A Christmas Promise (2 page)

Gracie busied herself with housework, washing dishes, sweeping, and dusting, putting out slops and fetching more water from the well at the end of the street. It was cold outside, with a rime of ice on the cobbles and a hard east wind promising sleet.

By nine o’clock she could not bear her conscience anymore. She put on her heaviest shawl, gray-brown cloth and very thick, and went outside into the street again and down to the corner to look for Minnie Maude.

London was an enormous cluster of villages all running into one another, some rich, some poor, none worse than Flower and Dean Walk, which was filled with rotting tenements, sometimes
eight or ten people to a room. It was full of prostitutes, thieves, magsmen, cracksmen, star-glazers, snotter-haulers, fogle-hunters, and pickpockets of every kind.

Oddly enough, the boundaries remained. Each village had its own identity and loyalties, its hierarchies of importance and rules of behavior, its racial and religious mixtures. Just the other side of Commercial Street it was Jewish, mostly Russians and Poles. In the other direction was Whitechapel. Thrawl Street, where Minnie Maude said she lived, was beyond Gracie’s area. Only something as ignorant as a donkey would wander from one village to another as if there were no barriers, just because you could not see them. Charlie could hardly be blamed, poor creature, but Minnie Maude knew, and of course Gracie did even more so.

At the corner the wind was harder. It sliced down the open street, whining in the eaves of the taller buildings, their brick defaced with age,
weathering, and neglect. Water stains from broken guttering streaked black, and she knew they would smell of mold inside, like dirty socks.

The soles of her boots slipped on the ice, and her feet were so cold she could not feel her toes anymore.

The next street over was busy with people, men going to work at the lumberyard or the coal merchant, girls going to the match factory a little farther up. One passed her, and Gracie saw for a moment the lopsided disfigurement of her face, known as “phossie-jaw,” caused by the phosphorus in the match heads. An old woman was bent over, carrying a bundle of laundry. Two others shared a joke, laughing loudly. There was a peddler on the opposite corner with a tray of sandwiches, and a man in a voluminous coat slouched by.

A brewer’s dray passed, horses lifting their great feet proudly and clattering them on the stones, harnesses gleaming even in the washed-out winter light. Nothing more beautiful than a
horse, strong and gentle, its huge feet with hair like silk skirts around them.

A hawker came a few yards behind, pushing a barrow full of vegetables, pearly buttons on his coat. He was whistling a tune, and Gracie recognized it as a Christmas carol. The words were something about merry gentlemen.

She walked quickly to get out of the wind; it would be more sheltered once she was around the corner. She knew what street she was looking for. She could remember the name, but she could not read the signs. She was going to have to ask someone, and she hated that. It took away all her independence and made her feel foolish. At least someone would know Minnie Maude, especially since there had just been a death in the family.

She was regarded with some suspicion, but five minutes later she stood on the narrow pavement outside a grimy brick-fronted house whose colorless wooden door was shut fast against the ice-laden wind.

Until this moment Gracie had not thought of what she was going to say to explain her presence. She could hardly tell them that she had come to help Minnie Maude find Charlie, because if she were really a good person, she would have offered to do that yesterday. Going home to tea sounded like an excuse. And anyway, Aunt Bertha had already said that, as far as she was concerned, it didn’t matter, and whatever Minnie Maude thought of it, Aunt Bertha seemed reasonable enough. The poor woman was bereaved, and probably beside herself with worry as to how they were going to manage without a money-earning member of the family. There was a funeral to pay for, never mind looking for daft donkeys that had wandered off. Except that he might be worth a few shillings if they sold him?

Probably they already had, and just didn’t want to tell Minnie Maude. She was too young to understand some of the realities of life. That was probably it. Better to tell her, though. Then she
would stop worrying that he was lost and scared and out in the rain by himself.

Gracie was still standing uselessly on the cobbles, shifting from one foot to the other and shaking with cold, when the door opened and a large man with a barrel chest and bowlegs came out, banging his hands together as if they were already numb.

“Eh, mister!” Gracie stepped forward into his path. “Is this where Minnie Maude lives?”

He looked startled. “I in’t seen you ’ere before! ’oo are yer?” he demanded.

“I in’t bin ’ere before,” she said reasonably. “That’s ’ow I dunno if this is where she lives.”

He looked her up and down, all four feet eleven inches of her, from the top of her shawl to her pale, clever little face, down to her bony body and her worn-out boots with buttons missing. “Wot d’yer want wif our Minnie Maude, then?” he asked suspiciously.

