BOOK ONE

"Where there’s a Will there’s a Way"

 Chapter One

Birthday Girl

"Please, Miss! Ern’s ’avin’ a fit again . . ."

Birthdays shouldn’t be like this, I thought savagely as I squeezed along the narrow row between the desks to where Ernest was jerking uncontrollably. I held him tight for a moment, glad to see that he hadn’t bitten his tongue; as his spasms lessened and he started to snore I scooped him up in my arms and carried him out of the class, down the corridor and into the kitchen, where there was a pallet in a corner for emergencies. I stripped off his soiled pants, chucked them into a bucket and rinsed them out, my nose wrinkling as I draped them over a fireguard to dry.

Ellen turned from the stove, where she was stirring the soup.

" ’Im again? Just cover ’im up, I’ll keep an eye on ’im." The smell of the soup made my mouth water. On the table the bread was already sliced. Ellen saw my face.

"All counted out, miss—but come ’ere . . ." She took a knob of crust from the side and dipped it into the soup. "Careful, it’s ’ot!"

And absolutely delicious. I crammed it into my mouth all at once, in danger of choking.

"Thanks, Ellen. Only an hour to go . . ."

"Thank God it’s Sat’day!"

"Amen to that!"

As I made my way back to the classroom, making sure no crumbs would betray my scrounging and wiping my mouth on one of my second-best handkerchiefs, one used to mop up childish tears, snot or blood from cuts and grazes, I reflected that I should have a full two hours extra this afternoon to celebrate my twenty-first birthday.

School was from eight in the morning till six at night, Mondays to Friday, but on Saturday we broke two hours earlier. Fine in summer, but in winter it made little difference, the nights closing in early. Just two hours longer shut away in my room, a smoky little fire in the grate; just two more hours mending or trimming or studying. Once a week I would call at the local lending library, but I read so fast and so voraciously that I had to ration my pleasure to an hour a day. One penny a week was all I could afford, this being the going rate for borrowing.

I preferred to save a penny or two here and there and browse through one of the second-hand bookshops. This way I had built up my own little library: by now I had some of the novels of Mr. Dickens, Miss Austen, Miss Brontė, Mrs. Gaskell and Mr. Thackeray, a Treasury of Poetry, the collected Histories of Mr. Shakespeare and The Commonplace Cook. This latter I could not really put to the test, as the fire in my room would only hold one pan at best and cooking in one’s room was discouraged, but if some day I had a home of my own I should, theoretically, have knowledge enough to produce good, nourishing meals.

In the meantime I, like pupils and teachers alike at the Reverend Ezekiel

Moffat’s Charity School, lived on just that: the posthumous generosity of our founder. Founded sixty years ago in the early 1820s, the worthy minister had envisaged saving the souls of London’s poorest children with his four "R’s": Religion, Reading, ’Riting and ’Rithmetic. His daughters, who now ran the school, had added another "R": Refreshments.

For many of these children of the streets the food they received at school was their only sustenance. On arrival each child was given a slice of bread and dripping and a drink of milk and water. At lunchtime there was a bowl of Ellen’s soup and another slice of bread and at hometime a slice of bread and scrape and another drink of milk and water. We teachers shared the same diet, which made the twenty-six pounds a year we received go a little further. It meant I only had to buy supper during the week, and could spoil myself on Saturday nights and Sundays.

Still, ten shillings a week didn’t go far. Four shillings a week for rent, plus a penny for hot water. One penny a day for the emptying of my slop bucket. This last was definitely worth it, not having to tramp down two flights of stairs to use the revolting, fly-infested privy in the back yard. That made five shillings and four-pence. Three-pence for laundry, a penny for the library, which left four shillings and four-pence for everything else, which included clothes, coals, sewing materials and ribbons, soap and, of course, food.

At present I was managing to save one shilling a week towards the cost of material for a winter dress and new boots, and another shilling went into the Co-operative Bank. Then there was the collection at church on Sundays and a penny for the Missionary Fund, which left me two-pence a night for a meat pie or a couple of sausages. This week I had bought wool to knit mittens and a muffler for the winter, but I had the princely sum of nine-pence left with which to indulge myself tomorrow.

