The Exiles

by Christina Baker Kline

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  Mrs. Whitstone left the library. Evangeline took a deep breath. “Let’s finish this section, shall we?” she said, but her heart wasn’t in it, and anyway the children were distracted, thinking about the cake. When Ned reached the end of his singsongy recitation of a paragraph about boating, she smiled and said, “All right, children, that’s enough. You may run along to your tea.”

  There it was: the ruby ring, sparkling in the glow of the whale-oil lamps in the gloomy drawing room. Mrs. Whitstone held it out in front of her like a treasure-hunt find. “Where did you get this?”

  Evangeline twisted the corner of her apron, an old habit from childhood. “I didn’t steal it, if that’s your implication.”

  “I’m not implying anything. I’m asking a question.”

  Evangeline heard a noise behind her and turned, startled at the sight of a constable standing in the shadows behind a chair. His moustache drooped. He wore a black fitted waistcoat and a truncheon in a holster; in his hands were a notebook and pencil.

  “Sir,” she said, curtsying slightly. Her heart was beating so loudly she feared he could hear it.

  He inclined his head, marking something in the notebook.

  “This ring was found in your possession,” Mrs. Whitstone said.

  “You—you went into my room.”

  “You are in the employ of this household. It is not your room.”

  Evangeline had no answer to that.

  “Agnes spied it on the dresser when she went to check on you. As you know. And then you hid it.” Holding up the ring again, Mrs. Whitstone looked past Evangeline toward the constable. “This ring is my husband’s property.”

  “It isn’t. It belongs to Cecil,” Evangeline blurted.

  The constable looked back and forth between the two women. “Cecil?”

  Mrs. Whitstone gave Evangeline a sharp look. “The younger Mr. Whitstone. My stepson.”

  “Would you agree that this is your stepson’s ring?” His moustache twitched under his bulbous nose when he spoke.

  With a pinched smile, Mrs. Whitstone said, “It belonged to my husband’s mother. There is a question, perhaps, about whether the ring now belongs to my husband or to his son. It most certainly does not belong to Miss Stokes.”

  “He gave it to me,” Evangeline said.

  Only a few days earlier, Cecil had pulled a small blue velvet box from his pocket and rested it on her knee. “Open it.”

  She’d looked at him in surprise. A ring box. Could it be? Impossible, of course, and yet . . . She allowed herself a small surge of hope. Wasn’t he always telling her that she was more beautiful, more charming, cleverer than any woman in his circle? Wasn’t he always saying that he didn’t give a fig about his family’s expectations for him or society’s silly moral judgments?

  When she’d opened the lid, her breath caught in her throat: a band of gold, ornately filigreed, rose in four curved prongs to support a deep red stone.

  “My grandmother’s ruby,” he told her. “She bequeathed it to me when she died.”

  “Oh, Cecil. It’s stunning. But are you—”

  “Oh, no, no! Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he’d said with a small laugh. “For now, just seeing it on your finger is enough.”

  When he extracted the ring from its slot in the cushion and slipped it onto her finger, the gesture had felt both thrillingly intimate and strangely constricting. She’d never worn one before; her father, a vicar, did not believe in adornments. Gently Cecil bent his head to her hand and kissed it. Then he snapped shut the velvet box, slipped it back into the pocket of his waistcoat, and withdrew a white handkerchief. “Tuck the ring into this and hide it away until I return from holiday. It will be our secret.”

  Now, in the drawing room with the constable, Mrs. Whitstone snorted. “That’s ridiculous. Why in the world would Cecil ever give you . . .” Her voice trailed off. She stared at Evangeline.

  Evangeline realized that she had said too much. It will be our secret. But Cecil wasn’t here. She felt desperate, trapped.

  And now, in defending herself, she had given away the real secret.

  “Where is the younger Mr. Whitstone now?” the constable asked.

  “Abroad,” said Mrs. Whitstone, at the same time that Evangeline said, “Venice.”

  “An attempt could be made to contact him,” the constable said. “Do you have an address?”

  Mrs. Whitstone shook her head. “That will not be necessary.” Crossing her arms, she said, “It’s obvious the girl is lying.”

