Ember Island

by Kimberley Freeman

  Nell turned and squealed. “Oh! It’s my favorite! You know, when I was eight or nine, I used to wear a green sash all the time, and pretended it was Gawain’s baldric.”

  “I’m surprised you could read and understand the poem at that age.”

  “I read before I was three,” she said proudly. “I have a good brain and a fair hand and I love to write my own stories. Look.” Nell placed Pangur Ban carefully on the desk and picked up a sheaf of papers. “I’m writing an epic poem in the style of Beowulf at the moment. There are many monsters.” She began to read: “The creature’s jaw dripped vile gobbets of blood and gore; and the hero shuddered all the way into his soul with mortal horror.”

  “That’s very . . . colorful,” Tilly said.

  “I’m very proud of this one. What I am terrible at is embroidery.”

  “I can help you with that,” Tilly said. “And perhaps you can introduce me to a few medieval stories that I don’t know.”

  “Have you read The Canterbury Tales?” she asked, with a sly tilt of her head.

  “Yes, of course.”

  Her eyes widened. “Don’t ever tell Papa that there are rude ones. He’d take the book away.”

  “I shan’t.” Tilly thought about the copy of The Canterbury Tales in the library back at Lumière sur la Mer. Ashes now.

  “What is it?” Nell asked.

  Tilly shook her head, confused. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “An expression crossed your face. Like a goose had walked over your grave.”

  Tilly told herself to guard her expression more carefully around the girl: she was very sharp. “I was thinking about the library in a house I once lived. A house on an island, but very different from this one. All the books got burned.”

  Nell recoiled. “Books all burned? That’s utterly tragic. Whose was the house?”

  She had said too much. “It was a long time ago. Somebody I knew. The house was called Lumière sur la Mer.”

  “The light on the sea? That’s lovely. We should give this house a similar name. Light on the sea, stars on the water, something like that. What do you think?”

  “Stars on the water is nice.”

  “Come, I’ll show you your room. You are probably tired and in need of a rest.”

  Nell, who had now warmed up considerably, led Tilly down the western corridor and opened up the door to a small but cozy room, with blue flocked wallpaper and a big oak canopied bed. Tilly went to the window and drew the curtain. It looked directly over the garden.

  “This is lovely,” Tilly said. Through the hedges, she could make out the figure of a woman, all dressed in white. She wondered if this was the female prisoner Sterling had spoken of.

  “The bathroom is next door,” Nell said, “between your room and mine. I’ll leave you be now and come fetch you for supper.”

  “Thank you, Nell.”

  Nell left, then a second later was back, before Tilly had had a chance to sit on her bed and ease off her shoes.

  “Tilly?”

  “Yes?”

  “I hope we may be friends.”

  Tilly smiled. “I’m sure we will be.”

  •

  Tilly often dreamed of fire. Surging fire, running from it, ashes swirling all around her. Nothing more clear or specific than that. This night, her first night on Ember Island, she woke from the dream to the crack of thunder.

  It was late. Very late. She had left her window open an inch for the sea breeze—she didn’t think she’d ever get used to the sticky nighttime warmth here—and now a cold wet wind was whistling through it. She rose, drew the curtain, and closed the window. She could feel with her toes that there was water on the floor and hoped nobody would find out she had let the rain in on her first night here. Tilly lit a candle and bent down to mop up the water with the dress she had worn that day, then hung the dress on the back of her chair and extinguished the candle. She stood at the closed window, watching the storm. The rain sheeted down with a power and intensity she had never seen. The garden heaved under the weight of the water.

  What had the gardening prisoner done? Did she deserve to be locked up in a miserable prison on an island where, as Dr. Groom had said, all the colony’s outcasts finished their journeys? Did she deserve it any more than Tilly might, if people knew what she had done?

  I got angry and set a house on fire, then I locked my husband and his lover in.

