Stars Across the Ocean Page 9

  CHAPTER 6

  A weekend followed of glorious late spring weather. Agnes persuaded Marianna to stay in the garden until the afternoon shadows grew long. She no longer clung to the bench, but moved freely about from one side of the garden wall to the other, delighting at bees and blooms and soft breezes. Julius joined them for a while, pottering around pulling weeds and puffing about needing to hire a gardener if they were to spend so much time outside now.

  On the Monday morning, Agnes met Marianna in the drawing room after breakfast as usual. She expected to sit and read, or chat while sewing, but Marianna was dressed as though to leave the house. Hat, gloves, coat. She had styled her own hair, and it fell loose at the back.

  ‘The garden, Marianna?’ Agnes asked.

  ‘No. Today, I want to go to the library depot and choose my own books.’

  Agnes blinked. ‘You want to walk to the Strand?’

  Marianna lifted her chin and nodded. ‘Yes, why not? Why oughtn’t I browse the books and see what’s there?’

  ‘No reason at all, if that is what you wish.’ Agnes’s mind worked quickly. Had Julius left yet? Ought she tell him? Ought she discourage Marianna? Walking in a walled garden was vastly different from taking to the crowded streets of London, especially on such a fine day when everyone would be about.

  ‘You’ve helped me see there is life outside, Agnes.’ Then she licked her lips quickly and said in a softer voice, ‘I want to try.’

  ‘Let’s say we will go to the end of the street and no further today,’ Agnes suggested.

  Marianna nodded.

  ‘Aye, then. Take my hand.’

  With Marianna’s hand in hers, Agnes led her up the corridor and across the entranceway then pulled open the door. Sunlight fell in, brighter than she’d expected. Marianna squinted, held back a little.

  ‘Marianna? We can stay if it’s easier.’

  ‘Of course it’s easier,’ she said, but took a step forward anyway. They crossed the threshold, descended the three steps, and were a few yards from the house when Marianna stopped.

  Agnes felt Marianna’s hand become cold and clammy. Her breathing was coming in constricted wheezes.

  ‘Turn around,’ Agnes said gently. ‘We will go back inside for now.’

  ‘But … I want to …’

  ‘Look how far you have come. Look! This was unimaginable just a few weeks ago.’

  Marianna turned and surveyed the short distance they had travelled, then released Agnes’s hand and scurried back to the house. Agnes followed, then closed the big door behind her. Marianna was already in the drawing room, pulling off her hat and coat and gloves roughly.

  ‘What a fool I am,’ she muttered. ‘What a jolly fool.’

  Agnes approached, taking her gloves and hat and putting them aside, enclosing her fingers over Marianna’s. ‘No, no, Marianna. Be kinder to th’self.’

  ‘I wasn’t always like this, you know,’ she spluttered, and anger turned to sadness. Her eyes welled. ‘I was normal. I could go out. If he hadn’t … but it was so long ago. I can’t still blame him. I can’t keep hashing over what happened. It’s me who’s at fault.’

  ‘Blame whom for what?’ Agnes said, curiosity prickling.

  ‘Don’t listen to me, I’m talking nonsense,’ Marianna muttered.

  ‘You aren’t at all.’ Agnes considered her, among all the shining, beautiful things in the drawing room. A woman of middle years, with hair not quite pinned right, her eyes glassy and her jaw trembling. ‘Help me understand. How does it feel to you, being outside?’ Agnes asked. She had spent far too many years cooped up behind walls and couldn’t imagine what would persuade Marianna to stay inside all the time.

  ‘Feels as though …’ She tapped her heart. ‘As though I’ll be crushed by how big the world is.’

  ‘But you don’t feel like that in the garden any more?’

  Marianna shook her head.

  ‘So, perhaps one day you will be just as comfortable walking to the corner. Or to the Strand for books. Imagine that.’

  Marianna turned away, then slumped down on the sofa. ‘You are very sweet, dear.’

  Agnes sat with her, her curiosity refusing to abate. ‘What happened to you, Marianna?’ she asked gently. ‘Was somebody cruel to you?’

  ‘Few people get through life without being the victim of a little cruelty,’ Marianna said with a bitter twist of her lips, dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘Only the weak never recover.’

