Sparrow Falling (2 page)

“I would never make such a foolish mistake. When it comes to money your senses are finely attuned.”

“They’ve had to be. We can’t all steal a chicken when we’re hungry.”

Liu stopped, and looked at her, his eyes unreadable. “I thought that stealing was your profession.”

“So?”

“Have you become ashamed, Lady Sparrow? Is the company of a thief something you no longer wish for?”

“Don’t be a goose, I didn’t mean that.”

“Ah, and there is the insult. Good, now the formalities are taken care of. I had come to wish you farewell, but perhaps it is not necessary, as it seems you find my company unpleasant.”

“I do when you keep twisting my words.”

“Then I shall leave, and no longer be here to do so.” Liu bowed, and turned away.

“Where are you going?”

“As I told you, I have errands to run. I will return, however, if you feel you can bear it.”

“Liu...” But he was gone, into the trees that bordered the school grounds, quick and silent as he always was.

Eveline swore. She didn’t know what was wrong with Liu lately, he never used to be so touchy. And what was this errand of his? She hoped it wouldn’t get him into trouble – but then, he was a slippery one,
and
he was Folk – or at least, half so. He could get himself out of most things easy as winking.

Still, she couldn’t help glancing at the woods where he had disappeared.

T
HE FOLLOWING DAY
the butcher came himself. He was a lean, pallid, liverish man, who put Eveline strongly in mind of one of the chickens that hung, head-down and beak-dripping, in his window.

“I wish to speak to the master of the establishment,” he said.

“That’d be me. Or mistress, rather. How can I help you?” Eveline said.

“You can help me, young lady, by allowing me to speak to the proper person.”

Eveline choked down a remark about not being proper but being the person he wanted anyway. He didn’t seem in the mood for levity. Nor, to be honest, was she – it was just the way her mind worked. “I know it may seem unlikely, Mr Blaithwaite, but I am the proprietor. Our name, the Sparrow School, is on the gate, and I am the Sparrow in question. What was it you wished to speak to me about?”

He glared her up and down, looked beyond her as though hoping to see some reassuring male presence, but encountered only Beth, hovering, and looking at him as though he were a fox and she a rabbit.

Deciding that no more proper authority was about to appear, he waved a piece of paper under Eveline’s nose. “I am a patient man, Miss... Sparrow. But my patience is limited, indeed it is, and my bill is now overdue by some weeks. I would appreciate payment at your earliest convenience. That is, I don’t intend to leave without it.”

“What is the total, Mr Blaithwaite?”

He named a sum. Eveline blinked. “Would you wait here a moment, Mr Blaithwaite?”

“No, Miss Sparrow, I will not. I want my money.”

“As you will, Mr Blaithwaite. Miss Hastings?”

“Yes, E... Miss Sparrow?”

“Please bring my cash box from the study.”

Beth swallowed. “Yes, Miss Sparrow.” She darted off.

“A pleasant day, though unseasonably warm,” Eveline said. “It must be hard to keep the meat fresh in this weather.”

“My meat is always fresh. But I need to get back to the shop. I hope that young woman will not be long.”

“The study is not far, Mr Braithwaite.”

“Good.”

Eveline thought furiously. She knew to a penny how much there was in the cashbox, and it wasn’t nearly enough for the butcher’s bill. She could ask Ma Pether for some of her counterfeit coin – Ma always kept some about – but even if she was willing to let on to Ma how bad things were, that was a half-minute solution at best. The butcher would be back, and with the Peelers at his tail like as not.

Besides, it wasn’t as though he’d given short weight or rotten meat – the stuff was good quality.

She put her hand in her pocket and felt the comforting smooth weight of the little jade fox Liu had given her. The thought of selling it hurt, and Liu would be upset – as though he wasn’t already – but for all his sense in some things he really didn’t seem to understand how badly they needed money, or at least, why she wasn’t going the old way about getting it.

There was nothing else left to sell. Even in her thieving days Eveline had never owned any jewellery for more than the length of time it took for Ma Pether to sell it or Evvie herself to want it less than she wanted a bite of bread and sausage.

Beth came scuttering down the corridor, somewhat flushed and with her madly curly hair escaping its bun, as it always did in moments of stress. “Here you are,” she said.

“Thank you, Miss Hastings.”
Ask him to wait a week, and sell the fox? What will I tell Liu? Go to Ma Pether? Which?