  No, that wasn’t the whole truth. That was the version of events she tortured herself with on nights as black as these. Yes, she had been angry. A fire had started accidentally. She had locked her husband in a room that was easy to escape from, to give her enough time to run because she feared for her own safety. She had no idea the house would go up, she had no idea that his lover was upstairs. She could not possibly have foreseen the consequences of her actions.

  But it didn’t matter how many times she had reassured herself, the black feeling hung about her and wouldn’t go away.

  FOURTEEN

  An English Garden

  Nell was terrifyingly precocious. Tilly struggled against the feeling that she could not teach the girl anything she didn’t already know. The first Latin and Greek exercises Tilly set for her had induced in Nell fits of laughter.

  “But, Tilly,” she said, pink cheeks shining. “That’s far too easy.”

  She had settled when Tilly suggested she do a double translation of parts of Bede’s Latin Ecclesiastical History and was now quietly working away, her pen clinking on the lip of the ink bottle then scratching at her paper. Nell insisted upon not using a slate and pencil. She loved pen and ink, had developed a tiny, flowery script all her own; and apparently her father indulged her by giving her paper from his own office. A warm sunbeam came in through the tall window, between the heavy drapes, and illuminated their papers and books. Tilly supervised while idly unpicking Nell’s stitching from that morning. The problem was Nell didn’t have the patience for sewing. She raced ahead, keen for it to be over so she could galvanize her brain again. Tilly couldn’t blame her. The girl was clearly formed for more important things than cross-stitch.

  “Finished the first one!” Nell declared.

  Tilly looked over her work, realizing she was anxious. She needed to find at least one error to prove to the girl that she was worthy of being a teacher and not just a fixer of poor cross-stitch. “Very good,” she said, slowly. “But you’ve mixed up your cases here. Ablative?”

  “Ah, yes. You’re right.” She smiled slowly. “I’m working too fast to try to impress you.”

  “Impress me? Or intimidate me?”

  Nell laughed. “I think the former. Though I have done quite a lot of the latter with past teachers, I must admit.”

  Tilly hid her smile. “Now translate it back into Latin. Without looking at the original.”

  “Right.” Nell put her head down, flicking through her dictionary and grammar guide. The little wooden cat watched over her.

  Tilly read over her shoulder. She had chosen the famous remarks about man’s life on earth, likening it to a sparrow flying through a hall on a wintry night: what follows it or what comes before, we have no way of knowing. The warmth of the room ebbed away on reading the line. Where was Jasper now? Was he in heaven? Or somewhere else? Was he aware of what had happened to him? Would he hate her for what she had done?

  A soft knock at the door made them both look up.

  “Papa, my new governess has set me the most difficult task,” Nell said with an excited smile.

  “Is that so?”

  “She is performing it alarmingly well,” Tilly added.

  “I mixed up my cases,” Nell said, and again, she sounded thrilled. Not frustrated or ashamed.

  “Then you need to slow down and take more care,” Sterling said. He turned his eyes to Tilly. “I’m pleased that she’s enjoying working with you.”

  “So am I.”

  He folded his hands behind his back. “I have considered your request from yesterday and
decided the answer is yes.”

  Tilly was baffled. “My request?”

  “Yes. About the garden. I’m going to have 135 clear you a spot and you may do what you like with it.”

  “One-three-five is the prisoner’s number,” Nell said, sensing Tilly’s confusion. “We don’t call them by their names.”

  “I see. And will I have to . . . work with 135?”

  “She is perfectly safe and approachable and will show you where everything is. But you need not talk with her or have anything but the barest interaction with her. Prisoner 135 works the garden because she loves it, she’s very good at it—we won a government award for our gardens—and her conduct here has been beyond reproach. Prisoners often earn the better jobs around the island for good conduct. The uncontrollable ones end up chained together in the cane fields.”

  “And does 135 have a real name that I could use when I speak to her?” Tilly asked.

  He frowned. “I’d have to look that up, but I’d certainly discourage you from becoming friendly with her, no matter how well behaved she is.”

  “Prisoners are prisoners for a reason,” Nell said, with all the conviction of somebody who had been drilled her whole life to repeat a phrase.

