Fallen Grace - Mary Hooper [86]
x
They were directed to a tall terraced house in Connaught Gardens where Mrs Macready was living, and it was she herself who opened the door to them, gasping at the sight of the distinctly different Grace.
‘Dear child!’ she said, then stood back to take a better look at her. ‘Well, haven’t we gone up in the world! Aren’t we la-di-da now we’re away from Seven Dials!’
Grace laughed. ‘Indeed we both are!’ she said, admiring Mrs Macready’s lace-trimmed day dress.
They were invited into the parlour, where Grace introduced James and explained why they’d come. Mrs Macready’s eyes grew round with amazement as a brief synopsis of the tale unfolded, and she readily agreed to sign the papers that James had brought with him.
‘Of course I’ll sign to say they were with me,’ she said. ‘Two nicer girls I never had under my roof in all my life.’
As James thanked her and began preparing the papers, Mrs Macready looked across at Grace and winked, pressing her index and middle fingers together to indicate that she and James made a fine pair.
Grace didn’t react to this, hardly knowing how to. She’d grown very fond of James, but had not dared to think that an educated young man such as he, with prospects, from an excellent family, might consider her a suitable friend – especially since he knew the very worst things about her there were to know.
Mrs Macready signed Jane Ebsworthy Macready in a slow and careful hand. This was witnessed by James, and the document was sanded and rolled. Following this, Mrs Macready kissed Grace heartily on both cheeks and made her promise to visit again soon.
Grace was just about to get into the waiting hackney cab when the older lady beckoned her back. Grace, anxious to get back to Lily, thought of pretending she hadn’t noticed, but then excused herself to James and ran back up the steps.
‘Is there something else?’
‘Well, I’ve been thinking about it, and it worries me, you know,’ said Mrs Macready.
Grace looked at her enquiringly.
‘Because she came again and said it was her dying wish to find you. And that puts a bit of an obligation on a person, doesn’t it, knowing someone’s told you their dying wish.’
‘I suppose it does,’ Grace said, still baffled. ‘But who are we speaking about?’
‘Mrs Smith, or whatever her right name is.’
‘Oh!’ said Grace. There were some parts of her life that would, it seemed, never go away.
‘She came round with her daughter and she begged me to help find you. Of course, by then you’d told me that you worked for the funeral people, and I could have said where you were, but I didn’t because I thought she might be up to some mischief.’ Grace was silent, waiting for whatever was coming. ‘Looking at her, though, I could tell she didn’t have long to live, and I’m thinking that she can’t do mischief to anyone now, seeing as she’s so near her end. So it’s up to you, dear.’
Grace nodded, recalling again the saddest, most pitiful day of her life.
‘She might be dead by now, of course – and then again she might not.’
‘Where does this Mrs Smith live?’ Grace asked.
‘A house named Tamarind Cottage in Sydney Street. Not a bad area.’
Grace nodded. ‘I know where that is. I remember it from my cress-selling days.’
‘So will you go to her?’
‘I don’t know.’
But actually Grace had already made up her mind. She had overcome Sylvester Unwin, and triumphed over the rest of that family; she would now face Mrs Smith. And when she had seen Mrs Smith and dealt with her, then she would have confronted all her demons.
Getting back into the hackney cab, she asked James if he would tell the driver to stop somewhere in Oxford Street, so she could buy a pair of shoes for Lily and some for herself, too.
‘And then I shall walk home,’ she added, ‘to enable me to take the air and reflect on things a little more.’
‘There!’ James said. ‘You are bored already with being driven around in hackney cabs.’
Grace laughed. ‘Indeed I am not!