Stars Across the Ocean

by Kimberley Freeman

  ‘Can I tell her who was looking for her?’ the mousy girl said.

  ‘Agnes Resolute,’ Agnes said. ‘Goodbye.’

  Agnes made her way back down the stairs, and across the road to a coffee house with blue-and-white striped awnings and petunias in window boxes. She took a table near the front window and spent sixpence of her salary from Dr Angel on coffee and a sandwich. That meant, after paying the Hardwickes, she would have seven shillings left. Seven shillings and here she was on the other side of the world. She took a deep breath and pressed her toes down hard in her shoes. A group of rowdy men argued in the opposite corner. Agnes sat and watched the wooden house across the road. Time seemed to crawl. Despair crept close.

  Finally, the door to the house opened and the mousy woman stepped out and headed across the road. For a horrible moment, Agnes thought she might come into the coffee house, but she turned in the other direction and hurried off. To lunch, to the bank, who knew? The important thing was that Agnes needed to get into Pepperman’s office.

  Agnes waited for a horse and cart to pass, then crossed the street and went up the stairs. The door was locked, of course. She fished two pins out of her hair and squared her shoulders; maybe this time.

  Time ticked. She fiddled with her pins in the lock, but it wouldn’t give and her hands began to tremble. ‘Hell fire,’ she said under her breath, stilling her hands and going in again.

  ‘Locked yourself out, have you?’

  Agnes turned to see a middle-aged gentleman with a shining bald head and a well-oiled moustache looking at her. ‘I … yes.’

  ‘Here,’ he said, pulling a key from his pocket and unlocking the door for her. ‘Don’t say I’m not a good landlord.’

  ‘Aye, you are the very best landlord,’ Agnes said, and said a silent prayer for her silk gown and kid gloves, which made her look anything like the sneak she was. ‘I will make sure to tell Mister Pepperman.’

  He smiled at her, his eyes crinkling kindly, and then let himself into the opposite office.

  Agnes slipped into Pepperman’s office and closed the door behind her, her heart thudding hard.

  Where to start?

  She went to the mousy woman’s desk. Letters. Letters always had addresses. She pulled off her gloves and rifled through the drawers and found nothing but empty ink bottles and blotting paper. She pulled out a small iron box from beneath the desk and opened it. Letters! But all of them were addressed to here, at the office. No home address.

  Wildly, now, she went to the packed-up boxes. Their lids were not yet nailed shut, so she opened them, one after the other. Playbills and accounts and posters and books and maps, an adding machine, pens and ink bottles. Her fingers were raw from prising off box lids. Finally, she found a bunch of letters tied together. She untied them, fanned them out. All the same business address, except one. It felt as though it had a card in it. She flipped it over and saw it was addressed to Mr and Mrs Pepperman on Gertrude Street.

  Where was Gertrude Street?

  She remembered she had seen a map of the city in one of the other boxes, and now she hunted it down and pulled it out, her eyes reading too far ahead. Found it. A distance of no more than a mile.

  Leaving the boxes open and their contents strewn about, Agnes ran.

  •

  The address was on a quiet street of terraced houses. Agnes opened the gate and it squeaked loudly. She winced. She passed the tiny, overgrown front garden and walked up three steps to the front door. Heart hammering, she rang the bell.

  Nobody answered. She rang the bell again and then she knocked and, nearly crippled with frustration now, started calling, ‘Hello? Is there anyone here?’

  She tried the door. To her surprise, it opened.

  Agnes glanced behind her. She was concealed from the street by a hawthorn hedge, and she could hear no footsteps or hoofbeats. The last time she’d found a house open like this, it was the abandoned house in Colombo. She needed to see if this one was empty too. Guiltily, she slipped inside.

  ‘Hello?’ she called again. ‘Genevieve?’ With relief, she noticed there were still signs somebody lived here. She stood in a hallway with rooms branching off either side. She walked in a little further, opened doors and looked in rooms. She couldn’t imagine why the door was unlocked – the house was still furnished richly, though she noticed the walls and mantelpieces were bare of pictures and ornaments. She came to a set of stairs and ascended. Two tiny rooms looked out over the street; one of them had a canopy bed covered in embroidered linen, the other had a sitting chair under a window and nothing else.