  ‘Give over, you’re not weak. You’re strong. Five minutes ago you faced your greatest fear.’

  ‘And now I’m trembling like a ninny.’ She grasped Agnes’s wrist. ‘I hate this. It isn’t really me,’ she said. ‘But we are all of us the sum of what has happened to us.’

  Agnes met her eyes steadily, wishing she could see all the way into her mind and memories. She reached up and lifted a strand of unsecured hair. ‘Turn around, Marianna. Let me fix your hair.’

  ‘Oh, let’s just unpin it. One thing about a life spent indoors is that I’ve never had to worry too much about how I look.’

  Agnes pulled out the pins and laid them on the couch beside her. Marianna dropped her head and her breathing returned to normal, her demeanour became calm again.

  ‘I think I will spend the day in bed,’ Marianna said. ‘I feel quite drained by all of this.’

  ‘Let me help you—’ Agnes started, but Marianna held up her hand softly.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I am happier with my own company. You’re a good girl. I shan’t need you today, so catch up on some mending. Tell Pamela I’ll have my lunch in my room on the dot of twelve.’ She rose, and Agnes watched her go, the depth of her concern for her aunt only matched by the relentless curiosity about what she had endured, and how that might mean something about Agnes’s secret past.

  •

  Late in the afternoon that day, Agnes took herself out into the garden. Without Marianna to keep her busy, she had spent the day in the dim kitchen with the mending basket and now she felt cooped up and in need of some time by herself. Annie, Pamela and Daisy were good company, but the three of them at once meant lots of chatter and silly jokes.

  Even though there was still light in the sky, the wall kept the garden entirely in deep shade. She could see, though, that Julius sat out here. His back was turned to her, and he was slumped slightly, as though the effort of remaining upright had become too much for him. She considered going back inside, but at that moment he turned and saw her.

  He straightened, mock-brightened. ‘Good evening, Agnes.’

  ‘Good evening, Julius. You are home early.’

  ‘Yes, rather a wretched day. Please, don’t let me stop you enjoying the garden too.’

  Agnes took a few tentative steps forward. She had been hoping to sit precisely where he was; the only other places to sit were the edging stones of the garden beds or the mildewed lip of the fish pond.

  He made a show of moving over, and she sat on the bench, leaving space between them.

  ‘Tell me, how is my aunt today?’

  ‘She has been in her bedroom since morning.’

  ‘Unwell?’

  Agnes turned the word over in her head. ‘Unwell in her heart, maybe. She insisted this morning that she would walk to the library depot. I do not know how long she had been preparing herself, sharpening her will. In any case, she made it only a few yards from the front door.’

  Even in the gloom, she could see his face soften. ‘Oh, poor Marianna.’

  ‘She took those few steps outside, though, Julius,’ Agnes said. ‘She was so brave. But she felt no pride. Only disappointment.’

  ‘Indeed. I could not imagine she would ever step outside the front door again,’ he replied. ‘You have been good for her, Agnes. I have done my best to keep her company, but she has been lonely for many years. She has kept no friends, has little contact with her family.’ He chuckled. ‘You know, it took me six months to convince her to hire a companion.’


  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Yes, and the first girl we hired … Marianna scared her off almost instantly. The poor lass was trying to appear cheerful and friendly, and rabbited on about taking Marianna to Cheapside to look at dresses. Marianna shrilly told her that they would not set foot outside the house, ever. The lass decided not to take the position.’

  ‘Aye, then. It’s a good thing I turned up,’ Agnes said lightly.

  ‘With that Yorkshire accent, yes. Nobody else had a hope once Marianna had heard you speak. You northerners run in packs.’

  They were both laughing now, but then Agnes said, ‘So, you weren’t born in the north?’

  The mood sobered. Agnes became aware that the birds had grown quiet as afternoon slipped into evening. ‘Indeed, no. I’m sure the servants haven’t failed to tell you that I was an orphan, adopted at a very young age by Marianna’s sister, Genevieve.’ He shook his head. ‘Though we don’t say her name much around here any more.’

  Agnes became aware that her heart was thudding. ‘No?’

