Fallen Grace - Mary Hooper [26]
‘What are they doing?’ Lily asked. ‘How will we get in?’ Thinking about the few worthless little things she kept in her cigar box, she began to cry. ‘I want my treasures!’
‘Wait here,’ Grace said to her firmly. ‘Don’t move!’ She approached who seemed to be the foreman; the man bearing the most paperwork, with the tallest hat. ‘We live here, my sister and I –’ she began.
‘Not any more you don’t,’ said the man, not even glancing up.
Grace felt shock gust through her. ‘But what’s happening? We’ve paid our rent, we don’t owe anything, we haven’t been in trouble –’
The man flattened his papers against his chest and looked at Grace for the first time, surprised at both her voice and her manner (for most of the other tenants of the houses had screamed, threatened and blasphemed). ‘Government orders,’ he said in a more conciliatory manner. ‘Slum clearance, see. Orders of Prince Albert. They’re going to build better homes here. They don’t want you to live twenty to a room and eighty to a privy any more.’
‘You mean, these houses are being improved?’
‘Not exactly, miss. They’re being pulled down. They’re going to build places with inside privies and water on tap, and when they’re all finished, you’ll be asked if you want to live here again. Always supposing you can afford the rent,’ he couldn’t resist adding.
‘But where shall we go in the meantime?’
The man shrugged his shoulders. ‘Haven’t you got any family who’d take you in?’
Grace didn’t even bother to reply to this. ‘But where are all the others gone? The Popes and the Cartwrights and everyone?’
‘Blessed if I know,’ the man said. ‘They were all here earlier, running around like a family of dung beetles. Why, someone had a zoo in their room – dogs, cats, squirrels, birds – a regular menagerie!’ He looked about him, then pointed to the steps of the end house, where three ragged shapes were bent over, weeping. ‘There are some of them.’
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