A Christmas Promise

THE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS, THE SMELL and taste of it were in the air, a kind of excitement, an urgency about everything. Geese and rabbits hung outside butchers’ shops, and there were little pieces of holly on some people’s doors. Postmen were extra busy. The streets were still gray, the wind still hard and cold, the rain turning to sleet, but it wouldn’t have seemed right if it had been different.

Gracie Phipps was on an errand for her gran to get a tuppence worth of potatoes to go with the leftovers of cabbage and onion, so Gran could make bubble and squeak for supper. Spike and Finn would pretty well eat anything they could fit into their mouths, but they liked this especially. Better with a slice of sausage, of course, but there was no money for that now. Everything was being saved for Christmas.

Gracie walked a little faster into the wind, pulling her shawl tighter around her. She had the potatoes in a string bag, along with half a cabbage. She saw the girl standing by the candle makers, on the corner of Heneage Street and Brick Lane, her reddish fair hair blowing about and her arms hugged around her as if she were freezing. She looked to be about eight, five years younger than Gracie, and as skinny as an eel. She had to be lost. She didn’t belong there, or on Chicksand Street—one over. Gracie had lived on these streets ever since she had come to London from the country, when her mother had died six years before, in 1877. She knew everyone.

“Are yer lorst?” she asked as she reached the child. “This is ’eneage Street. Where d’yer come from?”

The girl looked at her with wide gray eyes, blinking fiercely in an attempt to stop the tears from brimming over onto her cheeks. “Thrawl Street,” she answered. That was two streets over to the west and on the other side of Brick Lane, out of the neighborhood altogether.

“It’s that way.” Gracie pointed.

“I know where it is,” the girl replied, not making any effort to move. “Me uncle Alf’s bin killed, an’ Charlie’s gorn. I gotta find ’im, cos ’e’ll be cold an’ ’ungry, an’ mebbe scared.” Her eyes brimmed over, and she wiped her sleeve across her face and sniffed. “’ave yer seen a donkey as yer don’t know? ’e’s gray, wi’ brown eyes, an’ a sort o’ pale bit round the end of ’is nose.” She looked at Gracie with sudden, intense hope. “’e’s about this ’igh.” She indicated, reaching upward with a small, dirty hand.

Gracie would have liked to help, but she had seen no animals at all, except for the coal man’s horse at the end of the street, and a couple of stray dogs. Even hansom cabs didn’t often come to this part of the East End. Commercial Street, or Whitechapel Road, maybe, on their way to somewhere else. She looked at the child’s eager face and felt her heart sink. “Wot’s yer name?” she asked.

“Minnie Maude Mudway,” the child replied. “But I in’t lorst. I’m lookin’ fer Charlie. ’e’s the one wot’s lorst, an’ summink might ’ave ’appened to ’im. I told yer, me uncle Alf’s bin killed. Yesterday it were, an’ Charlie’s gorn. ’e’d ’ave come ’ome if ’e could. ’e must be cold an’ ’ungry, an’ ’e dunno where ’e is.”

Gracie was exasperated. The whole story made no sense. Why would Minnie Maude be worrying about a donkey that had wandered off, if her uncle had really been killed? And yet she couldn’t just leave the girl there standing on the corner in the wind. It would be dark very soon. It was after three already, and going to rain. “Yer got a ma?” Gracie asked.

“No,” Minnie Maude answered. “I got an aunt Bertha, but she says as Charlie don’t matter. Donkeys is donkeys.”

“Well, if yer uncle got killed, maybe she don’t care that much about donkeys right now.” Gracie tried to sound reasonable. “Wot’s gonna ’appen to ’er, wif ’im gone? Yer gotta think as she might be scared an’ all.”

Minnie Maude blinked. “Uncle Alf di’n’t matter to ’er like that,” she explained. “’e were me pa’s bruvver.” She sniffed harder. “Uncle Alf told good stories. ’e’d bin ter places, an’ ’e saw things better than most folk. Saw them fer real, wot they meant inside, not just wot’s plain. ’e used ter make me laugh.”

Gracie felt a sudden, sharp sense of the girl’s loss. Maybe it was Uncle Alf she was really looking for, and Charlie was just an excuse, a kind of sideways way of seeing it, until she could bear to look at it straight. There was something very special about people who made you laugh. “I’m sorry,” she said gently. It had been a little while before she had really said to herself that her mother wasn’t ever coming back.