  ‘No,’ he said, with such a tone of finality that Agnes took it as a warning. Still, she had to swallow hard not to ask the questions that leapt to her tongue. And then, perhaps perceiving that he sounded fierce, he said again, ‘You have been good for Marianna, and for that I am grateful.’

  ‘She is … like family to me,’ Agnes ventured.

  ‘Is she so? I am glad. For if you love my aunt a tenth as much as I do, I know you will never let her down.’

  The garden was dark now. His face was pale and his eyes black, and something about the quiet and the gloom emboldened her to say, ‘And what of you? When I first stepped into the garden this evening you seemed weighed down by cares of your own.’

  At first he didn’t respond, and Agnes thought he might be angry at her for overstepping the boundaries that society had laid between them. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t care if somebody thought she had behaved inappropriately, but the idea that he would have a low opinion of her stung. So, she was much heartened when he offered her a thin smile.

  ‘Did I? Well.’

  She waited, hoping the silence might do what a thousand questions wouldn’t, and make him continue to speak.

  ‘I studied for a very long time and worked very hard to become a doctor,’ he said at last. ‘And my most prized goal was the Hospital for Sick Children. Every day on the way home from my studies, I took the route via Great Ormond Street, to stand beneath it and admire it. It’s a beautiful building, Agnes. Have you seen it?’ Agnes shook her head but he didn’t wait for her response before continuing. ‘It has towers and turrets on it like a castle in a fairytale. I suppose I saw myself as though I were in a fairytale too: a magician who could heal and make people happy. But there is so much pain in the world, Agnes. For every child I save, another dies. We are all so fragile, so vulnerable to illness and injury. My dreams have become an endless parade of little bodies, still and cold.’ His voice trailed off. From within the house, the bell for supper sounded.

  Agnes had a strong impulse to reach for his hand and squeeze it, but she knew that even if it were welcome now, it would make them awkward with each other later. So, instead, she said, ‘It takes a great man to feel so deeply.’

  ‘Thank you, Agnes,’ he replied, and their eyes met and held.

  A moment passed, two. Then he took a deep breath and said, ‘I ought not trouble you with such—’

  ‘Please do not apologise,’ she said, speaking over the top of him, reluctant to return to formalities. ‘Let us go inside for supper. Light and warmth and food may yet cheer you.’

  He seemed about to say something else, but then thought better of it. They returned to the house together, Agnes downstairs and Julius up to the dining room.

  •

  Rain moved in that evening and set in for a week. The kitchen became especially gloomy, but was nonetheless always warm and dry due to the coal-burning stove. When Marianna didn’t need her, Agnes spent her time sitting at the scarred kitchen table, a lamp set up at her elbow, working on embroidering the collar and cuffs of one of her mistress’s nightgowns. One wet afternoon, when she was alone, her thoughts turned, as they had often, to how she might get to Paris. She had walked to Victoria Station in the rain on her day off to enquire about a fare, but the boat train, which was the most convenient and direct way, was expensive. Once in Paris, she would barely have money left over for somewhere to stay and none at all for a return journey. The ticket master had suggested she could catch the train to Folkestone or Dover and then look for a cheap passage on a goods ship, then find another train at Calais. The thought filled her with doubt. She spoke no French, and her knowledge of how the world worked was so circumscribed. They used different money in France: how would she pay for things? How would she find her way around? She had spied a book about Paris in among Marianna’s books in the drawing room, but hadn’t yet been in there alone for long enough to search for a map or other kind of guide. But every day, her resolve grew harder. She would go to Paris, she would seek Genevieve, just as soon as she had an address to go to. As much as she loved Marianna, staying here as her companion was not Agnes’s greatest desire. Her greatest desire was to find her mother, and she couldn’t rest too long. Desires, if not tended, too easily dimmed and were forgotten.

  Pamela came in, then, untying her scarf and shaking raindrops out of her hair. ‘Letter for you, Agnes. Shall we have tea?’

  ‘I would love tea,’ Agnes said, taking the letter from Pamela’s fingers. It was from Gracie, which was a surprise, as she’d had a letter from her a week ago. This one was thin. Agnes plucked it open and removed a single sheet. On one side was an old recipe. On the other, Gracie’s handwriting.

