Ember Island

by Freeman, Kimberley

  Tilly drew a deep breath. “Jasper . . . is . . .” She didn’t know the words to use to talk about something so private. “Jasper has a lover.”

  Laura showed no sign of shock. “I know,” she said.

  And it was a relief, such a relief, to have somebody believe her, and not deny it, and not offer her brandy and tell her she was hysterical.

  “Many wives find themselves in your situation,” Laura said. “Many choose to ignore it.”

  “I thought he loved me.”

  “Perhaps he loves you both.”

  Tilly’s heart shrank at the idea. “He bars me in my room. He never speaks kindly to me. I fear he married me for the money my grandpa promised him.”

  Laura nodded, her kind eyes fixed on Tilly’s. “We have known Jasper a long time. He is a charming and clever man, and I have always found him to be well mannered and entertaining. When he told us he had married you, we were delighted for him. As long as I’ve known him—and it has been several years—his money ebbs and flows unexpectedly. I doubt that he married you for money. He has never been so desperate that he would use somebody so cruelly.” Laura leaned across and patted Tilly on the knee. “I have faith that his finances will come good again. They always do.”

  Laura’s kindness prompted tears. “But how can I bear it, knowing he is loving somebody else? Who is she? Why her?”

  Laura turned her head and looked behind her, and gestured at one of the windows on the lower floor of the house. Then she turned back and dropped her voice. “For two years Jasper has paid us a small amount of rent money to ensure one of our staff has her own private room.”

  “What? He hasn’t any money, though.”

  “He is many months in arrears.”

  “Who is she?” Tilly said, thinking of the maid who answered the door. But then it became blindingly clear. The long red-gold hair. “Chantelle?”

  “Ah, here’s our lemonade.”

  While the maid laid out the jug of lemonade, Tilly studied the window Laura had indicated. The second last one from the end, with an empty windowbox. Perhaps no flowers could grow in the windowbox because Jasper had been climbing in and out over them. Her stomach heaved. She felt she might be sick. She shot out of her chair, but Laura caught her, brought her back to the table. The maid considered her, puzzled.

  “Thank you, Myra, that will be all,” Laura said smoothly.

  Laura returned Tilly to her seat and poured her a glass of lemonade. “Here,” she said, “a drink will make you feel better.”

  A cold, sea-borne wind sussurated along the tops of the hedges. Tilly gulped the drink. Sour and sweet all at once. It made her feel no better.

  Laura sipped hers politely, then put it aside and took Tilly’s hand. “Tilly, a life without a husband is no life. The shame of leaving a marriage . . . what would you do? You have no relatives to return to, Jasper told me that. Perhaps you can learn to turn a blind eye? I know that in this moment you feel awful, but perhaps you can get used to it. When Jasper has some money again and Lumière sur la Mer is more like a home to you, you may feel more comfortable.”

  “Is life not meant to be happier than that? I could have married one of the elderly donkeys my grandfather introduced me to and felt ‘comfortable.’ I expected to feel happy.”

  “Expectations are the enemy of happiness,” Laura said, her cool fingers leaving Tilly’s hand. The magnolia trees moving in the wind made the sun flicker. “If you need me, I am here. You may always call, even if it is just to cry. I will listen.” Laura’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I know some of your pain.”

  Tilly’s eyebrows shot up. “Ralph?”

  Laura pressed her lips together, but smiled. Tilly noticed a deepening in the lines around her eyes and mouth. “Well,” she said. “It was a long time ago.”

  “Go on. Please.” Tilly was desperate to hear that she wasn’t the only person who had suffered this way.

  “Our children were small. I never said anything. To do so would have invited an argument, perhaps even seen me thrown out of my home. If I was to leave him, I wanted to control how and when.” She shrugged. “Twelve years have passed and I find that I am not angry anymore. Ralph and I are very happy. Their mistresses can never keep them. Their wives always can.”

