Stars Across the Ocean

by Kimberley Freeman

  I noticed then that, tied to the branches of an untamed hawthorn bush on the other side of the well, were dozens of ribbons. Some bright, some faded and ragged as though they’d been there for years.

  ‘What are they?’ I asked.

  ‘It is a wishing tree. Some of these old places have superstitions attached to them. People have come here for centuries to talk to the fairy folk, and have a wish granted. They tie a ribbon in the branches as a gift.’

  I was utterly delighted by this thought. ‘Fairy folk? Nobody believes in fairy folk.’

  ‘Even good church citizens do it,’ he said. ‘One doesn’t have to believe in fairy folk to make a wish.’

  ‘And what wish would you have granted, Emile, if the fairy folk were listening?’

  He thought for a minute, then said, ‘More fine days like this one, in good company.’

  ‘Me too,’ I said.

  I asked him a million questions about himself. Where he was from (the Loire Valley), why he had come to England (‘family reasons’ with no further explanation offered), why he had become a carpenter (‘timber speaks to me’). He, in turn, asked me very little. Our mismatched classes wouldn’t allow him to interrogate me the way I had interrogated him. He asked about my aunt, about where I had grown up, and little else. When an hour had passed and the food was mostly eaten, and he started looking back in the direction of the church, I did not want to let him go.

  ‘Are you expected back soon?’

  ‘I was expected back a little while ago, I think,’ he said. ‘I haven’t a pocket watch.’

  ‘Go, then. I will pack this up. I did enjoy your company, Emile.’

  ‘And I yours.’ He offered a sad smile.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ I said impulsively. ‘If I should bring a picnic tomorrow to the well at the same time …’

  He stood, didn’t answer. ‘Good day, Moineau.’

  ‘Good day.’

  I watched him pick up his apron and head up the slope, then disappear behind the veil of green.

  •

  I admit I did not expect him to come back the following day. His reluctance to accept my invitation had cut me deeply, but I was vain enough to believe it due to the difference in our social standing rather than any indifference to me. I had Cook pack me a picnic anyway, and she packed enough for one and a half because my appetite’s reputation had preceded me. Aunt Harriet was meeting with her reading circle in the next village over, and nobody expected me to be anywhere, so I was completely free to sit by the well all afternoon and pine for Emile.

  But he was there. He was standing there, his back turned away from the path, waiting for me, and my heart nearly burst from my chest to see him.

  ‘Emile.’

  He turned. ‘Moineau,’ he said, and handed me a posy of wild roses. ‘For you.’

  We had only an hour, and it went in a blink. But we had an hour the next day, too, and we fitted into that brief wedge of time a thousand conversations. By the third day, I knew everything about him and he about me. Well, not precisely everything. I still had not told him about my pending marriage to either Mr Shawe or Mr Peacock, telling myself that these things were not yet set, and there was no point in introducing a refrain of misery to our lovely summer rhapsody. Besides, he had neatly sidestepped a half a dozen times the full story of what family circumstances had brought him from the Loire Valley to Millthorne, so I reckoned that we were even.

  On the third day we overstayed our hour because we were lying side by side on the picnic rug watching fast-moving clouds overhead and calling out the shapes we saw. His arm was only a half an inch from mine, and I imagined I could feel the warmth from his skin leaping across the space between us. My night-time imaginings of him had become quite wild, quite improper, and although I told myself that they were just imaginings, they were a kindling wind on flames that had no right to burn.

  His proximity, his heat, his strong hard body. I ached from my centre to my extremities; a sweet violent ache that made every other sensation I’d ever felt seem painted in watercolour. I knew the moment couldn’t last, but I held on to it hard; but not too hard to crush it.

  ‘It’s time to go,’ he sighed, at length.

  ‘I know. Tomorrow?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I cannot. I have … family to visit.’ His gaze slid sideward and I wanted very badly to know who his family was and why he would not speak of them.

  ‘I shall look for you on Monday, then,’ I said.

  ‘I will be here on Monday, yes.’

  We packed our things and headed up the path, emerging into the churchyard just as the vicar opened the gate and strode under the arch. He took one look at us, walking slowly together, dreamy-eyed, and he said, ‘Emile, I presume I am still paying you to work for me?’

  ‘Of course, sir,’ he said, hurrying away from my side.

