The Throwaway Children (26 page)

Rita shook her head. ‘Not really, miss, not looking at the books, like.’

‘You should,’ said Miss Dauntsey. ‘The shelf by the window has the children’s books on it. You can choose one to read yourself.’ She looked at Rita speculatively. ‘You can read, can’t you, Rita?’

‘Course I can.’ The scorn in her voice made Miss Dauntsey smile. ‘I was the best reader in my class at school.’

‘Well, that’s excellent,’ answered Miss Dauntsey. ‘There’s nothing like reading a good book. Why don’t you go and have a look tomorrow? I’ll be in there in the morning, so I can help you if you like.’

‘What on earth d’you want to go to the silly old library for?’ scoffed Daisy when Rita told her. ‘Dull as ditch-water in there.’

But Rita loved
Five Children and It
,
and wanted to see if there were other exciting stories that she could read for herself.

Miss Dauntsey was already there. She had several books out on the table in front of her. She looked up as Rita came across to her. ‘Ah, there you are, Rita, that’s good. Sit you down and have a look at these.’ She smiled across at her. ‘Choose one you like the look of and read me a bit.’

‘You like reading, don’t you, Rita?’ Miss Dauntsey said when Rita had read her several pages.

‘I liked reading at school, and I used to read to my gran, when I lived with her. Gran read to us sometimes, me and Rosie when we was in bed.’ There was a quaver in her voice that didn’t escape Miss Dauntsey, and she wondered what on earth Rita and Rosie were doing going to Australia if they had a grandmother who loved them back in England. Not wanting to upset the child further, she said, ‘It doesn’t matter what you read, as long as you read. Books are meant to be fun, so if you’re enjoying one, keep reading it.’

‘I like the one you’re reading us,’ Rita said. ‘It’s good, isn’t it?’

‘I think so,’ agreed Miss Dauntsey, smiling. ‘There are other books written by the same lady, you know. Shall we see if we can find another one?’

When she left the library five minutes later, Rita was clutching a battered copy of
The Phoenix and the Carpet
and Miss Dauntsey sat staring into space and thinking how sad it was that a child as bright as Rita was being sent thousands of miles away from the grandmother she so obviously loved.

Once the
Pride of Empire
had progressed through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean, the children began to blossom. Properly fed, and spending most of the day out in the warm, fresh air, there was little to see of the pasty-faced urchins who had boarded the ship at Tilbury. As the weather grew hotter the cover was removed from the small swimming pool, and here once a day the Miss Dauntseys allowed their charges a supervised swim. Few of the children had swimming costumes, but the boys were allowed to swim in their shorts, and the girls, swimming at a different time, wore their vest and knickers.

‘Hey, Reet,’ cried Daisy on the first swimming day, ‘you been in a pool before?’

‘Nope,’ replied Rita, ‘and I’m not sure I want to go in one now.’

‘Cowardy Custard,’ taunted Daisy, and to show she wasn’t afraid, she jumped in, disappearing under the water. It seemed an age to the anxious Rita before Daisy came spluttering back to the surface, only to disappear once again.

‘Miss, miss!’ called Rita, running over to Miss Dauntsey, who, having finished her own swim, was lying on a sunbed. ‘Quick, miss, Daisy’s fell in. She’s drowning, miss!’

Miss Dauntsey took one look at Daisy, coming to the surface spluttering for the third time, and diving across the pool grabbed her as she began to sink again. ‘You stupid child!’ she admonished, as she hauled the still-spluttering Daisy onto the side. ‘If you want to go into the pool and you can’t swim, you must come down to the shallow end and walk in.’

‘Don’t want to go in, miss,’ muttered Daisy.

‘Well, you’re going to,’ insisted Miss Dauntsey. ‘Everyone should learn to swim. Come on, Daisy, back into the water. You too, Rita.’

After that, she gave swimming lessons every day, and over the next few weeks most of them learned to swim, enjoying the cool water as the skies above them remained blue and hot, and the sun toasted their pale skins brown. The routine swim had become the high spot of the day.

The Miss Dauntseys were not strict; they were chaperoning several groups, but the children only saw their guardians at the obligatory meeting before breakfast each day, at the afternoon swim and story-time after tea. It wasn’t long before the Laurel House girls were making friends with both boys and girls from other homes. All the children revelled in their freedom. When they passed through the Suez Canal, they leaned over the side of the ship watching little Egyptian boys diving for pennies thrown overboard by some of the passengers.

