The Throwaway Children (49 page)

I am afraid it is not EVER-Care policy to reveal the names and addresses of the families who have come forward to give our children secure family homes. I regret that Elizabeth is now lost to you, but you may rest assured that she is well and happy herself. I wish you every happiness with your new wife.

Yours sincerely,

The letter was unsigned, but under the space for the signature was typed the name

Emily Vanstone

Founder of the EVER-Care Trust

Betty stared at the letter in disbelief. ‘How could she?’ she murmured in a grief-stricken whisper. ‘How could she do that? How could she tell him all those lies?’ With eyes blurred by tears, she turned to the next letter, dated 15 January 1946.

Dear Miss Vanstone,

I can’t believe what you told me in your letter. You gave my Betty away without so much as a by-your-leave. Not asking any of her family. You had my sister’s address, surely you should have told her what you were going to do. How could you just hand Betty over to strangers without even asking? I’m going to talk to a lawyer and then I shall be coming to see you. Please will you send me Betty’s new address so that I can at least let her know I’m still alive. If she has settled so well with these people, maybe she should stay put, but she needs to know I’m not dead and then perhaps we can at least see each other.

The letter was signed by her father.

There was one more letter in the bundle, dated 19 January 1946, the second one from Emily Vanstone.

Dear Mr Grover,

I understand your distress, and regret it, but there is really nothing I can do to lessen it except to repeat that Betty is well and happy with her new family. When Mrs Marks brought her to us at EVER-Care, we became her legal guardians. This gave us an absolute right, as I’m sure any lawyer you may consult will confirm, to settle Betty where we thought best for her, in this case, with adoptive parents. We never divulge names and addresses of such parents, and I have no intention of breaking our rule in this case.

I regret that I am unable to enter into further correspondence with you on this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Again there was no signature, but the carbon copy of the letter had been initialled ‘EV’.

Betty dropped the letters onto the table beside her and sliding down onto a kitchen chair, buried her head in her hands and began to sob, deep heaving sobs that convulsed her whole body. When Sean came into the kitchen, his bag bulging with trinkets and ornaments from the Hawk’s flat, he stopped dead.

‘Hey kiddo!’ he cried, dumping the bag onto the floor. ‘What’s up?’

Wordlessly, still sobbing, Betty handed him the letters. He skimmed through them swiftly, and then as their import hit him, read them all again.

‘Fucking hell!’ he breathed. ‘The fucking bitch!’

‘He’s alive, my dad,’ Betty sobbed, ‘and she sent him away!’

Sean looked at two other papers in the folder. One was typed, a brief account of a meeting with ‘JG and lawyer’, and the other notes about Betty and her family. A handwritten note had been added at the bottom.

Entirely unsuitable as a father. Betty stays here. Saved from a life of depravity.

‘We’ll take these an’ all,’ Sean said, stuffing the file into his bag. ‘Come on.’ He was about to turn to the back door when he came up short. ‘Shit!’ he muttered. ‘If she finds your folder missing, she’ll guess who’s turned the place over.’ He hurried back to Emily’s office. The filing cabinet stood open, revealing at least a hundred similar files. He pulled out several files at random and up-ended them onto the floor. Papers flew everywhere, but though it certainly was a mess, if someone did bother to re-sort them, Betty’s file would still be missing. Then the small paraffin heater, standing cold and unlit in the corner of the room, caught his eye and the answer came to him.

‘Betty!’ he bellowed. ‘Come here and help!’

Betty appeared, red-eyed, in the doorway and watched as Sean pulled more and more folders from the cabinets, shaking their contents all across the room and out into the passage.

‘Sean!’ she cried. ‘Sean, what are you doing?’

‘Going to have a bonfire!’ he announced. ‘Going to burn the whole bloody place down. Emily fucking Vanstone kept you from a life of depravity, did she? An’ all them girls we saw this morning, too, I s’pose. Well, it ends here. With luck the whole house’ll burn down, and them kids’ll be took away from her.’

Betty stood transfixed, horrified. ‘Sean!’ she cried. ‘We can’t!’

‘We bloody can,’ retorted Sean. ‘Look lively.’ He handed her another batch of files. ‘Go and empty these all round the hall. We’ll go out through the kitchen.’

Betty still hesitated, the enormity of what he proposed enveloping her. ‘ S’posing it don’t catch,’ was all she could think of to say.

