‘I am in charge of this institution, Mother McLevy, in case you have forgotten.’
‘You won’t be in charge of bo-diddly when I’ve finished - Matron.’ The slight pause was insulting.
‘You really think you can get the better of me?’ The Matron’s tone had lost its condescending note and the words were almost spat out of her mouth, a slight northern accent apparent for the first time. ‘I’ve dealt with people like you all my life, let me tell you. You don’t know your place, never have done, but I’ll teach it to you, never you fear. You
dare
to threaten me—’
‘An’ what are you goin’ to do about it, my fine mare?’ Maggie had handed Sarah to Jessie Bryant as the tirade started, and now she thrust her face close to the other woman, who had drawn herself off the wall and was leaning slightly forward, like a giant bird preparing to peck. ‘Whip me, like you do the little ’uns? Well I’d like to see you try. Aye, I would, because it wouldn’t be me who’d bear the scars - I’d see you in hell first. You’ve only survived here this long ’cos to work here in the first place means we’re desperate for a job, an’ you know it - aye, an’ use it. But not any longer. I’m tellin’ you I’ll bring you low.’
To say that the Matron was taken aback by this warning, spoken as it was in a low controlled voice without a hint of fear, was putting it mildly. It was clear she couldn’t believe her ears, but it was only a second or two before she came back with, ‘You’ll regret this day, Maggie McLevy, I’ll see to that. Now get out, and take that brat with you.’
‘I’m goin’ as far as the infirmary, an’ I’m not leavin’ the bairn’s side either.’ It was clear Maggie didn’t put anything past the Matron, and this was confirmed when she added, ‘An’ there’s more than me witness to this day’s business, just you remember that. I want Dr March to the bairn afore nightfall, I’m warnin’ you.’
‘
You
are warning
me
?’
‘Aye, that’s right.’ Maggie’s voice was higher now, with something in its depths that made the woman in front of her take a step backwards. ‘You think you’re so high falutin’, with your airs an’ graces an’ prissy way of talkin’. Well, shall I tell you what I see when I look at you?
Scum!
’
As the Matron’s eyes narrowed and her jaw thrust out, Maggie pressed home what her instinctive knowledge had told her.
‘You might fool the rest of ’em, the poor blind mares, but you can’t pull the wool over my eyes. You’re nothin’, you came from nothin’ an’ you’ll return to it. Gutter scum, plain an’ simple.’
‘
How dare you
.’
‘An’ one day you’ll suffer for what you’ve done to this bairn an’ others like her; God’s arm is long an’ He won’t be mocked.’
‘Get out,
get out
.’
‘Aye, I’m goin’, an’ I want that doctor afore dark.’
The doctor arrived just before tea time and when Maggie saw him walk into the infirmary she knew God was on her side. In spite of her brave words earlier she had been sitting worrying about Dr March; she needed medical verification to take the matter further and the Home’s doctor was an old ally of Matron, as well as being a nasty bit of work in his own right. But the tall young man who strode ahead of Matron didn’t look the sort to be bought off.
He wasn’t.
‘Where’s Dr March?’
Maggie had risen at the doctor’s approach and now he glanced at her briefly as he said, ‘Sick. Is this the young lady who has fallen? Sarah, isn’t it?’
It was a cultured voice, definitely not of Sunderland origin and in strict contrast to Dr March’s broad twang.
‘Fallen?’ Maggie’s tone was high. ‘Is that what she’s told you?’
‘Are you saying this young lady
hasn’t
fallen off a wall into broken glass and brambles?’
‘Doctor, please, I’ve told you what occurred.’ Matron was at her most regal, but Maggie was pleased to note it was water off a duck’s back as far as the young doctor was concerned.
‘Well?’ He didn’t acknowledge the woman behind him had spoken by so much as the flicker of an eyelash as he held Maggie’s gaze.
‘Judge for yourself, lad.’ Maggie whipped back the worn, coarse cotton sheet, which was all Sarah could bear on her seared tortured flesh, to reveal the thin little body criss-crossed with lines, some blue-black and others red and stiff with dried blood. ‘I’ve not seen a thorn bush in me life as could do that.’
‘Neither have I, Mrs -?’
‘McLevy, Maggie McLevy.’ She had heard his sudden intake of breath when the cover was thrown back, and seen the tightening of his mouth, but now he pulled the sheet back into place and his voice was gentle when he said, ‘How did this happen, Sarah? Can you tell me?’
The pain in her body had been bearable since Mother McLevy had given her half a teaspoonful of the medicine she kept for when her rheumatism was bad - the laudanum, tincture of opium, had been a heavy dose for a child - but now she found her mind was muzzy when she tried to answer the doctor. ‘She . . . she beat me.’
‘Who beat you, Sarah?’ The voice was still gentle but when Sarah heard the Matron speak from behind the big figure bending over her, the tone was razor sharp as it said, ‘Quiet, woman.’
‘Quiet, woman.’ He’d said ‘quiet, woman’ to the Matron? Sarah forced her eyes wide open now and tried to focus on the male face close to hers.
‘Don’t be frightened, no one is going to hurt you.’ The incongruity of the statement, considering the flagellation the child had endured, and which his mind was still struggling to accept, made his voice terse when he added, ‘Never again anyway. You can speak freely, Sarah, and you have my word that whoever did this will be punished.’
The word ‘punished’, when linked with the Matron, had always had the power to make her feel sick in the past, but now she found that that particular demon had been scourged along with her flesh, and no longer had the mastery over her. ‘I didn’t want . . .’