  The constable raised an eyebrow. “Is there a history of lying?”

  “I have no idea. Miss Stokes has only been with us a few months.”

  “Five,” Evangeline said. Summoning her strength, she turned to face the constable. “I’ve done my best to educate Mrs. Whitstone’s children and help shape their moral character. I’ve never been accused of anything.”

  Mrs. Whitstone gave a dry little laugh. “So she says.”

  “Easy enough to find out,” the constable said.

  “I did not steal the ring,” Evangeline said. “I swear it.”

  The constable tapped the notebook with his pencil. “Noted.”

  Mrs. Whitstone gave Evangeline a cold, appraising look. “The truth is, I’ve had my suspicions about this girl for some time. She comes and goes at odd hours of the day and night. She’s secretive. The housemaids find her aloof. And now we know why. She stole a family heirloom and thought she would get away with it.”

  “Would you be willing to testify to that effect?”

  “Certainly.”

  Evangeline’s stomach dropped. “Please,” she begged the constable, “could we wait for Cecil’s return?”

  Mrs. Whitstone turned on her with a scowl. “I will not tolerate this inappropriate familiarity. He is Mr. Whitstone to you.”

  The constable twitched his moustache. “I believe I have what I need, Miss Stokes. You may go. I’ve a few more questions for the lady of the house.”

  Evangeline looked from one to the other. Mrs. Whitstone raised her chin. “Wait in your room. I’ll send someone for you presently.”

  If there was any question in Evangeline’s mind about the gravity of her predicament, the answer made itself clear soon enough.

  On her way down the stairs to the servants’ quarters, she encountered various members of the household staff, all of whom nodded soberly or looked away. The assistant butler gave her a wincing smile. As she was passing the room Agnes shared with another housemaid on the landing between two staircases, the door opened and Agnes stepped out. She blanched when she saw Evangeline and tried to duck past, but Evangeline grabbed her arm.

  “What are ye doing?” Agnes hissed. “Let go of me.”

  Evangeline glanced around the hallway and, seeing no one, pushed Agnes back into the room and closed the door. “You took that ring from my room. You had no right.”

  “No right to retrieve stolen property? To the contrary, it was me duty.”

  “It wasn’t stolen.” She twisted Agnes’s arm, making the maid wince. “You know that, Agnes.”

  “I don’t know anything except what I saw.”

  “It was a gift.”

  “An heirloom, ye said. A lie.”

  “It was a gift.”

  Agnes shook her off. “‘It was a gift,’” she mimicked. “Ye dimwit. That’s only half the trouble. Yer pregnant.” She laughed at Evangeline’s befuddled expression. “Surprised, are ye? Too innocent to know it, but not too innocent to do the act.”

  Pregnant. The moment the word was out of Agnes’s mouth, Evangeline knew she was right. The nausea, her recent inexplicable fatigue . . .

  “I had a moral responsibility to inform the lady of the house,” Agnes said, smugly self-righteous.

  Cecil’s velvet words. His insistent fingers and dazzling smile. Her own weakness, her gullibility. How pathetic, how foolish, she had been. How could she have allowed herself
to be so compromised? Her good name was all she had. Now she had nothing.

  “Ye think you’re better than the rest of us, don’t ye? Well, you’re not. And now you’ve had your comeuppance,” Agnes said, reaching for the doorknob and wrenching the door open. “Everyone knows. You’re the laughingstock of the household.” She pushed past Evangeline toward the stairs, knocking her back against the wall.

  Desperation rose within Evangeline like a wave, filling her with such force and velocity that she was helpless against it. Without thinking, she followed Agnes out onto the landing and shoved her, hard. With a strange, high-pitched yelp, Agnes fell headlong down the stairs, crumpling in a heap at the bottom.

  Peering down at Agnes as she staggered to her feet, Evangeline felt her fury crest and subside. In its wake was a faint tremor of regret.

  The butler and head footman were on the scene within seconds.

  “She—she tried to kill me!” Agnes cried, holding her head.

