Stars Across the Ocean

by Kimberley Freeman

  As dusk came, she pulled on her evening gown from Paris, then took it off again. Too fancy. The striped grey-and-black travel dress, then. No, too dour. The evening gown came out again, and she thought of Julius telling her how beautiful she looked in it and it seemed an age ago. She had difficulty lacing the back, and contorted herself in front of the mirror until it was tightly fastened.

  She hadn’t eaten since she left the ship, so she descended to the hotel dining room and was greeted with an alarmed expression by the elderly gentleman who brought her meal. Agnes spent a good ten minutes wondering if her dress was too revealing and planning to change it, when she realised he simply had an alarmed-looking face. He took dessert orders with the same raised eyebrows. Agnes dispiritedly pushed the roast pork meal around her plate, eating just enough so that she wouldn’t get a light head.

  Then she was off, out into the evening air. The traffic had slowed, but couples and small groups strolled along the footpaths. It was chillier than she’d imagined it would be, and she thought about going back for a shawl but her steps would not bend anywhere but towards Pepperman’s Theatre, towards the reunion she had so fervently imagined.

  A queue had formed outside the theatre. Agnes stood in the general line, where the tickets were only one shilling, even though she was dressed for the six-shilling queue. A number of women glanced sidelong at her gown, and Agnes straightened her back and let them look at her. What did she care which queue she stood in? She had the most intimate connection with one of the actresses, and that made her more important than all of these people.

  Inside the theatre she was herded through to the general seating on the floor. The theatre was not as large or as grand as the one she had attended with Julius in Paris, and she was seated between a family who talked incessantly, and an old man who smelled like cabbage. She glanced around at the balconies. All of these people, here to see her mother perform. What would they think if they knew Agnes was among them? She returned her attention to the stage, to the heavy crimson curtains. Her blood seemed to buzz. Gas-lights dimmed. A hush fell over the crowd. The curtains opened. Agnes held her breath.

  Two men stood on stage, among a set that looked vaguely Greek: white columns and square patterns. Who were the two men? Where was her mother? Agnes couldn’t concentrate on what they were saying. She had never read The Winter’s Tale. She had never read any Shakespeare except for a few sonnets in school. They talked for a little while, then the set went dark and there was a murmur of movement through the crowd before the lights returned.

  Agnes let out a little cry.

  There she was, striding in between two actors, in a set very similar but not identical to the last. Agnes wanted to stop time, to soak in the moment. This tall blonde woman with the imperious face was Genevieve, the woman she had crossed oceans to find. Finally, they were breathing the same air. Agnes hung on every word she said; her voice was mellifluous and assured. Agnes could not follow the plot. Not simply because they used a stilted language she could barely understand, but also because her mother’s voice was so clear and sharp in her mind, that all else sounded like mumbling. At length, Genevieve exited the stage, and Agnes waited for her to return.

  When she remembered it later, she saw the performance in her mind’s eye as a series of entrances and exits by Genevieve, with some interchangeable others milling about. At one point, it seemed her character, Queen Hermione, was dead. Agnes fidgeted in her seat, waiting for the play to be over, but then she came back to life from a statue, and this moment seemed to embody everything Agnes felt. A woman – a real woman – coming to life from a series of stories she had heard.

  The moment the play finished, Agnes didn’t wait for encores. She bumped along her row, striking every second person’s knees with her own, and got herself into the vestibule and then out into the street. She had to find the stage door, to get in and introduce herself to Genevieve.

  I knew there was someone special in the audience tonight, Genevieve would say. I felt your eyes on me the whole time.

  Agnes made her way around the side of the building and into an alleyway. A gas lamp hung over a dark little double door, and she approached it and knocked loudly. Nobody answered, so she knocked again. The door creaked open, and a burly man with a huge curly moustache peered out.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I need to see Genevieve La Breck.’

  He laughed. ‘What makes you think she wants to see you?’

  ‘Please. I have come all the way from England to meet her.’