  Agnes moved back downstairs, puzzled. Was this Genevieve’s house? Why was it unlocked? Would she be home at any moment, and if so, what would she think of Agnes being inside? Agnes was in the hallway, moving towards the front door, when she heard the gate outside squeak. Somebody was coming back.

  Desperate, she glanced around her. A hat and coat cupboard stood to her left, built into the wall of the hallway. She opened it and ducked inside, closing the door just as she heard the front door open, and smelled a sharp, aromatic, familiar scent.

  Then came the men’s voices, and she knew it was the two fellows she had seen at the backstage door of the theatre the night before.

  ‘So, how much did you have to pay the housekeeper to leave the door unlocked?’ one, she imagined the younger one, asked the other.

  ‘She did it for two shillings. Would have done it for free, I’m certain. No love lost on Genevieve by anyone.’

  ‘Except Pepperman.’

  ‘Idiot.’

  Agnes shrank against the back wall of the cupboard, and lowered herself to the floor, coats and sleeves brushing against her. It was very dark, with only the barest crack of light where the door met the jamb. Her heart thudded so hard she had trouble hearing her own thoughts. She expected the men were here to steal things because Pepperman owed them money. Did that mean they would open this cupboard, to go through pockets? Maybe they would go upstairs first and give her a chance to escape.

  But then one asked the other, ‘When’s she coming back?’

  ‘Housekeeper says she’s always home between two and three.’

  ‘Won’t she get a surprise when she finds us?’

  ‘Won’t Pepperman get a surprise when he has to pay us to give her back?’

  They sniggered, and then one said, ‘Put your pipe out, man. She’ll smell us before she sees us.’ Then the voices withdrew into the room across the hallway. ‘No, no, leave the door open. We want to hear when she’s coming.’

  So, they weren’t here to steal things, they were here to steal Genevieve. Agnes forced stale, musty air into her lungs. She closed her eyes and tried to bring to mind everything she’d seen in her quick tour of the house. The room they were in was diagonally opposite the coat cupboard; depending on where they sat, if she dared open the door, they might see her. She doubted they would let her go, because they would know she would go straight to the police.

  She pictured the house again in her mind’s eye. The front door was only four yards away, but might as well be on the other side of the world. Even if she got to the door, it was hidden from the street and they could grab her in the garden. She opened her eyes and felt around in the cupboard for a weapon of some kind. Was Genevieve the type to keep a pistol in her coat pocket? Agnes edged to her feet, bumping her head softly and freezing for nearly a whole minute wondering if they’d heard. Nobody came. As quietly as she could, she twisted around and rifled through the pockets, then felt about among the hats on the shelf above her. Nothing. Then she remembered that by the front door was a leather basket with walking canes in it. If she could get to one of those first …

  It was impossibly risky. She sat again, curled over on herself, closed her eyes and rocked. She didn’t know what time it was, but she felt a half-hour slip away. Occasionally the men would talk, but not about Genevieve. About their wives, about their plans, as though kidnapping somebody were nothing significant at all. Agne
s felt trapped in a bad dream, and found herself wishing she had got on the ship with Jack that morning. But no. Then these men would abduct Genevieve and who knew what would happen? Could Pepperman even afford to pay to get her back? It certainly looked as though they had already sold their valuables, and his office showed he was going out of business. Would they murder her or leave her somewhere to die?

  Agnes may have found herself in the middle of a drama she was ill equipped to deal with, but she was glad. She had a chance to warn Genevieve, to save her.

  Filling with determination, she forced her thoughts to become ordered and devised a plan. Out of the cupboard; three steps and she’d have a cane in her hand; out the door, fighting them off if she had to; then run. She didn’t know where the police station was, but she could find the gaol and they would know. The criminals would be caught, Genevieve would be safe. And grateful. So very grateful.

  Agnes put her hand on the door, ready to push it, when she heard the gate squeak again.

  ‘No,’ she breathed in the soft dark.

  ‘She’s coming,’ one of the men said.

