Hetty Feather (15 page)

Ida spotted me reading on my lap during dinner
time. 'Watch out or one of them nurses will be after
you, Hetty,' she hissed.

'I just love reading, Ida. I don't know what I shall
do when I have to give the fairy-tale book back to
Miss Winterson.'

She chewed her lip. 'I'll see if I can find you some
stories, Hetty. It's a wonder a tiny girl like you can
read so well. You need encouragement.'

'What's that you're saying?' Matron Pigface came
waddling up, snout quivering.

I quickly sat on my book, not wanting to get
Nurse Winterson into trouble for lending it to me.
I thought Ida would mumble something and move
on, but she stood her ground.

'I said she needs encouraging, Matron,' she said.

'And why's that, pray? Matron Pigface enquired.

'Because she's clever,' said Ida.

'Clever as a cartload of monkeys, I'll grant you
that,' said Matron. 'She needs watching all the time,
that one. She doesn't need encouraging, she needs
suppressing.'

Ida still didn't give up. 'She learns so fast. I think
she could become a real scholar.'

Matron Pigface snorted with laughter. 'A
foundling? Don't be ridiculous, girl. She'll be a
servant, like all the others. That's all she's fit for
and don't ever think otherwise. Now get back to the
kitchen and stop wasting time! You're here to serve
the food, not give your impertinent opinions. And
don't let me see you favouring Hetty Feather or I
shall make sure you lose your position.'

Ida swallowed. 'Beg pardon, Matron,' she said,
and scurried off.

I sat uncomfortably atop the book of fairy
tales, fearing that I'd got Ida into serious trouble.

Ida didn't serve my table at supper. She stayed
up at the end where the big girls sat. Matron Pigface
bustled past me. She said nothing, but the look on
her face said it all.
There! You've lost your friend
now. You've been put in your place, Hetty Feather.
I'm mistress here.

But the next morning at breakfast Ida hovered
at my table. I looked round anxiously for Matron
Pigface but couldn't see her.

'It's her day off,' Ida whispered. 'I wish she'd stay
off for ever. I can't abide her.'

'I call her Pigface,' I said.

'Well, you're very bad,' said Ida, but she grinned.
'Here, Hetty, shove this down your tippet.' She pulled
a paper out from under her apron. 'It's Cook's, her
special
Police Gazette.
She's read it now. She says
there's lots and lots of stories in it.'

'Oh, Ida, thank you!'

I don't think Ida was a keen reader herself. She
can't have read the
Gazette
stories or she wouldn't
have passed them on to me. They weren't remotely
suitable for small girls: tales of grisly murders and
violent passion. I read them in a rush of excitement,
my eyes popping.

I became a remarkably fast reader because it was
so hard to find a private place where I could read
in secret. I had to hide in cupboards and crannies
and lurk at the back of buildings, with maybe five
minutes to read in peace before the wretched bell
started ringing. My eyes flew down each page. It
was as if I had a minute to eat a whole meal. I bolted
down each story in a great undigested lump – and it
frequently kept me awake half the night.

When the matron put the light out and the
whispering started, I stoppered my ears with my
fingers and told myself the stories inside my head,
but the other girls would not leave me alone. Sheila
was especially tormenting, continually making
reference to my red hair and temper.

'Oh, sew your lips up with a darning needle!'
I responded. 'You'd better mind I
don't
lose my
temper like mad Flora Jackson. She was a maid in
a big house in the country and her mistress scolded
her all the time, so one dark night Flora took leave
of her senses and seized a ball of string and the
sharpest carving knife in the kitchen. She trussed
up her nagging mistress in her nightclothes and cut
off her tongue, so she could not scold her any more.
So be warned, Sheila Mayhew. I know where the
knives are kept in the kitchen!'

There were stifled shrieks up and down the
dormitory.

'How silly you are, Hetty. You certainly don't
frighten me,' and Sheila – but her voice was high
and squeaky and she certainly
sounded
frightened.

'What happened to Flora's mistress, Hetty? Did
she
die
?'

'Oh no, she was left with her poor tongue cut
in half so she couldn't speak any more – she just
gurgled,
oogle-oogle-oogle!'

