She thought again about the rivers of jewels she’d seen in Cheapside. Emeralds, pearls, and gold necklaces. Gertie’s button. When were they buried deep in that cellar? Who would bury such treasures and never return? Essie recalled the words of kindly Mr. Lawrence: 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?
The Thames to her right was obscured by a park, beyond which a power station with towering chimney stacks spewed smoke into the sky. If she followed the line of the river back toward London, the far side was dotted with so many chimney stacks that they looked like matchsticks disappearing into the haze.
Directly in front of her was the naval college built in a neat grid. The park they stood in was a gradual green slope running up from the shore to the Observatory. Men in top hats promenaded with women in long fitted silk jackets and matching hats. Essie looked at the twins, studying their sallow skin and sunken eyes, and was grateful their shriveled legs didn’t stop them playing a game of hide-and-seek among the trees with a handful of their classmates.
Essie, Miss Barnes, and Gertie unfolded blankets and unpacked sandwiches for the children.
“Cheese and pickles—what a treat!” said Gertie. “Food!” she yelled, and the children came running, plucking at sandwiches and pushing them into their mouths before running back into the woods to resume their game.
“There’s not a bit of crust left for the gulls,” said Miss Barnes. “I should have brought more sandwiches . . .” She looked disappointed, and Essie realized that lunch had been provided thanks to the generosity of Miss Barnes, not the school.
When the children had tired of hide-and-seek and had returned to lie on the grass and blankets with their faces turned up to the sun, Essie and Miss Barnes wandered down the hill arm in arm with Gertie.
“Miss Murphy!” Essie turned at the sound of her name and, to her surprise, recognized the striking young foreman with green eyes whom she had met at Cheapside nine days before.
Shocked, she blinked twice to check it was indeed him, and quickly started to smooth her skirts as her legs trembled a little. She’d thought of him every day since that meeting. She hadn’t replied to his note, of course. What would she have said?
He jogged up the path to meet her, panting, then removed his boater hat as a greeting.
“Miss Murphy, I knew it was you at once. And this must be your sister—you could be twins!”
“Not likely,” Gertie said as she blushed and elbowed Essie in the ribs. The corners of her mouth tucked into a shy smile, and Essie gave him her hand to shake.
“This is my sister Gertrude,” said Essie. “And her teacher, Miss Barnes. Meet Mr. Hepplestone.”
She paused, fishing for things to say. “We’ve just been for a look at the Observatory.”
“I’m sorry I missed you. I was on the way up myself. Who accompanied you?”
“The school.” Essie tugged her skirt lower to cover her shoes.
“An annual outing,” Miss Barnes explained. “We like our students to experience the Observatory.”
Mr. Hepplestone gestured to where a black motor vehicle was parked on the edge of the lawn. “I thought it was a lovely day to take my new toy for a spin. Test the engine.” He looked proudly over his shoulder at the gleaming vehicle before he started to walk down the hill with them. Essie’s stomach sank as she realized that a drive with Mr. Hepplestone was even less likely than attending a women’s march at the Monument.
The twins came running up, wrapping themselves around Essie’s skirt. Maggie’s ribbons were undone, and Flora’s dress had grass stains right down her back. Both their little cheeks were so pink with the sun and activity, Essie wished she could race back up to the top of the Observatory and stop time—to hold this moment forever.
“Who are you?” asked Flora, while Maggie stood back and coughed from the exertion of her run.
The foreman removed his hat and gave a little bow, dipping his head. “I’m Mr. Hepplestone. I work with your brother, Freddie.”
“He’s not here,” said Flora brashly.
“Flora!” said Essie.
Before Essie could continue scolding, a fiddler started to play and they were surrounded by a troupe of juggling clowns. Bright red noses matched the ball at the top of the Observatory, and the little girls started to spin to the music.
The tallest clown stepped forward and pulled a chestnut from behind Flora’s ear. Maggie’s mouth fell open as she tugged on her own ear in a frantic search for a treat.
