Shanghai Sparrow (32 page)

“Can I help you?” the assistant said.

“We are still in the process of making our selection,” Holmforth said.

“Mr Wallis says please be quick.”

“Oh. And what pressing appointment does Mr Wallis have that necessitates such urgency?”

The assistant swallowed and looked back at his master. “He says... he says this is a respectable shop.”

“Is it?”

Eveline’s senses shivered. Something in Holmforth’s voice made her back hairs stand on end.

“Yes,” the young man said. A blush crept up his neck, swamping his freckles in red. “He says we don’t want anything happening to the stock, that shouldn’t.”

Holmforth looked at the shopkeeper. The air between them twanged.

“Tell your master that we will leave when we have finished our business,” he said.

“That one,” Eveline burst out, tapping the display case. “That one in the middle of the bottom row.”

She didn’t know what was going on, but it was to do with Holmforth, not her, that much she
did
know. And she wanted to get out of here.

The dial was extracted, and wrapped – not very well. The shopkeeper took the money Holmforth handed him and counted it, deliberately; he rapped the coins on the counter, and even removed his glasses and took a jeweller’s loupe out of the pocket of his snuff-dusted waistcoat and screwed it into his eye to peer at them. Eveline stood there trying to project a church-every-day starched-linen respectability, not daring to look at Holmforth. The shopkeeper raised his head, dropped the loupe into his palm, looked her up and down and sniffed.

“You have some comment to make to my ward?” Holmforth said.

“Ward, is it?” he replied, putting more filth into the word
ward
than even Eveline would have thought possible. “No. Now if you’re done...”

“Oh, we’re done,” Holmforth said. “I shall be sure to mention the name of this fine emporium to
my
employer.”

“Why don’t you do that.”

And with that, they left the shop. They hadn’t quite got out of the door when the shopkeeper said, quite clearly, “Folkgotten filth.”

Holmforth paused for the barest moment, before striding out and letting the door swing shut. Eveline still didn’t dare look directly at him; but a glimpse of his hand, rigid at his side, showed the knuckles standing out stark white and the tendons of his hands so tight she could have played them like a fiddle if she’d had a mind.

“Mr Holmforth? I’m ever so tired,” she said. “Could we go back?”

“Very well.”

They made the short journey in silence.

“Mr Holmforth?” the man behind the desk said as they arrived. “There’s a telegram for you, sir.”

“What?”

“Here, sir.” The man handed Holmforth the flimsy paper.

Holmforth, frowning, opened it. Eveline pretended interest in a set of wax flowers under a glass dome.

“Miss Duchen, I will have to go out. I suggest you rest. I have asked the proprietor to check on you every hour, until I return, you understand?”

“Yes, Mr Holmforth.”

He escorted her to her room, and locked her in.

T
EN MINUTES LATER
Eveline waved at a hansom cab that was waiting in the street behind the hotel. Its driver leaned down. “Where to, madam?”

“You did it!”

Liu laughed. He had a greatcoat and a tricorn hat on, which gave him a strangely piratical look. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“Haul us up, then.”

“No, you must sit inside or you will not look respectable.”

“S’pose you’re right,” she said. “What did you put in the telegram?”

“A great deal of nonsense that suggested that someone with information about Etheric science wished to speak with him, as you suggested.”

“Well, it worked. How long?”

“Who can tell? I shall do what I can.”

“Liu...”

“Yes?”

“Thanks. I owe yer.”

“Yes, you do. Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not in the habit of driving hard bargains.”

Eveline smiled at him and climbed into the cab.

She would rather have sat with Liu, but she had far too much to think about. As for the hotel proprietor... well, she’d done what she could.

Bedlam

E
VELINE LOOKED AT
the vast imperious frontage of the Bethlehem Hospital, its pillared portico and central dome, and tried to rub some warmth into hands gone suddenly chilly.

Her mama was somewhere in there, in that great height and depth of stone, behind those rows of windows gleaming cold.

She extracted some papers from the false bottom of the Gladstone bag and walked up to the entrance.

“I
’M
D
R
P
ETERS.
We have had no notice of a visit,” the doctor said. He was a smartly-dressed man with a confident moustache, at odds with eyes like an anxious spaniel’s. “And the Physician-Superintendent is not here today.”

“A visit without notice was considered the best way of keeping this unfortunate situation out of the public eye,” Eveline said. “You do understand that the family would prefer that the Lunacy Commissioners did not become involved, let alone...” – she leaned close and muttered – “the Press.”

“The Press! But we have... there have been so
many
reforms in the last years, the place is quite different, and the situation of the patients altogether improved.”

“So I understand. But if it were to come to light that either of the doctors who signed her committal papers were involved in any other cases where there might have been a
monetary advantage
...” Eveline left the sentence hanging. “You said yourself that Mrs Duchen has been a model patient.”

“I believe there were some problems at first, but of course if it were all a misunderstanding...”

