Ember Island

by Kimberley Freeman

  Tilly said, “Hello . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to call the woman 135, so she trailed off and waited.

  “Are you Miss Lejeune?” the woman said.

  “Yes.”

  “The superintendent said you might come. Let me show you the section of the garden that will be yours.” She offered a small smile, and Tilly’s shoulders relaxed.

  She fell into step beside the prisoner. “Thank you. I would like that. I . . . Look, I know your name is Hettie. But I know I’m supposed to use your number . . .”

  “Call me Hettie. Some of the turnkeys do. The chaplain always does.”

  “Good. Thank you, Hettie.”

  “The superintendent told me that you are a keen gardener.”

  “I find putting my hands in soil soothes me,” Tilly responded, guardedly, not sure how much small talk was too much. Sterling had been very clear that she oughtn’t befriend Hettie.

  “I agree,” she said, emphatically. “If I didn’t have the garden . . . well, I would have sunk into despair by now I am certain.”

  Tilly said nothing, though she wanted to ask a million things. What did you do? Why are you here? When will you be allowed to go home?

  Hettie led Tilly down a long row of rose beds to a back corner. “You’ll have to clear it first. I can help.”

  The plot was ten feet by ten feet, covered in old garden rubbish and weeds. There was enough shade here from a spreading fig tree for her to work in the afternoons without fear of freckling. It was right at the edge of the escarpment, so she could catch the sea breeze and be distracted as often as she pleased by the view of fields and bay. Her heart leapt at the possibility that she might find some happiness here.

  “I’m afraid I’ve used it as a dumping ground for all my cuttings. But we can put those over the other side of that line of bushes and nobody will see them, and this can be your own little corner of the gardens.”

  “Thank you so much,” Tilly said.

  “Don’t thank me. Thank the superintendent.”

  Tilly looked back towards the house. From here she could only see the roof past the trees and hedges. It would be a place that she could get some distance from Nell, too, if she needed it. Like Hettie, the work in the garden might keep her from sinking into despair. “I’m grateful for your offer of help,” Tilly said, “but I am keen to do this myself. Not to have to talk, just to think . . .”

  “I understand,” Hettie said with a smile. Her mouth was very small and her smile was little more than a turning up of the corners, but her eyes were kind. “But I am here if you need me. And I can work in silence if needs be.” Hettie drifted off, disappearing back amongst the bushes. Tilly stood for a few moments, reflecting on the work that needed doing. She had guaranteed Sterling at least a year. She had plenty of time to clear and turn soil and plant and tend. She wandered back to the house in the afternoon cool, only to collide with Nell coming the other way.

  “Oh, there you are!” exclaimed Nell. “I wondered where you’d got to.”

  “Your father has given me a plot in the garden.”

  “Can I see?”

  “Follow me.”

  Nell chatted idly as they walked, then stopped to view the plot with a look of concern. “But that will be such a lot of work for you.”

  “I don’t mind it. I’ll enjoy it.”

  “I can help.”

  Tilly took a deep breath. She had been anticipating this. “Nell, you know when you are reading a truly wonderful book, how you like to imagine the world has gone away and it jars you terribly if somebody speaks to you or interrupts you?”

  Nell looked back at her with big, sad eyes. “Oh. I see.”

  “I will be a better friend to you if I have time on my own at the end of every day.”

  Nell formed a resolved expression. “You are quite right. And I do need to devote much more time to my epic if I ever want to save Prince Claudio from the maw of the Firebeast.”

  “Absolutely. I cannot wait to see how he escapes.”

  “You can always ask 135 to help too,” Nell said, then dropped her voice low. “You needn’t be afraid of her, I know what—” The wind picked up then, rattling through the treetops and pulling strands of Tilly’s hair loose. Nell looked up at the sky. “Another storm coming,” she said.

  Tilly didn’t want to change the topic. “What were you going to say? I know what . . . ?”

  Nell put her fingers to her lips. “Perhaps I oughtn’t say. Will you be cross and tell Papa?”