  Agnes froze. The front door opened, followed by footsteps in the hallway, then the cupboard opened and Genevieve stood there, shrugging out of her coat. She saw Agnes and her eyes went round. This moment, this long dreamed of moment, when she came face to face with her mother, was not meant to be like this. She had imagined studying Genevieve’s face, learning every line of it, before they even spoke.

  Instead, Agnes said, ‘Run!’

  Genevieve didn’t need a second warning. She ran.

  •

  All that happened after was noise and chaos, lit brighter than regular life. As the front door opened and sunlight fell in, the two men, dressed in dark clothes, blurred past after Genevieve. Agnes acted on instinct, propelling herself out of the cupboard despite her cramped leg muscles and leaping towards the walking canes she had seen. Her hand closed over the brass end of one, and she saw that Genevieve was shouting and struggling with the two men on the first stair. Agnes took two steps, the cane raised high, and swung it with all her might down onto the back of one man’s head. A cracking noise cut through Genevieve’s shouts for help. The man fell to his knees and landed on the top stair awkwardly, then slid down at a sick angle and woozily fought to get on his feet. Genevieve kept shouting and trying to get away, the other man dragging at her sleeve. She got to the gatepost and held onto the iron bars of the fence with all her might, while the fellow tried to pull her away.

  ‘Who are you?’ he screamed at Agnes, who approached with her cane raised.

  ‘I’m her daughter!’ Agnes shouted and brought the cane down. The man reached up to stop it, caught it in his hands but in doing so let go of Genevieve, who wrenched open the gate and ran into the street shouting for help. Along the street, doors were opening and people were peering out, and a burly fellow with a bushy blond beard was making his way over from the adjacent house.

  The man’s eyes flicked from Agnes to the bearded man and back. Genevieve had run, was already halfway down the street.

  ‘Wait!’ Agnes called, making after her.

  The man grabbed her as his fallen companion climbed to his feet. But the bushy-bearded man thundered towards them shouting, ‘Let her go!’ and he released her. Agnes didn’t stop to see what happened. She heard shouts and pounding footsteps, but that drama meant little to her, compared to that of losing Genevieve, who was now a hundred yards away.

  ‘Come back!’ Agnes called, running as fast as she could. Her heart pounded and her breath became short. ‘Genevieve, wait!’

  Genevieve didn’t slow, but Agnes was younger and faster, and finally caught up with Genevieve two blocks from the house. ‘Where are you going?’ Agnes gasped, falling into step beside her. ‘The police station?’

  ‘Who are you? Why do you care?’

  ‘I’m Agnes. I’m your daughter.’

  Genevieve glanced her up and down quickly, never breaking her stride. ‘No, you’re not.’

  Agnes’s heart went cold. ‘I am, I can explain. We need to go somewhere quiet.’

  ‘I’m going somewhere quiet now. You can come with me. Hoy!’ She put her hand out to a passing horse and cart. When it didn’t slow, she reached into her purse and pulled out a five-pound note, waving it frantically. The driver abruptly stopped a few yards ahead of them. Genevieve ran to catch it up, Agnes behind her.

  ‘I’ll not be moving my crates,’ the driver said.

  ‘I don’t care. Here.’ She handed him the money then hoisted herself up and held her hand down for Agnes to climb up too. ‘Take us to the Albion. North side of Bourke Street.’

  ‘Right you are, ladies,’ the driver said, and they were off.

  Agnes sat between two fruit crates, Genevieve across from her, cheeks flushed.

  ‘So, you think you are my daughter?’ Genevieve said, as the cart rocked along and she caught her breath and very carefully restored the pins to the right place in her fair hair.

  Agnes looked behind them to see if the men were following, but the street was silent and calm, as though the drama had never happened. ‘I am Agnes Resolute. I grew up in Perdita Hall foundling hospital in Hatby. You know it?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I spent my childhood in Hatby. But that doesn’t make me your—’

  ‘I was left there as a baby with a unicorn button, just like the buttons on a jacket you sent to the hospital for charity, ten years later. And Miss Candlewick once said I was like you. Cut of the same cloth …’ Saying it out loud to Genevieve made her realise how thin it sounded.

