Stars Across the Ocean

by Kimberley Freeman

  ‘A wise decision, my lady,’ the vicar said, and was about to say something else when the door to the drawing room opened and Toby stood there again, this time with Madame Azhkenazy.

  ‘Madame Azhkenazy!’ he announced, then withdrew.

  They faced each other across the room, the vicar and the medium. Harriet said, ‘Oh!’ and the vicar said, ‘Harriet, really.’

  I leapt to my feet. ‘Vicar, let me see you out.’

  ‘Come in, Madame,’ my sister said to her. ‘How lovely that you have returned.’

  I took the vicar by the elbow and led him away, closing the drawing-room door behind us.

  ‘What is that witch doing here?’ he asked.

  ‘She gives my aunt comfort,’ I said.

  ‘God should be all the comfort she needs.’

  ‘Yes, I see that. But if Aunt Harriet is happy, where’s the harm?’

  ‘The devil laying claim on her soul might be quite some harm,’ he muttered, but he knew he fought a battle he couldn’t win. We paused at the front door; it had started raining lightly and I could see he had no umbrella.

  ‘Allow me to walk you back to the vicarage. I have an umbrella we can both fit under.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ he said, but I could tell he was unsure and so I said it more forcefully, pulling a large umbrella from the stand beside the door.

  We moved out into the street and down towards Church Lane. His limp was exaggerated if we walked faster, so I kept the pace slow and talked about anything but Madame Azhkenazy and Emile. Weather, flowers, if he preferred cats to dogs. Finally we were at the vicarage and he thanked me and then said, ‘Take care of your aunt.’

  ‘I assure you, I do.’

  ‘And yourself,’ he said.

  I chafed against this. I knew he meant my feelings for Emile, and it infuriated me that anyone would think I would be taking care of myself better by choosing a rich husband over the man I loved. I didn’t answer, and he went inside.

  I, of course, went directly to Emile’s house.

  The street was deserted, dark and mournful and mizzling. I put my foot in a muddy puddle in Emile’s lane, and my feet squelched uncomfortably the rest of the way. But none of this could dampen my hope and my desire, because I was going to see Emile again and the time without him had been unbearably long.

  Marin barked from the other side of the door as I knocked, and I called out to him to be quiet, that it was only me. Within a few seconds, the door was open and Emile was smiling down on me.

  ‘Moineau! What a delight!’

  I saw his bandaged left hand and said, ‘It’s true, then? You are injured?’

  He held up his hand. ‘I wasn’t paying attention and I slipped. Come in out of the rain.’

  I went in, and the warm, plain house with its modest candlelight felt like home.

  ‘You are here in good time, actually. I wonder if you’d help me change this bandage. The physician said I should change it every evening, but I don’t know how I am meant to with only one hand for the task.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, pleased beyond expression at the idea of playing nurse to him.

  He gave me instructions and I boiled some water and mixed it with the water from the jug to make it tepid, then I fetched the clean bandage and the salve, and brought it all on a tray to the living room. I sat beside him and he gave me his hand, palm up, in my lap.

  ‘It hurts like the blazes,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s see it,’ I answered, and carefully unwrapped the bandage. The inner layers were quite bloody and I promised him I’d boil it and hang it up before I went, so that he could use it again. The wound was diagonal across his palm, like two cuts overlapping. It looked deep on the heel of his thumb, but less so elsewhere. I sponged it carefully, then held his hand in mine while I let it dry.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  He was so close. I could feel his pulse in his wrist. I couldn’t meet his eye, I was so overcome with desire. I blew gently on the wound to dry it, and he sighed softly.

  ‘Moineau,’ he said, his voice thick with feeling.

  I put the tray on the floor, picking up the fresh bandage. Carefully, I began to wind it around his palm, then under his thumb and around his wrist to keep it secure. I tied it, but couldn’t let him go.

  I couldn’t let him go.

  And he pulled me towards him, even though it must have hurt him to close his hand over mine. He pulled me towards him and opened his arms and I sank between them, my head on his chest. His good hand was in my hair, stroking it gently, while his injured hand rested on my back. ‘There,’ he said. ‘There.’

