Katherine Woodfine - The Jewelled Moth

She had almost reached the river now. The air here had its own peculiar tang: a part-sour, part-spicy odour of smoke and turpentine, flavoured with rum from the West India Docks, and always the distinctive smell of the water. Everything started with the river: it was here that Granddad and Dad and Uncle Huan had first arrived in London, all those years ago. Mei could see the dark lines of its myriad cranes and masts sketched against the sky, as she picked her way carefully down towards it.

The streets were busier here: she had to weave her way between horses pulling carts stacked high with wooden crates; a boy selling papers for a ha’penny; clerks on their way to the Customs Office; a gaggle of barefoot children, chasing through the crowds; and men unloading cargo: sacks of grain, great coils of rope and lengths of timber. Everyone was far too busy to pay the least attention to a girl alone with a basket, and Mei began to relax and enjoy the spectacle of the docks at work. The river was usually grey, but today the June sunlight caught it and made it sparkle – here silver, there blue or green. Seagulls were calling above her head; smoke was curling from chimneys on the other side of the river; and boats were jostling their way across the water: steamboats and sailing ships, barges and coasters. She was almost disappointed when she came to the cobbler’s shop and had to turn away from the river to go inside.

The cobbler was a jolly red-faced man, who spent much of his free time in the Star Inn. ‘Boots for your brother, Miss Mei? Here you are. Good as new,’ he said heartily, handing them over to her. But just as he was about to put them into her hands, he suddenly pulled them back. Mei gazed up at him, confused.

‘Will you give your father a message for me,’ he said, in a much lower voice, a grave look on his usually cheerful face.

‘Course,’ said Mei, surprised.

‘Only for your father, mind. Keep mum: not a word to anyone else. Not even those rascal little brothers of yours.’

Mei nodded, increasingly puzzled.

For a moment, the cobbler hesitated. Then, even more quietly, he said: ‘Tell him he’s in the soup.’

‘What?’

‘Up to his neck in it. He’ll know what I mean. Now run along, my dear, and mind how you go .’

He said the last words with a particular emphasis. It was not an ordinary run-of-the-mill farewell – he was warning her about something. She had not the faintest idea what the warning might mean, but in spite of the warm day, a sudden chill crept over her as she left the shop.

The docks that had seemed so lively felt different now. Sailors and stevedores jostled past as she hurried back towards China Town. One man, already drunk, staggered out of an inn doorway into her path then dropped his bottle on the ground and began cursing angrily. She dodged away, but then a little gaggle of children crowded around her, the smallest pulling at her frock to distract her while another’s dirty hands snaked inside her basket. But Mei had not lived her whole life in the East End for nothing. She knew what to do: she pushed the thieving one away, scowled at them all and thundered, ‘Leave off ! Or I’ll set the constable after you!’ in her loudest voice, until they scattered into the crowd.

Her heart bumping now, she walked as fast as she could back to China Town. She did not run. She knew that to run would be to appear frightened and to appear frightened was to be weak, but with every step, the words of the cobbler’s warning were ringing in her ears as loud as the bells of Bow Church. He’s up in his neck in it. In the soup. Mind how you go.

She plunged through the shop door, making the bell clamour loudly, but then stopped dead in her tracks.

The shop was ruined. Furniture was overturned and the shelves had been ransacked: bottles and jars were scattered in all directions, and tins of tea and coffee had been pushed to the floor, spilling their contents. For a moment, the chaos was all she saw: then she realised that in the centre of it all was a single crumpled figure, lying like a broken puppet in the middle of the floor.

‘ Dad! ’ Mei screamed.

CHAPTER TWO

All the way across the smoky city of spires and slums, in the heart of the West End, was a shop of a very different kind. London’s most fashionable department store was crowded with people: the London Season was now in full swing, and anyone who was anyone simply had to be seen at Sinclair’s.

Outside, it was a glorious June morning, and the skies above Piccadilly Circus were a perfect blue. Inside, all eight storeys of Sinclair’s department store were astir with activity. Elegant ladies were perusing gloves and parasols, whilst dapper gentlemen examined flannels and straw boaters. Giddy groups of young people were gathering around the ice-cream counter – Mr Edward Sinclair’s latest American innovation, fast becoming a favourite with London’s fashionable set. At the top of the store, stylish couples were strolling through the roof gardens, which, since Mr Frederick Whitman had chosen them as the setting for his marriage proposal to West End star Miss Kitty Shaw, were considered to be quite the most romantic place in the city. All the while, porters in smart uniforms hurried by with boxes, and the Head Doorman, Sid Parker, swung open the doors to admit more customers to the tune of a merry waltz drifting down from the gallery, where a pianist played a gleaming white grand piano.

Out in the stable-yard, there was just as much going on. A procession of vans was streaming into the yard, each piled high with crates and boxes. Many of them had come directly from the docks of the East End, loaded with cargo from all over the world. There were crates of China tea, bolts of Indian silk, and the finest goods from every corner of the British Empire. It was here that everything arrived, and it was from here too that all the deliveries went out to the grand houses of West London. Even now, another group of porters were busily preparing the next batch, each item carefully wrapped and placed inside a Sinclair’s box. The boxes were loaded into the motor vans and delivery carts, and then they flowed out again in a long cavalcade into London’s streets.

Meanwhile, above them in the store, the elevators swept up and down; the tables in the Marble Court restaurant were laid for luncheon; and in the Millinery Department, several groups of customers had gathered to admire exquisite displays of the latest summer hats – gorgeous creations all fluffy with ostrich feathers or wreathed in flowers. A stylish lady swept by, fanning herself and holding forth to her companion:

‘I do think that white is the only suitable colour for a debutante. Perhaps ivory or écru , or I could tolerate a pale mauve, but to wear anything else would be in very poor taste – don’t you agree?’

The girl walking with them was clearly a debutante herself – a young lady making her first appearances in society. She was gazing around open-mouthed, as if she could hardly believe her eyes. But her amazement was not really so very unusual; after all, Sinclair’s was the most extraordinary store in London, with its lofty ceilings painted with clouds and cherubs, the fountains in its magnificent marble entrance hall, its beautiful golden clock. But it wasn’t just the celebrated decor of Sinclair’s that made it so special. Nor was it the magnificent entertainments that Mr Sinclair always seemed to be staging – one week an elegant thé dansant , the next an exhibition of some remarkable new invention. There was quite simply something magical about the place, from the way that the very air seemed always to be scented with rose and violet and caramel and melting chocolate, to the famous blue-and-gold Sinclair’s boxes, inside which any kind of delightful dreams might be discovered nestling amongst snowy folds of tissue paper and tied with a satin bow.