"Surely, it can't be?"
"Well, his father has died, y'know …"
"But that was over three months ago …"
Whispers around the station as he chivvied a selection of children off the train and instructed them to each pick up a small case, or two, and the older ones to see that they all kept together.
"There must be at least five …"
"No, six, look he's holding a tiny one …"
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Five months previously:
The orphanage was war battered, broken and without proper facilities. There didn't appear to be any adults around, just five children of various ages picking over the carcase of a chicken that had been cooked, and a few limp vegetables. The children looked half starved, dirty and scared.
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After he had been signed as fit, Major, Dr Lucien Blake had taken his discharge from the army and gone to search for his daughter, lost to him at the fall of Singapore.
"My wife was killed," he told his superior officer, "my daughter … I don't know, but I have to look for her, she will be nine, nearly ten, now."
"Right," the CO nodded, "well, here's your back-pay, passport and papers. Good luck, Major, hope you find her."
"Sir," he took the paperwork, slipped the money into his pocket and went to see if he could get himself some medical provisions and a bag to carry them in. He may need them, he was sure he would need them. He asked to borrow an army truck to get around.
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He offered medical examinations at all the orphanages he came across in return for information. Some were still in good repair, run by churches and staffed by nuns or such women as could be persuaded to help. Each time he was given the name of another place, when he found that Li was not there. It had been four years, he wasn't sure if she would have remembered any of her English, and the children were of many nationalities, displaced when Singapore had fallen to the Japanese. They were English, French, Chinese, Malay, Australian … but so far none of them were Li.
Further along a road, outside of another city, a church had fallen, the tower collapsed, the windows shattered and the roof caved in. Behind it was the battered remains of a children's home where he found the last remaining occupants, all of them children.
A boy looked up and gasped. He was blond haired, skinny but determined, Lucien could see, to protect the others around the rickety table.
"Lad," Lucien put his bag down and showed he had no gun in his hands. "My name is Dr Lucien Blake, I am Australian and just out of the army."
The boy considered his look, his voice and his accent.
"Daddy?" a voice from behind him whispered. "Daddy, is it really you?" The girl who had spoken came to stand by the boy. "I knew you'd come," she smiled almost shyly.
"Li, sweet child," Lucien crouched down, "I thought I'd never find you," he opened his arms and she ran into them. They hugged for a moment then he stood up, holding her hand.
"These are my friends, daddy," she waved them forward, "that's Curtis, then Will, Lottie, Suyin and the baby is May." She pointed at each as she said their names and they nodded but stayed at a distance.
"This is my daddy, he's been away, fighting?" she looked at him for confirmation, he just nodded.
"Are there any grown-ups here?"
"No," Curtis, the elder of the children and the one who stood to protect them when he first arrived, shook his head, "no, they ran away, May's mother died, last week. We buried her …" he pointed to the back of the building, "out there."
"How long have you been alone here?"
Each looked at the other, Curtis shrugged, Li frowned, it had been so long they couldn't give him an answer, just that it had been a week since May's mother had left them.
He looked at the rag tag group, Will was as dark as Curtis was fair, Lottie had a crop of red-gold curls that needed a good combing, Suyin was Chinese, he wasn't sure about the baby Lottie was holding, and his darling Li favoured her mother with his blue eyes.
"Have you come to take me home, daddy?"
"That was my plan, Li, but your friends need help too, don't they?"
"Oh yes, ever so much," she nodded.
"So, food?"
"That's about it," Curtis scowled, "I killed the chicken yesterday, but …"
"Son, don't worry, now, let's talk."
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Lucien looked around the sparce conditions the children had somehow survived in. Most of the roof had gone, there were pallets they obviously slept on, altogether, a water tap hanging from the wall – it can't have been much when it was fully up and looked after.
"What happened to the adults, apart from May's mother?" he started to check each child over, starting with the baby.
"They ran away," Will grunted, his accent was vaguely French, Lucien thought, "she couldn't because the baby was coming."
"She was really poorly, daddy," Li added, "we didn't know what to do."
He judged the baby to be about four months old, scrawny and in desperate need of milk.
"Sir," Curtis had taken his time, but he liked Li and if this was her father, maybe he could be trusted, "what will happen to us? None of us know where our families are …"
"You will come with me, Curtis, I won't abandon you." He'd made the decision as he examined May, he couldn't just take Li and leave them, they wouldn't survive much longer, alone.
"All of us?" Lottie was English, very much so, it was probably why Li had kept her English so well.
