Stars Across the Ocean

by Kimberley Freeman

  One unicorn button had been missing from the cuff, and Mrs Robbins had instructed Agnes to sew on a button that didn’t match. After that, she never saw the riding coat again. None of the clothes went to Perdita girls: they would have caused jealousies and fights. Mrs Robbins sold them on and the money went to Captain Forest, as did all the money they earned, to pay for their keep. But Agnes had never forgotten the buttons – the perfect match for this button that she held now, which may have unlocked the secret of her provenance. For what other conclusion could she draw? Surely she must be the illegitimate daughter of the noble and striking, yet famously wild Genevieve Breckby.

  •

  ‘Are you certain this is the right thing to do?’

  Agnes glanced at Gracie. It was early evening on Monday, and they had asked permission for a walk outside the gates, to go to Hatby to consult the coach times for Agnes’s departure in two days. As if Agnes hadn’t memorised every coach departure from the village over her lifetime. Their real objective was to take the path up through the sycamore woods and out through the churchyard to Breckby Manor.

  ‘I am more than certain,’ Agnes said, leading Gracie around a muddy patch on the path. Her friend was blind in one eye and always tripping over things. The woods were dark and cool, quiet but for the sound of birds hopping on and off branches and small creatures moving in the undergrowth. ‘Miss Candlewick has been dead for two years, so I can’t ask her. I will have to ask at the source. Would you not do the very same thing, Gracie?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Gracie said uncertainly, tucking an errant ginger curl back under her bonnet.

  Gracie said and did everything uncertainly. Her heart was so kind and so full of good will that she was able to see everyone’s perspective, even if they were awful. It meant she rarely had any conviction about her own thoughts and feelings, could not decide whom to love and whom to hate.

  Agnes grasped her hand. ‘What am I to do but to go and see her, look at her face and tell her I am her child?’

  Gracie fixed her with her good eye. The other wandered to the left. ‘She wouldn’t admit you were her child. She rid herself of you, remember?’

  Agnes blocked the squeeze of pain this statement made her feel, and they resumed walking. ‘She left me with the button, and then she sent the riding coat to Perdita’s. Surely she was trying to tell me who she was. Perhaps she never wanted to give me up. Perhaps she had no choice.’

  ‘I saw her once, in the village,’ Gracie said. ‘She seemed the kind of woman who makes her own choices.’

  Gracie was right. ‘I saw her once too,’ Agnes said, and the words came out more wistfully than she would have liked.

  ‘She was pretty. I mean … she was striking.’

  Gracie was right: Genevieve Breckby had such an imposing demeanour, such a well-formed frame, that she almost resembled a Roman statue come to life. Even though Genevieve had only spoken to her that one time, Agnes had seen her in the village two more times in her childhood. Genevieve had made a deep impression on Agnes, not the least reason being the rumours that she was headstrong, sharp-tongued, and slipped constantly from her father’s and her husband’s attempts to control her. It was these stories that so inflamed Agnes’s imagination. She didn’t want a mother for cuddles and kisses: she had long ago made her peace with that privation. Nobody could grow up in Perdita Hall without being a little crooked in the heart, and love was not something she expected or understood. Not even the idea that she may be related to nobility, and thus not destined for hard work and penury, had the power to move her as much as the notion that this drive to be free, which had ever beaten in her blood like the workings of a thundering engine, might be an inherited trait. That there might be another woman in the world whose heart knew her heart, whose passions recognised hers.

  That she might not be so alone.

  In truth, Agnes did not even know whether Genevieve still lived at Breckby Manor. There had been talk of a scandalous end to a marriage, and Agnes hadn’t seen her for many years. But she could hardly leave Hatby without at least trying to find out the truth. She released Gracie’s hand to open the church gate and they made their way across the churchyard, under the low-dipping branches.

  At the other side, Gracie stopped. ‘From here you should go alone,’ she said, settling on the stone border of a garden bed, her grey skirts bunched around her.

  Agnes crouched in front of her, taking her hands. ‘Thank you, my dear friend. I won’t leave you here long.’

