The House by Princes Park Read Online Free PDF Page B

occasional car or cyclist.
    Twice a year, on a nice day in spring or autumn, when there were few holidaymakers about, the older girls were taken to the sands at Abergele, marching through the small town, fascinated by the shops, amazed and slightly scared by the traffic, particularly if a single decker bus drove by, chugging smoke from its rear. They had never seen so many people and tried not to stare at the women with uncovered heads and bare legs, lips painted red for some reason. So far, men had hardly featured in their lives. The priests who took Mass were old. For a long time they had assumed the world to be peopled mainly by women. Yet here were young men, strange creatures, with deep, loud voices. Some even had hair on their faces which the girls took to be an affliction and said a quick prayer. And there were boys, with short trousers and scabby knees, who grinned and shouted at them rudely, even whistled. The girls, in their antiquated brown dresses and long white pinafores, walked demurely past, hands clasped, eyes fixed on the girl in front, as they had been taught.
    The convent might have been considered a gloomy place, with its stone walls and stone floors and high,cavernous ceilings. Cool in summer, freezing in winter, the furniture was sparse and as plain as the food. There were no adornments apart from holy pictures, statues, and numerous crucifixes that hung on the white-painted walls. Nor was a clock evident, but someone, somewhere, must have known when to ring the bells, indicating it was time for classes, time for meals, time to pray.
    However, the presence of so many children, obviously happy, despite their tragic backgrounds, dispelled any gloom the occasional visitor might have felt when they entered the big, oak door.
    ‘Cannon fodder,’ said Emily Dangerfield to her sister, Cecilia, Mother Superior of the convent, one breezy day in March. Trees could be glimpsed through the high window of the always chilly office, the long branches curtseying this way and that against the bright blue sky. ‘You’re producing cannon fodder.’
    ‘Are you suggesting that one day my girls will be shot out of guns?’ Reverend Mother smiled from behind her highly polished desk. She’d had the same argument with Emily before.
    ‘You know what I mean,’ Emily said crossly. ‘The girls are being raised for one purpose only: to serve others, do their washing, cooking, cleaning, wait on them hand and foot. You’re like a factory, except your products happen to be human.’
    ‘What do you suggest I do with them?’ Reverend Mother smiled again. She rarely lost her temper, but was secretly annoyed. What did Emily know about running an orphanage? ‘Encourage them to become actresses, doctors, playwrights, politicians? How many do you think will succeed after they’ve been let loose into the world on their own? Our girls have no family. We ensure they have the security of a home where they will be made welcome and be of use to others.’
    ‘Of use!’ Emily laughed shortly. ‘You make them soundlike chairs. I saw a picture a few years ago,
Metropolis
, all about a mechanized society. It reminded me very much of here.’
    ‘Don’t talk nonsense, Emily.’ Reverend Mother tried hard not to snap. ‘I see age hasn’t taught you to consider other people’s feelings.’
    ‘And age never will.’ Emily got up and began to wander round the room. She was a tall woman who had once been beautiful, fifty-seven, smartly dressed in a houndstooth check costume and a little veiled hat on her dyed black hair. A fox fur was thrown casually over the chair she had just vacated. She was proud of her still slim, svelte figure. Her sister was two years older and similarly built, though her shape was little evident beneath the multitudinous layers of her black habit. Her face, unlike Emily’s, was remarkably unlined.
    ‘Out of interest, sister dear, why are you here?’ Reverend Mother enquired. ‘Have you driven all the way from