'Ooooh!' the girls shrieked, so loudly that Matron
Pigface came stomping back to give us all a severe
scolding.

'Matron Peters had better watch out too,' I
murmured darkly when she'd gone at last.

The next night the girls all begged for more
stories of mad Flora and her mistress, and I recited
the whole story again: there had been three whole
pages devoted to this grisly tale in the
Police Gazette.
The next night I told them a new story, the night
after that another, and when I had used up all the
Police Gazette
horror tales, I found it easy enough to
make up my own.

Everyone begged for more, even Sheila and Monica,
though half the girls woke up shrieking with terrible
nightmares. Several took to wetting their beds and
suffered horrible public humiliation, trailing their
smelly wet sheets behind them – but these were the
very girls who cried, 'Tell us a story, Hetty, a really
bloody one,' the moment the lights went out.

I carried on like Scheherazade (Nurse Winnie
was reading us
Tales of the Arabian Nights
during our darning sessions now), but one night I
woke up to hear desperate sobbing coming from the
bed opposite.

I was used to hearing the other girls cry – I
sometimes cried myself – but this was different.
I climbed out of bed and pattered over. It was
the new girl, Polly. I seemed to have frightened her
into fits.

I wasn't the new girl any more. There had been
three new girls since me – Jane, Matilda and Maria
– and each time my heart beat faster in the hope
I might make a new friend. I tried to be kind and
reassuring, I guided them to the privies, the dining
hall, the classroom and the playground. I protected
them when Sheila and Monica and the others
starting their teasing, I helped them learn their
letters, I even showed them how to darn, though I
still found it a struggle myself.

But somehow my attempts didn't work. Jane
was a dull, dull, dull girl who stared blankly with
her mouth open when I tried to get her to picture
things. She was shocked by my night-time stories.

'You're a very bad girl, Hetty Feather, telling
about them things,' she declared, and would have
nothing to do with me.

Matilda was more fun and I liked her big brown
eyes and ready smile. She was a little slow at
picturing herself, but marvelled when I turned the
grey wastes of the playground into the hot sandy
desert or the salty ocean as we played explorers or
pirates. She begged for more when I told her my
gory
Gazette
stories. Oh, Matilda seemed a perfect
friend, and for a week or two I was actually happy
at the hospital – but then Maria came.

Her bed was beside Matilda's and she sat next
to her in class, so Matilda looked after her a little,
which I thought only kind and fair, but soon Matilda
and Maria were going round arm in arm, whispering
secrets.
They
were friends now and I was the girl
who was allowed to trail round after them on
sufferance.

I resolved to give up my search for a friend. It
was too painful. I made up my own companions
in my head and we got along well enough. My
imaginary friends all adored me, and begged to link
their shadowy arms through mine, and listened
spellbound while I told them stories.

Polly had appeared at midday, a plump girl with
watery blue eyes. She had arrived with long white-
blonde hair to her waist, but after a session with
Matron Pigface and her dreaded scissors, she now
looked like a dandelion puffball under her cap. She
cried on and off in a dreary way throughout the day,
but none of us took much notice. It was standard
new-girl behaviour. She made not a peep of protest
when I told my stories in the darkness of the
dormitory. When we were settling down to sleep, I
did call out, 'Goodnight, Polly,' but she did not reply,
so I thought she must be sleeping already.

She was clearly not asleep now, though she still
didn't answer when I whispered her name. She tried
to lie still, her face in her pillow, but she could not
stop sobbing.

'Don't cry so,' I said softly, patting her heaving
shoulder. 'I know it's horrid here, but you will get
used to it.'

Polly went on sobbing.

'I'm so sorry I told the story. I did not mean to
frighten you so. I won't ever tell about the Meat-axe
Murderer again, I promise. And he's all locked up in
prison, so he can't hurt you.'

'It's not the Meat-axe Murderer man,' Polly
sobbed. 'I want to go
home.'

I sighed. 'So do I,' I said. The longing for Jem
and Mother and everyone overwhelmed me again. I
bit my lip hard to stop myself crying too. 'Oh, Polly, so
do I.'

I reached out to pat her shoulder. She jumped at
my touch.

