Ember Island (34 page)

Nell wouldn’t look at him. Tilly reached out to grasp Sterling’s arm. She understood that all his tension was pouring out of him as anger—anger she hadn’t known him capable of—but Nell wasn’t listening.

“Nell,” she said. “Is this about boarding school?”

Nell turned her face to Tilly. Her lips were blue, her curls hung in sodden tendrils. She nodded.

Sterling collapsed forward onto his hands, shaking his head. “I’m not sending you to boarding school, Nell. I would have you by me, all the time until you are grown.”

Nell relaxed her body, dropped her head, and began to sob. Sterling pulled her into his arms and they stood there, in the pouring rain, clinging to each other while Tilly looked on.

T
hat night, Sterling went to bed before dinner and didn’t get up the next day. Dr. Groom was sent for, expressed concern about his injuries and exhaustion, and ordered Sterling off the island for three weeks to recover.

Sterling told Tilly this in the half hour before his boat was due to leave the next day, as he folded shirts neatly into a suitcase, avoiding meeting her eye. “I have insisted that Nell come with me,” he said. “I think that will be a good thing. We haven’t had a holiday since Rebecca died. Perhaps we will spend some time in the city. Lord knows she needs new clothes.”

“I want you to be well again,” Tilly said.

Sterling paused in his packing, and his expression as he regarded her frightened her. There was pity in it. Pity never preceded anything good. “I would make you the offer to take the time off as well and travel with us to the mainland. But we would have to part company at the wharf. Nell doesn’t know about . . .”

“I know. I promise you, I am happier staying here. I will read
and garden and relax.” She smiled shyly. “And look forward to your return.”

He focused very hard on his packing. For an instant, she was back in Guernsey with Jasper, feeling the sick embarrassment of his rebuffs.

“Sterling?” she said. “Do you regret what we have done?”

“I make it my goal not to regret anything,” he said. “I will miss our conversations, but it is only three weeks. I think we will all benefit from the break.”

Tilly worked hard to stop tears from pricking her eyes. “Yes,” she said, “perhaps you are right.”

Then Nell came in, excited but in a subdued way. She had been diffident and pouty since the running away, no doubt because Sterling had limited her freedoms and enforced a number of unpleasant punishments in the form of household chores, but also because nobody on the island spoke to her anything but sternly now. They were all still angry with what they saw as a selfish prank.

Only Tilly had sympathy for her. “Are you looking forward to your holiday, Nell?” she asked, playfully tugging one of the girl’s curls.

“I am looking forward to being in a place where I don’t get frowned at quite so much,” she said with feigned boredom. “Don’t play with my curls. I’m nearly thirteen.”

“You brought the frowns upon yourself, Nell,” Sterling said, distractedly, searching in the top of his wardrobe for a hat. “And you ought not to speak sharply to your governess.”

Your governess.
Not
Tilly
.

“What were you two talking about?” Nell asked, considering Tilly by the morning light coming in the window.

“You,” Tilly said.

“None of your business,” Sterling answered, at precisely the same time.

Tilly laughed lightly, but Sterling remained stern.

“Nell, you must learn your place. If you hadn’t eavesdropped on my conversation with Tilly, you would never have gone off with half a conviction in your head that made you—”

“I know, I know. That made me waste time and resources on the island.”

“And possibly put yourself in danger. Don’t forget that,” Sterling added.

Nell turned her eyes up to Tilly, tried a little smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You’ll miss me, won’t you, Tilly?”

“Of course I will. Be good to your father. He is good to you.”

And then they were off, down the rutted path to the jetty, leaving her in the west wing of the house alone. Mr. Donaghy would take over the superintendent’s duties in Sterling’s absence, so she could expect his company for lunch daily. Apart from that, she was on her own schedule, could do whatever she pleased.

It made her feel a little empty.

•

Tilly read that day until three, when the worst of the heat had faded, then she headed out to the garden.

It wasn’t until nearly nightfall that she saw Hettie, who was planting some seedlings along the far northern border of the garden. Tilly realized she hadn’t thanked Hettie for her help in finding Nell, so she peeled off her dirty gardening gloves and approached.

