The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow by Katherine Woodfine

Author:Katherine Woodfine [Woodfine, Katherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Egmont UK Ltd
Published: 2015-06-03T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Sophie put on her hat without bothering to check whether it was at the right angle, or whether her hair was tidy. She had spent a restless night reliving every second of yesterday’s terrible interview with Sergeant Gregson. And even when she had at last fallen asleep, her dreams had been troubled.

Now, in the hazy morning light, yesterday seemed like the memory of a nightmare. She could still scarcely believe it had happened. The thought of what the other staff at Sinclair’s must now be thinking and saying about her made her feel sticky all over with hot shame.

The strange thing was that what she minded most was being sent away from Sinclair’s itself. She was surprised to realise how much the store had come to mean to her. All that beauty . . . There was nothing beautiful here in the bare lodging-house room, she thought, looking around at the peeling walls, the empty mantelshelf, the bed with its faded eiderdown. Once again she had been torn away from a place she loved and people that she cared about, she thought bitterly.

She struggled to swallow the lump that was threatening to rise in her throat. She had to pull herself together. She would simply have to look for another job, that was all.

But she would not be looking for work in another shop, she thought soberly. No ordinary draper’s shop, nor even another of the big London department stores like Huntington’s could ever compare with Sinclair’s. She would have to find something else to do. Perhaps she could be a music teacher, she thought. Miss Pennyfeather had always said she had a good ear. But she hadn’t been near a piano for months, not since she left Orchard House, and surely she would need a good deal of practice before she could approach the standard that would be expected of a teacher. Drawing, perhaps? Her Papa had often praised her drawings, and unlike dear old Miss Pennyfeather, he wasn’t in the least given to exaggeration. But she would be expected to have references – or at least the names of other pupils she had taught. It was no good – she was just too young and inexperienced to teach anyone anything.

A nursery-maid then? That couldn’t be too bad? Or maybe she could become a paid companion to some wealthy elderly lady? She couldn’t possibly need any special experience to do that. There was bound to be something she could do, she said to herself as she put on her gloves, noticing as she did so that the finger-ends were wearing thin. She would place an advertisement in The Lady. ‘Reliable young lady seeks respectable employment.’ She concentrated on how she would word it as she went down the stairs and out into the early morning rain.

The truth was that she had not wanted to go out at all that morning. What she had wanted to do more than anything else was to stay inside, far away from everything and everyone that had anything to do with Sinclair’s.

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