Fallen Grace - Mary Hooper [8]
Relieved that she had at last decided what to do, Lily set off for a pawnbroker they’d used before, a kindly man known – as were others of his breed – as Uncle. She found his door closed, however, the blind down, and a notice written on a piece of paper stuck on the window.
Asking a passer-by, a man selling candle stubs, what it said, she was told: ‘Shut because of Death’.
‘Shut because of Death,’ Lily repeated, struggling to understand what this could possibly mean.
‘It means it’s closed because someone’s died,’ said the man. ‘The owner of the shop, most like.’ He then looked at Lily with interest. ‘You ’ad something to sell at Uncle’s, then, did you?’
Lily nodded and held up the package. ‘A teapot.’
‘Not much call for them,’ said the man, almost before she’d got the word out of her mouth. ‘Tell you who’ll give the best price for that, though – old Morrell down Parsnip Hill. Tell ’im Ernie sent you.’
Lily thanked him and went on her way. Meanwhile, Ernie slipped down a side alley, ran across two lanes, went over someone’s back wall and arrived at Morrell’s Pawnshop two minutes before Lily. He looked up and down the lane and nipped in.
Morrell specialised in buying, selling and pawning china and glass objects, and his grimy windows held any number of dulled crystal vases, chipped ornaments, gaudy fairground animals and glass drinking mugs. Having such a teapot would, to him, be like owning the crown jewels.
‘I just sent you a pigeon,’ Ernie puffed to Morrell, a man with a paunch so large it prevented him from getting too close to his counter. ‘Young girl, bit simple. Teapot. Do a switch and we’ll go ’alves on it.’
Morrell nodded, grinned and, as Ernie left, reached for a small cardboard box which he secreted on a shelf just under the counter.
Lily reached the shop, said that Ernie had sent her and that she had a teapot to pawn. On the way there, she’d had some worries about taking it in, but reassured herself that it was only going to be pawned, not sold. If Grace was really cross with her, then they’d be able to go and buy it back later, when they got rich. They always got rich in the stories that Grace told.
Morrell’s eyes brightened when he saw the teapot. Meissen, he thought. Quite old, hand-painted by craftsmen and worth a fair bit. However, he shook his head regretfully.
‘What a pity,’ he said. ‘Thought you ’ad something good there, but it’s just a scrap orf a market stall. Got a chip in it, too,’ he lied.
Lily, though crestfallen, nevertheless regarded him trustingly. ‘But it must be worth something,’ she said. ‘It was part of a set that my mama had.’
‘Pass it over, then,’ said Mr Morrell. ‘Let’s take it to the window an’ give it a proper butcher’s.’
Lily passed the teapot, still partly in its newspaper wrapping, across the counter. As Morrell took it from her and turned towards the window, somehow it slipped from the paper.
‘Ooops!’ said Morrell as something crashed on to the brick floor.
‘Oh!’ cried Lily, aghast.
‘Lordie! You let go of it too soon, girl.’
Lily pressed her hand to her lips and her face paled. ‘Is it . . . is it quite broken?’
‘A nundred pieces!’ cried Morrell.
‘Might it be repaired?’
‘Never! Just you look.’
Lily peeped fearfully around the end of the counter. Sure enough, shards of china lay scattered right across the stone floor.
‘Pity,’ said Mr Morrell. ‘Still, it weren’t going to be worth more than a few pennies anyways.’
Lily’s bottom lip trembled. ‘Is there nothing that can . . . be . . . done?’
‘Got any more like it at ’ome?’ asked Morrell cheerfully.
Lily shook her head. How had that happened? Perhaps she hadn’t been careful enough; Grace sometimes said she was clumsy. Now the teapot, their mother’s precious teapot, was gone for ever.