by Mary Hooper
Grace bobbed her own curtsey, and nudged Lily to do the same. ‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘We aren’t here to arrange a funeral, but to see Mrs Unwin.’
‘You won’t get nothing from her,’ said the maid. ‘You’d be best going round the back and trying to beg something from the blacksmith. He looks fierce but he’s known to be a soft touch. He’s sure to find a crust or two for you.’
At the mention of food, Lily turned her attention to the maid. ‘I was hoping for a pie.’
The maid hid a smile. Oh, Lord, she thought, but one of them is simple-minded.
Grace felt herself flush. ‘We’re not here to beg,’ she said. She held out the Unwins’ business card. ‘Mrs Unwin asked me to call on her.’
‘Oh!’ The maid’s eyes widened. ‘Sorry, miss.’
Leading Grace and Lily into one of the reception rooms, she planned what she’d say to the other girls: ‘Poor as church mice – you should have seen them! No shoes (for of course she had noticed this straight away), and one of them simple! And with the mistress’s business card, if you please.’ She indicated a plush sofa. ‘If you’d like to sit down, miss.’
‘No, we’ll stand, thank you,’ said Grace, although Lily had already taken a seat and was looking around her in awe, gently bouncing up and down and showing grimy feet with each movement of her skirts. Grace knew she should have begged her to show some decorum, but somehow couldn’t summon the energy. She looked around as well: the windows were hung with silk drapes in a soothing shade of grey and the walls were plain, all the better to display examples of the statuary available to order from the Unwin memorial workshop. One could have a cherub, angel, broken column, obelisk, flaming torch, covered urn, or even, if you were very rich, a magnificent depiction of Hope weeping upon a rock.
Mrs Unwin was some time coming, being busy in a workroom devising a new moneymaking innovation she’d seen in a foreign graveyard: immortelles – little arrangements of everlasting flowers under glass domes. She was reluctant to put this trial product aside, but when she did so and entered the waiting room, she almost reared back in disgust, for she prided herself on having a nose for the lower orders.
She tried to breathe as shallowly as possible. ‘Yes?’ she asked faintly.
‘Mrs Unwin, thank you for seeing us.’
It was the girl standing by the window who’d spoken and, really, Mrs Unwin thought, now that one was looking at her, one could tell from her tone and accent that she was not as coarse as her appearance at first suggested. Her face had a certain purity, a gravity of expression – and hadn’t she seen her before, somewhere?
‘What is it you want?’ asked Mrs Unwin.
‘Excuse my temerity in calling, but I met you some weeks ago at Brookwood,’ Grace said. ‘You were kind enough to say that if I ever needed employment, you would take me on as a mute.’
‘Ah.’ Mrs Unwin hesitated. The girl had just the right sort of tragic face to complement a grieving family, and she was, in fact, always looking for young women who were discreet and sensible enough to work in the funeral trade (for most had an instinctive horror of the business, believing that it was bad luck to work among the dead). She did not, however, want this girl to feel she actually needed her, for then she might ask for more than the paltry few shillings a week she was willing to pay. ‘Things have changed a little since then,’ said Mrs Unwin, shaking her head as if to dismiss her. ‘The funeral business is not a thriving one, and we have several good mutes already.’
‘I can also sew and embroider,’ Grace said. ‘I’m a very hard worker.’
Mrs Unwin tried to look unconvinced, although someone who could be a mute and embroiderer would be extremely useful to her.
‘I’m excellent with my needle,’ said Grace fervently, seeing Mrs Unwin waver. ‘I can assure you of my utmost dedication to the job. My sister, too, would serve you well.’
Mrs Unwin turned her attention to the girl sitting on the sofa and saw a lanky girl, heavy-jawed and plain, scratching along her arms as if troubled by fleas. This one did not have the qualities of her sister. Mrs Unwin shook her head. ‘I’m afraid that even if I could find you a position, I couldn’t take on your sister. She would never make a mute.’
‘But I couldn’t come here without her!’ Grace looked at Mrs Unwin with some desperation. ‘We’ve always lived together.’
‘Then I’m sorry.’ Mrs Unwin turned away, shaking her head again. She was certainly not in the business of charity, to take on two girls in the place of one.
