by Mary Hooper
Grace looked, but didn’t see anyone she recognised. ‘But what of Mrs Macready?’
‘Gone to her son’s house in Connaught Gardens. We just do what we’re told, you understand,’ he said, so she would know he had nothing against her sort personally. ‘The bigwigs are very keen on slum clearance. They want all the stinking, rotten places pulled down. They breed disease, see.’
Grace was silent for a moment, trying to think clearly and not just begin weeping. ‘What about our things?’ she asked after a moment. ‘Can my sister and I go in to collect them?’
‘Too late, miss. You should have asked this morning.’
‘But no one told us!’ Grace thought of their few remaining trinkets and clothes, the crates, the sparse bedclothes and Lily’s treasures. ‘Oh, please,’ she said to the man earnestly. ‘It would break my sister’s heart to lose what few things we have.’
‘I thought all the stuffs was out of the place,’ said the man. He gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Look, I’ll let you in for two minutes, all right? Go in, get what you want and come straight out. And don’t tell anyone I let you in!’
Grace thanked him profusely, called to Lily and, while the man shouted to a workman to prise a plank of wood from the front door to allow them access, tried to explain to her what was happening.
Lily didn’t understand. Of course not; Grace didn’t understand either. But it would be all right, she tried to reassure her sister as they clattered upstairs, they would be sure to find some other accommodation – even if they had to share a room with another family for a time. She had heard of a soup kitchen where you could get meals . . . and perhaps there was help from the Parish for those who were made homeless through no fault of their own. She would go to James Solent, she decided there and then, and ask where they stood in regards to the law of the land. He’d said that if ever she needed help she could call on him, and though it might be embarrassing to ask for help from such a fine and handsome young man, she would do it if she had to.
Inside Mrs Macready’s house it was dim, dusty and as silent as the grave, as if it had already given up on life. Lily was crying before they even got to their room, and when Grace pushed open the door she began crying, too, for the room was completely bare: bed, blanket, pillow and the crates containing the little items that the girls had still owned all gone. The room was absolutely empty apart from the two small white business cards on the mantelpiece, standing out brightly in the darkness.
x
‘Where shall we go now, then?’ Lily asked, looking trustingly at Grace as they walked along the Strand. Lily’s tears had dried, she had been reassured (promised, for it was the only way that Grace could stop her from crying) that things would soon come right again.
‘We are going to a young gentleman I know, Mr James Solent,’ said Grace. ‘He’s a very clever legal man who will help us.’
James Solent, Susannah Solent . . . Grace, making the connection, felt her heart ache within her. My baby lies safely with Susannah Solent, she thought. But this did not console her; instead it made her want to weep and sob and tear at her clothes. Everything about her life was wretched.
Reaching the beginning of Fleet Street, with the elegant spires and pinnacles of the Royal Courts of Justice coming into view, Grace looked again at the card she held in her hand and then nervously approached a doorman to ask if he knew the way to Moriarty Chambers. He directed them across the road and under an archway, where another uniformed man asked what they wanted. Grace showed him the business card at the same moment that a hansom cab clattered up, however, and he waved them on without even looking at what was written on it.
Through the arch, a cobbled lane opened out to a different, much more genteel world: a spacious park-like area with grass and trees, and beyond that the grey streak of the Thames. Legal men in white collars and black gowns, some with curling grey wigs, walked busily to and fro. Some had files under their arms, some pulled boxes on wheels which were full of papers, and none spared a moment to glance at either of the girls.
Lily gazed about them, enjoying the unusual scene and peaceful atmosphere. ‘Is Mr Solent one of those funny men in a wig?’ she asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ Grace replied. Was he? More importantly, would he help them? Would he even remember his promise to her?
Spaced all around the park-like area were handsome buildings and, walking closer to these, Grace saw that they all had names painted above their arched doorways. She found Moriarty Chambers to be the last one in a terrace of six, its long windows overlooking the river.
‘Do you think it was the Pope boys who took our things?’ Lily chattered as Grace tried to compose herself to knock at the door. ‘I bet it was them, for once when I let Matthew into our room he kept looking at my shell and saying that he liked it.’
Grace didn’t remind Lily that she’d always told her to stay away from the Popes and that she should never have let him in the room in the first place, because none of that really mattered now. What mattered was that their lives were unravelling, and if James Solent couldn’t help them then she had no idea what she was going to do next.
She climbed the stone steps to the front door of the big house and rang the bell.
Nothing happened.
‘Ring again!’ Lily called up from street level. ‘Can I ring it this time?’
Grace ignored her and, after a polite interval, rang the bell again. Twice. It was eventually opened by an elderly man in a pinstriped suit.
‘Yes?’ he asked, frowning at Grace. It was not usual for women to enter the hallowed land belonging to the Inns of Court, and recently two prostitutes had come in through the gate as bold as anything, dressed scantily and flaunting the names of several most respectable barristers. How they’d come to be in possession of such information had not been discovered, but, as a consequence, security was supposed to have been stepped up.
Grace showed the business card. ‘I’m looking for Mr James Solent.’
