Anne Perry - A Christmas Promise

“Eh, mister!” Gracie stepped forward into his path. “Is this where Minnie Maude lives?”

He looked startled. “I in’t seen you ’ere before! ’oo are yer?” he demanded.

“I in’t bin ’ere before,” she said reasonably. “That’s ’ow I dunno if this is where she lives.”

He looked her up and down, all four feet eleven inches of her, from the top of her shawl to her pale, clever little face, down to her bony body and her worn-out boots with buttons missing. “Wot d’yer want wif our Minnie Maude, then?” he asked suspiciously.

Gracie said the first thing that came into her mind. “Got an errand for ’er. Worf tuppence, if she does it right. Can’t do it all meself,” she added, in case it sounded too good to be true.

“I’ll get ’er for yer,” he said instantly, turning on his heel and going back into the house. A moment later he returned with Minnie Maude behind him. “There y’are,” he said, and pushed her forward. “Make yerself useful, then,” he prompted, as if she might be reluctant.

Minnie Maude’s wide eyes regarded Gracie with wonder and gratitude entirely inappropriate to the offer of a twopenny job, which might even last all day. Still, perhaps when you were eight, tuppence was a lot. Gracie was thirteen, and it was more than she actually had, but she had needed to make the offer good in order to be certain that it would be carried inside, and that Minnie Maude would be allowed to accept. She would deal with finding the tuppence later.

“Well, c’mon, then!” Gracie said aloud, grasping Minnie Maude’s arm and half-pulling her away from the bowlegged man and striding along the street as fast as she dared on the ice.

“Yer gonna ’elp me find Charlie?” Minnie Maude asked breathlessly, slipping and struggling to keep up with her.

It was a little too late to justify her answer now. “Yeah,” Gracie conceded. “I ’spec it won’t take long. Someb’dy’ll ’ave seen ’im. Mebbe ’e got a fright an’ ran off. ’e’ll get ’isself ’ome by an’ by. Wot ’appened ter yer uncle Alf, anyway?” She slowed down a little bit now that they were round the corner and back in Brick Lane again.

“Dunno,” Minnie Maude said unhappily. “They found ’im in Richard Street, in Mile End, lyin’ in the road wi’ the back of ’is ’ead stove in, an’ cuts an’ bangs all over ’im. They said as ’e must ’ave fell off ’is cart. But Charlie’d never ’ave gorn an’ left ’im like that. Couldn’t’ve, even if ’e’d wanted to, bein’ as ’e were tied inter the shafts.”

“W’ere’s the cart, then?” Gracie asked practically.

“That’s it!” Minnie Maude exclaimed, stopping abruptly. “It’s not there! That’s ’ow else I know ’e were done in. It’s gorn.”

Gracie shook her head, stopping beside her. “’oo’d a done ’im in? Wot’s in the cart, then? Milk? Coal? Taters?” She was beginning to feel more and more as if Minnie Maude were in her own world of loss and grief more than in the real one. “’oo’s gonna do in someone fer a cartload o’ taters? ’e must a died natural, an’ fell off, poor thing. Then some rotten bastard stole ’is cart, taters an’ all, an’ Charlie wif ’em. But ’owever rotten they are,” she added hastily, “they’ll look after Charlie, because ’e’s worf summink. Donkeys are useful.”

“It weren’t milk,” Minnie Maude said, easing her pace to keep in step. “’e were a rag an’ bone man, an’ sometimes ’e ’ad real beautiful things, treasures. It could a bin anyfink.” She left the possibilities dangling in the air.

Gracie looked sideways at her. She was about three inches shorter than Gracie, and just as thin. Her small face had a dusting of freckles across the nose, and at the moment it was pinched with worry. Gracie felt a strong stab of pity for her.

“’e’ll mebbe come back by ’isself,” she said as encouragingly as she could. “Unless ’e’s in a nice stable somewhere, an’ can’t get out. I ’spec someone nicked the cart, cos there were some good stuff in it. But donkeys in’t daft.” She had never actually known a donkey, but she knew the coal man’s horse, and it was intelligent enough. It could always find a carrot top, whatever pocket you put it in.

Minnie Maude forced a smile. “Course,” she said bravely. “We just gotta ask, afore ’e gets so lorst an’ can’t find ’is way back. Actual, I dunno ’ow far ’e’s ever bin. More ’n I ’ave, prob’ly.”

“Well, we’d best get started, then.” Gracie surrendered her common sense to a moment’s weakness of sympathy. Minnie Maude was a stubborn little article, and daft as a brush with it. Who knew what would happen to her if she was left on her own? Gracie would give it an hour or two. She could spare that much. Maybe Charlie would come back himself by then.

“Fank yer,” Minnie Maude acknowledged. “Where we gonna start?” She looked at Gracie hopefully.

Gracie’s mind raced for an answer. “’oo found yer uncle Alf, then?”

“Jimmy Quick,” Minnie Maude replied immediately. “’e’s a lyin’ git an’ all, but that’s prob’ly true, cos ’e ’ad ter get ’elp.”

“Then we’ll go an’ find Jimmy Quick an’ ask ’im,” Gracie said firmly. “If ’e tells us exact, mebbe takes us there, we can ask folks, an’ p’raps someone saw Charlie. Where’d we look fer ’im?”

“In the street.” Minnie Maude squinted up at the leaden winter sky, apparently judging the time. “Mebbe Church Lane, be now. Or mebbe ’e in’t started yet, an’ ’e’s still at ’ome in Angel Alley.”

“Started wot?”

“’is way round. ’e’s a rag an’ bone man, too. That’s ’ow come ’e found Uncle Alf.”

“Rag an’ bone men don’t do the same round as each other,” Gracie pointed out. “It don’t make no sense. There’d be nuffink left.” She was as patient as she could be. Minnie Maude was only eight, but she should have been able to work that out.

“I tol’ yer ’e were a lyin’ git,” Minnie Maude replied, unperturbed.

“Well, we better find ’im anyway.” Gracie had no better idea. “Which way d’we go?”

“That way.” Minnie Maude pointed after a minute’s hesitation, in which she swiveled around slowly, facing each direction in turn. She set off confidently, marching across the cobbles, her feet clattering on the ice and her heart in her mouth. Gracie caught up with her, hoping to heaven that they would not both get as lost as Charlie.

They crossed Wentworth Street away from the places she knew, and had left them behind in a few hundred yards. Now all the streets looked frighteningly the same, narrow and uneven. Here and there cobbles were broken or missing, gutters swollen with the previous night’s rain and the refuse from unknown numbers of houses. Alleys threaded off to either side, some little more than the width of a man’s outstretched arms, the house eaves almost meeting overhead. The strip of sky above was no more than a jagged crack. Gutters dripped, and most hung with ice. Some of the blackened chimneys belched smoke.

Everyone was busy on errands of one sort or another, pushing carts of vegetables, bales of cloth, kegs of ale—rickety wheels catching the curbs. Children shouted, peddlers called their wares, and patterers rehearsed the latest news and gossip in singsong voices, making up colloquial rhymes. Women quarreled; several dogs ran around barking.

At the end of the next road was the Whitechapel High Street, a wide thoroughfare with hansom cabs bowling along at a brisk clip, cabbies riding high on the boxes. There was even a gentleman’s carriage with a matched pair of bay horses with brass on their harness and a beautiful pattern on the carriage door.