All of you," he smiled gently. "So, food, milk, clothes and a better place to stay for tonight."
"How?"
"What do you want us to do?"
"Gather up all the things you want, precious things you have saved," he looked around, "then we'll go into the nearest town … after that … it might be a bit of an adventure but we'll be together, I promise."
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There was a market and a chemist still open when they arrived at the first small town. Lucien went into the chemist for things for the baby, thinking back to when Li was at that age and glad that he had been a father to her, then he gave the three oldest some money and sent them to buy food.
"Meet me back at the truck," he put his hand on Curtis' shoulder, "Me and Li will find somewhere to stay and take you there."
No hotel would take this westerner and six ragged children so he looked around on the edge of town and found an abandoned house with running water and a stove he could manage. He had learnt a lot in the camp, about survival.
Curtis, Lottie and Will had shopped frugally but well. There was vegetables and fish, some noodles and bread. Lucien praised them and bundled them all into the army truck he had borrow at the beginning of his search and drove them to the house.
"For tonight, children," he lifted May from Li's arms, "we shall stay here. Tomorrow we will go to the embassy and give them your details. If they know of your families we shall see …"
"And if …" Lottie gulped tearfully, "if they're gone, like Li's mother …?"
"Then I shall take you with me, no more orphanages, or children's homes …"
"But, daddy," Li tugged his hand, "aren't we going to Australia?"
"The house is big enough, and if your grandfather won't have us I shall buy somewhere for all of us." He raised his shoulders.
"Australia, sir?" Curtis frowned.
"That is where I come from, I have a home there, and friends," he wondered if Matthew had come through the war unscathed, "together, Curtis, I promise."
Lucien had no idea how his father's health was, if he still practiced medicine, if he was still alive, but Ballarat was as good a place as any to start his new life.
He prepared bottles of milk for May, cleaned her and changed her nappy into one of the clean ones he had bought, while the older children prepared the food. He would buy them all some new clothes on the morrow, and they would head to the nearest embassy and see if they knew of the families that were missing these children. May would stay with him, none of the children could say what her mother's name was, other than Elizabeth.
"She was a nun, daddy," Li whispered as the other children began to fall asleep, "nun's don't have babies, do they? The other nuns weren't nice to her, they said she had sinned. What does that mean?"
Lucien took this to mean Elizabeth had been raped and May was the product, but he would not allow that to define the child.
"Sinning is doing the wrong thing. One day, sweetheart, I will explain, but May needs our help, she is not responsible for her mother's death, and Elizabeth didn't sin."
"She was nice, but so sad."
"Sleep, Li. Elizabeth is at peace and we will keep May safe."
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The embassy looked imposing to the children in spite of the shell damage. Lucien had bought the children clothes, western style, and they now presented themselves to the General overseeing such matters.
He really couldn't say where the children's parents were. There wasn't enough in the files, they were still waiting for everything to be gone through, to be catalogued, there was no information on the families.
"So, if I were to offer to take these children with me?" Lucien was frustrated that there seemed to be no effort to help them.
"Well, I suppose there's paperwork," the secretary with the General shrugged.
"Then I shall wait until that is provided," Lucien sat down and set to giving May a bottle of milk. "Sit down, children, no need to tire yourselves out, standing."
Li sat next to her father, Lottie followed, then Curtis, Will and Suyin sat at Lucien's feet.
"Deal with it, Hodgkins," the General huffed and stalked away.
Hodgkins duly 'dealt with it' and after half a day, and finding some food and drink for the refugees, he produced the required papers for each of the children, declaring them to be wards of Major, Dr Lucien R Blake. It was unorthodox, but it would work and it was as legal as they could make it.
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Lucien arranged passage for them all on the next ship heading to Australia. They would have to wait a week, a week in which he cared for them all, listened to their stories and hoped May would continue to progress. She was a little better each day, he thought. Lottie and Li took turns to care for her and help with the day to day running of a little house he had managed to find near the port. It was another abandoned place, but these were useful to him, no questions asked.
He found out more about each child. Curtis, as he surmised was the oldest at twelve. His father had worked on the port in the shipping office, he had been at school the day Singapore fell, as were Will and Lottie. Will was eleven, Lottie the same, Li, ten, Suyin about five – she remembered nothing of her life before being consigned to the orphanage as a baby. She was the quietest, almost silent unless she was with one of the older girls, then she would speak, but not much.
