Hetty Feather (16 page)

Polly proved gifted at darning too, sewing neatly
and smoothly, an accomplishment that proved more
popular. Our clothes were not marked in any way.
We were handed out our clean clothes randomly on
Sunday. If you were given badly darned stockings, the
toes all cobbled together, you knew you'd be driven
mad by the irritation, forever forced to take your
boot off to ease the stocking this way and that.

Polly and I pictured together every playtime. We'd
spread our arms and pretend we could fly. We might
look as if we were simply running up and down the
playground with our arms outstretched, but we knew
we were swooping high above the sooty rooftops of
London town. One day we'd fly to visit Polly's foster
mother and sit at Miss Morrison's skirts and eat
seedcake for our tea; the next day we'd fly to my
village and sit with Jem in my squirrel house and
eat gingerbread.

I told Polly about Madame Adeline and
Tanglefield's Travelling Circus. I invited her to take
part, though privately I was a little unsure about
her as a circus performer. Although she got no more
food than the rest of us, she remained a very sturdy
child, flat-footed in her institution boots. But I need
not have worried. Polly had as much imagination
as me.

'There was a parrot at Miss Morrison's. He was
called Polly too, though I think he was a boy. He used
to squawk dreadfully and nip everyone, but he was
very good with me. It was my special job to feed him,
and he'd say, "Good girlie, good girlie." So I'll be a
bird trainer at the circus and teach parrots to sing
songs, and great hawks and eagles and albatrosses
will fly about my head and do such tricks,' she said.
She waved her hand and I
saw
her performing birds
and marvelled.

I shared my purloined
Police Gazettes
with Polly,
and we gasped and giggled together at their grisly
stories. I wondered if Polly would wish to terrify the
dormitory with her own version at night, but she
was a tactful girl and left the public tale-telling to
me.

She did still cry at times, long after the other girls
slept, but I always slipped into her bed and cuddled
her close and comforted her.

Polly and I even got ill together that winter.
I'm not sure which of us started sniffing and
sneezing first, but within a day we both had red and
running noses and hacking coughs. Matron Pigface
Peters gave us a rag each to wipe our noses, but
they were made of harsh, hard cloth and rubbed
us raw. Our heads were aching and our arms and
legs hurt. All we wanted to do was lie down, but
we were forced up into our everyday routine. It was
especially cold and we stood shivering at playtime,
barely able to stand.

'Run around, children! You need plenty of fresh
air to blow those horrid colds away. Don't pull those
long faces at me!' said Matron Pigface.

'But we're so cold, Matron. Mayn't we stay
indoors just this once?' I snuffled.

'Cold? Of course you're cold if you loll around
like that! Do some skipping! Take some exercise,
you lazy little girls. And stop that shivering! You've
got your good thick coats.'

We had our coats, but we had no woollen scarves
or mittens. We had no underwear, so the icy wind
blew straight up our skirts. We staggered miserably
up and down, our faces grey, snot running freely.
By bedtime we were both wheezing and dizzy with
fever. I could not croak out a story for everyone. I
could barely breathe. I lay there, head throbbing,
while my bed seemed to rise up and down, voyaging
to the ceiling and back. I lifted my head and was
violently sick all over my pillow and coverlet. I
crouched, shivering and sniffing, desperate to know
what to do. I was sure I'd be punished for making
such a terrible stinking mess. I had to try to clear it
up, but I didn't know
how.

'Oh, Hetty Feather, have you been
sick
?' Sheila
called. 'I can smell it from here. How disgusting
you are!'

'She couldn't help it,' said Polly. 'I feel sick too.
Oh no—!' She vomited as well.

'Stop it! You're
both
disgusting,' said Sheila.

Some of the other girls woke too and groaned and
complained.

'Ssh! I hear footsteps. It's Matron!' Monica hissed.

I started crying then, unable to lie down in my
bed, terrified I might be whipped for being out of it.
But it wasn't the dreaded Matron Pigface Peters.
Lovely Nurse Winnie was on night duty. She came
in with her lamp.

'Oh dear, oh dear, who's been sick?' she said. 'Is
it you, Hetty? And poor Polly too!' She came up to
me and felt my forehead. 'You have a fever, dear.
You need proper nursing – and you too, Polly. Come
along with me, girls.'

She ushered us out of the dormitory and down
the corridor, into a room we'd never been in before,
like a small dormitory with twelve beds.

'This is the infirmary, girls. Let's strip off those
soiled nightgowns and get you washed and clean
again, poor lambs.' She was so gentle with us that
we both started crying, unused to such tenderness.
When we were in our clean nightgowns, we were
tucked into bed in the infirmary with new softer
rags to blow our noses and bowls beside us in case
we were sick again.

'There now. Try to get some sleep. I'll go and
check the other girls and strip your soiled beds.
Don't cry so. You'll feel better soon.'