  ‘Well, well. We’ve had some zanies in our time, but this takes the cake. No, pet. Off you go.’

  ‘But I need to see her. She’s … we are—’

  ‘Here.’ He shoved a program into her hands. ‘There’s your souvenir. If you want her to sign it for you, make an appointment via Pepperman’s office.’ He began to close the door.

  ‘Wait! Where is Pepperman’s office?’

  ‘In behind,’ he said with a nod of his head towards the building behind the theatre. ‘They open at ten.’

  ‘Ten in the evening?’

  He laughed again. ‘You’ve drunk too much,’ he said, and slammed the door.

  Agnes thought she would go wild with frustration. To be so close, and to be denied. She would not wait until ten in the morning and visit Pepperman’s office, only to be fobbed off again. She would sit right here – she found an old crate in the adjacent doorway – and when Genevieve emerged, she would call out to her.

  Agnes sat and waited. It had grown cold but she wouldn’t shiver. She was from Yorkshire; a bit of cold wouldn’t hurt her. A breeze whipped up. She could smell horse manure and rotting vegetables. A mist of rain passed over. Still she did not move.

  Then, men’s voices. She leaned forward and peered down the alleyway. Two men approached. She shrank back into the doorway. One of them began thumping on the backstage door.

  ‘Oy, open it up!’ he called.

  The burly, moustached man opened the door again. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Genevieve Pepperman,’ the man said. Agnes could see now that he was well dressed, with severely parted hair. His companion, a much younger and less well dressed man, smoked a pipe. The tobacco was sharply aromatic.

  The door man shook his head. ‘You and everyone else wants to see her tonight. The answer’s no. Find her at Pepperman’s office in the morning.’

  ‘Pepperman’s office,’ said the pipe-smoking man, ‘is unmanned. They’re going to run, and they owe us.’

  ‘Not my problem,’ the door man said. ‘Go on. Away with you.’

  There was a short scuffle as they tried to push the door in, but the door man was stronger than them and slammed and bolted it.

  The two men turned to each other, exchanged a few words in low voices, then headed off the way they had come. Agnes then realised she was out there in the cold and dark alone, and felt very vulnerable. But she couldn’t wait until tomorrow, not now the men had said Pepperman’s office was unmanned. What did that mean?

  Then the backstage door opened and the door man was there again, peering out. ‘I see you out there,’ he said. ‘Genevieve’s gone. She went a different way. You can’t sit in an alley all night, not in this town. Go home to bed.’

  ‘Those men said Pepperman’s office was unmanned.’

  ‘Tomorrow’s Wednesday. Somebody will be there.’

  Agnes hesitated.

  ‘Go on, away with you. I’ve seen Genevieve to her carriage. She’s gone. I wouldn’t have let her out the back door with those thugs about.’

  Agnes dragged herself to her feet, and could barely bring herself to thank him. He could have left her out here all night, after all. She made her way back the two blocks to the temperance hotel, which was all in darkness. She found the right key, let herself in, then walked the dark corridor to her bedroom.

  Agnes cast her gown on the floor in the dark, stepped out of her corset and lay down to wait for the next day to arrive. Sometime, in the early ho
urs of the morning, she drifted off, a vision of Queen Hermione emerging from a statue playing out in her mind.

  CHAPTER 24

  Agnes made her way to the breakfast room in a hurry the next morning, having overslept after a night of tossing and turning. She was corseted and wearing the striped grey-and-black dress, chosen to impress her mother. Mrs Hardwicke was clearing away cutlery, and glanced up at Agnes with a little frown.

  ‘Breakfast is over. It’s nearly ten.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry and I have … so much to fit in today. Would you please …?’

  ‘A message came,’ Mrs Hardwicke said, not meeting her eyes. ‘This morning. Before you woke.’

  ‘A message?’

  ‘A policeman came down to see you.’

  Agnes’s heart picked up its rhythm.

  ‘Somebody named Jack has been taken to gaol,’ Mrs Hardwicke continued. ‘Apparently this person is known to you.’

