The foreigner wiped droplets of sweat from his pink cheeks and waved the sealed box in the air. “See you on my next trip. Good day, sir.”
Chapter 14
Essie
LONDON, 1912
Essie tugged on the twins’ hands as they walked up West Hill in Wandsworth with Gertie, Freddie, and his friend Danny on Saturday morning. Freddie had convinced them all it would be well worth their while to visit old Stony Jack, the pawnbroker who regularly popped by the Golden Fleece at quitting time to have a pint with the lads.
They’d been walking since breakfast. The streets of terraces curved uphill, topped with endless rows of chimney pots spewing black smoke.
But the warm days had brought cheer to the streets. Flower boxes overflowed with ferns, periwinkles, petunias, and fuchsia. Ivy smothered walls. As they crossed a lane, Essie paused to take in the sweetness of star jasmine spilling over a fence and imagined herself in that backyard in the evening, lying on a blanket and the air thick with perfume as she read Miss Barnes’s copy of The Wind in the Willows to Flora, Maggie, and Gertie. She picked a sprig to pop in a jar of water to grow some roots and plant in their own barren plot.
The twins skipped ahead, swinging off lampposts and weaving between men in long coats wheeling barrows loaded with salt blocks. They pressed their foreheads against the sweetshop window and gaped at jars full of colored sweets and toffees and the long braids of licorice that dangled from string near the ceiling. Essie wished she had a penny to buy her sisters a bag of aniseed balls or lemon sherbets.
“One day I’ll buy you a bagful of each. You’ll have so much toffee you’ll be sick of it,” said Gertie.
“Not likely,” scoffed Maggie.
“Never!” said Flora.
Essie’s heart sank. Perhaps she could manage an extra loaf this afternoon. The girls had walked without a word of complaint, despite splitting yesterday’s crusts before they set off. There was nothing else to offer them. Not even eggs.
As they moved up the street, the twins took turns counting down the house numbers.
“Eleven.”
“Nine.”
“Seven,” squealed Maggie as she hopped up and down pointing at the blue door, almost tripping over her boots.
Essie studied the name stenciled in neat letters above the front door:
G. F. Lawrence
Antiquarian
Underneath, swinging in the wind, was the strangest sight: a small Egyptian statue.
Gertie stared, transfixed.
Essie pulled her shawl tight about her shoulders and put her hand on Freddie’s arm to stop him from entering.
“I thought you said his name was Stony Jack and that he was a pawnbroker?”
“He is!” said Freddie. “The lads at the Golden Fleece say he’s always good for a pint—”
“—even if what we find in the muck is worth nothin’,” said Danny.
“We’ll see, won’t we?” said Freddie, patting his coat pocket. “I reckon he’ll pay a pretty penny for what I have ’ere.”
Essie thought of the foreman whose green eyes matched the green gemstones in the hard clay ball. Edward Hepplestone. He’d called to the men to halt their work and keep the discovery in the air where he could see it, but by the time he’d climbed into the cellar, most of the navvies would have thrust their hands into the clay and debris and pulled a handful into their pockets, quickly secreting it in their drawers or boots as soon as they were able—just as Freddie had.
Danny and Freddie had somehow managed to hide a lump of dry clay the size of a football on-site, and they’d brought it home after work. Not straight home, of course. There’d been several rounds at the Golden Fleece on Thursday night. Freddie was careful with the drink . . . but who could blame him for having a beef-and-Guinness pie washed down with a couple of pints with his friends every now and again? It beat coming home to stale bread and a drafty bedroom.
She paused. Freddie and Danny would most likely lose their jobs—or go to jail even—if anyone found out that they had pilfered some of the jewels. Essie had seen the notices in the papers about stealing from worksites around London. She’d unpeeled one from their kippers just days ago:
In the event of any goods or precious materials being retained by the finder—or handed over to another—instead of being passed in to London police, the finder will be liable to prosecution.
Then again, Freddie said there were so many, who would miss just a few . . .
