The Orphans of Halfpenny Street. Cathy Sharp

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СКАЧАТЬ comfortable life. I want to live in the real world rather than Mother’s. I find most of her friends shallow and selfish and I want to help those in need. I’m not hysterical, even though Mother looks at me as if she thinks I am when I say something like that. She thinks she helps people because she sits on the board of a charity and raises funds for her pet projects but she has no true idea of what goes on.’

      ‘A little unkind, wouldn’t you say?’ Mark raised his brows. ‘Your mother does help others less fortunate in her own way; she just doesn’t wish to get her hands dirty. That’s what you’re after, isn’t it?’

      ‘Yes.’ Angela’s smile was rueful. ‘It sounds awful put like that – as if I’m a middle-class do-gooder trying to earn my Brownie points.’

      ‘Have you considered that that is how you may appear to people who truly have to get their hands dirty to survive? If I were to find you a job – or at least point you in the right direction – you would almost certainly come up against prejudice because of your background.’

      ‘Do you know of something that might suit me? All I want is a chance … something to make it worthwhile getting up in the morning. Something to take away this emptiness …’

      Her eagerness touched him, the sudden glow in her eyes making him realise that she was truly in earnest. Although the perfect beauty she’d once enjoyed had gone, she retained the clean symmetry of good bones, her face a little angular these days, but perhaps more arresting because it told of her suffering – and she had the best ankles Mark had ever seen on a woman. It couldn’t hurt to help her on her way. She might change her mind once the reality of hard work came home to roost, but there was no harm in letting her try. He realised now that it had been in his mind to ask her for a while, because she would be perfect for the role of the new Administrator of St Saviour’s – and of course it would give Mark the perfect excuse to see her more often. He smiled inwardly, because he knew his own feelings had played their part in his decision.

      ‘As it happens, I do know of something. I was actually thinking of mentioning it to you, Angela. You may not be aware, but I am on the board of a charity that runs a children’s home in the East End of London …’

      ‘Daddy told me a little about it. It’s why I came to you, because I thought you might know of someone needing help? I don’t have to be paid.’

      Mark nodded, because he knew that John had left her well provided for; Angela didn’t need to work, but he could see that she needed the discipline of it. Outwardly, she appeared to have coped well with her bereavement, but one had only to watch her to see the grief that lived inside her. She’d come home for her mother’s sake, but he’d never approved of her giving up work for such a reason; of course if John had lived he would have expected it, but then she would have had a busy life caring for a home and a husband she adored.

      Mark had been attracted to Angela from the first time he saw her, at a charity dance her mother had arranged when she was about twenty-two and he just twenty-six. He’d still been married then, of course, and working in a London hospital, down for the weekend to look at a house he hoped to purchase with a small inheritance from an uncle. He’d simply admired the bright and beautiful girl that she was from a distance, arranged to put a deposit on his house and gone back to London the next day, visiting occasionally to oversee the renovations at the property. He’d acquired the house mostly for Edine’s sake, thinking it might suit her health to live in the country, but he’d often wondered since if it had been a mistake. Over the years Edine and he had met Angela and her parents at various social affairs, but by the time Mark had suddenly found himself free, Angela had been in the throes of falling in love with his best friend. It was really only after John’s death, when he’d held her in his arms and let her cry against his broad shoulder, that he’d realised how deep his feelings ran.

      Mark felt the ache like a yearning hunger deep in his guts. It was hard behaving like a perfect gentleman and a good friend, when what he really wanted was to take her in his arms and kiss her until she melted into him, submitting herself to his loving … but that was the daydream of a man in love and Mark had to face reality.

      He got up and went over to the sideboard to pour a small glass of sherry for each of them, and brought the tray back to the desk, giving himself time to think over how to answer her.

      ‘St Saviour’s has recently been given a Government grant, which is wonderful, but it means big changes, and that’s where you could help, Angela. Sister Beatrice is an excellent nurse. She has been in charge of the home for the past two years and we are delighted with the improvements she’s made on the nursing side; but good as she is, she dislikes paperwork – and she does tend to drag her feet a bit when it comes to change. Her desk is always piled high with papers in no order whatsoever, and her reports are always late and usually leave much to be desired. She is a nurse first and foremost: a dedicated, hard-working and intelligent woman, but the office work is beginning to slip. Some of the governors are growing concerned and I think she may find the new order hard to accept.’

      ‘She sounds a wonderful person, Mark.’

      ‘She is, but we do need to bring St Saviour’s into the modern world, Angela. Right-thinking people are questioning the way some homes have been run in the past – especially after that fiasco when all those children were sent overseas. Three thousand of them went down on that ship the Germans torpedoed and it caused an outcry against the high-handed men who sent them off without a thought for what the children wanted. In my opinion it’s time we started to think about the wishes of the child involved. Look at the way they were just shipped off to the country at the start of the war – and some of them went missing; others had a terrible time. Instead of being kept safe and cared for they were treated little better than servants.’

      ‘That was awful,’ Angela said. ‘If they were going to send them off like that, they could at least have made sure the homes they went to were properly vetted.’

      ‘From what I heard, people just turned up and selected who they wanted and took them off. Some mothers didn’t even know where their kids were … but that’s not what concerns us now. I want to make sure that our home is run for the benefit of the children in order to give them a better future – education comes into that and it helps if their minds are stimulated, not just at school, but in their home too. I want us to show them there is another way of life …’

      ‘You mean take them to places of interest, outings that they will enjoy but will open their minds too?’

      ‘Yes, but perhaps there are other ways you could encourage them to think for themselves, Angela? I should like you to consider what we could do to change both the way St Saviour’s is run and any improvements to both the old and the new building. You have a clear mind and I’m sure your views and your sense of order would help Sister Beatrice. I am not asking you to take over from her, Angela, but she is struggling to cope with all the responsibility, and once the Board approves any changes, it will be your task to implement them. You are not supplanting Sister but you could help her find her way.’

      ‘I did quite a bit of reorganising at the hospital.’

      ‘Yes, so I’ve been told, and they were grateful for the changes you suggested. The difference is that change will not be welcome to everyone at St Saviour’s, Angela.’

      ‘I’m prepared for that,’ she said and sipped her sherry thoughtfully. ‘I need a challenge, Mark. At the moment life feels a bit empty …’

      ‘You will have more than enough to do if you take this on. Make no bones about it, Angela; the children you will meet are often the casualties of violent and broken homes. Some are so damaged mentally that I’m not sure we shall ever get them right, СКАЧАТЬ