The Orphan Sisters: An Utterly Heartbreaking and Gripping World War 2 Historical Novel Read online

  The Orphan Sisters

  An utterly heartbreaking and gripping world war 2 historical novel

  Shirley Dickson

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Hear more from Shirley

  A letter from Shirley

  Acknowledgements

  To Wal, who has always believed.

  Prologue

  May 1945

  Etty eyed the folded newspaper on the kitchen table. The headline blared, in big bold letters, ‘VE DAY- IT’S HERE!’. Hearing excited voices as neighbours celebrated outside in the street, her heart soared.

  News had spread over the past couple of days that the war in Europe was over and excitement ran high in Whale Street. Mrs Moffatt, who ran the corner shop over the road, had suggested victory celebrations, and a street party and bonfire in the cobbled back lane were planned. Not one to miss an opportunity, the shopkeeper sold rosettes, posters and Union Jack flags, charging, respectively, one to two shillings. The possibility of bad weather had been a source of great agitation for the revellers but apart from a spot of rain and the odd roll of thunder, the day proved warm with peeks of sunshine.

  Wood from bunk beds thrown out of air raid shelters was piled high in readiness for tonight’s bonfire, while an effigy of Hitler waited its fate on top.

  Earlier that day, Etty had put the kiddies in the pram on the doorstep to watch, while she helped decorate the street. Red, white, and blue bunting crisscrossed overhead while posters and rosettes decorated walls and Union Jacks hung proudly out of windows. Trestle tables covered with white tablecloths lined the street, set with cups, saucers and tea plates, and party hats made out of newspapers.

  Later indoors, Etty had made a plate of spam sandwiches and a carrot cake, using dried eggs as the fresh kind were on ration. The two kiddies were having an afternoon nap in the back bedroom and Etty planned to take the food outside later and join in with the celebrations.

  Now the war was over, she marvelled, she might be able to buy anything she fancied and there’d be no need to take her ration book to the shops.

  At three o’clock sharp, she switched on the radio and listened to Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s dramatic voice as he announced to the nation from the cabinet room at Number Ten Downing Street, that the war with Germany was over. A huge roar went up from the crowd outside and then united they sang ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.’ A surge of relief engulfed Etty – the longed-for day had arrived and the war was over.

  But it was King George VI’s earlier broadcast, transmitted by loudspeaker to thousands of folk assembled in London’s Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square that really moved her. For in it, the king paid tribute to those men and women who had laid down their lives for victory. With a pang of sadness, Etty thought of those she’d loved and lost and all that might have been. She quickly wiped away a tear.

  Etty checked the time on the mahogany clock, standing on the mantelpiece above the range. Half past three. Her husband should be home soon.

  She surveyed the kitchen-come-dining room. Eyeing the wooden stacking bricks the two kiddies had been playing with earlier in the playpen, Etty’s eyes misted. Blast the war changing our lives forever.

  She was startled by a knock at the front door. Wiping her hands on her pinafore, she padded along the dim passageway, wondering who the caller was. Opening the door, she gaped at the ghost from the past who stood before her.

  The woman, elderly and emaciated, with a lined, careworn face, wore a baggy ankle-length coat and man’s trilby hat.

  ‘Dearest child,’ she cried in a feeble voice. ‘I’ve found you at last.’

  As Etty stared incredulously at the woman, the present ebbed away, images playing in her mind’s eye. She was transported back to that long ago, fateful day.

  ‘Be quick girls,’ Mam called as she hurried along the street. ‘Today we’re off for a ride in a tramcar.’

  1

  November 1929

  It struck Esther as odd that Mam carried a suitcase that weighed her down on one side. She didn’t think much of it, though, because today, Mam told them, they were going somewhere special and Esther was excited about it. Even a ride in a tramcar was a thrilling experience for Esther who, at four, hadn’t yet acquired her older sister Dorothy’s ability to deal with the unexpected.

  It was a cloudy grey sort of day, not the sort of weather they’d usually go out for a trip. Mam never took them out this time of morning and she certainly never wore her best swagger coat, cloche hat and a touch of vivid red lipstick unless it was a Sunday.

  Hurrying to catch up with Mam, Esther passed the butcher’s shop window where Aunt Olga – the butcher’s wife, a tray of sausages in her hand – stared out at her.

  ‘I’m off someplace special,’ Esther mouthed.

  A look of confusion crossed Aunt Olga’s face and she called to someone over her shoulder.

  ‘Be quick I say,’ Mam commanded from further along the street.

  Esther, giving Aunty Olga a little wave, ran to catch up.

  They passed rows of redbrick houses that shouldered the streets, their tall chimney pots belching clouds of grimy smoke into the grey sky. The cobbled back lanes they walked along were lined by high yard walls with coloured glass cemented in the top.

  ‘Why is––’

  ‘To prevent kids from climbing over,’ Mam cut in, anticipating Esther’s question.

  Hardly had Mam put the suitcase down on the pavement by the tramcar stop when a man approached them and tipped his cap.

