England

 

 

“SO... WHAT HAPPENS now?” Beth said, as they rolled away from the aerodrome. The buyer’s automobile was a lot more comfortable than the Sacagawea. “The school?”

“No. ’Snot safe,” Eveline said. “I reckon Forbes-Cresswell kept everything pretty quiet, but there might have been someone who knew what he was up to, who’ll come looking. And they may be looking for Mama, too. We need somewhere to hide out for a bit. We’ve got our papers, and we’ve got a bit of money.” An examination of Holmforth’s hotel room had provided their passports and some bank notes; Forbes-Cresswell’s pockets and his Consulate rooms had provided more money and, fortunately, the notes. Getting into the Consulate had been easy enough. Eveline shook her head at the memory. If she wanted to keep people out of a place, she’d do things differently.

“What are you thinking?” Madeleine said.

“I’m thinking that maybe a school isn’t a bad idea.”

“A school? Eveline, you can’t be planning to set up as a school teacher, surely?”

“Why not? There’s more’n enough girls could do with someone to teach ’em mechanics, and Etherics, and all that. There’s more and more machines, these days. Why shouldn’t women get a look in? You’re both better at it than any man I’ve known. And me, well, there’s things I can teach them, too. And maybe...” Eveline grinned to herself. “Maybe I know a couple other people would like the job.”

“But setting up a school – where will we get the money?” Madeleine said. “And we can’t do it under our own names, surely?”

“You leave that to me,” Eveline said. “I know people. We’ve got papers, we can easily get ones with different names on, all proper and nice. As for money...”

“No,” Madeleine said sharply. “No thieving. Eveline, I know you’ve had to do it to survive, and that’s as much my fault as anyone’s, but I’m not having my daughter spend her life a thief.”

“They stole from us, Mama,” Eveline said, equally sharply. “They stole your work and years of your life. They took Charlotte and they tried to take me, too. I en’t going to tell you all of what I had to see and do while you was locked up, but it wasn’t your fault, it was the fault of Uncle James and men like him and Forbes-Cresswell and Holmforth. I’ll rob them blind and never blush for it. Everything they got was stolen from some poor bugger, who drags their fat arses in a rickshaw or fills their beds or does the work they want to claim for their own.” She realised that both of them were staring at her, and said, “If it’s all the same to you, Beth Hastings, I’d thank you to keep your eyes on the road before we smash into something.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Beth said, touching two fingers to her cap, and grinning.

“Eveline Duchen, you’ve become a Radical!” Madeleine said.

“I don’t know about that. I’ve become something, maybe, different from what I was before – but right now I just want to find us somewhere safe.”

Madeleine sighed. “Somewhere with an actual bed and no guns would be nice, dear.”

“I’ll do me best.”

 

 

EVELINE SAT BY the window, staring out at the night. They’d found a boarding house at a village not far from the Britannia School. Beth was determined to retrieve the Sacagawea.

Eveline held the jade fox, rubbing her thumb over the little pointed muzzle and the alert ears. “Where is he?” she whispered to the fox, to the night, to the high-sailing indifferent moon. “What if she didn’t like it? What if she did something terrible to him? What if it didn’t work, Fox, and she guessed? He’s clever, right enough, he could have fooled her – but I wish he’d send me a message or summat at least. Maybe she really liked it and she’s made him Grand High Poobah and sat him on a silk cushion at her feet. I don’t care if he’s decided to stay, I just hope he’s all right.”

“Why, Lady Sparrow, you are up very late,” came a voice from below.

“Liu!” Eveline almost dropped the fox out of the window at the sight of him. “How’d you...” she whisper-shouted. “Oh, never mind! Wait, I’ll come down... no you can’t come up, the landlady’s a right terror, she’d throw us out if there was boys climbing in the window, stay there!”

She threw a shawl on over her nightgown and scurried down the stairs and opened the door to Liu, all shiny-fine in a new suit that was so smartly cut it could only be from Paris, with a bag over his shoulder and a crystal-headed cane in his hand. “Well, you look sharp enough to cut a stale loaf,” she said. “Where’d you get the fancy threads?”

“I took a little diversion. I wished to be well-dressed.”

“You look ever so different.”

“Do you not like it?”

He looked so crestfallen she almost laughed, except she didn’t want to laugh, she felt it was very important, just now, that she didn’t laugh. “Oh, no, it’s very nice, I’m just more used to, you know, all that silk and that. Liu...”

“Yes?”

“It worked all right, then?”

“Oh, most splendidly, and I am in a position of great favour, and Her Majesty is delighted with the ingenuity of her servant and the triumph over her rival, which creates a pleasing atmosphere for everyone.”

“And the Dragon? The other one, I mean.”

“He has been persuaded to view the Gift as a piece of modern, Western, ugly, noisy vulgarity that would have contaminated his court.”

“You’re a clever bastard.”

Liu bowed. “Both.”

“I’m so pleased to see you.”

“I am pleased to see you too, Lady Sparrow. But not in that shade of unflattering blue.”

“What?” Eveline glanced down at her white nightgown and pink woollen shawl.

“You are blue. It is too cold for standing on doorsteps in nightgowns. Will you invite me in? I promise your landlady will never know I am here.”

“Well, considering what you’ve already got away with – all right, then. But we gotta keep quiet, I don’t want to wake Mama and Beth, either.”

The parlour fire had long gone out, but the fringed plush cover from the ottoman served as a blanket, which Eveline tucked around her chilled feet as Liu lit the candles on the mantel. She looked up to see him smiling at her. “What?”

“You have changed, since I saw you first.”

For once lost for words, she looked away.

“What do you plan, Lady Sparrow?”

“I want to set up a school. I need some money. Mama doesn’t want me robbing, but I don’t know how else to get it. I tried to explain, but... well, I don’t want her upset. She’s been through enough.”

“Oh, I knew I had forgotten something.” Liu handed her a small wooden box carved with leaves and running deer.

“What’s this?”

“It is from your sister. She thought you might want something pretty, because everything here is so ugly and cold.”

“Charlotte? You saw her?”

“Yes.”

“How is she?”

“Unsettled.” Liu held up a cautioning hand. “Not so much so that she is willing to return, but...”

“Thank you, Liu. Pretty, eh? ’Sprobably a cobweb shawl or something...” Eveline opened the box and swore, vigorously, then clapped a hand over her mouth.

Liu laughed. “Thank you, I think I just learned a new word.”

The jewels glimmered, catching fire from the candle flames.

“Liu, are they real?”

“Oh, yes. The Folk have a liking for such things, but as with most pleasures, they become bored, and forget them or give them away. They are probably only a handful of what Aiden has given her.”

“Did you make her do this?”

“Make her? No. Would you be unhappy if I may have possibly suggested to her that such a Gift was appropriate? After all, you deserved something for your efforts.”

“Unhappy? You’re joking, encha? This is just what I need! Of course, I’ll have to find a reliable fence...” She saw Liu’s expression. “Someone who deals in dodgy gear. No-one’ll think I came by ’em honest.”

“Ah. So what do you plan?”

“Sit down, instead of standing there like a post, and I’ll tell you.”

He did. And when, despite the plush cover and the shawl, she began to shiver again, and he put his arm around her shoulders, she didn’t move away. “I want to make a school,” she said. “But it won’t just be a school. It’ll turn out women who know what’s what and give ’em a chance to do what they’re good at. But once they’re trained up, some of them... well. They’ll be doing a few other things, too.”