This might have been the end of the matter, except that Mr George Unwin happened to be passing the red room on his way to check on something with one of the stonemasons. Hearing his wife speaking to someone (and hoping that it was a wealthy customer), he waited to hear more.
Grace tried – and failed – to maintain her calm. ‘Please,’ she said to Mrs Unwin, ‘you are my last hope. We have no father, and due to circumstances beyond our control Lily and I have lost our lodgings. Our money has been stolen and with winter coming on . . .’ She stopped here, put her hand to her mouth and bit her fingers to prevent herself from crying.
Mr Unwin heard the words ‘We have no father’ and the name Lily, and stood, suddenly rapt. It was a long shot, he thought with mounting excitement, but the missing Parkes had to be somewhere.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mrs Unwin briskly, ‘but there are many in London who are in dire circumstances. I can’t take them all on! I suggest you apply to one of the charities. Or the workhouse.’
Realising that they were being rejected, Lily burst into noisy sobs just as Mr Unwin swept into the room.
‘Forgive me, my dear! Forgive me!’ he said to his wife. ‘I was passing and couldn’t help overhearing your conversation.’
Mrs Unwin frowned. The hiring and firing of staff was always left to her.
‘This is a very sad tale I’ve just heard,’ he said to the two girls. ‘Your father dead, you say, and you’ve lost your lodgings? And is your mother dead, too?’
Grace nodded, startled by this sudden intrusion.
‘Our papa sailed away to make his fortune,’ Lily blurted out, wiping her nose on her sleeve. ‘He might come back one day, mightn’t he?’ she appealed to Grace.
‘Perhaps,’ Grace said in a low voice.
‘And what have you been doing since your mother died?’
‘We . . . went into an orphanage,’ Grace said, and glanced at Lily warningly not to say any more.
‘And how old are you both now?’ George Unwin asked.
‘I think I am seventeen.’ Lily looked at her sister for confirmation.
Grace nodded. ‘I am almost sixteen.’
‘And how long has your poor father been gone, Miss . . . ?’
‘Parkes. We are Grace and Lily Parkes,’ Grace said, and, looking at Lily to try and stop her bouncing on the sofa, missed the flash of utter joy which passed over the face of Mr Unwin. ‘Father has been gone over fifteen years,’ she added.
As Mr Unwin said to his wife later, he had never heard anything so marvellous in his entire life. ‘Sad, exceedingly sad,’ he said, endeavouring to stop himself whooping with glee. ‘Don’t you think so, my dear?’ he said to Mrs Unwin.
His wife stared at him, wondering if he had gone mad.
‘Can we not afford to offer these two well-born young ladies a little charity?’
‘Charity?’ The very word was abhorrent to Mrs Unwin, reeking as it did of fusty clothes, workhouses and fleas.
He pointed at Grace. ‘This young lady, with training, would make an excellent mute, surely?’
‘Yes, I had already –’
‘And this one . . .’ He hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘This one could be trained, too, I’m sure.’
‘What on earth as?’ said his wife.
‘A maid!’ he announced. ‘And Miss Charlotte needs a maid!’
Mrs Unwin looked at her husband as if he had completely lost his wits. It was true, their daughter was sixteen and woul
d soon need a maid of her own, but certainly not this gawky, dim-looking girl. Mr Unwin returned a look to his wife. This said that she was to go along with him for now, only for now, and he would explain everything later.
Grace pressed her lips together nervously. What Mrs Unwin said next would determine their fate.
‘Well,’ said Mrs Unwin, ‘I suppose we could take your sister on at our home in Kensington.’ She looked at Lily doubtfully. ‘Would she be all right there, without you?’
Grace nodded, putting aside the reservations she felt. ‘We are used to working together, of course, but as long as I know she’s in good hands, and we could see each other sometimes . . .’ She touched Lily’s shoulder, praying that she wouldn’t say or do anything untoward. ‘How would you like to learn to be a maidservant, Lily?’
Lily looked from her sister to the Unwins and back again. She didn’t want to live apart from Grace, but it seemed that staying together wasn’t an option. And anything would be better than spending another night in that warehouse.