The same clown reached for the ground as if bending to tie Maggie’s laces, and produced a coin from the hem of her skirt. Maggie jumped up and down, clapping her hands as the clown tucked the penny away into his vest pocket.
The clowns moved on, trailed by clowns on stilts playing accordions, and others cartwheeling and doing backflips across the smooth grass.
Essie and Mr. Hepplestone soon found themselves separated from the others as clowns stomped and juggled between them.
“May I be honest with you, Miss Murphy?” said Mr. Hepplestone as he stopped walking and turned to face her.
“Of course,” said Essie. She was moving into unfamiliar territory, and she wasn’t sure how to proceed.
“I was hoping to bump into you. I overheard Freddie and Danny talking about you helping with the children at Greenwich Observatory today, and so I thought . . .” He’d turned a little pink in the sun. He cocked his head sideways, green eyes twinkling and teasing.
Essie’s heart quickened. Could it be true? Had he really motored out to Greenwich just so he could bump into her? More likely it was a coincidence and he was just trying to flatter her . . . But when she looked from under the brim of her hat, he was still gazing right at her.
They walked down the path, the sun on her face and butterflies floating with the breeze. At the bottom of the hill stood a black Clydesdale, twitching his tail in the sun and eyeing the world from under drooping eyelids. Attached to the horse was a wooden ice-cream cart manned by a smiling fellow with thick black curls, a mustache, and a pink candy-striped vest and matching boater.
“Please?” said Flora running toward them with a cheeky smile. Maggie was two steps behind. Miss Barnes finished watching the clowns and came to join them.
“Please?” echoed Maggie.
Essie knew she should take home the two spare pennies she kept in her handkerchief for an emergency—they would buy enough vegetables for soup for a week. But the closeness of a handsome man standing within reach was a heady distraction. For a moment she almost convinced herself that she could afford to part with her pennies.
Mr. Hepplestone said, “Actually, I quite fancy one myself. You must let me treat you. I insist.”
The girls rushed ahead to the cart, shrieking, “Ice cream!”
“We have vanilla or strawberry left—no more chocolate,” the ice-cream seller informed them in a thick Italian accent.
“Oh, strawberry, please!” Maggie clapped her hands together.
“Strawberry it is,” Mr. Hepplestone declared. “One cone for each of us, please.”
“Our own cones?” Flora looked at Maggie, her eyes wide. Essie thought if the girls’ smiles were any broader their faces might burst.
With their cones in hand, they walked to stand in the shade of a tree. The twins ate their ice cream in a kind of trance, then clambered back up the hill to join their classmates.
Meanwhile, Essie, Gertie, Miss Barnes, and Mr. Hepplestone all sat with their backs against a huge oak tree, taking their time. Essie allowed herself to relax as they spoke about time and astronomy, chance and circumstance, and the changing streets of London. Mr. Hepplestone commended Wren on the splendid job he did redesigning St. Paul’s and the streets around London after the Great Fire. He prayed the new buildings he was supervising would likewise stand the test of time. As Gertie sketched the skyline, Miss Barnes chatted about the curriculum at her new school and the women who
had recently started at St. Hilda’s in Oxford. One had decided to study mathematics, another law, and a third astronomy. The latter girl had been inspired after an excursion just like this.
Essie eyed the dome of the Observatory, glinting like a jewel in the sunlight.
Miss Barnes stood up and said, “If you’ll excuse us, I’d like to take Miss Gertrude here on a tour of the Observatory while the other teacher watches the children.”
“Do you think they’ll let me look through a telescope?” asked Gertie eagerly as she leaped to her feet and brushed the grass from her skirt.
“We’ll see. There’s also a pinhead view of London . . .” Miss Barnes threaded her arm through Gertie’s and led her back up the hill toward the red ball.
As Mr. Hepplestone chatted amiably, Essie realized that he was not, in fact, a foreman for the building contractors that employed Freddie. Rather, Edward Hepplestone was a nephew of the firm’s owner, brought in to help manage all the demolition and rebuilding that was taking place across the city.
