Stars Across the Ocean

by Kimberley Freeman

  The horses set off and the coach began to bounce along the road. She gazed out the window, watching beech trees and oaks slide past, then a glimpse of the front gate of Perdita Hall, behind branches and houses. She leaned back and closed her eyes. Her pulse seemed thick in her throat.

  The decision was made now.

  She opened her eyes and turned to the package, unpicking the string and pulling the newspaper away. The elderly woman sniffed disdainfully. Agnes pulled out Gracie’s gift, a lace shawl.

  Gracie was the best lacemaker in Perdita Hall. As clumsy as she was walking about, her one good eye was sharp-focused on close work and her hands as steady as rods. Ordinarily, what she made had to be sold. How had she managed to hold this back? Agnes smiled, thinking of Gracie, who was so afraid of getting in trouble, hiding this shawl from the eyes of the lacemakers’ mistress, fearing discovery, wrapping it and bringing it outside the gates. Her heart lurched, thinking about Gracie left alone at Perdita Hall without Agnes to protect her and read to her.

  Agnes swore to herself she wouldn’t sell it. No matter how bad things became.

  She pulled it around her shoulders, elbows bumping the other passengers. The plum-dressed woman drew her mouth down in a little moue of disapproval, but Agnes didn’t mind. She was willing to wager that plum-dress woman owned nothing so precious as Gracie’s gift, because it was made with love.

  The coach rattled along, away from her old life and towards the new.

  CHAPTER 2

  It was four in the afternoon when Agnes finally alighted at a coaching inn a hundred yards from the railway station. She waited while the footman took her trunk down, and he showed her with an extended hand which direction she should take.

  The railway station was a huge limestone-and-brick building on Tanner Row. She made her way around the noisy platform, under the iron train shed. A hissing black engine sat at the platform, smelling of coal and grease, its long line of wooden carriages hitched behind. People milled about, hauling baggage, saying farewells; children laughing and carousing, adults cautioning them, staff weaving between them on missions of their own. Everything around her was coated in a fine film of soot. A porter hurried past and she called out, ‘Excuse me, is this the train to London?’

  He shook his head. ‘Edinburgh. Go ask at the ticket office.’

  ‘But I have a ticket already.’

  He had disappeared into the crowd and didn’t hear her, but he had gestured to the ticket office and so she walked down the platform and waited in a queue until an older gentleman with snow-white muttonchops and a flat black cap asked if he could help her. She fished her ticket out of her purse and showed him. ‘When is the next train to London?’

  ‘Twenty minutes. But this ticket is for the one o’clock service.’ He handed it back.

  ‘One o’clock? Then I’ve missed it?’ Her heart fell sharply.

  He shook his head. ‘One o’clock in the morning, Miss. We will be boarding in eight hours.’

  So, that was why the ticket had been so cheap. Her stomach tightened with anger. The gentleman was already turning his attention to the woman behind her, who was far better dressed, so Agnes slunk out of the way and wandered back up the platform with her little trunk, found a seat and sat and watched a while. The bells on the Minster rang out evensong and then died on the breeze. The flow of people on and off trains mesmerised her. As each train departed, in clouds of hissing steam, it left behind an empty quiet. But then, minutes later, people would start to arrive and gather again; the pace returned, the trumpet would sound, a train would steam into the platform. And so on.

  Not one of them took her to London. She glanced at the clock above the platform. It was nearly seven o’clock and her stomach was rumbling. Movement at the corner of her eye caught her attention. The ticket master approached, a small china cup in each hand. Curious, she watched him. He offered one of the cups to her.

  ‘Coffee?’ he asked.

  Agnes would have preferred roast beef, but at least it was something in her stomach. She took the cup and said, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘So, you’re going to wait until the train comes?’

  ‘I have nowhere else to go or be.’

  ‘I am locking up the office and going home in ten minutes. The night guard won’t return until midnight, so you’ll be alone on the platform.’

  Agnes shivered.

  ‘Keep your eye out for urchins,’ he said.

  ‘I will.’ She lifted the cup to her lips, took one sip, then bumped her elbow on the back of the seat and spilled the coffee down the front of her dress. ‘Hell fire,’ she said, then clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry, sir. I oughtn’t repay your generosity with coarse language.’

