I thought they would send me to the kitchen to beg a morsel there – but not a bit of it.

  ‘This little girl is a friend of ours, Mrs Brooke,’ the mama said firmly. ‘She will be having supper with us.’

  ‘Certainly, Mrs Greenwood,’ said the landlady, though she took in my cheap maid’s dress and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Come, girls, let us tidy ourselves before supper,’ said the mama.

  She led the way upstairs to their rooms. She and her husband shared a big blue bedroom, while Flora the baby had a cot beside their bed. The girls’ room was next door, a pretty pink, with two single beds with patchwork quilts, and a proper dressing table and a washstand with pink-and-white patterned china.

  Mrs Brooke brought jugs of hot water for each room and we washed in turn. The girls put on fresh clean sailor dresses, while I wore my Sunday green velvet. I felt it was too hot and formal for the seaside but the girls admired it enormously, stroking the velvet and fingering the yellow fringing.

  ‘I would give anything to wear such a grown-up dress,’ said Charlotte enviously. ‘And you’re allowed to put your hair up too, Hetty!’

  ‘It doesn’t stay pinned up for long though,’ I said, and I brushed it out loose so that it fell a long way past my shoulders.

  ‘You look like the lovely advertisement for Edwards’ “Harlene” Hair Restorer!’ said Charlotte.

  ‘Oh, let me have a turn brushing it!’ Maisie begged. Her own hair was limp and straggly, and she marvelled at mine.

  ‘I wish I had lovely long hair like yours, Hetty! It’s just like a mermaid’s.’ She pulled my green skirts tight around my legs. ‘There, now you have a mermaid’s tail too!’

  I could hear the baby wailing fretfully, so I decided to make myself useful and went and knocked next door.

  ‘Excuse me, Mrs Greenwood – would you like me to take care of the baby while you get ready in peace?’ I offered.

  ‘Why, Hetty, you’re such a kind girl!’ she said. ‘All right, dear, see if you can work your magic with little Flora all over again. I have changed her napkin so I don’t know why she’s crying so. Perhaps you might ask Mrs Brooke to prepare her another bottle of boiled milk?’

  ‘Certainly,’ I carried the cross little baby carefully down the stairs and found my way to the kitchen.

  Mrs Brooke was cutting thin slices of bread and butter, while fat yellow slabs of smoked haddock poached pungently on the stove.

  ‘Please may I have a bottle for the baby?’ I asked.

  ‘Certainly … miss,’ she said. The word came out grudgingly, but she said it all the same.

  I took the bottle of baby milk and fed Flora in the window seat of the sitting room. She was clearly thirsty because she attacked the bottle with great vigour, making comically loud sucking sounds. I held her close, wondering at her intent little face, her long lashes and tiny delicate ears. I especially liked her perfect little toes peeping out beneath her rucked-up petticoats.

  I thought of poor dear Mama and how she’d been forced to give me away when I was even younger than little Flora, denied the chance of holding me close like this.

  We had had so short a time together. She had missed my first five years altogether, she had kept a wary distance when I came back to the hospital – and then she’d been cruelly banished. I’d planned for us to be together when I was grown up. I’d thought we’d have many, many precious years ahead, enough to make up for the sad time apart, but now …

  I started crying again. Flora stopped sucking and stared up at me, her forehead puckering. She waved her tiny starfish hands, almost as if she were trying to comfort me.

  ‘I’m sorry, little Flora,’ I whispered, sniffing. ‘I’ll try to concentrate on you again.’

  She drained her bottle completely, her eyes closing as she took the last few mouthfuls. She gave several contented sighs, snuggled her head right into my chest, and fell fast asleep. I held her close, and wouldn’t put her down even when Mrs Brooke banged a gong and the family assembled in the dining room for supper.

  I ate a few morsels of fish carefully with one hand while still holding the baby. There was fruit pie for pudding. The pastry was a little pale and uninteresting compared to my own. I was in such a turmoil I could eat very little.

  ‘There now, children! Are you quite full now?’ said Mr Greenwood, consulting his pocket watch. ‘Good heavens, is that the time? Off to bed with you this minute!’

  ‘Oh, Papa, please mayn’t we stay up a little longer! It’s still sunny outside. Are you sure it’s bedtime?’ Maisie wailed, as if the world were suddenly coming to an end.

  Mr Greenwood’s mouth twitched under his moustache, and Charlotte burst out laughing.

  ‘Oh, Maisie, can’t you tell when Papa is joking?’

  ‘Don’t you remember, Maisie?’ Mrs Greenwood said, fondly pinching her daughter’s cheek. ‘We always go for a little walk along the sea front after supper.’

  ‘Oh, so we do! Oh hurray, hurray!’ said Maisie.

  So we all went for a walk. I insisted on carrying little Flora, who was muffled in another shawl against the sea breeze. My heart beat hard against the baby, thinking that at any moment they would say goodbye to me and send me on my way to nowhere – but they seemed to take my company for granted. I left my suitcase and Mama’s box back at the boarding house so at least I had an excuse for returning with them.

  We set off down the road to the sea front.

  ‘Now, which way shall we go, my dears?’ said Mr Greenwood, standing before the painted map.

  ‘Oh, please,’ I whispered, my mouth so dry I could barely make myself heard. ‘Could we – oh, could we—?’

  ‘Let’s see the pierrots!’ Charlotte shouted.

  ‘No, no, let’s listen to the band,’ Maisie clamoured.

  ‘We can do both – and take a little stroll along the pier,’ said Mr Greenwood.

  Mrs Greenwood was looking at me. ‘Where did you want to go, Hetty?’ she asked.

  ‘I – I wondered if I might possibly just run along to the infirmary. Perhaps Mama will be looking out of her window. I should so like to reassure her that I am all right.’

  ‘You’re a good thoughtful girl, Hetty. We will come with you, and then perhaps your mother will see you’re among friends,’ she said.

  ‘Among very dear friends,’ I said. ‘Oh please, may we?’

  It was a good fifteen minutes’ walk away. I knew everyone must be longing to see all their favourite seaside entertainments but they walked cheerfully beside me. Maisie skipped in circles, while Charlotte talked nineteen to the dozen about her school, and her best friends, and her favourite teachers, and the very worst cruel teacher ever, who made even great girls of Charlotte’s age stand in a corner with a dunce’s cap upon their heads. I did not think this very cruel at all compared to Matron Stinking Bottomly and Matron Pigface Peters, but I simply nodded or shook my head or tutted at appropriate times.

  ‘Where do you go to school, Hetty?’ Charlotte asked.

  ‘I have left school now,’ I said, truthfully enough.

  ‘Oh, you lucky thing! How I wish I could leave school too, but Papa says it’s important for a girl to have a good education, worst luck!’

  I still nodded from time to time, but I was no longer listening to her sweet silly prattle. Inside my head I was chanting, Mama, Mama, Mama.

  We approached the grim grey infirmary, and I stared hopefully up at the windows, but they all seemed so dark. I could not see in it at all, or tell whether anyone was looking out.

  ‘I have to go closer,’ I said, and I ran into the garden, through the shrubbery, looking around frantically, wondering if I could still work out which was the right window. Then I reached i