‘Will when I’ve finished with it,’ Sean assured her. ‘Now get on with it, girl, or it’ll be too late.’ He gave her a push, and she took the papers into the hall as instructed and tossed them all over the floor and up the stairs. Once she’d started she felt suddenly reckless. She’d show Emily Vanstone! She’d pay her back for the years of misery she’d lived through in this place. Not allowed up the front stairs? Well, she was going up them now, all right, going up them, strewing papers like confetti, all the way up to the landing.

‘Ready?’ called Sean, poking his head into the hall.

‘Ready!’

‘Right, go to the back door and open it,’ Sean said. ‘Take my bag and wait outside. Be ready to run… I’ll be coming out fast.’

Betty did as she was told, picking up Sean’s bag and stuffing in the parcel of food she’d packed earlier. She could hear Sean banging about further inside the house, but she followed his instructions and waited outside in the yard. Suddenly Sean erupted out of the door and grabbed her hand. ‘Come on, kiddo,’ he cried excitedly, ‘time to go! We can’t hang around, but whatever you do, don’t run.’

When they walked past the front gate of Laurel House, neither of them could resist the temptation for a last look at the house. Light flickered in the downstairs windows, and even as they watched, thin coils of smoke began to leak from those on the first floor.

‘How did you make it burn so quick?’ Betty asked breathlessly, as she scurried along beside him.

‘Paraffin,’ he replied. ‘Tipped the paraffin out of that heater in the office and spread it about a bit. Went up with quite a whoosh!’

‘Blimey!’ muttered Betty.

‘Time to go,’ said Sean. ‘Someone’s going to notice that smoke soon.’

Fifteen minutes later they were safely on the London train.

When the service at Crosshills Methodist Church ended, chivvied by Mrs Hawkins, the girls formed their usual crocodile and set off, back to Laurel House. As they were passing the park two fire engines swept round the corner, bells clanging wildly. The croc straggled to a halt, staring after them.

‘Walk on,’ shouted Mrs Hawkins from the back of the croc. ‘Mrs Smith, lead these girls on. There’s no need to gawp, you’ve all seen a fire engine before.’

‘Mrs Smith, I can see smoke,’ cried Janice, one of the pair leading the croc, forgetting the silence rule in her excitement.

‘So can I,’ cried her partner, Elaine, ‘an’ I can smell it an’ all.’

‘Not surprising, is it, dear,’ remarked the cook, ‘seeing as we’ve just seen fire engines in a hurry.’

As they continued their walk home the air was rent with more clanging bells, and another fire engine hurtled past them, closely followed by a police car. Above the houses a cloud of black smoke was rising, swirling and billowing in the wind.

Mrs Hawkins hurried to the front of the crocodile and calling a halt, ran forward to the street corner where the police car had pulled up, blocking much of the road.

As she reached the corner and pushed her way through the gathering crowd of by-standers, a large police constable stepped forward and barred her passage.

‘Sorry, madam, but you can’t go down this way, there’s a fire.’

‘I can see that,’ snapped Mrs Hawkins. ‘But I’ve thirty children with me, and we live in this street. I need to get them home.’

‘I’m very sorry, madam, but even so, you can’t go down this street. It isn’t safe. The fire brigade are dealing with the fire now, but it’s still burning out of control.’ Then with sudden realization he said, ‘Thirty children! Are they the orphanage children?’

‘The EVER-Care children. We live at Laurel House… oh my God!’ Mrs Hawkins clapped her hand to her mouth in horror as the realization hit her too. ‘It’s Laurel House, isn’t it?’ She pushed past him, edging into the road to see for certain.

The constable put a restraining hand on her arm. ‘Yes, madam, I’m afraid it is.’

Mrs Hawkins spun round and marched back to the waiting children. Taking the cook and the matron aside she spoke grimly. ‘It’s Laurel House. That policeman says it’s burning out of control.’ She glared at Mrs Smith. ‘You must have left something on the stove, you stupid woman, and now the whole bloody place is on fire.’

‘I certainly did not,’ returned the cook with some spirit. ‘Nothing was left on the stove, nothing was left in the oven. This fire has nothing to do with me and I won’t take the blame for it!’

‘For goodness sake,’ interrupted the Dragon, ‘that doesn’t matter now. The important thing now is to decide what we do with this lot.’ She jerked her thumb at the waiting children. ‘We can’t just stand in the street!’

