Ember Island

by Kimberley Freeman

  She stood again, the letter still clutched in her right hand. “I am sorry. I feel unwell. I must go to lie down.”

  She nearly tripped over her chair getting away from Mrs. Fraser and Mr. Hamblyn as quickly as she could. Then into her room, locking the door, throwing herself onto the bed, reading the return address again, as though perhaps she had imagined it the first time.

  Laura Mornington, Le Paradis, St. Peter Port, Guernsey.

  Her past was catching up with her.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Back to the Island

  Tilly’s room at Starwater, on Ember Island, was reassuringly familiar. She closed the door behind her—a signal to Nell to stay away—and dropped her suitcase on the floor. Somewhere in the bottom of that case was the letter from Laura Mornington. She had almost thrown it into the water on the steamer journey back to the island, but couldn’t bring herself to. Should she answer it? How could she answer it? Laura had once said that Chantelle was like family to her. She understood now that it must have been shocking and sad for her when Chantelle disappeared overnight. Shocking and sad enough for Laura to track her down, through port records or shipping registers or the post office or local busybodies, all the way to Mrs. Fraser’s boardinghouse.

  Tilly opened the suitcase, unfolded the letter again, and read the lines on the thin pages within. She had read it many times. . . . worried sick about you . . . terrible fire . . . Jasper and his wife were killed . . . need to know you are safe and well . . . forgive everything you’ve done . . . write to me, write to me please, my dear, so I can put my mind at rest . . .

  But Chantelle Lejeune was dead; and the person Laura had actually tracked down was the person who had caused her death. If Laura somehow discovered she wasn’t Chantelle, then her crime would surely be exposed.

  It wasn’t simply the threat of exposure that frightened Tilly. It was that she had somehow been located when she thought she’d disappeared. Was it even possible to disappear? How close to the ends of the earth would she have to travel before she dissolved into the air and could never be found by her past? She had spoken to Mr. Hamblyn about wild places she could go. Would that conversation come back to haunt her? Would the police scour those places for her, when Hettie escaped and she was blamed?

  Tilly walked to the window and opened it, letting in the sea air. She had no right to ponder these things. If rescuing Hettie held no menace, meant no sacrifice, then Tilly wouldn’t be redeemed. A favor bestowed lightly or easily was not a favor at all. Tilly had to pay for her crimes and getting Hettie off the island would balance the ledger. Yes, she might be caught and punished, but perhaps that was what she deserved.

  She would not answer Laura’s letter. She would not pretend to be Chantelle Lejeune to the people who loved Chantelle Lejeune.

  Tilly’s hands closed over the wooden windowsill. It was warm from the afternoon sun in the west, painted smooth. She knew this windowsill well. She knew this room well, this house. The people in it. The landscape beyond the verandah, the palms and the fig trees, the broad gardens, the dirt road off the escarpment. This had been home for many months. And yet she had to give it up, as she had given up her last home on Guernsey, and the home before in Dorset. Tilly had a hollow sensation in the arches of her feet, as though she were not standing on the world but suspended a fraction of an inch above it. There was no purchase for her here, no matter how desperately she stretched out her toes. The world shifted beneath her, and she waited, helplessly, to come to rest.

  •

  Just on sunset, Tilly knew she had to go to the garden and make plans with Hettie. She was surprised, when stepping off the bottom stair, to see a warder standing near the garden, staring off towards the sea. Hettie worked nearby. Hettie was never usually under guard; as one of the trustee prisoners, it was assumed she needed only accompaniment to and from the stockade. Not supervision.

  Tilly hesitated, took a step back. The warder turned, saw her, gave her a smile. Tilly responded with a short wave, then went back inside. She ran into Nell, coming the other way.

  “Oh, there you are,” Nell said, giving her a hug. “I’m so happy that you’re back. I’ve been quite bored without you.”

  “Why is there a warder watching Hettie?” Tilly asked.

