Or so she thought.
‘Oh, come on, sweetheart,’ Evan said, pulling her to him. ‘There’s no one like you.’
‘I dare say there isn’t,’ she retorted, her face flushed. ‘If you’re playing fast and loose with me, Evan, you’ll live to regret it.’
He stood back from her, his expression injured.
At once, she was contrite. ‘Oh, Evan, I’m sorry, I just care about you so much.’ She took his hand and kissed it. ‘I don’t mean to say the things I do; I just want us to be together.’
‘What about Andy?’ Evan said, as though he thought of the other man as a rival.
‘What about him?’ Dolly replied. ‘I’d drop him like that,’ she clicked her fingers, ‘if you asked me to marry you.’
Jesus, Evan thought, no bloody way! He wanted Dolly safe with her dollop of a fiancé. In fact, it would suit him best if she married Andy. That way he could never get caught. Marry Dolly Blake! Was she crazy?
‘You know how I feel about you,’ Evan replied, pressing her hand to his cheek, ‘but I can’t marry until I’ve proved myself, got my career on track.’ He looked into her eyes wistfully. ‘You do see that, don’t you? I’m an ambitious man. Dolly. It wouldn’t be fair.’
Her brain took the words and sifted them like lump flour. In the end the meaning was unpalatable. Not that she would let Evan see it. So he thought he was taking her for a ride, did he? Well, time would tell.
Gently she laid her head on his shoulder and sighed.
‘I understand, luv,’ she said, letting her hand move inside his jacket and touch his chest. ‘Honestly I do.’
When Dolly came back to Netherlands that evening she was preoccupied, ready for a fight with anyone who crossed her path. Using the side door, she let herself into the home and paused in the corridor. It smelled of chalk and a less pleasant urine odour coming from the toilets nearby.
Sniffing, she walked into the back room beyond and snapped at an old bald man sitting smoking a pipe.
‘Mr Baldwin!’
He looked up, eyes rheumy. ‘Aye?’
‘The toilet smells.’
‘What d’you expect? It’s a toilet, not a bleeding perfume factory,’ he replied, sucking on his pipe and turning away.
Irritated, Dolly stood in front of him. ‘They need some more disinfectant –’
‘Aye, stop yer bleating! There’s many houses round ’ere that don’t have a lavvie – like yers, I’ll be bound.’
‘Now, you just –’
Irritated, Mr Baldwin stood up and waved his pipe at her. ‘I do what I can ’ere. The wages are bloody awful for what I have to deal with. As for the lavvies – they’ll be swilled out again in the morning.’
‘But –’
Impatiently he flicked his hand to shoo her away. Will Baldwin had been at Netherlands longer than anyone. He could remember being the caretaker when Clare Lees was a child, he didn’t need some cheap tart like Dolly Blake telling him what to do.
‘I’ve told you, Miss Blake, it’ll be done again in morning.’
‘I have –’
‘Oh, go off and pick a fight with someone else!’ Will replied, adding slyly, ‘You want to stay away from Welshmen and stick with yer own sort. You’d be better-tempered if you did.’
Dolly’s face flushed as she stood, tongue-tied, for a moment and then flounced out.
As she made her way back down the corridor she was listening for any sound, any child on whom she could vent her spleen. The boys’ section was silent, behind the locked doors, and in front of her there stretched the long gloomy corridor which led to the girls’ part of the home. It was empty, dimly lit by spluttering gaslight.
Her shoes tapped on the shiny floor as Dolly hurried along. She thought at one point that she heard something, but when she paused there was only silence. On she paced, seething, and then rounded the bend to find Alice walking towards her.
‘What are you doing here at this time of night?’ Dolly snapped.
Alice paused. She was carrying a tray with a cover over it.
‘I’ve come from the sanatorium,’ she said quietly, looking into Dolly’s flushed face.
‘At this time? I doubt it.’ Dolly pulled the cover off the tray Alice was carrying. ‘What’s this?’
‘Matron asked me to take it back to the kitchen –’
‘I didn’t ask what you were told to do with it, I asked what it was.’
‘Hilly Barker’s supper.’
Dolly paused to consider. Hilly Barker had been ill for some time, coughing and periodically feverish. She had been in and out of the sanatorium for the four years she had been at Netherlands. And she was getting worse. Not to worry, the doctor had assured Clare Lees, it’s not contagious. It was just that Hilly was getting weaker by the day.
‘Hilly Barker?’
Alice nodded, keeping her head down.
Dolly stared at her, taking in the dark good looks that had intensified since Alice had turned ten. She would be stunning one day, Dolly realised, her temper increasing at the thought.
‘It’s a waste of good food,’ Dolly went on, staring at the unappetising meal. ‘She should have eaten it. There are children starving abroad.’
‘Hilly tried, but she’s no appetite –’
‘Since when have you been a doctor?’ Dolly bellowed. ‘You’re altogether too big for your boots, Alice Rimmer. We had trouble with you before, didn’t we? I thought you’d learned your lesson.’
Alice said nothing, just waited. The tirade would pass in time. Dolly Blake was peevish, but her viciousness was always short-lived.
‘Sorry, Miss Blake.’
‘You should be sorry,’ Dolly went on, the corridor echoing her words. ‘Miss Lees doesn’t want any more trouble from you, Alice Rimmer, or you’ll be sent away.’
Staying silent, Alice stood with her head bowed. She knew that Dolly had no power to send her away, but she was going to be careful, just in case. The only people she cared about were at Netherlands – Ethel and Hilly. She didn’t want to lose what little she had. So she bit her tongue, as she had learned to do.
Obviously getting bored with her attack, Dolly sighed. ‘How is Hilly?’ she asked, toying with the cuffs of her dress.
‘Poorly.’
She glanced back at Alice. God, the girl was getting tall. ‘Why you?’
‘Pardon, Miss Blake?’
‘Why are you looking after Hilly Barker?’
‘Matron asked me to,’ Alice replied, her voice low.
‘Aren’t you worried that Hilly might have something contagious?’ Dolly asked meanly.
‘No.’