“’e were killed,” Minnie Maude repeated. “Yest’day.”

“Then yer’d best go ’ome,” Gracie pointed out. “Yer aunt’ll be wond’rin’ wot ’appened to yer. Mebbe Charlie’s already got ’ome ’isself.”

Minnie Maude looked miserable and defiant, shivering in the wind and almost at the end of her strength. “No ’e won’t. If ’e knew ’ow ter come ’ome ’e’d a bin there last night. ’e’s cold an’ scared, an’ all by ’isself. An’ no one but ’im an’ me knows as Uncle Alf were done in. Aunt Bertha says as ’e fell off an’ ’it ’is ’ead, broke ’is neck most like. An’ Stan says it don’t matter anyway, cos dead is dead jus’ the same, an’ we gotta bury ’im decent, an’ get on wi’ things. Ain’t no time ter sit around. Stan drives an ’ansom, ’e goes all over the place, but ’e don’t know as much as Uncle Alf did. ’e could fall over summink wifout seein’ it proper. ’e sees wot it is, like Uncle Alf said, but ’e don’t never see wot it could be! ’e di’n’t see as donkeys can be as good as a proper ’orse.”

Not for a hansom cab, Gracie thought. Who ever saw a hansom with a donkey in the shafts? But she didn’t say so.

“An’ Aunt Bertha di’n’t ’old wif animals,” Minnie Maude finished. “’ceptin’ cats, cos they get the mice.” She gulped and wiped her nose on her sleeve again. “So will yer ’elp me look for Charlie, please?”

Gracie felt useless. Why couldn’t she have come a little earlier, when her gran had first told her to? Then she wouldn’t even have been here for this child to ask her for something completely impossible. She felt sad and guilty, but there was no possible way she could go off around the wet winter streets in the dark, looking for donkeys. She had to get home with the potatoes so her gran could make supper for them, and the two hungry little boys Gran’s son had left when he’d died. They were nearly old enough to get out and earn their own way, but right now they were still a considerable responsibility, especially with Gracie’s gran earning only what she could doing laundry every hour she was awake, and a few when she hardly was. Gracie helped with errands. She always seemed to be running around fetching or carrying something, cleaning, sweeping, scrubbing. But very soon she would have to go to the factory like other girls, as soon as Spike and Finn didn’t need watching.

“I can’t,” she said quietly. “I gotta go ’ome with the taters, or them kids’ll start eatin’ the chairs. Then I gotta ’elp me gran.” She wanted to apologize, but what was the point? The answer was still no.

Minnie Maude nodded, her mouth tightening a little. She breathed in and out deeply, steadying herself. “’s all right. I’ll look fer Charlie meself.” She sniffed and turned away to walk home. The sky was darkening and the first spots of rain were heavy in the wind, hard and cold.

When Gracie pushed the back door open to their lodgings in Heneage Street, her grandmother was standing with a basin of water ready to wash and peel the potatoes. She looked worn-out from spending all day up to her elbows in hot water, caustic, and lye, heaving other people’s wet linen from one sink to another, shoulders aching, back so sore she could hardly touch it. Then she would have to lift the linen all again to wind it through the mangles that would squeeze the water out, and there would be some chance of getting it dry so it could be returned, and paid for. There was always need for money: rent, food, boots, a few sticks and a little coal to put on the fire, and of course Christmas.

Gracie hardly grew out of anything. It seemed as if she had stopped at four feet eleven, and worn-out pieces could always be patched. But Spike and Finn were bigger every time you looked at them, and considering how much they ate, perhaps no one should have been surprised.

The food was good, and every scrap disappeared, even though they were being careful and saving any treats for Christmas. Spike and Finn bickered a bit, as usual, then went off to bed obediently enough at about seven. There wasn’t a clock, but if you thought about it, and you were used to the sounds of the street outside, footsteps coming and going, the voices of those you knew, then you had a good idea of time.

They had two rooms, which wasn’t bad, considering. There was the kitchen, with a tin bowl for washing; the stove, to cook and keep warm; and the table and three chairs and a stool. And there was the bench for chopping, ironing, and baking now and then. There was a drain outside the back door, a well at the end of the street, and a privy at the bottom of the yard. In the other small room, Gracie and her gran had beds on one side, and on the other they had built a sort of bed for the boys. They lay in it, one at each end.

