Shanghai Sparrow

by Gaie Sebold

  She sipped it gratefully, then applied herself to her porridge.

  It was hot, and filling. Had she been used to a more elaborate diet, Eveline might have been bothered by the fact that the thinnest of skimmed milk had been used in its making and neither sugar nor salt had been anywhere near it, but to her it was as good as breakfast got unless there was sausage to be had. The bread was coarse and stale, but it was bread and she’d had worse.

  She ate fast, but neatly. Street child she might be, but her mama had taught her manners and she could use ’em when she had to. As soon as she had finished, she looked about to see if any more food were forthcoming, but it seemed not. The clock struck eight, the elderly man rapped his knife on the table again, and everyone stood up. Eveline, thinking it wise, did the same. The girl who had served her darted out of the door that presumably led to the kitchens, surreptitiously wiping her mouth and trying to tuck a wayward curl behind her ear.

  Smythe beckoned her over. “Assembly,” she said.

  “What’s...”

  “Shhh. Just follow me and do what everyone else does.”

  The two staff left the room, and the girls followed, still silent.

  They walked along yet another corridor, this one with windows on the left. Eveline glanced out as they passed. A square of lawn, sparkling with dew in the sunlight; a couple of stone benches. Outbuildings, stables, someone leading a horse. In the distance, trees.

  Then they were turning away from the bright morning into another cold room.

  Light fell through a leaded window, showing a constipated-looking saint in a white robe, with a yellow halo propped behind his head, holding up his hand over a square lamb standing in a field of pallid green. Sunlight falling through the scene patched rows of pews with pale colour. At one end was a pulpit.

  Church? Eveline had vague memories of church. Cold and boring, for the most part. This must have been the family chapel of whoever once lived here. It smelled faintly of mice and more powerfully of damp.

  She shuffled into a pew next to the tall girl.

  The door opened with a groan to reveal Miss Cairngrim, looking no more at ease for a night’s sleep.

  “Good morning, girls.”

  “Good morning, Miss Cairngrim.”

  Miss Cairngrim held a thick notebook in one hand, with a coarse dark-blue cover. In the other she held a fountain pen. As she swept past the end of Eveline’s pew, Eveline caught a whiff of that strange harsh scent again, and with it, unbidden, the memory of the scullery at her parents’ house popped into her head – her mother, in the midst of instructing the new maid, pausing with her hands full of pillowcases and the faraway look in her eye with which Eveline was already well familiar.

  Her mother’s laundry soap. That was what Miss Cairngrim smelled of. The great yellow bars of the stuff that had stood by the sink, ready to scrub everything as clean as it could be.

  Miss Cairngrim climbed into the pulpit, propped the notebook on the stand where in a church a Bible would go, and swept her chilly stare over the assembled girls. She focused briefly on Eveline, who felt herself pinned. She was tempted to stare back, but dropped her gaze, trying to look humble and compliant.

  “You are here,” Miss Cairngrim said, her voice echoing into the roof, “as servants of the Empire. That is your function. To drive forward the vision of Britannia, to bring light to darkness and order to chaos.

  “Your worth, your only worth, is in what you can do for the Empire. Without it, you are nothing; no better than those heathens who still crawl in their own filth in the places in which our Empire has yet to shine its glorious light.

  “Never forget this. Whatever your past, whoever your family, however talented or special you may believe yourselves to be, you are now tools to serve the Empire, without whose generosity you would be disgraced, impoverished, or dead.”

  Or if I was lucky, getting sausage and small-beer for breakfast and horsing about with the others, Eveline thought. What a lot of jaw! Empire this, Empire that. All she knew of Empire was that lots of people a long way away, without many clothes, thought the Queen was some sort of god. She’d never seen the Queen herself, except on coins. She looked stuffy.

  “Now, the notes for this morning. The Bartitsu class has been moved to the Small Hall. Miss Clevely is unwell; those taking Russian classes will use the time for mending of personal linens and other practical tasks.” She drilled them with a gimlet stare. “This is not an excuse for slacking or gossiping in corners.

