Shanghai Sparrow

by Gaie Sebold

  Eveline’s mother had liked mechanisms too. But hers were stranger. They had sung and whispered and shivered the air, and she had never seen anything like them anywhere else.

  She shook off the memory. Mama was gone, like Papa, like Charlotte. The cossetted happy little girl she’d been was gone too. Eveline looked back on her former self with something like exasperation. She wouldn’t have lasted a minute on the streets – the only thing Uncle James and Aiden between them had done for her was start the process of turning that trusting, stupid child into someone who could duck and thieve and manipulate... and survive. Sparrow-Girl, that was what Ma called her – and that was what sparrows did, survive around the edges of things.

  Eveline brushed the mud off the skirt, doing a thorough job despite her sulk. After all, she might be the next one to wear it – although not for at least a week. Mending! She scowled. She could stitch all right, but sewing bored her silly. Vengefully, she spent a few moments poking about Ma’s room, careful to put everything back where she found it. The fascinating clutter was a right old jumble, but Ma could spot anything missing in the blink of an eye.

  Pictures of men and women and children, horses and houses and trains; some in fancy frames, others jammed into the surround of the big dusty mirror. Most of the people in them were strangers, the pictures acquired in a variety of robberies: sometimes Ma just took a fancy to them. Only one, of a boy of about ten, stood by itself atop the dressing table, in a heavy elaborate frame with a miserable-looking angel draped over the top. Unlike everything else in the room, it was dusted and cared for. That was Paulie, Ma’s son, who had died in one of the fevers that swept through every few months on hot dusty wings, leaving corpses in their wake. The boy’s face stared solemnly out, pale and dark-eyed, a sailor hat perched on his head. Eveline stuck her tongue out at him. He might look like a little angel in the photograph, but she remembered him as a proper little imp, forever pinching and whining and telling tales.

  There were heaps of costume jewellery and a tottering pile of fancy hats. A few books, with gilded pages and bright illustrations. Ma couldn’t read, but she liked books, especially picture books. Eveline had had some schooling, back before everything went to the bad – though if Ma thought she’d be able to teach Saffie to read, she was dreaming. Saffie was a sweet little thing, but had no more brains than a poodle.

  Eveline picked up a necklace of amber beads and tried them on, posing in front of the mirror, grabbing a vast gilded fan with two broken sticks. “My dear sir, I can’t possibly allow you the next dance, my card is quite full,” she said, fluttering the fan below her eyes.

  Not much of the day’s brightness got into this room. The dust on the mirror made a ghost of her; nothing but a pale smudge of face between a grubby shift and black hair, which wouldn’t curl despite Ma’s occasional efforts with the tongs. “Hair like a heathen Chinee,” Ma always said. Eveline smiled, thinking of Liu, then saw a figure in the doorway reflected in the glass. “Ginny.”

  “Ooh, look at Miss Fancy-Drawers.” Ginny grinned, showing several missing teeth. She had been a factory child, thrown out when a machine chewed her arm up. Ma had spotted her neatly dipping pockets with the arm that still worked, down in Whitechapel, and brought her home – much as she’d done with Eveline. Ginny’s wasted arm might not be much use as a limb, but as a distraction and a source of pity it made them some money.

  There were fifteen of them at the moment, ranging from Saffie, who was six, to Margot, who was seventeen. There were no boys. Ma didn’t want any of her girls pregnant or poxed, and discouraged mucking about with a heavy hand. She could spot a swelling belly in a blink. She’d get you dosed up, and if it didn’t work, out you went, to fend for yourself and the result of your folly. That troubled Eveline not at all; if she sometimes felt a pang at the sight of a young couple walking hand in hand, she only had to look at Docky Sal.

  There’d been a boy, a long time ago. They’d been too young for sweethearts, but he’d been something more than a friend – or so she’d thought. He’d not stood by her, though, when she needed him, and she’d never seen him since.