She thought of the necklaces so fine they looked like flowers threaded with gold. Colored gemstones in green, blue, and red pressed into the dirt when the treasure was discovered at Cheapside.
Essie felt like she was squeezed into a too-tight coat she couldn’t undo. She didn’t like the idea of Freddie and Danny taking something that clearly didn’t belong to them. But she thought of Flora and Maggie coughing away. Flora’s hollow chest rubbed with camphor oil and wrapped in brown paper. Their poky kitchen lined with dirt, broken crockery, and rats that pounced from the fireplace. She thought of the unopened letters from Miss Barnes that Ma refused to read.
Then she thought of what she could do if only she had more money. Three meals a day. They might be able to move somewhere with a little more room—perhaps even with an indoor flushing lav. Ma could stop her spinning and her hands would heal. (And if Ma felt better, surely she’d give up the drink?) The girls could finish school. She glanced at Gertie, standing with her notebook tucked under her arm. She didn’t go anywhere without it. She could buy Gertie a new notebook of her own.
Freddie would be able to offer a home to a sweetheart. He’d been out twice with young Rosie Jones from the greengrocer, but Essie couldn’t help noticing the furrow of Mr. Jones’s brow when she’d gone to the store with the twins to buy salt and flour last week, his eyes running over their thin dresses as he handed over their purchases. His pursed lips said it all.
“I promise you, Essie,” Freddie was saying now, “Stony Jack’ll take care of us.”
Essie very much doubted that was true. No one who was even supposed to care for her family had managed to. Not Ma or Pa, not Mr. Morton at the school, nor Father McGuire and his parish. Freddie was doing his very best, she thought with a sigh. But her older brother was an optimist, a dreamer. Unfortunately, dreaming didn’t fill empty bellies at night. It was up to her. But she looked at her brother’s wide eyes and hopeful expression and thought of how the future might look. Then she pushed open the door and entered the pawnshop.
Sitting at a large oak desk was a stocky man with neatly combed white hair and a thick gray mustache. He wore a smart blue wool suit, stiff collar, and a black silk tie, much like Essie made every week in the Rubens’ factory. This was Mr. Lawrence, she presumed.
His desk was messy, overlaid with scraps of paper and lit with a brass lamp. Random objects dotted the surface: terracotta vases, a carved wooden hand, cigar boxes, and some mottled iron arrowheads. His walls were covered with mirrors and tapestries. Bookshelves were lined with leather-bound volumes leaning against marble busts, stone axes, and yet more terracotta vessels.
He looked up from his paperwork and studied Essie and her companions through round wire-framed glasses as they all piled into the shop. “Come in, come in.” He put down his pen as they entered and crowded around the desk. “Be a good girl and lean on the door to close it, won’t you?” he said to Gertie. “Otherwise that blasted bell will jangle all afternoon.” He smiled an apology.
Gertie closed the door and wandered across to the bookshelf, running her fingers down gold-embossed spines as if to imprint each title in her brain. Flora gazed openmouthed at a small marble statue of a topless woman, while Maggie giggled at the fig leaf a man wore on the shelf right at the level of her nose.
“Good morning, gentlemen.” Mr. Lawrence beamed at Freddie and Danny, then nodded at Essie in the corner. “Miss.” The antiquarian gave them a bemused look. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
Danny stepped forward a
nd put a parcel on the table as tenderly as if it were a newborn, then Freddie unwrapped it and held up a ball of clay under Mr. Lawrence’s lamp, revealing glittering gold necklaces, some colored stones, and some buttons stuck in the clump.
Mr. Lawrence peered at it. “What do we have here, then?”
“I think we found something special, sir,” said Danny.
“Is that so?” replied Mr. Lawrence.
“Some of the lads said you might have a bit of coin—” Freddie began.
“Or a pint,” interrupted Danny.
Essie shot him a furious look. She’d come along to ensure her impressionable brother wasn’t persuaded by Danny to spend some of the money on a few rounds of pints at the pub with the lads. She wanted at least enough money for a few weeks of school and to give Ma’s raw hands a break from the spinning. Freddie had agreed, but who could blame him for wanting to spend time with lads his own age having a laugh, or taking Rosie Jones to the moving pictures and perhaps a bit of afternoon tea?
