Ember Island Page 22

  But it took four more days, with a hacking cough, before Tilly was up and about properly. Nell was ecstatic the day Tilly joined her and Sterling for dinner again, finally able to sit up at the table and talk without coughing or wheezing. She had seen Sterling only fleetingly the whole time she had been ill.

  “I am pleased to see you are well again,” he said, as she took her place at the table.

  She smiled at him, and he smiled back and there was a softness in his smile she hadn’t seen before. It stirred something inside her; a feeling of vulnerability that was yet somehow sweet. “I am pleased to be well again,” she said.

  “And will you join me for a glass of sherry in the parlor after dinner? I have a desire for conversation and there aren’t many I can talk to as pleasingly as I can talk to you.”

  Nell hid her smile with her fork.

  Tilly nodded. “I would like that very much.”

  SIXTEEN

  The Truth Fixes Everything

  “I didn’t pull the weeds.”

  Tilly turned. The warm afternoon sunshine momentarily blinded her, but then the silhouette of Hettie Maythorpe came more clearly into view. It was Tilly’s first afternoon back in the garden after her illness. All of the rubbish was gone, cleared away by Hettie.

  “I didn’t pull the weeds,” she said again. “I thought you’d prefer to do it yourself.”

  Tilly smiled at her. “You’re right. There’s a special kind of pleasure . . .”

  “I know,” Hettie said, nodding towards the plot. “And there are plenty to pull.”

  “There certainly are.”

  Hettie looked back to Tilly, smiled her tight little smile and said, “I’m glad to see you’re well again.”

  “Thank you.” Then memories of the last time she had seen Hettie came back to her. “Hettie,” she ventured, “that day I collapsed. Did you say something to me as I passed out?” Weakling. That was the word she remembered. A shiver grew in her belly.

  Hettie frowned, concentrating. “I said your name a number of times. And when you tried to get to your feet, I told you that you were too weak to stand.”

  That was it, then. Her fevered imagination had turned it into that other hated word.

  “Is there something the matter?” Hettie said.

  Tilly shook her head. “Nothing. I had some rather colorful dreams while ill. Thank you again for your help with the plot. I will get on with the weeding now.”

  “As you wish, ma’am.”

  Tilly kneeled on the soft grass. The entire plot was overgrowing with a tangle of weeds. She took her little garden fork in her hand and began, enjoying the task: the spiny resistance of the weeds and then their liberation from the ground. Her mind wandered, off and away. She was in another summer’s day, in her childhood in India. Playing at her mother’s feet while her mother did exactly this. Was that where she had learned her love of gardening? Was it those deep, humid summers, those long, balmy nights in the garden full of sweet-smelling blossoms that had made her long to be outside with her hands in soil?

  She thought about Hettie’s children and glanced over her shoulder. Hettie was down near the magnolia trees. Tilly stood and walked over to her, watching her own long shadow proceed her.

  “Hettie?”

  Hettie looked up. She had a smear of dirt across her forehead. “Do you need some help?”

  Tilly sank to the grass next to her. “You said you had children. How old are they?”

  Hettie’s eyes turned downwards sadly. “My daughter is eight and my son is six.”

  “Who looks after them now?”

  “They are with my mother and my sister. My sister is simple. She’s never married, but she is very gentle and sweet with the children. It is the best I could have hoped for them, under the circumstances.” Hettie’s voice was strained over something else, something more primal and unspeakable.

  “You must miss them.”

  Hettie’s lips twisted: she was holding back tears, and Tilly felt terrible for bringing the matter up.

  “I’m sorry,” Tilly said, rising. “I’m being nosy and I’ve upset you. I will leave you be.”

  But Hettie climbed to her feet and blocked Tilly’s way, stopping her from leaving. In a raw, guttural voice she said, “I would give anything to hold them against me again. Their little bodies . . .” She gathered herself, stood aside. “I am so sorry, ma’am. I ought not have stopped you.”

  “It is I who should be sorry,” Tilly said. “My curiosity was rude.”

