Fallen Grace - Mary Hooper [31]
Grace bobbed her own curtsey, and nudged Lily to do the same. ‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘We aren’t here to arrange a funeral, but to see Mrs Unwin.’
‘You won’t get nothing from her,’ said the maid. ‘You’d be best going round the back and trying to beg something from the blacksmith. He looks fierce but he’s known to be a soft touch. He’s sure to find a crust or two for you.’
At the mention of food, Lily turned her attention to the maid. ‘I was hoping for a pie.’
The maid hid a smile. Oh, Lord, she thought, but one of them is simple-minded.
Grace felt herself flush. ‘We’re not here to beg,’ she said. She held out the Unwins’ business card. ‘Mrs Unwin asked me to call on her.’
‘Oh!’ The maid’s eyes widened. ‘Sorry, miss.’
Leading Grace and Lily into one of the reception rooms, she planned what she’d say to the other girls: ‘Poor as church mice – you should have seen them! No shoes (for of course she had noticed this straight away), and one of them simple! And with the mistress’s business card, if you please.’ She indicated a plush sofa. ‘If you’d like to sit down, miss.’
‘No, we’ll stand, thank you,’ said Grace, although Lily had already taken a seat and was looking around her in awe, gently bouncing up and down and showing grimy feet with each movement of her skirts. Grace knew she should have begged her to show some decorum, but somehow couldn’t summon the energy. She looked around as well: the windows were hung with silk drapes in a soothing shade of grey and the walls were plain, all the better to display examples of the statuary available to order from the Unwin memorial workshop. One could have a cherub, angel, broken column, obelisk, flaming torch, covered urn, or even, if you were very rich, a magnificent depiction of Hope weeping upon a rock.
Mrs Unwin was some time coming, being busy in a workroom devising a new moneymaking innovation she’d seen in a foreign graveyard: immortelles – little arrangements of everlasting flowers under glass domes. She was reluctant to put this trial product aside, but when she did so and entered the waiting room, she almost reared back in disgust, for she prided herself on having a nose for the lower orders.
She tried to breathe as shallowly as possible. ‘Yes?’ she asked faintly.
‘Mrs Unwin, thank you for seeing us.’
It was the girl standing by the window who’d spoken and, really, Mrs Unwin thought, now that one was looking at her, one could tell from her tone and accent that she was not as coarse as her appearance at first suggested. Her face had a certain purity, a gravity of expression – and hadn’t she seen her before, somewhere?
‘What is it you want?’ asked Mrs Unwin.
‘Excuse my temerity in calling, but I met you some weeks ago at Brookwood,’ Grace said. ‘You were kind enough to say that if I ever needed employment, you would take me on as a mute.’
‘Ah.’ Mrs Unwin hesitated. The girl had just the right sort of tragic face to complement a grieving family, and she was, in fact, always looking for young women who were discreet and sensible enough to work in the funeral trade (for most had an instinctive horror of the business, believing that it was bad luck to work among the dead). She did not, however, want this girl to feel she actually needed her, for then she might ask for more than the paltry few shillings a week she was willing to pay. ‘Things have changed a little since then,’ said Mrs Unwin, shaking her head as if to dismiss her. ‘The funeral business is not a thriving one, and we have several good mutes already.’
‘I can also sew and embroider,’ Grace said. ‘I’m a very hard worker.’
Mrs Unwin tried to look unconvinced, although someone who could be a mute and embroiderer would be extremely useful to her.
‘I’m excellent with my needle,’ said Grace fervently, seeing Mrs Unwin waver. ‘I can assure you of my utmost dedication to the job. My sister, too, would serve you well.’
Mrs Unwin turned her attention to the girl sitting on the sofa and saw a lanky girl, heavy-jawed and plain, scratching along her arms as if troubled by