  “Beth Hastings is on kitchen duty for three more days for disobedience, inattention and tardiness. Smythe, bring the new one to my study after assembly. That completes this morning’s notes. Dismissed. ”

  EVELINE KNOCKED.

  “Enter.”

  A square of bright sunlight splashing through the parlour window succeeded only in making the parlour look scruffier than it had the night before. The green upholstery on the three chairs was faded, and torn in places. The sofa was not so much red as a dusty sort of remembrance of the colour. The china shepherd and shepherdess, with their rosily painted cheeks, looked hectic and tubercular, and every chip and crack was highly visible, as though the sun had come out for the sole purpose of pointing out each one.

  The sunlight was no more kind to Miss Cairngrim. It dug deeper lines beside her mouth, and emphasised the shadows around her eyes and the papery, stretched look of her skin. Eveline realised she was very thin, her gown dragging from her shoulder bones. Only the Toby jug took on the sun and gave it back with a glow of colour; he had the grin of a man who had spent a good night with good company.

  Eveline put her hands behind her back and stood waiting. She wondered if Ma had started worrying about her yet. She’d have some of the girls out looking in a day or so, just to make sure she hadn’t been taken up by the law.

  Had she, or not? She still wasn’t sure. Was Her Majesty’s Government the same as the law? Either way she was caught; partly, she had to admit, through her own curiosity. The best thing she could do now was keep her eyes and ears open and stay out of trouble until she had a better idea what was what.

  “Mr Holmforth takes an especial interest in you,” Miss Cairngrim said. Her nostrils flared, as though she had caught an unpleasant smell. “However, you need not expect any favours, petting or laxness as a result. Whether you can be dragged from the muck of the streets and turned from the despicable creature I see before me into a worthwhile tool of Empire is yet to be seen. Firm discipline, strict morality and unstinting application will be required. I shall be informing the rest of the staff that particular attention needs to be paid to these matters and that you are not to be trusted until we can be assured that every last scrap of vileness has been scrubbed from you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Miss Cairngrim.”

  “A uniform will be issued to you. Then you will have your first lesson, studying the history of our empire with Mr Clancy, followed by Bartitsu with Miss Laperne, then Map-Reading and Navigation with Miss Prayne. Lunch is at one. This is followed by languages. Mr Holmforth tells me he wishes you to be instructed in Cantonese. You will be instructed by Mr Wen Hsu. You will take French with Mr Duvalier, and Retention with Miss Fairfield. I don’t suppose you have ever ridden a horse?”

  “Not, so to speak, an actual horse. There was a pony, once.” She hadn’t thought of the pony in years. It belonged to a neighbour child, a nasty, pinching, sneaking sort of girl. Eveline had got on it when no-one was about, mainly to prove she could.

  She had fallen off, and been bitten on the way down.

  It hadn’t stopped her trying again, bribing the pony with stolen apples and surreptitious soothings and pettings. Since she treated it rather better than its own mistress, it had learned to tolerate her, and she had finally succeeded in staying on and even persuaded it over some small jumps.

  Doing so in full view of the neighbouring girl and her parents had been a mistake, of course.

  “A pony?” Miss Cairngrim’s gaze sharpened
. “Your people had horses?”

  “No, miss, it wasn’t mine.” And she’d been properly scolded, too. Had her parents had anything to do with it, she’d not have ended up a thief; but then, had they still been alive... Eveline gave herself a mental shake and tried to look attentive and eager.

  “Hah.” Miss Cairngrim nodded with a sort of grim satisfaction. “I didn’t think so. Then we will have to start you at the most basic level. I suppose if you can stay on, it is as much as can be hoped for. You will also receive instruction in disguise and studying the special subject Mr Holmforth has arranged for you.”

  Eveline struggled to hide her excitement at the thought of disguise. She could do a little with Ma’s collection of costumes and wigs, but to actually learn it... now there was something properly useful. As for whatever Holmforth was up to... “Miss Cairngrim? What is the special subject?”

