Rough Justice (3 page)

She spat into the fire and sniffed inelegantly, staring at the flames as she worked out her plan of action.

‘I’ll wait till it gets light. That’s what I’ll do. Then them fools out celebrating the new year’ – she said
celebrating
as if it were a curse – ‘will have either collapsed unconscious in the street, or they’ll have found their drunken way home. Then I can offload that louse-infected little mare in a bit of privacy.’

She laughed coarsely. ‘Can’t have me reputation for looking after all the dear little kiddiewinkies
being ruined, now can I? Aw no, that wouldn’t do at all.’

Poking thoughtfully at the roaring coals, Eliza Watts considered the options. ‘Now let’s see – Whitechapel. That should be far enough away. I mean, I don’t want no one checking up on me, now do I? Bleed’n’ welfare ladies. I’d never hear the end of it. Never see the back of the buggers.’

Eliza Watts had no place in her home – or her heart – for nosy parkers, or for sentimentality, or, least of all, for unprofitable children.

The matron tapped the end of her pen on a heavy, leather-bound ledger that took pride of place on the immaculately polished desk in her office – a tiny cubbyhole of a space that smelled of a combination of boiled cabbage, coal tar soap and wet laundry. She studied Eliza Watts through her wire-rimmed spectacles, her eyes small in her chubby face, despite the magnifying thickness of the lenses. Eliza was sitting on a straight-backed chair, sniffing pitifully as she twisted a grubby-looking handkerchief through her fingers in a dramatic gesture of inconsolable anguish.

‘So,’ said the matron, ‘she was left on your doorstep last night, Mrs Jenkins. In weather as cold as we’ve been having?’

Eliza Watts adjusted her features into what she believed was an even more distraught expression, but which actually contorted her face into a rictus-like grimace that was more likely to provoke horror than sympathy.

‘That’s right.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Who’d warrant such cruelty, eh? It’s terrible, that’s what it is. Proper shocking. I tried to get her to talk to me, to try and find out where she’d come from, but I’ve not been able to get a peep
out of her. So my hands were tied. What else could I do but find somewhere respectable for her to stay? Trouble is, see, everyone knows how I look after people’s dear little ones, and so the chancers out there, well they just take advantage of me. It’s my kind heart, see. It’s made me a fool to myself over the years.’

The matron lifted her chin and looked along her nose at the increasingly aggravating woman. ‘So you said.’

‘It’s a real service I provide. But I still have to pay my way.’ She dabbed at an imaginary tear. ‘I have to put a little bit of grub in my belly.’

‘Of course, Mrs Jenkins,’ said the matron, her disgust at the woman’s coarse language obvious in her tone. ‘As do we all.’

‘Well, when I woke up this morning and found the little mite sitting out there all by herself, well . . .’ Eliza Watts could only hope that the child continued to keep her mouth shut – at least until she’d made her way safely back to the anonymity of Wapping, when there’d be no chance of them tracing the non-existent Mrs Jenkins.

‘My heart, it went out to her. But what could I do? I knew I couldn’t afford to keep her with me, much as I’d have loved to.’ She sighed histrionically. ‘And her such a pretty little thing and all. So I asked around and everyone, every single soul, spoke so highly of your establishment here that I knew this was the right place to come to, to ask for help for her.’

‘You asked around did you, Mrs Jenkins? And these people knew about the home. So that means you’re local then.’

Eliza Watts stood up; this wasn’t as easy as she’d hoped. The last thing she wanted was to be questioned by this old bag. She should have taken the little brat round to the railway arches and left her there – someone might have found her before she froze to death. Why had she been so soft-hearted?

‘Look, I’m very sorry Matron but much as I’d like to stay and have a chat, I do have my own charges to get back to.’

‘You’ve not left them alone, surely, Mrs Jenkins?’ The matron intended to keep very much on the high ground in this discussion.

Eliza Watts looked suitably scandalised at the very idea. ‘Of course not,’ she said, crossing her fingers behind her back to excuse the lie.

