All I Have to Give (41 page)

‘Eeh, Hattie, why?’

‘Cos I’m scared of ending up like Daisy.’

‘Daisy? I didn’t know as she’d been in touch. Don’t she like her placement?’

‘I saw her the day I had to go into Leeds to have me tooth pulled. Sister Bernadette made me wait outside a shop. I wandered up the street and bumped into Daisy, and she told me
she’d left her placement.’

‘You didn’t say . . .’

‘I know. I couldn’t think how, cos of what I found out, and you had worries enough over what would be happening to you. Anyroad, Daisy’s working the streets. She hadn’t
eaten for two days, so I gave her the cab fare Sister’d pinned to me coat in case we got separated. I told Sister it must have come unfastened.’

‘Oh, Hattie, is that the gutter as the Reverend Mother spoke of? This “working the streets”?’

‘Aye, I reckon it is, by the looks of Daisy. But she said things’ll get better for her. She’s been accepted on the patch, and has a couple of customers of her own.’

‘But what is it she has to do? Is it cleaning or sommat?’

‘Oh, Meg! You daft ha’p’orth!’ Hattie’s giggling had Megan doubled over, as it always did, but she couldn’t help feeling Hattie was privy to something she
didn’t know about.

‘They sell themselves. You know? To men. They let men do things to them. Things as men do to make you have babbies. Only they don’t keep having babbies, cos they have ways to stop
that happening.’

‘How do you know of such things, Hattie?’

‘Daisy told me everything as a sort of warning, cos she knew as I’d likely end up in service. She wanted me to watch out for meself. She told me her master forced her to do it with
him, so she had to run away. She made her way to Leeds and looked for a job, but no one would take her on without a reference. She met this girl who tried to help her, but in the end all the girl
could do was take her to the house where she lived. Daisy said she had no choice after that. There’s this bloke who owns the house and he made her work the streets or she’d be for
it.’

‘Oh, Hattie!’

‘I know. It’s why I’m scared, Meg. The girl said it happens a lot. She said as some top-drawer folk seem to think they have a right to do it, and him as did it to Daisy is
known for it.’

‘Eeh, no. What will you do?’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort sommat. I’ll work hard until Christmas and give them no reason not to give me a reference, and then I’ll make up a story about having to
leave. I don’t know what yet.’

‘But you might settle. It might be as your master is a good ’un. But if he isn’t, you’ll come to me, won’t your I’ll help you, Hattie. I’ll have me
first wage an’ all by then and I’ll give it to you.’

‘Ta, Megan. Eeh, I’m going to miss you.’

A silence fell. Hattie’s hand felt warm and clammy inside her own and the fear Hattie felt had now entered Megan, but she had no idea what to do. A thought came to her, something that had
bothered her for a while. ‘Thou knows, Hattie? I don’t even know how . . . well, how babbies happen. I’ve been thinking about it since we started our bleeding and Sister
Bernadette sent us to Mrs Hartley.’

‘Aye, I know. I were the same. It were with Mrs Hartley saying we had to watch ourselves and not let boys have their way with us, or we’d end up pregnant. It set me thinking on it.
But I know now. I could tell you, if you like?’

Megan said nothing, wanting to know, but not wanting to say so.

‘Well, Daisy told me the man . . .’

A tickly sensation in her private part – as Sister Bernadette called the part of them she never allowed them to expose – shocked and embarrassed Megan as she listened to Hattie. And
all she could think to say was, ‘Does it hurt?’

‘Daisy said it did the first time, but it isn’t bad after that.’

‘I suppose it can’t be, cos women keep having babbies, don’t they? Anyroad, happen as poor Daisy were unlucky in the placement they sent her to. Where was it?’

‘I don’t know. I were that shocked over what she told me, I forgot to ask her. Still, I shouldn’t be going on. Your placement doesn’t sound that good, either – not
with that Madame woman thinking of you as she does.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll be reet. It’ll be worth it. Just think: I’ll be learning to make frocks and gowns! And maybe sommat’ll come of me drawings. Wouldn’t
that be wonderful, eh? To see me drawings being made up, out of satins and suchlike . . .’

‘Ah, Megan and Hattie, here you are!’

Megan held her breath. Being caught in idle chit-chat was one of the deadliest sins. She hadn’t heard the chinking of keys or the dull jangle of huge wooden rosary beads – the sounds
that warned of an approaching nun. Peering into the dim corridor, she saw the outline of a plump figure, hazed by a flowing cream habit, coming towards them.