  “There are few here who care if they are rude to a prisoner,” Hettie said, putting her head back down.

  Tilly didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing. Instead, she returned to her own plot. Hettie’s words still burned her brain. Such urgency, such instinct had been in those words. I would give anything to hold them against me again. Tilly bent to pluck more weeds from the ground, risked a glance over her shoulder at Hettie. She no longer sat where Tilly had left her. She had disappeared in amongst the hedges.

  •

  Her illness behind her, Tilly settled in to life on Ember Island. Nell was still the focus of her time and attention, but there were afternoons in the quiet garden for her mind to unwind, and evenings with Sterling in the parlor for long conversations about books and ideas. She didn’t return to the chapel, even for the Sunday service. This choice, which she thought would have made her appear to be bold and disobedient, went unnoticed or at least unremarked by all but Nell, who pouted about having to go with no good company. Instead, Tilly prayed in her own way, every night, for forgiveness. She received no answer from God, no sign that the twisting and turning of guilt in her guts would stop, but she continued to pray nevertheless, sending out her thoughts into the mute dark of the cosmos.

  Late one night, or perhaps it was early one morning, Tilly woke with the sound of a creaking board out on the verandah. She always slept with the window open now, as the spring warmth intensified towards summer and the only thing that could cool her down was the southeasterly wind off the sea. Tilly fought her way out of the mosquito net and went to the window, hiding behind the curtain to peer out. She saw Sterling, sitting on the top step, his elbows on his knees, gazing out over the island and to the dark sea.

  Why was he up? It was past midnight, she was almost certain. She hesitated a moment, then pulled on her dressing gown. Her heart beat hard in her throat, but she opened her door anyway, and went outside.

  “Sterling?”

  He turned and saw her, smiled, then hid his smile. “It’s late. I’m sorry if I woke you. Please go back to bed.”

  Tilly boldly came to sit beside him instead, and he didn’t tell her to go away. “Why are you up?” She breathed in the warm smell of him.

  “Nell had a nightmare. She’s had the same one, over and over, since Rebecca died. She’s asleep in my bed at the moment, spread out like a starfish.” He chuckled. “It’s hard to sleep with a starfish her size in my bed.”

  “What happens in her dream?”

  “It’s about her mother, being cruel or monstrous to her. She always asks me the same thing, when she comes into my bed. She always wants to know whether her mother loved her.”

  Tilly let the silence linger a few moments, sensing Sterling still had more to say on the matter. The waves pulled and shushed. Possums scrabbled in the trees. The balmy night was soft, lit only by stars, heavy with the scents of damp earth and sea salt. She studied his profile, his strong jaw.

  “What do you say to her?” Tilly finally prompted.

  “Her mother loved her. Of course. But Rebecca was . . . ambivalent about motherhood. When Nell was first born, Rebecca fell into a dark, deep well of hopelessness. It seemed some days that she tried to ignore the baby. Nell would be left to cry for hours. I could hear her in my office and it always tugged at my heart. I had my budget extended for two nannies for the child and a nurse to tend to Rebecca until she was feeling better. But something was amiss between mother and child from the start. When
she had finally climbed out of that miserable abyss, she begged me not to ask her for another child. We were to stop at one.”

  “You wanted more?”

  “I wanted six,” he laughed. “I am an only child myself. I longed for siblings. Nell would have been improved by a younger sister or brother to teach her she isn’t the center of the world.” He sighed. “Rebecca learned a degree of tolerance and patience, but it was always forced. I remember once asking her, when Nell was perhaps four or five, whether she loved the girl. And Rebecca said, ‘Yes, but it sometimes feels as though she isn’t mine.’ Which made no sense at all because Nell grew in her body.” Sterling shook his head. “The more Rebecca pulled away, the harder Nell clung. You can imagine.”

  “I can.”

  “That cat she still carries around sometimes . . . She wouldn’t let it out of her sight. It was so clear to me that she needed Pangur Ban because Rebecca wouldn’t give her the affection she craved. It broke my heart.” He sighed. “I always knew I loved Nell more than Rebecca did.”

