Chapter Twenty

THE PRISONER

Though Margaret had been busy trying to hear in which direction they were going, she had also made a plan for her arrival. ‘It’s a busy part of London,’ she thought. ‘She may think she’ll take me in without anybody seeing but if I can’t shout I can wriggle.’

It was a very rough, horribly dirty lane in which the cab stopped. Because the fog was at last lifting, the women were gathered outside gossiping about how bad the fog had been.

Although there were frequent street brawls when they knocked each other about, as a rule the women were friendly for they shared two things in common: grinding poverty and a detestation of the police. About this last they ganged together. They might know a lot the police would like to hear but they never said a word that might incriminate their neighbours. So when a cab drew up outside Number Four and the driver carried a struggling child, tied round the legs with rope, up the steps and into the house they all scattered. Only when the door was shut, and Margaret and Matron inside, and the cab had driven away, did they draw together again to mutter, ‘Poor kiddie.’ – ‘That’s another for ’er to starve.’ – ‘It’s a shame.’ – ‘Somebody did ought to report ’er.’

When the driver threw Margaret on to the floor she knocked her head so badly that for a few seconds she was unconscious. When she regained her senses Matron was muttering at her.

‘I suppose you think you are somebody, acting a big part at The Dolphin Theatre, but you’ll learn different here. What I need in this house is a skivvy, to clean the place and wait on me. If you don’t do exactly what I say you’ll be punished, and you know what my punishments are like. Now, I am going to untie your legs and wrists so you can make a start on the stairs, the dirt’s that thick there it might be a carpet.’

While the ropes were being untied Margaret tried to think what it would be best to do. It was certain if she did not do what she was told she would be beaten. It was no good thinking of escape for she had heard Matron lock the door after the cab had left. On the other hand, not for one single second was Matron to get away with the idea that she was giving in. She knew a skivvy was a very common way of describing a general maid. The poor little orphans that Matron had kept on after leaving age to work in the orphanage, they were skivvies, and what a life they had led! She, Margaret Thursday, would be nobody’s skivvy, let Matron do what she liked with her.

Because Margaret did so love having lace on her petticoats, for Christmas Sarah had made lace for all her underclothes, something which pleased Margaret every morning when she put them on. That day she was wearing the warmest of what had been Katie’s frocks: a darkish blue wool with a velvet band at the neck and a frill at the bottom of the skirt. Now, lying on what smelt like a very dirty floor and feeling Matron’s hands fumbling with the ropes round her ankles and wrists, she was lifted out of her personal misery by pride. Wait until Matron saw how she was dressed. That would surprise her. She would pretend she was the Little Queen in the play, that would keep her chin up even if Matron dragged her all the way back to the orphanage.