But Gracie did not sleep well, in spite of being very nearly warm enough. She could not forget Minnie Maude Mudway, standing on the street corner in the dusk, grieving for loneliness, death, a donkey who might or might not be lost. All night it troubled her, and she woke to the bleak, icy morning still miserable.

She got up quickly, without disturbing her gran, who needed every moment of sleep she could find. Gracie pulled on her clothes immediately. The air was as cold as stone on her skin. There was ice on the inside of the windows as well as on the outside.

She tiptoed out into the kitchen, put on her boots, and buttoned them up. Then she started to rake out the dead ashes from the kitchen stove and relight it so she could heat a pan of water and make porridge for breakfast. That was a luxury not everyone had, and she tasted it with pleasure every time.

Spike and Finn came in before daylight, although there was a paling of the sky above the rooftops. They were full of good spirits, planning mischief, and glad enough to eat anything they were given: porridge, a heel of bread, and a smear of dripping. By half past eight they were off on errands for the woman at the corner shop, and Gran, fortified by a cup of tea, insisting it was enough, went on her way back to the laundry.

Gracie busied herself with housework, washing dishes, sweeping, and dusting, putting out slops and fetching more water from the well at the end of the street. It was cold outside, with a rime of ice on the cobbles and a hard east wind promising sleet.

By nine o’clock she could not bear her conscience anymore. She put on her heaviest shawl, gray-brown cloth and very thick, and went outside into the street again and down to the corner to look for Minnie Maude.

London was an enormous cluster of villages all running into one another, some rich, some poor, none worse than Flower and Dean Walk, which was filled with rotting tenements, sometimes eight or ten people to a room. It was full of prostitutes, thieves, magsmen, cracksmen, star-glazers, snotter-haulers, fogle-hunters, and pickpockets of every kind.

Oddly enough, the boundaries remained. Each village had its own identity and loyalties, its hierarchies of importance and rules of behavior, its racial and religious mixtures. Just the other side of Commercial Street it was Jewish, mostly Russians and Poles. In the other direction was Whitechapel. Thrawl Street, where Minnie Maude said she lived, was beyond Gracie’s area. Only something as ignorant as a donkey would wander from one village to another as if there were no barriers, just because you could not see them. Charlie could hardly be blamed, poor creature, but Minnie Maude knew, and of course Gracie did even more so.

At the corner the wind was harder. It sliced down the open street, whining in the eaves of the taller buildings, their brick defaced with age, weathering, and neglect. Water stains from broken guttering streaked black, and she knew they would smell of mold inside, like dirty socks.

The soles of her boots slipped on the ice, and her feet were so cold she could not feel her toes anymore.

The next street over was busy with people, men going to work at the lumberyard or the coal merchant, girls going to the match factory a little farther up. One passed her, and Gracie saw for a moment the lopsided disfigurement of her face, known as “phossie-jaw,” caused by the phosphorus in the match heads. An old woman was bent over, carrying a bundle of laundry. Two others shared a joke, laughing loudly. There was a peddler on the opposite corner with a tray of sandwiches, and a man in a voluminous coat slouched by.

A brewer’s dray passed, horses lifting their great feet proudly and clattering them on the stones, harnesses gleaming even in the washed-out winter light. Nothing more beautiful than a horse, strong and gentle, its huge feet with hair like silk skirts around them.

A hawker came a few yards behind, pushing a barrow full of vegetables, pearly buttons on his coat. He was whistling a tune, and Gracie recognized it as a Christmas carol. The words were something about merry gentlemen.

She walked quickly to get out of the wind; it would be more sheltered once she was around the corner. She knew what street she was looking for. She could remember the name, but she could not read the signs. She was going to have to ask someone, and she hated that. It took away all her independence and made her feel foolish. At least someone would know Minnie Maude, especially since there had just been a death in the family.

She was regarded with some suspicion, but five minutes later she stood on the narrow pavement outside a grimy brick-fronted house whose colorless wooden door was shut fast against the ice-laden wind.

Until this moment Gracie had not thought of what she was going to say to explain her presence. She could hardly tell them that she had come to help Minnie Maude find Charlie, because if she were really a good person, she would have offered to do that yesterday. Going home to tea sounded like an excuse. And anyway, Aunt Bertha had already said that, as far as she was concerned, it didn’t matter, and whatever Minnie Maude thought of it, Aunt Bertha seemed reasonable enough. The poor woman was bereaved, and probably beside herself with worry as to how they were going to manage without a money-earning member of the family. There was a funeral to pay for, never mind looking for daft donkeys that had wandered off. Except that he might be worth a few shillings if they sold him?