  Nell shrugged. “I’ve no idea. I hadn’t noticed.” Nell cocked her head curiously. “That’s rather an odd question to ask when you haven’t seen me in over a week.”

  Tilly squeezed her. “I’m sorry, I’d never seen her under guard before. Now, where is your story up to?”

  “Oh, it’s taken quite a menacing turn. I don’t know who is going to live or die. Would you like me to read you some?”

  “Can we sit on the verandah? It’s a lovely evening for fresh air.”

  So they sat on the verandah while Nell read and Tilly watched from the corner of her eye. She became convinced that the warder was shirking some other duty because he paid little attention to Hettie. He spent most of his time leaning up against the gardening shed smoking tobacco or working on a little wood carving he was making from a thick twig. So what was she to do? Ask Sterling? That would draw too much attention to her.

  Tilly became aware that Hettie had seen her. Her black eyes indicated she was trying to communicate without words, but such communication was impossible. Instead, Hettie glanced at the warder, who was paying her no attention, and slipped a little further into the western end of the garden.

  Tilly stood. Nell stopped in midsentence, looked at her questioningly.

  “I . . .” Tilly started.

  “There are still two chapters to go.”

  “I have . . .”

  “A headache? Another one?” Nell’s voice was skeptical, even angry.

  Tilly made herself smile, leaned down, and touched Nell’s curls. “You are a dear girl. I have an urge to walk about and think for a while alone. I was cooped up on the steamer and I need fresh air and—”

  “It’s fine,” Nell said curtly. “Go. My story can wait.”

  Tilly flushed with guilt. Nell pushed back her chair and gathered her papers roughly. When she had disappeared into the house, Tilly checked on the guard—his back was half turned to her—and quietly went down the stairs and into the garden.

  Her skin prickled. She expected at any moment to be called back. But then she was out of his line of sight and into the northwest corner of the garden behind a row of hedges.

  Hettie saw her and joined her. They crouched down, close to each other.

  “The turnkey?” Tilly asked.

  “He’s new. He’s meant to be down in the cane fields. The cane is growing so high the prisoners are getting harder and harder to see. I’ve heard him lying to the head turnkey at the women’s wing, saying he spent the afternoon in the fields with the men in chains, when he’s actually whittling and smoking up here. Right under the superintendent’s nose.”

  “Sterling’s office faces the other way.”

  “Can you report him?”

  Tilly shook her head. “It would draw attention to you. To us. No, we’ll have to rely on his inattention.”

  Hettie nodded. “Well, then. If you say.”

  “I have the dresses. I will bring them . . . on the day.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “Soon. When I’ve figured out how it is all to unfold. Try to be patient. You must trust me.”

  “I do trust you.” Hettie reached out and grasped Tilly’s hand, squeezed it.

  Tilly looked down, regarded Hettie’s rough hand. Strong, almost mannish. The dream she’d had returned to her, Hettie as a monster suffocating a man with her weight and strength. A faint shiver spread along her veins.

  Hettie withdrew her hand. “I trust you more than I have ever trusted anyone,” Hettie said. “I have lived for many years without sympathy and I came to believe that I deserved no sympathy. But you . . . you have allowed me to feel as though I belong in the human race again. I cannot ever thank you enough. For what you have done alr
eady. For what will come.”

  Hettie’s warm words were precisely the antidote for Tilly’s cool doubts. So precise that it seemed almost as though Hettie had read her mind. She refocused on the practical steps. “It is probably best if we do not try to speak too often under the circumstances,” Tilly said. “Trust that I am working away at our plan and will come to find you when I need to.”

  “Thank you, Tilly.”

  Tilly stood, stretched her legs, and walked softly away. Behind her, she heard Hettie moving off in the other direction, her feet crackling over leaves.

  But then there were other, lighter footsteps, ahead of her. Tilly froze, every sense alert. She hurried her steps, peering over the hedges.

  And saw Nell, running fast away from her, back up the stairs, and into the house.