“What do you think?” asked Freddie anxiously.
The antiquarian pushed his glasses up his nose and sat up straighter. Without saying a word, he picked up the ball and turned it over, revealing traces of gleaming gold and blue stones.
When he spoke, his tone was measured, but warm. “I’m not sure,” he murmured. “Where did you say this came from?” He peered at the young men over the tops of his glasses.
The pair shifted uncomfortably, and Danny’s ears started to redden.
“Which worksite were you on?” he probed.
Danny and Freddie looked at each other, and Freddie shook his head in warning.
Mr. Lawrence’s eyes narrowed, and in that instant Essie saw he understood.
“No matter, we can discuss that later. In the meantime, I’ll need to inspect this mess more closely so I can give you a good price.”
He poked at the clay and five gold buttons fell onto the desk with a clatter. The largest was the prettiest of all, with a line of blue stones threading through the petals. The curve of the petal looked so lifelike it might bend with the breeze.
Mr. Lawrence picked up the large button and held it up to the light between his thumb and forefinger, turning it over so the jewels caught the light.
“I wonder . . .” he said thoughtfully. “I wonder who wore this button.”
He gestured to a print of Queen Elizabeth on the wall behind him. “Look! See the gold buttons sewn into her white frilly neck ruff and sleeves, the gold chains draped around her body, the bejeweled cross at her neck and rings on every finger? Her ships were crossing the oceans; traders brought jewels back to London from across the seas. This city was the center of the world . . .”
Essie blanched, thinking of where her own waistband had been turned inside out and restitched.
“Why so many buttons?” whispered Maggie as she poked at one.
“Well, lass,” Mr. Lawrence continued, “I agree it’s a decadent way to hold a coat together.” He chuckled and patted his own belly, then leaned in conspiratorially. “Especially when there’s a chance that you might pop one off after too much grouse and port.”
Maggie stared openmouthed at Mr. Lawrence’s waistcoat, as if she expected it to burst right in front of her. Essie remembered the button Gertie had sketched and wondered if her sister had returned it to Freddie.
Mr. Lawrence touched the ball of clay. “Perhaps I can deliver your payment in person, maybe meet you for a pint. What do you say, gents—Friday after work?”
Essie’s stomach sank as Danny said, “Golden Fleece?”
“Right you are.”
“Done.”
The men shook hands, then Danny and Freddie made for the door, clearly reluctant to spend any more time in this strange shop filled with stuffed animals and ghosts of the past.
Essie turned to leave, but Gertie was still standing at the bookshelf, frowning and trying to piece together a terracotta vase with a relief, as if it were a jigsaw.
“Ah, I’ve almost given up on this Roman beauty. A boy not older than you brought this in from near the Bourse, where they’ve been digging up the banks of the old Walbrook.” The antiquarian waved at a shelf of terracotta pots. The one Gertie was holding had the fine features of a deer, its antlers broken.
“I patch them back together with red ocher and beeswax. Just picture old Londinium, a bustling city between two hills with red-tiled roofs and a marketplace at the center. I like to think of a Roman girl using this to collect water from the Thames just here.”
He took the deer vase from Gertie, who seemed to have forgotten entirely that they were here on business and was treating the shop like some kind of museum.
“A girl just your age could have lived with her family on a tiny alley, just off the Walbrook. Pigs and chickens in the backyard.”
Essie could imagine herself in such a yard.
“The girl would have spent most of her days at the markets, helping her parents and siblings. Perhaps they were leatherworkers, weaving sandals like this.”
He lifted a blackened sandal.
“Or perhaps they painted mosaic tiles, or had a kiln for making pottery.” He waved at the array of terracotta pots. “Whatever their craft, at the end of the day they’d come home. The girl would perhaps sew or do some mending, the boys would fetch water and wash. The mother would cook a stew in a shallow terracotta pot, perhaps with hare and wheat. There would be spice merchants at the market, so if they could afford spices from the Orient there might be pepper, cinnamon, or ginger. Or maybe a hot sauce for the meat made from dates, prunes, and damsons.”