Gracie said the first thing that came into her
mind. “Got an errand for ’er. Worf tuppence, if she does it right. Can’t do it all meself,” she added, in case it sounded too good to be true.

“I’ll get ’er for yer,” he said instantly, turning on his heel and going back into the house. A moment later he returned with Minnie Maude behind him. “There y’are,” he said, and pushed her forward. “Make yerself useful, then,” he prompted, as if she might be reluctant.

Minnie Maude’s wide eyes regarded Gracie with wonder and gratitude entirely inappropriate to the offer of a twopenny job, which might even last all day. Still, perhaps when you were eight, tuppence was a lot. Gracie was thirteen, and it was more than she actually had, but she had needed to make the offer good in order to be certain that it would be carried inside, and that Minnie Maude would be allowed to accept. She would deal with finding the tuppence later.

“Well, c’mon, then!” Gracie said aloud, grasping Minnie Maude’s arm and half-pulling her
away from the bowlegged man and striding along the street as fast as she dared on the ice.

“Yer gonna ’elp me find Charlie?” Minnie Maude asked breathlessly, slipping and struggling to keep up with her.

It was a little too late to justify her answer now. “Yeah,” Gracie conceded. “I ’spec it won’t take long. Someb’dy’ll ’ave seen ’im. Mebbe ’e got a fright an’ ran off. ’e’ll get ’isself ’ome by an’ by. Wot ’appened ter yer uncle Alf, anyway?” She slowed down a little bit now that they were round the corner and back in Brick Lane again.

“Dunno,” Minnie Maude said unhappily. “They found ’im in Richard Street, in Mile End, lyin’ in the road wi’ the back of ’is ’ead stove in, an’ cuts an’ bangs all over ’im. They said as ’e must ’ave fell off ’is cart. But Charlie’d never ’ave gorn an’ left ’im like that. Couldn’t’ve, even if ’e’d wanted to, bein’ as ’e were tied inter the shafts.”

“W’ere’s the cart, then?” Gracie asked practically.

“That’s it!” Minnie Maude exclaimed, stopping abruptly. “It’s not there! That’s ’ow else I know ’e were done in. It’s gorn.”

Gracie shook her head, stopping beside her. “’oo’d a done ’im in? Wot’s in the cart, then? Milk? Coal? Taters?” She was beginning to feel more and more as if Minnie Maude were in her own world of loss and grief more than in the real one. “’oo’s gonna do in someone fer a cartload o’ taters? ’e must a died natural, an’ fell off, poor thing. Then some rotten bastard stole ’is cart, taters an’ all, an’ Charlie wif ’em. But ’owever rotten they are,” she added hastily, “they’ll look after Charlie, because ’e’s worf summink. Donkeys are useful.”

“It weren’t milk,” Minnie Maude said, easing her pace to keep in step. “’e were a rag an’ bone man, an’ sometimes ’e ’ad real beautiful things, treasures. It could a bin anyfink.” She left the possibilities dangling in the air.

Gracie looked sideways at her. She was about
three inches shorter than Gracie, and just as thin. Her small face had a dusting of freckles across the nose, and at the moment it was pinched with worry. Gracie felt a strong stab of pity for her.

“’e’ll mebbe come back by ’isself,” she said as encouragingly as she could. “Unless ’e’s in a nice stable somewhere, an’ can’t get out. I ’spec someone nicked the cart, cos there were some good stuff in it. But donkeys in’t daft.” She had never actually known a donkey, but she knew the coal man’s horse, and it was intelligent enough. It could always find a carrot top, whatever pocket you put it in.

Minnie Maude forced a smile. “Course,” she said bravely. “We just gotta ask, afore ’e gets so lorst an’ can’t find ’is way back. Actual, I dunno ’ow far ’e’s ever bin. More ’n I ’ave, prob’ly.”

“Well, we’d best get started, then.” Gracie surrendered her common sense to a moment’s weakness of sympathy. Minnie Maude was a stubborn little article, and daft as a brush with it. Who
knew what would happen to her if she was left on her own? Gracie would give it an hour or two. She could spare that much. Maybe Charlie would come back himself by then.

“Fank yer,” Minnie Maude acknowledged. “Where we gonna start?” She looked at Gracie hopefully.

Gracie’s mind raced for an answer. “’oo found yer uncle Alf, then?”

“Jimmy Quick,” Minnie Maude replied immediately. “’e’s a lyin’ git an’ all, but that’s prob’ly true, cos ’e ’ad ter get ’elp.”

“Then we’ll go an’ find Jimmy Quick an’ ask ’im,” Gracie said firmly. “If ’e tells us exact, mebbe takes us there, we can ask folks, an’ p’raps someone saw Charlie. Where’d we look fer ’im?”

