The Clockwork Sparrow. Katherine Woodfine
to stop talking for more than a second at a time, was just beginning again, when they both stopped suddenly in the passageway at the sound of a voice. It was whispering from behind a clothes rail hung with evening dresses that had been left to one side: ‘Pssst! Sophie! ’
To Sophie’s astonishment, she saw the young porter from the cloakroom hovering behind the rack of gowns. His face was pink and alarmed.
‘What is it?’
He motioned for her to come behind the rack and she did so, Lil following at once, looking intrigued.
As soon as she saw him, Sophie realised why he looked so unhappy. His smart blue uniform jacket was smeared from neck to waist with what looked like mud, but which smelled distinctly worse.
‘Hullo,’ said Lil cheerfully. ‘Are you a friend of Sophie’s? I’m Lil. I say – you’re in rather a state aren’t you? Whatever have you been up to?’
Billy gaped at her for a moment, evidently confused and horrified to have been discovered looking like this by an impossibly beautiful girl in an evening gown. Then he looked desperately at Sophie. ‘I’ve tried to get it off but it just won’t budge,’ he said urgently. ‘The girls will laugh their heads off if they see me like this – and Uncle Sid’ll give me a walloping. And Mr Cooper will sack me for sure. Do you know any way that I could clean it?’
Sophie became serious. Mr Cooper had made it abundantly clear that everything – and everyone – would be expected to be quite perfect before Mr Sinclair carried out his inspection later in the day. She had already seen Cooper dismiss staff who did not come up to his exacting standards. She thought quickly. ‘It will come off easily enough, don’t worry. But it needs laundering properly. We need to let it dry, then brush it down and wash it.’
The sound of voices passing by made her break off and for a moment they all crouched down behind the rack, hoping not to be seen. Billy tried his hardest not to brush mud against any of the gowns.
‘Gosh, this is rather a lark,’ murmured Lil.
‘Sssshhh! ’ Billy and Sophie hissed together.
Sophie turned back to Billy. ‘We need to find you a spare jacket to borrow, just for a day or two. Then I can take this away and wash it and no one will be any the wiser.’
Billy’s face brightened. ‘There must be some spare ones somewhere,’ he said hopefully.
‘In the basement, I think,’ said Sophie, thinking quickly. ‘I’m not sure exactly where though.’
Lil’s eyes lit up. ‘I do!’ she exclaimed. ‘I saw some uniforms in one of the little storerooms down there.’
‘Whatever were you doing there?’ Sophie asked, looking curiously at their new acquaintance. The labyrinth of twisting passages and storerooms in the basement was one place that even she had not much wanted to explore.
‘Oh, just taking a look around,’ said Lil, airily. She grinned. ‘One of those salesmen – Jim something-or-other – was rather insistent about giving me a tour.’
Sophie laughed, but the sound of Sidney Parker’s voice rumbling somewhere not very far away from them made her hurry on. ‘Take that jacket off and I’ll deal with it,’ she said quickly to Billy. ‘Then you and Lil can go down the back stairs to the basement and find another one.’
‘What – in my vest ?’ demanded Billy, pink-faced.
Distinctly, they heard Sidney’s voice calling, ‘Billy! Billy! Where the devil has the boy got to now?’
‘Quickly – go!’ Sophie hissed.
Mortified, Billy wriggled out of his jacket and flung it to her. ‘But what will you do with it?’ he whispered.
Sophie opened the empty hat-box, whisked the jacket inside and put on the lid.
‘Perfect! Come on!’ said Lil cheerfully, grabbing Billy by the arm, and flashing a grin at Sophie as they disappeared.
Lil led the way down a dark, echoing passageway. From somewhere behind her came the young porter’s uncertain voice:
‘Are you sure this is the right way?’
She glanced over her shoulder at him. His face was pale and anxious in the dark. Rather a poor show to be frightened by a few dark corridors, she thought; but then he did seem rather a timid sort of chap. For herself, she rather liked this basement underworld; there was something deliciously mysterious about it.
‘You’re not scared, are you?’ she teased.
‘No!’ he flashed back, a little too quickly. ‘It just seems like an odd place to keep uniforms.’ He hesitated for a moment, then added suspiciously, ‘This isn’t some sort of awful joke, is it?’
Lil felt a little ashamed of herself. The poor fellow looked exactly the sort who would be forever having his leg pulled. ‘Of course not,’ she said, heartily. ‘I say, there are a lot of rooms down here, aren’t there? Dozens and dozens, all of them empty. I suppose they’ll be needed eventually, but for now, hardly anyone seems to come down here.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Billy, muttering something else almost inaudible about not wanting to be seen skulking around a darkened basement with a girl, wearing only his vest.
Lil paid no attention. ‘Here we are,’ she announced triumphantly, pushing the door open on to a small room containing several racks of Sinclair’s uniforms. ‘Well, off you go then,’ she urged. ‘Try them on. One of them will do, I’m sure of it,’ she said, perching on the edge of a wooden crate.
Billy eyed her uneasily. ‘Are you planning to just sit there and watch ?’
‘Would you like me to cover my eyes?’ she asked mischievously.
He ignored her, and wriggled into a jacket that looked about the right size.
‘A perfect fit,’ she said, pleased, bouncing down from her makeshift seat. ‘Now, we’d better get back upstairs before anyone notices we’ve gone. Come on!’
But they had barely stepped out into the passage again before Lil stopped suddenly in her tracks. She could hear something: not the usual quiet creaking sounds of the basement, but something more distinctive – the sound of regular footsteps, coming closer and closer towards them. She grabbed Billy’s arm, and dragged him quickly around a corner, and against a wall.
She could see he was annoyed with her now. ‘What d’you think you’re doing?’ he began crossly, but she put a finger to her lips willing him to be silent. He gazed back at her, confused, then he heard the footsteps too, and understanding, he pressed himself back against the wall. A figure was approaching, shadowy in the dim light. Lil held her breath. Any moment now, they might be discovered. Beside her, Billy squeezed his eyes shut, as if waiting for the moment to come, but she peered round the corner, fascinated, as it approached and then passed by, down the corridor and out of sight.
She let out a long gust of breath.
‘Whoever do you think that was?’ she whispered, intrigued.
‘Shhhh! ’ hissed Billy.
They stood still and waited until the sound of footsteps faded away, before creeping back into the main corridor and up the stairs to the shop floor.
From the very beginning, it had been clear that Edward Sinclair planned to take good care of his staff. They had a far better time of it than their peers in London’s other great stores. They were not expected to sleep in cramped dormitories above the shop, nor to work long hours for low pay. They had proper training, decent wages, and sensible working hours, including regular tea breaks and a substantial midday meal, which they ate in shifts in the large staff refectory. Of course, the food on