Free Shanghai Sparrow by Gaie Sebold Page B

shepherdess, in the sort of flounced, beribboned costumes that always made Eveline give a silent snort. Anyone who thought you went herding sheep guyed up like that had never hauled one of the stupid beasts out of a bramble patch – or helped with a lambing.
    Neither figurine had been worth a lot, even before whatever rough handling had robbed the shepherd of some of his fingers and the shepherdess of her elegantly pointing toe. Between them, leering, was a Toby jug of immense and grinning ugliness, stuck full of pens and slate pencils. Eveline took to him immediately – he was worth even less money than the chipped shepherd and shepherdess, but was by far the most cheerful thing in the room.
    “So, Mr Holmforth, what have you brought me?” Miss Cairngrim said, turning up the lamp and examining Eveline as though she were a dusty mantelpiece.
    “Eveline Duchen. A thief,” Mr Holmforth said. “A child of the streets, of little education, uncertain temperament, deceptive nature, and excessive pride.”
    Eveline, who had been called worse, though seldom in such fancy language, simply sighed. She was weary, hungry, and despite her resolution on the doorstep, more than a little unnerved. It was all very strange. And where was everyone? Going from the lights she had seen, and the sheer size of the place, there must be other people in it, but she couldn’t hear a sound. It was all reminding her rather too much of arriving at Uncle James’s. Shoes, she told herself. Shoes and clothes and a pension.
    “I see,” said Miss Cairngrim, apparently unmoved by Holmforth’s litany. “And this is the girl you believe is suitable for training?”
    “Whether she is or not, I require it,” Holmforth said, his voice cold as a knife blade. Eveline saw the muscle in Miss Cairngrim’s jaw twitch. “Her education is to concentrate on those areas in which I instructed you. Otherwise, she is to receive the same as the other girls. She has received the basics and not much more, but she appears reasonably intelligent. She may have a facility for languages; I have heard her speaking French.”
    He must have been the man she saw on the docks – or perhaps he had overheard her chatting with her friend Bon-Bon.
    “I believe she can read,” Holmforth went on.
    “Come here, child.” Miss Cairngrim beckoned her forward.
    Eveline obeyed. She tried to hold her chin up, although her stomach was churning and her knees felt as though they had been replaced with some sort of shuddering liquid.
    Miss Cairngrim walked around her, looking her up and down. She came back to the front, and took Eveline’s chin in her hand. “Hmm. Open your mouth.” She peeled Eveline’s lips back from her teeth, exactly as though she had been a horse, then let go and stood back, the elbow of her right arm propped in her left palm, tapping at her own lip with a forefinger. “Lift up your skirt.”
    “I don’t think so,” Eveline said.
    The slap landed before Eveline knew it was coming. “Shit!” She put a hand to her stinging cheek, and eyed the door; she didn’t quite manage to duck the next slap. The calm, considering expression on Miss Cairngrim’s face never changed.
    “Understand this, Eveline Duchen. If you are to stay here, you will not use such disgusting language. You will obey instantly whenever I or any of your instructors ask something of you, whether it is to lift your skirt, do a headstand, or wash your mouth out with lye. If you do not, you will be punished. Every time you transgress, the punishment will be more severe. Do you understand?”
    Eveline glanced towards Holmforth, who was watching calmly, as though this were all in a day’s work. Which it probably was.
    She bit her lip. Even if she could make it out of here, she was a long way from home, and there were the dogs. She’d been far from home in unsafe places before, and survived it, but it wasn’t an experience she had any desire to repeat without more information and some food in