In the fine weather I would make a packed lunch and take it out into one of the parks, but when it was wet or cold on Saturday nights I would visit the butcher for a couple of chops, then the greengrocer for potatoes and some apples or an orange, plus a loaf from the baker and perhaps a chunk of cheese from the grocer. Saturday night was cheapest too, as all was closed for the Sabbath, and the later you went, the better the bargain.

Back in the classroom my pupils were in disarray. Obviously those who could had scratched their versions of "Cat, Rat, Mat, Hat, Sat" onto their slates, and were now teasing one another, throwing things or fast asleep. I hurried over, apologising to Miss Hardacre and Miss Hepzibah Moffat for the possible disruption of their Middle and Senior classes, clapped my hands for order, tapped a few heads with my ruler and hurriedly wiped the blackboard with a damp cloth and substituted "Dog, Log, Hog, Bog, Fog" for the earlier words. I then moved down the aisle, praising where I could, as blame was no use with these deprived children.

Some of them were patently ineducable, others would never get further than adding the simplest of numbers and writing their own names, but there were exceptions, like Jude and June, half-caste brother and sister who held the glimmerings of something better. These two now presented me with "The Cat sat on the Mat" and "The Cat in the Hat" respectively. Next term I would recommend them to Miss Hardcastle’s Middle Class, who were now monotonously reciting their seven times table.

Having all three classes in the same room was difficult at the best of times, but usually two were either writing or listening so we teachers didn’t have the added strain of shouting above each other.

Of course there were always more girls than boys. As soon as they were old enough the latter were out on the streets for their parents, thieving, running errands or, if they were lucky, ’prenticed out to coal merchants, chimney sweeps, dockers, lightermen or costers. The girls, if they were presentable, usually ended up on the streets at puberty or helping out in laundries or cookshops. We did have some successes: some of the children had been properly placed, boys to printing presses and the retail trade, even one to the Christian Church; the girls out as milliners, seamstresses, nursery governesses or placed in respectable households. But these alas, were few and far between.

I had been here in London for three years now. My parents had died within a week of each other of a low fever while I was still at boarding school. We had never been well-off—it was said my mother had married beneath her to a humble watch-maker and repairer—but they hadn’t stinted on my education, more than they could have afforded; for once all debts had been paid and most of the furniture sold from our rented cottage, I found all I had was enough to keep myself for six months, a few sticks of furniture and fond memories of a pretty, merry mother who was a hopeless housewife, and a gentle, retiring father who waited for work rather than seeking it out.

So, Miss Sophronisbe Lee would have to find a situation, fast, but for an unattached girl of nineteen with no special skills and only the recommendation of her headmistress to back her applications it wasn’t easy. At first I was picky, answering only those advertisements that appealed to me, but as time passed I grew more desperate as most of my applications were either unanswered or were curt rejections, the general consensus being that I was both too young and too inexperienced.

So I no longer applied to those advertisements for a "genteel children’s governess," or "Lady F. requires experienced ladies-maid," rather was I driven to replying to seekers of companions for the elderly, or housekeeper in a "large and boisterous household." These came to nothing as well, if you discount an interview I actually undertook with hope concerning a "disabled gentleman" requiring a young lady for reading aloud, writing letters and other "light duties." Unfortunately he was not too disabled to chase me all over his study and he made it very clear what the "light duties" would entail. . . .

This went on for nearly three months until I had almost decided to apply for a straightforward domestic post, when I had an unexpected bonus. One of our neighbours had paid a visit to an aunt in London, and brought back a morning paper which contained ten suitable posts. Although the paper was a few days old I answered all the advertisements eagerly, then sat back and waited. And waited.

Of the ten, four never answered, and I had five replies turning me down, but the last letter was different. This was from the headmistress of a Charity School offering a teaching post. "Young person, male or female, to teach class of five- to eight-year-olds in poor district. Wages: twenty-six pounds per year. Some food supplied. Only serious and dedicated applicants need apply." His advertisement had been last on my list because of the low wage, but somehow the tone of the letter I received fired me with an uncharacteristic enthusiasm.