Probably they already had, and just didn’t want to tell Minnie Maude. She was too young to understand some of the realities of life. That was probably it. Better to tell her, though. Then she would stop worrying that he was lost and scared and out in the rain by himself.

Gracie was still standing uselessly on the cobbles, shifting from one foot to the other and shaking with cold, when the door opened and a large man with a barrel chest and bowlegs came out, banging his hands together as if they were already numb.

“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.

“We gone too far,” Minnie Maude said. “Angel Alley’s back that way.” She started along the High Street, then suddenly turned into one of the alleys again, and after a further hundred yards or so, she turned into a ramshackle yard with a sign at the entrance.

“I fink this is it,” she said, peering at the letters. But looking at her face all screwed up in uncertainty, Gracie knew perfectly well that she was only guessing.

Minnie Maude took a deep breath and walked in. Gracie followed. She couldn’t let her go in alone.

A lean man with straight black hair came out of one of the sheds.

“There’s nothing ’ere fer kids,” he said with a slight lisp. He waved his hands. “Orff wif yer!”

“Ye’re Jimmy Quick?” Minnie Maude pulled herself up very straight.

“’oo are you, then?” he said, puzzled.

“Minnie Maude Mudway,” she replied. “It were me uncle Alf as yer found in the street.” She hesitated. “An’ this is me friend,” she added.

“Gracie Phipps,” Gracie said.

“We’re lookin’ fer Charlie,” Minnie Maude went on.

Jimmy Quick frowned at them. “I dunno no Charlie.”

“’e’s a donkey,” Gracie explained. Someone needed to talk a little sense. “’e got lost, along wif Uncle Alf’s cart, an’ everyfink wot was in it.” She glanced around the yard and saw three old bicycles whose wheels had missing spokes, several odd boots and shoes, kettles, pieces of china and pottery, some of it so beautiful she stared at it in amazement. There were old fire irons, a poker with a brass handle, ornaments, pots and pans, pieces of carpet, a cabin trunk with no hinges, unwanted books and pictures, all the things a rag and bone man collects, in with the actual rags or bones for glue.

Minnie Maude stood still, ignoring the scattered takings around her, just staring solemnly at Jimmy Quick. “’ow’d yer find ’im, then?”

Jimmy seemed to consider evading the question, then changed his mind. “’e were jus’ lyin’ there in the road,” he said sadly. “Like ’e fell off, ’cept o’ course ’e’d never ’ave done that, if ’e’d bin alive. I’ve seen Alf as tight as a newt, an’ ’e didn’t miss a step, never mind fell. ’e knew ’ow ter wedge ’isself, like, so ’e wouldn’t—not even if ’e were asleep.” He shook his head. “Reckon as ’ow ’e must ’ave just died all of a sudden. Bin took, as it were. Visitation o’ God.”

“No ’e weren’t,” Minnie Maude contradicted him. “If ’e ’ad bin, Charlie’d ’ave brought ’im ’ome. An’ wot were ’e doin’ way out ’ere anyway? This in’t ’is patch.” She sniffed fiercely as if on the edge of tears. “Someone’s done ’im in.”

“Yer talkin’ daft,” Jimmy said dismissively, but his face was very pink. “’oo’d wanter ’urt Alf?” He looked uncomfortable, not quite meeting Minnie Maude’s eyes. Gracie wondered if it was embarrassment because he did not know how to comfort her, or something uglier that he was trying not to say.

Gracie interrupted at last. “It in’t daft,” she told him. “Wot ’appened ter Charlie, an’ the cart? ’e di’n’t go ’ome.”

Now Jimmy Quick was deeply unhappy. “I dunno. Yer sure the cart’s not at yer aunt Bertha’s?” he asked Minnie Maude.

She looked at him witheringly. “Course it in’t. Charlie might get lorst, cos this in’t where ’e usually comes. So why was ’e ’ere? Even if Uncle Alf died an’ fell off, which ’e wouldn’t ’ave, why’d nobody see ’im ’ceptin’ you? An’ ’oo took Charlie an’ the cart?”

Put like that, Gracie had to agree that it didn’t sound right at all. She joined Minnie Maude in staring accusingly at Jimmy Quick.