  The ticket master chuckled and took her cup. ‘Would you like me to pour you another?’

  ‘No, thank you.’ The coffee was too strong and swirled in her empty stomach.

  ‘I will leave the lamps lit for you,’ he said, and moved away. Shortly afterwards, she heard a door being locked and the sound of receding footsteps.

  Agnes sat and waited. The evening grew quiet. An hour passed. Another. Her body sagged. She lay down on her side on the bench, tucking her purse under her head like a pillow. It was a Perdita habit to sleep on one’s valuables, when things were always being nicked. The hard wood pushed back at her hips, and it was impossible to get comfortable. She waited. A cold wind crept down the railway tracks, swirling up grit.

  She was just starting to nod off when she heard footsteps. Alert suddenly, she sat up. At the far end of the platform stood a gentleman, silhouetted against the gas lamps. Agnes wondered if he might be the night guard, but he wasn’t in a uniform. He began to pace the platform, ten yards, twenty, but turning back before he came near her. She could see he had a small carpet bag, and presumed he was waiting for the same train as her. He wore a top hat, a well-made great coat, and brown leather gloves. On his next circuit of the platform, he caught her eye and smiled at her.

  Agnes couldn’t help but smile in return. He had such a handsome face, such kindness in his eyes. He came no nearer to her, and Agnes relaxed. With a gentleman on the platform, she wouldn’t have to worry about urchins as the ticket master had warned her.

  She began to nod again, and as the gentleman was now at the opposite end of the platform, seemingly determined not to crowd her, she lay down her head again and closed her eyes. Time stuttered. She fell into a dream. She was back at Perdita Hall. She could hear Gracie on the other side of the wall that enclosed the grounds and she knew she needed to get to her. She started to climb but found the wall grew higher and higher, until it became an impossible teetering thing. She clung to it with her fingers, but they were cold and a wind was blowing and then she was falling …

  Agnes’s eyes opened. She was alone on the platform again. How long had she slept? She sat up, wondering what had happened to the well-dressed gentleman. As she put her feet on the ground, she realised the familiar shape of her trunk was not behind her knees. She leapt up, checked under the bench.

  It had gone.

  ‘No,’ she said, and scooped up her purse to run to the other end of the platform, looking for her trunk, looking for the gentleman, anyone. ‘No!’ she called and her voice was whipped away on the wind. Agnes returned to the bench and sat heavily.

  Had the gentleman taken her trunk? But why? What use would two dresses and some plain cotton underwear be to him? He wouldn’t get a shilling for the lot if he tried to sell it. But it was all she owned. Her clothes, her slippers, her nightgown, not to mention her letters of reference and embroidery samples, without which finding a good position would prove very difficult. All she had left was a little money, a coffee-stained dress, and the shawl Gracie had made for her.

  Doubt sang to her. Perhaps she oughtn’t board the train at all. Perhaps she should return on the morning coach to Perdita Hall and ask for guidance. It had worked out terribly so far. Why did she think London would work out any better? She had hea
rd stories of the poor houses, and she knew she didn’t want to end up in one.

  But then she scolded herself. She had a shawl to cover the coffee stain. She had enough money to get by for a little while. She had skills as a seamstress that would find her work. But most of all, she had a ticket to London on the one o’clock train.

  And London was where her mother lived.

  •

  The single advantage of a one o’clock train was that the third-class carriage held few passengers, so she was able to lay herself out on the hard wooden seat and close her eyes. Sleep was impossible, though, due to the noisy rattling and juddering, and the thick choking stench of coal. Hours later, when the sun had risen thinly and the train pulled into King’s Cross Station, her eyes were gritty from tiredness and coal dust. She alighted with only the clothes on her back and the purse in her hands, and made her way along the vast arched concourse, trying not to look lost and unsure – even though she had never seen such a crowd, never heard such a tumult, and had no idea what she was to do next.

  ‘Excuse me? Miss?’

  Agnes ignored the voice, but the gentle tap on her arm caught her attention. She turned to see a plump, white-haired woman in a blue-and-grey dress and matching hat. She had kind eyes and deep lines in her powdery white skin, but Agnes was in no mood for chat.