“Misunderstanding? I should rather have said
fraud
!” Eveline snapped.

“Quite, quite. Would you like to see the lady?”

“Yes, I think that would be best,” Eveline said, swallowing down the sudden rising panic that tightened her throat. “I would like a private interview, is that possible?”

“Of course. I will have her brought to one of the side rooms.”

After some back and forth with messages, Dr Peters led Eveline from the office down the wide, echoing corridor, chatting as they went about how the bathrooms were now tiled, and the majority of the patients no longer subject to restraint, and properly clothed... Eveline smiled and tried to look interested, but all she could do was scan the faces of every patient as they passed the rooms. Many of them looked like people one might meet any day on the street. In fact, Eveline had encountered a number of people who looked a good deal more disturbed than most of the residents, although here and there one gesticulated at nothing, or sat rocking and staring. One woman in her middle years with something familiar in the line of her back caught Eveline’s eye, but turned on her a gaze so utterly blank that Eveline shuddered, staring for a moment in terror in case this poor, empty, slack-faced creature should be Mama.

It wasn’t. The woman turned indifferently away. Eveline hurried after Dr Peters.

The place was better than she had expected: lighter, and cleaner. She had spent most of her own last few years in considerably worse circumstances. But still, it was a prison, in which her mama had been unjustly locked... she felt her hands clench. How much longer? This corridor had been going on forever.

“Here we are,” Dr Peters said brightly. “Mrs Duchen? You have a visitor.”

The woman standing facing the window was dressed in a black stuff gown. Her grey hair was pinned neatly onto her head. “A visitor?” she said. Her voice was thick and slow.

Eveline had a sudden desire to cry out, to ask her not to turn around, to simply run. The movement seemed to take a desperately long time, as though the woman in the window were standing on a very, very slow turntable.

She could hardly bear to look, but had to seem calm, aware always of Dr Peters at her side.
Don’t cry, Eveline. Don’t you dare.
“Mrs Duchen?”

Mama.
Older, a little plumper – but unmistakably Mama.

She looked at her daughter with no recognition at all.

“I shall leave you to speak with her,” Dr Peters said. “Please ring the bell when you are done, and someone will come to escort you out.”

“Thank you,” Eveline said. To herself, her voice sounded so very strange she expected Dr Peters to say something, but he only left, shutting the door quietly behind him.

He did not lock it.

Mama stood there patiently, looking at the young woman who had come to visit her.

“I...” Eveline said. She felt the tears coming, but she could not, could
not
cry. “I don’t s’pose you know me.”

“I’m afraid not,” Mama said. Oh, her voice. So quiet and slow. “You must forgive me, did you come with the inspectors last time? My memory is not what it was.”

“No. I... would you like to sit down? I think perhaps we should both sit down.”

There was a scuffed wooden table, two chairs. Amenably, Mama sat down. So did Eveline.

Eveline started to speak, stopped, tried again. All the words piled into her throat and lodged there.

“Is something wrong?” Mama said.

“It’s me, Mama. It’s Eveline.”

“Eveline.
Eveline?
You’re my
daughter?
”

“Yes.”

Something was rising under the surface of that calm, placid face.

Not recognition or love. Horror.

“
No
,” Mama said. “No. It’s a trick. Please go away. This is very unkind.” She reached for the bell and Eveline put a hand over hers. Her hands had aged; they were red and swollen.

“It’s not a trick, Mama. It’s me.”

Madeleine Duchen searched her face. “Eveline? Eveline. Is it you?”

She suddenly stood up, pushing her chair back so violently it fell over. “No. No, not this. I... Any injustice they did me, I could bear, but not you too. What did he do? Eveline, what did he do? Did he get you put in here too? James? Oh, Eveline... I thought at least you were safe... I can’t...”

“Mama, no. No.” Eveline stood up too, took her hands and held them firmly. “No, I’m here... I’m a visitor, I’m not a patient. And Uncle James is dead.”

“Dead.”

“Yes. Mama, please, sit back down.”

Still staring, she let herself be led back to the table, and sat in the righted chair, clinging to the sides as though she were afraid she might float away, and watching her daughter as though she were a vision that might disappear at any moment.

“Uncle James... he told me you were dead. And then I had to run away. And I didn’t know. I only found out a few days ago that you were alive, and where. Mama, I’ve come to get you out.”

“James... James told you I was dead.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, that is
so
like him.” And there, in the way she threw her head back in exasperation, Eveline caught a glimpse of the mother she remembered. “But Eveline, what happened? And where –”

With a horrible feeling that the next words would be, “Where is Charlotte?” Eveline forestalled her. “Mama, we can’t talk now. I’ll explain everything. But I have to get you out, and we have to do it in secret. I’ll explain later. But we have to get you out.”

“Do you have papers?”

“No. Well, sort of.”

“They’ll never let me out without papers. They want papers for everything. One could drown in paper.”

“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.”