A Christmas Promise Read online

  “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 ye
r 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?”

  She found the shop of Mr. Balthasar on Whitechapel Road just about where Mr. Wiggins had said it would be, which surprised her. He had seemed to be too vague for her to trust his judgment. But the moment she stepped inside the dark, narrow doorway, she thought it was much less good an idea than Mr. Wiggins had implied. There was no one to be seen in the extraordinary interior, but objects of one sort or another seemed to fill every shelf from floor to ceiling, and be suspended by ropes, threads, and chains from above so that she was afraid to move in case she dislodged something and brought it all crashing down on herself.

  There seemed to be an inordinate number of shoes, or perhaps they would more properly be called slippers. She couldn’t imagine anyone going outside in the wet street in such things. They were made of cloth, of soft leather, even of velvet, and they were stitched with all sorts of patterns like nothing she had ever seen before. Some had silly curling toes that would make anybody fall over in two steps. But they were beautiful!

  There were brass dishes with curly writing all over them, no pictures at all, but the writing was so fancy it would do just as well. And everywhere she looked there were boxes of every kind and shape, painted, decorated with stones, shiny and dull, written on and plain. Some were so small they would have had trouble holding a thimble, others big enough to take your whole hand. And there was an enormous machine that looked like a cross between a boiler and a pipe to smoke, like gentlemen used. Though what use such a contraption might be, she had no idea.

  She was still staring when a voice spoke from behind her.

  “And what may I do for you, young lady?”

  She was so startled she was sure her feet actually came off the floor. She jerked around and looked at the man not three feet away. He had come in silently, and she had heard nothing. He must have been wearing those velvet slippers.

  “I …,” she began. “I …”

  He waited. He was tall and lean and his hair was very black, with just a few streaks of white in it at the sides. His skin was coppery dark, his nose high-bridged and aquiline.

  She drew in a deep breath. “I need ’elp,” she admitted. This was not a man you lied to. “An’ Mr. Wiggins says as ye’re the wisest man around ’ere, so I come ter ask.”

  “Does he indeed?” Mr. Balthasar smiled with a definite trace of amusement. “You have the advantage of me.”

  “Wot?” She blinked.

  “You seem to know something of me,” he explained. “I know nothing of you.”

  “Oh. I’m Gracie Phipps. I live in ’eneage Street. But I come cos o’ Minnie Maude. ’er uncle Alf got killed, an’ Charlie’s lost an’ could be all on ’is own, an’ in trouble.”

  “I think you had better tell me from the beginning,” Mr. Balthasar said gently. “This sounds as if it might be quite a complicated matter, Gracie Phipps.”

  Gracie drew in her breath and began.

  Mr. Balthasar listened without interrupting, nodding now and then.

  “…so I think as Jimmy Quick in’t tellin’ the truth,” she said finally. “Cos it don’t make no sense. But I still gotta find Charlie, or that daft little article in’t gonna give up till summink real bad ’appens.”

  “No,” Mr. Balthasar agreed, and his face was very grim. “I can see that she isn’t. But I fear that you are right. Several people may not be telling the truth. And perhaps Minnie Maude is not quite as daft as you imagine.”

  Gracie gulped. The room with its crowded shelves and endless assortment of treasures seemed smaller than before, closer to her, the walls crowding in. It was oddly silent, as if the street outside were miles away.

  “Course she’s daft,” Gracie said firmly. “’oo’s gonna kill a rag an’ bone man? On purpose, like? ’e jus’ died an’ fell off, an’ as ’e were on Jimmy Quick’s patch, ’stead of ’is own, no one knew ’im, so ’e jus’ laid there till someone found ’im.”

  “And what happened to Charlie?” Mr. Balthasar asked very gently.

  “Charlie couldn’t pick ’im up,” Gracie replied. “An’ ’e couldn’t get ’elp, so ’e jus’ stayed there with ’im…sort o’…waitin’.”

  “And why was he not there when poor Alf was found?”

  Gracie realized her mistake. “I dunno. Someone must a stole ’im.”

  “And the cart? They stole that also?”

  “Must ’ave.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Balthasar said very sincerely. “That, I fear, may be far more serious than you realize.” He searched her face, as if trying to judge how much she understood, and how much more he should tell her.

  Suddenly she was brushed with genuine fear, a cold grip inside her that held hard. She fought against it. Now it was not just helping Minnie Maude because she was sorry for her, and felt a certain kind of responsibility. She was caught in it herself. She looked back at the strange features, the dark, burning eyes of Mr. Balthasar.

  “Why’d anyone steal it?” she said in little more than a whisper.

  “Ah.” He let out his breath slowly. “There I think you have it, Gracie. What was in it that someone believed to be worth a human life in order to steal?”

  Gracie shivered. “I dunno.” The words barely escaped her lips. “D’yer think ’e really were killed?” It still seemed ridiculous, something Minnie Maude would make up, because she was only eight, and daft as a brush. Gracie swallowed hard. It was no longer a bit of a nuisance. She was scared. “She jus’ wants ’er friend Charlie back, an’ safe.”

  Mr. Balthasar did not answer her.

  “D’yer think they done ’im in, too?” Her voice wobbled a bit, and she could not help it.

  “I doubt it,” he replied, but there was not even the ghost of a smile on his copper-colored face. “But be very careful, Gracie. It sounds to me as if it is possible that Minni
e Maude’s uncle saw something he was not supposed to, or picked up something that was intended for someone else. You are quite sure you have the details correct?”

  She nodded, her eyes not leaving his steady gaze. “’e done Jimmy Quick’s round fer ’im, an’ about ’alfway, or more, ’e died, an’ Charlie an’ the cart, an’ everythin’ in it, were gone.”

  “And which streets were Jimmy Quick’s round?”

  “I dunno.”

  “But you said you and Minnie Maude went there, at least some of the way.”

  Gracie looked down at her boots. “We did. I know where I went left, an’ where I went right, but I can’t read the names.”

  “I see. Of course.” There was apology in his voice, as if he should have known she couldn’t read.

  “I could find ’em again…I think,” she offered, her cheeks hot with shame.

  “No doubt.” He smiled now, very briefly, then the gravity returned. “But I think it would be wiser if you didn’t. Donkeys are patient and useful beasts. Only a fool would hurt them. Charlie will be miserable for a little while, but he will be all right.”

  He was lying to her, and she knew it. She had seen donkeys starved, beaten, shaking with cold and fear.

  He saw it in her face, and now it was his turn to be ashamed. “I’m sorry,” he said humbly. “You are right to fear. I will see if I can learn anything. But in the meantime, you should say nothing, and ask no further questions. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah.”

  He did not look satisfied. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded.

  “What do you know about Uncle Alf?” he persisted.

  “’e were funny an’ kind, an’ ’e made Minnie Maude laugh, and she said ’e knew about all sorts o’ places, and things. ’e saw things in like … brighter colors than wot most people do.” She took a deep breath, overcome with her own sense of the loss of something she had only imagined—a companion who’d had dreams and ideas, whose mind had been far away from disappointment and tired streets. She wondered what Uncle Alf had looked like. She saw him with white hair, a bit wild, as if he had been out in a great wind. He would have blue eyes that saw either very close or very far indeed, all the way to the horizon.