  “Then she’s lucky to have you. Many fathers are indifferent to their children.”

  “But I am always so busy. I work seven days a week.” He ran his hand through the front of his hair, then gathered himself. “I am sorry, Tilly. It is wrong to show such weakness in front of you. Not the least reason being you are my employee, and a young single woman, and neither of us are dressed. Living and working on this island means we all forget our manners, we forget what is respectable and appropriate.”

  “Please don’t apologize. I like to listen to you, and I hope that I am a friend to you, more than I am an employee.”

  He didn’t answer and nor did he move away. She could feel the heat of his shoulder, so close to hers, as they sat on the stairs together in the early morning dark. It was bliss to be so close to him, so intimate. But, on the heels of happiness as always the guilt came. If his feelings were growing for her, as she suspected they were, they were for someone he didn’t really know. She was not Chantelle Lejeune. She had a disastrous marriage behind her, a horrific secret. Was it not wrong to allow Sterling to believe she was someone else, something else all together?

  “I should return to bed,” she said, her hand covering an exaggerated yawn. “I need to stay one step ahead of Nell in the classroom and it is already difficult enough.” She rose.

  “Good night, Tilly,” he said, and he brushed his own hand against hers. Sparks flew. Heat suffused her. That touch, a tenth of a moment in length, awoke such liquid warmth in her body that she almost gasped.

  She stood, speechless a few moments, then managed to say, “Good night,” and returned to her room.

  •

  The days grew longer and, impossibly, warmer. Some days, trapped in the grip of endless northeasterly conditions, Tilly slept enveloped in a slick of perspiration under her mosquito net. On other days the wind would swing around from the southeast and bring the fresh smell of rain. One week, it poured from Sunday to Sunday, huge fat drops of rain that hammered on the roof of the house as though the great flood was on its way. Then it suddenly stopped and she woke to bright blue skies, blazing sun, the smell of mud, and the raucous burr of cicadas in the bushes that grew on the escarpment.

  And somehow, in the midst of all this boiling sun and sickening humidity, she was going to celebrate her first Christmas since Grandpa died. She had never longed so much for the hard ache in her fingers of icy weather, for snow and roast beef and opening presents by the fireplace. Six weeks had passed since her arrival on the island. The same length of time as her courtship with Jasper, as the wait for her grandfather to die, as her doomed marriage itself.

  On Christmas morning she entered the chapel for the first time since Mr. Burton’s pointed sermon. It was nine o’clock, and the sweat was already collecting under her arms and between her breasts. Nell wore a simple gingham pinafore over a cotton short-sleeved top and Tilly envied her light clothes. She wore petticoats, a corset, a laced dress, and gloves. Sterling was equally well dressed, but she didn’t ask him if he was equally uncomfortable in the close heat. While they still kept their evening ritual in the parlor, Sterling had shown more reserve around her since the night he touched her hand. Perhaps he admonished himself for flying too far past politeness. Although Tilly longed for him to touch her again, she knew no good could come of allowing herself to fall for him. She had too many secrets to hide, and secrets were like holes in the foundations of a relationship. Eventually they would sink it. So they talked and talked and talked—each in their own corner of the parlor—about philosophies and stories and history and humanity. Sterling had worked in prisons since his youth; he had strong ideas about justice and how it should be administered humanely. Tilly admired him greatly, she admired him so much that her chest sometimes ached with it. But she assiduously avoided imagining a closer relationship with him. At night, falling asleep, she simply prayed for strength and forgiveness.

  The Christmas service was lackluster, as though the chaplain may have written it that morning. When it was done, the congregation stood and filed out noisily. Sterling, Nell, and Tilly waited until last. Tilly found her way out of the chapel blocked by Mr. Burton.

  “Miss Lejeune? A word?”

  Tilly looked around for Sterling, but he had been swept away in the crowd. She allowed herself to be drawn aside, inside the front door of the chapel. It was quiet in the shadows. The voices outside seemed a long way off. Mr. Burton leaned close and said in a harsh voice, “I know why you haven’t been to Sunday service.”

