A Christmas Promise Read Free

“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 hermind. “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 heraway 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 aboutthree 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