‘From the girls you mean? They can be a bit cheeky, but we haven’t had any real upsets. I think they must be disciplined before they get here. I’m not happy about them being there, because I need the rooms for my orphans, but I was not given an option.’
‘I dare say they thought this side of the home was enough for you to manage …’
‘I may not be a young woman, Sergeant, but I’m not old,’ Beatrice fixed him with a hard stare. ‘I’ve hardly had a day’s illness for years …’ It wasn’t quite true, but she didn’t like it to be thought that she was too old to do her duty. She had no intention of being retired to the convent while she had breath in her body.
‘No, Sister, not at all,’ he said apologetically. ‘I don’t think it would be the same here without you …’
‘Well, I have things to do,’ Beatrice said. ‘Bring the children when you’re ready.’
‘Yes, I shall – and thank you for your help as always …’
Beatrice sighed as the door closed behind him. Her visitors had put her off her stride. She would leave the report for later. It was time for her to check on the sick wards and talk to Wendy about the cases of tummy bug they currently had on their hands.
‘Well, Billy,’ Staff Nurse Wendy said to the tall, well-built young man who had just fixed her medicine trolley for her. ‘You certainly know what you’re doing with machinery. That wheel has been wonky for weeks. Mr Morris said it was past fixing, but it looks sturdy enough now.’
‘I’ve put a steel pin right through and fixed it with a bolt,’ Billy Baggins said and grinned at her. The evidence of his work was spread on the floor, metal shavings, tools and drill, and in his greasy hands, which he was wiping on a much-used cloth. ‘You only have to ask, Nurse, and I’ll see you right. ’Sides, the caretaker has more than enough to do. They make a lot of work next door …’ He jerked his head at the wing used for disturbed girls. ‘He told me he’s had to mend the window at the back three times this month. I reckon they deliberately break the lock so they can get in later at night …’
‘And to think you were the rebel of St Saviour’s,’ Wendy said and smiled at him approvingly, as he cleared the mess and packed his tools away in the battered old bag he kept them in. ‘Always running everywhere and getting into trouble with Sister Beatrice.’
‘Me and her are mates now,’ Billy said cheekily, ‘at least, most of the time. I doubt she’d feel like taking a cane to me now, even if I upset her – and I shan’t do that. She’s all right, she is …’
‘She’s one in a million and don’t you forget it, Billy. No one else would let a great hulking lad like you have the run of the place at your age …’
‘I’m looking for a room I can afford,’ Billy said ruefully. ‘You don’t earn much as an apprentice mechanic, you know. I’m saving up for driving lessons, and to get married as well …’
‘You’re still set on Mary Ellen then?’ Wendy twinkled at him. ‘I remember seeing you at the Christmas party last year … under the mistletoe …’
‘Yeah.’ Billy’s cheeks were slightly pink. ‘We’re promised to each other, but Mary Ellen’s sister won’t let her marry me until I’m doing a proper job – and it will be years before I’m through my apprenticeship.’
‘Well, you’re too young to marry yet, either of you,’ Wendy said. ‘I haven’t seen Mary Ellen for a long time. Is she still working at Parker’s clothing factory in Stepney? I was surprised when she went there; I thought she was set on being a teacher.’
‘Rose made her leave school and be apprenticed in the rag trade,’ Billy said. ‘When she took her to live with her in that posh council flat … Gone up in the world now she’s Sister O’Hanran, has our Rose …’ His eyes flashed with mischief.
‘Well, that is something to be proud of,’ Wendy said. ‘Rose worked very hard, and she always promised that she would have Mary Ellen to live with her when she could afford her own place.’
‘Mary Ellen wanted to stay here with me.’
‘It’s only because Sister Beatrice likes you that you can stay,’ Wendy reminded him. ‘Most of the boys leave at fifteen and you’re eighteen now.’
‘Yeah and I ought to be earning more money,’ Billy grumbled. ‘Well, I’ll get out of your way then …’
Wendy smiled as the good-looking lad left the ward. Billy was like one of her family now. She’d come to the home a year or so after he did and she’d stopped on, just as Billy had. He was a part of the place and helped out with little jobs that needed doing. Mr Morris was the caretaker, but in an ancient building like this there was always something that needed doing: washers on taps, cracked basins, stained ceilings when there was a leak in the bathroom, which Billy had found and fixed without them needing to call in a plumber. Sister Beatrice said Billy was useful, and as he had no family around she’d let him stay on, even though he was working. Wendy suspected the stern nun had a soft spot for the rebellious boy who’d done so well since he joined them at St Saviour’s. He ate sandwiches at work during the day but had his breakfast and supper with the older boys at the home, many of whom still looked up to him. Billy had gained quite a reputation for winning cups for running and football, and he still acted as a monitor at times, keeping some of the wilder ones in order and taking them to football practice in a battered old shooting brake he and a friend borrowed sometimes. Once he’d passed his driving test and could drive without supervision, he hoped to get a small van of his own. It would help with the football team he’d organised for the local youth club, to which most of the lads belonged.
Sister Beatrice had been given the discretion to choose when her children were ready to move on. It was the one clause she’d stipulated when the contracts had been drawn up and the local authority moved in.
‘I must be allowed to decide when my children are sufficiently settled to move on,’ she’d said, fighting tooth and nail for the principles she believed in. ‘Moving a disturbed or vulnerable child out to a place where he or she feels isolated or uneasy can set them back years. While I agree that the fresh air and better facilities at Halfpenny House are so much better for them, their mental state and ability to accept that move is paramount. If everything is to be done in a matter of days I am not the person for the job.’
Mark and Angela had done battle on her behalf, both with the Board of St Saviour’s charity, and the local authorities, who had wanted to impose their own ideas. However, such was the esteem she was held in by the local police, community bigwigs and general population, that her terms were accepted, and even Miss Ruth Sampson, who was still in overall charge of the local Children’s Department, had agreed that they needed Sister Beatrice if the swell of public feeling was to be appeased. Over the years of hardship she’d become firmly entrenched in the hearts and minds of the people of the area and was known as the Angel of ’Alfpenny Street to everyone. Women who slammed their doors in the faces of the council busybodies opened them to Sister Beatrice with a smile and the offer of a cup of tea.
St Saviour’s wasn’t quite the same as it had been in Angela’s time. She’d started up all kinds of schemes to keep the children busy and formed a team spirit amongst the orphans, most of whom had known poverty and tragedy. These days the children were brought here for a while to get over their bereavement and to learn to cope with life again without the parents they’d lost, but then most were moved out to Halfpenny House in Essex, unless they were considered to need a more specialised home. Billy was different. He would never have settled anywhere but the East End of London, and because she knew that, Sister Beatrice had provided him with a home until he could find his own.
Wendy knew how difficult it was to find somewhere decent to live. She’d stayed on in the nurses’ home for a while and taken her time before getting herself a nice little maisonette in one of the renovated buildings within walking distance of St Saviour’s, but she hadn’t done that until after she knew