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By the time they boarded the ship, Lucien had seen that they all had clean clothes and changes, May was getting better, more alert, but still tiny for her age. He was surprised she had lasted the week after her mother had died, but Li said they found some formula milk and had done their best to see she was fed, even if it wasn't really enough. He ignored the looks he got as they boarded, and shepherded his brood, his family as he now thought of them, to their cabins.
In the two months since he had found them his father had had a heart attack and died. He knew nothing of this. His idea was to contact his father as soon as they landed and inform him he was coming home with six children.
The journey would take them first to Fremantle, then round to Adelaide and Melbourne. The ship was crowded, a converted cargo ship, but there was food, space to roam, and reasonably comfortable beds. Will and Curtis shared, as did Lottie and Li, Lucien had Suyin in with him and a crib for May.
The journey was slow and not particularly exciting, so Lucien told them tales of his boyhood, his friends that he hoped they would meet and the house he hoped they would live in. Hard as it would be he was determined to have to studio opened, sort out his mother's paintings and the equipment and make it into an inviting living space. The more he told the children of his mother the easier it got to think about doing so, however his father felt.
"Why did he lock it up, daddy?" Li wondered.
"I supposed because he was very sad and it reminded him of her." He sighed, his relationship with his father had never been good, his mother was supposed to raise him, but he was a curious child always asking questions, bursting into surgery – then she died and he was sent away for a while.
"When I came back, I went to school with a friend from my early years, his name is Matthew Lawson, I hope he's still there. He wanted to be a policeman."
"Is he?" Curtis raised his eyebrows.
"I don't know, Curtis, I haven't heard." Lucien admitted.
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Dr Thomas Blake's housekeeper had been retained to keep the house warm and dry in anticipation of his son's return. This arrangement was for three months, after that, if Lucien hadn't been found the house was to be sold. The telegram gave her some hope, but she took it down to the solicitor's to be dealt with.
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"Oh, well, that's a blow," Lucien read the telegram while the boy waited for a reply.
"Daddy?"
"Hm, oh my father, your grandfather has unfortunately died, Li."
"I'm sorry," she touched his arm and gave him a sad smile.
"Not to worry, the house is there, and ready for us. The housekeeper is still employed, I don't know her, but there will be warmth and food."
"Reply, sir?" the steward hummed.
"Ah, yes, um," he took the paper and wrote the date of his arrival and that he required beds for five children made up and a cot for the baby to be set in his room. There wasn't much else he could say in a telegram.
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The housekeeper frowned. The beds, yes she could do that, but a cot? The solicitor who had received the communication just told her to go out to the store and buy what was needed. He gave her money and told her to bring him the receipt.
Dr Blake hadn't said anything about a wife; his father had said all he knew was that Dr Lucien's Chinese wife was killed, so … well it was all so curious. Six children, including a babe in arms, was there a second Mrs Blake? If so it was very quick – unseemly. She hoped he didn't expect her to look after the children, she was a housekeeper, not a nanny.
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The five older children squeezed onto the back seat of the taxi, Lucien sat in front with May in his arms. The driver offered his condolences on the death of his father, who, he said, had been his GP.
"Glad you made it through, sir," he hummed.
"Thank you," Lucien nodded, "these are my wards. Nobody seems to know where their birth families are."
"Good of you to take them in."
"Li," he pointed at her, "is my daughter, they are her friends, so they are my friends, too."
He wasn't sure why he was explaining all this to a taxi driver, save the odd looks he had got at the station, and if Ballarat was still the hotbed of gossip, word would get around.
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The house was much as he remembered it, right down to the hanging basket in the porch. The housekeeper must have heard the car arrive for the door opened to reveal a stern looking woman, which was no more than Lucien expected from his father, he wouldn't have employed a young woman with a ready smile. All he hoped was that she could cook and would help him with the children while he set the practice back up.
He paid the driver, adding a good tip, the children picked up the cases and stood by his side.
She came out to greet them, all the while wondering at this odd looking group.
"Mrs Hastings," she held out her hand, "welcome home, Major."
Lucien shook her hand, thanked her and asked if she would address him as Dr Blake, as he had left the army.
"As you wish, doctor."
"This is Li, my daughter, the others are my wards, Curtis, Will, Lottie, Suyin and the baby is May," each stepped forward to shake her hand, except for May who slept on in his arms.
"I have made the beds up as instructed, doctor," she preceded them into the house without addressing any of the children, not even Li. "There is a meal ready, I thought a roast dinner, chicken, would probably be acceptable."
"Lovely, thank you," he ushered the children before him, "they aren't fussy eaters."