"I note that your qualifications are more than adequate for our Junior Class, but you must realise that the possession of knowledge is not, in itself, the only requirement in a good teacher. It also involves patience, a liking for your pupils and, above all, the art of communication.

"If you decide to take the post you must be prepared to live in an insalubrious district and deal with children who are poor, ill-clad, unwashed and often apathetic. The position is not an easy one, but it might well prove rewarding if you manage to improve the lot of only one of these deprived children."

So, my youth and inexperience didn’t matter! Even my assertiveness was accepted as a sort of virtue. Was I patient? I thought so. Could I like the unlikeable? Probably—after all, children were children the world over. Could I communicate? Definitely!

And so, a fortnight later, the remaining sticks of furniture sold, apart from my father’s comfortable wing-chair, my mother’s writing desk and embroidered footstool and a mantel-clock that I had had in my bedroom since I was a child, I took the stage to London and a new life.

And here I still was, nearly three years later.

Perhaps if I had had the faintest idea of just how tough those years were to be I would not have come, but, perversely, I was glad I had. Financially I was badly off; I lived in squalid conditions and probably didn’t eat enough healthy food, and the teaching was mind-blowingly monotonous and unrewarding. It seemed my nostrils were always full of the smell of unwashed bodies, urine, chalk, smoke and fog.

Against all those was the plus of living in London itself. It was a wondrous, vibrant city, full of museums, galleries, ancient monuments, theatres, parks and beautiful churches, all of which fed the hunger for beauty and learning which I hadn’t realised had lain dormant in me for so long. The fantastic wonders of the Crystal Palace, the military bands, the Palace with its changing of the guard, the gaily dressed people, the shops crammed with goodies—

Of course there was the other side as well. London was like a beautifully dressed woman with dirty underwear. Horrendous slums, depraved and deprived lower-classes, running sewers, a pall of choking smoke most of the year; the blind, the crippled, the lame begging on every street corner and the prisons full of debtors, thieves and worse.

But these three years had toughened me. I was now far more self-reliant, realising just how sheltered, pampered and protected I had been as a child. Now I believed I knew far better how to extract the best from the simplest of pleasures. I also realised how our little school shone out like a bunch of bright weeds against the dull poverty around us.

Only one in ten of our little charges really benefitted from the education we offered, but at least they were off the streets, were fed, warm and, if necessary, clothed. Miss Moffat and her sister were adept at visiting some of the better neighbourhoods, especially if a child in the household had died, and begging for charitable cast-offs. Most of the bereaved were only too glad to be rid of unpleasant reminders. Otherwise we took advantage of any scraps of cloth we managed to gather and cobbled together what we could. Every Christmas and Easter each child was presented with a bright new penny, (birthdays being out because few of the children knew their birthdate), and at the New Year there was a bag of sweet biscuits.

The headmistress and her sister were as unalike in appearance as could be. Miss Moffat was tall, slim and severe-looking; Miss Hepzibah was small, round, wore wire-rimmed glasses, and sighed a great deal: Ellen told me she had been disappointed in love. There was one other member of their household: Madeleine, a remarkably quiet and composed young lady of about nineteen who filled in as a teacher when necessary, and was apparently adopted by the Misses Moffat as a baby. When I expressed to Ellen my admiration for their generosity, she shrugged her shoulders.

"There’s some as would say they didn’t have much choice," she said, and left me to work it out for myself. I guessed Madeleine must be at least a distant relation, for she bore a remarkable resemblance to a younger Miss Hepzibah. . . .

There was a bustle at the back of the classroom and every childish head turned to where Ellen was carrying in the cauldron of lunchtime soup. She was followed by Madeleine with a tray of bread and a bundle of spoons. Next came the enamel bowls and a bucket of soapy water and a rag, for every child had its face and hands washed before eating. I slipped out to the kitchen to check on little epileptic Ernest, and found him already seated at the kitchen table with soup and bread. On the way back I passed Miss Moffat, who gave me a nod before striking the brass gong outside the classroom to signal luncheon, a sound quickly drowned by the scrapes of chairs and stools, excited squeals and the rush of feet as the children formed into class lines. As usual there was much pushing and shoving, seeming that every second without food was life-threatening, but the routine was well established, and as soon as Miss Moffat entered the room and called for order she gained it within a half-minute.

