Fallen Grace - Mary Hooper [22]
Grace squeezed the old woman’s hand.
‘Is it so very terrible in these homes?’ Mrs Beale asked. ‘You hear such tales. You were in a home, were you not?’
Grace nodded. ‘I think they’re all very different,’ she said diplomatically. ‘At the first place we went, the orphanage, they were very kind to us. We were allowed to take our own possessions, and there was always enough to eat.’
‘Then may I ask, dear, why did you leave?’
‘From there, we were sent to a training establishment for young women, and it was this place that . . .’ Grace swallowed, feeling nauseous. ‘. . . that we didn’t like.’
‘Might I ask why?’ Mrs Beale replied.
Grace shivered and seemed to feel again the weight of the man as he knelt on her, pinning her down. She took a deep breath. ‘There . . . there was a man who made himself objectionable to me,’ she said at last, her voice little above a whisper.
‘Oh!’ Mrs Beale’s tissue-paper cheeks went pink and she hurried to change the subject. ‘Forgive me, my dear, but how long ago did your poor mother die?’
‘Near ten years back,’ Grace answered.
‘Were there no other relatives who would take you in? What about your father?’
Grace shook her head. ‘I’ve never known much about my father or his family,’ she said. ‘When Mama and he were married neither family approved of the match, and two years after that, when Lily was a year old and before Mama even knew she was expecting me, Papa went off to the Americas to seek his fortune.’
‘Your poor mother! To be left without a protector!’
Grace nodded. ‘She brought us up on a little inheritance she’d had from her grandparents and taught me to read and write quite early, hoping that one day I’d make a good marriage and be able to keep Lily as my companion.’ She smiled wryly as she spoke, knowing that good marriages were not made in Seven Dials, and that the most a girl here might hope for would be to marry a coster with his own barrow. ‘I started my training as a teacher and Lily was to learn about domestic duties, but then we had to leave . . .’ Here Grace stopped and found it impossible to continue.
‘And when was this?’
‘Some . . . some nine months ago.’
‘Nine months,’ Mrs Beale repeated, and if she made the obvious connection was refined enough not to say anything about it. ‘And you never heard from your father again?’
‘Never.’ Grace shook her head again. ‘Mama always used to say that sea travel was dangerous and that he might have perished, but perhaps he just didn’t love Mama enough to come back to her.’
Mrs Beale squeezed her hand now. ‘My dear girl, I’m sure some other occurrence prevented his return from overseas.’
‘Perhaps.’ It was Grace’s turn to change the subject. ‘But I’m sorry you have to go into a workhouse.’
‘Neither of us want to, but another winter like the last one would kill Mr Beale. Life gets harder as you get older, you see.’
Grace nodded and, as she wished Mrs Beale all the very best, mused that her and Lily’s lives seemed to be growing harder already, for the market in watercress hadn’t improved, especially since a rumour had spread that some of the big watercress rivers were unclean and might harbour cholera. She always came home with unsold cresses now, and sometimes struggled all day to sell even six bunches. Lily had tried her hand at selling combs and then matches, but whereas people often bought things from Grace because of her shy beauty, Lily had no such appeal. She had their mother’s dark auburn curls but had, unfortunately, inherited their father’s looks – his square jaw and deeply set eyes. (Their mother had painted a little portrait of their father which once, years ago, had stood beside her bed, and she had often remarked on Lily’s likeness to him.) Grace had now pawned Mama’s wedding bonnet and veil, and following this had taken a pillow and two blankets to a dolly shop – one of the unofficial pawnbrokers that had sprung up in the poverty-stricken locality.
‘We can manage perfectly well with one blanket,’ she’d said to Lily. ‘And by the time it’s really cold, things may have improved for us.’
‘And then we can