  ‘What is it?’ she said, a snap of warning in her voice.

  The woman’s smile faded on her lips. ‘You forgot your luggage. I saw you get off the train. You must have left it on board.’

  Guilt speared Agnes’s heart; she had repaid this woman’s attempt at kindness with heat. ‘I am so sorry. I have had a bad time of it,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ the woman said, placing her own travelling bag on the ground between them and taking Agnes’s hand. This small gesture of human comfort, on top of Agnes’s weariness and uncertainty, made her chest burn. But she didn’t cry. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried; perhaps as a child.

  ‘My trunk was stolen,’ Agnes said. ‘In York, before I boarded the train.’

  ‘Have you friends here in London? Relatives? Someone who can help you?’

  ‘I have seven shillings and a few pennies and the dress you see. That is all.’

  The woman shook her head, clicking her tongue. ‘No, no, dear. London isn’t a place to be for a girl with so little.’

  ‘Can you tell me where to go? I have to survive, at least for a week or so.’

  ‘You might find a cheap room somewhere in the East End.’ The woman bent to her bag and pulled out of it a map almost worn through on its folds. She opened it and folded it backwards, and Agnes noticed her fingers were jammed with gold rings, sapphires and rubies. ‘This is us here, and this …’ She jabbed a chubby finger. ‘This is the direction you should head in. It’s a few miles. Here, you can keep this map. High time I bought a new one.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Agnes said. She knew she should say, You are too generous and I can’t possibly accept a gift from a stranger, but she desperately needed the map and didn’t want to be taken at her word.

  The woman took her by the shoulders. ‘Don’t have anything else stolen,’ she said. ‘What you have left is of high value, but only once.’

  Agnes dropped her eyes. ‘I have no intention of having my honour stolen, madam. I thank you for the warning, though.’

  ‘London is quite the worst place to live if you are poor. If things get desperate, you must leave. Go back home.’

  Agnes nodded; didn’t tell her she had no home. The woman picked up her bag and hurried off. Agnes peered at the map, got her bearings, and began to walk.

  Agnes had spent many years behind the gates of Perdita Hall, with only visits to Hatby to give her knowledge of the outside world. Of course she had read about London in books, but nothing could have prepared her for the intense impressions of sight, sound and smell when stepping into the London morning. The endless stream of people, faces blurring past until she could hardly distinguish them one from another. The way the light didn’t fall soft and flowing but was brutally interrupted in cold blocks of shadow by the buildings. The shops: Lord, so many shops, all of them shouting at her in large letters. An old beggar here. A shrill-voiced woman selling limp turnips from a wheelbarrow there. A minstrel band with a hurdygurdy and monkeys, the music rising and falling on the wind. The din of rattling carriages hurtling past each other. As she walked, it all seemed to shift and tilt around her. Over everything, the smell of horse dung, coal and a faint unyielding odour of sewage. The number of people on the main roads, heads down with determination as they moved about between coal-smirched shops and offices, had intensified. The clop of hooves and rattle of carriages was incessant. She slipped into a side alley, feeling the quiet on all of her senses. She stopped a moment, took a few deep breaths.

  ‘You can do this, Agnes,’ she said softly. ‘You’ll not be frightened of a busy street, like a child.’

  Once more she stepped out into the traffic. A mile passed. Two. The buildings began to change around her: these were not so grand. The parks were not so private. The coaches were not so shiny. A sign told her she was on Bethnal Green Road, and she thought that sounded a pretty name and wondered if she’d come far enough east now to find a cheap room. Agnes turned off the main road and followed her instincts down towards narrow lanes where she could hear children’s voices.

  Agnes stood at the head of one of the lanes and looked down. Crumbling brick buildings with windows broken and boarded. Children – so many children – barefoot and in ill-fitting and ragged clothing sitting on steps and in gutters while their mothers pegged faded laundry on long lines hung between windowsills. Broken furniture and muddy puddles. Skinny dogs winding between skinny legs.

  Yes, she believed she would find something cheap here, and she was not too proud to take it. All she had to do was keep her purpose in sight: find a way to stay in London, then find her mother. Somehow.

