Shanghai Sparrow

by Gaie Sebold

  “Don’t worry, Mama. Just do as I ask, please?”

  “I don’t want to cause trouble.” Mama’s eyes were wide and scared. “If you cause trouble you get given chloral. It makes you sick. Or galvanism. Which is worse.”

  “There won’t be any trouble. Just do as I say. Everything will be fine. You do want to leave, don’t you?”

  Mama looked at her, biting her lip. “Yes, but... can I fetch my things?”

  “Things?”

  “I managed to make some things. Mechanisms. From whatever I could find. To keep my hand in. I had to hide them, of course.”

  “I have your things, Mama. All your old mechanisms.”

  “You do? How?”

  “I’ll explain later. But now... will you do as I ask? And let me get you out of here?”

  Mama was silent for a long, terrifying moment. Then she sighed. “Yes,” she said.

  Eveline took a breath, and rang the bell.

  Dr Peters opened the door and looked in, wearing an anxious smile which suddenly disappeared under a chloroform-soaked rag.

  “Shut the door, Mama,” Eveline said, lowering Dr Peters to the floor. “Right. Into his things, quick.”

  “What?”

  Eveline whisked off Dr Peters’ coat, waistcoat, shirt and trousers and got Mama into them, coaxing her as though she were a little girl, being dressed for school.

  Everything was too big. Eveline mentally sent thanks to Miss Fortescue for teaching her to always carry pins, needle and thread. None of the stitching would bear close inspection, but if they were closely inspected they were done for in any case.

  “Now. Hold still.”

  Mama did. Scarily still, so docile. Eveline tried to squash the creeping dread she felt, a terrible desire to just give up, to leave this doll-woman here and run away. Her hands worked, using the putty and false hair she had packed in her bag. The skin tone was not right – Mama was so pale – but it would have to do.

  Soon a lumpy, baggy, and rather ill-looking version of Dr Peters stood in front of Eveline. Except it had a bun. “Oh, damn,” she muttered, and looked at Mama sidelong, but if Mama had heard her swear she gave no sign. No wig! How had she been so stupid as to forget the wig? She looked frantically around the room. What was she to do?

  “Mama, can you let down your hair?”

  “My hair? What’s this stuff on my face?” She raised a hand to tug at the false moustache Eveline had just spent precious minutes gluing on. Eveline seized her hand and pulled it gently down. “No, Mama. Leave it. Let me do your hair.”

  Freed from its bun her hair was long enough to tuck under her collar, and the effect, while odd, was not excessively noticeable. But it was too grey, Dr Peters’ hair was darker.

  There was a fireplace in the room. Eveline reached inside it and covered her hands with soot. She rubbed it on her mother’s hair as best she could, trying not to cover them both with smuts.

  There. It wasn’t wonderful, but it would have to do. At least the day was darkening.

  Dr Peters was beginning to stir. She gave him another dose. That was it for the chloroform. She shoved the jar back into her bag, now covered with sooty fingerprints, wiped her hands on her skirts, (at least they were black), and took Mama’s arm. “Come along. It’s not far.”

  Down the corridors they went. People glanced at them. Eveline tried to look as though she were being escorted, rather than doing the escorting.

  “It’s suppertime,” Mama said.

  “Yes, shh, we’ll get you some supper later.”

  Oh, the corridors were too long. There were other attendants about, going about their business, it couldn’t be long before one saw that something was wrong.

  All this new lighting that Dr Peters had been so proud of! Eveline cursed it. Mama shuffled, as though her limbs had rusted with lack of use. “Come along,” Eveline muttered. “Please hurry.”

  Out through the door, but they couldn’t relax yet. The long, long path to the gate where the hansom waited.

  “Come along,” she said briskly. She could see the outline of the hansom. Liu had seen them coming, and leapt lithely down to open the door.

  “I say, Dr Peters!”

  Oh, no. Eveline walked faster, urging Mama along. Her feet shuffled on the gravel.

  “Dr Peters!”

