I didn’t reach home until after three o’clock. I’d walked along the railway embankment to find a station, but it was closed, so I’d been forced to walk for another hour to Aldgate and then wait forty minutes for a Metropolitan Railway train.
Constance was in the back room with Aiden and Ciara. She had placed them on chairs facing her.
‘I’ve been telling them about the bones of the body,’ she explained, sounding like a teacher when the headmaster enters the room. ‘What’s this one, Aiden?’ She pointed to her forearm.
‘The ulna,’ he answered in a flat tone. I’d left the back door open and he gazed through it yearningly.
‘And this one, Ciara?’ asked Constance, pointing to her collarbone.
‘The clavicle,’ the little girl replied, looking a good deal more proud than Aiden had. She turned to me with what, at first, I thought was a broad grin, except it wasn’t. She was showing me her teeth. ‘Look, Mr Stanhope.’
She wiggled an upper front one with her finger, and I felt slightly sick. Then she shut her mouth abruptly, with a rueful expression, and spat into her hand. When she opened her palm, the tooth was there, lying in a pool of pink.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, poking her tongue into the new gap.
‘You can put it somewhere for the tooth mouse to find,’ I told her. ‘Maybe he’ll leave you something sweet in return.’
I closed my eyes, realising what I had said. There was no time for a tooth mouse to visit and leave her a pastry. I would be taking her to the orphanage at Newport Street this afternoon. She would never come back here again.
I couldn’t face telling her, so I had to watch her wander around the house with her tooth on a saucer, searching for the best spot, eventually deciding on the corner by the stairs. She placed it there with ceremonial care.
‘The tooth mouse might be busy, you know,’ I said. ‘There are so many children. Why don’t I give you a penny instead?’
She took the coin, but I could see what she was thinking: a penny was very nice, but what about the tooth mouse? What if he came and left something sweet for her to eat, and she didn’t know?
‘And for you as well,’ I said to Aiden, paying off my guilt in pennies.
But what did I have to feel guilty about? I was doing the right thing, wasn’t I?
The Newport Street orphanage was almost completely hidden behind high walls and wooden gates. From the pavement, all I could see was the top storey and the roof, which sprouted chimneys of all different shapes and heights like schoolboys lined up for a photograph.
This is it, I thought. I will leave them in this place. It’s the best outcome for everyone.
I knocked on the main door with a swift bang-bang-bang and could feel Ciara’s hand tighten in mine.
I had packed all their things into the carpet bag, except for their money, which I had kept, for now. I promised myself I would come back and visit them from time to time, and when Aiden reached maturity, I would give it to him. The thought of that moment, of the overjoyed expression on his face, almost soothed my unexpected grief at leaving them.
An elderly woman opened the door. ‘Ah, yes!’ she exclaimed, peering at us through thick spectacles. ‘We were told to expect you. How lovely! Come along in.’
She beckoned us inside, smiling broadly.
The hall was cool and austere, dominated by a large picture of military insignia flanked on either side by rows of smaller paintings of infantrymen in different uniforms. I could hear a woman’s voice echoing down the stone stairs, and children repeating what she’d said. That sound – the dull, uninflected chorus of times tables and spellings – slipped me back to my own school in Enfield in an instant; the hard floor under my feet and the lye in my nostrils.
On my last day at school, aged eleven, my teacher had piled half a dozen books into my arms, wiping her eyes, and had gone back for another book and then another, making me promise to keep reading, no matter what. My father had returned every one of them the next day, saying we had quite enough books at home, which would have been completely true if my interests had extended only to dogs, ornithology and anatomy. It was, in fact, one third true; I did quite like watching birds.
‘Wait here,’ said the elderly woman. ‘I’ll be back in a jiffy.’
She beamed again at the children and shuffled off.
I must say, I was impressed. Sir Reginald had chosen well. While I would have preferred a less martial decorative style, an orphanage must require a fair degree of regulation, and this place seemed perfectly pleasant and sanitary. It was a world away from Oliver Twist.
Ciara kept hold of my hand and pressed herself against my hip. Aiden went to examine the pictures.
‘What do you think?’ I said to him.
‘Do they shoot guns here?’
‘I don’t know.’
He took one of the picture frames and tilted it, so it was hanging crookedly, and stood back to admire his handiwork. I frowned at him, but he didn’t straighten it. They were all exactly aligned except for that one, which was now leaning at an angle like a drunken soldier on parade.
The woman came back with a fellow who I took to be her husband from the way she guided him towards us, her hand at his elbow. He was elderly too, but where she was dressed in a homely fashion, he was neat and smart with not a stray strand of cotton or wisp of hair out of place. He introduced himself as Charles Ramsden.
‘Is this the boy Sir Reginald informed us about?’ He had a sheet of paper in his hand and peered at it. ‘Aiden, is it? How old are you, young man?’
‘Ten.’
‘Ten, sir.’
‘Ten, sir,’ repeated Aiden, though his customary scowl didn’t soften.
Mr Ramsden gave me a reserved smile. ‘Well, I’m sure we can make something of him.’