Madeleine wiped hands and faces, I handed out bowl and spoon, Ellen ladled out into the former and Miss Hepzibah and Miss Hardcastle doled out the bread. The children went back to their desks to eat, before returning their bowls, having their hands and faces wiped clean again and escaping to the yard at the back for a half-hour, to play tag, leapfrog, Fairy Footsteps or Hopscotch and visit the privy.

Then, and only then did we teachers repair to the kitchen to eat our luncheon and toast our toes, with the added bonus of a cup of hot, strong tea to follow. This was also the time when we discussed any especial problems with the children; those who needed extra clothes, who appeared to be sickening for something or who showed signs of maltreatment or abuse.

This half-hour always whizzed by, and today the children were even more difficult to control, but this was usual on a Saturday. My class were supposed to be doing the simplest of simple arithmetic, but even the effort of adding one and one together seemed beyond them, let alone two and two. At least three of them were fast asleep, heads on desks, and the rest of them were either yawning or wanting to pick a fight.

The classroom seemed to be getting darker and darker, although it was only the first of October. Glancing up at the long windows, so high up they had to be opened (rarely) and shut by a hooked pole, my heart sank. So far autumn had been bright and fairly sunny, but now the first yellow wraiths of fog were rubbing against the grubby panes. It seemed I shouldn’t be spending my afternoon tomorrow after church strolling in the park. At least I had a good book to read: I had re-borrowed Miss Anne Brontė’s Agnes Grey from the library. A failed governess maybe, but in the end she had gained her man.

Of course I had to enjoy her final success vicariously, for I had never had even the sniff of a proper suitor. One couldn’t count the boisterous schoolboy who had tried to steal a kiss on my fourteenth birthday, nor yet the young curate with the sticky-out ears who was always begging me to come and see his pressed-flower collection. In London the pattern had been the same. I discouraged the approach of strangers, and the only man of my acquaintance had been the student on the floor above at my lodgings. According to my landlady he originated from Dublin, in Ireland, and he certainly had the gift of the charm and volubility of his race, and he insisted on writing me reams of doggerel which he shoved under my door nearly every day. I ignored his knockings—no visitors after six o’clock, no gentlemen in ladies’ rooms and vice versa—and either returned the "poems" the same way they had come or, if I was feeling particularly vicious, they were useful for laying the fire.

But this was not the limit of his attentions. Although he never did nor said anything improper, and hardly spoke at all except for the conventional greeting now and again, he seemed to shadow me everywhere. He peered over my shoulder at the baker’s, the grocer’s shop and the butcher’s; he was in the seat behind me at church; he checked on my choice in the library; he was behind me in the park, at museums and galleries, and he even peered through the railings when I was ushering the children in and out.

Then, after some three months he disappeared, owing my landlady for the last two . . .

I jerked awake. Goodness, I was succumbing like my pupils to a Saturday afternoon lethargy! I looked around to see what had disturbed me and saw that the door to Miss Moffat’s private apartment was open, and Miss Moffat was beckoning Toby (one of our successes: it was he, the youngest member of our laundress’s family, who usually escorted me home) from his place in the top class. Of course everyone stopped whatever they were doing to listen to the exchange, although the actual words were inaudible.

I tapped my ruler on the desk. "Come, children: anyone who has finished please bring your slate to me . . ."

I looked up. Twelve- or thirteen-year-old Toby was threading his way through the desks, heading straight for me! What could he possibly want? What dread rule had I broken that the headmistress needed to see me urgently at three o’clock on a foggy Saturday afternoon?

"Miss Sophy?"

My throat was suddenly dry and I swallowed convulsively. "Yes, Toby?"

"Miss Moffat asks that you ’tend her in her office, most partickler. Seems there’s a gennulman to see you . . ."