  Then the vicar turned on me. The wind was high and it whipped at his silver-streaked hair, fanning it out like a bird’s tail. ‘And you, Miss Breckby? I shall be telling your aunt about this … dalliance.’

  ‘There is no dalliance,’ I said, my pulse thundering sickly in my throat. How I hated the vicar then, with his angry red face and his ridiculous flighty hair. ‘You ought not to speak to me like that.’

  He turned on his heel and walked away, leaving me alone in the churchyard, the wind causing the branches of the yew tree to make shifting shadows on the silent graves.

  •

  Harriet came to my bedroom just before supper. Her peremptory knock told me I was in for a lecture, and I was right. Even though Harriet adored me, even though she didn’t believe women should be so constrained as we are, she used all the words I expected. ‘Improper’ and ‘unsuitable’; even ‘shocking’ and ‘indecent’. I cried silently as she spoke, tears running down my cheeks and off my chin, but still she didn’t soften.

  ‘Emile Venson is a carpenter,’ she said to me at the end. ‘You cannot fall in love with a carpenter.’

  ‘It is a decent profession. He’s not a footman, or a pauper. Besides, I am not in love.’

  ‘The vicar noted a besotted expression on your face.’

  ‘The vicar is a narrow-minded fool. You have said it yourself many times.’

  ‘Still. You cannot see that man again. Understood?’ She reached out to brush a tear away from my cheek, stern but sympathetic. ‘I’m afraid, Little Sparrow, that is the end of it.’

  She turned and left me there, weeping silently, sitting on the edge of the bed while Basil slept on heedlessly.

  But Harriet was wrong. That wasn’t the end of it at all.

  CHAPTER 8

  Moineau

  So, now I must tell you about my sister, your aunt, because it is here that she enters the story of your conception and birth, and it is she who is wound almost as tightly into it as Emile and me. I love my sister. But I also know my sister better than I know any person other than myself. We are close in age and grew up in such physical and emotional proximity that her faults, invisible as they may be to others, are easy for me to see. She has two chief failings. The first is that she cannot bear for the eye of attention to fall anywhere but on her. She is canny, though, and knows how to draw attention without ever seeming to deliberately try. For certain, she is tall and blonde and striking; we both are. But she does not use her striking looks for attention. Rather, she has a wide selection of little nuanced tricks to get people to attend her and like her, and nothing is beneath her. She exaggerates illnesses, adds drama to injuries, seeks special consideration for her very delicate emotional states, thickly layers humility over real achievements, and refuses to ever accept a compliment until it has been offered at least four times.

  The second failing is that she listens with her own heart but speaks with the mouth of our family. That is, no matter what she might be feeling – and she has strong feelings; I know because I can see them in her eyes and hear them in the tone of her voice – she will parrot exactly what my father or mother would say in almost every sit
uation. It isn’t that she cannot think for herself, I’m sure; it’s simply that she is determined to be a good girl for Papa and Mama, even at the cost of her own convictions. I do not know if she is aware she does it, but I am certain that one day she will either explode like a coiled spring kept under too much pressure, or be forever damaged of spirit.

  She arrived without warning the day after Harriet had lectured me. A carriage brought her direct to the door, even though the street was narrow. There was much rattling and jingling, shouting and neighing, and insistent knocking at the door in the late afternoon. I peered curiously out my window but didn’t see who it was until I had descended the stairs.

  ‘Sister!’ she exclaimed and I found myself wrapped up in a hug that smelled of lavender and soap flakes.

  Harriet was in a foam, ordering servants about and exclaiming apologies that were really reproaches: ‘You should have told us you were coming, dear, we might have had your room aired.’ ‘I don’t know who stops by without saying they will. How am I supposed to feed you?’

  But my sister brushed her complaints off airily, saying, ‘I couldn’t eat a thing and I’m happy to share a bed if I must. You are to go to no trouble, Aunt. I know I am an inconvenience.’

  ‘No, dear, no. Not an inconvenience—’

  ‘I won’t hear you say otherwise! I’m a dreadful girl, and I promise I will make it up to you. Only I am tired and a little ill from my long day of travel and require somewhere to sit and catch my breath.’ She pulled off her gloves and handed them to Toby, who laid them on top of her trunk and put his hand out for her bonnet.