  •

  Tilly’s instincts were to pound up the stairs behind the girl, grasp her roughly before she went anywhere near Sterling. How much had she heard? Anything? If not, then why run? But no, she couldn’t go thundering after her. She had to appear cool, rational, she had to deny everything. Not once in the conversation had they used the word “escape.” Whatever Nell had heard, she had only her imagination to interpret it. But if she alerted Sterling to the fact that Hettie and Tilly were meeting secretly to talk, then that might upset all their plans.

  She went inside as calmly as she could. All was quiet. Nell was nowhere in sight. She went to Sterling’s door, rapped bravely.

  “Come.”

  She opened the door. “Have you seen Nell?”

  “Ah, you’re back. Good. No, I haven’t seen Nell since breakfast.” He frowned. “Has she done something wrong?”

  “No, no. All is well. I will see you at dinner.” Then she closed the door before he could say anything else to her, ask any questions about her trip. Although she longed for intimacy with him, she had to hold it as far away from her as possible.

  Tilly moved down the corridor, found Nell’s pages spread out on the table, but no Nell. So she tried Nell’s bedroom, knocked softly.

  “Go away.”

  “Nell, may I speak to you?”

  Nell threw open the door. Her face was sulky and pink. But Tilly noticed for the first time that this wasn’t the petulance of a small child; it was the genuine hurt and betrayal of a young woman.

  “May I come in?” Tilly said, pulse hard in her throat.

  “No, you may not.”

  Tilly kept her voice quiet and even, fearing that an argument would alert Sterling. “Were you eavesdropping?”

  “There are no eaves in the garden,” she snapped.

  “Were you listening in to Hettie and me?”

  “And what if I was? Do you have something to hide?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are you worried?”

  “Then why are you angry?”

  Nell glared at her, then softened a little. “I don’t know.”

  “Let me in.”

  Nell held the door open and Tilly slipped in. Nell closed the door and huffed down on her bed. Tilly sat next to her, studying her profile. She needed to find out what the girl knew or suspected.

  “What did you hear?”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Nell said.

  “I don’t understand why you’re upset.”

  “Because you sent me away saying you needed fresh air and your own company, and you raced straight down the back of the garden to hide with Hettie and talk in soft voices, and I know you’re not even supposed to be talking to her.”

  Tilly’s limbs felt light with relief. So Nell’s anger wasn’t about suspecting an escape plot; it was that she was hurt by being spurned, told a lie.

  “I know I’m not supposed to talk to her,” Tilly said. “And I will understand if you feel you have to tell your father. Hettie and I are friends and we talk about things she cannot say to others. We are both grown women and . . . and you are not. So I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

  “I am nearly thirteen,” Nell said.

  “That is very young still.”

  “I am not a child,” she snapped. Then added, “I’m sorry. I oughtn’t lose my temper.”

  Thirteen. Nell was on the precipice of womanhood. Tilly thought about herself at that age, how her temper had become unmanageable, how every small slight grew to a monstrous insult. Grandpa had come down hard on her, insisting that she learn self-control or spend her life in her bedroom. He had shamed her, criticized her in front of friends and family for her intemperance. She had always believed it to be a flaw in her personality, but looking at Nell now, she wondered if it was simply that the swing of the hinge between childhood and womanhood was confusing and infuriating enough to make a girl sensitive. Why had she been made to feel so ashamed of it? On many occasions, anger had been precisely the right response. When Godfrey had tripped her in the garden or the man at the post office had called her freckle face or Mrs. Beaumont had gossiped to everyone who would listen about Tilly’s all-too-obvious interest in Peter Ireland who worked at the bank.

  Just now, it was perfectly reasonable for Nell to be angry. She was a clever young woman with a strong sense of self and justice, and Tilly had offended her on all three counts.

  “No, I am sorry,” she said. “And I admire you for your good sense of what acceptable behavior is and your courage to point it out.” Tilly wondered how much different her life might have been, if Grandpa had ever said such a thing to her.

  Nell beamed at her. “You do?”

  “Absolutely. And I know your father would admire it too.”

