Fallen Grace - Mary Hooper [60]
The Unwin Undertaking Establishment and the Unwin Mourning Emporium were, of course, also closed. Grace and the other store workers had toiled long and hard a full six days before that, and worried though she was about Lily, on arriving back at Edgware Road each night, Grace had been too exhausted to think about taking the long, dark walk across to the Kensington house to check that she was all right.
Now she stood on the Unwins’ doorstep after speaking to Mrs Beaman, utterly dismayed. How could Lily have just run off without telling her? Was such a thing really possible? It was true that she did silly things sometimes, but she’d never shown any propensity for engaging in flirtatious or playful talk with young men, let alone getting to know one of them well enough to run away. No, the idea was unthinkable!
Grace walked back along the side passageway to the front of the Unwins’ house, which was hung with all the trappings of mourning. A black-ribboned wreath of bay hung on the door and the hedges in the front were covered with black muslin. If the front door had been opened, an onlooker might have seen that the hall mirror was swathed in black and the royal hatchments (which the Unwins had absolutely no right to display) were similarly draped, for all the world as if the family had been closely related to Prince Albert.
The parlour curtains at the front of the house were closed, of course, but they shifted a little as Grace passed, and she suddenly saw a girl’s face peering at her. The eyes of the girl locked with hers, and then the curtains moved again and the face was gone. It was, Grace was perfectly sure, Charlotte Unwin. Something about the expression glimpsed, something about the slippery deceitfulness of that swift disappearance from the window caused Grace further reflection. She felt certain she was being told a lie about Lily’s disappearance; her sister would never leave without telling her.
She must go to the police to report her missing, she decided, although she’d be very nervous about doing so, for the police and the poor were at constant war in London and she couldn’t imagine a peeler actually helping her. What else could she do? Advertise that Lily was missing in The Times, of course, if she had the fee – but Lily couldn’t read. A better idea, perhaps, would be to ask the advice of James Solent. She’d been thinking about their last meeting lately, and how sincere he’d seemed in his wish to help her. Yes, being a man of the law, James Solent would surely know what to do about a missing person.
But when should she go? He wouldn’t be at work that day, when the whole of England was mourning, and the following day was Christmas Eve and his chambers certainly would not be open then, either. It would be a day or so after Christmas, at the very earliest, before she could contact him, and Lily might be anywhere in the country by then.
A dismal tolling bell sounded from a nearby church and Grace shivered, partly at the sheer misery of the sound and partly through cold.
‘Lily, wherever you are,’ she whispered to her sister, ‘take care.’
x
Chapter Twenty-Two
On Christmas Day the Unwins supplied a plum pudding for those at Edgware Road who were not going home to their families, but Grace found herself so worried about Lily (was she eating properly? was she warm? was she being held against her will?) that she couldn’t eat her portion, which ended up being divided between the stable lads.
On Boxing Day, designated as the day one gave to the deserving poor, the Unwins’ female workers were presented with two linen handkerchiefs and a length of coarse material to make a work apron, while the men received handkerchiefs and a miniature bottle of whisky. These gifts were bestowed upon them by Miss Charlotte Unwin, pink-faced and perfumed in a full-length fur mantle, who reminded