‘Eeh, Sister Bernadette, it’s you! You gave us a fright.’

‘I expect I did, Hattie.’ The twinkle in Sister Bernadette’s eyes belied the strict retort. ‘I have been looking for you both this good while. Tell me, my wee ones, is it
your placements Reverend Mother has been confirming with you? And is it that you are happy now that you know for sure where it is you’re going?’

Megan and Hattie nodded, but the sense of dread that had come over Megan on hearing of Daisy’s plight and Hattie’s fears deepened. Sister Bernadette was the only person they could
share their worries with, but she couldn’t talk to her about this. Not with her being a nun, she couldn’t.

‘And you, Megan? Is it pleased you are at knowing at last that you can go to Madame Marie’s?’

‘Oh yes, Sister. I can’t believe it! Ta ever so much.’

‘’Tis the good Lord you have to be thanking for giving you such a talent, Megan. Not that He missed out on giving you something when He was at the making of you either, Hattie dear.
You have many virtues: your kind ways and a willingness to help others, amongst many others. You will do well, too. I’m sure of it.’

Tears rolled down Hattie’s cheeks as she nodded her head, and Megan felt her own eyes fill up at the sight.

Sister Bernadette patted Hattie on the shoulder as she continued, ‘The house you are going to, Hattie, is beautiful, so it is. Lord Marley’s country residence is on the outskirts of
Leeds on the road to Sheffield. And Megan, Madame Marie’s is in the centre of Leeds itself and her salons are wonderful.’

Even the new experience of riding the motor-bus to and from the station didn’t lift Megan’s spirits. The suffocating nearness of the strangers travelling with them,
the rumbling and vibrating of the engine and the discomfort of the jolting over cobbled roads interrupted her reveries.

Sister Bernadette held her hand throughout the return journey, but didn’t speak. Megan didn’t want her to. Never had she felt so miserable. She’d known the parting with Hattie
wasn’t going to be easy, but she hadn’t thought she’d feel such a sense of utter desolation, or that her heart would feel so sore.

The pebbles crunched under her feet as they walked across the courtyard of the convent, and a funny feeling overcame her when the huge wooden doors of the entrance came into view. It was like a
fear mixed with excitement was churning in her belly as she thought of how tomorrow, she’d walk through those doors for the last time and leave everything she knew behind. As if sensing
something in her, Sister Bernadette squeezed her hand. ‘Megan, dear, ’tis as this day had to come, and I have a lot of pain in me because of it, but I have learned over the years to
accept life as it is. Not all that it gives you is fair, and not all that is fair is good. You will come to know this and, when you do, I hope you understand. Now, wee one, I have things to tell
you of, so I have, and ’tis as I have something to give you that belonged to your dear mammy.’

Sister Bernadette’s words, spoken in her lovely Irish lilt, caused a sudden shock to jolt through Megan’s body. Her mam had never been spoken of before. Questions had always been
silenced. All she knew of her own birth was that it had taken place in St Michael’s, a convent for sinful and unmarried pregnant girls.

Once they were inside the convent doors, Sister Bernadette took Megan to her room. ‘Sit yourself down, wee one, whilst I am getting for you what I know will be very special to
you.’

No thick carpet hushed Sister Bernadette’s footsteps or dulled the sound of her keys jangling against her hip as she crossed the room to her desk. Megan sat on the cane chair next to the
brass bed; these two items and the desk were all the sparsely furnished room held. Square and with only one small window, it had a flagstone floor that resembled the one in the children’s
quarters, except that these flagstones shone as if painted with lacquer.

The tension that had been set up in her by knowing she was to hear about her mam made her fidgety, her body hot and sticky with sweat. She watched Sister Bernadette sort through her keys and
insert one into a drawer, before putting her hand inside. A panel to the side of the desk shot open, making Megan jump. Sister Bernadette pulled something from the opening and said, ‘Megan,
what I have here is a locket. Inside is a picture of your granny and granddaddy.’ She paused and made the sign of the cross. ‘To be sure, ’tis sorry I am to have to tell you, wee
one, but,’ she crossed herself again and looked heavenwards, “tis as your poor mammy died just after giving you life. I helped at the birth of you, so I did.’

The pain Megan had held in her chest since saying goodbye to Hattie swelled up into her throat and threatened to strangle the life from her. ‘She – she can’t be dead. I have to
find her. She . . .’