  “Yes. Well.” Sterling cleared his throat. “In any case, Miss Lejeune . . . Tilly. In any case, I’d be happy for you to spend some of your free time in the garden. I want you to be happy here.” He shifted his gaze. “Nell’s education means a great deal to me.”

  “Thank you, Superintendent Holt,” Tilly said.

  As soon as he left, Nell leaned across to Tilly and said, “Hettie Maythorpe. That is 135’s real name.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I see her nearly every day. I was curious. I had a look in Papa’s registry. Don’t you dare tell him.”

  Tilly trod cautiously. “It is very improper for you to look at your father’s paperwork, Nell. Now back to work.”

  Nell reddened, chastened, and put her head down to continue working. Secretly Tilly was dying to ask if Nell knew what Hettie had done. She rose and went to the window. The sun was warm on her face and dazzled on the cane fields. She thought about men, chained together out there.

  “Finished!” Nell declared.

  Tilly turned. “How much sugarcane is on Ember Island?” she asked.

  “Forty-five acres of it. You’re thinking about what Papa said, aren’t you? About the chain gangs? They have to chain them up. The cane gets so high in autumn that escapees could hide in it.”

  “Has anyone ever escaped?”

  Nell shook her head. “Fourteen prisoners have tried. Eight were recovered, six died.” She held up her translation. “Are you going to check this?”

  Tilly brought her mind back to the present. “Of course,” she said. She returned to the desk and reached out to take the paper.

  Nell grasped her wrist. “You really mustn’t feel sorry for them. Papa is a good superintendent. He is very humane. But we must remember that they are here to be punished and that is good for them and for their souls and for the communities left behind.”

  “Thank you, Nell. I have much to learn about living in a place like this.”

  “I’ve been here since I was three. I know no other life. You can always ask me.” Nell gave her a dazzling smile. “I bet you find no errors in that translation.”

  Nell bet right. Tilly then set her the task of resewing the bad embroidery, with a metronome timing her stitches so she couldn’t rush. It ticked on in the dusty library while Tilly sat on a chair pulled up to the window, a book open but unread in her lap. Her mind was out there, in the cane fields, with the prisoners chained, one to another, for their sins. She had chains for her sins too, attaching her forever to things she couldn’t run from and no golden plants high enough to hide behind.

  •

  While Tilly was already growing fond of Nell, her company was exhausting. Her mind ranged from one thing to another with lightning speed; she had an opinion about everything and was certain Tilly wanted to hear it; and she liked to be physically very close, which Tillly found cloying in the sticky humidity. Returning to her company at suppertime after a short break meant Tilly had to hide a sigh of exhaustion. The previous night, her first night, Nell had talked to her as insistently as a steam train for the entire meal. But tonight was different because Sterling had joined them.

  “Good evening, Tilly,” he said. He had taken off his jacket and was in a white cotton shirt and vest. His sleeves were rolled casually up towards his elbows, revealing a pair of surprisingly strong forearms. Tilly felt the first flush hit her cheeks and had to look away.

  “Good evening, Superintendent Holt,” Tilly said, sitting down next to Nell.

  Nell immediately moved her chair closer. “What are we doing in lessons tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Tilly isn’t working now,” Sterling said gruffly. “Give her a chance to breathe, Nell.”

  Nell dropped her head and Tilly felt sorry for her, so she rubbed her arm lightly. “I’m sure we’ll have a lovely day no matter what we do.”

  An awkward silence descended. The maid brought out a small roll of roasted pork, bowls of potatoes and peas, and a gravy boat. Sterling stood to carve the meat and they passed the plates around in silence, helping themselves. Then Sterling cleared his throat and said, “Tilly, I wonder if you would join me in the parlor after our meal so I may speak with you alone?” His face was very serious.

  “Of course,” Tilly said, cursing the guilty ticking of her heart in her throat. She had no reason to assume he wanted to speak to her about her past or that she had somehow offered him some offense that needed pointing out.

  Nell pouted. “Why can’t I join you?”