He made no mention of the treasure they’d unearthed at Cheapside, though Essie knew he had seen it. Instead, he talked about his uncle’s house in Mayfair and the dinners of roast beef with all the trimmings that were a regular Sunday repast. Essie admired the cut of his linen suit—French, judging by the snug lines fitted to his broad shoulders and slim hips. They cut them a little squarer at the Rubens’ factory. Essie tucked her hands under her skirts. Sitting here in the park it was almost as if she and Edward had everything in common, but then the cut of his suit and her work-roughened hands reminded her otherwise.
Time seemed to drift with the haze of the afternoon, and Essie was surprised when Miss Barnes, returning with a flushed Gertie, pulled her pocket watch from her coat and exclaimed, “Goodness! We’ve been gone for two hours. Hopefully Mr. Morton and Father McGuire have enjoyed their annual lunch at the naval barracks and won’t have noticed us missing.”
Essie realized from Miss Barnes’s tone that the outing to Greenwich wasn’t about the headmaster and priest spending time with the children in their care. The excursion gave them the respectable veneer of doing their charitable duty.
Essie looked up to where some of the older girls were packing blankets into wicker hampers as the children—Flora and Maggie included—rolled and tumbled down the steep hill behind them.
“We were told to meet them at the pier at half past four. We’d best be moving.” Miss Barnes shot Essie an apologetic look. “Come, Gertie. Help me gather the children and pack up the last of the things.” She ushered Gertie up the hill and out of earshot.
“I’m sorry—I’ve kept you all afternoon,” said Mr. Hepplestone. But the glint in his eye suggested he was anything but sorry. Or was she imagining it?
Essie had an image of her mother lying with her face covered in mud, chickens clucking on her belly, desperately warning Essie against handsome men like this Mr. Hepplestone. His immaculate suit and carefree smile should be causes for suspicion. But Essie was intrigued. She envied his ease in the world.
She and Mr. Hepplestone walked the same streets of London, but it felt as if they existed in different times, different meridians. He could not imagine the dirt floor and copper tub she went home to, but Essie had snatched a glimpse of his world; it was there in the Fortnum & Mason window, in the expensive suits and shirts she sewed every day, in the glimpse of a French heel under silk skirts as it disappeared into a leather-lined automobile or marched among the crowd of women at the Monument. She folded these images into her heart, hoping that one day things might be different for her own family.
Mr. Hepplestone pulled a gold watch from his jacket, and she thought of the jewels and gemstones unearthed at Cheapside. Emeralds the very color of Mr. Hepplestone’s eyes.
“I must get back,” he said. “I promised my family I’d dine with them.”
Essie imagined him in a white dinner coat and vest, and shivered. Did he share her reluctance to part company?
“If I wasn’t already committed, I would offer to drive you and your sisters home,” he added.
Essie was touched by his sentiment. But the thought of letting this lovely man see where she lived made her feel queasy. She was ashamed of their garden flat. But what made her feel worse was this shame. As if her family were a dirty secret to be hidden.
And yet, Essie thought, Mr. Hepplestone must have some idea of their circumstances. Freddie was a navvy, after all. And still he had sought her out. Hope bloomed in her heart, like the first tender shoots of spring. Essie was filled with an urge to reach for Mr. Hepplestone’s hand and hold him there for just a few minutes longer and pepper him with questions. She wanted to ask him about the jewels that were dug up . . . Did he know whom they belonged to? About the younger sister he’d mentioned who was finishing her schooling in Switzerland. She wanted to know whether he had ever sailed down the Thames and out to sea, or if he ever dreamed of going?
He stood up and brushed some grass from his pants. Then he held out a hand to help Essie to her feet. His grip was warm and strong and she felt a little dizzy suddenly. It was probably just the heat of the day, she told herself. Or the unaccustomed sweetness of the ice cream.
“I would like to continue this conversation, Miss Murphy. May I take you to tea next week?”