  The floor fell out from beneath Agnes’s feet. ‘Jack’s in gaol!’

  ‘I must say, Miss Resolute, that between the actresses and the prisoners, you don’t keep good company.’

  ‘Where is the gaol?’ Agnes asked.

  The woman sighed. Whatever she thought of the company Agnes kept, she couldn’t refuse to help. She gave detailed instructions to Franklin Street.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Hardwicke. You have been so helpful.’ She hurried away.

  ‘Wait. Your breakfast.’

  ‘I’ll have to skip it. There’s no time.’

  ‘Please, Miss Resolute,’ Mrs Hardwicke called after her, ‘if you find this Jack and bail him out, don’t bring him back here.’

  ‘Her,’ Agnes said. ‘Don’t worry; this is the last place she’d want to be.’

  Within fifteen minutes, Agnes was approaching the grim front of the Melbourne Gaol. The huge arch above her, hewn out of dark stone, enclosed locked wooden gates. To the right, she saw a small window and approached it, up two narrow stairs.

  ‘Hello?’ she called.

  A man appeared at the window, and Agnes could see through into a small, enclosed space. ‘Madam?’ he said. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I’m here to see a friend.’

  ‘A prisoner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wait at the gate.’

  Agnes stepped back onto the ground, and a small door opened in the gate. The guard let her through. ‘You’ll have to report to the office,’ he said, leading her across a courtyard of dry, crackling grass. Guards stood at the far end, under another arch. Agnes noticed that some of the stones in the walls were rough and uneven, as though hewn by inexperienced hands.

  Within a moment she was delivered into the hands of another warden, this one with a crisper uniform and accent. He had a round, kind face and frizzy blond hair cut very short against his scalp. ‘How may I help you, ma’am?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m looking for my friend, who was brought in last night.’

  ‘Surname?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Agnes said. ‘I know her as Jack.’

  ‘Ah, the woman in trousers. She’s in the bail yard. Follow me.’

  They returned to the courtyard where the guards stood with grim faces. Once under the arch, they were in a long dark corridor that towered above her. She could hear shouting, men’s voices, the sound of water and quick footsteps on metal stairs. Her eyes lit on the rope hung from the gallows, and she quickly looked away, head down, watching her feet on the dark stone floor. Then out into the sunlight again, in a different, smaller grassed area surrounded by high brick walls. The area was full of men. And Jack, sitting with her back against a wall, watching the world nervously with a black eye.

  She leapt to her feet and ran towards Agnes.

  ‘You have five minutes,’ the warden said, and moved to stand by the entrance to the dark corridor.

  ‘You came!’ Jack cried. ‘Och, I’ve had the worst night of my life.’

  ‘What happened to you?’ Agnes asked. She was aware that some of the men in the bail yard, ill-favoured and raggedly dressed, were staring openly at them. Agnes dropped her voice. ‘It’s not safe for you in here.’

  ‘Aye, you think I don’t know that! I’ve been begging them to put me in the women’s wing but they think it a great game to tell me I’m finally where I belong.’ She gestured around. ‘Surrounded by wife beaters and street brawlers.’

  ‘I don’t understand. How did you end up in here?’

  ‘After I left you, I stopped by the markets to buy me some new clothes. Men’s clothes. The gentleman behind the counter took exception and started pushing me about. I took a crack at him. Don’t know how I did it – must have got my fist right in the perfect spot – but I popped him square on the jaw and he fell over, and then there were others piling on, trying to hold me back, one of them trying to tear off my trousers. I was kicking and screaming when the police came.’ She leaned in close. ‘Agnes, I’m ruined. They say they’re keeping me in for two months, because I haven’t got the bail. I’ll miss the ship; I’ll be beaten – or worse. They’ll make me bathe in front of the men.’

  Agnes’s stomach flipped over. She could smell them, the men. Sweat and stale clothes.