She might have been a hard woman, and even a wicked old liar, but she was as superstitious as the next slum-dweller. When you had little but your wits to depend on for survival, it never hurt to shorten the odds a bit, maybe by repeating a special rhyme when you passed the fever hospital, or by touching a sailor’s collar for a bit of good luck. Mind you, fat chance there was of any of that coming her way, when all she wound up with as payment for her trouble and her generosity was a cheap wedding ring – and that was probably made out of brass.

‘Well that’s me then.’ Eliza Watts backed
towards the door. ‘Aw, and a happy and a prosperous new year to you and yours, Matron.’

Five minutes later, and without the cup of tea she had vainly supposed she’d have at least been offered – not that she would have fancied hanging around to drink it – Eliza Watts was standing in the corridor outside the matron’s office. She hadn’t been quick enough on her feet and the matron had followed her out and caught up with her. They were now staring down at Nell, who was sitting on a miniature Windsor chair. The tiny child hadn’t shifted so much as an inch since Eliza had told her to wait there while she went and talked to the lady in the starched white cap and apron.

Now even more keen to get away – before the child opened her mouth and more awkward questions were asked – Eliza Watts replaced her sad look with a sickly smile.

She touched the matron on the arm, cocked her head to one side and said, with a grateful smack of her lips, ‘I know you’ll take good care of the poor orphaned little dear.’ Then added with what she thought was a kind touch to win the old cow over, but immediately realised was a mistake, ‘Nell, her name is. Bless her little heart.’

‘How do you know her name, Mrs Jenkins?’ said the matron, staring icily at Eliza’s grubby hand on her clean white sleeve. ‘You said earlier that she hadn’t said anything to you.’

‘Pinned to her front on a bit of old paper,’ she
blurted out, and with that she marched briskly off towards the big double doors without so much as a glance over her shoulder, or even the slightest glimmer of pity in her eyes.

The matron, well aware that she would be wasting her time trying to get any further information – never mind the truth – out of such a malodorous harridan, let her go. From her long experience it was obvious that the woman was a baby farmer, who no doubt had been welched on by some slum Jezebel or other, and there were plenty of those to choose from. Anyway, it probably wouldn’t hurt to keep the child. When the charitable ladies came on their visits to the home, the sight of the smaller ones – especially those with blonde curls and big grey eyes like this one had – always had them sniffling into their handkerchiefs and then digging into their husband’s bank accounts to make some very generous donations.

‘So . . . Nell,’ she said, shooshing her stiff white elasticated cuffs up her arms. ‘Up you get. You’re going to have a bath, child.’

Clara Sully, the thin-lipped, wobbling mound of a matron of the St Lawrence’s Whitechapel Foundlings’ and Orphans’ Home, didn’t think of herself as unkind, but rather as a pragmatic type of woman – and she considered practicality to be the most important trait in a matron. Why waste time on sentiment when there were ledgers to be filled, lists to be made, orders to be issued, and jobs – no matter how unpleasant – to be completed?

And the job before her – bathing this very damp and smelly child – was certainly unpleasant. One she could definitely have done without at this time of the morning, or at any time of the day for that matter.

It was all a case of bad luck. On any normal morning Matron Clara Sully would have had any number of girls on call to do it for her, as some of the older orphans and foundlings – because they were either too stupid or too disagreeable-looking to find alternative employment – stayed on as ill-paid employees of the home, despite having reached fourteen years of age. But, for some reason that Matron Sully preferred not to think about too much, Walter Thanet – the senior
governor of the home’s board, with authority over the entire staff in the establishment – had chosen to give them all the day off to mark the opening of the new year. He had added that so long as the cook left sufficient provisions for the day, he would take care of the younger children himself. It was only the outbreak of a spate of vomiting, and the subsequent admission of four of the children to the hospital ward, which had caused Mr Thanet, somewhat reluctantly, to request that the matron should come down from her top-floor quarters and then remain on duty with him.

