A Christmas Promise - Anne Perry [0]
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
FEATURING WILLIAM MONK
The Face of a Stranger
A Dangerous Mourning
Defend and Betray
A Sudden, Fearful Death
The Sins of the Wolf
Cain His Brother
Weighed in the Balance
The Silent Cry
A Breach of Promise
The Twisted Root
Slaves of Obsession
Funeral in Blue
Death of a Stranger
The Shifting Tide
Dark Assassin
Execution Dock
FEATURING CHARLOTTE AND THOMAS PITT
The Cater Street Hangman
Callander Square
Paragon Walk
Resurrection Row
Bluegate Fields
Rutland Place
Death in the Devil’s Acre
Cardington Crescent
Silence in Hanover Close
Bethlehem Road
Farriers’ Lane
The Hyde Park Headsman
Traitors Gate
Pentecost Alley
Ashworth Hall
Brunswick Gardens
Bedford Square
Half Moon Street
The Whitechapel Conspiracy
Southampton Row
Seven Dials
Long Spoon Lane
Buckingham Palace Gardens
THE WORLD WAR I NOVELS
No Graves As Yet
Shoulder the Sky
Angels in the Gloom
At Some Disputed Barricade
We Shall Not Sleep
THE CHRISTMAS NOVELS
A Christmas Journey
A Christmas Visitor
A Christmas Guest
A Christmas Secret
A Christmas Beginning
A Christmas Grace
THE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS, THE SMELL and taste of it were in the air, a kind of excitement, an urgency about everything. Geese and rabbits hung outside butchers’ shops, and there were little pieces of holly on some people’s doors. Postmen were extra busy. The streets were still gray, the wind still hard and cold, the rain turning to sleet, but it wouldn’t have seemed right if it had been different.
Gracie Phipps was on an errand for her gran to get a tuppence worth of potatoes to go with the leftovers of cabbage and onion, so Gran could make bubble and squeak for supper. Spike and Finn would pretty well eat anything they could fit into their mouths, but they liked this especially. Better with a slice of sausage, of course, but there was no money for that now. Everything was being saved for Christmas.
Gracie walked a little faster into the wind, pulling her shawl tighter around her. She had the potatoes in a string bag, along with half a cabbage. She saw the girl standing by the candle makers, on the corner of Heneage Street and Brick Lane, her reddish fair hair blowing about and her arms hugged around her as if she were freezing. She looked to be about eight, five years younger than Gracie, and as skinny as an eel. She had to be lost. She didn’t belong there, or on Chicksand Street—one over. Gracie had lived on these streets ever since she had come to London from the country, when her mother had died six years before, in 1877. She knew everyone.
“Are yer lorst?” she asked as she reached the child. “This is ’eneage Street. Where d’yer come from?”
The girl looked at her with wide gray eyes, blinking fiercely in an attempt to stop the tears from brimming over onto her cheeks. “Thrawl Street,” she answered. That was two streets over to the west and on the other side of Brick Lane, out of the neighborhood altogether.
“It’s that way.” Gracie pointed.
“I know where it is,” the girl replied, not making any effort to move. “Me uncle Alf’s bin killed, an’ Charlie’s gorn. I gotta find ’im, cos ’e’ll be cold an’ ’ungry, an’ mebbe scared.” Her eyes brimmed over, and she wiped her sleeve across her face and sniffed. “’ave yer seen a donkey as yer don’t know? ’e’s gray, wi’ brown eyes, an’ a sort o’ pale bit round the end of ’is nose.” She looked at Gracie with sudden, intense hope. “’e’s about this ’igh.” She indicated, reaching upward with a small, dirty hand.
Gracie would have liked to help, but she had seen no animals at all, except for the coal man’s horse at the end of the street, and a couple of stray dogs. Even hansom cabs didn’t often come to this part of the East End. Commercial Street, or Whitechapel Road, maybe, on their way to somewhere else. She looked at the child’s eager face and felt her heart sink. “Wot’s yer name?” she asked.
“Minnie Maude Mudway,” the child replied. “But I in’t lorst. I’m lookin’ fer Charlie. ’e’s the one wot’s lorst, an’ summink might ’ave ’appened to ’im.