He half-bowed in a manner both polite and dismissive, and steered Aiden with a firm hand towards the corridor.
‘Lift your chin,’ he instructed the boy. ‘Slouching leads to laxity.’
I have done my best for him, I thought. He will be happy here and properly educated among others of his age. He will grow up and join the army, as my brother had done. It will be a good life.
I felt a shudder run through me; of course, it would not be like my brother, who was a captain last I heard, directing other men into battle and then retiring to the Mess or shooting at jugs for a bet. Aiden would be a … I didn’t even know the word. A troop? There were plenty of former soldiers in London; some, like Alfie, were whole and well, but I had met his friends. One of them was missing a foot and another was so badly burned only half his face was capable of expression. And there were the silences. In the midst of a story, a name would be mentioned – young McNeal or Ted-a-bed – and a wordless breath would follow before the story could continue. I had the feeling that if one of those silences had lasted just a few seconds longer, every man around the table would’ve been in tears.
But none of that was my responsibility. I could only help these two as they were now, not as the adults they would become.
‘Wait,’ I called after Mr Ramsden. ‘What about Ciara?’
He turned and peered back at her as if she was a neighbour’s cat who’d sneaked in. ‘We don’t take girls.’
His wife held out her hand. ‘You don’t want to stay with the boys, do you?’
Ciara buried her face deeper into my coat. I sensed the woman was affronted at having her coaxing skills so summarily spurned.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Where do girls go?’
‘The Good Shepherd orphanage. She’ll do lovely there, I’m sure.’ Mrs Ramsden folded her arms. ‘If she ever comes out.’
‘Where’s The Good Shepherd orphanage?’
It wouldn’t be so bad, I thought, if they could visit one another.
‘Leytonstone.’
‘But that’s … it must be ten miles away!’
Mr Ramsden, who had shown little interest in Ciara’s welfare up to this point, wagged his finger to correct me. ‘It’s eight and a half miles precisely.’
‘But they’ll be separated,’ I protested, realising that was the whole point; boys couldn’t be hardened for a life as soldiers in the company of girls.
Aiden twisted out of Mr Ramsden’s grasp and ran back to his sister. ‘She can’t go somewhere on her own, being as she is.’
‘Your concern does you credit,’ Mr Ramsden said, sternly but not unkindly. ‘However, it isn’t for you to say. She’s a beneficiary of the philanthropy of Sir Reginald and it’s up to him to decide how it’s administered.’
Aiden glared at him, dark-eyed. I doubted he understood all of Mr Ramsden’s words, but he gathered the gist well enough: do as you’re told.
‘No, we must stay together.’ He threw me a look. ‘You promised, Mr Stanhope.’
Mr Ramsden pointed to his piece of paper. ‘Sir Reginald left specific instructions. We are to take the boy, and the girl goes to The Good Shepherd. That’s what he requires.’
Aiden glanced towards the door and I knew what he was thinking.
Mr Ramsden scratched his head as if pondering the problem, and then made a lunge for Aiden. The boy skipped nimbly backwards and Mr Ramsden stumbled and almost fell, dropping his sheet of paper.
I picked it up for him.
‘Please, let’s stop and think about this,’ I said. ‘There must be a way to resolve the situation. Are there other places like this one, but that would take both of them? It’s wrong for them to be kept apart when they’ve so recently lost their mother.’
‘It’s best to educate boys and girls separately,’ insisted Mrs Ramsden, indicating the pictures on the walls as if they were proof.
Her husband had recovered his balance. He held out his hand for his piece of paper. I was about to give it to him when I noticed the name written at the top: Aiden Jones.
Beneath that, Ramsden had written Aiden’s age and nationality, and that the fees would be paid by Sir Reginald.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘His surname isn’t Jones.’
‘Of course,’ said Ramsden, looking flustered. ‘It’s just administrative.’
I read it again, turning it over to check both sides. ‘But Sir Reginald knows his name is Hannigan. Why would he place him here under an alias?’
The realisation blanched across my skin.
I knew why.
‘We have to go,’ I said, pulling Ciara towards the door. ‘Come on, Aiden. Quickly, please.’
Mr Ramsden trailed us across the hall, appearing to be in two minds as to whether to block our way. ‘Sir Reginald gave us strict instructions. He paid six months in advance!’
I reached the door and opened it. ‘And a substantial bonus as well, I’m sure. Goodbye, Mr Ramsden.’
And with that, we left the building.
We rushed home as swiftly as Ciara’s legs would carry her. When we got into the pharmacy, I bolted the door behind us.
Alfie came through from the back room. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I think they may be in danger.’
I looked out of the window as far as I could in both directions.
‘What danger?’ I could see his mind working. He wouldn’t shy from a fight, but he had Constance to consider. ‘Leo—’
‘I’ll make a new arrangement for them as soon as I can, I promise. In the meantime, we must be vigilant.’
I could think of only one reason why Sir Reginald would place Aiden in an orphanage under a false name.
He wanted the boy to be lost.