THE DEPRIVED... Chapter 3...Part 18.

A continuation of my book.

It was late into the afternoon when Beth heard the stamping of marching feet and turned from the sweeping to see a line of girls of differing ages file into the room, a large and bustling girl at its head and calling out the steps.
“Left, right. Left, right. Stop! To your beds and get ready for tea. Wait till I give the order.”
The girls hurried to their beds, standing to attention. Beth hurried to her bed and stood as the other girls did, upright at the foot of the bed. The girls were all shapes and sizes, some no more than babies while others looked like young women.
“Who are you?”
“Beth.” answered Beth to the big girl who had led the other girls in.
She was large and shapeless under her smock with big bulbous eyes that were a mean pale blue.
“There aint no names here.” said the girl, prodding Beth in the stomach.
She pointed at the number above the bed.
“You’re a number four and that’s all you are.”
“Yes.” agreed Beth.
“Yes what? Yes you’re a number four or yes you are a stupid b***h?” shouted the girl.
“Yes, I’m a number four.” answered Beth, hearing some of the other girls sniggering.
“You is also a stupid b***h and that’s a certainty. One more thing, stupid b***h, I’m the head girl in this dormitory and you has to call me Miss else you’ll be feeling my boot to your ribs.”
“Yes Miss.” answered Beth, keeping her eyes down.

“Line the girls up and lead them down to the hall for tea.”
The woman who came into the dormitory was dressed severely in a rough serge uniform and wore a beret to her head.
“Yes, Madam.” answered the head girl.
Beth was to learn that all the women staff wore the same uniform and answered to the title of ‘Madam’, while the men answered to the title of ‘Sir’.

The hall below was used at mealtimes and only for the girls, the women were fed at a different time so that neither set saw the other. The tables were set in a line down the middle of the hall with the girls seated at the numbered chairs. Before tea, prayers were said by a Madam who sat at the head of the tables, a long and spiteful affair extolling the virtues of a day’s honest work and about the sins of the flesh which was followed by the sin of begging and pauperism and the meal growing colder by the minute.
Tea was a mixture of sour milk and oatmeal with a tin mug of water. There was no talking aloud, the girls sitting in silence and eating hungrily. Those girls who had missed work through malingering or had been late for evening or morning prayers were made to sit in a row at the side of the hall and watch the other girls eat. This was a punishment Beth was to have put on her a number of times before she learned to accept every rule in the book.

“You! New girl! Number four!”
“Yes Miss.”
Tea had been eaten and the girls returned to the dormitory when Beth was confronted by the head girl.
“Come with me.”
Beth followed the girl to a small room outside the dormitory where a row of buckets sat.
“Them’s your job every evening after tea and afore the call to prayers. You has to empty them buckets as are full of piss and turds and clean the buckets to sparkling so as the girls can use them afore getting into bed. And that’s another thing, no girl is allowed out of bed after getting in, not till half four in the morning for prayers. Have you got that?”
“Yes Miss.” said Beth.
“You carry them buckets down the stairs to the outside ash-pit where’s you tip them afore cleaning.”

The head girl left Beth to her task of emptying the buckets before scouring them out with cold water from the draw-well out in the yard. It was as she was finishing cleaning the last two buckets that Beth heard a bell shrilling inside the building.
“Hoi! You’re missing the prayers, number four!” shouted the head girl, running down the stairs and then disappearing back up the stairs just as quickly.
Beth left the buckets as they lay and ran up the stairs. Prayers had already started with the girls on their knees beside their beds, with hands clasped and eyes closed as they chanted the Lord’s Prayer.

“You’re too late!” hissed the Matron, pushing Beth back towards the door. “Go to my office and wait outside.”
There were two other girls already waiting, the youngest of around six years old was blubbering loudly.
“Shut your hissing!” snapped the older girl. “You’ll get us more than the loss of some meals if Matron hears your snivelling. We’ll all get a week’s work and no pay for eats in the tuck-shop, so belt up your noise!”

“You are all on report for being late for prayers and so you will go without any dinner for a week. Off you go, straight to bed!”

The Matron had arrived and quickly dealt with the three girls in front of her. Hurrying up to the dormitory with the other girls, Beth jumped into bed just as the head girl was about to blow out the candle which stood in a dish at the far end of the dormitory. Seeing Beth get into bed the head girl walked over to Beth’s bed and leaned over with a smirk.
“What do you think you’re up to, number four?”
Beth sat up, not answering.
“Aint you forgotten your tasks? What about the crap buckets, eh?” said the head girl. “You aint finished. So hustle your backside and get down there and finish the job.”
Beth rose from the bed and hurried down the stairs, her bare feet slapping the cold slabs as she crossed the yard.
“Hey you! Stop right there!”
It was the Matron, along with two Madams.
“Aren’t you the girl I’ve just punished? What are you doing out here with those buckets?”
Beth tried to explain, her teeth chattering in the cold while her body shivered under the thin cotton nightdress.
“Be at my office at first light, girl.” snapped the Matron.
Beth carried the scoured buckets up to the ‘Slop-Room’ and hurried to her bed. The dormitory was in darkness, silent except for the giggles which came from the head girl as she whispered and giggled to another large girl in the next bed.

The next morning at first light Beth was made to stand outside the Matron’s office in her nightdress, standing in bare feet on the stone floor until the Matron arrived.
“Come in and stand in front of my desk.” ordered the Matron as she seated herself, to stare at Beth with harsh eyes.
“This is the second time in two days that you have been here before me.”
The Matron held up a hand as Beth began to protest in explanation.
“I have no wish to hear it. All you beggar-girls are born liars who will always try to blame others.”
Beth stood quietly and waited.
“You will be working with the other girls in the Oakum Room.” said the Matron. “You will work for a week with no wages or privileges plus forty-eight hours of missed meals, such meals being established by the Madam in charge of hall duty. Go back to your dormitory and get ready for prayers and breakfast. Dismissed!”