'What is it? I didn't hurt you!'

'You're so cold.'

'It
is
cold. Here. Move up.' I burrowed under
her covers, getting right into bed with her. 'Oh,
your pillow's soaking wet! You must have been
crying for hours.'

I moved her head and turned the pillow over.
'There, that's better, isn't it?'

She put her hands up over her head. 'I look so
ugly now,' she wept.

'It does look a little strange, but it will grow soon.
I quite like mine now. I look like a boy.'

'I don't
want
to look like a boy!' Polly sobbed.

'Oh, I do. They have much more fun. I have a
wonderful big brother, Jem. He is going to come and
fetch me home when I am old enough, and I have
another even bigger brother, Nat. I have two more
brothers here, in the boys' wing, and a sister, Martha,
who sings in the choir very beautifully. I was very
worried about my brother Gideon, so I dressed up in
boys' clothes and went and found him, and I shall go
again soon to check on him. I have another brother,
Saul, but I don't think much of him at all. Don't you
have brothers? I have yet another brother who's a
soldier – his name is—'

And then I was stuck. I held myself rigid,
hands over my mouth. I couldn't remember! I was
forgetting my family already. I had never known this
big brother, but we had talked of him often. Mother
had always sighed when she said his name and kept
his letters tied up with blue ribbon.

I started trying to say each member of the family,
mumbling their names under my breath.

'Are you praying, Hetty?' Polly asked.

'Marcus! Oh, I have remembered!' I said, hugging
Polly hard in my relief. 'I must never ever forget
them. I shall say them over and over again each
night. You must remember all your brothers and
sisters, Polly.'

'I have none,' she said. 'My foster mother is
Miss Morrison, who used to keep the school, Miss
Morrison's Seminary for Young Ladies. She took
a fancy to bringing up a foundling babe when she
retired. She is my foster mother and I miss her
sooooo.' Polly started wailing again. 'Every night
I sat on my bed with its lovely rose quilt and she
brushed my hair one hundred times.' She clasped
her shorn head despairingly. 'There's nothing left
to brush now!'

'We will picture it together,' I said. I started
running my fingers through her sad, feathery tufts.
'There, this is the brush, and your hair is growing
again, feel, growing and growing, it's past your
ears now. I'll keep brushing, my goodness, how it's
growing! There, feel it resting on your shoulders
now?'

I felt Polly put her hands up in the dark and I
braced myself, thinking she was going to be another
Jane. But no, she felt the thin air and then whispered,
'Oh, it's back, and so long, and
this
time it's curly.'

'Oh, Polly, you can picture! Will you be my
special friend?'

'I should like to be your friend more than
anything, Hetty,' said Polly.

I stayed cuddled up with her until dawn, then
I hurtled back to my own bed only a few moments
before the big girl monitor burst into the room.

I helped Polly smooth her apron and tippet into
place when we got dressed. When I placed her cap
upon her head, I whispered, 'There, all your new
curls are tumbling down past your shoulders.'

When Ida smiled at me at breakfast, I said, 'This
is my new friend, Polly.'

Ida nodded at Polly in a kindly way.

'Ida is quite the nicest maid in the whole hospital,'
I told Polly.

Ida blushed deeply, the pink in her cheeks making
her look almost pretty. 'Hetty is quite the most
artful
girl in the whole hospital,' she said sprinkling sugar
on my porridge. She sprinkled a little on Polly's
plate too.

I made sure Polly sat next to me in lesson time, and
I resolved to help her with her ABC very patiently.
But I didn't need to! Polly's schoolmistress foster
mother had taught her charge well. Polly could
read as fluently as me, though I was now top reader
of the entire infants class. She could write neatly
too, in a curly copperplate that sent Miss Newman
into raptures.

'Look, girls, mark this penmanship! See with
what style Polly writes her lesson, and not a single
mistake!' she said, showing us all Polly's page.

If Polly had not been my true friend, I would
have been a little irritated. Half the girls groaned
jealously. Sheila and Monica started making up a
vulgar verse together about Polly Penmanship. I
quelled them with a terrifying look. No one should
be allowed to tease my friend!