  MA PETHER AND her girls all lived crammed in the narrow old crumbling house, and made their way by whatever form of trickery, stealing, and general illegality came to hand. They did well enough; everyone ate at least once a day, there was a roof to sleep under, and if you’d no shoes you could borrow some. All the girls knew what it was like to have none of those things and, sleeping out, to be fending off men who’d offer a few pence for a grind – and like as not wouldn’t pay, or would just take what they wanted whether you would or no. Eveline had learned early that you couldn’t always trust a smile or an offer of food. She got good at running, and if she couldn’t run, she would fight with whatever she could and then run. She hadn’t always got away.

  Eveline sneezed, glared at the fan, and put it back. More reluctantly, she took off the amber beads and let them slide back into the glimmering heap on the dressing table.

  “Any good, that Stepney place?” Ginny said.

  “No. But she wants to hear it anyway. Don’t you tell her I said where I was going, you know what she’s like.”

  “’Sif I’d blab,” Ginny said.

  “I know that. She doesn’t. You seen that thing she’s got now? What is it?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care, ’slong as she don’t aim it at me.”

  “Ain’t you even interested?” Evvie said.

  “Why? If Ma wants me to know, she’ll tell me. You’re too curious, Evvie. You always got to pick and poke and try to find out stuff that en’t nothing to do with you. Get you in trouble, that will.”

  “Ma says ‘A long nose’s kept many a thief out of clink,’” Eveline said.

  “Unless it’s her business you’re poking it in. Besides, since when do you give ha’pence what Ma says?”

  “Ginny?”

  “What?”

  “If Ma thought someone’d made one of us, what do you think she’d do?”

  The girls looked at each other for a moment, Ginny cradling her useless arm in her other hand. “You been made?” she said.

  “I think so. Maybe.”

  “You told her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t be daft, Ginny. If I hadn’t and he’d followed me here, or the peelers turned up...”

  Ginny was silent for a moment, chewing her lip. “I dunno,” she said eventually. “She likes you, Evvie, she thinks you’re smart, but if you’re a risk...”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  “She wants out. At least, she says she does.”

  “Yeah she said about retiring. Again. Talks about it a lot, these days.”

  “What d’you suppose will happen to us?”

  “We’ll be setting up on our own, I guess. Anyways, I’m going to be stuck here for days. Once she lets me out, though, you want to go see a mentalist? Cumberland’s on at the Egyptian Hall next month.”

  Eveline never passed up the chance to watch a stage magician, even sometimes going so far as to buy a ticket.

  “Oh, no, them people give me the creeps.” Ginny gave a not entirely exaggerated shudder. “’S unnatural, is what it is.”

  “He can’t really read your mind, you beef-wit.”

  “Why go, then?”

  “Because he works things out about people. It’s clever.”

  Eveline had not the slightest interest in Spiritualism (to be fair to Cumberland, neither did he – except to debunk it). But stage magic, the deceptions of eye and hand and mind, those she found very interesting indeed.

  EVELINE, HAVING JUST spent a frustrating hour trying to get Saffie to understand her ABCs, or her As, or what a book was for, other than pulling about, had given up and was sitting with some mending crumpled in her lap by the upstairs window that gave the best light. Mending bored her, but she was neat-fingered, and had managed, the last time she was in a theatre where a magic show was on, to s
neak backstage and obtain a magician’s stage-coat. She was now attempting to adapt its internal construction to a jacket of her own. Secret pockets, capacious but inconspicuous, she thought were an excellent idea – though she had no plans to stuff a live pigeon in one. Not unless she found a use for it.

  “Hello, Lady Sparrow.”

  Liu was perched on the windowsill, grinning at her.

  “Bugger it, Liu, you made me stab meself. Look!” She held up a bleeding finger.

  “I am desolated.”

  “You’ll be worse if Ma catches you up here. Are you off your chump?”

  “You missed our appointment. I thought perhaps you had found more congenial company. But instead you are locked away. I have brought you one of those disgusting pies you like.”