  What perfect bliss. What perfect, perfect bliss. I allowed myself to be folded into his embrace and he did not let go, and nor did I, as the rain deepened overhead and Marin watched us curiously from the rug.

  ‘Moineau?’ he said.

  I turned my face up and he grasped my chin in his hand, then bent his head to kiss my lips. Every nerve in my body lit up with a sweet, hot feeling. Emile is kissing me, I thought, and the knowledge of its forbiddance inflamed me even more. I did not know how to kiss, but he did. His lips parted mine and my body went weak. He kissed my top lip, then my bottom lip, then both, then I felt the tip of his tongue in my mouth and I was completely undone. He could have done anything to me then, I was so thoroughly under his spell. I moaned a little, and seemed to hear myself from far away.

  Then he pulled back, and saw my stunned expression and laughed at me gently.

  ‘Oh, Moineau. I am so sorry. I oughtn’t have taken such a liberty with you.’

  ‘Please, take it again,’ I said.

  ‘No, no. I was overcome with feeling but now I have my rational head on my shoulders again. Forgive me, my love.’

  My love. I lurched forward and pressed my lips against his, and all his talk about liberties and rational heads could stay outside in the rain. Now he had kissed me, I would never let him go. We spoke only with kisses until the rain stopped, and my lips were burning as I made my way home in the damp dark.

  •

  What a dreamy-eyed fool I was for the next week. Harriet was completely distracted by the return of Madame Azhkenazy; the messages from Oswald were coming so regularly that Harriet moved Madame into the servants’ quarters so she did not have to continue to travel between Millthorne and Raven’s Head. My sister continued to prevail on Mr Shawe for his carriage to take her sightseeing. I wandered free as a pagan, which meant to Emile’s house, Emile’s garden, and the long green grass of the stream behind.

  We played a game, Emile and I. We called it ‘If anything were possible’, and under its guise we said everything that we wished for in life.

  ‘If anything were possible,’ I said to him one day, as we sat by the stream with the sun in our hair, ‘I should like to leave Yorkshire behind and come to live right here in Millthorne.’

  ‘If anything were possible,’ he said, ‘I would have you here by me, every waking hour, and every night as well.’

  And so it went: declarations of impossible plans. At the end of every game he would say, ‘But not everything is possible,’ and it would make me sad. But then he would kiss me, and my brain would be wiped blank for long enough to forget I was sad, and for hope to grow anew.

  We were so happy.

  These things don’t last.

  •

  It was a Tuesday. The least interesting day of the week. Madame Azhkenazy was leaving that morning, and Aunt Harriet, once again resplendent in her green gown but slightly more subdued than I had found her when I arrived, had enlisted me to help see her off. My sister had disappeared directly after breakfast to have a picnic with Mr Shawe. She had asked me if I knew any cosy spots and I didn’t tell her about the Hawthorn Well, because if I wasn’t allowed to picnic in love there, then why should she be?

  So, I was helping to organise Madame Azhkenazy’s bags by the door, while Harriet effusively kissed her and told her that she was a divine gift and was she sur
e Oswald had nothing more to say, when my sister returned up the street. The slump of her shoulders and the bend of her head told me she had suffered some blow and I waited curiously by the door for her arrival.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, as soon as she was in earshot.

  She glanced up, but shook her head. Toby was to take Madame to the carriage, and Harriet was pushing money into her hand for the driver. My sister forced a smile for my aunt and for Madame, and then the Russian witch was on her way. We watched until she and Toby turned the corner and headed towards the coach stop, and then my sister and I enfolded Harriet in a warm, quick hug.

  ‘Will you be all right, now she’s gone?’ I asked her, as we moved back into the house and along the hallway to the drawing room.

  ‘I expect so. I’ll need you girls about me for a day or two, until I find my feet.’

  ‘Of course, Aunt,’ my sister said.

  I nodded too, but I was desperate to get out and see Emile and so I couldn’t respond as forcefully.

  ‘But I have some grim news, I’m afraid,’ my sister continued, taking off her bonnet and gloves and laying them on the mantelpiece. ‘Mister Shawe is readying himself to leave for London at first light tomorrow. He said he was too busy to picnic today, on account of all the packing and organising he has to do.’