  “Mama, please, hurry!”

  “I say, wait!”

  There was a note in the voice now, whoever it was had definitely realised something was wrong. Eveline almost shoved her mother towards the hansom, and she stumbled. Liu was there; he caught her and swung her into the cab. Eveline dived in after her, and pulled the door to. She could see the white, shouting face of the man pursuing them down the drive as the cab pulled away, bowling down the road, a shout echoing after it.

  “Are you all right, Mama? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  Mama sat huddled in a corner of the carriage, looking at Eveline with wide, terrified eyes. “I don’t understand,” she said. “I don’t understand.”

  Up on the roof, Liu shouted something, and the horse went faster. Eveline felt faint with exhaustion and fear. She took her mother’s hand in her own, realising hers were still black with soot. “It’s all right, Mama,” she said. “Don’t worry. I’ll look after everything.”

  MAMA SEEMED DAZED. Eveline wondered if she had been dosed with something, or (horrible, dreadful thought that she tried to crush) if perhaps there was something wrong. If perhaps there always had been. Or if being locked away so long had broken her. “Mama? Mama, it’s all right. I’m going to have to leave you with Liu, he’ll look after you. I have to do something. Liu will drive you to where you’ll be staying – it’s just for a bit. And then I’ll come to see you and we’ll sort everything out, all right?”

  “Eveline?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “Really my Eveline?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “Is that... where are we?”

  “London, Mama.”

  “I know that, silly girl, but I don’t recognise this district – how much traffic there is! Where are we going?”

  “I have to go... see someone. Liu will drive you to the place I’ve arranged.”

  “This is real, isn’t it?” Mama turned and looked at her properly, and touched Eveline’s face. “Really real.”

  “Yes.”

  “I was afraid... I thought perhaps I was dreaming. I’ve dreamt of escaping so many times. Oh, my love, how did you find me? How did you do it?”

  “I...” She couldn’t tell her respectable mama that she’d blackmailed and burgled and lied to get her out. “I found out you were alive, and I did what I had to.”

  “You said Uncle James was dead. What happened?”

  “Gout got to his heart... I heard. Somewhere.”

  “Oh.” Mama shook her head. “He always did drink too much port.”

  The carriage drew to a halt. Eveline hugged her mama. “I gotta go.” She looked up at Liu. “Look after her.”

  “I promise you, I will.”

  “Liu, is everything all right?”

  He didn’t look well – his warm colour was faded and waxy. Perhaps it was just the pallid glow of the gas lamps. “I... Yes. Later. You had best hurry.”

  “Yes.” Eveline looked into the hansom one more time. “Mama, I’ll see you very soon. You’d better get that stuff off your face.”

  “Oh! I... what a clown I must look! How did you ever...”

  “I’ll tell you everything when I get back.”

  Mama managed to tug off the false moustache and most of the putty nose, leaving her looking bruised and damaged. Eveline wanted to say something more, but there was no time.

  “I’ll see you soon, Mama.” She closed the door. “Liu...”

  “I will take care of her. I have it all arranged. Go.” Something was wrong, something was definitely wrong, but there was no more time.

  The Ship Inn

  IN THROUGH THE back of the hotel, along the corri
dor, into her room... and tucked into bed was Lazy Lou’s top half, her face made up with putty and a black wig to resemble Eveline’s if you didn’t look too close. Her bottom half was rolled linens.

  Eveline closed the door behind her and leaned on it for a moment, feeling the tears well and burn. But she couldn’t cry, there was no time. Holmforth could be back at any moment, or the man from the desk could check on her. She swiped at her face, lit the candles in their heavy brass sticks with the hanging crystals, worth at least two bob apiece to the right fence, and whisked about, dismantling Lazy Lou and thrusting everything away under the false bottom of the Gladstone bag, hanging beneath her skirts anything that wouldn’t fit. She scrubbed the last of the soot from her hands, blew her nose, and carried on.

