Free A Child's Voice Calling by Maggie Bennett Page A

the doctor who smiled and beckoned to her. ‘I’ve got some news for you, Mabel, about your friend Maud Ling,’ he said.
    ‘Oh, Dr Knowles, what’ve yer heard?’ she asked, clasping her hands together, half in hope, half in dread. ‘Tell me please! Is she in prison?’
    ‘No, no, no. After she was questioned by the police, she and her brother were put into the care for a society run by the church for children in need of care. It’s called the Waifs and Strays Society, andMaud and her brother are in a home at Dulwich for . . . well, for waifs and strays, where they’ll get enough to eat and won’t have to roam the streets any more.’
    ‘Is it a . . . a workhouse?’ asked Mabel fearfully.
    ‘Oh, dear me, no, children aren’t sent to workhouses any more, thank heaven. No, dear, this is quite a good place, homely, not too large, and Maud and her brother will go to school and be trained for useful work. The society will take good care of them, something which their parents completely failed to do.’ He hesitated, then added, ‘Not like your little brother Walter, who was always loved and cared for, wasn’t he?’
    Mabel nodded, remembering Maudie’s shocking accounts of violent drunken quarrels and the deaths of three other children. ‘Yes, but isn’t it
wicked
, Dr Knowles, all the poor children who
aren’t
loved and looked after, like Maudie and Teddy!’ she cried with a sudden fierce passion that took the doctor by surprise. ‘Oh, how I wish I could take care of them all!’
    The doctor looked very thoughtful. ‘Not yet, Mabel, and not all of them,’ he said after a pause. ‘But one day I think you’re going to be able to help
some
of them, my dear. You’re a born nurse and you’ll have to train at a hospital, but for now—’
    ‘Oh, Dr Knowles, d’ye really think so? Did yer mean what yer just said? I want to be a children’s nurse more ’n anything else in the world!’ Mabel’s whole face was transformed as she told him of her dearest wish.
    ‘And so you will one day, I’m sure, Mabel, but first of all it’s very important that you learn all you can now while you are still at school. I don’t want to hearof you missing any more school days, do you understand?’ His words were stern, but his face so kind that Mabel smiled and promised to work really hard at her lessons and regain her place at the top of the class.
    ‘Take that gin away, woman – out of the room, out of the house!’ ordered Dr Knowles. ‘I won’t have the vile stuff near a woman in childbirth!’
    Mrs Lowe indignantly denied all knowledge of the offending jam jar on the window shelf and a flustered Mrs Bull hastily removed it from the bedroom. It had been her contribution towards Annie Court’s ease in labour and having decanted the colourless liquid into an innocent-looking jar, she thought it would escape notice. Knowles had detected it as soon as he entered the room.
    Annie’s pains had begun on an afternoon halfway through February and Dr Knowles had asked to be notified as well as the midwife. On arriving at Sorrel Street he found Mabel in the kitchen seeing to the children’s tea and keeping the kettle on the boil for Mrs Lowe. ‘Mm-mm, something smells good. What is it, Irish stew? Any chance of a taste, Mabel?’
    She dipped the ladle in the big blackened saucepan, but as she lifted it up a shout and a bump was heard upstairs. ‘It sounds as if me mum might be having the baby, Dr Knowles.’
    ‘Then I’d better go up and see what Mrs Lowe’s doing,’ he answered with a smile. He knew that the midwife was sensible and reliable, better than some of the untrained handywomen like Mrs Clements who still practised as midwives among the poorer neighbourhoods. The new compulsory registration would eventually phase them out, but he knew itwould be some years before registration could be enforced.
    Apart from banishing the gin jar, he stood aside and let Mrs Lowe go ahead in her own way while he held