Chapter Thirty

On Holly’s day off she was pleased to see her mother’s friend, Mrs Sunday Branning, arrive. She and her mother were of a similar age and had been friends for years. She often dropped in for coffee and a chat and was more than a little fond of Holly who she had known since she was a baby. Sunday was a very kind and caring woman and some years before she and her husband Tom had turned their lovely home in Hartshill into a children’s home called Treetops. They were well known for taking in waifs and strays and treating them as their own and as a child Holly had spent many a happy day there. Today Sunday was looking very pretty in a smart two-piece costume in a soft blue colour that complemented her eyes and her lovely blonde hair was fastened into an elegant chignon beneath a matching hat that she wore at a jaunty angle on the side of her head. Anyone seeing her would have found it hard to believe that she was almost forty-three years old, for she carried her age well.

‘Hello, love,’ Sunday greeted her when Holly joined her and her mother in the drawing room. ‘I came into town to get some new clothes for some of the children. I swear they grow like weeds.’ She chuckled. ‘Anyway, while I was here I thought I’d pop in to see your mam. It’s a good excuse for half an hour’s quiet. But how are you? Your mam tells me you’re working at the cottage hospital now.’

Holly nodded. ‘Yes, I am and I’m enjoying it although you see some sad sights.’ As an idea suddenly occurred to her she asked cautiously, ‘I don’t suppose you have a spare place for another child at Treetops by any chance, do you?’

Sunday raised an eyebrow. ‘Why do you ask? Do you know of an orphan that needs a home then?’

‘Well … not an orphan exactly,’ Holly admitted. ‘Although he may as well be. There’s a little boy in Mary Ward at the moment. He’s six years old and his name is Robbie.’ She went on to tell Sunday all about the position he was in as Sunday listened sympathetically.

‘Poor little mite,’ Sunday sighed when Holly was finished. ‘And you say his mother doesn’t even want him home?’

Holly nodded. ‘That’s right, she’s an awful woman. Robbie was in a terrible state when he first came in and she didn’t even bother to come and visit him. But he’s on the mend now, although it was touch-and-go for a time whether or not he would make it.’ She grinned. ‘Mind you, I can’t pretend he’s an angel. The first time I met him he threatened to kick my arse if I tried to get him into the bath. He’s a right little character. But now Matron is saying that she thinks she’ll have to get a place for him in the workhouse. We can’t just turf him out to go back onto the streets.’