  She kept checking out of the window, but there were so many hansom cabs and carriages, both steam and horse, it was impossible to tell if one was Holmforth’s. She had barely finished when there was a rap on the door. She sat on the bed, and called, “Who is it?”

  “Holmforth.”

  For the first time she wondered exactly what Liu had put in the telegram that had kept him away for so long; whatever it was, it had worked.

  He opened the door. “Are you rested?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then come down to supper.” He peered closely at her. “You don’t appear rested. What have you been doing?”

  Her heart speeded up, she fought to keep her face bland. “I dunno what you mean.”

  “You look like a very tired chimney sweep. How you managed to get quite so filthy simply sitting in a hotel room... wash your face, I refuse to take you down to supper looking like that.”

  Eveline scurried to the dresser. The mirror showed her face smeared with soot, where she had wiped her eyes, and the eyes themselves red-rimmed and swollen-lidded. She had been crying the whole time she cleaned up, barely knowing it.

  She splashed her face, and scrubbed with the soap – fancy stuff, much nicer than the carbolic they used in the school and smelling like violets. Between splashes, she watched Holmforth.

  He was standing by the window, watching the street, bouncing gently on the balls of his feet, his hands clasped loosely behind his back. She could swear he was smiling.

  What had been going on? What had Liu done?

  She felt a horrible dropping sensation that seemed to take her stomach right down through her boots, through the next floor and into the cold wet earth below. Were they acting together? Had she fallen into a trap, set for her all along? If she had... now they had Mama.

  Mama who had been, if not happy, at least safe, and fed, and not being hurt. Probably not being hurt.

  Eveline stared at her own pale, red-eyed face. She had been so pleased with herself; working out the details, getting everything organised... had she been a complete fool?

  “Hurry up, or all the lamb cutlets will be gone,” Holmforth said. “There are never enough lamb cutlets.”

  For once in her life Eveline was completely uninterested in the thought of lamb cutlets. She wasn’t sure she could eat at all.

  THEY SAT IN the dining room of the hotel. The smell of gravy and cabbage permeated the air. There were a few other diners, mainly single gentlemen. Eveline felt extremely conspicuous, and sat pushing her cutlet around her plate, carving off the smallest possible slice and trying to swallow it with a throat as dry as blotting paper.

  “What’s the matter?” Holmforth said. “Your usual healthy appetite seems to have deserted you.”

  “I’m the only girl in the place. I keep expecting someone to turn me out.”

  “You are not the first and will not be the last of your gender to dine here, though, oddly enough, you are probably among the more respectable.” He damn near grinned at her, which did nothing to calm her down. “The others were probably...”

  “Yes, I can guess what they were probably, thank you.”

  “So, are you happy with the day’s purchases?”

  She struggled to remember. “Oh. Oh, yes.”

  “We can return tomorrow, if there is more you need.”

  “And your business, did it go all right? Whatever it was?”

  “Oh, indeed,” he said. “Yes, it went very well. I think perhaps we might celebrate.”

  “Celebrate?”

  “There’s no need to look so wary. What a suspicious little creature you are. I meant only a glass of wine. A light one for you, perhaps a canary; something suitable for a young lady. Would you like that?”

  “I don’t know, I’ve never had it.”

  “Well, let us try it then, and you can tell me.” He summoned the waiter.

  HOLMFORTH LAY BACK on his bed and smiled to himself.

  The girl had sipped at the wine as though she feared poison at first, but took to its sweetness in the end, as he’d supposed she would.

  She was his key. This scruffy, wary little creature held his future in her hand – and he held her in his.

  And not just his. It seemed, at last, that his efforts were being appreciated. Those further up the chain – not just above himself, but above Forbes-Cresswell; people to whom Forbes-Cresswell was only a functionary – they were interested.

  Discretion must, of course, be maintained. He understood that, all too well. He had seen things he’d striven for taken from him before, the credit going to other men.

  He knew why. He understood. It was the bad blood in him, the blood of the Folk. Sickly, tainted. Had he been able to excise it, to drain out that pallid poison, he would have, long ago. Instead he must prove his worth, finally and beyond all doubt.