  But all Tilly’s body and blood resisted it, wanted to cling to the ideal that she had believed in all these months: that Jasper loved her and she loved him and their life in the beautiful house would unfold lovingly. The pain was horrifying, worse than anything she had felt in her injured wrist.

  “Don’t be angry. The anger simply makes it worse. Chantelle knows no better and I worry for her when the affair is ended. I know you would not relish hearing that, but she has far less power than you in the world. Jasper is your husband. As long as he is discreet, you should aim to be comfortable in the knowledge that she has no real claim on him.”

  Sympathy for Jasper’s mistress? Tilly carefully hid how infuriating she found Laura’s words.

  “So, do you think you can be comfortable, Tilly?” Laura asked.

  Tilly forced a smile. She said yes, but she didn’t mean it.

  Because it wasn’t fair and, more than anything, Tilly wanted to stand before her husband and tell him, in a fiery rage, that it wasn’t fair. But she feared him too much to do so. And with so much anger in her belly, she could never be comfortable again.

  •

  That night, a storm blew in. Tilly was reading in the library, by the dim light of a candle, when she heard the first rumble of thunder in the distance. She went to the window and lifted the sash to look out. The stars were being obliterated as thick clouds rolled in, lightning flashing between them. The first gust of stormy wind jumped down her throat, and she slid the window shut and watched the treetops torn this way and that through the glass.

  The storm was so loud, she didn’t hear Jasper’s footsteps at the door.

  “Tilly?” he said, making her jump.

  She turned. He stood in the threshold with a candlestick, which threw cruel shadows on his face. Tilly realized her heart had sped a little.

  “Shouldn’t you be resting?” he said.

  “I feel quite well.”

  “I think you should be in your bedroom. Rivard will bring you some food before she goes for the evening.”

  “I could eat downstairs with you.”

  “Dr. Hunt has been very clear that you—”

  “You certainly believe me well enough to take over keeping this enormous house clean soon.” She gestured around.

  “I do not like your hot tone.”

  Tilly said nothing.

  “You were so sweet-lipped when I met you.”

  “I think it fair to say that we were both quite different when we met,” she said boldly.

  “To bed,” he said. “Your sharp tongue doesn’t change anything. I am your husband and I demand you return to your room.”

  Tilly collected an armful of books and went ahead of him. She was not surprised, after the door was closed, to hear the chair being moved into place. By her bedside table was a glass of brandy. She gulped it, hoping it might put out the fire inside her. Then laughed at herself: throwing brandy on a fire only made it worse.

  Her candle sputtered and burned out, and she sat on her bed in the dark, listening to the storm rattle overhead and move on. Nobody brought her any food and she supposed Jasper was punishing her. She wondered if Chantelle had arrived in the rain, whether her clothes hung drying in the kitchen while she lay naked in Jasper’s arms. She wondered if the sable-trimmed coat was among those clothes, the one that she had chosen while out shopping with Grandpa one cool autumn morning. From the moment she slid it on, she had known she wanted it. Not heavy enough for the snow-silent winter, but lovely for a windy October afternoon, with deep pockets to hide her hands in if they grew cold. How she had loved that coat.

  How she had loved that life.

  The misery fed her anger. How dare he? She wanted her coat back. She would
get her coat back.

  She went first to the door, jiggled the handle roughly. It would not turn. She kicked the door, but succeeded only in hurting her toe. So she went to the window and pulled up the sash.

  The rain had eased to a soft drizzle. The clouds had shredded apart to reveal a few lonely stars. Tilly looked down. She remembered planning this route. Over the windowsill, the ledge, tree branch, ledge, conservatory roof, and ground. Her fear was no match for her anger. One leg out the window, then the other, and onto the narrow ledge. She kept her fingers on the windowsill. Vertigo rolled up through her and a hot flash of fear crossed her heart. But then it passed and she edged along the ledge and put one hand down, then the other, on the sturdy branch between her window and the next. Pulled her knees behind her, then her feet. Waited, dreading the branch creaking or breaking.

