Peggy was flushed with the steam and the laughter. Her blonde hair was damp and the wispy bits around her forehead curled upwards. Her apron was wet, and her arms soapy.
An officer came in. “The Guardians want to see you. Come with me.”
She didn’t know what the summons meant and had no time to feel alarm. She was shown into the big boardroom, where a group of gentlemen sat around an oval table.
Frank, standing inconspicuously by the window, watched her every step. She was taller than he had expected. He had imagined a tiny creature, because he remembered a tiny baby. But this was a grown girl in early puberty. He liked her dishevelled hair and laughing features, still damp from the washhouse. He saw, with a stab of pity, the fear and uncertainty as she stepped towards the oval table.
The Chairman said, not unkindly, “Your brother has made an application to remove you from the workhouse.”
“My brother?” Peggy looked bewildered.
“Yes, you have a brother. Didn’t you know?”
She shook her head. The anguish inside Frank made his legs turn to jelly. He leaned against the wall.
“Well, you have, and he asks permission to take you out of our care and to look after you himself. Do you wish to go with him, or do you prefer to stay here with your friends?”
Peggy didn’t say anything, and a member of the Board said sharply, “Speak up, child, and answer the Chairman when he is good enough to speak to you.”
Peggy’s lip trembled and she began to cry, but still she said nothing. Frank’s anguish had turned to dread. What if she did not want to come? It was a possibility he had not even considered.
The Chairman, who was kindly, with daughters of his own, said gently, pointing to Frank: “This is your brother Frank. It is to be regretted that you have not seen him since you were three years old, but now he has applied for your discharge and we, your guardians, are satisfied that he can provide for you. Do you wish to go with him?”
Peggy looked over towards the window, and saw a tall stranger. He did not mean a thing to her. Insecure children are terrified of change. She thought of the happy laughter in the washhouse, and her friends at school and in the dormitory. She stared at this unknown, unknowable young man, and her heart was set on her friends and the routine she had always known.
Frank saw rejection in her eyes and panic spurred his movements. Before she could speak, he stepped swiftly across the room.
“Stay where you are, you have no right—” shouted the Master.
Frank took no notice. He walked straight up to Peggy and stood looking down at her. Everyone in the room was hushed as brother and sister looked at each other for the first time in nine years. Then, slowly, he extended the little finger of his right hand and curled it round the little finger of her right hand. He held it close and grinned. “Hello, Peg.”
The action stirred her memory as nothing else could have done. Holding little fingers was a special and intimate gesture from a childhood almost lost to her now. No one else had ever done that to her. She had forgotten all about it, but now she remembered. A dim, far-off memory of loss and longing stirred within her. She looked at this tall lad and the love that she had not known for years flooded her heart.
She squeezed his little finger in return, and smiled a smile of secret understanding. He saw the dimples in her cheeks, and knew that he had seen them before. Then with sudden, impetuous warmth, she threw her arms about his neck and leaned her head on his shoulder. The Guardians watched with breathless wonder. Even the Master was silent. The intoxicating smell of her hair sent a thrill through Frank’s tense body and he relaxed, knowing that she was his sister, and that all would be well.
She did not hold him for long, but turned to the Chairman and curtsied. “I will go with my brother, if you please, sir.”
Memories of early childhood dwell in a limbo that is neither forgetting, nor quite remembering. As Peggy danced along the pavement, looking up at Frank, she tried desperately to recall him, but could not. She looked up at his face, his hair, his smile, and tried to persuade herself that she knew him and could remember him when they were little, but she had to admit to herself that he was a stranger. Yet somehow he wasn’t. His big, rough hand grasping her own felt familiar, his arm round her shoulders as he led her down a dark street was familiar too. Something in his touch struck a chord within her that she knew and responded to.
Frank was jubilant. He felt like a king. None of his mates could have done what he’d done. He had got her out of that place, his little sister, and he would never let her go back. She did not look as he had imagined, but that did not matter; she was better than he had imagined. He greeted several of his friends, who nudged each other and shouted, “Who’s yer tart? Where’d ’ja find ’er? Any more like ’er fer us?”
Frank replied, good humouredly, “She’s my sister, and there’s no one in the whole world like her.”
He took her back to the lodgings – in a respectable street, he pointed out. He was proud to show her the facilities of the house. He led her up to the second floor and showed her the last word in luxury: the gas stove on the landing, where she could cook. They climbed two more flights of wooden stairs, and he proudly flung open the door.
It was a small attic room with a sloping roof and a garret window, in which a broken pane had been patched up with cardboard. The walls were unpainted and bits of plaster were falling off. The ceiling was yellow and stained with damp. The furniture, rented for two shillings a week, consisted of a rough wooden table and chair, a narrow iron bedstead with coarse grey army blankets, a wooden box, a candle stuck in a milk bottle, a jug and washbowl and a chamber pot. It looked fairly bleak, but children like small rooms, and to Peggy it seemed like heaven.
She threw her arms around Frank. “It’s lovely, lovely. Are we really going to live here?” Her eyes filled with uncertainty. “Will I have to go back? Don’t let me go back. I want to stay here with you.” He folded her in his arms and said fiercely, “You’ll never go back. Didja hear me? Never. Not as long as I can see to it. We’ll be together, always. Vat’s a promise, an’ all. Now, let’s see vat smile o’ your’n, so I can see them dimples.”
She smiled with trusting confidence, and he put his little fingers into the dimples.
“You’ll ’ave to smile a lot more offen, yer know.”
He brought in some wood and lit a fire in the narrow grate. Red and yellow flames leaped up, filling the little room with colour. He had bought some muffins and some real butter, and they sat on the floor by the fire, toasting the muffins on the end of a knife. They were so delicious she couldn’t stop eating them and the butter ran down her chin. He chuckled and wiped it off with his finger. She took hold of his hand and licked the butter off his finger, looking up at him with melting eyes. A thrill ran through him, and he did not know what to say.
She murmured, “Muffins. Muffins and butter. Better than nasty smelly old bread and margarine. Can I eat muffins for evermore, Frank?”
“Course you can. Thousands of ’em. I’ll see to that, you’ll see. Muffins every day, if you wants ’em. An’ candy, an chocolate, an’ cakes an’ all.”
“And can I have jam and honey and cream?”
“Wha’ever you wants, my li’l sister, you can ’ave. You’ll see.”