  Standing at the top of the landing, Evangeline was eerily, strangely, calm. She smoothed her apron, tucked a wispy strand of hair behind an ear. As if watching a play, she noted the butler’s contemptuous grimace and Agnes’s theatrical sobs. Observed Mrs. Grimsby flutter over, squeaking and exclaiming.

  This was the end of Blenheim Road, she knew, of primers and white chalk and slate tablets, of Ned and Beatrice babbling about sponge cake, of her small bedroom with its tiny window. Of Cecil’s hot breath on her neck. There would be no explaining, no redeeming. Maybe it was better this way—to be an active participant in her demise rather than a passive victim. At least now she deserved her fate.

  In the servants’ hallway, lighted with oil lamps, two constables fastened Evangeline into handcuffs and leg chains while the constable with the droopy moustache made the rounds of the household staff with his notebook. “She were awful quiet,” the chambermaid was saying, as if Evangeline were already gone. Each of them, it seemed to her, overplayed the roles expected of them: the staff a little too indignant, the constables self-important, Agnes understandably giddy at the attention and apparent sympathy of her superiors.

  Evangeline was still wearing her blue worsted wool uniform and white apron. She was allowed to bring nothing else with her. Her hands shackled in front of her, her legs shuffling in irons, she required two constables to guide her up the narrow back stairs to the ground-floor servants’ entrance. They had to practically lift her into the prison carriage.

  It was a cold, rainy evening in March. The carriage was dank, and smelled, oddly, of wet sheep. The open windows had vertical iron bars but no glass. Evangeline sat on a rough wooden plank next to the constable with the droopy moustache and across from the other two, both of whom were staring at her. She wasn’t sure if they were leering or simply curious.

  As the coachman readied the horses, Evangeline leaned forward to look at the house one last time. Mrs. Whitstone was standing at the front window, holding the lace curtain back with her hand. When Evangeline caught her eye, she dropped the curtain and retreated into the depths of the parlor.

  The horses lurched forward. Evangeline braced herself against the seat, trying futilely to keep the leg irons from cutting into her ankles as the carriage swayed and rattled along the cobblestones.

  The day she’d first arrived by hackney cab to St. John’s Wood had also been cold and drizzling. Standing on the front step of the creamy white terrace house on Blenheim Road—its number, 22, in black metal, its front door a shiny vermilion—she’d taken a deep breath. The leather valise she clasped in one hand held all she possessed in the world: three muslin dresses, a nightcap and two sleeping shifts, an assortment of undergarments, a horsehair brush and washing cloth, and a small collection of books—her father’s Bible with his handwritten notes; her Latin, Greek, and mathematics catechisms; and a dog-eared copy of The Tempest, the only play she’d ever seen performed, at an outdoor festival by a traveling troupe that passed through Tunbridge Wells one summer.

  She adjusted her hat and rang the bell, listening to it trill inside the house.

  No response.

  She pushed the buzzer again. Just as she was wondering if she had the wrong day, the door opened and a young man appeared. His brown eyes were lively and curious. His brown hair, thick and slightly curly, draped over the collar of his untucked white shirt. He wore no cravat or tailcoat. Clearly this was not the butler.

  “Yes?” he said with an air of impatience. “Can I help you?”

  “Well, I—I’m . . .” Remembering herself, she curtsied. “Pardon, sir. Perhaps I should return later.”

  He observed her, as if from a distance. “Are you expected?”

  “I thought so, yes.”

  “By whom?”

  “The lady of the house. Sir. Mrs. Whitstone. I’m Evangeline Stokes, the new governess.”

  “Really. Are you quite sure?”

  “P-pardon?” she stammered.

  “I had no idea governesses came in this shape,” he said, sweeping his hand toward her with a flourish. “Bloody unfair. Mine looked nothing like you.”

  Evangeline felt conspicuously dumb, as if she were performing in a play and had forgotten her lines. In her role as vicar’s daughter, she used to stand a step behind her father, greeting parishioners before and after the service, accompanying him on visits to the sick and infirm. She met all sorts of people, from basket-makers to wheelwrights, carpenters to blacksmiths. But she’d had little contact with the wealthy, who tended to worship in their own chapels with their own kind. She had scant experience with the slippery humor of the upper classes and was unskilled at banter.