She was still wrestling with it when she opened the cashbox.

There was far more in it than there should be. Eveline managed to control her expression, but it was a near thing. She shot a glance at Beth, who was trying to look innocent and only succeeded in looking pleading.

“I do apologise for the delay, Mr Braithwaite,” she said as she counted out the coins.

“Well, I’m sure you do your best,” he said. “But perhaps you should hire an accountant.” He leaned down, and said, in a conspiratorial whisper, “I’m doing myself down, here, but perhaps you should order less. Girls don’t need to eat meat every day, you know, not like boys.” He gave an unused-looking smile, tipped his hat, and walked back to his carriage.

“Wish I’d stiffed him now,” Eveline said. “Condescending...”

“I’m sure he meant it kindly.”

“Because he thinks we can’t cope, being
girls.
Trouble is,” she said, closing the cashbox with a sigh, “he’s right, isn’t he? We ain’t coping. And I’ll thank you to tell me where that brass came from, Miss Magician.”

Beth hunched her shoulders. “I had some.”

“Beth...”

“I sold a couple of things. Tools. We needed the money.”

“Beth, you can’t sell your tools! You need ’em!”

“And we need to pay the butcher. So.”

Eveline gave her a fierce hug with the arm that wasn’t holding the cashbox. “Numbskull. What’re you going to do, tighten bolts with your teeth?”

“I’ll manage,” Beth said, flushing. “We do need money, though, don’t we? Eveline, this scheme of yours... I hope it works.”

“So do I.”

W
HEN
E
VELINE RETURNED
to the house, the post had been delivered. She winced at the sight of what she had already learned to recognise as yet another bill, and shoved it under the others to open when she had the strength.

The next envelope was addressed to Mrs Madeleine Sparrow. Someone was writing to Mama, and under her new name. That probably meant it was safe, but... Eveline thought about going to the kitchen and steaming open the envelope. No-one would question her if they caught her at it, but it would hurt Mama a great deal if she should find out. She ran her thumb over the lush cream stationery. The handwriting was neat and confident. It didn’t have the look or feel of officialdom about it, but she hadn’t a deal of experience with official letters.

On the other hand anyone who knew either Mama or herself under their old name, Duchen, would hardly bother writing first. They’d be bursting the door down with boot and truncheon – or bundling people into a carriage in the dead of night.

She thrust the other letters into her pocket, and went to look for Mama.

M
ADELEINE WAS IN
her workshop. Eveline paused for a moment in the doorway to watch, and to listen.

Mama looked better these days. When she was first rescued from her unjust imprisonment in Bedlam at her brother’s hands, she had been pallid, distracted, and slow in her movements, flinching at unexpected sounds and struggling to return to the world from which she had been so long barred. Then she had been seized by Eveline’s former nemesis, the government agent Thaddeus Holmforth, and dragged half around the world, witnessing murder and various other unpleasant and disturbing things – though she had proved herself both tougher and a deal more adaptable than might have been expected.

Now, notebook in hand, she hummed along with her instruments, the gleaming, spinning, singing mechanisms of Etheric Science, that subtle and artistic discipline of sound and mood (which had, like the Folk, its lethal aspects).

Madeleine made an adjustment to one of the machines, a small, rosewood box with three dials set in its side and a small brass trumpet protruding from its top. It started to vibrate, and gave out a slow, rising tone, which at first made Eveline smile, and gradually rose to a penetrating whine which made her wince and clap her hands over her ears.

“Oh, dear,” Madeleine said. “
That’s
not right.” She leaned close to peer at the dials, made a note, snapped off the machine with a flick of her wrist, and turned around. “Oh, hello, my love. Did you want me?”

“There’s a letter for you, Mama.”

“A letter? How delightful!” Mama’s face lit as though the sun had shone through the window on her. Mama could be pleased by such small things now. Eveline handed over the envelope, hoping desperately that it was something nice.

Madeleine opened it neatly with the edge of one of her dozens of screwdrivers, and drew out the single sheet within. “Oh, dear, I really
do
need spectacles, how thoroughly lowering.”

“Don’t worry, Mama, we’ll get you some nice ones.”
Even if I do have to steal them,
Eveline thought. “Do you want me to read it for you?”