  “Because you are a child, Nell,” he answered, without elaboration.

  Nell knew when she was defeated. She ate in sulky silence. The quiet was broken only by the tick of the clock and the clank of their cutlery against their plates.

  When they were finished, Sterling urged Nell to go fetch the maid to clear up, then head off to her room to read before bed.

  “You will come with me?” Sterling asked, setting down his napkin and pushing his chair back.

  “Yes. Please lead the way.”

  Evening was closing in now, and she followed Sterling into the parlor by the light of a lantern. He lit the other candles in the room and went to the liquor cabinet beside the piano. The floorboards were partly covered by a thick rug with an intricate Indian design on it. She had the urge to slip off her shoes and sink her bare toes into the pile.

  “Please sit,” he said. “Can I offer you a drink? Brandy?”

  She shuddered. The smell or taste of it would bring back too many dark memories. “No, I . . .”

  “Sherry?”

  “Yes. That would be lovely.”

  He set out two small crystal glasses and pulled the stopper from a bottle of sherry, speaking the whole time. “I hope you don’t mind me taking you aside, but I need to be able to speak to you freely about Nell.”

  “I’m happy to do as you wish,” she said.

  He handed her a glass. “Before I start I need to reassure myself that Nell isn’t listening in.” He cocked his head and, sure enough, Tilly heard footsteps retreating. He shook his head regretfully, clinking his glass against hers. “Nell is a terrible eavesdropper.”

  “She has a quick brain and gets bored easily.”

  “I know. And I am so glad that you know already. Her last teacher, one of the turnkeys’ wives, never understood that about Nell. She thought the girl was simply trouble.”

  Tilly remembered that Dr. Groom had called Nell “uncontrollable.” “Well, I like Nell very much.”

  “And she clearly likes you. I couldn’t have wished for a better start for the two of you. But tonight I saw her cozy up to you and I . . . I needed to say something.”

  Realization dawned. Tilly felt embarrassed that she hadn’t understood until now. She had already allowed Nell to be t
oo familiar with her. “I understand,” she said, “and I will absolutely keep my distance from now on if—”

  “No, no,” Sterling said, raising a long hand to stop her. “No, that’s not it at all. Our capacity to love is what sets us apart from animals, Tilly. I am happy for Nell to grow to love you, which I am sure she will. You are everything she wants to be one day: clever and graceful.”

  Tilly willed herself not to blush.

  “I simply wanted to say . . .” He paused, struggling for words. “Nell’s mother died only a year ago. If she does come to love you, will you promise not to leave too soon? You are a young woman of many accomplishments and some perceive Ember Island to be an unpleasant environment, so isolated, so far from everything. Could you guarantee me a full year at least?”

  So isolated, so far from everything. Exactly where Tilly needed to be. “I can absolutely guarantee you that, Superintendent.”

  He smiled at last and it transformed his face. She could imagine how he might have looked as a boy: with a hairless jaw and freckled nose. “Then you’d better start calling me Sterling,” he said.

  •

  At four o’clock on Friday, when the heat was cooling off the island with the sea breeze and the lengthening shadows, Tilly finished Nell’s lessons for the week and changed into a housedress for gardening. She was curious to see the small plot that Sterling had set aside for her and think about what she might do with it. He had told her that Prisoner 135 worked in the afternoons and evenings to avoid the worst of the sun, so Tilly set off down the front steps and into the sprawling garden to find her.

  Tilly saw her kneeling at the foot of a row of hydrangeas, pulling weeds. She wore a plain white shirt and white skirt, that were stained with grass and mud. Black writing was printed across the back of her clothes. Tilly paused, watching her for a while, not sure how to approach.

  Then the woman stood and turned, almost as though she had heard Tilly coming. She was older than Tilly by fifteen or twenty years. Her dark hair was streaked gray and tied back in an untidy bun; she was sturdy and florid, with dark eyes and heavy eyebrows. She considered Tilly without expression, offering neither welcoming smile nor hostile scowl.