* * *
Essie could think of nothing else but Mr. Hepplestone’s invitation as she and Miss Barnes ushered the children onto the steamer ferry. They all sat on slatted seats on the afterdeck, wind whipping their hair around their faces. The children were quieter on the return journey, tired and sunburned.
“What a coincidence to see your friend at the Observatory,” Miss Barnes remarked.
“He’s not my friend,” Essie replied. “He’s the foreman on the site where my brother works. They’re demolishing buildings over Cheapside way.”
“Well, he seemed happy enough to see you today,” the teacher teased as she gave Essie a nudge with her shoulder.
As the ferry dipped with the tide, and the dome of the Observatory glinted in the late sun, Essie tipped her head back and enjoyed the last rays. For the first time, she felt excited about what the next week might hold.
Chapter 16
Essie spent the following weeks moving between the factory and home with a lightness she’d never felt before. Mr. Lawrence had made good on his word and delivered some money to the boys at the Golden Fleece.
Unfortunately, Freddie hadn’t been able to stop Danny from treating the bar to three rounds before he escaped with his share. He came home and sheepishly presented Essie with the remainder. She had gone straight to Mr. Morton and paid the outstanding amount for the girls’ school, before visiting the fishmonger and Mr. Jones at the general store to settle their debts. She had just enough left over for food for the next few months, if she was careful and hid the money from Ma.
Freddie told Essie he’d been asked to do another job with Danny and the lads outside London, and he had not been home since last Friday. Father McGuire delighted in telling her that he’d heard a handful of navvies had gone to Gravesend for a lark. Essie tried to ignore the flush she could feel spreading to her cheeks. She knew the priest lumped Freddie in with other ne’er-do-well navvies in their neighborhood and assumed he was a drunkard like their ma. Essie couldn’t deny Freddie enjoyed the odd night out with the lads, but he always handed over most of his salary every week to Essie to run the household. If there was a little extra missing sometimes, it was carelessness. Or a wishful gambling bet. There was not a mean bone in Freddie’s skinny body.
The priest had made a point of speaking with Essie after his weekly home visit with her ma. Over the top of his glasses, Father McGuire snapped, “I wondered where those funds might have come from. I did hear, Miss Murphy, that all your family’s debts at the school have been paid.” His eyes had lingered a little too long at her breasts as he spoke, as if to imply that the source of their windfall might perhaps lie there. “My confession box is always open in
the afternoons . . .”
Essie was furious, but of course she couldn’t tell him where the money had actually come from. She endured Father McGuire’s hints in silence; she had nothing to confess to him—though she promised herself this would be the week she confessed to Ma that she’d been stepping out with Edward, as he now insisted she call him.
For the last few weeks she had not been working an extra shift in the factory, as she’d claimed. Instead, she and Edward visited the moving pictures, where they saw The French Spy and she permitted Edward to hold her hand. They spent afternoons lounging on striped deck chairs in Hyde Park eating ice creams or warm muffins that broke apart and spilled runny fruit into her lap.
Occasionally, Edward would tip his hat at an acquaintance in the street, or usher her past an elegant couple in furs he’d exchanged greetings with outside a teahouse. These were the kind of women in French heels who marched at the Monument—perhaps she and Gertie could join them. It was just a matter of time before Edward introduced her to his circle, his family, but every time she thought to ask, the words stuck in her throat.
They roamed the Victoria & Albert Museum, and took tea and scones in the darkest corner of the grand hall filled with chandeliers. Essie wished she could smuggle some treats home for the girls in her handkerchief. Once, they’d visited the Natural History Museum and Edward had walked her past giant roughs of sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds, peering closely at each one without saying a word. She thought of the football of dirt, studded with jewels, that Freddie had held above his head. So many had made their way to Stony Jack. Had others also held on to a keepsake of this magic?
She wondered who was missing their treasure. The piles of gemstones, buttons, neckpieces, and rings on Mr. Lawrence’s desk had been so immense that it was improbable to think no one would come looking . . .
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