  ‘You’ve a bit of a handful, pet,’ he said. ‘Will I give you a hand with that suitcase?’

  ‘Please,’ Mam replied, and managed a smile that didn’t seem quite real. ‘That’s very kind.’

  ‘You must be going a fair distance by the size o’ the luggage.’

  ‘A fair distance,’ Mam repeated, noncommittally, and Dorothy, who was hanging on to her hand at the other side, let out a funny sound as if she was crying but didn’t want to be heard.

  ‘What’s wrong wi’ the bairn?’ the man asked.

  Mam snapped at him, ‘It’s none of your business.’

  Then the tramcar came rattling around the corner of Frederick Street, and the young man hoisted up the suitcase and dumped it on the platform. With a last glance at them and a shake of the head, he vanished swiftly inside.

  Esther was lifted up and set down on the platform, but Dorothy, who was nearly eight, managed to climb up on her own.

  Clinging on to Mam’s hand, Esther stared at the people sitting on the tram’s long wooden benches. An old man who wore a silk muffler around his neck rose stiffly from his seat.

  ‘Here, missus, take me seat for you and the bairn.’

  Mam thanked him kindly and hard
ly had she sat down, and lifted Esther onto her knee, then a bell tinged and the tram lurched forward. Dorothy stood in the aisle next to them and Mam put an arm around her waist to steady her. Dorothy, pale faced, stared dully into the space ahead and Esther couldn’t fathom what was wrong with her. But after a moment, with so much happening, she forgot all about her sister and, as excitement mingled with trepidation whirled in her stomach, Esther looked up at the kindly gentleman, who hung on to a leather strap that dropped from the ceiling.

  ‘We’re off someplace special,’ she blurted out.

  ‘Hush, child, behave.’ Mam’s body tensed and her lips pressed into a thin line.

  At that moment the conductor came alongside in his smart uniform, holding a ticket machine.

  ‘Where to, Missus?’ he asked.

  ‘One and a half to Westoe, please.’ Mam rifled through her purse and handed him some pennies.

  The tramcar trundled along the street, and scenes from outside flashed by the window: a horse pulling a cart with a piano on top; seagulls perched along the peaked roof of a row of tall redbrick houses; shops – butchers, chemists, milliners – with canopied windows; an old man wearing a cloth cap spitting in the gutter; and endless rows of narrow, cobbled streets. South Shields was big, much bigger than Esther had imagined. In awe, she cuddled into the security of Mam’s chest.

  ‘Are we nearly there, yet?’ Dorothy’s voice sounded strangled.

  ‘Soon,’ Mam replied.

  Dorothy’s chin quivered and she turned away.

  Tears welled in Esther’s eyes and the scene outside the tram’s window blurred. The outing wasn’t exciting any more. Her new coat felt tight around her chest and the velvet bits on her collar that touched her neck itched, and so did the black woollen stockings that reached to the top of her legs – but when Esther scratched, the itch just moved to another place.

  ‘Be still, child,’ Mam said, tetchily.

  Esther didn’t like her new clothes any more or the black shiny shoes that earlier she’d been so proud of.

  After a time, Mam shuffled her off her knee. ‘Our stop,’ she announced.

  She stretched out her hand to stroke Esther with the lightest of touches, on her hair, her cheek, like she did at night when a bad dream awakened the little girl.

  Mam led the way along the aisle, and when the tramcar stopped, she alighted from the platform. Esther came next, followed by Dorothy, and then the conductor handed down the suitcase.

  As the tram clanked away, Esther studied her surroundings. They stood at the bottom of a pleasant, tree-lined walkway that tunnelled into the distance. Esther, admiring the row of impressive houses set back from the road by a sloping grass verge and white fence, felt somewhat cheered. She considered this a beautiful place to live and said so to her mother.

  ‘These houses are known as Georgian and Victorian,’ Mam explained, liking to keep her children ‘knowledgeable,’ as she called it. ‘This place is called Westoe Village.’ Mam looked around. ‘Like most of Shields, the surrounding area has been built up but this corner,’ she nodded towards the walkway, ‘still feels like the old village and has nothing like the smog in town.’

  ‘Do rich people live here?’ Dorothy asked.

  ‘Indeed they do. Mostly owners from the ship-building and coal-mining industries.’

  Esther had no idea what Mam meant but nodded all the same. Their mother frequently talked to them as though they were grown-ups and woe betide either sister if they spoke as the neighbours did, in ‘common Geordie’ dialect.

  ‘It pays to speak properly.’ Mam instructed them, ‘You’ll thank me when you’re older.’

  Esther wasn’t so sure, because when Mam was out of earshot, the neighbours called her ‘Mrs High and Mighty’.

  Mam heaved up the suitcase and led them around a flat-roofed building.

  ‘Keep up, girls,’ she called as she headed up the walkway, ‘it won’t be long now.’

  Tall trees blotted out the sky and Esther had to crane back her head to see the tops of them. Accustomed to narrow, smoke-filled streets crammed with houses, she gazed in wonder at the space all around.