  ‘London isn’t far, my dear,’ Harriet said. ‘Here, come and sit by me.’

  My sister slumped onto the couch next to Harriet and said, ‘He goes to London early because he has to sail away to India tomorrow, Aunt.’

  The relief that flooded me then nearly took my knees from under me. I sat opposite them. ‘Has he been called away on business?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. What abominable timing, though! Once again, both of us on the shelf. It will not do, I tell you. Father must make him declare his hand.’ She put her hand on her head. ‘I believe I am coming down with something, Aunt. My head is thudding.’

  ‘Poor lamb. I’ll get Jones to call Doctor Mortensen.’

  ‘No, never mind that. I will rest today and perhaps feel better tomorrow. Blast it all. I want to get on with my life. He is making us wait forever!’

  ‘Don’t go writing to Mister Peacock to come down here,’ I said, and although I intended it to sound like a joke, it landed darkly and my sister gave me a sharp glance.

  ‘I don’t see a third option that Father will actually approve of,’ she said imperiously.

  Harriet looked from one of us to the other and said, ‘You girls will always be sisters, no matter whom you marry. Be gentle with each other.’

  Neither of us felt like being gentle, but we pretended for Harriet’s sake. We repurposed my sister’s picnic and we went to the Hawthorn Well and enjoyed the summer day, knowing that they were on the turn now. The oak leaves looked tired. Autumn would be here soon enough.

  After lunch, we sat in the drawing room and played cards, and now and again Harriet would tell us some other message that Oswald had sent to her via Madame Azhkenazy, and we would smile and pat her wrist. Although I missed Emile fiercely, I was sensible that today was a good day, a companionable day. My aunt missed Oswald just as much, and my sister missed Mr Shawe. The three of us were well matched in mood.

  As Harriet was shuffling the cards once more, there came a knock on the door. Harriet looked at us curiously. ‘Are you expecting anyone?’

  We shook our heads, and soon enough Toby was there announcing Mr Shawe’s arrival.

  ‘Ernest!’ my sister said, rising to greet him.

  ‘Forgive me,’ he said, removing his hat and holding it across his chest. ‘I know I have come at an awkward time but I couldn’t leave without … Mrs Parsons, would you allow me to take your niece to the formal parlour to speak privately?’ As he said this, his eye fell on me.

  The others saw it.

  ‘My niece?’ Harriet asked, gesturing to my sister.

  He fixed me in his gaze. ‘Miss Breckby? May I speak with you privately?’

  ‘Whatever you have to say, you can say in front of us, surely,’ my sister said, in a jovial tone that was brittle over her fear and anger.

  ‘I do apologise,’ he said. ‘I will only take her away for a few moments, and then I will be on my way.’

  I rose, my knees loose beneath me. He offered me his arm and I took it stiffly, then we crossed the hallway and went into the parlour. The curtains were still open, letting in the last of the afternoon sun. No lamps had yet been lit.

  ‘Miss Breckby,’ he said, once the door was closed behind us, ‘I expect your sister has told you I sail for India tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, and realised that my lungs were tight with held breath. I forced myself to relax, and sat on the sofa with my hands folded on my knees.

  ‘After spending this time with the both of you, I am reluctant to leave without first settling the issue of marriage,’ Mr Shawe said, still standing. ‘Lord Breckby has given his in-principle blessing for me to marry either of you, and so I am asking you to be my wife.’

  Shock drained the blood away from my face. I could feel it grow cold. ‘Me? But … why not—’

  ‘Your sister is very entertaining company, but as a wife she would exhaust me.’ Here he smiled, conspiratorially. ‘The headaches. The moment she thinks I am not listening to her …’

  ‘I am well acquainted with my sister’s follies, Mister Shawe,’ I replied sternly. ‘You have led her on terribly.’