Clara Sully had agreed to do so with a mixture of anger and relief: anger at missing the opportunity to visit her brother and his wife in their neat little home in Bow, but relief that the children would have her there on the premises should they need any sort of . . . well,
help
or
protection
. Not that there would be any circumstance or even any likelihood that they would need her for either of those, of course, she added to herself in the mental note that had become automatic over the years of her employment by Mr Thanet. This thought process allowed her to carry on in the self-deluding pretence that nothing wayward had ever occurred in the home. And neither would it ever occur in the future.

Anyway, it was lucky she had been there; efficient as Walter Thanet might have been when it came to fund-raising, and the eliciting of public support for the good works of the establishment,
Clara was thankful that his skills in bathing vomit from little girls’ naked flesh would not be called upon. It wasn’t that she thought that the youngsters would suffer: even if, perish the ridiculous thought, something should occur, from what she had read and had heard they were from a class where such things were seen as normal and had no effect on them whatsoever. But all that was of no matter – what was most important was that nothing should happen that might arouse the interest of any do-gooding busybodies, resulting in a scandal and the place being brought to the attention of the authorities. It was, after all, not only the children’s home, it was her home too, the place where she had lived for so many years. If it were to be closed down because of Mr Thanet’s indiscretions – that didn’t even happen, of course – where on earth would she go? She had every intention of making this place her home until they carried her out in all her glory, and, if she had anything to do with it, nothing was going to prevent that from happening.

Accustomed as she had become to children being quite filthy when they were admitted to the home, Clara Sully still could not prevent herself from gagging as she stripped off Nell’s clothes in preparation for immersing her in the tin tub that she had filled with hot water and a good grating of carbolic. Dirt and disorder disgusted her. It was one of the reasons – along, of course, with the accommodation, the excellent regular meals, the
free laundry and the succession of girls to clean her rooms – that she had taken to this work in the first place. It had become Matron Clara Sully’s mission to introduce a little decency into the lives of those less fortunate than her. It didn’t stop her feelings of revulsion, though, and not only at the dirt. The matron would also never cease to be appalled by the women who led the sorts of lives that resulted in them having children, which were then discarded.

Despite all those many years of experience, when Clara Sully peeled off the child’s final petticoat, she was shocked at just how thin the little girl actually was. Obviously, this tiny scrap of undernourished childhood was the unwanted offspring of some wanton creature who had neither the means nor the intention of caring for her, so why hadn’t she bothered to dispose of the child earlier? The matron knew the answer. It was obvious. Those idle wretches were too lazy even to do that. She’d like to meet some of those women face to face, and give them a good talking-to, teach them some firm lessons about keeping themselves to themselves. She would make sure she instructed them in how to avoid any kind of unpleasantness with men, and so stop them breeding more of their type. It was the only answer. If she could have caught them early enough, that was what she would have done – drilled into them the unquestionable necessity of keeping themselves pure and, as she liked to think of it, unopened.

Just as she herself had done.

Although the child weighed barely more than a basket of vegetables, Clara puffed from the effort of lifting the still silent Nell into the bath. From the expression on the little girl’s face, it was probably the first time she had ever been immersed in hot water. She looked terrified.

‘I’m Matron, Matron Sully.’ Clara filled an enamel jug full of bathwater, ready to pour over the child’s hair. ‘Now, are you going to tell me your name? You’ll be living here with us now, and I have to know what to call you. The,’ she hesitated over the next word, ‘
lady
who brought you here said you were called Nell. Is that correct?’

Nell said nothing; she just nodded, kept her eyes wide open and her mouth tightly closed.

‘Is your tongue sore? Or your teeth?’

The matron was beginning to feel that she might come to regret accepting the child into the home, because it looked as if she might have some sort of deformity of the mouth, and that wouldn’t go down well with the charitable ladies, they liked their orphans to be pretty and presentable. It certainly wouldn’t be unusual for an unwanted child to have a defect. But she had to look on the bright side, maybe she hadn’t learned to speak yet. As she was so scrawny, it was difficult to judge just how old she was. She could be anything from perhaps as young as eighteen months to as much as four years old.

Clara pulled an elbow-length gauntlet onto her
hand and up her bulging forearm. ‘Let’s have a look in there, shall we?’