  “Ooh, I could just do with that. Thank you.”

  He passed her a pie, wrapped in a handkerchief. She shook it out, and the little green jade fox tumbled onto her lap. “What’s this?”

  “A gift.”

  “Liu...”

  “He spoke to me and said that he was very bored of my company, and would rather be with you. He thinks you might have troubles. Perhaps you could tell him about them, when there is no one else to listen.”

  The little fox had its head on one side in a quizzical way. It did look friendly. “I can’t...”

  “I ask nothing in return except, if you are in great trouble or distress, you tell him.”

  “You are off your chump, you know that? But... thank you. He’s bone.”

  “He is jade,” Liu said. “I should be very interested to see something with bones like that.”

  “Bone like ‘nice,’ silly.”

  “Oh. Well, I am glad you like him.”

  “I’m out in four days.”

  She could have got out before, had she wanted – there were ways – but she didn’t want to risk getting on Ma’s bad side. Ma had ears like a hound and eyes like a hawk and seemed to sleep with one of each open.

  “You do not wish to leave now?”

  “Nah, I’m here to be safe. There’s been some cove sniffing about after me. Ma thought it’d be best to keep me out of view a while.”

  “Has there, indeed? Would he be a certain fellow in a grey coat, with a silver-headed cane?”

  “Why?” Eveline gave him a hard look.

  “You think I would betray your whereabouts?” He looked at the little fox and shook his head sadly. “See how little she trusts me.”

  “I got to be careful, Liu. You know that.”

  “I do, yes. And I must be careful too, and leave, or your Ma Pether will be hounding me.”

  “Yes, you’d better. But thank you. I’ll see you later... If your ship’s still here?”

  “Oh, well, if they decide they must leave, then perhaps they will do so without me.” He waved, and disappeared – upwards, onto the roof. She ran to the window and caught a glimpse of his foot and some sort of fluffy scarf trailing behind him – she hadn’t noticed that before – and he was gone.

  She sewed the little fox into a pocket in her shift, where it would be safe. The little cold lump warmed quickly, and though she had no intention of gabbing to it like a sapskull, it was nice to know it was there.

  Three nights later Ma Pether took her aside.

  “Well, seems like no-one’s seen that cove of yours. So you can get back to it. But I’m going to be straight with you, Eveline.” She was sitting in an ancient chair with the stuffing crawling out. She had a glass of brandy in one hand, a pipe in the other and her boots off, but her eyes were sharp and hard. “You get picked up, you don’t say one word about me, or the house, or the other girls, no matter what they ask you or what they offer.”

  “Of course not, Ma.”

  “You’re a bright girl, Eveline. Stick by me and I’ll see you right. But you draw the law down on us and you’ll be sorry for it.”

  “Yes, Ma.”

  “You got a home here, but only so long’s you follow the rules.”

  “I understand, Ma.”

  “Good. See you do. And bring me back a pouch of tobacco tomorrow, I’m running out.”

  “AH, HOLMFORTH.” RUPERT Forbes-Cresswell looked up with his usual small, slightly pained smile. “Do take a seat, dear fellow. I shan’t be a moment.”

  Holmforth strove to place himself in the deep, comfortable chair with the casual elegance that the Forbes-Cresswells of the world managed with such unconscious ease, knowing, all the time, that he could not relax too much or he would have to struggle to his feet, and Forbes-Cresswell would look at him with that smile again.

  The dark-panelled walls, the leather-topped desk with its green-shaded lamp, the crisp rustle of documents and subdued murmur of well-educated English voices surrounded Holmforth. Home. But a home in which he did not quite belong.

  He had been delighted, at first, with his own office, though it was small, and cold, and ill-appointed. The desk wobbled, the chair sneaked out intrusive splinters at every opportunity, the lamp had an ancient, stained parchment shade and the panelling had been gouged by the removal of better furniture. But it was an office, his office, in the Ministry. An office of one’s own, at his level, was exceptional. A sign, he’d believed, of great favour; of acceptance, and good things to come.