  “Some sort of mechanical studies. I think it ridiculous to encourage such nonsense, but of course, it is not my place to say so.”

  “Mechanical studies?” What the hell had made Holmforth think she had an ‘aptitude’ for mechanisms? She might be interested in the stuff Ma Pether was always messing with, but Eveline had no more idea how they worked than she did of how a bird flew. Had he seen all the stuff Ma kept and somehow thought it was hers?

  Her brain raced to deal with this. It meant Holmforth didn’t know everything, which was good – but it also meant his only reason for interest in her, and for keeping her out of irons, didn’t exist.

  So she’d better develop some aptitude, and fast, if she planned to stay here.

  THE OLD MAN’S pointer hit the map with a thwack. Eveline no longer jumped; she just kept an eye on where the pointer was aimed, since it was as likely to be employed on the nearest pupil as it was on the map.

  Mr Clancy turned out to be the man she had seen at breakfast, glaring everyone into cowed silence. The instant dislike she had taken to him proved completely inadequate.

  “Thoroughgood! What is the current position of Baluchistan?”

  Thwack.

  “Lovett! When did Bombay become a Presidency and what does that mean for good government?”

  Thwack.

  “New girl!” Thwack, the pointer hit her desk, sending chalk-dust and splinters into the air. Thwack, it hit the map. “What is this country here?”

  Eveline stared, desperately trying to dredge up her memories of lessons. “France?” she said.

  “Spain.” Thwack, the pointer smacked against her upper arm. “Take this...” He hauled a vast leather-covered book from a shelf and dropped it in front of her with a bang. Dust puffed up, making her cough.

  Thwack, on the back of her hand, leaving a burning sting. “Cover your mouth, you disgusting creature. This is an atlas. Have you heard of an atlas?”

  “Yes.”

  Thwack, on the upper arm this time since she had dropped her hands to her lap, cradling the hurt one in the other. “You will address me as sir,” he said. He opened the book and slapped the pointer onto the page, which showed a version of the same map that adorned the wall. “By your next lesson, in two days’ time, you will have learned basic manners and the names of all the countries marked in pink, their position, and their most important contributions to the Empire. If, that is, you can read. Can you read?”

  “Yes. Sir.”

  “That is a relief. Now concentrate and do not disturb the other pupils.”

  “Yes, sir,” Eveline said, meekly, mentally calling him every filthy name she could come up with and some she had just invented. If this was education, she thought, glaring at the many, many countries coloured pink and the tiny print that swarmed over the pages like frantic ants, she could do without it.

  But it was a book. And she’d seen so few proper books in the last few years. Although she’d rather have one with stories in it than this, with its stupid countries she’d never heard of and the world squashed out flat in big circles, as though it was all stamped on a pair of giant coins.

  There was England, a funny-shaped little squiggle a little like a dog sitting up to beg. Somehow it was much smaller than she had thought – on this map, she couldn’t even see London, never mind Limehouse. How much of England did London cover? She moved her finger across the map. Madeira – Madeira was a place? She thought it was a drink. She wondered if there were places called Gin and Beer... how odd. She tried to find China, where Liu came from. But though she could find the China Sea it lay between somewhere called Hainan, the Philippine Islands and North Borneo, none of which she had ever heard of. Then she pieced together the black letters marching boldly across the map. CHINESE EMPIRE, they said. She stretched her eyes, then looked back at England. The Chinese Empire was huge. And arching over a vast portion of the map, the Russian Empire was even bigger.

  The British Empire wasn’t even marked. But if all the countries in pink were the British Empire... that was strange, too. Why was the British Empire all about the place, when the Chinese and Russian ones were one big chunk each? She glanced up at the teacher. He was holding his pointer as though he couldn’t wait to smack someone with it. She’d rather find out on her own. Can you read, indeed. She’d show him.

