An Orphan’s Courage. Cathy Sharp

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СКАЧАТЬ to make sure it doesn’t happen again – but I think some of these girls do not deserve a second chance. They would have been better placed in a house of correction in the first place.’

      He’d given her an odd look and then left her to it. Ruby had had the girls into her office – a sullen girl of fourteen named Doris and a younger girl with a frightened air who was nicknamed Mouse but whose real name was Emmeline.

      ‘Well, I hope you’re properly ashamed of yourselves?’ she asked and saw a flicker of fear in Emmeline’s eyes but sheer defiance in the older girl’s face. ‘You’re here because you’re being punished for making nuisances of yourselves at the home you were placed in, and because the court decided to be lenient with you – but there are other places you could go, unpleasant places that I should be loath to send you to – either of you. Now what have you to say to me?’

      ‘I’m sorry, miss,’ Emmeline whispered. ‘I didn’t mean to do it – but I’m partial to sweets and me dad alus bought me sixpence worth on a Saturday till the day he died …’

      Ruby felt a flicker of sympathy. It was rotten having no parents and both these girls had come to her from council-run orphanages. They’d been classed as rebellious and ungovernable, and had caused several pounds’ worth of damage to their school. Because of that the courts had removed them from the home and placed them here in her care.

      ‘It ain’t fair,’ Doris muttered. ‘Why can’t we ’ave a few pence for sweets once a week? Anybody would think we was bloody murderers … even the orphans next door ’ave that much …’

      Looking from one to the other, Ruby knew instantly that Doris was the ringleader and had no doubt led the younger Emmeline into trouble, both at their previous orphanage and here. If the courts had taken the trouble to examine the case more thoroughly, they would have been split up – and it was clearly what needed to happen.

      ‘You’re here to learn discipline and no sweets is one of our rules,’ Ruby told them severely. She knew that most of the girls broke that rule whenever they could manage to get hold of a few pennies to buy them, and probably quite a few of them stole when they got the chance, but these two had been found out. Since the rules were already tight, she wasn’t sure what she could do to punish them, short of sending them – or one of them – to the remand home. ‘Well, this time I’m merely going to send you both to your dorms with no tea or supper – but if it happens again, you will both be sent away somewhere you do not have the freedom to roam the streets and steal from people …’

      Something in the eyes of both girls made Ruby think of Betty Goodge and what had happened to her. She’d vowed after she was told of the girl’s unhappy fate that she would never threaten another girl as she had Betty.

      ‘I’ll be good, miss,’ Emmeline promised. ‘Please don’t send me to prison …’

      Doris stared at her with huge miserable eyes, her whole body rigid with defiance and suppressed anger.

      ‘Do you not realise how fortunate you were to be sent here?’ Ruby asked them. ‘You could have been sent to a place of correction – and I assure you their rules are much harsher than mine …’

      ‘What ’ave we got ter look forward to?’ Doris demanded. ‘In the last place it was all bloody rules, nuthin’ decent to eat, only watery stew and bread and people naggin’ at yer all the time …’

      Ruby stared at her for several seconds and then inclined her head. ‘As it happens I agree with you,’ she said, ‘so I’ll tell you what I’m going to do – in future every girl who behaves herself and gets no black marks during the week will have sixpence to spend as she pleases on a Saturday – any transgression of the rules and that privilege will be suspended, not only for the girl who broke the rule, but for everyone …’

      She dismissed them both, wrote out a notice to that effect and put it on the notice board where all the girls could see it. Her decision was rather clever, Ruby thought, pleased, because the majority of the girls would soon put any defiant girls in their place who were careless enough to break the new code, if they too were made to suffer for the misdemeanour. Still in a mood of good will, she telephoned Miss Sampson’s office and asked to speak to her. There was a pregnant pause and then the secretary said in a rather flustered tone, ‘I’m sorry, Miss Saunders. Miss Sampson is too busy to speak to you at the moment. Please send her a memo if it’s important …’

      Anger had roared through Ruby as she jammed the receiver back on its stand. Ruth Sampson had always come straight on whenever she’d telephoned before and her rejection was like a slap in the face. She brooded over her wrongs for an hour or more and then, after some soul-searching, went next door to visit Sister Beatrice.

      Ruby hated having to ask a favour of the nun. They had never really got on, and after the mistake she’d made over June Miller’s foster parents, she always felt uncomfortable when talking to her – but if Miss Sampson wouldn’t speak to her, she had no alternative.

      Sister Beatrice looked at her impatiently as she entered. She hesitated, and then asked if she could spare a few minutes and reluctantly the nun agreed and Ruby moved nearer to the desk.

      ‘I wondered if you would consider a suggestion I have,’ she said tentatively. ‘One of my girls … I want to move her from the influence of one of the older girls. She came to me because she caused trouble at her previous school and has recently been caught stealing sweets …’

      ‘She doesn’t sound as if she can be trusted …’

      ‘I think if she was moved somewhere she would receive a different kind of care …’ Ruby floundered, feeling about two inches high. ‘Oh, forget it. I shouldn’t have asked …’ She would have left immediately but Sister’s voice stopped her.

      ‘Please sit down and tell me how I can help?’

      Ruby sat, feeling as if she were back at school instead of the confident young woman well able to hold down a responsible job she actually was. ‘Her name is Emmeline but the others call her Mouse – and I think that’s the trouble, she’s nervous and easily corrupted, but given a proper chance I believe she could do better. The home she came from doesn’t have much of a reputation and I thought perhaps if you could take her at that place in Essex … away from Doris and the temptations of too many shops …’

      ‘Do you have the authority to place her in our care?’

      ‘Yes – well, I normally clear any transfers with Ruth Sampson,’ Ruby admitted, ‘but I’m sending her a memo and I don’t think she will object … I just think Emmeline would have a chance if she gets right away, but if she stays here I may have to send Doris to a remand home instead and I’m reluctant to do it …’

      ‘So you do have a heart after all …’ Ruby stared at the nun, shocked and annoyed but managing to control her temper. ‘Forgive me, Miss Saunders, that was rude – but I must admit I had not thought you capable of acting with compassion.’ Sister stared at her and Ruby felt uncomfortable under that intent gaze, as if the other woman could see right into her soul. ‘Yes, I believe we could arrange that for you. I will telephone Angela Adderbury and see if they will accept her but I feel sure that, like you, Angela will believe the girl deserves a chance of a better life, and she can usually sway the Board to her way of thinking. When she was here she had all the market traders and businessmen falling over themselves to offer us help.’

      ‘Thank you …’

      ‘Before you go … I was wondering if СКАЧАТЬ