Fallen Grace - Mary Hooper [6]
As Grace journeyed on the Necropolis Railway to Brookwood Cemetery, her sister Lily looked out of a grimy window in the smallest room on the second floor of Mrs Macready’s, impatient for her return and sighing continually. Grace was being an awfully long time, what on earth could she be doing? Did it take that long to have a baby? Why, she’d been gone a whole day and a night now – or was it two?
She knew that Grace would be coming back with a child, for Grace had explained in very simple terms that there was a little baby inside her and she had to go and find someone who would help bring it out. In the meantime, Lily had been instructed to go to the market to buy watercresses (she knew how to do this, for she’d accompanied Grace to bargain with the market traders many times), then bunch them and sell them in the streets as usual. The day before, she’d carried out these instructions faithfully, but owing to her indecision in selecting what cresses to buy, she’d missed selling to the labourers on their way to work. All day it had rained, so there had hardly been a housewife to be seen on the streets, and though Lily had stayed out until after six o’clock, she’d not sold nearly enough bunches of watercress to cover what she’d laid out. She’d bought a boiled meat pudding for her supper, for Grace had said she could, but on her way home with the money she had left, she’d met a sharp who’d promised to double the coins in her pocket if she could guess what cup a bean was under. She’d been quite sure she could do this – he made it look so easy, and wouldn’t Grace be pleased with her? – but the bean was never under the one she chose.
Waking the next morning, Lily realised with horror that there was no money, not a penny, to go to market and buy the fresh bundles of watercress to sell that day. This was not the first time this had happened to them, however, and lying in bed, Lily had been thinking hard about what she should do. The answer came at last: of course, she would pawn something! This was what Grace always did when they’d not made enough money to buy stock.
She looked around the room for likely objects but apart from the bed (which belonged to Mrs Macready anyway), it contained very little: a straw-stuffed mattress, two pillows, three thin blankets and several wooden crates. Some of these crates held their spare clothes and possessions, and two were empty and had been upturned to use as seats. Grace had already been thinking – as far as she’d planned anything – that she might use one of the crates as a cradle for the baby.
Lily frowned, looking about. She knew Grace wouldn’t want to sell the blankets, for they’d need these when the weather turned cold. They’d had five blankets when they started living at Mrs Macready’s, and four pillows too. Before that, when they’d started living in the orphanage, they’d had soft bleached-linen sheets, an eiderdown containing ducks’ feathers and a coverlet Mama had sewn, together with the framed mottoes Mama had embroidered as a girl: Home Sweet Home, Bless This House and Walk in Love. Some of these things had been stolen over the years, though, and the rest had been sold or pawned, along with most of their winter clothing. Lily had borne losing the clothes well, for she hardly cared what she looked like, but very much missed her doll, Primrose, who’d been as big as a life-size baby, with real hair and a pretty rosebud mouth set in a porcelain face. She was hoping that the baby Grace brought home would be like Primrose, a pretty thing they could play with and who could be tied up in a bundle and put on their backs when they went selling cresses. She thought that customers would stop to pet and admire the child – and maybe give a little more money for its own pretty sake.
Lily began to look through the possessions in the crates. One crate contained what they called ‘Mama’s treasures’: a fragile teapot