Fallen Grace - Mary Hooper [16]
How normal everything felt, she reflected as they walked home that day; as if the baby had not happened at all, as if the ordeal in Berkeley House had been nothing but a nightmare. Apart from the knowing look Mrs Macready had given her, none of their neighbours had referred to the matter of her pregnancy, and Grace suspected that this was either because they genuinely hadn’t noticed, or hadn’t wished to become involved. If Grace had wanted to speak of her ordeal, if she had wished to unburden herself and tell of the visit to Brookwood and her conversations with Mr James Solent and Mrs Emmeline Unwin, there was no opportunity. Lily, sadly, did not make a satisfactory confidante.
Beside her now, Lily hummed a popular ballad as she walked along, happy because they’d sold all their cresses and because Grace was home safely – and, well, perhaps it was better that there was no baby, because babies had to be fed and some days they had no money for food. She loved babies, but they probably took a lot of looking after and . . . Suddenly, as they were passing Morrell’s Pawnshop, Lily stopped thinking anything because there, on a glass shelf of its own, all the better to show its beauty, was Mama’s teapot.
She stopped, gasped and pointed, for it seemed to her that a miracle had happened – the teapot they knew and loved had somehow come back to life.
‘It’s Mama’s!’ exclaimed Grace, seeing it at the same moment. ‘Or one very like.’ She looked first at the teapot and then at her sister. ‘Is it ours? Lily! Did you take it to be pawned?’
Lily couldn’t speak, so bewildered was she. How had this happened?
‘You did take it, didn’t you?’ Grace looked at Lily, crestfallen. ‘How could you, Lily? How could you tell me such a terrible lie about someone coming in to steal it?’
Lily began crying. ‘I . . . I only went to pawn it because I didn’t sell all my cresses and there wasn’t enough money for stock. And I thought the . . . the baby would need clothes.’
Grace gasped. ‘How much did they give you? What have you done with all that money?’
‘They didn’t give me anything! The teapot broke. It broke just as I was giving it to the man.’
‘What?’
‘I was handing it over the counter and the man dropped it. Well,’ she went on meekly, ‘he said I dropped it, though I don’t think I did.’
‘Did you see it smashed?’
She nodded. ‘It was on the floor. A hundred pieces.’
‘But there it is now,’ Grace said, pointing at the teapot.
‘Is it . . . is it magic?’ Lily asked fearfully.
‘No, it’s not magic,’ said Grace, ‘but it’s a trick, certainly.’ She was quiet, thinking, while they carried on walking to the end of the lane. ‘I’m going to wait here while you run home as fast as you can,’ she said to Lily then. ‘On the mantelpiece in our room you’ll see two little white cards, which I want you to bring to me.’
Lily, anxious to make amends, did as she was told and returned with the cards within minutes. Grace told her to wait, then straightened her shawl, pulled herself up to her full height and went in to Morrell’s.
Morrell was not pleased to be interrupted, for it was Saturday and he was hunched over a racing paper making his selection of horses.
‘Yes, missy?’ he asked, chewing a stub of pencil between his lips. ‘What is it?’
‘That teapot in the window . . .’
‘The one with the bluebirds?’ He looked up. ‘That is a very nice, quality piece. We don’t often have things of that hexcellence here. You’re a very astute young gel.’
‘It’s very similar to a teapot my sister brought in yesterday,’ said Grace.
‘Hoh yes?’ Morrell asked, his lips coloured purple from the indelible lead.
‘Yes,’ Grace said firmly.
‘And are you going to tell me that I didn’t give her a fair price for it?’
‘You didn’t give her any price!’ Grace said. ‘You dropped the teapot as she was giving it to you.’
‘Breakages are not