I sat on the train to London. It was immensely boring - as it was an hour and half ride. I fell asleep and I woke up the stop before mine. When I got there, it was just as I had remembered.
I hailed a cab when I got outside the station. "One to the Foundling Hospital, if you please, sir." We got there in fifteen minutes.
"Thank you kindly, sir!" I exclaimed, handing him the money. I bounded up the marble steps and thrust open the door.
It had been a year since I felt at home! I walked the corridors to Matron Stinking Bottomly's office. I knocked gently.
"Come in." she called. I entered the room and stood behind the seat in front of her desk.
She glanced up and stared at me. I smiled at her. "Hetty Feather?!" she was amazed to see me. I smiled at her.
"That's me, Matron!" I said cheerily.
"What are you doing here? Where is your master?" She demanded.
"Well...I haven't exactly had a master for a year now."
Her face was a look of shock. "But," I added. She calmed down a bit. "I came looking for work."
She stood. "Hetty, I don't believe you understand. You need a character to get a job!"
"But, Matron!" I pleaded with her. "I have got a character! The guy at the circus gave me one before I left!" I pulled the scrunched up sheet of paper from my pocket.
Emerald Star (aka Hetty Feather), is a hard working young lady, of whom everyone loves. She will do any work you set her to, and never uses foul mouth or cheek. Yours, Mr Tanglefield.
Matron studied the letter. "Fine." She tossed me a key. "Your room is downstairs, next to the girls dorms. You will be on night watch Mondays and Thursdays. You are a reading and writing teacher to the younger girls. You have Sundays off, as you did when you were here as a child. Your first lesson is tomorrow after breakfast, in Nurse Winterson's old class room."
I blinked. "What happened to Nurse Winterson?"
Matron looked at me as if I were - was - an idiot. "She died of influenza last month, Hetty."
I felt faint. That's three people I had lost just this year! First my dear mama, then Bertie (Okay, I know he isn't really dead, but I had lost him as a friend and a sweetheart). And now kind Nurse Winnie. "Okay then. Thank you, Matron."
I marched down the corridor, dragging my case behind me. "Hetty!"
Turning, I gasped as it was my sister Eliza! I ran to her and hugged her. "Hetty, I missed you!" she buried her head into my emerald gown.
"I have to go now, Eliza." I pulled away from her and waved goodbye.
I started down the corridor, and found the room labelled to be my own. Unlocking the door, I opened it up and stepped into the darkness. I found the oil lamp that was attached to the wall and lit it. The room was little more than a cupboard, but it had a nice little bed, a chest of drawers, a mirror, a washstand and lots of wall space.
I made my bed and folded up my clothes to go into the drawers. They fit into the two top drawers, leaving one free. I filled it with my personal belongings, e.g. the coin I got on my first outing with Bertie, a couple of pictures of Mrs Briskett, Sarah and my mama, a map of Kingtown etc. I sorted my picture of mama, my jewellery and my gorgeous little dog ornament that Bertie won me in a game of darts. I placed my hairbrush and comb on my the washstand.
With the wall space, I hung up a photo that showed me with Sarah and Mrs Briskett. Then, an image with Me and Bertie in the rowing boat, one with Bertie throwing the dart - an photo I had taken. Another image of us laying under the tree that was in the park when we were picturing. Then one of me giggling my head off on the merry-go-round took by Bertie.
I lay on the bed and looked around the room that I now called my own. I was tired after my journey and everything that had happened that day. I drifted into a deep sleep.