“No, no, I think I can manage.” Madeleine walked over to the window and held the letter close to her face. “Dear Madame, etc. etc... oh!”

“What is it? Mama?”

“Octavius Thring! He saw my work at the scientific exhibition in Bristol, and wants to meet me, and look at the rest of the mechanisms! And talk about Etherics!” Mama’s face positively glowed.

“Octavius
Thring?
Who’s he when he’s at home?”

“He says he’s an enthusiastic amateur – a ‘dabbler in the sciences’ – and thinks my work is fascinating!”

“What’s he want?”

“Why, to talk. I could perform a demonstration – though a subject would be useful – several subjects – would you object if I asked some of the girls? Oh, I must finish the Halciphon...”

“Mama!”

“Yes, my dear?”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Why would it not be? Just to have someone to discuss... your friend Beth is a dear girl, and an excellent engineer, but she really isn’t at home with Etherics. From his letter it’s plain Mr Thring has more than an amateur’s understanding. It would be so good to talk to someone, to clarify some thoughts. I don’t see the harm in that.”

“It’s just... Mama, I don’t wish to upset you, but I was thinking of Uncle James. What if this
Thring
person should be the same? What if he tries to steal your ideas?”

“Oh, well, I have applied for patents, you know. It does take forever, of course, but one or two have come through already.”

“And what if he finds out about... everything?” Even here, Eveline was reluctant to mention Holmforth, or Shanghai, out loud.

Madeleine frowned, sat on the bench, and held out her hands to her daughter. “Eveline. Come sit with me.”

Eveline went.

“My love,” Madeleine said, “I know you mean to look after me. But it is not a daughter’s place to have to look after her mother, you know; not unless I should become helpless, and I’m not quite there yet.”

“I didn’t mean...”

“I know you didn’t. But you must allow me to make my own decision in this. It was hard enough to send the instruments off to the exhibition without attending myself; there were a number of people there I should very much like to have spoken to. Besides, they are mine, and I am proud of them. And yes, I know it would have been a risk, but now I consider it, the likelihood of one of the staff from the asylum attending such a thing and recognising me is very small.”

“You’re right, Mama, I know. And it’s not as though you ever did anything wrong, after all. You were put away under false pretences.”

“Well, quite.”

“But if someone found you, they’d find me. And my case is different. It’s not the asylum authorities who’d be looking for me, it’s the government. Not the proper public government, neither – though they’re bad enough – but a bit of the government that hardly anyone knows about. They don’t have to follow the same rules.” She’d been about to say more – to mention bundlings away in the middle of the night – but Mama had had enough to trouble her, and Eveline had no wish to add to it.

“But my dear, both those vile men are gone, and there’s been no sign that anyone else knew the slightest thing about it.”

“One of ’em’s gone,” Eveline said, forgetting in her agitation to keep up the careful language she tried to use with her mother – drawing-room language, as she thought of it. “The other – who knows?” Sometimes she almost felt sorry for Holmforth, the government agent who had recruited her, and who had been turned into a hare when he tried to cross the borders of the Crepuscular, where the Folk lived. For all she knew, he was still running mindlessly about the swamps outside Shanghai. Then she remembered that he had threatened her mother, and any pity died a swift and merciless death. Besides, she didn’t even know if the transformation was permanent. What if Holmforth came back to himself? He’d be naked, alone, and probably confused – but she’d bet pounds to pennies he’d still be vengeful. She’d seen his capacity for that first hand.

“If we are careful, and remain on the right side of the law,” Madeleine said, “I see no reason why anyone should come looking for you.”

“I am trying, Mama.”

“I know you are, my dear.”

“I still don’t know about this Thring sort, though. I mean, what do you know about him?”

“I know that he is interested and enthusiastic and wrote me a most courteous letter. In that last particular alone, he is entirely unlike my unlamented brother. Also, he has inventions of his own, ‘mere dabblings,’ he calls them, that he should like me to take a look at. So he is capable of coming up with his own ideas, too. Now, you must have a class, do you not?” Madeleine stood up, still holding Eveline’s hands in hers. She was the taller – in Bedlam at least the food had been adequate. Eveline was still making up her growth after years of deprivation. This slight difference allowed Madeleine to look down at Eveline with fond reproach. “My daughter the schoolteacher,” she said. “This is far better than your... other life, Eveline. When I think of how you lived...”