  Genevieve studied her face for a moment, and Agnes could see her mind ticking over. ‘So, that’s what happened to the button? That’s why I eventually gave the coat away. It was my favourite, and the buttons had been handmade for me by Mrs Connor down at the haberdasher. She’d died, I couldn’t replace it, so I couldn’t wear it any more. A real shame.’

  Agnes fought for words. She had imagined Genevieve welcoming her with a mother’s embrace and she had imagined Genevieve rejecting her outright. But never had she imagined that Genevieve would simply sit there talking about Mrs Connor who’d handmade her buttons and what a shame she’d not been able to wear her favourite riding coat.

  ‘In any case,’ Genevieve said at last, smoothing her skirt. ‘I’m not your mother.’

  ‘I know that it’s a surprise, me showing up, but—’

  ‘Really,’ Genevieve said more firmly. ‘I think I’d know if I’d borne a child. I haven’t.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You seem a nice lass, but I’m not your mother, dear. My sister, Marianna, is.’

  •

  In the shock, there is a pause. Time seems to slow and Agnes finds herself back inside a memory. The quiet house on Belgrave Place. She sits in companionable silence next to Marianna, working on a corner of embroidery. Marianna gazes out the window at the orange trees. The day is windy and rainy, but inside they are still and warm. Marianna turns to her and says, ‘Do you know how rare it is to find somebody to be quiet with?’

  ‘Very rare, I imagine,’ Agnes, whose life has never been quiet, replies.

  ‘We are cut of the same cloth, Agnes,’ Marianna says.

  Agnes smiles. Cut of the same cloth. Yes, they are, she and Marianna, in the warm bubble that is familial love.

  •

  When Agnes drew breath again, the cart was rattling to a stop a few blocks south, outside the telegraph office. The road was choked with horses and carts, stopped on the side of the road.

  ‘Here will do,’ Genevieve said imperiously. She was already climbing down, smoothing her skirt again.

  Agnes climbed down after her. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘You can’t follow me,’ Genevieve answered, but she helped Agnes down and steadied her when the cart took off at a pace.

  Genevieve strode to the neighbouring building, a two-storey stone place with a statue of Queen Victoria standing on the gable. She pushed open the doo
r and went in, Agnes scurrying after her. The smell of cigar smoke gathered around her. Inside, a row of men stood at a bar. Behind the bar were tables, largely empty, though one family sat eating a meal. Genevieve went to the back corner and sat down, removing her hat.

  ‘Are you still here?’ she asked.

  Agnes pulled out a chair and sat opposite her. ‘I’ve come all the way from England. I came to find you and—’

  ‘But I’m not your mother, dear,’ Genevieve said slowly. ‘You do understand that?’

  ‘Yes, of course. But how did it happen?’

  A tall man appeared beside their table and said, ‘Mrs Pepperman, your bag.’

  Genevieve looked up and smiled at him. ‘Fourteen pounds and not an ounce more?’

  ‘All weighed and measured, ma’am.’

  ‘Thank you, James. You have been a good friend to George and me.’ She opened her purse and handed him five pounds.

  The tall man shuffled off and Genevieve returned her attention to Agnes. ‘Fourteen pounds. That’s all I’m allowed to take with me.’

  ‘Take with you where?’

  ‘On the stagecoach. That’s the Cobb and Co office across from us. I leave in two hours to join George, my husband.’ She smiled demurely. ‘My current husband. We’ve some rather bad debts, you see. I’m starting a new life, with fourteen pounds of possessions.’

  This was the woman Agnes had thought Genevieve would be; but now that she had met her in the flesh, she found herself profoundly unimpressed.

  ‘Where are you meeting him?’

  ‘Well, I’m hardly going to tell you, dear. When somebody flees debts they’re usually quite secretive about it, so don’t take it personally.’ She glanced at the clock over the bar. ‘You’re not going to leave without me telling you about Marianna and Emile, are you?’

  ‘Who’s Emile?’ But she knew. That was her father’s name. Emile.

  Genevieve launched into her tale, eyes constantly flicking from the clock to the entranceway, fingers drumming on the table. She told Agnes everything, and at the end of it Agnes understood all, and she knew what she must do.