‘We couldn’t pay you much,’ said Mrs Unwin quickly. ‘As neither of you are trained, it would be like an apprenticeship for you both. You’d have board and lodging, of course, and perhaps one shilling a week each.’
Grace smiled, deeply relieved and grateful to the Unwins. She thought that at Brookwood the woman had mentioned the sum of five shillings just to appear as a mute at one funeral, but really she would be pleased enough just to be off the streets, sheltered and fed. And to think that Lily was going to be sheltered, fed and trained as a maid – it was more than she’d ever hoped for.
‘If you bid your goodbyes to each other now, I’ll have Rose walk your sister across the park to Kensington,’ said Mrs Unwin. She looked around the room. ‘Where are your things?’
‘We’ll send for them later,’ Grace said. Lily looked at her in surprise, seemed about to say something and then thought better of it.
As Mr and Mrs Unwin disappeared into one of the other rooms, Grace took Lily’s hands in her own. ‘You have a real chance now to learn to be a maidservant,’ she said. ‘Do everything that you’re directed to do, work as hard as you can and always be willing and polite. It won’t be for ever. We must both save as much as we can and hope to be together again one day soon.’
Lily rather excitedly kissed her sister on both cheeks and promised to be good. Grace, for a change, was the one who wept.
x
Chapter Twelve
Mr George Unwin, needing to speak to his cousin urgently, sent a message asking to meet him for a quick snifter at Barker’s that afternoon. By the time his drinking companion arrived, the undertaker had already drunk a double scotch.
‘What’s all this?’ said his cousin, waving his cigar at the empty glass. ‘Got something to celebrate, have we?’
‘We have!’ said George Unwin. ‘Oh, most certainly we have.’
‘What is it, then? New wave of cholera hit London? Massed funerals all round?’
‘Even better!’ He looked ridiculously pleased with himself. ‘I’ve landed ’em!’
‘Landed what?’
‘Two plump pigeons!’
His cousin began to cut his cigar. ‘Didn’t know you were a shooting man. And where do you shoot around here?’
‘Not literally, old chap. I’ve caught the heiress!’
‘What?’ He stopped fiddling with the cigar immediately. ‘The legendary Mrs Parkes and her daughter?’
‘Almost,’ said George Unwin. ‘The mother is underground in a box, and it appears that there’s another child that the father didn’t know about – born after he left.’
‘Damned if there is!’ said the other in astonishment.
‘What’s more, at least one of them is simple-minded.’
‘Better and better. And where are they now? Got them under lock and key, have you?’
‘I certainly have. They’re right under our noses, working for the Unwin family. Discretion is our byword, eh?’
‘It most definitely is!’ Smiling to himself, the second man restarted the ceremony of cutting and tapping the end of his cigar on the marble-topped table. ‘Capital,’ he murmured, ‘capital. And by way of a coincidence, I found out something this week on that very subject.’
George Unwin looked at his cousin expectantly. He never ceased to wonder at this man who, as well as managing the mourning warehouse, had fingers in so many pies: this manufacturer, that charity, fine wines, import, export, offal into dog meat, toadying to the rich, feeding the poor and taking as much as he could from both. People said he would be Lord Mayor of London one day.
‘The father – the Parkes man – died abroad.’
‘Good, good . . . makes things easier.’
‘Died where his extremely large fortune had been made, in the Americas, by all accounts.’ He began drawing hard on the cigar to get it going. ‘And what I’m thinking now that you’ve got her in the bag is that the ten per cent being offered for finding her may not be quite enough. I mean, there are two of us.’
‘You think we should get more?’
‘More?’ Sylvester Unwin asked. ‘I think we should get the lot. I think you should make the girl part of the Unwin family circle – adopt her if you have to – and then gently acquire the money on her behalf.’ He paused for thought. ‘Yes, you may need to adopt her, but you must be canny about it.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘You don’t want it to look as if you only adopted her when you found out she was an heiress, do you?’
‘Certainly not!’
‘So we’ll have to have the adoption papers forged and backdated ten years.’
‘And what will the girl have to say about that?’