  ‘I led nobody on. You were always my choice. I need a steady hand in the home, and a wife who is independent enough to withstand my long absences. Your sister is entirely wrong for me and you are entirely right. So, put any guilt out of your head, so that you may say yes.’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  He blinked in shock. ‘Please, Miss Breckby. As I have said, your sister will get used to the idea—’

  ‘I don’t say no on account of my sister,’ I said. ‘I say no on account of the fact that I don’t love you and I don’t want to marry you.’

  His bafflement might have made me feel pity, were I not so desperate to escape the situation. Once the confusion on his face passed, anger took its place. ‘Your father will make you,’ he said.

  ‘Is that what you want? A wife forced to be with you? How would that make me any different from a prostitute?’

  ‘Miss Breckby! I never thought to hear such things from your sweet lips.’ He jammed his hat on firmly. ‘This is not the last of this issue, I assure you. I will write to your father before I leave.’

  Then he threw open the parlour door and my aunt and sister were both there, and had clearly been listening through the keyhole.

  ‘Good evening,’ Mr Shawe said, embarrassed and angry.

  ‘Let me see you to the door, Ernest—’ my sister started, but he brushed her off and now she turned to me with furious eyes.

  Harriet had scurried after Mr Shawe, and my sister used the time alone with me to unleash her rage. ‘How do you dare, you horrible girl?’ she said. ‘How do you dare to turn him down?’

  ‘I thought you would be glad. Now he might marry you.’

  ‘He won’t marry me. I heard his summation of my faults. But to insult me further by turning him down. Do you think yourself so superior to me?’

  ‘What?’ I said, astonished. ‘No! This has nothing to do with you.’

  ‘It has everything to do with me, as your sister. As a member of your family, all of whom want you to marry him. Father will be monstrously enraged with you, and I will not blame him one whit. If you were not so enamoured of that wretched carpenter—’ She was not so furious with me that she was careless. When she heard Harriet returning she immediately stopped.

  Harriet grasped my upper arms. ‘I have smoothed things over for now. My dear, what have you done? Why have you done it? You know that you were promised to Mister Shawe.’

  ‘I can’t bear him.’

  ‘He has a lot of money and is away a great deal. Be sensible, Little Sparrow. You may grow to like him.’

&
nbsp; ‘How can you say this, Aunt? When you loved Uncle Oswald so fiercely and with all your heart? How can you ask me to marry somebody I despise?’

  Harriet’s brow drew down. ‘There is no need to bring Oswald into this.’

  ‘But it’s true. You fell in love with him and married with your heart. Why do you want less for me?’

  ‘I will not have this! I will not!’ she cried. ‘Not on the very day after my dear husband said his last goodbye to me from beyond the grave.’

  Then they both started speaking at the same time, admonishing me and insulting me until I had had enough and ran upstairs to my room and slammed the door, startling Basil.

  I went to the window and pushed it open, leaned out and gulped the evening air. Everything was ruined and my heart ached. I turned my eyes in the direction of Emile’s house. Minutes passed. I heard Harriet go to her bedroom and close her door. My pulse beat hard at my ears.

  Quietly, I left my room, closing the door and locking it behind me. Let them think me still here. Let them think me silent and furious and let them say, Well perhaps she will be more communicative in the morning.

  As I crept down the stairs I heard their voices in the drawing room, but I daren’t open the front door and go out past Toby and Jones. I slipped instead into the dining room and closed the door behind me. The smells of roast meat and gravy still filled the room. I expect you eat meat every night of the week. Emile had been right. Ever since he asked, I’d paid attention. Lamb and beef and ox and bacon. I was never without everything I needed, except love. And that was what I needed most of all.

  I opened the window and pulled myself up on the sill, swung my legs over and jumped out the other side, landing with a thud and catching my skirt in the hedge. I picked myself free and then ran to Emile.

  •

  This time I didn’t knock. I simply opened the door and walked in. I said his name, and that was all that emerged from my lips before I started to sob.

  ‘Moineau, what is it? What has happened?’

  ‘My father … Mister Shawe … I will never …’ More sobs, and he stopped asking me questions. Instead he held me close and I tried to take comfort in his warm, hard body, but I knew that it couldn’t last, I wouldn’t be allowed to have him, and happiness would forever be beyond my grasp.