  ‘You have to convince them to put me in the women’s wing. That nice warden there at the gate, he kept an eye on me last night, but who’s to say what’s coming? They think it a great trick, all of these men, a woman dressed like this. They’ve already made jokes about what they’ll do to me the minute they can. But look at you, you’re well dressed and you’ve a sweet face. You can persuade them to move me.’

  ‘How much is the bail?’ Agnes asked.

  Jack narrowed her eyes. ‘More than you can afford.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Aye, they tell me it’s usually ten pounds for disorderly conduct, but because of the way I’m dressed, the bailiff set it at twenty.’

  Twenty pounds. All the money she had. Agnes swayed slightly, struck by the horror of the situation. But then she remembered Jack, singing Scottish folk songs to Gracie as she died, and she knew she couldn’t leave her in here, not even in the women’s wing.

  Agnes turned, then beckoned the warden over.

  ‘No, Agnes. I cannae let you do this,’ Jack was saying.

  ‘Kindly direct me to the bailiff,’ Agnes said to the warden. ‘I’m taking Jack with me.’

  •

  Even though she was desperate to get to Pepperman’s office, Agnes insisted on walking with Jack all the way back to the railway station. As they stood on the platform, the noon sun direct but distant above them, Jack finally asked Agnes, ‘Do you have any money left after that?’

  ‘Aye, be right,’ Agnes lied, knowing Jack was already stricken with guilt. ‘Don’t worry about me.’ But Agnes was worried, so worried. She had to speak to Genevieve today. If, as Jack suggested, she wanted nothing to do with Agnes, she had to get back on the ship before it sailed tonight. If, as Agnes hoped, she welcomed her with a warm embrace and offers of somewhere to stay, Persephone could head back to Ceylon without her and it wouldn’t matter.

  But she had to know today, and today was already half over.

  ‘Go on, away with you,’ Jack said. ‘You’ve got a faraway look in your eyes and nothing will happen between now and five minutes when the train comes.’

  ‘If you’re sure.’

  ‘Go on. Go find Pepperclogs or whatever his ridiculous name is. Go find your mam. And tell her from Jack, that you grew up as fine as can be without her.’

  Agnes leaned in to hug Jack, and she didn’t want to let go. Fear made her feet tingle. She wanted to jump on the train and head back to Colombo, see if the steamer company would accept her return ticket, go back to London to Julius and Marianna.

  Now, though, she was so close.

  She released Jack. ‘Goodbye, friend.’

  ‘Aye, find me someday. You’re good at finding people.’ She laughed.

  ‘Aye, Jack. I will.’ Agnes turned and began to walk away. She
crossed the street just as she heard the train rattle and whoosh into the station, its trumpet whistling. She glanced over her shoulder, but Jack had disappeared into a cloud of white steam.

  •

  Agnes walked past Pepperman’s office four times before she found it. The door man had told her it was directly behind the theatre, so she reoriented herself, and tried again. The problem was that she had been expecting something bigger, grander. In fact, the office was not marked from the street. The building she stood in front of was rough, wooden and had a sagging verandah. It was only when she rang the bell, waited a while, then pushed her way inside without being invited, that she found a set of dark stairs to her right with PEPPERMAN painted on a wooden sign in the shape of an arrow, hung on the wall. The stairs creaked under her feet as she ascended and found herself on a landing with bare floorboards, with three closed doors facing her. One was marked as George Pepperman’s office, so she opened it and went in.

  A young woman with a face like a mouse glanced up at her. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded.

  Agnes took in the office: one large room with doors that opened onto the verandah. The only desk was the ink-splattered one where the young woman sat, sorting papers. No other furniture. Boxes packed up. She thought of what the crooked-looking men had said last night: They’re going to run, and they owe us.

  ‘I’m looking for Genevieve,’ Agnes managed.

  ‘Genevieve will not be in today.’

  ‘Where might I find her?’

  The mousy girl smiled a little cruelly. ‘That is her own business.’

  Agnes felt herself at breaking point. To have come so far only to have Genevieve slip through her fingers again was too much. She thought about begging, but then decided she was better at deception than supplication.