  Dear Agnes,

  I have screwed up my currage to write, though I’ve had to perswade Charlotte Pelican to give me her month’s stamp by promising to make her bed until August! That is the hardest-won Penny Black anyone has erned, I’d wager. There is a reason, though, dear friend. There isn’t another person alive I can talk to about this. I have been seeing Cole Briar every day this week. Remember your old route out of the grounds? Yes, I’ve been climing your tree, Agnes! You would be proud of me. Perdita Hall is not the same withowt you. Everyone is always mean to me and Cole is not. I was wurried at first that he still pined after you, but he says that was just nonsense. We sat in the woods for hours and he made a chain of daisies for me. I was going to send it to you as a present but I am too selfish. It is under my pillo. Agnes, I think I love him.

  Do you think me a gooseberry? I need your good advice!

  Your friend and sister,

  Gracie

  Agnes refolded the letter, frowning. How had Gracie let herself be so swayed by the eel? Was she really so flighty that only Agnes’s presence could keep her safe? She felt acutely her distance from Hatby, where she could put her hands around Gracie’s shoulders and shake some sense into her. Pamela placed the teapot on the table, but Agnes pushed back her chair.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I have to go and write a letter.’

  Pamela pursed her lips. ‘That sounds urgent.’

  ‘It may be.’ Agnes headed for the stairs. She needed to let Gracie know, in no uncertain terms, that she was to stay well away from Cole Briar.

  •

  The damp weather got inside Marianna’s lungs and she was bedridden with a streaming head cold, which Annie also managed to catch. Pamela took over the cooking, and Agnes spent her days by Marianna’s bed, reading to her and keeping her supplied with hot broth and clean handkerchiefs. Agnes didn’t catch the cold: growing up in a foundling hospital meant she had already caught every cold she was due in her life.

  On the fourth day, Marianna waved her away after lunch and said she needed to sleep. Annie, too, was tucked up in her own little grey room below the stairs. Julius was at the hospital, and Pamela and Daisy had just closed the front door behind them to go to the market. Agnes heard the quiet descend on the house and knew she was,
for all practical purposes, home alone.

  She descended the stairs to the drawing room and made straight for the book about Paris. She sat on the rug, her skirts spread out around her, and opened the book. The first page was a fold-out map of Paris, and she traced the route of the Seine through its centre with wonder. The book was not as old as others Marianna kept, its spine still cracking as she turned the thick pages. History of Paris. Nature of the arrondissements. Famous landmarks. And here at the back, a guide to important phrases. Where is the railway station? Où est la gare. Agnes sounded it out, but it didn’t seem like French. She still sounded as though she was from Yorkshire. Est rhymed with best, gare with stare. Still, she tried to commit some other phrases to memory. How much for a room? One night, two nights, three nights, four nights. Do you know Genevieve?

  She closed the book, slid it back in its place. Perhaps she would borrow it when she went to Paris. Nobody would miss it. Marianna had never asked to be read it and Julius didn’t touch the books in the drawing room, though he had some of his own fat books about medicine in his study.

  Julius’s study.

  The thought was clear and bright. Somewhere in his study, she would find Genevieve’s address. She knew it. And with nobody around, there might never be a better time to investigate.

  Agnes hurried her steps lightly down the corridor, extra quiet past the staircases, and in a second had the door handle to Julius’s study in her fingers.

  It didn’t move.

  ‘Hell fire,’ Agnes said, under her breath. She bent and looked through the keyhole. The room was bathed in soft grey light. The desk was closed, the chair tucked neatly beneath it.

  Agnes pulled two pins out of her hair. A hank of golden hair fell beside her face, and she tucked it behind her ear. She had never picked a lock before, but Alexandra Orion had once picked the lock on the pantry while on dishwashing duty and stolen two biscuits. While she didn’t share the biscuits back in the dormitory, she did explain the mechanics of tripping a lock. Agnes bent one pin to use as a lever in the bottom of the keyhole, and with the other began feeling around for the stiff barrels that kept the lock in place. ‘Some will be loose, but others will be stiff,’ Alexandra had said. ‘Keep pushing on them gently while trying to turn the barrel with the bottom pin.’ More difficult than it sounded, and she was just about to give up when an audible snick told her the lock had given way. She turned the handle and was in.