  But turning back for his umbrella one wet November evening he had overheard two of his colleagues, to whom he had just bid goodnight, gossiping in the corridor.

  “Bit much, giving him Faldwell’s old office.”

  “My dear fellow, they could hardly do anything else. I mean, would you want to sit in the same room? Share one’s pens, and so forth? Next thing one would have to invite the fellow to dinner!”

  “Ah. See what you mean. Really, the whole thing’s a disgrace, if you ask me.”

  “Under the circumstances, there wasn’t a deal of choice. Besides, better here than the Treasury, old boy; come in one morning and discover the entire budget’s been calculated in leaves, or some such?”

  Laughter, burning like acid.

  He had left, without his umbrella, the rain running cold down his neck.

  “There,” Forbes-Cresswell said, pushing aside the document he’d been working on. “Now, what can I do for you?”

  “I wanted to speak to you about the Britannia School.”

  “Dunfield’s pet project! Not your area of interest, surely?”

  “Hardly. It’s just that I have a candidate. I think she may be of use, but at the moment her situation is unsuitable. I want her somewhere secure, and the training could be helpful.”

  Forbes-Cresswell’s right eyebrow inched a fraction northwards. “A candidate.”

  “Yes.”

  On the journey Holmforth had stared unseeingly at the ever-changing cloudscape, wondering how to handle this moment. He didn’t want to reveal too much too soon. He knew there was every chance that should the slightest hint leak out of what he was really about, either his efforts would be dismissed as nonsense or credit for his work would somehow, mysteriously, attach to someone else. But without a good reason, why would they provide the girl with a place at the Britannia? He had planned to use a little of the truth – he had seen her at work. She was a thief, a trickster of unmistakable talent, but she was also an orphan of the streets and – should she be troublesome or simply unsuccessful – could be disposed of easily enough.

  “She is...” Holmforth stalled. In the face of that raised eyebrow, his efforts seemed foolish, his story ridiculous. A thief and trickster at Her Majesty’s service? Before he could go on, Forbes-Cresswell’s mouth curled with a faint but unmistakable hint of prurient amusement.

  “My dear chap, I’m sure something can be done.”

  Holmforth, wrong-footed, opened his mouth and hastily closed it again.

  “There’s no need for details,” Forbes-Creswell said. “Not quite what Dunfield intended, as if such a ridiculous idea could ever bear fruit, but there’s no doubt that the school is proving useful. You’d be surprised if you
knew who she’ll be mixing with!” He looked about himself theatrically, like a prank-planning schoolboy scanning the corridor for prefects. “At the very highest level, I assure you, there are sometimes unfortunate reminders of indiscretion to be... tactfully dealt with. In any case, I’m sure I can arrange something.”

  “Thank you,” Holmforth said, with a smile that felt painted on. “I would be most grateful.”

  Perhaps he had been naïve. Dunfield’s plan for a school for spies – female ones, at that – had struck more than a few as a folly of the highest order, but it had, nonetheless, been passed, and funded. Perhaps even then it had been seen as a potential dumping-ground for the unwanted female offspring of Ministry men. An operation funded by the government, intended to provide useful servants of the Empire – and instead it was providing for ministers’ bastards, freeing up both the ministers’ consciences and their pockets.

  Holmforth was no candidate for such an arrangement. Once he was properly established, he would make a respectable marriage to an appropriate woman of character. There would be no mistresses, no improper liaisons. In the meantime he, at least, was perfectly capable of exerting self-control.

  The misuse of a government facility offended him, on a number of levels. But for the moment, it made this easier.

  “I assume they do actually have lessons?” he said.

  “Oh, indeed, Dunfield’s original timetable is very much in operation. I’m almost tempted to go along some time and watch the poor dears wrestle with navigational charts and poke at each other with hatpins!”

  “I wish to arrange specialised tuition for her. Would that be possible?”