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Authors: Annie Groves
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Because if she did, she was bound to ask her how she had got on this afternoon going to look at that room she had been supposed to go and see.
She had intended to go. Sheâd got the directions to it from Cook, whose husband worked on the London trams and knew everywhere, and sheâd told herself that it was silly for her to feel so alone and afraid. After all, she was seventeen, and most of the orphans had to leave the orphanage at fourteen. Sheâd been lucky that Matron had taken pity on her and allowed her to stay on and work to earn her keep.
To Agnes the orphanage wasnât just her home, it was her whole life. The orphanage had taken her in when she had been left on its doorstep as an almost newly born baby, left in a shopping basket wrapped in a shabby pink blanket, which she still had, and wearing a flannelette nightdress and a nappy.
All of the other orphans knew something of their parentage and many of them had family, even if that family could not afford to house and feed them. Agnes was unique in the fact that she had no one. Thereâd been articles in the papers about her, Cook had once told her, attempts made to find the mother who had abandoned her. Sometimes even now Agnes looked at her reflection in the mirror and had wondered if she bore any resemblance to that mother, if her mother also had pale skin that flushed too easily, a pointed chin, pale blue eyes and light brown hair that sometimes refused to curl and at others curled where she didnât want it to. Had she been thin, like Agnes herself was? However much she thought and wondered, even ached privately about her mother, Agnes never thought about her father. Cook had, after all, come right out with what no one else would lower themselves to say, especially Matron, who was so good and who had been a missionary in Africa in her youth, and that was that a baby who had been abandoned on an orphanage doorstep probably did not have a father, at least not a respectable married-to-her-mother kind of father, a father who would want to acknowledge that Agnes was his daughter.
Agnes didnât really mind being an orphan. Not like some of the other children, who came into the orphanage when they were older and who could remember their parents. Those children had been Agnesâs special little ones before she had been told that she had to leave. She had comforted them and assured them that they would come to like being at the orphanage and feel safe there, like she did. Agnes feared the outside world. She feared being judged by it because of her birth. She rarely left the orphanage other than to go to church and to walk with a crocodile of children escorting them on some improving visit to a museum or a walk in Hyde Park. At fourteen, when other orphans her age were boasting about the fun they would have when they were free of the orphanageâs rules and restrictions, she had cried under her bedclothes for weeks, she had been so miserable at the thought of leaving.
That had been when Matron had said that she could stay on and work to earn her keep. She had been so grateful, feeling that her prayers had been answered and that she would be safe for ever. But now this war they might be having meant that the orphanage was being evacuated to another church orphanage in the country and that there wouldnât be room for Agnes, or for some of the other staff either.
Matron had explained it all to her and had told her that they had found her a job working at Chancery Lane underground station, selling tickets, and a room in a house owned by a friend of a vicarâs wife.
âYouâll like it at the station, Agnes,â she had said. âAnd you know it well, from taking the little ones there on the underground. As for the landlady, she has a daughter your own age, and I am sure that the two of you will quickly become good friends.â Matron had told her this in that jolly kind of voice that people used when they didnât want
She had intended to go. Sheâd got the directions to it from Cook, whose husband worked on the London trams and knew everywhere, and sheâd told herself that it was silly for her to feel so alone and afraid. After all, she was seventeen, and most of the orphans had to leave the orphanage at fourteen. Sheâd been lucky that Matron had taken pity on her and allowed her to stay on and work to earn her keep.
To Agnes the orphanage wasnât just her home, it was her whole life. The orphanage had taken her in when she had been left on its doorstep as an almost newly born baby, left in a shopping basket wrapped in a shabby pink blanket, which she still had, and wearing a flannelette nightdress and a nappy.
All of the other orphans knew something of their parentage and many of them had family, even if that family could not afford to house and feed them. Agnes was unique in the fact that she had no one. Thereâd been articles in the papers about her, Cook had once told her, attempts made to find the mother who had abandoned her. Sometimes even now Agnes looked at her reflection in the mirror and had wondered if she bore any resemblance to that mother, if her mother also had pale skin that flushed too easily, a pointed chin, pale blue eyes and light brown hair that sometimes refused to curl and at others curled where she didnât want it to. Had she been thin, like Agnes herself was? However much she thought and wondered, even ached privately about her mother, Agnes never thought about her father. Cook had, after all, come right out with what no one else would lower themselves to say, especially Matron, who was so good and who had been a missionary in Africa in her youth, and that was that a baby who had been abandoned on an orphanage doorstep probably did not have a father, at least not a respectable married-to-her-mother kind of father, a father who would want to acknowledge that Agnes was his daughter.
Agnes didnât really mind being an orphan. Not like some of the other children, who came into the orphanage when they were older and who could remember their parents. Those children had been Agnesâs special little ones before she had been told that she had to leave. She had comforted them and assured them that they would come to like being at the orphanage and feel safe there, like she did. Agnes feared the outside world. She feared being judged by it because of her birth. She rarely left the orphanage other than to go to church and to walk with a crocodile of children escorting them on some improving visit to a museum or a walk in Hyde Park. At fourteen, when other orphans her age were boasting about the fun they would have when they were free of the orphanageâs rules and restrictions, she had cried under her bedclothes for weeks, she had been so miserable at the thought of leaving.
That had been when Matron had said that she could stay on and work to earn her keep. She had been so grateful, feeling that her prayers had been answered and that she would be safe for ever. But now this war they might be having meant that the orphanage was being evacuated to another church orphanage in the country and that there wouldnât be room for Agnes, or for some of the other staff either.
Matron had explained it all to her and had told her that they had found her a job working at Chancery Lane underground station, selling tickets, and a room in a house owned by a friend of a vicarâs wife.
âYouâll like it at the station, Agnes,â she had said. âAnd you know it well, from taking the little ones there on the underground. As for the landlady, she has a daughter your own age, and I am sure that the two of you will quickly become good friends.â Matron had told her this in that jolly kind of voice that people used when they didnât want
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