Essie felt her stomach rumble, and Flora leaned against her.
Life in Roman times sounded far more delicious than now.
“In the corner of their central room they might have had clay urns filled with olive oil, red wine, or garum.”
“What’s garum?” asked Maggie.
“Rotten fish sauce,” replied Mr. Lawrence as Maggie looked faintly nauseated. Somewhere behind her, Essie heard Danny snicker.
“And this”—he held up Gertie’s piece of clay—“would have been essential to their life. Think how many hands have held this vessel. Then yet more feet passed over it as it lay in the London bog.” He pointed to the clump of mud and jewels on his desk before continuing, “Each piece that comes here tells me a little more about life in London. But it’s not just the story of our city, child; each piece is the story of a person. How did they come to own it? How did they use it? What did it mean to them—how did it change their life?”
Essie smiled and looked over to where the sun was sneaking through the windows and felt it warm her arms.
“You are all very welcome to come back and visit me anytime. I’m always here on Saturdays.”
Chapter 15
The following Saturday was the day of the school excursion trip to the Greenwich Observatory parklands. The children were dressed in their Sunday best and lined up on the dock in jittery pairs to board the ferry from Southwark: a motley line of children with sarsaparilla-scented braids, mismatched boots, and too-thin dresses. Once aboard, the children stood on the foredeck with open mouths and shivered in the thick fog and filthy smog all the way to Greenwich, exclaiming at every landmark.
“Tower Bridge!”
“Westminster!” whooped Flora between coughs.
Gertie sat with her back against the cabin with her precious notebook, drawing the line of the city among a haze of industrial smog. Somehow it looked more cloudlike, more whimsical, on the page. Essie wondered what it would be like to sail right along the Thames, beyond London, out into the ocean and into different ports. Different cities, different worlds.
Arriving at Greenwich pier, they stepped from the ferry steamer onto the docks and were ushered past a shrimp seller with a sizzling pan atop a wine barrel. The children looked forlorn, leaning toward the enticing smells as Miss Barnes ushered them off the pier, past the gates of the naval college, and into the park. Mr. Morton clippe
d the back of the littlest boy’s head as he accepted a shrimp from the ruddy-faced merchant and gobbled it in one bite.
“You children continue up the path to the park with Miss Barnes. Father McGuire and I have an appointment, but if we catch an inkling that any of you are misbehaving . . .” He eyed the impish boy.
The children drew a collective breath. No one wanted to be struck with a ruler—or the belt—today.
Miss Barnes flipped a pocket watch from her coat and gathered Gertie and Essie together by the elbows as she addressed the children.
“Come, quickly. I’ve something to show you.”
Essie grabbed the twins’ hands and followed Miss Barnes as she took off up the path to the Royal Observatory. The hill was steep and planted with pockets of oak and linden trees. Only when the path took a sharp turn could everyone catch a glimpse of the famous dome and the red time ball perched on a turret above the grand Flamsteed House.
Miss Barnes checked her watch again. “Hurry. Stand here, class.” The teacher shepherded them against a tall wall and Essie could feel the summer heat on the stones through her pinafore.
“Now, watch,” said Miss Barnes as she pointed to the giant red ball and they watched it rise slowly up the mast before dropping suddenly to the bottom.
Maggie and Flora gave a cheer, and Miss Barnes looked at her watch. “One p.m. Greenwich Mean Time. I come every year just to check that this old thing works.”
Essie turned to look back down the hill and across to the Thames, thinking of all the Londoners, boatmen, and sailors who were checking their own watches against the red ball. Everyone moving around the boroughs doing their daily business and all those who came ashore to bring goods from countries far away were threaded together by this instant. She gazed back up the hill to the towering Flamsteed House and the giant red ball and imagined lines from this point stretched out to distant lands across the globe like black threads. Meridian lines spread around the globe from this very spot.
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