  Then slowly inched along it and down. Arms around the branch, rough bark getting caught on her sleeves and stripping her hands of skin. She swung her legs down, reaching out with the tips of her toes. Then half stepped, half jumped, steadying herself on the windowsill.

  Tilly took a moment to breathe. The roof of the conservatory was made of glass so she had to be careful to let herself down onto one of the thick parallel roof beams that joined it to the house. She almost lost her nerve. If she landed too hard in the wrong place, she would go through the glass and be cut to ribbons. The rainy cold had cooled her temper, too. This seemed a bad idea. It was all very well to plan an escape route for fire or other emergency, but to use it simply to reclaim a coat? It was madness.

  Well, her husband and physician already thought her mad. Conveniently so.

  Tilly pressed her back against the stone wall and slid down so she was sitting on the ledge. Her feet were still several inches from the roof beam. She reached out, slid forward.

  And landed. She wasn’t prepared for the roof of the conservatory to be so slippery, so she got down on all fours and crawled along the beam. It sloped downwards then left a space of about eight feet to jump. It was too far. She nearly sobbed, to have come all this way and not realize she couldn’t get down from the roof of the conservatory . . .

  The problem was, she didn’t dare step off this roof beam to find a better place to land. But she knew there was a hawthorn hedge growing beside the conservatory near the front of the house; it would be enough to break up the jump.

  Tilly crouched on the roof beam, and reached her hands out gingerly for the glass. It was wet and slippery. She tested her weight, slid off the beam and onto her stomach. Before she was only damp, but now she was wet and cold through the front of her blouse and skirt. She slithered, snake-like, over the glass conservatory roof. At each roof beam she had to get on all fours to climb over it, wincing as one knee, then the next, connected with the glass; always expecting the glass to crack. It didn’t.

  And finally she was on the last roof beam, looking down at the hawthorn hedge in the dark. It had once been carefully kept, so had thick, stiff branches that would support her weight. But it was also overgrown, with long, wild, scratching stems reaching out of it. She braced herself, pressed her injured wrist hard against her body, and jumped.

  Only it wasn’t so much a jump as a controlled fall. The hawthorn caught her weight a little and then collapsed. Thorns tore at her clothes and skin.

  But then she was down, on the grass. She panted. The rain intensified. Tilly ran around to the kitchen entrance and pushed the door open.

  It was as she thought. A woman’s wet clothes hung in front of the fireplace. But there was no sable-trimmed coat. And they were not upstairs in Jasper’s room. Almost immediately, she realized their voices were coming from the parlor.

  Tilly looked down at herself by firelight. Torn wet clothes, blood seeping from thorn scratches on her arm and thigh. Her hair, too, was loose and errant around her shoulders. She did not want to confront Jasper’s lover like this.

  But her curiosity was aroused. On the tips of her toes, she crossed the kitchen and into the corridor, slipped into the dining room and listened against the wall. Nothing. Somebody had once told her if she held a glass against the wall she could hear conversations in the next room. She took a glass down from the sideboard, but still could hear nothing.

  So instead, she went back to the corridor and sat on the floor beside the closed sitting room door. Soft candlelight glowed underneath it. Chantelle’s soft voice. Jasper’s hard breathing. They were saying no sentences. They simply moaned words such as, “yes” and “please”; and fragments such as, “just there” and “oh, my love.”

  She wondered if Laura Mornington had ever had to listen to her husband betray her. She put her head on her knees and listened until the end. All of those things she had imagined learning with Jasper. Now the closest she would ever get was to hear him doing them with somebody else.

  They turned to conversation. They laughed softly, made reference to things she didn’t understand: no doubt little pieces of intimate shared knowledge. Tilly thought about leaving. Her dress was wet and she was cold, but then Chantelle asked him, “How long now?”