Jimmy looked down at the ground with even greater unhappiness, and what now most certainly appeared to be guilt. “It were my fault,” he admitted. “I ’ad ter go up ter Artillery Lane an’ see someone, or I’d a bin in real trouble, so I asked Alf ter trade routes wi’ me. ’e’d do mine, an’ I’d do ’is. That way I could be where I ’ad ter, wi’out missin’ an ’ole day. That’s why ’e were ’ere. ’e were a good mate ter me, an’ ’e died doin’ me a favor.”

“’e were on yer round!” Gracie said in sudden realization of all that meant. “So if someone done ’im in, p’raps they meant it ter be you!”

“Nobody’s gonna do me in!” Jimmy said with alarm, but looking at his face, paler now and a little gray around his lips, Gracie knew that the thought was sharp in his mind, and growing sharper with every minute.

She made her own expression as grim as she could, drawing her eyebrows down and tightening her mouth, just as Gran did when she found an immovable stain in someone’s best linen. “But yer jus’ said as ’e were alone cos ’e were doin’ yer a favor,” she pointed out. “If nobody else knew that, they’d a thought as it were you sittin’ in the cart!”

“I dunno,” Jimmy said unhappily.

Gracie did not believe him. Her mind raced over how it could matter, picking up people’s odd pieces of throwaway, or the things they might buy or sell, if they knew where. What did rag and bone men pick up, anyway? If you could pawn it for a few pence, or maybe more, you took it to the shop. She glanced at Minnie Maude, who was standing hunched up, shaking with cold, and now looking defeated.

Gracie lost her temper. “Course yer know!” she shouted at Jimmy. “’e got done in doin’ yer job, cos yer asked ’im ter. An’ now the cart’s gorn and Charlie’s gorn, an’ we’re standin’ ’ere freezin’, an’ yer sayin’ as yer can’t tell us wot ’e died fer!”

“Cos I dunno!” Jimmy said helplessly. He swung his arms in the air. “Come on inside an’ Dora’ll make yer a cup o’ tea.” He led the way across the yard, weaving between bicycles, cart wheels, milk churns without lids, until he came to the back door of his house. He pushed the door wide, invitingly, and they crowded in after him.

Inside the kitchen was a splendid collection of every kind of odd piece of machinery and equipment a scrap yard could acquire. Nothing matched anything else, hardly two pieces of china were from the same set, yet it was all excellent, the most delicate Gracie had ever seen, hand-painted and rimmed in gold. No two saucepans were the same either, or had lids that fitted, but all were handsome enough, even if there was little to put in them besides potatoes, onions, and cabbage, and perhaps a few bones for flavor.

In the far corner stood a magnificent mangle, with odd rollers, one white, one gray; a collection of flatirons, most of them broken; and several lanterns missing either sides or handles. Perhaps the bits and pieces might make two usable ones between them?

Mrs. Quick was standing expectantly by the stove, on which a copper kettle was gleaming in the gaslight, steam whistling out of the spout. She was an ample woman wearing a blue dress patched in a dozen places without thought for matching anything, and she wore a marvelous old velvet cape around her shoulders. It was vivid red, and apart from a burn on one side, appeared as good as new.

“Ah! So you’re Bert Mudway’s girl,” she said to Minnie Maude with satisfaction, then turned to Gracie. “An’ ’oo are you, then? In’t seen yer before.”

“Gracie Phipps, ma’am,” Gracie replied.

“Never ’eard of yer. Still an’ all, I ’spec yer’d like a cup o’ tea. That daft Jimmy kept yer standin’ out there in the cold. Goin’ ter snow, like as not, before the day’s out.”

“They come about Alf,” Jimmy explained.

“Course they ’ave.” She took the kettle off the hob, warmed an enormous white and wine-colored teapot with half a handle, then made the tea, spooning the leaves from a caddy with an Indian woman painted on the front. “Got no milk,” she apologized. “Yer’ll ’ave ter ’ave it straight. Give yer ’alf a spoon of ’oney?”

“Thank you,” Gracie accepted, and took the same for Minnie Maude.

When they were sitting on a random collection of chairs, Mrs. Quick expressed her approval of Uncle Alf, and her sympathy for Minnie Maude, and then for Bertha. “Too bad for ’er,” she said, shaking her head. “That bruvver of ’ers is more trouble than ’e’s worth. Pity it weren’t ’im as got done in.”

“Wouldn’t ’ave ’appened to ’im,” Jimmy said miserably.

“I reckon as it were that golden tin, or wotever it were,” she said, giving Jimmy a sharp look, and shaking her head again. “’e said as ’e thought they never meant ter put it out.”