‘Wish I could swim like that,’ moaned Daisy as she watched a dark head burst upward through the water. She had got over the fright of her first dip in the pool, and could now dog-paddle from end to end with confidence. Rita wasn’t anything like as keen as Daisy.

She joined in the swimming lessons, but she was happy to get out as soon as she was told. There were books to read and quiet corners in which to read them, either out on the deck, enjoying the increasingly hot sunshine, or in the cool of one of the smaller saloons.

It was there, one afternoon, she met Paul Dawson. He was sitting at a table writing in an exercise book. He didn’t look up as she walked over to him, his concentration complete as his pencil flew across the paper. Rita wondered what he was doing. Surely he wasn’t doing school work. Nobody was doing school work. Suddenly Paul stopped writing and gazed up at her, unseeing and chewing the end of his pencil.

‘What are you writing?’ ventured Rita.

Paul noticed her for the first time. ‘This is my journal,’ he replied. ‘I’m writing about what’s happening on this ship.’

‘Can I read it?’

‘No,’ said Paul, firmly. ‘You can’t. Write your own.’

‘Write my own?’ said Rita. ‘I couldn’t.’

‘Don’t you do composition at school?

‘Yes, course I do. That’s just composition.’

‘Composition is writing,’ said Paul. ‘Writing a journal is just long composition. If you can do composition, you can do that.’

Rita thought for a moment. ‘I’d rather read,’ she said, and taking her book, curled up in an armchair in the corner, and within moments she was no longer on board the ship, but running to the railway embankment to wave to the old gentleman on the train. Later she thought about what Paul had said. She had always enjoyed composition at school; perhaps if she began to write about their journey to Australia, like Paul, that might get her started.

That evening, she asked Miss Ellen if she could have a book to write in.

‘I’ll see if I can find an exercise book for you, Rita,’ she said, ‘but if I can’t, I can probably find you some paper.’

Daisy was very scornful when Rita returned to the cabin carrying a new pencil and a thin exercise book.

‘What’s got into you, Reet?’ she demanded. ‘Why’ve you gone all goody-goody and started doing school stuff? Reading and writing and that! You’re dippy, you are. No school for two months and you’re writing compositions.’

But Rita, having decided she would write a journal, was not to be put off. ‘I’m writing about our voyage,’ she explained. ‘What we’ve seen and that.’

The days slipped by, merging one into another, so that Rita found she had no real idea as to how long they’d been travelling. She found the ship’s daily routine, marked off by the sound of bells, comforting. There was nothing around the ship to remind her of the past, nothing to trigger memories that might ambush her; and as for the future, well, she had no idea what that might hold. She thought of her mother and grandmother, but somehow they had faded, like an old photograph, and seemed only shadows of themselves.

Rosie, to Rita’s relief, had at last stopped asking for Mum. She seemed content to settle into the new and strange life on board, playing happily with her friends, romping like a water baby in the swimming pool. At bedtime, provided she had Knitty, she settled down to sleep without fuss. Just occasionally she climbed up the little metal ladder and crept into bed beside Rita, but not every night.

The day came when they had their first sight of Australia, and the
Pride of Empire
steamed into Perth. Some of the migrant workers and one large group of children disembarked there before the ship resumed her journey, docking again in Adelaide for two days, before sailing on to Sydney. One evening the captain announced that, the day after tomorrow, they would reach their destination. There was a ragged cheer from some of the migrant workers still on board, but the Laurel House girls were less happy, anxious about what awaited them when they arrived.

‘Perhaps this Carrabunna place won’t be the same as Laurel House,’ suggested Rita.

‘Course it will,’ scoffed Daisy. ‘Any place that Vanny has her fingers in will be the same, you’ll see!’

Wetty Betty Grover shut the door of her tiny bedroom and wedged the back of its single chair under the handle. There was no privacy for Betty, no respect shown to her beyond the allocation of a tiny attic room to herself above the kitchen wing. Its furniture consisted of an iron-framed bed, a sturdy wooden upright chair and a bedside locker. A cramped, cold and uncomfortable room, it was the only place Betty Grover had to call home.