  Tilly shook her head, leaned in against Nell’s ear. “I want to know.”

  Nell turned her head, met Tilly’s eyes. “I know what they say about her. That she won’t commit the same crime again. She can’t commit the same crime again.”

  “Why? What did she do?”

  Nell held her gaze, didn’t blink. Then whispered, “She killed her husband.”

  FIFTEEN

  Evening Conversation

  Tilly closed the door of the little stone chapel behind her, shutting out the bright sun and humid heat. In the last two days, the fierceness of the subtropical summer had become apparent. Damp heat clung under her arms and between her breasts, perspiration beaded along her hairline, and she wanted more than anything else to strip down to her chemise and petticoat and sit very still somewhere cool. There hadn’t even been the respite of an evening thunderstorm. She hadn’t the slightest inclination to work in the garden: the very idea of doing hard physical work in these conditions made her ill. Instead, she had sewn two cotton nightgowns, thin and sleeveless, to wear as she melted into her bed at night. Then she lay, in and out of sleep, on top of the covers. Window open, fighting off the occasional buzzing mosquito that made its way under the net. Nell had reassured her that it wouldn’t remain this hot forever; that all that they needed was a change from the southeast that would bring cool ocean air flowing over them. But in the meantime, she sweltered.

  So the comparative cool of the chapel was welcome. She made her way down between the rows of wooden pews and slid into the front one. Trapped air and unfinished wood. One little window let in a beam of yellow sun. She bowed her head and clasped her hands and prayed, as she had every day since Nell had told her about Hettie’s crime.

  Forgive me, Father. Forgive me for what I did to my husband. I didn’t know he would die. He wasn’t without sin, but it was for you, not me, to decide his punishment. I am sorry. I am sorry. Forgive me.

  She raised her head and looked at the icon of Jesus on his cross that hung on the wall behind the lectern. “Forgive me,” she said aloud.

  A cleared throat behind her made her turn sharply. She had always been alone in here before now, but this time a tall, plump man stood in the aisle, looking at her curiously. His hair was completely white, his skin was the exact color of undercooked pastry, and moist with a slick of perspiration.

  “Hello,” she said, climbing to her feet, pulse thudding guiltily at her throat. “I didn’t know you were there.”

  “I just came in. You didn’t hear me?”

  She shook her head. She had been too immersed in the recriminations in her head.

  He looked at her, his expression both cocksure and greedy as his eyes roamed from her hair to her waist and back to her face. “I didn’t mean to alarm you. I’m the chaplain, Mr. Burton.”

  “I’m Miss Lejeune. Eleanor’s governess.”

  A light of recognition went on in his eyes. “Ah. The governess. I had wondered when I would meet you.” He strode down the aisle and extended his hand. She gave him hers and he lifted it gently to his mouth to kiss it. His lips were too wet, pressed against her fingers for too long. She straightened her shoulders so she wouldn’t shudder. As soon as her hand was free, she clasped it against her other hand, safely behind her back.

  “May I ask . . . ?”

  “Just praying,” she answered, hoping he wouldn’t prod her further.

  “I heard you say, ‘Forgive me.’ ”

  “Yes, I . . .” Till
y looked behind her at Jesus, whose eyes were still turned mournfully heavenwards. Had Jasper gone to heaven? Had he thought about heaven before he died, or had he fought, animal-like, until the last moment, against smoke and heat and terrible injuries from his fall through glass?

  She turned her attention back to Mr. Burton, hoping her horror wasn’t clear on her face. “I have rather a bad temper,” she finished. “I got angry when I accidentally stepped on my hairbrush this morning and threw it so hard that I cracked my mirror. It was very childish. I’m praying to improve myself.” Tilly cursed herself for the silly, thin fabrication. She certainly didn’t want to be known as a thrower of hairbrushes.

  If he could tell she was lying, he gave no indication. “It’s a good idea to improve oneself. Especially if one is bad tempered. And slovenly enough to have left a hairbrush on the floor.”