  “I’m just having a bit of fun.” The young man smiled, holding out his hand. Tentatively she took it. “Cecil Whitstone. Half brother to your charges. I daresay you’ll have your hands full.” He opened the door wide. “I’m standing in for Trevor, who is no doubt off fulfilling some caprice of my stepmother’s. Come in, come in. I’m on the way out, but I’ll announce you.”

  When she stepped into the black-and-white tiled foyer, clutching her valise, Cecil craned his neck out the door. “No more bags?”

  “This is it.”

  “My word, you travel light.”

  At that moment, the door at the other end of the hall opened and a dark-haired woman who appeared to be in her midthirties emerged, tying on a green silk bonnet. “Ah, Cecil!” she said. “And this must be, I assume, Miss Stokes?” She gave Evangeline a distracted smile. “I’m Mrs. Whitstone. It’s a little chaotic today, I’m afraid. Trevor is helping Matthew harness the horses so I can go into town.”

  “We all do double duty around here,” Cecil told Evangeline conspiratorially, as if they were old friends. “In addition to teaching Latin you’ll soon be plucking geese and polishing silver.”

  “Nonsense,” Mrs. Whitstone said, straightening her bonnet in a large gilt mirror. “Cecil, will you inform Agnes that Miss Stokes has arrived?” Turning back to Evangeline, she said, “Agnes will show you to your quarters. Suppertime for the servants is at five o’clock. You’ll take your meals with them if the children’s lessons are finished in time. You look a little peaked, dear. Why don’t you have a rest before supper.”

  It was a statement, not a question.

  When Mrs. Whitstone left, Cecil gave Evangeline a sly smile. “‘Peaked’ is not the word I would’ve used.” He stood closer to her than felt quite proper.

  Evangeline felt the unfamiliar sensation of her heart thumping in her chest. “Should you . . . um . . . let Agnes know I’m here?”

  He tapped his chin, as if considering this. Then he said, “My errands can wait. I’ll take you around myself. It will be my pleasure.”

  How might things have turned out differently if Evangeline had followed Mrs. Whitstone’s instructions—or, for that matter, her own instincts? Had she not realized the ground beneath her feet was so unstable that it might crumble at the slightest misstep?

  She had not. Smiling at Cecil, she tucked a stray piece of hai
r back into her bun. “That would be lovely,” she said.

  Now, sitting in the drafty carriage, she moved her shackled wrists to the left side of her body and rubbed the place beneath her petticoat where she’d tucked the monogrammed handkerchief. With the fingers of one hand she traced its faint outline, imagining she could feel the thread of Cecil’s initials intertwined with the family crest—a lion, serpent, and crown.

  It was all she had, would ever have, of him. Except, apparently, for the child growing inside her.

  The carriage made its way west, toward the river. No one spoke in the chilly compartment. Without realizing what she was doing, Evangeline inched closer to the solid warmth of the constable next to her. Glancing down, he curled his lip and shifted toward the window, widening the space between them.

  Evangeline felt a prickle of shock. She had never in her life experienced a man’s revulsion. She’d taken for granted the small gifts of kindness and solicitude that came her way: the butcher who gave her choice cuts of meat, the baker who saved her the last loaf.

  Slowly it dawned on her: she was about to learn what it was like to be contemptible.

  Newgate Prison, London, 1840

  This part of London was like no place Evangeline had ever seen. The air, dense with coal smoke, reeked of horse manure and rotting vegetables. Women in tattered shawls loitered under oil lamps, men huddled around barrel fires, children—even at this late hour—darted in and out of the road, picking through rubbish, shrieking at each other, comparing finds. Evangeline squinted, trying to make out what they had in their hands. Was it—? Yes. Bones. She’d heard about these children who earned pennies collecting animal bones that were turned to ash and mixed with clay to make the ceramics displayed in ladies’ china cupboards. Even a few hours ago she might’ve felt pity; now she only felt numb.

  “There she is,” one of the constables said, gesturing out the window. “The Stone Jug.”

  “Stone Jug?” Evangeline leaned forward, craning her neck.

  “Newgate.” He smirked. “Your new home.”