Minnie Maude sat up sharply, nearly spilling her tea. “Wot were that, then?” she asked eagerly.

Jimmy glanced at his wife. “Don’t go puttin’ ideas inter ’er ’ead. We never saw no gold tin. It were jus’ Tommy Cob ramblin’ on.” He turned to Minnie Maude. “It ain’t nothin’. Folk put out all kinds o’ things. Never know why, an’ it don’t do ter ask.”

“A golden box?” Minnie Maude said in amazement. “’oo’d put out summink like that?”

“Nobody,” Jimmy agreed. “It were jus’ Tommy talkin’ like a fool. Prob’ly an old piece o’ brass, like as not, or even painted wood, or summink.”

“Mebbe that’s why they killed Uncle Alf an’ took the cart?” Minnie Maude was sitting clutching her porcelain teacup, her eyes wide with fear. “An’ Charlie.”

“Don’ be daft!” Jimmy said wearily. “If they put out summink by mistake, then they’d jus’ go an’ ask fer it back. Mebbe give ’im a couple o’ bob fer it, not go off killin’ people.”

“But they did kill ’im,” Minnie Maude pointed out, sniffing and letting out her breath in a long sigh. “’e’s dead.”

“I know,” Jimmy admitted. “An’ I’m real sorry about that. ’ave some more ’ot water in yer tea?”

That was all they would learn from him, and ten minutes later they were outside in the street again, and a fine rain was falling with a drift of sleet now and then.

“I’ve still gotta find Charlie,” Minnie Maude said, staring ahead of her, avoiding Gracie’s eyes. “Uncle Alf doin’ Jimmy’s round jus’ makes it worse. Charlie’s really lorst now!”

“I know that,” Gracie agreed.

Minnie Maude stopped abruptly on the cobbles. “Yer think as there’s summink real bad ’appened, don’t yer!” It was a challenge, not a question.

Gracie took a deep breath. “I dunno wot I think,” she admitted. She was about to add that she thought Jimmy Quick was not telling all the truth, then she decided not to. It would only upset Minnie Maude, and it was just a feeling, nothing as clear as an idea.

“I told yer ’e were a lyin’ sod,” Minnie Maude said very quietly. “It’s written clear as day on ’is face.”

“Mebbe ’e’s jus’ sad cos ’e liked yer uncle Alf,” Gracie suggested. “An’ if Alf’d bin on ’is own round, mebbe somebody’d ’ave ’elped ’im. But ’e could a still bin dead.”

“Yer mean not left lyin’ in the roadway.” Minnie Maude sniffed hard, but it did not stop the tears from running down her face. “Yer’d ’ave liked Uncle Alf,” she said almost accusingly. “’e’d a made yer laugh.”

Gracie would have liked to have an uncle who made her laugh. Come to think of it, she’d have liked a donkey who was a friend. They’d known lots of animals in the country, before her mother had died and she’d come to London: sheep, horses, pigs, cows. Not that there was a lot of time for friends now that she was thirteen. Minnie Maude had a lot to learn about reality, which was a shame.

“Yeah,” Gracie agreed. “I ’spec I would.”

They walked in silence for a while, back toward Brick Lane, and then Thrawl Street. It got colder with every moment.

“Wot are we gonna do?” Minnie Maude asked when they came to the curb and stopped, traffic rattling past them.

Gracie had been thinking. “Go back ’ome an’ see if Charlie’s come back on ’is own,” she replied. “’e could ’ave.”

“D’yer think?” Minnie Maude’s voice lifted with hope, and Gracie was touched by a pang of guilt. She had suggested it only because she could think of nothing better.

Gracie did not answer, and they walked the rest of the way past the end of the notorious Flower and Dean Walk in silence, passing figures moving in the shadows. Others stood still, watching and waiting. The ice made the cobbles slippery. The sleet came down a little harder, stinging their faces and rattling against the stone walls to either side of them in the narrow alleys. The gutters were filling up, water flecked with white that disappeared almost instantly, not yet cold enough to freeze solid. Their breath made white trails of vapor in the air.

Minnie Maude led the way into the back gate of a house exactly like its neighbors on either side. The only thing that distinguished it was the shed at the back, which, from Minnie Maude’s sniff and her eager expression, was clearly Charlie’s stable. Now she went straight to the door and pushed it open, drawing in her breath to speak, then stood frozen, her shoulders slumping with despair.

