The September Girls by Maureen Lee Page A

sitting room. She pulled a black shawl over her head and nodded at Eleanor. ‘If someone wanted to take one of my lads away, they’d have to do it over my dead body,’ she said curtly.
    Eleanor felt a rush of blood to her head. How dare this low-class, ill-dressed person make such a derogatory remark? ‘Were your sons carried over your dead body into the orphanage?’ She took it for granted the woman was Brenna Caffrey.
    Brenna tossed her head. ‘It was a choice between St Hilda’s and a filthy cellar. I did what was best for me lads and took them away the minute I had the chance.’
    ‘You don’t know my husband. If he makes up his mind to do something, nothing will stop him,’ Eleanor said hotly, wondering why she was bothering to argue with someone whose opinion she didn’t give two hoots for.
    ‘Then take the lad away yourself and put him somewhere safe. It’d show your husband he can’t push you around.’
    ‘There’s nowhere she can take him, Brenna,’ Nancy put in. ‘Eleanor hasn’t a single relative in the world.’
    ‘Then he can come to mine,’ said Brenna Caffrey.
     
    It was the most stupid idea she’d ever heard. Move her dear little boy from Parliament Terrace, where he was used to every luxury under the sun, to a slum where he would be looked after by an ignorant Irish woman! It was out of the question.
    But as the days passed and Marcus showed her the reply he’d had to his letter saying Anthony had been accepted by the Baldwin Home for Backward Boys and they would expect him the following Monday, her panic rose.
    ‘What’s the Caffreys’ house like?’ she asked Nancy.
    ‘It’s only half furnished: there’s no carpet on the floor, not like here. Brenna hasn’t got enough bedding, enough crockery, enough of anything, come to that. But it’s clean and welcoming and full of love,’ Nancy said gently.
    ‘Anthony would hate it.’
    ‘He’d hate that home even more. And you could go and see him every day.’
    ‘You know how difficult it is to get him to leave the house,’ Eleanor sighed.
    ‘Marcus will have the same difficulty on Monday.’
    Eleanor looked at her friend beseechingly. ‘What would you do, Nancy?’
    ‘Me? I’d take him to Brenna’s. It wouldn’t be for ever. Once Mr Allardyce realizes he can’t get his own way, you can bring Anthony back. You’ll have made your point. He’ll understand the same thing will happen if he tries to send him away again.’
    Eleanor shuddered, visualizing Marcus’s reaction when he discovered Anthony had gone. ‘Maybe he’d be better off in a home,’ she said lamely. ‘They might find out what’s wrong with him. One day, we’ll have to find out what’s wrong, Nancy.’
    ‘They won’t find out in that place, pet. I read the brochure. It’s where rich folk put their unwanted kids when they want them kept out of sight and out of mind.’
    ‘I see.’ Eleanor bit her lip. ‘Then he won’t go there. I don’t care what Marcus says. He’s my child every bit as much as his.’ She squared her shoulders. ‘Let’s take him to Brenna’s on Friday before Marcus comes home. If he rants and raves, I’ll just have to put up with it.’ She might even raise the courage to rant and rave back.
     
    On Friday, they waited until it was dark when Phyllis had left and Nurse Hutton was busy with Sybil; she had hardly anything to do with Anthony and wouldn’t notice he had gone. Marcus wasn’t due home for another hour. Nancy carried a warmly wrapped Anthony in her strong arms and Eleanor a few clothes and bedding in a suitcase and a box of painting materials. They walked quickly through the narrow streets that were virtually on her doorstep, but where Eleanor had never walked before.
    They didn’t stay long in the Caffreys’ mean, barely furnished house in Shaw Street: Marcus would expect his dinner the minute he got home and Eleanor to be seated at the table with him. She hardly spoke on the short journey home, thinking of the