'We're not going to be punished?' I said.

'Goodness, Hetty, you're both ill with the
influenza. Of course you're not going to be punished.'
Nurse Winnie sounded shocked. 'Dear goodness,
what must you think of us!'

'I think
you're
lovely, Nurse Winterson,' I said.

She was truly angelic to both of us: she held
the bowls when we were sick again; she lifted us
onto the chamber pot; she wound wet towels round
us to bring down our fever; she gave us sips of
sugared water; she read aloud to us when we were
restless; she clasped our hands when the doctor
came to examine us. By this time the infirmary was
full of sneezing sick girls, with further beds lining
the corridor.

'Half the hospital has gone down with this
wretched virulent influenza,' he said as he listened
to Polly's chest. 'However, you're a sturdy child with
excellent lungs. You'll be running around in a day or
so, as right as ninepence.'

He looked graver when he undid my nightgown
to listen to my chest. He bent closer, till his pomaded
hair was right under my nostrils. He kept prodding me
with the cold end of his stethoscope, shaking his head.
'This child is nowhere near as robust,' he declared.
'Severely undernourished. She has a sparrow's bones,
no meat on them at all. She needs feeding up!'

'I eat the same as Polly, sir,' I said, but he took
no notice.

'Give her black beer in the mornings, and full
cream milk and plenty of porridge – or you'll lose
her,' he said bluntly.

I shivered, with excitement as much as fear,
because I could not help delighting in the fact
that
I
was the child so sorely ill. I hated it when
Polly was sent back to the dormitory the next day,
almost fully recovered. I was so worried she might
form a friendship with another girl in my absence
– but I could not help basking in the attention of
dear Nurse Winnie at nights. Mercifully Matron
Pigface Peters went down with the influenza
herself and kept to her room. Several of the
nurses were also ill, so during the day we were
looked after by anyone available. Sometimes it
was a big girl. One glorious day Ida came with a
specially ordered bowl of creamy porridge for me.
She sat beside my bed and insisted on feeding
me, spooning porridge into my mouth as if I was a
little baby. I was still feeling sick and kept shaking
my head, but Ida tapped my mouth gently with the
spoon, coaxing me.

'There's a good girl, Hetty. Another few spoonfuls
just for me, eh? And look what I have for you
here – a little slab of my own home-made toffee.
You may suck on a square when you've finished your
porridge.'

I cried a little then.

'Don't cry, dearie. Does your chest hurt bad?
Perhaps you need a piece of flannel at your throat?'

'No, no, it's just you're being so kind to me. It's
almost as if I was at home,' I wept. 'I miss Jem so
much – and Mother.'

'What was your foster mother like, Hetty?' Ida
asked.

'She was just . . . Mother.'

'She was kind to you?'

'She was very kind. Though she paddled me when
I was a bad girl.'

'I'm sure you could never be truly bad,' said Ida.
She lifted me up off the pillow to drink my milk.
She had her arm round my shoulders, and I leaned
against her gratefully.

I decided I was in no hurry to get better when
Ida and Nurse Winnie were making such a fuss of
me, especially when Nurse Winnie smuggled me a
reassuring note from Polly.

Dear Hetty,

I do hope you are not too ill. I miss you so
dreadfully, it is HORRID without you.

From your very loving friend, Polly.

Dear Polly
(I replied),

It is ENORMOUSLY horrid not being with you,
but I am trying hard to bear it. I will get better soon,
I promise. Nurse Winnie is my friend and Ida is
my friend too, but you are my most very SPECIAL
friend in all the world and I am very affectionately

Your Hetty

I was still not very strong and I had to labour
long and hard over my letter. I asked Ida how
to spell the great big words like
enormously
and
affectionately,
but she blushed and looked
wretched.

'I'm not very good at writing, Hetty. I can't rightly
say,' she said.

'Well, never mind, I'll ask Nurse Winterson,' I
said, sad that I'd embarrassed her.

'I never had much schooling, see,' Ida said. She
looked at me earnestly. 'That's the good thing about
the hospital. You girls get a proper education. You're
brought up almost like young ladies.'

'Yes, but we're
not
young ladies. We have to be
servants,' I said, wrinkling my nose. 'I don't want
to be a servant.'

Then it was my turn to blush because I realized
I'd been tactless. 'I am sorry, Ida,' I said, taking her
hand.

'There are worse positions in life,' she said flatly.
'And you're very bright, Hetty. Perhaps – perhaps
you'll get a position as a lady's maid and wear a
fine uniform and never have to do any hard work.
Should you like that?'

I considered. 'Perhaps I should like it if she was a
very
kind
lady, and let me dress up in her silks and
velvets and gave me cake at tea time,' I said.

Ida laughed. 'You have wheedling ways, but I
doubt any lady will let you do that.'