  Slowly, she made her way down the alley, picking around dog faeces embedded between cobbles. The smell made her recoil. A woman with sunken cheeks and a hungry gaze caught her eye and glared at her suspiciously.

  ‘Who are you?’ she said.

  ‘I’m Agnes,’ she replied. ‘I need a place to live. Only short term.’

  ‘Ask Minnie,’ she said, stabbing her finger in the direction of a woman with wild red curls barely contained beneath a grey headscarf. She sat on the stairs of a dark grey tumbledown building of wood, weaving a basket and swatting away what appeared to be a dozen children. Agnes approached her warily.

  ‘Minnie?’

  ‘Who’s asking?’

  ‘I’m Agnes and I need a room, and—’

  ‘I don’t have a room. I have a bed. You can have it for sixpence a night, meals included.’ Her worn hands worked their practised movements on the basket.

  ‘Can I see it?’

  She sighed, put her work aside, shouted at the oldest girl to mind the others and beckoned to Agnes. ‘Come on, then.’

  They entered a dark room that smelled of damp and mould. The kitchen was little more than a corner of a large living room, where two mattresses were butted against each other on the floor. Instead of shining things, there were broken things. Instead of light and air, there was gloom and stuffiness and the smell of urine. Minnie led her through to a tiny adjoining space with two beds in it, separated by a curtain that hung unevenly on a rail. The window was half-boarded over, so there was hardly any light. ‘There,’ she said, pointing at one of the beds. ‘The other is mine and me husband’s. But he’s away out in the west country a few months, chasing some work in the mines.’

  Agnes took a deep breath. All would be well. She would make it all well. One step at a time. ‘I’ll take it,’ she said.

  ‘Four nights’ rent in advance?’

  Agnes opened her purse and retrieved two shillings. They were snatched from her fingers. ‘Aye, then,’ said Minnie. ‘Himself will be pleased.’ She patted her tummy. ‘Another on th
e way.’

  ‘How many will that make?’

  ‘Six, but we have me sister’s two wee twins with us too. Poor Lizzie died in the having of them. Weren’t anything we could do but take them in.’ Minnie’s eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t mind the sound of children, I hope.’

  ‘I’m very used to it,’ Agnes said, and it was true. She’d lived at Perdita Hall without privacy, surrounded by children: this could hardly be significantly different. ‘What time is lunch?’

  ‘Half after twelve. If you’re not here, you miss out.’

  ‘I have some business elsewhere in town. I’ll be back by then.’

  ‘Ooh, business, have we?’ Minnie said in a mocking tone. ‘You must be verrrry important.’ She pocketed Agnes’s money and said again, ‘If you’re not here, you miss out.’

  Agnes nodded and forced a smile. Perhaps, before half past twelve, she would have met her mother and be welcomed into her home. Then she wouldn’t care a jot if she missed out on Minnie’s lunch.

  •

  With the worn map the woman at the railway station had given her, Agnes plotted her route to her mother’s house. Genevieve lived on Belgrave Place, which looked to be a walk of at least two miles. She arranged Gracie’s lace shawl so it covered the coffee stain and tidied her long, golden hair. Then Agnes stepped out of the grim grey dwelling and made her way out of the eastern streets towards the better-heeled end of town. She was tired from walking, but fascinated by all she saw. On her route, she passed galleries and churches and theatres, and saw ladies in the most divine frocks and some gentlemen dressed just as handsomely. She saw high, fast carriages drawn by gleaming horses. She heard cathedral bells and smelled smoke and flowers. At length, she passed a large green square enclosed by privets, where bronze statues sat among the chestnuts and plane trees. Here she stopped, consulted her map one last time, caught her breath, then took the turn into Belgrave Place.

  A few moments later, she was standing in front of the address that Cole Briar had given her in what seemed another lifetime but was only a handful of days ago. Genevieve’s house. It was a tall, narrow townhouse, painted white, with a small columned portico and dormer windows nestled among the dark brown roof tiles. It spoke of wealth, but not grandeur. Agnes took two deep breaths, then walked up three stone steps to ring the bell.