Chapters (52)
- Cover
- Margaret Dickinson
- Dedication page
- Contents
- Part One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Part Two
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Sow the Seed
- Note
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- Copyright page
Kate went – thankfully. She was relieved to find the dormitory empty, and having paid a visit to the bathroom she undressed and lay down in the narrow, hard bed.
The sounds of the large building were all around her: voices, footsteps, doors banging, and the chimes of the cathedral clock only a short distance away. When the other girls came to bed, Kate lay with her head buried beneath the covers and pretended to be asleep. No one spoke to her or about her. It was as if she were not even there. When the room was in darkness she lay listening to the breathing of the nine other girls in the room and knew sleep would be impossible. She felt closed in and longed for the cool marsh breezes and the sound of the sea – and Danny.
At the thought of Danny she stuffed the sheet into her mouth to stifle a sob.
Then she remembered the whelk shell; a little piece of home. Quietly, she turned back the covers and swung her feet to the floor. She was half-way between her bed and the wardrobe when light flooded into the room and Kate turned, blinking in the sudden brightness, to see the Matron standing in the doorway.
‘What are you doing out of bed, girl?’
The polished floorboards were icy beneath her bare feet. Kate shivered, not so much from cold as from knowing that every girl in the room was wide awake and listening.
‘Well?’ snapped the Matron.
‘I was just getting summat from me coat in the wardrobe.’
Blanket-muffled laughter sounded.
‘What is it you want?’
Kate hesitated, searching desperately. ‘Me – me hanky.’
‘Have you not got a clean one in your bedside drawer?’
‘I – dun’t know.’
‘Oh, very well, but hurry up.’
Trembling now, Kate opened the door of the wardrobe which squeaked loudly in the silence. Praying fervently, she reached into her coat pocket and felt the hard roundness of the whelk shell and beneath it – ‘Oh thank you, thank you’ – the softness of her white handkerchief.
Fumbling a little, she wrapped the shell in the handkerchief and held it tightly in the palm of her hand before she withdrew it from her pocket. When she turned back to face the Matron, only one corner of the hanky showed in her hand.
The woman nodded briefly and closed the door, plunging the room into darkness once more.
Kate climbed into bed and buried her head beneath the covers to unwrap the shell.
Only then, with the sound of the sea in her ear, did she fall asleep.
Eight
‘Katharine Hilton!’ Matron’s voice rose above the hubbub as the girls scurried to and from the bathroom the next morning. ‘Your bath nights are Tuesdays and Fridays, and you will wash your hair each Friday.’
Kate felt the woman’s eyes take in the long flowing auburn hair that tumbled untidily down her back, so long that she could almost sit on it.