Dandy Gilver and a Most Misleading Habit by McPherson Catriona

Author:McPherson, Catriona [Catriona McPherson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2016-05-23T00:00:00+00:00

15

Dorothy and Irene, I learned, had not just been drafted in to babysit after coming to the top of the pile in some kind of rota; it was their regular daily work to assist the nurses in the care of the orphans. When I got to the orphans’ side, rather more soberly dressed than I had been, it was to see through the dining-room window Sister Dorothy leading a crocodile of hand-in-hand tots over the playground to the kindergarten, which ran along the other side, while Sister Irene disappeared through a door at the far end with a fat toddler under each arm.

‘Does Sister Dorothy teach the children?’ I asked Nurse Pirrie, Nurse Matt’s deputy. I did not fancy disrupting a lesson, but much less did I fancy going to watch and possibly help Irene remove the remnants of breakfast from those two wriggling little bundles.

‘No, she just takes them over and goes to fetch them at playtime,’ said Nurse Pirrie, who was scalding feeding bottles. Two large prams with a pair of infants in each were parked outside the open kitchen door. All four babies were soundly asleep; unsurprising, given the size of the bottles Nurse Pirrie was cleaning. I had seen shepherds offer smaller dinners of warm milk to muscular eight-week-old lambs. ‘Sister Steven is the infant mistress,’ she went on. ‘Sister John teaches mathematics, geography and history to the big ones and she’s training up Sister Winifred. And Sister Mary teaches them English literature, French and singing, with Sister Joan’s help.’

They were all, I considered, from those dozing milk-fat little grubs wrapped tightly in blankets in the watery sunshine, up to the biggest of the boys I had seen on top of the wall, doing rather well for themselves. The two classes could hardly have fifteen apiece and I had not missed the way Sister Dorothy had swung the hands of the two children at the head of the procession, nor how Sister Irene’s armfuls had squealed with pleasure as she bounced them. There were many children in this land whose parents paid a pretty price for boarding schools but who did not receive half the attentions of a St Ultan’s child. I stopped myself just in time before letting into my head the thought that they were lucky.

‘I met some of the older boys when they came to the chapel wall to say a prayer for Mother Mary,’ I said, leading into the topic.

Nurse Pirrie giggled. ‘Aye, they said,’ she told me and I shared a self-deprecating laugh with her.

‘Including one whose mother was one of your success stories,’ I said. ‘But whose father is less fortunate, I believe.’

Nurse Pirrie’s smile faded and she heaved a hefty sigh.

‘Sandy Molloy,’ she said. ‘That’s a sad tale.’ She looked out through the doorway at the sleeping babies. She was in her outdoor shoes and hat and a warm coat was waiting over the back of a nearby chair; clearly her plan was to take one of the prams and give the babies their airing.

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