  She bristled at him calling her slovenly, although that made no sense as she had just admitted it to him.

  “You’re welcome in the chapel at any time. To pray, to think, or to escape the heat.” He smiled in a knowing way, that smug surety returning to his countenance. “I would always like to see you here.”

  Tilly felt uncomfortable and hot-faced, but not because of the weather. Was she imagining the glint in his eye, the obvious sexual interest?

  “And will you be coming to the service on Sunday?”

  “I expect I will come with Eleanor and her father,” she replied.

  He nodded, a half smile on his lips. “Good. Now I have matters to attend to, so if you’ll forgive me . . .” He offered her his hand again.

  Tilly thought about his wet lips, his hungry expression, and she folded her hands behind her back. “Good-bye,” she said.

  His hand waited, in awkward space for one second, two. Then, with lips so tight they went white, he withdrew it, nodded curtly, and left.

  Tilly sank into the pew. She would have to be much more careful about hiding her guilty feelings, if she also wanted to hide what caused them.

  •

  Late on Saturday night the cool change did come through, as Nell predicted it. Tilly’s window was open so she felt and heard it clearly. The clatter of palms growing louder, the rustle of leaves in the monstrous fig trees. Then the gust through the window, fresh and sweet. She rose and went to the window, leaned her upper body out as far as she could to catch the breeze, letting it dry the perspiration on her skin and bring out her bare arms in goose bumps.

  A small noise caught her attention. She turned to see Sterling, shirtless and in long johns, walk out onto the verandah steps. Clearly he had woken with the cool change and come out to enjoy it too. Tilly was shocked into immobility at seeing him so undressed. The shape of his shoulder, his arm, the musculature of his back. She flushed warm again, then realized she needed to pull herself inside if she didn’t want him to see her in a comparable state of undress.

  She withdrew, dropped the sash. Lost control of the window in her haste so that it bounced shut loudly in its frame.

  Tilly threw herself facedown on her bed, hiding hot-faced laughter in her soft cotton pillow slip.

  •

  The Sunday service in the chapel was attended by the prison staff. Prisoners had their service later in the day in the stockade, under lock and key. Tilly sat in the front row with Nell, who held her hand and chatted while the chapel filled up with turnkeys and clerks and storekeepers and trade supervisors. Sterling came in last and sat on the other side of Nell. Tilly hadn’t seen him since last night out on the verandah, and she studiously avoided eye contact in case he guessed that she’d witnessed his moment of undress. He was buttoned into a shirt, trousers, and a single-breasted tweed jacket. A faint smell of soap reached her as he sat down. He had bathed this morning. The thought caught in her imagination and wouldn’t let go. His skin, the warm water, the soap. She was so distracted that she didn’t hear Nell ask her a question.

  “What do you think, Tilly?” Nell prompted.

  “I . . . I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.”

  “I said, this chapel used to be the schoolhouse, and I wondered if you would rather work in here over summer as it’s quite cool. There’s a good view from up on the roof when the whales come and you can only get up if you know the secret ladder in the ceiling.”

  “Secret ladder? That doesn’t sound safe.”

  “It’s perfectly fine. Bertie Randolph and I hid up there for two hours from his mother when she was in a foul mood because I corrected her spelling. It’s a good hiding place.” She turned to her wooden cat, which was in a little woven bag slung across her shoulders. “Isn’t it, Pangur?”

  “No, no. I prefer to be near the books, and as long as we keep the windows and door of the library open for the breeze, it’s not so bad. And it means you don’t have anywhere to hide from embroidery.”

  “Good. We are of one mind,” Nell said with a definitive nod.

  Sterling glanced at Tilly over the top of Nell’s head and gave her a kind smile. She smiled in return, but was too embarrassed by her errant imagination to hold his gaze. She looked away and was fortunately distracted by Mr. Burton taking his place at the front of the chapel, behind a rickety wooden lectern. He began to speak and Tilly tried very hard to focus, so her imagination wouldn’t run away with her again.

