14. A Good Catch

Isla couldn’t hold back her tears when she and Jeannie were finally left alone in the big second-floor bedroom that she was to share with Emily and Nancy, who’d tactfully left the two women alone on the pretext that Jeannie would like to help Isla unpack her bags. Despite the brave face she’d been putting on, the minute they were alone together and reality hit her hard, Isla could not stop the torrent.

‘Please don’t leave me here, Jeannie. Please take me home with you!’ she begged.

Jeannie’s usually firm resolve cracked when she saw her dearest Isla sobbing like a frightened child.

‘Darling girl!’ she cried, taking her granddaughter into her arms. ‘We have to be strong. I know it’s hard, but this is for the best. For both of you,’ she soothed.

‘I know, but I can’t bear for you to leave me,’ Isla wailed miserably.

Though on the verge of tears herself, Jeannie held Isla at arm’s length and looked her firmly in the eye. ‘Listen to me,’ she said. ‘Your stay here is a necessity; you’ll be home before you know it, and then you can start to plan the rest of your life.’

Isla dumbly nodded.

‘I’ll come often,’ Jeannie assured her, her own heart breaking for the poor girl. ‘And I’ll bring all your favourite food – Mavis’s sausage rolls and coconut macaroons.’

Isla managed a weak smile. Jeannie knew how much her granddaughter loved her housekeeper’s excellent cooking; she’d piled on weight since her arrival in Windermere and it wasn’t all baby weight either.

‘Don’t forget how near I am, just over the fell,’ Jeannie joked. ‘And we’ll write to each other often, my darling, and I do have a telephone,’ she reminded Isla. ‘So please try not to worry.’

Their farewell was painful, but Jeannie was wise enough not to drag it out. Leaving tearful Isla with her room-mates, she drove away at speed, praying all the way home that her precious granddaughter would be well taken care of during her confinement.

In her office, with the door firmly closed, Matron was poring over Isla’s application form.

‘Father, Professor at Durham University; mother, English undergraduate; grandfather, respected Scottish lawyer …’ Her voice trailed away. ‘The girl is perfect!’ she muttered joyfully under her breath. ‘Or, more to the point – her child will be perfect. If it’s a boy, that is.’

Matron was tempted to phone Sir Percival, but then she remembered he’d gone back to London. Blissfully unaware of his double life, Matron had only fond thoughts.

‘He’s probably doing business with prospective wealthy parents, building up our empire.’

It would be good to give Archie two pieces of good news on his return. He hadn’t a clue about the arrangements she’d recently made with two of the Mary Vale residents: Olive, a shifty girl with sly eyes who’d recently been caught stealing; and Maureen, who constantly complained that there was never enough food to eat. Knowing they were both greedy, unscrupulous characters, Matron had invited them to tea in her office. After Maureen had gobbled her way through scones heaped with jam and cream, followed by a Victoria sponge and chocolate eclairs, accompanied by endless cups of tea, Matron said her piece.

‘How would you like to have more food like this on a regular basis and a nice big single bedroom each on the first floor with a sea view?’

‘Yeah!’ Maureen enthused with her mouth full.

Olive, who, Matron had deduced, was a cunning little madam, eyed her suspiciously. ‘Why?’

‘Well, the truth is there’s been an on-going issue concerning Father Benedict,’ Matron replied. ‘It turns out we’ve had complaints from some girls about his behaving … inappropriately, shall we say.’

‘What does that mean?’ Maureen asked, as she slurped her tea.

‘Hands up the skirt – touching ’em up,’ Olive crudely explained.

‘Ooooh!’ Maureen’s piggy little eyes rolled in her fat red cheeks. ‘A priest wouldn’t go and do a dirty thing like that, would he?’

‘It has been known,’ Matron added. ‘Anyway, I wondered if either of you has personally experienced any inappropriate behaviour that you’d be happy to speak up about?’

She calmly laid two five-pound notes on the desktop.

‘I’ll give you a few minutes to think about it.’

Reaching for the teapot, she rose and left the room.

The wide-eyed girls watched her go; then Olive snatched up the notes on the table.

‘What’re you bloody doing?’ Maureen gasped.

‘Don’t you see what the old cow’s up to?’ Olive hissed, as she pocketed the notes in her voluminous grubby smock. ‘She’ll pay us off if we bad-mouth the priest.’

‘But it’s not true!’ Maureen squawked. ‘He’s never laid a hand on me.’

‘Me neither, but that don’t matter,’ Olive snapped.

When Matron returned with a fresh pot of tea, she immediately noticed the notes had gone.

‘There’ll be more when you leave Mary Vale,’ she said, as she coolly refilled their teacups. ‘If you should remember anything, anything at all, just write it down and pop it into my office.’

‘Thing is, Matron, I can’t be doing the writing,’ Maureen confessed.

‘If you have anything to say, you can tell me and I can write it for you,’ Matron assured the now eager girl, who was ogling the last eclair. ‘All you have to do is sign the document once you agree it is correct.’

‘I can write mi own name,’ Maureen said with a bit of a swagger.

‘And what about you, Olive?’ Matron inquired.

‘I can write,’ the girl sneered. ‘I don’t need any help, ta.’

Not long after Matron’s little tea party she received a signed letter from Olive stating that Father Benedict had accosted her several times, in the chapel, and in the garden when nobody was around.

‘He trid to kiss me and behaved inaprottly,’ Olive wrote, complete with misspellings. ‘Disgusting behavor for a man of God.’

Maureen dumbly signed the letter that Matron had written on her behalf.

‘Keep this to yourselves,’ Matron sternly instructed. ‘If I catch either of you gossiping behind my back, neither of you will get the other five pounds due to you on your departure from here. And that will be the least of your worries. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Yeah,’ Olive scoffed. ‘Anyhow, why do you wanna dump the priest? What’s in it for you?’ she demanded rudely.

‘I am merely following the appropriate procedure after complaints and accusations have been made,’ Matron stiffly replied.

‘Yeah,’ Olive cynically scoffed again.

‘I don’t care,’ quipped Maureen. ‘I just wanna ’ave this bloody kid and get the hell out of this soddin’ place.’

‘Quite,’ thought Matron. ‘And the sooner I see the back of you two little wretches, the happier I’ll be.’

Carefully locking the letter and the statement in her desk drawer, Matron waited like a spider in its web for the right moment to pounce. Mercifully, Maureen and Olive were due to have their babies within the next few weeks; if they went over their due dates she would make it her business to see that they were induced, which would be followed by a speedy discharge and their final pay-off; then she would be free to drop her bombshell, secure in the knowledge that her ruthless accomplices were miles away and could not foil her clever plan.