Hettie sat back, wiping the back of her hand against her forehead.

“Mind if I join you?” Tilly asked.

“Please,” Hettie said, gesturing to the grass next to her. “I think I’m done for the day. Pansies. They came on the boat this morning. They’ll be so pretty.”

Tilly stretched out her legs. The dusky sky was cool. The wet heat of summer was finally loosening its grip on the island. The sea breeze was almost enough to make her arms come out in gooseflesh under her sleeves. “I meant to thank you for your help finding Nell.”

“I didn’t help.”

“You did, indirectly. You provided a different perspective. I think that’s always a valuable thing.”

Hettie dropped her head slightly to hide her smile. “Well. You’re welcome.”

“She and her father have gone off to the mainland for a few weeks, so I’m at a loose end. You might see me out in the garden a little more.”

“It’s always nice to see you,” Hettie said. Then the rest came out in a rush, “I’m sorry about crying on you. It wasn’t . . . appropriate.”

Tilly’s voice grew gentle. “You are a human being and so am I. There is nothing inappropriate about wanting comfort.”

“I rather think the superintendent would see things differently.”

“No, you’d be surprised. Sterling Holt is a forgiving man. He has a very kind nature.”

Hettie looked at her for a moment, in utter bafflement.

Tilly grew curious. “You don’t believe me? But he lets you maintain the garden.”

“Lets me? He
makes
me.”

“But you said yourself: you would have sunk into despair without it.”

“Yes, I enjoy it, but it’s work. I have to do a certain amount of hours a week or I get my privileges taken away. I’m not like you. I don’t flit in and out when I feel like it.”

Tilly stung at her words, but then Hettie softened. “I am sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to be so rude to you. But today I am tired and unwell, and I would rather be resting on a nice soft bed.”

“You should tell the turnkeys. They could put you in the infirmary.”

“The infirmary is for male prisoners. Female prisoners are simply not allowed to get sick. Besides, I did tell the turnkeys and they prodded me in the back and told me to get to work anyway.” She clasped her hands together and rested her chin on them.

“I’m sorry you’re not feeling well,” Tilly said. “But I promise you Sterling is a kind man.”

“He is not an unkind man, I suppose,” said Hettie. “But Superintendent Holt is certainly a single-minded man and I have seen the side of him that you, perhaps, have not. He adores his daughter, and so do you, so you agree on what is fundamental to him. Perhaps if you disagreed with him you would see it. There is a hardness about him, once he makes up his mind . . .” She trailed off, her eyes flicking away to the distance. “I suppose I oughtn’t talk like this to you.”

“If there is a blurring of an accepted etiquette between us, Hettie, that is entirely my fault.” Besides, Tilly wanted to hear more about this side of Sterling she didn’t know. “Do the other prisoners think the same of Sterling?”

“I only know seven other prisoners,” she said. “I never speak to any of the men. But I’ve heard the turnkeys talking. They often say similar things. Single-minded. Stubborn. Holier than thou.” Hettie stopped, perhaps reaching a point of feeling she shouldn’t say more. “I know you are fond of him.”

“He has been kind to me.”

“I know it is more than that. You love saying his name. Your mouth savors it the way it might savor a ripe peach.”

Tilly blushed, speechless.

“In the end, Miss Lejeune, he is a superintendent at a high security prison. He must be as he is, or he would be unlocking doors and setting us all free. He must believe what he believes about us, even if it’s only half true.”

Tilly turned this thought over in her mind as the sun fell behind the mainland in the west, a huge orange ball that turned the sky shades of amber and pink. Its last red wedge paused a moment in a gap between distant mountains, then winked out. Night had fallen.

“Do you know, I believe you shouldn’t call me Miss Lejeune,” Tilly said slowly.

“Why not?”

Because it’s not my name.
The desire to tell her everything was too great. Tilly had to clear her throat loudly. “Because we are friends. And I call you Hettie, so you should call me Tilly.”

“Yes, Tilly,” she said, trying out the name. “If you prefer it.”

“And if you would like me to speak to the superintendent on your behalf . . .”

