pootering up the Parade. You would see the funnel first, sticking up out of the front, and the steam flying out of it, and then the conductor in his official hat jumping from one car to the next, collecting fares. And the people all sitting out on top on a good day, with the quality underneath them in their upholstered seats. And up it would come to near the top of the Parade, past the bathhouses and stop outside the hotel. I was there the day the stranger came. I watched him from Master James’s window, a small man in a tall hat, busy and important, stepping with his short legs out of the tram, walking up past the post office and the grocer’s. And then he disappeared and I knewhe must be on the Strand Road and taking the walk up to the gate in the rubble wall and up the drive to the front of the house to knock on the door. I’d never set eyes on him in my life, I’d no way of knowing who he was, but I knew as soon as he knocked on the door that it was me that had brought him there and that it would mean trouble for all of us.
Not long before this, it was evening time, between the lights. Peig sent me out to turn down the gas in the passageways before “the surge,” as she called it, when the gas supply would flare up for the evening and blacken the walls if it wasn’t regulated. I was standing in the main hallway when I heard a bump, bump, bump on the stairs going up from the schoolroom. When I went to the foot, I saw Gabriel’s fair head bouncing off each step, and when I looked up, the mistress was above him, disappearing round the bend in the stairs, but with her hand holding him by the heels, not looking back. I couldn’t stick any more of it, Anna. The boys were rascals, it’s true, but no child deserves that treatment. You wouldn’t treat a dog like that.
I went down into the scullery and I said to Peig, “Do you hear that?”
She was stripping the scales off a salmon, and she stood still with the knife in her hand, listening. “What is it?” she said.
“Gabriel’s head,” I said, “on the steps.”
Peig looked at me with her face white.
“If we don’t do something,” I said, “if we don’t tell somebody what’s going on in this house, one of those children is going to be killed.”
Peig put down the knife and wiped her hands on her apron. “Are you able to write a letter?” she said. I nodded. She went into the larder and came back. “Here, take this.” And she handed me paper and a pen. She had the address of the Cruelty Society rolled up inside a napkin ring and she took it out and put it in front of me. “Write it all,” she said, “write everything.”
The day I watched the man stepping off the tram and coming up to the house, Madge must have seen him too. She put on her clean apron and went to answer the door. Then she went in and told the mistress that the inspector from the Cruelty Society was there and then she went back to the door and said the mistress was out. He said he’d be back at nine o’clock the next morning, and the next morning didn’t the mistress up and breakfast an hour earlier than usual, her and the children, and away they went, I couldn’t tell you where. They were gone for a full week. Twice the inspector came back in that time, and twice he was told the same thing by Madge: the mistress and the children were gone from the house. He got no satisfaction at all. The mistress came back in a black mood. She’d no way of knowing, of course, who’d informed on her, but the guilt must have been written on my face. She found fault in everything I did: the fire was too high or not high enough, the window ledge wasn’t dusted, the carpets weren’t beaten to her liking. But at least things calmed down for a while with the children. They were still put in the wardrobe room from time to time; she must have decided that was acceptable.
There’s things that happens, Anna, where the fault lies with more than one person. Some people are more to blame than
Not long before this, it was evening time, between the lights. Peig sent me out to turn down the gas in the passageways before “the surge,” as she called it, when the gas supply would flare up for the evening and blacken the walls if it wasn’t regulated. I was standing in the main hallway when I heard a bump, bump, bump on the stairs going up from the schoolroom. When I went to the foot, I saw Gabriel’s fair head bouncing off each step, and when I looked up, the mistress was above him, disappearing round the bend in the stairs, but with her hand holding him by the heels, not looking back. I couldn’t stick any more of it, Anna. The boys were rascals, it’s true, but no child deserves that treatment. You wouldn’t treat a dog like that.
I went down into the scullery and I said to Peig, “Do you hear that?”
She was stripping the scales off a salmon, and she stood still with the knife in her hand, listening. “What is it?” she said.
“Gabriel’s head,” I said, “on the steps.”
Peig looked at me with her face white.
“If we don’t do something,” I said, “if we don’t tell somebody what’s going on in this house, one of those children is going to be killed.”
Peig put down the knife and wiped her hands on her apron. “Are you able to write a letter?” she said. I nodded. She went into the larder and came back. “Here, take this.” And she handed me paper and a pen. She had the address of the Cruelty Society rolled up inside a napkin ring and she took it out and put it in front of me. “Write it all,” she said, “write everything.”
The day I watched the man stepping off the tram and coming up to the house, Madge must have seen him too. She put on her clean apron and went to answer the door. Then she went in and told the mistress that the inspector from the Cruelty Society was there and then she went back to the door and said the mistress was out. He said he’d be back at nine o’clock the next morning, and the next morning didn’t the mistress up and breakfast an hour earlier than usual, her and the children, and away they went, I couldn’t tell you where. They were gone for a full week. Twice the inspector came back in that time, and twice he was told the same thing by Madge: the mistress and the children were gone from the house. He got no satisfaction at all. The mistress came back in a black mood. She’d no way of knowing, of course, who’d informed on her, but the guilt must have been written on my face. She found fault in everything I did: the fire was too high or not high enough, the window ledge wasn’t dusted, the carpets weren’t beaten to her liking. But at least things calmed down for a while with the children. They were still put in the wardrobe room from time to time; she must have decided that was acceptable.
There’s things that happens, Anna, where the fault lies with more than one person. Some people are more to blame than
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