She had lived at Laurel House for much of her life, first as an orphan and now as a maid, working as a skivvy, with no love or affection, simply cheap labour, available because she had nowhere else to go. For a twelve-hour day, and sometimes longer, she received her keep and half-a-crown a week, her only free time being late evenings and two hours on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. She was treated with contempt by the staff, and she resented it, but there was little she could do about it. Yet.

Betty had left school soon after her fourteenth birthday, with no qualifications, no particular natural aptitude, and when no job was found for her, she’d been obliged to stay at Laurel House and earn her keep.

However, Betty was made of sterner stuff than many imagined. She had plans; she had no intention of staying a day longer than she must, and from the day she’d first put on the hated maid’s uniform, she’d begun to make plans for her escape. She was certain that someone, probably the Dragon, regularly went through her few possessions. Betty couldn’t prevent the search, but she managed to keep her secrets safely hidden.

Now she was safe from interruption, Betty pulled the locker away from the bedside, and with an old kitchen knife levered up the piece of loosened floorboard beneath it. From the hollow revealed, she lifted out a home-made bag and tipped its contents onto the bed and looked at them. There was a small pile of money, some newspaper clippings, some trinkets and a stub of pencil. From her pocket she took an envelope and once again stared at the names on it before adding it to the collection on the bed.

Earlier that afternoon Betty had been coming out of the laundry, when she’d almost bumped into Miss Vanstone.

‘Ah, there you are, Betty,’ said Miss Vanstone. ‘I don’t know when you last cleaned my office, but it’s in a terrible state, thick with dust and the windows are a disgrace. Please make sure it has been thoroughly cleaned by the time I come back tomorrow.’

‘Yes, Miss Vanstone,’ murmured Betty, eyes downcast, standing aside to let her pass.

‘You’ll have to pull your socks up, Betty,’ remarked Miss Vanstone. ‘I’ve noticed several times recently that you’ve been skimping on your work. Don’t make me have to sack you. You owe Laurel House a great deal, you know. It would be a pity if we had to turn you out to fend for yourself.’ She raised her eyebrows, clearly expecting an answer.

‘Yes, Miss Vanstone.’ Betty kept her eyes lowered until her benefactress had walked on. Then, with an expression of hatred on her face that would have astonished Miss Vanstone had she seen it, she went to the scullery to collect the cleaning things.

Once in the office, she looked about. She knew that important documents were stored in the two filing cabinets which stood either side of the window, but they were of no use to her and she ignored them. She went straight to Miss Vanstone’s large oak desk. It had a central drawer, which was normally locked, and three drawers down each side, which were not. Quickly and methodically, Betty went through each of the unlocked drawers. They held little of interest, some sheets of writing paper, blotting paper, paper clips, pencils and a new bottle of ink. Nothing of value. On one occasion the middle drawer had been left unlocked, and inside she’d found stamps, a few silver coins in a small tin, a cheque book, a small black address book and some letters. Betty had taken nothing from the drawer, simply noting what was in there for future reference. Seldom was there anything on the top of Miss Vanstone’s desk except her blotter, a pen, a bottle of ink and a small steel paperknife. If there was anything else, Betty had always replaced it, in case it had been a test; something of value left by Miss Vanstone to see if she were stealing.

Betty was stealing, whenever she got the chance. She was saving up to walk out of Laurel House, and kick its dust from her heels. Whenever she found anything that might have the minutest value, she squirrelled it away under the floorboard in her room; but she knew better than to take anything of Miss Vanstone’s. On the day she finally left, she would break into that drawer and take everything of value, one last, defiant act before she broke free of Laurel House forever.

Today the desk was clear. Betty took the duster she’d brought with her and set to work, lifting the blotter, pen, ink and paperknife, and setting them on the chair to polish the smooth oak surface. There was rubbish in the wastepaper basket, so she put it beside the door to empty. It was then she noticed that a letter had fallen into it. She picked it out and glancing at it, saw the names
Miss Rita and Rosie Stevens
written neatly on the envelope.

Betty stared at it: a letter, addressed to Rita and Rosie, in the bin? Why hadn’t it been addressed and put into the hall box, for posting? They had left for Australia more than a week ago, so why was Miss Vanstone writing to them? One of Betty’s chores was to take the letters to the post office, and now she saw that the writing on the envelope was not Miss Vanstone’s, but a small, neat script, written by someone else. But who? Then she remembered the woman who’d come to see Miss Vanstone only this afternoon.