  “I’m not so sure.” Nell reached across to Tilly’s lap and grabbed her hand. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell him about you and Hettie. I don’t want you to be in trouble. I don’t want him to send you away.”

  Tilly stroked Nell’s hand, sadness blooming under her ribs. She was going away anyway and there would be no chance to say good-bye.

  •

  Tilly arrived the next morning early at the library. She was determined to make the next week or so, before she left, a special time for her and Nell. She would be more patient, spend more time listening to her stories, make time to read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight together.

  But Nell wasn’t there yet. A huge pile of her papers lay spread on the table, and Tilly approached them to tidy them before classes started.

  Immediately, she saw that some had a date on the first line, like a letter or a diary.

  A diary. Nell kept a diary.

  Tilly glanced over her shoulder. No Nell. Just Tilly, her ticking pulse and the dust motes in the morning sun in the dim room. Nell had not indicated she suspected Tilly was involved in an escape plan with Hettie, but then Nell was very good at dissembling. Tilly flicked the page over, her eyes scanning for anything that might reveal Nell suspected her.

  She skimmed. A lot of talk about Papa, about how she felt about her new book, about walking on the beach with Tilly. She flicked a few more pages.

  Papa misses Tilly. I can see it clearly. Why can he not see it? Why can he not tell that he needs to ask her to marry him?

  Tilly’s attention was arrested. She picked up the page, read on.

  Ever since she left for the mainland, Papa is a loose end at night. He wears a faraway look in his eyes. He asks me the same question twice and doesn’t listen to either answer. But when Tilly is here, his face is warm and his eyes are on her. I suspect he loves her. She, of course, loves him. There is nothing so obvious in the world as that. Tilly’s face is an open book.

  “Tilly?”

  Tilly spun around, shame-faced, Nell’s diary page in her hand.

  Nell’s eyebrows were pulled down hard. She strode in and snatched the page out of Tilly’s hands. “That,” she said, “is private.”

  “I’m sorry. I was looking for your story, so we could read ahead this morning.”

  Nell pushed in front of her, arranging the pages, putting some aside and keeping others in a jealously guarded pile in front of her. Tilly
felt the prickle of anxiety; was there something in particular Nell was hiding?

  Nell glared up at her. “I would rather you didn’t touch my papers,” she said.

  Their eyes were locked like that a few moments. Nell at her desk, Tilly standing before her. Between them, mutual suspicion where there had once been guileless love. Tilly reminded herself that she was the adult here, that her own suspicions—that Nell knew something—were so far unfounded.

  She forced her face to soften. “Today, we are going to take Sir Gawain down to the beach and read him in the sunshine all morning,” she said.

  Nell, sensing she was being manipulated, didn’t smile. “We are?”

  “Would you like me to ask the kitchen for a picnic basket?”

  “Why are you being so nice to me? Are you not paid to torture me with Latin declensions?”

  “I simply want to enjoy our time together. We have been rather at odds since I arrived back.”

  “That’s because you arrived back different,” Nell said.

  “In what way am I different?”

  “It’s been coming on for a while. You’re distant, preoccupied. You don’t have sherry with Papa in the parlor anymore.”

  Tilly pulled out a chair and sat close to Nell. “And that troubles you?”

  “He was happy. Now he seems . . . not as happy.”

  Tilly was tempted to tell Nell to have this conversation with Sterling. It was him, after all, who had put the distance between them. But there was no point now. Their relationship couldn’t be fixed, and soon Sterling and Nell and Ember Island would all be behind her. “I assure you I am the same woman I always was,” Tilly said.

  Nell nodded, though she still seemed unconvinced. “Yes to the picnic,” she said. “And yes to Gawain, but only if you promise to have sherry with Papa tonight.”

  Tilly shrugged. “Very well, if that’s what it takes to make you happy.”

  “Oh, it would take much more than that,” Nell said, the first glimmer of a real smile for the day on her lips. “But that is a good place to start.”