“In the street.” Minnie Maude squinted up at the leaden winter sky, apparently judging the time. “Mebbe Church Lane, be now. Or mebbe ’e in’t started yet, an’ ’e’s still at ’ome in Angel Alley.”

“Started wot?”

“’is way round. ’e’s a rag an’ bone man, too. That’s ’ow come ’e found Uncle Alf.”

“Rag an’ bone men don’t do the same round as each other,” Gracie pointed out. “It don’t make no sense. There’d be nuffink left.” She was as patient as she could be. Minnie Maude was only eight, but she should have been able to work that out.

“I tol’ yer ’e were a lyin’ git,” Minnie Maude replied, unperturbed.

“Well, we better find ’im anyway.” Gracie had no better idea. “Which way d’we go?”

“That way.” Minnie Maude pointed after a minute’s hesitation, in which she swiveled around slowly, facing each direction in turn. She set off confidently, marching across the cobbles, her feet clattering on the ice and her heart in her mouth. Gracie caught up with her, hoping to heaven that they would not both get as lost as Charlie.

They crossed Wentworth Street away from the places she knew, and had left them behind in a few hundred yards. Now all the streets looked
frighteningly the same, narrow and uneven. Here and there cobbles were broken or missing, gutters swollen with the previous night’s rain and the refuse from unknown numbers of houses. Alleys threaded off to either side, some little more than the width of a man’s outstretched arms, the house eaves almost meeting overhead. The strip of sky above was no more than a jagged crack. Gutters dripped, and most hung with ice. Some of the blackened chimneys belched smoke.

Everyone was busy on errands of one sort or another, pushing carts of vegetables, bales of cloth, kegs of ale—rickety wheels catching the curbs. Children shouted, peddlers called their wares, and patterers rehearsed the latest news and gossip in singsong voices, making up colloquial rhymes. Women quarreled; several dogs ran around barking.

At the end of the next road was the Whitechapel High Street, a wide thoroughfare with hansom cabs bowling along at a brisk clip, cabbies
riding high on the boxes. There was even a gentleman’s carriage with a matched pair of bay horses with brass on their harness and a beautiful pattern on the carriage door.

“We gone too far,” Minnie Maude said. “Angel Alley’s back that way.” She started along the High Street, then suddenly turned into one of the alleys again, and after a further hundred yards or so, she turned into a ramshackle yard with a sign at the entrance.

“I fink this is it,” she said, peering at the letters. But looking at her face all screwed up in uncertainty, Gracie knew perfectly well that she was only guessing.

Minnie Maude took a deep breath and walked in. Gracie followed. She couldn’t let her go in alone.

A lean man with straight black hair came out of one of the sheds.

“There’s nothing ’ere fer kids,” he said with a slight lisp. He waved his hands. “Orff wif yer!”

“Ye’re Jimmy Quick?” Minnie Maude pulled herself up very straight.

“’oo are you, then?” he said, puzzled.

“Minnie Maude Mudway,” she replied. “It were me uncle Alf as yer found in the street.” She hesitated. “An’ this is me friend,” she added.

“Gracie Phipps,” Gracie said.

“We’re lookin’ fer Charlie,” Minnie Maude went on.

Jimmy Quick frowned at them. “I dunno no Charlie.”

“’e’s a donkey,” Gracie explained. Someone needed to talk a little sense. “’e got lost, along wif Uncle Alf’s cart, an’ everyfink wot was in it.” She glanced around the yard and saw three old bicycles whose wheels had missing spokes, several odd boots and shoes, kettles, pieces of china and pottery, some of it so beautiful she stared at it in amazement. There were old fire irons, a poker with a brass handle, ornaments, pots and pans, pieces of carpet, a cabin trunk with no hinges, unwanted
books and pictures, all the things a rag and bone man collects, in with the actual rags or bones for glue.

Minnie Maude stood still, ignoring the scattered takings around her, just staring solemnly at Jimmy Quick. “’ow’d yer find ’im, then?”

Jimmy seemed to consider evading the question, then changed his mind. “’e were jus’ lyin’ there in the road,” he said sadly. “Like ’e fell off, ’cept o’ course ’e’d never ’ave done that, if ’e’d bin alive. I’ve seen Alf as tight as a newt, an’ ’e didn’t miss a step, never mind fell. ’e knew ’ow ter wedge ’isself, like, so ’e wouldn’t—not even if ’e were asleep.” He shook his head. “Reckon as ’ow ’e must ’ave just died all of a sudden. Bin took, as it were. Visitation o’ God.”