‘Nothing much! You say that she’s simple?’
George Unwin nodded.
‘Then it should be easy – with a little persuasion – to convince her that she’s been living with you for ten years or more.’
George Unwin nodded again. ‘Should be . . . should be. And what about the other girl? The sister?’
‘No one knows about her, and she doesn’t know about the inheritance. We’ll keep it that way. Maybe we can send her away on a nice long journey with no return ticket.’
George Unwin clapped his cousin on the back. ‘An excellent idea,’ he said. ‘Excellent! By heck, no wonder they call you Sly!’
x
Chapter Thirteen
‘Come on, can’t you? Hurry! I’ve got to take you right across the park and then go back again.’
Rose, the housemaid who’d opened the Unwins’ door, pulled at Lily’s hand in an effort to get her to move along, but having passed the park’s carriage drive – which, as always, had been over-full of the fashionable – they had reached Rotten Row and Lily was staring, entranced, at the immaculately dressed horsewomen in their tailored riding habits and shiny top hats. As their horses clip-clopped past, each rider wished the other the compliments of the day in formal manner, lifting their silver- or gold-tipped cane as they did so. Occasionally a gentleman rider came along, all polished leather boots and jangling stirrups, calling greetings and raising his top hat to every attractive lady.
‘Why are they all out and riding their horses now – in the middle of the day?’ Lily asked Rose.
‘Why?’ Rose answered. ‘Because they want to, that’s why.’
‘Haven’t they any work to do?’
Rose gave a snort of laughter. ‘Not they!’
‘Are they all very rich?’
‘I should say so.’
A lady and gentleman trotted by together under the golden-leaved, fast-falling trees, each horse lifting its hooves in perfect unison with the other. Rose looked at them searchingly, for she knew that sometimes Queen Victoria and Prince Albert took a little riding exercise together in the park and, having seen them once, she very much hoped to see them again. Especially Albert, whom she’d thought a very handsome gentleman.
‘They’re so rich that they don’t need to
work,’ she reiterated, pulling at Lily’s hand again. ‘Not like me. Or you.’ She stared at her companion. Whatever must the master and mistress be thinking of to take on a girl like this, shoe-less and dunder-headed? The other girl seemed decent enough and could possibly act the mute and attain the high funereal standards expected by the Unwins, but really, there was no hope at all for this baggage. A maid for Miss Charlotte? Oh, Lord, she was glad she didn’t have to tell her!
By threatening and persuading in equal measure, Rose managed to get Lily away from the horse riders, across Hyde Park and into Kensington Gardens, where they were then delayed by Lily wanting to have a closer look at the nannies rounding the pond with their perambulators.
‘Oh, may we go and look at the babies?’ she asked. ‘Just for a moment.’
Rose was about to say no, but gave in, for she very much liked looking at the babies herself. What was more, she knew that lace-trimmed royal babies were sometimes to be seen taking the air there. On reaching the pond, however, Rose rather wished she hadn’t permitted such a thing, for Lily would keep staring hard under the pram hoods and then shaking her head dismissively. What she was actually doing, although Rose couldn’t have known it, was comparing the prettiness of the babies to that of Primrose, her late doll, and finding the babies sadly lacking.
‘We must go now,’ Rose said, after half a dozen babies had been approached and rejected. ‘Madam knows exactly how long it takes to walk across the park to Hardwood House, and if I’m late back I’ll be for it.’
‘I like babies,’ Lily said, at last allowing herself to be led away.
‘Mmm,’ came the reply.
‘My sister had one once.’
Rose looked at her, startled. Surely she couldn’t be talking about that quiet and anxious girl she’d arrived with? ‘Are you sure?’
Lily nodded, frowning deeply. ‘I think so.’
Rose didn’t take the questioning any further. The girl was just spinning a tale.
x
Hardwood House was in quite the smartest road at the country end of Kensington, looking out on to a flourishing, tree-lined square to which only its residents had keys. Each house was tall and of noble proportions, with steps running up to the front door which were whitened every other day by scullery maids. The front doors were painted in gloss paint, and the brass doorknockers and letter boxes polished to a mirror shine every day of the week bar Sundays.