“No. Please don’t rock the boat. He’d put me on some other awful duty to spite me.”

Tilly didn’t answer. She didn’t believe such things of Sterling.

At least she was fairly sure she didn’t.

•

The days dragged. Hours stretched out and lost their shape. Tilly missed Sterling more than she could have imagined. After their
first lovemaking, she had known one taste was not enough. But she hadn’t counted on a second time making the craving worse. She woke up thinking about him, went to sleep thinking about him. After the first week, the idea that two weeks still remained before she saw him again caused her such a bolt of physical pain that she gasped.

She kept busy as best she could. Her own garden plot required little work as autumn glimmered on the horizon, so she started helping Hettie out with her gardening chores. Together they pulled weeds and raked leaves and scrubbed stone features. If Mr. Donaghy walked out onto the verandah to check on Hettie, Tilly would simply walk a few paces away. Most of the time, though, they were at the back of the garden, unobserved. Now that Hettie comfortably used Tilly’s name, it had unlocked a deeper intimacy between them. Hettie spoke without restraint about her family back on the mainland, about her life before prison, her difficult childhood. Tilly shared too, still careful to avoid details that might reveal who she really was. But still, it was a great relief to talk about her grief at Grandpa’s passing, about her odious cousin Godfrey, about her long journey to the antipodes to build a new and independent life for herself. Almost without realizing it, in that three weeks Sterling was away, she and Hettie became friends.

In her darker moments, before sleep, she wondered if befriending Hettie might be a way for her to assuage her own guilt. To hold close to her that person who was living the life she might have lived, had she not been a few minutes ahead of the police in Chantelle Lejeune’s room . . . was it a way of vicariously experiencing the punishment she thought she was due?

She resolved that, on Sterling’s return, she would talk to him about Hettie’s case. About whether anything could be done to
reduce her sentence in light of what she had told Tilly: was there not some special plea of self-defense Hettie could make?

But then, thoughts of Sterling would take a different turn in her mind and Hettie would be forgotten in that delicious memory of pleasure.

•

Nell’s voice was the first indication to Tilly that they had returned. Slamming through the front door, calling out, “Helloooo? Tilly?”

Tilly, who had been curled up in an armchair in the library reading, leapt to her feet and raced out. Nell stood there, a suitcase in each hand, smiling.

“It’s me!” she declared.

Tilly gathered her in her arms. “Welcome back. Your father?”

“Right behind me. He has rather a large trunk. Do you not think I look taller? Papa bought me all new clothes.” She dropped her suitcases and reached into the satchel that was slung over her shoulders, pulling out Pangur Ban and a sheaf of untidy papers. “I have been writing so much! Would you like to hear some? Let’s go to the library right now.”

Tilly was desperate, though, to see Sterling. “Can we wait a few moments?”

But she could see now that Mr. Donaghy stood outside on the verandah, in deep conversation presumably with Sterling. He wasn’t coming in yet. For an awful moment she wondered if he was actively trying to avoid her.

“Please, Tilly? I have missed you so and wanted so much to read you this.”

Tilly forced a smile. “All right, then. But let’s put your suitcases away in your room first.”

Nell’s new chapters were as wildly imaginative and vividly described as ever. Tilly tried to relax and enjoy Nell’s reading, but eventually grew restless to see and speak to Sterling.

“Enough for today, Nell,” Tilly said. “I think you should go and unpack, so that tomorrow we have a clear day for your studies.”

“But I’m getting to the good part.”

“Save it for another day. Always leave your reader wanting more.”

Nell straightened the edges of her papers and lay them on the table, then pushed back her chair—did Tilly imagine the huffiness?—and left the room.

Tilly didn’t waste a moment. She went straight to Sterling’s office and knocked gently, hoping hard that he was alone.

“Come in.”

She opened the door. He glanced up, smiled. “Tilly.”

“Sterling.”

He indicated his desk, an open ledger, a pile of papers. “I am so busy.”

“I will come back later, then.”

“No, no. Wait. I need to speak to you.”

She prickled with anticipation.

“Mr. Donaghy spoke to me at length. He said you spent a great deal of time with prisoner 135 while I was away. Is that so?”