'Then I won't be a servant at all. I shall run away
to the circus.'

'Oh yes?' said Ida. 'And what will you be there?
A performing monkey?'

'I shall be a fine lady on a white horse,' I
declared.

'With rings on your fingers and bells on your
toes?' said Ida, not taking me seriously.

'No, I shall join my real mother, Madame Adeline,
and she will give me a costume of pink spangles and
we will ride our horses together in the circus ring,'
I said.

'Whatever makes you fancy your mother is a
circus lady?' said Ida.

'Oh, I am absolutely certain of it,' I said. 'Madame
Adeline told me herself. More or less. And when I
am big enough I shall go and find her, just you wait
and see.'

'Well, you're not big enough yet, Hetty. You're
still the smallest girl in the whole hospital. You must
eat up all the milk puddings I bring you, every last
morsel, and then you will get better.'

I
did
get better, though I think it was due to the
love and attention of Ida and Nurse Winnie, not
their milk puddings and medicine. But one of our
sick girls, Sarah Barnes, grew worse. The nurses
wrapped her in soaking sheets, but she was still
burning hot when I touched her and she could barely
sip her sugared water. She was so weak they had to
lift her onto a chamber pot like a baby. And all the
time, morning, evening, all through the night, she
coughed and coughed.

I slipped out of bed and went to stand beside her,
shivering. 'Poor Sarah,' I whispered. 'Is your throat
very sore?'

'Yes!' she mumbled. 'Yes, it hurts.'

'Shall I get Nurse?'

'No. No, I want—'

'Who?'

'I want my
mother
,' Sarah sobbed.

I told Nurse Winnie and she looked stricken.

'Poor lamb! I wish she
could
see her foster mother,
but it's strictly against the rules.'

'But she's so ill.'

'I know, Hetty, I know,' she said wearily, and she
covered her face with her hands.

'Nurse Winterson . . . is Sarah
dying
?' I
whispered.

'I hope not. But she is very, very poorly,' said
Nurse Winnie.

Sarah started crying again that night, calling for
her mother. She wouldn't quieten, no matter how
Nurse Winnie tried to soothe her.

I got out of bed and crept nearer. I had the fanciful
idea that I could picture Sarah's mother for her, tell
her that she was coming very soon, that she loved
her little daughter – but Nurse Winnie took hold of
me and forced me back to bed.

'I know you mean well, Hetty, but you must
not get too near poor Sarah, especially while she is
coughing so. You must not risk re-infecting yourself.
You're still quite a sick girl. Now go back to sleep,
there's a good child.'

I tried to do as I was told, pulling my blanket high
over my head to cut out the sound of Sarah. When
I woke up in the morning the room was strangely
quiet. I sat up. Sarah's bed was empty, her sheets
pulled off, her mattress bare.

'Where's Sarah? Is she in the washroom?' I called
anxiously.

'No, Hetty.' Nurse Winnie came over to me, her
face very white, purple shadows under her eyes. 'No,
Hetty, Sarah's gone to Heaven. She's with the angels
now.'

I sat still, stunned. I'd asked if Sarah was dying,
but I hadn't really meant it. Sarah was such a
real
girl, with her cough and her running nose and a
tendency not to reach the privy in time. Yet now
she was an angel in a long white dress, with wings
sprouting out of her small shoulder blades? I was
accomplished at picturing, but it was very hard
imagining Sarah lolling on heavenly clouds, a halo
over her lank brown hair.

'Don't be sad, Hetty. Sarah is happy now, and her
poor cough is better,' said Nurse Winterson – but
she didn't sound at all sure.

I lay down again, my heart beating fast. They
said I was getting better, but might
I
die too? A new
nurse came to take over from Nurse Winnie, a little
sharp-faced woman I'd not seen before. It seemed
she usually worked in the boys' wing, but was now
working a shift with us because three of our nurses
were ill themselves.

Nurse Winterson told her the news about Sarah.
She was whispering but I could still hear her.

'Let's hope she is the only one we lose,' said
Nurse Winnie.

'One of our boys is failing fast,' said the new
nurse. 'A sad little lad, much troubled. Calling for
his mother, and his father, and all his brothers and
his sisters—'

'That's maybe my brother! I must go to him!' I
said, getting out of bed.

'No, Hetty, don't fret, it won't be
your
brother,'
said Nurse Winnie – but the sharp-faced nurse
seemed taken aback.

'He
has
a sister Hetty!' she said.

'I have to see him. He's calling for me! I have to
see him before he goes to the angels like Sarah,' I
said frantically.

'Hush, child, it's not allowed,' said the sharp-
faced nurse.

'I
will allow it,' said Nurse Winnie.

She wrapped my blanket around me and lifted
me in her arms. She must have been exhausted
after a long traumatic night, but luckily I was very
light.

'You can't take her!' said the other nurse.