Stars Across the Ocean

by Kimberley Freeman

  He rose and led her to a side table, where she found pen, ink and paper, and scribbled down the address. She handed him the slip of paper, but instead of taking it from her fingers he enclosed her in a hug. She allowed herself to be engulfed by him, and felt his body shake slightly. He was crying. Agnes smiled against his shoulder. But she didn’t cry. She hardly ever did.

  •

  At three o’clock the next afternoon, Agnes finally made it back to Belgrave Place. It surprised her how nervous she was. She had mailed a letter from Colombo, but had no idea if it had made it ahead of her. Did they know she was on her way back? Was Julius angry with her? Worse, had he fallen out of love with her?

  She wasn’t sure if she should knock on the door or simply open it, so she did a little of both, opening it with a knock and calling out, ‘Hello there?’

  Daisy was the first to see her, and lost control instantly of her mouth, calling, ‘Marianna, Julius, you must come. You must come!’

  Footsteps. Running footsteps. Julius appeared from around the side of the stairwell. With a shout of happiness he picked her up and spun her around. ‘My love! You are returned!’

  ‘Put me down,’ she laughed. ‘I’m far too tall to be swung around like a child.’

  He put her down. ‘You’re as naughty as a child, disappearing for so long. But Agnes, Marianna knows that—’ He stopped, because at that moment Marianna stepped out of the hall to the drawing room, her face a mask of wonder and joy. Julius took a step back and Agnes turned to face her.

  ‘Agnes,’ Marianna managed. ‘You have come back to me. My baby, my lost child, you …’ She dissolved into speechless tears.

  ‘Aye, be right,’ Agnes said gently. She stepped forward and put her arms around her mother, and Marianna was warm and soft and loving, just as mothers always are.

  •

  It was night-time before Julius and Agnes had a moment alone. Marianna had gone to bed, exhausted from crying, by six o’clock; but Annie, Daisy and Pamela all wanted to hear about Agnes’s adventures and so she drank hot cocoa with them in the kitchen and told them everything. Julius listened on, his shirt sleeves rolled up so he could almost pass as somebody who belonged below-stairs. They were particularly interested in stories about Jack, who engendered Annie’s speechless admiration for running away to sea in trousers. But eventually Julius hinted that Agnes was tired from all her travelling and the staff should release her to bathe and turn to bed. He followed her up the stairs, caught her hand and said, ‘Just one moment with you, my dear, in the drawing room?’

  Agnes allowed herself to be led. Pamela had turned the lights down hours ago, and the fire had burned down to smouldering embers. It was dark and cold when Julius shut the door behind them. The curtains remained open and Agnes could see the half-moon through the bare branches of trees.

  Julius did not wait to light a lamp. He turned Agnes towards him and took both her hands in his left hand. With his right, he reached out to touch her cheek. ‘Agnes?’

  ‘Aye, Julius. I will marry you. If you’ll still have me after I’ve been roaming all over the world.’

  ‘I will. Of course I will. I love you more for your wisdom and experience, for your strength of character.’

  ‘But promise me, Julius, that the adventures aren’t all over? That we’ll travel? We will go to visit Jack?’

  He smiled, and she caught her breath at the truth and kindness in his face. ‘I promise you, Agnes, the adventures are not over yet.’ Then he pulled her against him and pressed his lips over hers. She heard her pulse rushing past her ears and it put her in mind of angel wings.

  •

  Two weeks after the day she returned, life had assumed a regular shape. Now Agnes was a noblewoman’s daughter and soon to be a doctor’s wife, she could command people to wait on her, but she hated to be idle and she did not think herself above anyone. Julius had a new position with the government, visiting schools to perform health checks on students, and sometimes she accompanied him to help him with his notes and talk kindly to the children. He was much happier being around well children than ones who were poorly. Sometimes she stayed home with Marianna, and she still read to her but no longer at three in the morning. That was now Daisy’s job, as she was learning to read and Marianna was happy to hear her stammer her way through children’s books just as long as she had company. Marianna didn’t wake as much in the night anyway. Having Agnes back seemed to have mended whatever it was that had frayed the edges of her soul.

  Agnes had been out in the morning buying lace and silk. She was determined to make her own wedding gown, and Marianna’s mother-of-the-bride gown too. She returned to Belgrave Place with her purchases wrapped in brown paper, tucked under her arm. She let herself in and was accosted at the door almost immediately by Julius.

  He put a finger over his lips.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Why are you home?’

  ‘I was on my way out when a visitor came,’ he whispered.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Come and see.’ He relieved her of her packages, laying them on the hall table as he led her towards the drawing room. He opened the door and she saw through the window that there was somebody in the garden.

  Agnes’s heart stood still.

  Seated on the bench was Emile. In front of him, on the cold ground on her knees, was Marianna, her head in his lap. A beam of weak sun was in her fair hair, and his hand cradled her crown.

  ‘Agnes Resolute, I do believe you are crying,’ Julius teased.

  ‘I’m not,’ she sniffed, palming tears off her face. ‘I hardly ever do.’

  The Present

  The email pings into my inbox as I worry at the corner of my pinkie fingernail. I am waiting for an email from Geoff, about the house settlement. It hasn’t been pleasant. None of this has been pleasant, but there are small joys. And big ones, like Andrew.