‘We’ll go back to the church,’ said Mrs Hawkins. ‘They can wait in there until we find out what we’re to do with them. From what I could see there’ll be no going back to Laurel House for some time.’ She thought for a moment and then said, ‘You take them back to the church. If it’s locked, one of you go to the Manse and get the keys. I’ll go and tell Miss Vanstone what’s happened.’ She smiled grimly. ‘After all, they’ll be her problem, not ours.’

When they reached the church, the minister was just closing the doors. The Hawk left the Dragon to do the explaining, and set off in search of Emily Vanstone.

Although she knew the address, Mrs Hawkins had never been to Emily’s house. They were not social equals and in all the years she’d been superintendent at Laurel House, she had never received an invitation to Maybury House. As she strode through the town on her way there now, she began to think about what was going to happen to her, now that Laurel House was gone. She had probably lost her home and all her possessions. From what the policeman had said, and from what she’d seen herself, Mrs Hawkins was under no illusions; the EVER-Care home was gone for good.

Wonder how Old Vanstone’ll cope with that, thought Mrs Hawkins with a malicious smile, realizing that she was actually going to enjoy telling Emily about the fire. Her resentment at the way Emily had spoken to her and treated her over the years boiled up inside.

It took her nearly half an hour to walk to the more affluent area of Mountjoy where Emily lived. Maybury House was an attractive Georgian house, set back from the road with a broad drive sweeping through a large, well-kept front garden. Mrs Hawkins paused at the gates and looked at it.

Just the sort of house I’d expected, she thought with a sniff. Well, she’d never been invited to cross its sacred threshold before, but she sure as hell was going to cross it now, and she marched up the drive to the front door under its arched portico and rang the bell.

The door was opened by a smartly uniformed maid. ‘Good afternoon,’ she said.

‘I need to see Miss Vanstone,’ said Mrs Hawkins without bothering to return the greeting. ‘It’s a matter of great urgency.’

‘If you’d care to step into the hall for a moment, I’ll see if Miss Vanstone is at home. Whom shall I say is calling?’

See if she’s at home! thought Mrs Hawkins angrily. We both know perfectly well she’s at home. But she controlled her anger and said, ‘Tell her it’s Mrs Hawkins from Laurel House, and tell her I need to see her urgently.’

‘Please take a seat.’ The maid indicated a straight-backed chair just inside the door, and disappeared into the house.

It was several minutes before she returned, and saying, ‘Come this way please,’ showed her into a drawing room.

It was a beautiful room, elegantly furnished, with French windows that opened onto a terrace, and from there to a wide expanse of carefully tended lawn. Not wanting to sit down on one of the plush sofas, Mrs Hawkins went over to the windows and looked out. Flowerbeds flanked the lawn, and a smooth gravel path led through a neatly clipped box hedge to an orchard beyond. Everything was beautifully kept, and everything about both house and garden whispered, ‘Money.’

She spun round as Emily Vanstone sailed into the room. ‘Mrs Hawkins,’ she said with some asperity, ‘what can be so important that you come to disturb my lunch on a Sunday? You know I’m visiting Laurel House this afternoon. Surely whatever it is could have waited till then.’

‘I’m afraid not, Miss Vanstone,’ answered Mrs Hawkins. ‘You won’t be visiting Laurel House this afternoon; there is no Laurel House.’ Seeing the expression of bafflement on Emily’s face she went on with relish, ‘Laurel House has burned to the ground.’

‘It can’t… When…? How…?’ Miss Vanstone tottered forward and dropped down onto one of the sofas. Mrs Hawkins watched her with interest, seeing the colour draining from her cheeks, and sweat breaking out on her brow. Miss Vanstone had clutched at her head and was gasping for breath, but it was several moments before Mrs Hawkins said, ‘Are you all right, Miss Vanstone?’ Her tone was concerned, but her eyes gleamed with malice.

‘I will be in just one moment,’ gasped Emily, ‘if you could just ring for Freeman…’ She waved her hand in the direction of a bell-pull beside the door.

Mrs Hawkins gave the bell a tug, and moments later the maid appeared at the door.

‘You rang, madam?’

Emily was looking slightly better now, and though her breath still rasped in her throat, she managed to say. ‘Just a glass of water, please, Freeman.’

‘Certainly, madam.’

The maid was back almost immediately with a glass of water. She handed it to Emily who sipped it gratefully. Gradually the muzziness in her head began to clear and her breathing quietened, beginning to return to normal.