  She studied the map until her eyes ached. So many strange names, so many countries in pink. The Cameroons sounded like something to eat. She was starting to get hungry again. But she’d spent most of her last few years hungry; she ignored it.

  By the time the Bartitsu lesson started she had a head full of names, and felt as though they were all pushing at the sides of her skull, trying to get out.

  Miss Laperne was the small woman with tight curls who had also been at breakfast. “Get into your gear and pair up. You, new girl, these are yours.”

  The ‘gear’ Eveline received proved to be a sort of high-necked, stiffened bodice with long padded sleeves and a pair of... “What are these things?” she said, holding them up.

  “Pantaloons,” one of the girls whispered. “Take your things off and put those on over your underwear.”

  “But they are underwear! What sort of lesson needs underwear?” Eveline backed into a corner, staring, holding the absurd garment up in front of her. “If we’re getting taught whoring, I ain’t doing it.”

  Someone yelped with laughter and several girls stopped in the middle of changing and looked at her, wide-eyed, one leg in and one leg out, or an arm halfway down a sleeve.

  “Well!” the blonde girl said, shaking her curls out of the collar of the bodice. “Somebody was brought up in a pigsty.”

  “Didn’t think respectable girls knew what such a word meant,” Eveline said.

  The blonde girl flushed and fixed Eveline with a glare that should have pinned her like a butterfly.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to inform Miss Cairngrim,” the blonde girl said. “She doesn’t permit language.”

  Eveline opened her mouth to say something about how funny it was that the blonde girl was able to talk, then, and thought better of it. She was going to be in for a slapping as it was.

  The other girls returned to dressing, buttoning the pantaloons and stepping into flat boots that laced up the front. Reluctantly, Eveline put on the pantaloons and pulled on the boots.

  They fitted. Two pairs of footwear – the button boots she’d been issued with her gown and apron, and these. And both fitted. She’d not owned a pair of shoes that fitted for as long as she could remember, never mind two pairs. Everything else forgotten for the moment, she vowed that whatever happened, she was keeping them.

  The bodice, even laced as tight as she could get it, was too loose on her. She wondered if it had been made for someone else. She shuffled into the room after the other girls. At least they all looked as absurd as each other.

  “You, new girl, what is your name?” Miss Laperne said.

  “Eveline Duchen, miss.”

  “Have you heard of Bartitsu?”

  “No, miss.”

  “Good,” she said. “Then you will have no
misconceptions. There are those who consider it inappropriate, or unpleasant, that young women should be taught to fight. You, however, are to be trained servants of the Empire and as such, you will be valuable assets, not to be thrown away because you lacked even the most basic ability to defend yourselves. If you have any objection to being taught to fight, endeavour to rid yourself of it.”

  “I got no objection, miss.” Fighting was fine. Fighting she’d done plenty of, one way and another.

  “Have you ever been in a situation where you had to defend yourself?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  The blonde girl gave a quiet snort of derision, which Miss Laperne did not appear to hear.

  “Tell me what happened,” Miss Laperne said.

  “There was quite a lot of times, miss.”

  “Excellent. Describe one.”

  Feeling inclined to take the blonde girl down a peg, Eveline described a fight with a man who had made a grab for her outside a pub in Clerkenwell. “I kneed him in the... the trousers, miss. Went down like a felled tree.”

  “Can you show me how he approached you?”

  “He just reached out and grabbed me, miss.” Eveline held her arms out.

  “From in front?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “Stand there.” The woman moved behind her.

  The hairs on the back of Eveline’s neck shivered, and she almost got away, but the next thing she knew she was flat on her face on the floor, with Miss Laperne’s knee in her back.

  “Unfortunately,” Miss Laperne said, her voice absolutely calm, “one’s opponent does not always approach in so convenient a fashion. Nor will they always be vulnerable at the groin, especially if they have the least idea of what they are doing.” The blonde girl giggled; again, Miss Laperne appeared not to notice. She got up. Eveline breathed floor-dust. She wasn’t hurt, but she was humiliated and startled.