‘Yes?’ It was soft and encouraging.
‘I didn’t want to take me drawers down.’
‘You didn’t want . . . ?’
‘To take me drawers down, to be caned. It - it’s not proper, but Matron said I’d got to and I didn’t want to.’
Her voice was thick, the words faint but perfectly distinguishable, and as Maggie’s eyes met those of the doctor over Sarah’s head, he shut his for one infinitesimal moment, red-hot anger flooding his body. What the hell had been going on here? This was 1937, not the dark ages. He’d thought this sort of thing had gone out along with forcing children up chimneys to be burnt alive and other such barbaric niceties the Victorian era had perpetuated.
‘No one is going to make you do anything you don’t want to do again, Sarah.’ Twice, during his exchange with the child, the figure behind him had begun to speak and twice he had brought his hand out in a cutting gesture behind him. ‘Has she had any medication?’ He spoke directly to Maggie now and she answered him without prevarication.
‘Some of me laudanum, she needed it.’
‘She really needs to go into hospital.’
‘I don’t want to.’
Both pairs of eyes returned to the mound under the sheet, and the doctor’s voice was gentle again when he said, ‘Hospital is the best place for you, Sarah, and you’ll be well looked after.’
‘I don’t want to leave the Mother.’
‘Now, Sarah, lass. You listen to the doctor—’
‘I don’t want to go, Mother McLevy.’ Sarah cut across her friend’s voice, her own high with apprehension. ‘And you said’ - the deep blue eyes in the white little face fastened on the doctor now - ‘you said no one was going to make me do anything I didn’t want to do, didn’t you?’
If the situation had been different Maggie could have laughed at the look on the young doctor’s face. As it was, she put out her hand and touched his sleeve as she said, ‘I can nurse her. I’ve had some practice in me life afore now an’ I know what to do. She’ll be better here, with me - less upset like.’
‘And you can make sure she isn’t bothered in any way?’
His meaning was clear, and Maggie nodded grimly as she said, ‘Oh I can promise you that, Doctor. Indeed I can.’
‘Yes, I think you probably can.’ His smile was brief, but it left Maggie thinking that she bet he’d caused quite a stir among the female populace of Sunderland high society. ‘I’ll help you dress the wounds now. The bandages will need changing twice a day and the salve that I give you will stain the bedding but use plenty of it, it will help prevent scarring. There’s a nasty lesion on her neck, watch that, and no more of the laudanum please. I’ll give you a sedative which will dull the pain and keep her quiet for the next forty-eight hours, after that it won’t be so painful. I’ll call by tomorrow to see how things are.’
‘Thank you, Doctor.’
He turned now, very deliberately, and faced the tall figure behind him over whom he towered by at least six inches. ‘I shall make a full report to the governors on the state of this child, you understand that, Matron? And also to the authorities, with a recommendation that a thorough investigation is carried out.’
‘What are you suggesting?’ But she was frightened. This young upstart wasn’t like Dr March. Dr March she could handle; they understood each other, and the considerable amount of whisky he poured down his throat in her sitting room after each visit oiled any wheels that needed oiling. But this one . . .
‘Suggesting? I am not
suggesting
anything, Matron, I am telling you that I intend to make a formal complaint to the governors about what I have seen here today, and also to contact the child welfare authority so that my observations do not get . . . mislaid.’
‘They won’t let you. The governors won’t let you do that.’
‘The board will have no say in the matter one way or the other, and incidentally’ - there was a telling pause, and he narrowed his eyes at her before he said, ‘I think you should know Dr March’s illness is of a nature that will make it impossible for him to return to work in the foreseeable future. Now would you please leave. I intend to treat this child’s injuries.’
‘I shall need to speak with you when you have finished here.’
‘I have nothing further to say to you, Matron.’ His lip curled on the last word, his voice deepening and betraying the anger which he was struggling to keep under control.
‘There are things I need to make clear—’
‘If I have my way you will never be in charge of young lives again, is
that
clear enough for you? Now get out.’
When she made no effort to move, he took hold of one arm, manhandling her to the door where she jerked free, her face turkey red and her eyes hot as she hissed, ‘Let go of me - who do you think you are? I’ve been Matron here for twenty years—’ ‘Twenty years too long.’ He glared back at her, his hostility matching hers before he bundled her out of the door and slammed it shut on her furious voice. ‘Now then.’ Maggie watched his back straighten and his shoulders flex before he turned to face the room. ‘Let’s make you a little more comfortable, shall we, Sarah?’
Maggie and the doctor were both sweating by the time they had finished; not with the heat, although the day was a warm one for late September and the long narrow room with its row of iron beds had little ventilation, but with the distress Sarah’s pain caused them.
Rodney Mallard was glad he had sent the Matron out of his way before he had begun ministering to the girl. He would likely have strangled her with his bare hands if she had remained. How someone could do this to a child was beyond him. Maggie said much the same thing as she drew the sheet back over Sarah’s body and walked across to the far side of the room, where he was washing his hands in the tin dish that served as a washbasin, a chipped enamel jug standing beside it.
‘Past belief, eh, Doctor?’ She gestured at the occupant of the bed. ‘But I can tell you I was right glad when I saw you walk into this room. I’d have had a fight on me hands with old Dr March. He’s turned a blind eye that often he’ll be needin’ a white stick.’
‘This sort of thing is
usual
?’
‘I wouldn’t say usual exactly, or at least . . . not as bad as this any road, but she lays into ’em regular, an’ not with her hand.’