  It took only a few moments for her to realize that the sermon was about her.

  “Today I want to speak about anger,” he said. “In particular, the anger that makes us lose control of ourselves and shout or throw things or behave in other imprudent ways. Remember, all of you, that the Proverbs tell us, ‘He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.’ Losing one’s temper leaves you defenseless. You can never be sure what ill might follow: ‘For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.’ ”

  At first Tilly reasoned that their encounter had inspired him to write the sermon and that this was probably acceptable. But as the sermon went on, the references became more pointed, his tone more contemptuous. “A woman, in particular, must take extra care because petty and trivial things tend to crowd the minds of women. It is often those who reckon themselves clever or well read or have a superior idea of themselves above others, especially men, who are the most given to fits of temper. It is a very grave and unpleasant thing for a woman to give in to violent anger.”

  Tilly saw Sterling’s hand reach for and find Nell’s and squeeze it gently. Tilly’s stomach flushed with heat. How dare he? There were only two females in the room: herself and Nell. And really, only Tilly could be considered a woman. The sermon was a very public shaming. It was all she could do to sit still on the hard wooden pew, and not jump to her feet and shout at him. A lesson in controlling her temper in itself.

  After he had finished, he moved on to leading a group prayer for one of the turnkeys’ mothers who was ill. Tilly bowed her head against her clasped hands. The skin on her face was hot to the touch. She kept her head bowed, even when the prayer was finished, so nobody could see her embarrassment.

  Finally the morning service was over. Nell climbed to her feet and declared, “Thank goodness,” but Sterling stayed where he was.

  “You two go on ahead,” he said. “I need to speak with Mr. Burton.”

  Tilly’s heart sank. For certainly Sterling would ask Mr. Burton about the sermon and Mr. Burton would then repeat Tilly’s ridiculous story about losing her temper over a hairbrush and Sterling would think her a fool.

  Nell dragged her out by the hand into the morning sunshine. “Do you think he’s right, Tilly?” Nell said as they walked through the long grass and back towards the dirt road. The other staff dissipated in various directions. “Do you think petty and trivial things crowd the minds of women?”

  “No, I don’t think he’s right,” Tilly said boldly. “I think he is completely wrong and that a mind for the petty or the trivial can appear in either sex. I do not think men and women so different beneath the skin.”

  �
��I agree with you. Completely,” Nell said.

  Tilly looked over her shoulder. “I suppose I shouldn’t speak against him.”

  Nell dropped her voice low and leaned in close. “Mr. Burton is the stupidest person I know.”

  Tilly looked at her serious face and her round eyes, and burst into laughter. Nell did the same and they stood there on the road laughing hard enough to take the edge off some of Tilly’s worry.

  •

  Even though it was Sunday and there were no classes, Nell spent the whole day clinging to Tilly, asking her to join in games or to read with her. Tilly complied, wondering though whether she would be consumed every weekend with the girl. She had a need to sit quietly and think and read to herself. Nell, with her quick mind, got bored too easily.

  At supper, Sterling sat down with them and Tilly examined his face carefully while he wasn’t looking. Did he disdain her now? Had Mr. Burton poisoned his opinion of her? But he gave no indication that anything had changed since last time they spoke.

  Until he finished eating and said, “Tilly, I would like to sit and talk with you in the parlor after dinner.”

  Sit and talk? That sounded ominous.

  Nell interjected before Tilly could answer. “No, but Papa, I had wanted to read Tilly what I wrote today and—”

  “Eleanor Holt!” Sterling roared, in such a big voice that even Tilly was frightened.

  Nell cowered. Tilly had never seen her cower before.

  “Miss Lejeune is your governess. She is paid to work with you from eight until four weekdays only. She is not your nanny. She is not your bosom companion. Before she came along you entertained yourself perfectly well and you will continue to do so.”

  Nell’s bottom lip trembled.

  “Do not cry,” Sterling said gruffly. “You are stronger than that.”

  Nell got her lip under control, and said, “Yes, Papa.”