  ‘Take the time that you need,’ Gracie said. ‘I will be happy sitting here with the breeze and the branches.’ She smiled. ‘Imagine, Agnes, if in two years’ time when I am due to leave, I find the very same thing written on my papers. Button with unicorn. We could be sisters.’

  Agnes didn’t point out that they could never be sisters, they were manufactured from entirely different material for any biological link to exist; but Gracie was like a sister in a different way. She had loved and listened to Agnes even as everyone else mocked her or corrected her; and Agnes adored Gracie and protected her.

  Agnes rose, smoothed down her skirts, and marched with purpose out of the churchyard and up the path to Breckby Manor.

  Its imposing front gates were closed, and Agnes hoped she wouldn’t have to climb into the grounds – that wouldn’t be the ideal way to approach her long-lost family. But she put her hand through and lifted the latch, and it was not locked. She pushed the gate and it creaked loudly. A moment later, two gigantic, sleek dogs came thundering towards her. She stood very still, tensed to slip back out the gate, but they came with tails wagging and tongues lolling. She bent to pat their heads. One of them went over on its back and she rubbed its belly roughly.

  As she lavished pats on the dogs, she lifted her head and looked around her. The foregrounds of Breckby Manor were encircled by a wide carriageway that passed in front of the house and branched off towards stables. The circular garden was full of bright flowers and carefully managed trees. Agnes crossed the garden, accompanied by the dogs. She spied some little mournful crosses by the pond, underneath a slender willow. They were marked for dead pets: Persimmon, Xerxes, Fluff, Calico. The packed earth of the carriageway crunched under her feet, and then she was climbing the four wide stone stairs to the portico and, finally, ringing the brass bell by the door. The dogs, well trained, did not advance up the stairs.

  She waited. A cloud moved over the sun.

  Then the door opened, and an elderly smiling-faced butler appeared. ‘How may I help you, Miss?’

  ‘I would like to see Genevieve.’ She realised she ought to use the more formal ‘Miss Breckby’ but her mother’s name was fixed in her head now.

  His smile was immediately transformed to a frown. ‘And who are you?’

  ‘My name is Agnes Resolute. I am from Perdita Hall. And it’s important I speak to Genevieve.’

  He shifted so he could pull the door closed behind him, but she still had a glimpse of a cavernous entry hall, with a servant dusting a row of imposing portraits. ‘The younger Miss Breckby no longer lives here, Miss.’

  Agnes’s heart fell. She had known this was a possibility, but nonetheless the confirmation took the wind from her sails. ‘Where does she live, then? Because I need to find her.’

  ‘I am not likely to tell a foundling where the Breckby family might or might not be. Their movements are no business of yours. Now, good day.’

  He moved to slip back into the house, but she grasped his sleeve. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I must find her.’

  ‘Good day, Miss. If you don’t leave immediately I shall ensure a report is sent back to Captain Forest about this … harassment.’ He shook off her hand and she stood back and let him go.

  Hell fire.

  Agnes turned and made her way back down the stairs, across the garden, and out the gate. Powerful feelings traversed her body, causing her hands to shake. But she would not cry. Tears were for the weak. She had endured a lifetime of disappointments; this on
e would not break her.

  Gracie leapt to her feet as Agnes strode back into the churchyard.

  ‘I can tell by your face it didn’t go well,’ Gracie said.

  ‘Aye, flower. It certainly did not.’

  ‘But you aren’t to worry. I’ve been sitting here thinking. You remember Cole Briar, don’t you?’

  Agnes blinked back at Gracie. Why was she talking about Cole Briar? The day he had graduated from Perdita Hall was one of the best days of her life. She couldn’t count the number of times he’d sought her out in the gardens behind the church and tried to kiss her or grope her. Every time she had complained to Mrs Watford she’d been told that if she had been in her dormitory and not running wild in the garden, she would have nothing to worry about. ‘Aye, I remember his bad manners. What of him?’

  ‘He used to work for the Breckbys. Maybe he knows summat.’

  ‘I’d just as like kiss an eel as ask for his help.’ But even as she said this, Agnes was already changing her mind. Cole had never left Hatby. He worked for the local bootmaker, and if he knew something, he would be easily persuaded by Agnes to tell it.