  Tilly wanted to know what the question meant, so she leaned a little closer to the door and listened sharply.

  “The money will be in my hands at the end of the month. All my debtors have agreed to wait. The worst of this awful mess is over.”

  Tilly was at once relieved to hear this news, and sad that he hadn’t chosen to tell her, his wife, the truth.

  “You know I didn’t mean the money. How long?”

  A silence. Tilly wished she understood them.

  “You know how long. Two years. But if I can just crack her so she leaves me be . . .”

  A hot chill over her skin. Were they talking about her?

  “You don’t need to crack her. Just rid yourself of her somehow. She’s of no more use to you, you’ve said that yourself.”

  “I didn’t realize her grandfather had told the wretched cousin about our agreement.”

  Tilly’s skin prickled. Were they talking about Godfrey?

  “You promised you would be with me. I don’t want to be your lover forever. I want to be your wife.” Chantelle’s tone was petulant; Jasper’s much more measured.

  “And I want to be your husband. But we must take things slowly.”

  Tilly remembered what Laura had said, that their mistresses can never keep them but their wives always can. She believed it. Jasper would no more leave Tilly and marry a cook than he would give up this house and live in a mud hut. He had a place in society and he cared what people thought of him. But there was something about her questions that unsettled Tilly.

  Yes, it was the word choice. Rid yourself of her somehow.

  Was she in danger? What did he mean by “cracking” her? Making things so awful that she left of her own accord? Or . . . something worse?

  “It’s too slow for my liking,” Chantelle said, but then she was quiet and Tilly realized Jasper had silenced her with kisses. The kisses Tilly had always longed for herself.

  She was growing too cold, too sad. She climbed silently to her feet and crept up the stairs to her landing. Here was the chair, balanced on its back two legs against the door. She could see now why her door handle had appeared to be locked: it was one of their dining room chairs, which were carved with a deep U-shape on the back beam. He had positioned it so that the U-shape was jammed into place around the handle: it was almost a perfect fit. She moved the chair, turned it gently on its side so it would look as though it had fallen, and went inside to change into a warm nightgown.

  Tomorrow she would leave him. That was the only solution.

  •

  In her bed, lying on her side, she watched the stars appear behind the clouds and cried all the tears she had to cry. For the loss of her grandfather, for the loss of her love, for the loss of her dreams. But the tears were hot, angry tears. It wasn’t fair; she had done nothing to invite this. She had simply been a woman. One who wasn’t bred to earn money or look after herself
. One who had had to presume upon the generosity of a series of men—her grandfather, Godfrey, Jasper—who had each treated her unevenly. Yes, even Grandpa, who had lied about Jasper and left her exposed. She thought, not for the first time in her life, that if she only had control of her own fate, she would be so much better off. Now she was married, she was inextricably tied to lifelong problems. Divorces were expensive, impossible. She would have to prove Jasper’s adultery, spend money she didn’t have, endure the stigma. The path she had chosen, to run and pretend she had never married, was easier, but meant she could never fall in love and marry again. Her future was blighted.

  So the angry tears poured out of her and eventually she slept, dreaming of stormy seas.

  •

  Tilly knew that she had to plan it carefully. The steamer to St. Malo in the north of France left early in the morning, before sunrise, but she may very well be barred in her room at that time. But if she left in the afternoon, Jasper may grow suspicious and come looking for her. So she decided she would leave directly after supper: make it look as though she was going up to her bedroom and instead head out the front door while Jasper was lighting the fire in the parlor.

  This meant she needed to pack her trunk and stash it outside the house during the day. The garden shed was the obvious place to hide it, with the cigar box full of money that would get her from St. Malo to wherever she went next. She still had the only key to the shed. Her stomach felt hollow at the thought. She had no idea where she would go next, but it had to be far, far away. India. Africa. The other side of the world.

  I am not afraid, I am not afraid.