  But this email isn’t from Geoff. It’s another I hadn’t hoped to wait for. A reply to something I shot off out of curiosity. When I see it, I almost laugh with delight. I print it and call out to Mum.

  ‘Mum? Where are you?’

  ‘Out here.’

  I slide open the doors to the little sunroom. The weather has turned bitter – I’d forgotten about the English cold in my sun-drenched Australian existence – and Mum likes to sit here in the sunroom because it feels like the last warm place in the house. Don’t misunderstand: there is no sun. There is unyielding grey sky. But there is an electric heater, and the glass keeps the warmth trapped inside.

  She has been reading. The book bristles with sticky notes. This is how she remembers characters and their histories. I tread carefully, not wanting to upset or frustrate her with my news, but hoping she is in a lucid-enough spell to comprehend what I’m about to tell her.

  ‘Mum, do you remember that letter we both read? Moineau and Emile?’

  She nods, but I see she doesn’t remember because she blinks rapidly.

  ‘It was in the back of the book by—’

  ‘Cicero!’ she says, a small note of triumph in her voice. ‘Yes, yes, I remember. The poor lass who lost her baby. The lover with the injured wife.’

  ‘Yes. Well, I have just received the most exciting email. You tried to find him, remember? Emile Venson?’

  ‘Nobody could find him for me,’ she says.

  ‘Well, I had a hunch, and Andrew got his research assistant to follow it up for me.’

  A muscle tightens in her jaw. Mum is still unimpressed that I am seeing Andrew, but I am confident he will win her over eventually.

  ‘Venson,’ I say. ‘It’s an unusual name.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘And he was French. It didn’t sound like a French surname to me, but what if Moineau simply spelled it as she heard it? Venson …’

  Mum thinks for a second, then says, ‘Vincent. The French would pronounce it Venson.’

  ‘Exactly. I sent the research assistant off to see if he could locate Emile Vincent, carpenter of Millt
horne, Dorset.’ I wave the email. ‘And he did.’

  Mum sat up, electrified. ‘Tell me again. Andrew found Emile Venson?’

  ‘His research assistant found Emile Vincent, yes.’ I was getting used to repeating things, making sure they embedded themselves. I crouched on the floor next to her so she could see the sheet of paper as I read off it: Hi Tori, I found your Emile Vincent. I have no date of birth but he appears in the marriage records in 1875 when he wed Marianna Breckby of Belgrave Place, London. He appears again in the records on the date of his death, in 1896. The Dorchester Daily writes that he is survived by Marianna, their daughter, Agnes, their son-in-law, Julius Halligan, and their granddaughter, Grace.

  Mum clutches her hands together over her heart. ‘They found each other!’ she exclaims. ‘They married!’

  ‘They had a child!’ I added. ‘Agnes.’

  ‘I wonder if it’s the child,’ Mum says. ‘The one she wrote the letter to?’

  ‘Well now, it could be. We would have to do some research on the dates.’ I think this unlikely, but Mum is so delighted by the possibility, and I try as much as possible to let her enjoy any moments of brightness and happiness that come. Crossing the grey ocean is not so bad if there are stars along the way.

  Mum reads the email over and over again, and for a little while she is back with me. I hang on to it. The weather will change. Everything does. Calm seas don’t last forever. Clouds will cover the sun.

  We set our course together, my mother and I.

  Acknowledgements

  In the composition of this novel, I have never been more aware of the people and communities I rely on to get books written.

  Thanks to everyone who helped with my research: Oliver Chadwick, Anna Madill, Karen Pymble and the staff at the National Maritime Museum archive, and Alan and Trevor at the Old Melbourne Gaol.

  Thanks to Stacey Clair, Karen Ward and Vanessa Radnidge, who helped trim sails and set course.

  Thanks to my writing support group: Meg Vann, Charlotte Nash, Liz McKewin, Bek Turner, Fiona McMillan and Nicole Cody.

  Thanks to my neighbours: Adele Bird, Lynne Marsh and Margaret Wolfe, none of whom are in any way doo-lally.

  Thanks to my soul sisters: Kate Forsyth and Mary-Rose MacColl.

  Thanks to my World Domination team: Lisa Fletcher and Beth Driscoll. Sorry about any deadlines I missed because I was writing a novel.

  Thanks to my understanding children: Luka and Astrid. Your permanently distracted mother adores you.

  Thanks to my husband because he’s lovely in more ways than is possible to enumerate.

  Thanks to my author management: Selwa, Brian and Linda. I love you with all my heart.

  And to my mum. Everything that’s good about me comes from you.

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  Copyright

  Published in Australia and New Zealand in 2017

  by Hachette Australia

  (an imprint of Hachette Australia Pty Limited)

  Level 17, 207 Kent Street, Sydney NSW 2000

  www.hachette.com.au

  Copyright © Kimberley Freeman 2017

  This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be stored or reproduced by any process without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record of this book is available from the National Library of Australia.

  978 0 7336 3354 6

  978 0 7336 3355 3 (ebook edition)

  Cover design by Christabella Designs

  Cover photograph © Mark Owen/Trevillion Images

  Author photograph courtesy of Craig Peihopa