  ‘Agnes?’ Gracie said, after she had been silent for a few long moments.

  ‘Aye, then.’ Agnes linked her arm through Gracie’s. ‘Come with me. I’m not doing it alone.’

  •

  Hatby’s high street was a grim, straight road of grey stone buildings. Apart from a horse and cart outside the post office, and an elderly couple gazing in the window of the milliner, Agnes and Gracie were the only ones on the street. Shadows grew long in front of them as they made their way down to Tucker’s Bootmaker. The shop was narrow, wedged between the candlemaker and an empty shop that had once been a tea room. Agnes pushed open the door, with Gracie close behind her. The shop smelled of leather and dust. Behind the counter, in a corner, sat Cole Briar. Tools and strips of leather hung on the walls all around him. He had his head bent over a boot, crimping the leather with a hand tool.

  ‘Cole,’ Agnes said.

  He glanced up. He had a long nose and greasy skin, and lank dark hair that fell in two hanks over either side of his brow. When he saw Agnes, a slow smile grew on his face.

  ‘Well now, see thee here. If it isn’t Agnes Resolute.’

  ‘And Gracie Badger,’ Gracie said.

  Cole ignored her, put down his boot and moved towards them. ‘Why are you in the village, looking for Cole Briar, eh? Is it my lucky day?’

  Agnes fought with her irritation, applied a sweet smile. ‘Aye, Cole. That it might be.’

  ‘Do tell.’ He was a good six inches taller than her, and he stood so close she could smell his musty clothes.

  ‘You worked for the Breckbys, didn’t you?’

  ‘Aye. My last three years at Perdita I was sent out as their footman. The inside of that house is so big a man could get lost in it.’

  ‘Did you ever hear them mention Genevieve? Where she had gone?’

  He looked at her a moment, his eyes sharp and bright. She knew he was thinking over what to say next. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Can you not just answer the question?’

  ‘No I can’t. I need to know what’s in it for me.’

  Gracie squeezed closer to Agnes.

  ‘Do you actually know anything or are you just pretending?’ Agnes asked defiantly. ‘Because I’m warning you, Cole Briar, I’ll give you a threp in the stones if you don’t tell the truth.’

  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, still not speaking. Then said, ‘I know something. I used to collect their mail.’

  Agnes’s heart lifted. ‘You did?’

  ‘Aye. So, now I ask again: what’s in it for me?’

  ‘You can have a kiss.’

  He leaned in but she took a step back, nearly knocking Gracie over. ‘Not yet. When you tell me something.’

  ‘Aye, here’s the deal. One small kiss to get me to speak, one long kiss when I’ve told you her address.’ He emphasised the last word with raised eyebrows.

  Her address? It was worth kissing an eel. She put her face up and he leaned down and pressed his lips hard against hers. She allowed the pressure to rest there for two seconds, then stood back. ‘Aye, then. What do you know?’

  ‘Genevieve went to live in London with her sister, Marianna. That’s what the housekeeper told me. I picked up Marianna’s letters every Thursday at the post office. Belgrave Place, London. Now, about that long kiss. I’ll give you the house number when we’re done.’

  Agnes glanced at Gracie, who appeared puzzled and fascinated at the same time.

  ‘Go on, then,’ Gracie said. ‘You promised.’

  Agnes took a step forward, allowed Cole to place his hands around her waist. Then he bent and kissed her forcefully, prising open her lips with his tongue and probing her mouth roughly. She screwed her eyes tightly shut and thought about something else. London. Her mother. The unicorn button. His hands slid down and over her hips, and he was reaching around for her bottom when she broke off the kiss and leapt back.

  ‘Give over. I never gave permission for that.’

  He laughed. ‘Can’t blame me for trying, Agnes Resolute. You’ve always been the top of my list.’ He gave Gracie a wink and Gracie smiled at him guilelessly.

  ‘Right. House number?’

  He gave her the full address and asked for another kiss, which she refused angrily. Finally, she was free of the smell of the shop and out on the chilly street.

  ‘London,’ Gracie breathed. ‘What a shame she’s so far away.’

  Agnes stopped and turned to Gracie. ‘The distance doesn’t matter. I’ll have to go,’ she said.