She had been about to say that her mam had been the daughter of rich parents who’d turned her out of the family home and wouldn’t allow her back, unless she gave her babby away. That
had been the make-believe she’d lived her whole life by, along with Hattie, who’d always imagined that her mam had been a princess shipped away in disgrace, leaving her
‘sin’ behind.

‘Now, now, my wee one . . .’

The urge to shout
I’m not your wee one! I’m nobody’s wee one
fought against the part of Megan that could never hurt Sister Bernadette. But though she didn’t
utter the words, she knew them to be the truth. The child she’d once been had now gone. How could her innocence not have dissipated, what with all she had learned today?

The locket, cold against her skin, mocked her. Clamping her fingers tightly around it, she paid no heed as its clasp dug sharply into her flesh – better to feel this pain than look at the
trinket, which linked her to her past and yet had also wiped out her hopes for the future.

‘Look at it later, if that is what you have a mind to do, my wee Megan. But first I will tell you all I know.’

Lying still, her body stiff with anxiety and her mind in turmoil, the night-time hours seemed endless to Megan. A feeling of loneliness swept over her as she looked over at the
bed next to hers. It no longer held the shape of Hattie, curled up in sleep. Always, when troubled, they would creep into each other’s beds and snuggle up together, even though the fear of
being caught was ever present. But now Hattie had gone.

Sliding her hand under her pillow, Megan found the locket. She felt she would be able to look at it now. She sat up. Holding her breath, she waited tentatively, but no one questioned her
movements. If any of the others were awake, they would whisper something to her. No sound came.

A chill shivered through her body as she tiptoed towards the door leading to the corridor. Once there, she opened her clasped fingers. As the light from the gas mantle that shone through the
door’s little window refracted against the locket, Megan’s breath caught in anticipation. Opening the locket would allow her to see members of her family for the first time. Even the
word seemed strange to her – ‘family’. A nervous excitement rippled through her:
Eeh, I never thought to know of any family, and now I have pictures of me grandparents in a
locket worn by me mam.
Did she look like them? Had her mam looked like them? she wondered.

Sister Bernadette had said that her grandparents had died before she came into being. In a way she was glad of that, as it meant they hadn’t abandoned her mam when she’d most needed
them.

Turning the locket over, she read the words ‘To Catch a Dream’ inscribed in the tarnished, dented silver. Had her granddad had that engraved for her granny? She had so many questions
that needed answering.

A tiny click and the locket opened. Two people looked up at her, but they didn’t look like grandparents. The picture had been taken when they were young. Her granny’s huge, smiling
eyes held love, and her granddad, though not smiling, had a twinkle about his expression. Both were beautiful. Tears started to form in Megan’s eyes, but then a warm feeling overtook the
sadness. She saw that she had some likeness to both of them, which went some way towards lessening the woes of a lifetime spent feeling abandoned. Granny had unruly, wavy hair just like her own,
and the freckles on her nose were identical to Megan’s. Granddad had the same high-cut cheekbones as she had, and his eyes, with their slight upward slant that gave them a near-Oriental look,
mirrored her own.

The aged brown tint to the photo didn’t hide the fact that her granddad’s complexion was darker than her granny’s. People often said that Megan had olive skin, so she was like
him in that sense as well.

Sister Bernadette had said she couldn’t remember their names. She hadn’t written them down, and she’d hesitated over her mam’s name, as if she’d forgotten that too.
‘I think her name was Br – Brenda. Brenda, that’s right. Brenda Tattler,’ she’d said. Then she’d told Megan that her mam hadn’t been wicked, and that her
conception had been the result of an attack by someone her mam’d trusted. She’d gone on to say, ‘Everything isn’t for being straightforward in life, Megan. ’Tis better
you don’t dwell on how you wish things to be, but get on with them how they are. Just be thankful your mammy left you something to hold on to.’

Getting back into her bed and laying her head on the pillow, Megan mulled over these words in her mind. Swallowing hard to stem the tears that threatened to flow, she told herself she’d do
as Sister had said: she’d not dwell on the sadness of parting from Hattie, or of finding out her mam was dead; and she wouldn’t agonize over being alone in an attic and not being good
enough for the other girls on her placement to talk to. Instead, she’d think of her family and talk to them. She’d heard you could do that with those who had passed on. The locket had
given her folk of her own – folk who would have loved her – and now she knew of them, they’d watch over her and help her. Lifting her head, she pulled the pillow down and wrapped
her arms around it. A cold, wet trickle ran from her nose. She held the pillow tighter and snuggled into it.