  Mam diverted through a gap in the wall and the path led them to a road with fields either side. In the distance was a row of imposing houses whose windows gazed out over parkland. They crossed the road and took a gravelled path set between two green fields.

  It was raining now, the soft kind of rain that soaked you through, and Esther thought she saw sleet in it. She grew excited at the thought that snow might fall.

  ‘Here we are,’ Mam pointed to some chimney pots that rose above trees on the skyline ahead.

  ‘Where… where are we?’ Esther wanted to know. But nobody answered.

  Through the trees, the threesome followed the gravelled path and when they came to a clearing, a house came into view. Peering in through a wrought-iron gate, Esther could see that inside the grounds were lawns, a vegetable plot and a wooden greenhouse painted white.

  ‘The place is called Blakely Hall,’ Mam said, a hint of reverence in her tone, ‘and was once owned by Sir Stanley Blakely.’

  ‘Who is he?’ Dorothy asked.

  ‘Part of the gentry.’

  Esther had no idea who the gentry were and was about to ask but, staring up at the towering façade, the words dissolved in her mouth.

  ‘Does this Sir… Stanley… still live here?’ asked Dorothy.

  ‘He died a long time ago.’ Mam shook her head. ‘Poor man… didn’t have children of his own…’ She faced Dorothy. ‘A good Christian… he bequeathed his house as an asylum for orphaned children.’

  ‘Who owns it now?’

  ‘A religious charity.’

  ‘Is this the special place?’ Esther asked.

  Their mother, moving on, didn’t answer.

  The gate creaked as Esther opened it. Walking beneath the stone arch on this drab November morning, the scene beyond looked bleak. A path leading up to the house separated lawns strewn with sodden leaves; bushes with dead flower heads sprouted from the grass, and the air was filled with the stench of rotting foliage.

  Esther waited for Mam who, by now, trailed breathlessly behind. She caught up and together they climbed the sweeping stone steps that led up to the house.

  The building, with rows of sash windows and ivy-clad walls, did indeed look grand but Esther, jittery now, was disinclined to set foot inside.

  Mam banged the doorknocker, and they listened as the noise echoed inside. The door opened and a girl, older than Dorothy, stood inside. She wore a navy-blue frock covered with a white frilled smock. Her mousy-coloured hair was cropped and beneath arched eyebrows, opaque brown eyes scrutinised them.

  ‘I’m Mrs Makepeace,’ Mam told her.

  The girl nodded. ‘I’m Sandra. The Mistress said to show yous to the office when you arrive.’

  She stepped aside.

  Inside the dim hallway, a strong smell of beeswax polish hung in the air. Sandra led the family along a passageway and, turning right, continued along a corridor paved with black and white linoleum flooring that squeaked beneath Esther’s feet. They came to a door that had black writing scribbled on it. Esther, who couldn’t yet read, wished she knew what it said.

  Sandra rapped lightly on the door.

  ‘Enter,’ boomed a voice.

  Mam led them in.

  The room appeared cramped and the heat from a coal fire was overpowering. A large desk, piled high with papers, dominated the room and tall fixtures with shelves crammed with metal containers lined the walls. The fire, glowing in the grate, spat coals, now and then, onto a tiled hearth. Esther’s fingertips, beginning to thaw, tingled painfully.

  A lady sitting behind the desk spoke. ‘I’m the Mistress Knowles. Welcome to Blakely Hall.’ The Mistress’s smile was more of a grimace – it didn’t look at all welcoming. Her eyes held no warmth in them, and dull and glazed, they reminded Esther of dead fish eyes. Unsure of the lady, Esther clung on to her mother’s coat-tai
l before taking a step back and hiding behind her.

  Mam placed the suitcase on the floor, rifled through her handbag and produced a slip of paper.

  ‘The contract’s signed as you advised.’

  Mistress Knowles stood up behind the desk. Taking the paper, she read it through. Dressed in a navy frock, her large bosoms strained the buttons which looked as if they might pop any minute. Her grey hair, covered by a mop cap, straggled to beefy shoulders.

  She looked up. ‘Aye. All seems in order.’

  She paused, her lifeless eyes boring into Esther’s, making the little girl shiver.

  ‘Divvent leave it too long,’ she told Mam, ‘it’ll only make matters worse.’

  Esther expected her mother to correct the Mistress’s speech but Mam just stared as if bewildered.

  ‘What happens next?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s no concern of yours.’

  ‘Can we go home, now?’ Esther found her voice.

  Mam didn’t answer but started to cough – a spluttering noise she couldn’t seem to stop and one that made her clutch her chest.

  ‘I’ll get Sandra to bring water.’ The Mistress made towards the door, but Mam waved a hand to stop her.

  ‘I’ll be fine…’ she gasped, ‘in a minute.’

  Esther knew otherwise. After such a prolonged spell of coughing, her mother needed to lie down.

  Mam brought a lace-edged handkerchief from her pocket and, covering her mouth, spat discreetly into it. Then, deftly, she brought the hanky down and returned it to her pocket. The Mistress’s eyes bulged in horror and she shielded her mouth with a hand.