  Gracie’s eyebrows shot up. ‘What nonsense, Agnes. You’ll not be able to afford it. You can’t … you won’t …’

  ‘I’ll use some of the money for my first month’s board.’ Agnes glanced back towards the bootmaker to make sure Cole hadn’t followed her. ‘Gracie, Genevieve Breckby might very well be my mother.’

  ‘Can owt I say stop you?’ Gracie asked.

  ‘You know you can’t stop me,’ Agnes answered.

  ‘Aye,’ Gracie said with a smile. ‘Nobody ever has once you’ve got an idea in your head.’

  •

  It was a blustery afternoon when Agnes finally stood at the coach stop outside the Hatby post office, ready to begin her new life. Gracie stood with her, clutching her hand, as Agnes’s trunk was loaded onto the carriage. It looked pathetically small alongside the large, elaborate trunks of the other travellers. A woman not much older than Agnes was bossing one of the footmen in an arch voice. She wore a plum-coloured silk dress with an enormous bow on the bustle. Agnes glanced down at her own dress. Every Perdita girl was tasked with making her own leaving dress in the months before her departure. That morning, Agnes had finally pulled on the dress – sewn of the regulation pale grey broadcloth but enlivened with lace collar and cuffs Gracie had made for her – then fastened all the hooks and buttons, and gathered the tape that kept the modest bustle sitting sweetly. She had thought she looked very fine indeed, but she knew that next to this woman she did not look fine. The most she could say was she looked neat.

  Agnes watched as the coach driver spoke to the passengers one by one and admitted them to the coach. She was the last in line. He held out his hand for the slip of paper that had her fare on it.

  ‘York?’ he said in a gruff voice.

  ‘The railway station. I’m going to London.’

  He lifted an overgrown eyebrow. ‘London, eh? I can sell you the train fare here, much cheaper. It’s a long way to London. They’ll charge you fifteen shillings if you buy your fare at the station.’

  Fifteen shillings! She had been given twenty, enough for the coach to York and then a month’s board. ‘How much is it if I buy a ticket from you?’

  ‘I’ll give it to you for twelve. And I’ll throw in your coach fare for two and six; that’s half the price.’

  Agnes did calculations in her head, her bl
ood cooling rapidly. She had heard the train was cheaper than coach, but of course it was two hundred miles or so between York and London. She was a fool to think she could afford it.

  She looked at Gracie, who shook her head sadly, her bad eye roaming to the left. ‘You won’t have enough money to get back if things go wrong. Perhaps London will have to wait.’

  Wait? She had been waiting her whole life for something. Maybe this was the something.

  ‘I’ll take it,’ she said to the coach driver. When she found her mother, she would not need money.

  ‘Agnes—’

  ‘It will be fine, Gracie. You will see.’ She untied the drawstring on the purse hanging from her wrist and withdrew the money, counting it out carefully into the coach driver’s rough palm. She slid her train ticket into her purse then she yanked it closed. It hung limp and light, weighted down by only a few coins and the folded piece of paper that identified who she was and explained why she had no certificate of birth.

  ‘Hop on board,’ the driver said, returning to his seat at the front of the coach.

  Gracie was shoving something into Agnes’s hands. ‘Here,’ she said.

  ‘What is this?’ It was soft and small, wrapped in old newspaper.

  ‘A gift. And … you might need it more than ever. Don’t be afraid to sell it if you have to.’

  ‘You oughtn’t have got me a gift.’ Agnes drew Gracie into an embrace. ‘I love you, dear friend.’

  ‘Write to me,’ she said. ‘The moment you arrive.’

  ‘I will.’ Then Agnes was stepping up and into the coach, where the women sat. The men had arranged themselves on the outside seats. She squeezed in between the woman in the plum dress and another, elderly lady who seemed affronted by having to give Agnes space on the seat. She turned her elbows out territorially, and Agnes tried to imagine what Genevieve would do if the elderly woman was so rude to her. She pulled her spine straight and held her space, and tilted her chin up for good measure. Some of Genevieve’s features were vague in Agnes’s memory, but she could easily remember the noble set of her chin.