Gracie’s heart sank, too, although she should have understood better than to imagine the donkey would have come home. She already knew that something was wrong. Probably it was only some minor dishonesty, someone taking advantage of a man who had died suddenly and unexpectedly; a theft, not anything as far-fetched as a murder. But either way, Minnie Maude would hurt just as badly. She would miss the uncle who had made her laugh and had loved her, and the donkey who’d been her friend.

“We’ll find ’im,” Gracie said impulsively, swallowing hard, and knowing she was making a promise she would not be able to keep.

Minnie Maude forced herself not to cry. She took an enormous breath and turned to face Gracie, her cheeks tear-streaked, wet hair sticking to her forehead. “Yeah. Course we will,” she agreed. She led the way along the rest of the short path, barely glancing up as a couple of pigeons flapped above her and disappeared into the loft over the stable. She pushed the back door of the house open, and Gracie followed her inside.

A thin woman with a plain face stood over a chopping board slicing carrots and turnips, her large-knuckled hands red from the cold. She had the most beautiful hair Gracie had ever seen. In the lantern light it was burnished like autumn leaves, a warm color, as if remembering the sun. She looked up as Minnie Maude came in, then her pale eyes widened a little as she saw Gracie, and her hands stopped working.

“W’ere yer bin, Minnie Maude?”

“Lookin’ for Charlie,” Minnie Maude replied. “This is Gracie, from ’eneage Street. She’s ’elpin’ me.”

Aunt Bertha shook her head. “In’t no point,” she said quietly. “’e’ll come ’ome by ’isself…or ’e won’t. In’t nothing yer can do, child. An’ don’t go wastin’ other folks’ time.” She regarded Gracie with only the tiniest fraction of curiosity. There were dozens of children up and down every street, and there was nothing remarkable about her. “Good o’ yer, but in’t nothin’ yer can do. ’e must a got a scare when poor Alf died.” She started chopping the turnip again.

“’e wouldn’t be able ter find ’isself,” Minnie Maude agreed. “’e weren’t on ’is own route. ’e were on Jimmy Quick’s.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Minnie,” Bertha said briskly. “Course ’e weren’t. Why’d ’e be down there?” She chopped harder, drawing the knife through the tough vegetables with renewed force. “Yer got chores ter get on with.” She looked at Gracie. “Yer got ’em too, I ’spec.”

It was on the edge of Gracie’s tongue to say to Bertha that she’d sold Charlie, and why couldn’t she just be honest enough to tell Minnie Maude so. Then at least she wouldn’t be worrying about him being lost and hungry, wandering around in the sleet, wet and maybe frightened.

The outside door opened again, and Stan appeared. He looked at Minnie Maude, then at Gracie. “Wot yer doin’ back ’ere again?” he said sharply.

“She’s ’elpin’ me look fer Charlie,” Minnie Maude told him.

“She’s jus’ goin’,” Bertha interrupted soothingly. Her face was pinched, her eyes steady on Stan. “She were only ’elpin’.”

“Well, yer shouldn’t bother folks,” Stan told Minnie Maude. “Yer looked. ’e ain’t around. Now do like yer told.”

“’e’s lorst,” Minnie Maude persisted.

“Donkeys don’t get lorst,” Stan said, and shook his head. “’e’s bin doin’ these streets fer years. ’e’ll come ’ome, or mebbe somebody took ’im. Which is stealin’, an’ if I find the bastard, I’ll make ’im pay. But that’s my business. It in’t yers. Now go and do yer chores, girl.” He looked at Gracie. “An’ you do yers, an’ all. Yer must ’ave summink ter do better ’n wanderin’ round the streets lookin’ fer some damn donkey!”

“But ’e’s lorst!” Minnie Maude protested again, standing her ground even though she must have been able to see as well as Gracie could that Stan was angry. “’e weren’t wi’ Uncle Alf’s—”

“Don’t talk nonsense!” Bertha snapped at her, putting the knife down and raising her hand as if she would slap Minnie Maude around the ears if she did not keep quiet. But it was not anger Gracie could see in her eyes. Gracie was suddenly, in that instant, quite sure that it was fear. She lifted her foot and gave Minnie Maude a sharp kick on the ankle.

Minnie Maude gasped and turned sharply.

“I’m lost an’ all,” Gracie said. “An’ yer aunt Bertha’s right, I got chores, too. Can yer show me which way I gotta go? If yer please?”

