Free Ruby McBride by Freda Lightfoot Page B

the open, they’d finally been spotted.  
    As boys ran in all directions, most making an escape but many failing to do so, Kit too was taken into custody, along with Charlie and Clem. Ruby’s last sight of Pongo and Jackdaw was of them haring away down the canal towpath. She felt glad that they, at least, had got away.
    They were all brought before the magistrates where their punishments were issued with no trace of leniency. No one was interested in listening to their stories, or wished to hear how they’d been desperate to find out the truth about their dying mother, how Billy had been bullied and that they’d wanted only to earn an honest crust and live a normal family life together. Nor did anyone give a thought to how Marie and her four younger children would manage without Kit’s help and the money he brought in.
    The three McBrides were accused of delinquency, as well as gross misconduct and ingratitude to the sisters of Ignatius House. It was decided that they needed to be protected from the evils and degenerative influences of city life, and that the only recourse was for Ruby and Pearl to attend the Girls’ Reformatory for a term of four years. Billy was to be sent to a farm school to learn a trade. Charlie and Clem were likewise condemned to the reformatory. Kit Jarvis, a well-known hooligan in the eyes of the magistrates, was to be consigned to the rigours of the reformatory training ship for a period of three years where a final attempt at reformation would be made. It was made quite clear to him that if this didn’t work, his next place of residence would be in Her Majesty’s prison.
    Kit cast one final glance in Ruby’s direction, and although the blue eyes glittered with outrage rather than good humour, his grin was as cocky and insolent as ever. Ruby suddenly found herself grinning back, her eyes silently begging him to understand that although they could do what they liked to his physical person, they could never crush his spirit. She certainly intended that to be the case so far as she was concerned. But as he was led away, her heart was aching, for she held little hope they’d ever meet again.

 
    Chapter Seven
    1900
    After almost four years in the reformatory, Ruby was to be allowed out on licence. She was eighteen and could hardly wait. It meant that although she would still be under the watchful eye of Miss Crombie, the Superintendent, she could at last get a job and start a new life. Strict rules would be enforced such as a monthly report from her employer and, should she lose her job for any reason, she would be obliged to return to the reformatory.
    This was not the first time she’d been allowed out on licence. It was, in fact, the fourth. Each of her other prospective positions had lasted less than a month, one of them barely a week. The trouble was that Ruby had never quite acquired the necessary degree of obedience and subservience. What was worse, the more those in authority attempted to mould her to their rules over the years, the more fiercely she’d held on to her own strong will.
    There had been the case of the woman who had tested her honesty by placing a sovereign clearly in view on her dressing table. Ruby had handed it back to her employer together with her resignation, saying she wouldn’t work where she wasn’t trusted.
    Then there’d been the jealous wife, so certain that Ruby was sharing her husband’s bed that one night when Ruby had gone out to fill the coal scuttle, she’d found herself locked in the coal shed as punishment for her supposed sins. After hammering and knocking on the door for an hour to no effect, Ruby had squeezed out through the back window and walked the seven miles back to the reformatory. The woman had been furious, accusing her not only of depravity but of absconding from her duties as well.
    It was common to be employed by those who wished only to exploit reformatory girls by promising them respectable employment while having quite other