Mrs Hastings was a plain cook, she didn't hold with 'foreign muck' so plain would be what they would get, even if at least two of the children had oriental blood.
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Lucien looked round his old home while Mrs Hastings took the older children upstairs to sort out who was to share with whom, and put their things where they wanted them. He had the solicitor's number and decided he would call him, immediately. He would need to see him about his father's accounts and the will, and discuss the arrangements for Mrs Hastings' employment. She hadn't offered to take May off him, or suggested a cuppa, which he was ready for, and he ought to heat up some milk for May. He'd got used to doing things one-handed on their journey, all things he thought a mother would do, so filling the kettle and setting it on the stove was the first thing he did.
As the kettle started to heat he sat at the kitchen table and pulled the phone over.
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Upstairs, Mrs Hastings showed the children the rooms and told them they had better decide for themselves which rooms they wanted.
"You and me could share this one, Will," Curtis poked his nose in one room.
"Ok," Will pushed a case into the room.
"One of us needs to share with Suyin," Lottie looked at Li, "I don't mind. It's your house really, you should have your own room."
"No, Lottie, you are older than me, I'll have Suyin," Li smiled, "once she's settled we can move around. Daddy might want her and May to share, when May's a bit bigger."
"Sounds like a good idea, you always did have them," Lottie grinned.
"The bathroom is down there," Mrs Hastings pointed to the end of the corridor.
"We'll sort ourselves out, Mrs Hastings," Li nodded, "my father will want to speak to you, I expect."
Mrs Hastings harrumphed and left them to it. She may be the daughter of the house but she was still half Chinese.
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"I see," Lucien was saying as she entered the kitchen, "well, I shall come and see you tomorrow, to sort out father's affairs. Thank you." He put the phone down and looked up at the housekeeper.
"I'm seeing the solicitor tomorrow, I shall leave the children here, it will be boring for them."
"Oh, I'm not a nanny, Dr Blake."
"The older ones will entertain themselves," he went to the stove and poured hot water into a jug in which he had stood a bottle for May. "I shall only want you to keep an eye on the baby."
"I know nothing about babies," she huffed.
"Li and Lottie are most capable."
"They are children."
"Mrs Hastings, if I say my daughter and ward can look after May for a couple of hours that should be enough for you."
He'd been told by the solicitor that she had been paid up to the end of the following week, he didn't think he'd be keeping her on, but he would have to find someone who could care for the children, especially May, and run his house. Eventually he would settle the children in schools, but Suyin and May would need a more maternal figure. He had not taken a liking to her when she refused to address the children by their names when they were introduced.
"Dinner will be in an hour." She watched him take May into the living room and feed her.
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Lucien lay in his bed, listening to the snuffling of the baby and thinking on his next moves. He would have to place an advert for a nanny-housekeeper the following day. Mrs Hastings hadn't got any more pleasant as the evening had worn on. She had glared at Curtis when he address Lucien as 'father', it happened more and more, but then Lucien quite often called him 'son' as he did Will. It was only to be expected, he thought; he was trying to be a father to five homeless children, and he was determined to be as good a father as he could be, and nothing like his own father. They had been without family for four years, or so, Suyin for all her short life and May was an orphan. He would thank her for her service but she was not what they needed, he thought she would be expecting that.
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"…. So that's about it," the solicitor sat back and hummed. "Your father left everything to you, house, money, your mother's jewellery. Mrs Hastings …"
"Ah, yes," Lucien sighed, "she's not really what I need. She told me she's not a nanny and with the youngest being a babe in arms … I wondered if she can be let go, after all she's had three month's pay and no one to actually work for."
"I see, and yes, when you sent the telegram about the accommodation she was, shall we say, a little put out? She had to get someone in to assemble the cot … the children, Dr Blake?"
"My daughter, the others were all at the orphanage I found her at. Alone, the last adult, the baby's mother, had died the previous week, I couldn't really take her and leave them, so, they are my wards; the embassy sorted that out for me. They're a good bunch, two boys, of similar ages, Li and Lottie are about a year apart, a little one, we think about five, and May. Very capable, resourceful, it would be nice to find their families and tell them how proud they should be."
"Ah, most generous of you."
"D'ye think so, I just thought it was right." He smiled, "so, how should I go about finding a nanny-housekeeper, any ideas?"
"An advert, in the newsagents' window, in the Courier …"
"What's unemployment like, here?"
"Mixed. We've not had many come back yet, but you're looking for a female, yes?"
"Best I think," he nodded.