  The Britannia School

  EVELINE STOOD IN front of the locked door in the abandoned part of the school, gripping the key so hard it cut into her hand.

  What if Mama wasn’t there? What if it had been a dream? What if she had been betrayed?

  There had been no sign of Liu when she returned to the school, nothing.

  There was no light under the door.

  Come on, Sparrow.

  Carefully, she opened the door. She blinked in the gloom; the shutters were closed, it was impossible to tell if there was anyone in the room. “Mama?” she whispered. “Are you there?”

  “Eveline?”

  “Oh, Mama! Mama, did you not see the candle? I made sure there was one here...” Eveline crept towards the table, found the candle and lit it.

  It showed Mama seated in the room’s single chair – an ancient thing of wormy wood and cracked leather, with horsehair stuffing showing through its gaping fissures like the scalp of a poorly-buried corpse. She was huddled into the back of the chair, her hands gripping the arms. She watched Eveline as she locked the door and went to the window. “You can open the shutters, Mama, this wall faces a corner, no-one would see.” She hauled the shutters open, wincing as they creaked, despite her careful earlier application of oil. “I know, they’re so noisy, but we’re right at the end of the house, no-one comes here. So long as there’s no noise you’ll be fine. Did Liu explain what this place is? I’m sorry it’s not nicer, but it won’t be long, we’ll have a place of our own and then... Liu did explain? The Chinee fella who brought you home? He’s all right, he is. He looked after you, did he? I told him he was to...” She realised she was babbling, and forced herself to stop.

  Mama was staring out of the window. It was raining. The way the window faced, the only view was of brickwork, a cracked drainpipe, and a fern growing by the drain, with a narrow slice of grey sky above it. Water ran steadily down the pipe, inside and out, gurgling.

  The room smelled of damp and rats and emptiness.

  “Mama?”

  “I’m sorry,” Mama said. “Will you come where I can see you? I just...”

  Eveline walked slowly over to the chair.

  “My Eveline?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “You’ve grown so. I always thought of you as a little girl. Foolish... come here, my love. Let me look at you properly. I was in such a mazed state... are you in
trouble, Eveline?”

  “Not if no-one finds out.”

  “They will, you know. They’re bound to notice even such an insignificant person as myself escaping.”

  “I know. But they won’t know it’s me, will they?”

  “Well, who else would come for me?”

  Eveline felt cold. It was true. She’d been so panicked at the thought of being sent to Shanghai that she’d rushed it. Rushed a plan, like a fool, and now she’d brought her mother right here to her own hearth where anyone looking for her would find her.

  But did anyone know she was here: her, Eveline Duchen? Apart from Holmforth. And Holmforth, like everyone else, must think her mother was dead.

  “I’m sorry, Mama. I... I just wanted you out. I didn’t think.”

  “Oh, my love, I’m glad to be out, but I don’t think our troubles are over just yet. Tell me, where is Charlotte?”

  The question she had been dreading, and for once in her life she had no slick answer ready. There could be no trickery here, no sliding away.

  “She’s dead, Mama. She’s dead, and it’s my fault.”

  “Dead. Charlotte.”

  “Yes. We... I ran away. I took her with me. I thought... but it was cold and we... the woods... I couldn’t... oh, Mama, I’m sorry!”

  Then she was on her knees with her face buried in Mama’s skirts, sobbing. She didn’t know if Mama would turn her away, open the door, denounce her... but to confess, at last, to say it out loud to the one person in the world who would care, even if she never forgave her – there was a dreadful, tearing relief in it.

  Eventually she became aware of a sensation she had not felt for a long time.

  Mama was stroking her hair.

  Eventually she got enough control of herself to tell the rest.

  She didn’t look at Mama for much of it. She rested her head against Mama’s knees, and told her the barest bones of it. She didn’t tell Mama about the road, about the men who had tried to catch her – and the ones who had succeeded. She did tell her about Ma Pether, as someone who took her in.