  “You do?”

  “Everybody is talking about you and the superintendent. You can’t bear to show your face, can you?” His eyes were flinty with anger.

  “Me and . . . what have I done to make you so angry with me?”

  “I know your type.”

  “You know nothing about me.” Tilly tried to soften her tone. She did not want to lose her temper, especially not in front of Mr. Burton, who already judged her so harshly.

  “You should remove yourself from this facility, from this island. Before you bring shame on a good man.”

  The last person who had aroused such fury in her was Jasper. Fear prickled along her skin. She didn’t know what her anger would do this time; she was afraid of herself. With an enormous effort of will, she stilled her hands and ducked around Mr. Burton and away. He tried to reach for her shoulder to stop her, but she rounded on him and hissed, “Don’t you touch me, you unctuous churl!”

  He recoiled, but the alarm on his face was soon replaced by a sneer. “I know what you need. I know what would stop up that mouth of yours.”

  Tilly turned and strode away. Nell was waiting for her, Sterling had gone ahead.

  “Tilly?” Nell said.

  “Not now,” Tilly replied. “I need to go for a walk to cool off.”

  She took the back way up to the house, through a horse paddock and then up the escarpment from the steeper side. The exercise helped. She breathed through her anger and managed to unball her fists sufficiently to dislodge her fingernails from her palms. She came around the northern side of the house and walked up the long grassy corridor between flower beds until she arrived at her own plot. It had been cleared and she had planted a neat border of marigolds. She sat down on the grass, then sank onto her back and looked at the blue sky, breathing.

  A shadow fell nearby, and Tilly sat up. Hettie stood there, looking hesitant.

  “Hettie? Are you working on Christmas Day?”

  “I asked if I could, instead of Christmas dinner. My cellmates are not good company. And I . . . here.” She reached into the inside of her dress and withdrew a slip of paper, handed it to Tilly.

  It was a card, made out of an old seed packet. Hettie had slit it neatly and turned it inside out. On it, she had written, “Merry Christmas to Miss Lejeune from Hettie,” in a painfully childish hand.

  Tilly found her eyes pricking with tears. “Oh,” she said. “I haven’t anything for you—”

&nbs
p; “Of course you don’t. I expect nothing. I . . . I made it for you and I was glad to see you here today.”

  On impulse, Tilly reached out and squeezed Hettie’s hand. “Thank you. It means a lot to me.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. It has brightened a day that had become quite . . . dark.”

  Hettie offered a small smile and then retreated.

  Tilly turned the flimsy Christmas card over in her hands. Today, she had been offered both insult and treasure by a chaplain and a prisoner. It seemed more and more clear to Tilly that it wasn’t always the right person who ended up behind bars.

  •

  The chaplain’s words preyed on Tilly’s mind: everybody talking about her and Sterling, harming his good reputation. That evening after dinner, when he asked her to join him in the parlor, she begged off, claiming she was tired. The following night she did the same.

  On the fifth night the question was almost a challenge.

  “Tilly?” he said. “Sherry?” Weight in the words. Nothing light or casual, despite his forced tone.

  “I would rather not.”

  He assembled his expression carefully, but in the split second before he did she saw his disappointment. She saw that he felt rejected, bewildered, and it pained her greatly to have been the cause. But she reassured herself it was for the best.

  And resigned herself to the miserable relief that he wouldn’t ask her again.

  •

  The old year swung to make way for the new year. Criminal cases held over for the Christmas period began to be processed and new prisoners arrived more numerously. Sterling was busy; he grew distant from her. She was busy too. She had turned down a summer break on the mainland and, much to Nell’s great delight, devised a medieval-themed project for summer. They learned some Middle English together, wrote poems in the style of Chaucer, carved their own woodcuts for prints, and designed and sewed a medieval gown for Nell. No matter that the gown turned out rather uneven, with a hem that continually fell down. The girl was hardly out of it through most of January, despite the humid heat.