Shoulders slumped again, wiping her face with her sleeve to hide the tears, Minnie Maude led the way out the back door, past Charlie’s empty stable, and into the street.

“Yer right,” Gracie said when they were beyond where Bertha or Stan could hear them. “There’s summink wrong, but yer uncle Stan don’t like yer pokin’ inter it, an’ I think yer aunt Bertha’s scared o’ summink.”

“She’s scared of ’im,” Minnie Maude said with a shrug. “’e’s got a nasty temper, an’ Alf in’t ’ere no more ter keep ’im in ’and, like. Wot are we gonna do?”

“Yer gonna do yer chores, like I am,” Gracie replied firmly.

Minnie Maude’s mouth pulled tight to stop her lips from trembling. She searched Gracie’s face, hope fading in her. She took a shaky breath.

“I gotta think!” Gracie said desperately. “I… I in’t givin’ up.” She felt hot and cold at once with the rashness of what she had just said. Instantly she wished to take it back, and it was too late. “In’t no sense till we think,” she said again.

“Yeah,” Minnie Maude agreed. She forced a rather wobbly smile. “I’ll go do me chores.” And she turned and walked away, heading into the rain.

Gracie went to help Mr. Wiggins, as she did every other day, running errands and cleaning out the one room in which he lived, scrubbing, doing laundry, and making sure he had groceries. He paid her sixpence at the end of each week, which was today. Sometimes he even made it ninepence, if he was feeling really generous.

“Wot’s the matter wif yer, then?” he asked as she came into the room from outside, closing the rickety door behind her. She went straight to the corner where the broom and the scrubbing brush and pail were kept. “Got a face on yer like a burst boot, girl,” he went on. “In’t like you.”

“Sorry, Mr. Wiggins. I got a friend in trouble.” She glanced at him briefly with something like a smile, then picked up the broom and started to sweep. Her hands were so cold she could hardly hold the wooden shaft firmly enough.

“’ave a cup o’ tea,” he suggested.

“I in’t got time. I gotta clean this up.”

“Yer ’ere ter please me or yerself, girl?”

She stared at him. “I’m ’ere ter clean the floor an’ fetch yer tea an’ bread an’ taters.”

“Ye’re ’ere ter do as I tell yer,” he contradicted.

“Yer want the floor cleaned or not?”

“I wan’ a cup o’ tea. Can you tell me why yer look like yer lost sixpence an’ found nothin’? Put the kettle on like I said.”

She hesitated.

“’nother threepence?” he offered.

She couldn’t help smiling at him. He was old and crotchety sometimes, but she knew that most of that came from being lonely, and not wanting anyone to know that it hurt him.

“I don’ need threepence,” she lied. “I’ll get a cup o’ tea. I’m fair froze any’ow.” Obediently she went to the small fire he kept going in a black potbellied stove, and pulled the kettle over. “Yer got any milk, then?” she asked.

“Course I ’ave,” he said indignantly. “Usual place. Wot’s the matter wif yer, Gracie?”

She made the tea, wondering whether it would be worse to use up what she knew was the last of his milk, and leave him without any, or not to use it, and insult his hospitality. She knew with her gran the humiliation would have stung more, so she used it.

“’s good,” she said, sitting opposite him and sipping it gingerly.

“So wot’s goin’ on, then?” he asked.

She told him about Alf dying and falling off the cart, and Charlie getting lost, and how she didn’t know what to do to help Minnie Maude.

He thought in silence for several minutes while they both finished their tea. “I dunno neither,” he said at last.

“Well, fanks fer the tea,” she said, conquering a very foolish sense of disappointment. What had she expected, anyway? She stood up ready to go back to the sweeping and scrubbing.

“But yer could go and ask Mr. Balthasar.” He put his mug down on the scarred tabletop. “’e’s about the cleverest feller I ever ’eard of.” He tapped his head with one arthritic finger. “Wise, ’e is. Knows all kinds o’ things. Mebbe ’e di’n’t know if Alf fell off the cart afore ’e were dead, or after, but if anyone can find a donkey wot’s lost—or stole—it’d be ’im.”

“Would ’e?” Gracie said with sudden hope.

Mr. Wiggins nodded, smiling.

She had a moment’s deep doubt. Mr. Wiggins was old and a bit daft. Maybe he just wanted to help, which didn’t mean he could. Still, she had no better idea herself. “I’ll go an’ see ’im,” she promised. “Where is ’e?”