Fallen Grace - Mary Hooper [33]
Grace nodded, putting aside the reservations she felt. ‘We are used to working together, of course, but as long as I know she’s in good hands, and we could see each other sometimes . . .’ She touched Lily’s shoulder, praying that she wouldn’t say or do anything untoward. ‘How would you like to learn to be a maidservant, Lily?’
Lily looked from her sister to the Unwins and back again. She didn’t want to live apart from Grace, but it seemed that staying together wasn’t an option. And anything would be better than spending another night in that warehouse.
‘We couldn’t pay you much,’ said Mrs Unwin quickly. ‘As neither of you are trained, it would be like an apprenticeship for you both. You’d have board and lodging, of course, and perhaps one shilling a week each.’
Grace smiled, deeply relieved and grateful to the Unwins. She thought that at Brookwood the woman had mentioned the sum of five shillings just to appear as a mute at one funeral, but really she would be pleased enough just to be off the streets, sheltered and fed. And to think that Lily was going to be sheltered, fed and trained as a maid – it was more than she’d ever hoped for.
‘If you bid your goodbyes to each other now, I’ll have Rose walk your sister across the park to Kensington,’ said Mrs Unwin. She looked around the room. ‘Where are your things?’
‘We’ll send for them later,’ Grace said. Lily looked at her in surprise, seemed about to say something and then thought better of it.
As Mr and Mrs Unwin disappeared into one of the other rooms, Grace took Lily’s hands in her own. ‘You have a real chance now to learn to be a maidservant,’ she said. ‘Do everything that you’re directed to do, work as hard as you can and always be willing and polite. It won’t be for ever. We must both save as much as we can and hope to be together again one day soon.’
Lily rather excitedly kissed her sister on both cheeks and promised to be good. Grace, for a change, was the one who wept.
x
Chapter Twelve
Mr George Unwin, needing to speak to his cousin urgently, sent a message asking to meet him for a quick snifter at Barker’s that afternoon. By the time his drinking companion arrived, the undertaker had already drunk a double scotch.
‘What’s all this?’ said his cousin, waving his cigar at the empty glass. ‘Got something to celebrate, have we?’
‘We have!’ said George Unwin. ‘Oh, most certainly we have.’
‘What is it, then? New wave of cholera hit London? Massed funerals all round?’
‘Even better!’ He looked ridiculously pleased with himself. ‘I’ve landed ’em!’
‘Landed what?’
‘Two plump pigeons!’
His cousin began to cut his cigar. ‘Didn’t know you were a shooting man. And where do you shoot around here?’
‘Not literally, old chap. I’ve caught the heiress!’
‘What?’ He stopped fiddling with the cigar immediately. ‘The legendary Mrs Parkes and her daughter?’
‘Almost,’ said George Unwin. ‘The mother is underground in a box, and it appears that there’s another child that the father didn’t know about – born after he left.’
‘Damned if there is!’ said the other in astonishment.
‘What’s more, at least one of them is simple-minded.’
‘Better and better. And where are they now? Got them under lock and key, have you?’
‘I certainly have. They’re right under our noses, working for the Unwin family. Discretion is our byword, eh?’
‘It most definitely is!’ Smiling to himself, the second man restarted the ceremony of cutting and tapping the end of his cigar on the marble-topped table. ‘Capital,’ he murmured, ‘capital. And by way of a coincidence, I found out something this week on that very subject.’
George Unwin looked at his cousin expectantly. He never ceased to wonder at this man who, as well as managing the mourning warehouse, had fingers in so many pies: this manufacturer, that charity, fine wines, import, export, offal into dog meat, toadying to the rich, feeding the poor and taking as much as he could from both. People said he would