‘Mr Solent is not available,’ said the grey-suited man disdainfully. ‘At least, not to such as you.’
‘But he said I could call upon him. Please can you tell me where to find him?’
‘Certainly not. Haven’t you heard of the confidentiality of the courts?’ He looked over Grace’s shoulder and saw Lily. ‘Be gone, both of you,’ he said. ‘We don’t allow the likes of you in here.’
Grace flushed. ‘Could I just –’ She wanted to ask if she could leave a message for Mr Solent, but the man was looking at her with such disgust that, knowing what he was thinking, her voice trailed away.
The door was shut in her face, the man gestured for her to clear off and stood glaring through the glass to make sure she did so.
Slowly, Grace went back down the steps.
‘Was that the man who was going to help us?’ Lily asked.
‘No! No, of course it wasn’t.’
‘Isn’t he here?’
Grace shook her head wordlessly. Had he been there? She’d seen several pairs of eyes looking out of the windows. Had he seen her and told the pinstriped man to send her away? Was he ashamed that he’d offered to help her?
‘What shall we do now?’
‘Well . . .’ Grace fought to control herself. It would do no good at all to start crying, for then Lily would start and there would be no stopping her. ‘We’ll try and find the place where they give people soup, then . . . and then . . .’ Then, perhaps, something else might occur to her. She fingered the other card in her pocket, thinking of Mrs Unwin’s offer of work and lodging. She hadn’t liked the woman, but if it came to it, she would have to go and seek her out.
x
Finding the soup kitchen at long last (for it was far away over the river in Southwark), they discovered that they were not allowed to have any actual soup, for all persons applying were required to bring with them a letter from their home Parish explaining why they were in need of such charity.
By this time, however, they were so hungry that Grace d
ecided they should use two of their precious pennies to buy a hot potato each. They began eating these in the relative comfort of a pew in Southwark Cathedral, but after being moved on by a verger, ended up sitting on the stone steps that ran from the top to the bottom of London Bridge. It was not the most comfortable venue, for despite it being well past the end of the working day there were still a great deal of people around, and many purveyors of ham sandwiches and beers, so that with every mouthful they took they were jostled and hassled to buy this and that, and accidentally kicked more than once. Grace wondered very much at the enormous number of people there, but was not to know that a few years previously Mr Charles Dickens had set a gruesome murder scene from his most popular and famous book on these very steps, and the site now attracted the literary, the ghoulish and the plain curious in equal measure.
Darkness had fallen by the time they’d finished eating and Grace, knowing prices were cheaper on the Southwark side of the river, set herself the task of finding somewhere for them to stay for the night. After asking in a tavern (and turning down the offer of a shared room at four pence as being too expensive), she was directed to an old warehouse standing just by the Thames. The tattered, peeling advertising hoardings in the streets, the broken bottles and rubbish underfoot, and the ravens and seagulls squawking overhead made the area even more uninviting and dismal than Seven Dials, but Grace resolved to go on, for they had to sleep somewhere. The warehouse, when found, was a rickety building constructed of rusty corrugated iron. On the ground floor during the day animal bones were boiled to make glue and the nauseating smell permeated the first floor, which was divided by thin curtains into small, separate units at a charge of tuppence per night.
On being shown to their ‘room’, Grace asked the woman in charge if she knew of any casual work nearby.
The woman shook her head and gave a bitter laugh. ‘Don’t you think I’d be doing it if there was?’
‘Is there really nothing at all? My sister and I are very hard workers,’ Grace went on. ‘Is there ever any packing work to be had in the warehouses?’
‘None for the likes of us,’ the woman said. ‘If there is work, then it goes to the men, for they have families to keep. The only job for women round here is the usual one.’
‘What’s that?’ Lily asked eagerly, but the woman merely laughed and made a vulgar gesture with her hand.
Many of the sleeping units were already taken up by regulars, watermen mostly, and the girls’ neighbours were a married couple with two young children on one side, and on the other, three burly dockers. When night fell and the dockers went out to the nearest tavern, both girls, exhausted, fell asleep straight away. After midnight the men returned much the worse for wear, singing, shouting and falling all over the place, and woke not only the married couple and their children, but all the other residents. The married man fought the dockers, the children cried, his wife screamed, and on their own side of the curtain Grace and Lily sat huddled together, too scared to move.
By one o’clock in the morning most of the people in the warehouse seemed to be involved in the fight in some way or other, and at two o’clock someone went for a peeler. Order was soon restored, for the dockers had passed out by this time, and Grace and Lily fell into an uneasy sleep. When they were woken at six o’clock by the lighting of the boilers below them and the shouting of the workers, it was to discover that the last penny had gone from Grace’s pocket and their shoes had been stolen off their feet.
x
Chapter Eleven
‘Well, this morning we shall have to have a Seven Dials breakfast,’ Grace said to her sister as they sat on the riverbank a little later. The river was packed with smoking boats and there was a stink in the air of hot oil, boiled animal carcasses and something even more unsavoury, for there was a tannery nearby which relied on the use of fresh dung to treat the hides.
‘A Seven Dials breakfast? What’s that?’ asked Lily with interest.
‘It’s a joke,’ Grace said. ‘It’s nothing. Nothing at all.’
‘But how can it be a breakfast, then? I don’t understand.’
Grace squeezed her sister’s hand. ‘It’s just a saying, Lily. It’s supposed to be droll.’
‘I’d rather it was breakfast.’
Grace sighed, looking at the chugging, wheezing boats on the river and the engine smoke drifting across the water. She fingered the black-edged card in her pocket, the card bearing the address of the Unwin Undertaking Establishment, knowing this was their last hope. The weather was quite clement now, but she knew they would never survive on the streets of London in snow, fog and freezing rain. She was wondering how she was going to explain this job to Lily and – now that they were without shoes – if she looked respectable enough to call on Mrs Unwin about such a matter anyway.
Lily, the traces of tears still on her face, was counting the number of boats that went by. Every time she got to twenty she would start again, for that was as high as she could go. At last she tired of this and asked what they were going to do next.
‘I’ve been thinking about a woman I met recently,’ Grace said cautiously. ‘Her family have an undertakers’ establishment, and she once said I might be able to go to work for them as a mute.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Someone who attends funerals dressed all in black, and looks sad.’
‘Can I be a mute as well?’
‘Yes. Perhaps,’ Grace said. It couldn’t be too difficult for someone to stand around looking mournful? Surely even Lily would be able to do that? She took the small card from her pocket. ‘We’ll go and find out, shall we?’
x
The undertaker’s was at the far end of Oxford Street, off the Edgware Road and about half a mile from the great Marble Arch, which had recently been moved from its site in front of Buckingham Palace. The traffic here went round and round the arch in both directions, a horrendous swirling mess of noise and mayhem, with omnibuses fighting for space alongside horsemen, hackney coaches, broughams, heavy eight-wheeled wagons and sedate private carriages, and all accompanied by a tremendous hooting, shouting, neighing and cracking of whips.
The building bore a small, tactful notice:
The Unwin Undertaking Establishment
(Proprietor: Mr George Unwin)
Discretion is our Byword
The substantial two-storey red-brick house with decorative plaster and fancy brickwork had been built for a wealthy industrialist some forty years earlier. When the Unwins had purchased it with an inheritance from Mrs Unwin’s parents a dozen years past, they’d changed the house from a family dwelling into a commercial concern. As the undertaking business became more successful, they had bought up the large mews area behind it, which included several stables, and over time had built a carpentry workshop, a stonemason’s yard and garaging for hearses, together with various workrooms. Following this, the attic rooms in the house were made into makeshift bedrooms for those females who worked for the Unwins and needed accommodation, while the blacksmith, stable boys and carpenter’s lads bunked in the hayloft above the stables.
The front two reception rooms of the house were where relatives of the departed were taken to choose what sort of farewell they intended to give their loved ones. One room had an entire wall made up of squares of different coffin wood, plus examples of brass and silver nameplates, while the other, larger room (painted a deep and soothing red) was where they decided more delicate matters, such as what type of mattress, pillow and interlining was wanted for the coffin interior. An alcove in this room served as a study and contained a substantial mahogany desk with various brochures from which the bereaved could choose funeral flowers, marble memorials, the type of procession and number of horses, what mutes and plumes and palls to use and other essential items. Behind these two reception areas were the various workrooms, a private parlour and a kitchen. A comforting fire burned in the red room summer and winter, and this perhaps calmed the mourners and lessened the shock of finding ou
t how much the funeral was going to cost.
Everything the newly bereaved family might require could be supplied here – apart from clothing, so when a family came to arrange a funeral they were warmly recommended to visit Mr Sylvester Unwin’s Oxford Street warehouse for their mourning garments. Mr Sylvester Unwin, of course, returned this compliment, and the substantial profits from the two businesses were shared.
Grace did not know the extent of the vast empire fronted by the shiny, black door, or she may have felt more nervous than she did about knocking on it. She made an effort to brush Lily’s skirts clean of dust, then straightened her shawl around her head and pushed the more unruly of her curls out of view. If she kept her hands clasped in front of her it would hide the muddy streak at the front of her gown, she thought, and if she did not sit down, then perhaps the fact that she didn’t have shoes would escape notice.
‘Do I look passable?’ she asked Lily.
‘Of course.’ Lily hardly glanced at her, for she was staring at a nearby pie shop and sniffing the air like a dog. ‘If they let us be mutes, will they give us some food?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Grace, distracted. What if she were turned away; what if this business card proved as useless as the other? She tapped at the door, but so quietly that the noise was swallowed by the sound of the traffic and she had to tap again before a housemaid opened it. She had been about to bob a curtsey, but she stopped at the sight of Grace and Lily, for they were not at all the sort of persons who normally called at the Unwins and their appearance didn’t seem to merit this courtesy.
‘I’m afraid we don’t do pauper funerals,’ said the maid, whose name was Rose. She spoke kindly enough, thinking that by the look of the two girls they didn’t seem to be vulgar people.