  ‘Jones, take my nieces to the parlour and make sure they are comfortable. Off you go, girls. I’ll be along shortly.’ Then she turned away and was muttering to Toby, and even Basil had come down and was sniffing at the luggage as if to see what all the fuss was about.

  We followed Jones around behind the staircase and down a dimly lit corridor, where she opened the door to the formal parlour. She lit the lamps, arranged the cushions, cracked the window to release the stuffy air, and straightened a painting. I could tell from her glances at us that she was most displeased with this unexpected arrival. My sister stood very still with a straight back by the mantelpiece, hands folded together. I pulled out an upholstered chair from beneath the polished table, and sat. Jones took her time, but neither of us said a word until, at length, she left us alone, closing the door behind her.

  My sister threw herself on the sofa, stretched out and laid her hand over her head. ‘I really am so terribly unwell. Travelling is awful.’

  ‘I quite like it.’

  She opened one eye and fixed it on me. ‘You are contrary.’

  ‘Quite the opposite,’ I joked and she laughed too.

  I rose and went over to the deep green, floral rug next to the sofa, then sank to my knees beside her. We joined hands. ‘So,’ I asked, ‘why have you come?’

  ‘To keep you company.’

  I prickled warily. My sister did not care whether or not I had company. ‘Aunt Harriet is company enough,’ I said. ‘She’s in good spirits.’

  ‘Yes I can see that. She’s taken off her mourning attire already.’

  ‘Didn’t even wear it.’

  ‘No!’ she said in a mock-scandalised tone. ‘In any case, I thought you must be dying of boredom and would welcome my arrival, but …’ Here she sat up and looked towards the door to ensure we were still alone. ‘I’m here for another reason really and you aren’t to mention it to Harriet. Or anyone. In fact, perhaps I oughtn’t tell you.’

  ‘You must now.’ My curiosity was a little piqued but, again, this was my sister’s way. Stories were never told, they were revealed.

  ‘Well, I have come to see if Mister Ernest Shawe will follow.’

  ‘What?’ I had been so eager to leave that conversation behind and, in the company of Emile especially, it had receded into the dim-lit parts of my mind. Now here was my sister, hauling it into the bright light again. I am sure I wilted a little.

  ‘I am tired of his indecision, Sister. And you must be too. He has been hanging around at the manor and hemming and hawing about his choice and I have had enough. I believe if I can draw him out, without our mother and father dancing about him nervously, he will make his choice and you and I can get on with marrying him or dear Mister Peacock, who has been terribly patient.’

  ‘Dear Mister Peacock? Have you feelings for him?’

  ‘I like him enough, but I’m no fool. Shawe owns seven factories and three houses; Peacock only one business and two houses. Shawe would be the better husband.’

  I squirmed, gently extricating my hand from hers. ‘How can you speak so? Ought there not be more between a man and a woman than expedience?’

  ‘What do you think Shawe says about us? Which of us will bear the bonniest sons? Which will run the household most efficiently? Which will look the handsomest on his arm if he meets the Queen? Of course he does. It is an exchange; no more or less. Along with the great freedoms we have been given, we have obligations.’

  ‘Now you sound like Papa.’

  ‘Papa is wise.’

  I couldn’t say aloud the other thoughts I had, because they were most improper. But in order to bear ‘bonny sons’ it meant that one of us would have to lie with Shawe, and one with Peacock. It seemed so intimate a thing to be so publicly decided, and I felt suddenly revolted by it. I remembered the warm charge of energy I felt with Emile and despaired of ever feeling it with anyone else, especially not either of our designated husbands. Misery descended on me.

  ‘Oh, don’t look so downcast,’ she said to me, stroking my hair. ‘You’ll make me miserable too.’

  The door opened and Harriet came in. At her appearance, my sister immediately slumped back on the couch again.

  ‘You poor dear,’ my aunt said. ‘Are you very unwell? I am a terrible aunt for making you feel unwelcome.’

  ‘You made me feel quite perfectly welcome,’ my sister replied. ‘I have a headache, Aunt.’

  ‘Jones swears by soaking brown paper in vinegar and leaving it on your forehead; would you like me to ask her to prepare that for you?’

  She recoiled almost imperceptibly. ‘No, I think I shall just go to bed. Perhaps Cook can send something light up? Some broth or bread … or both? And perhaps something sweet for after.’

  ‘I will have a full supper tray sent up to you within half an hour,’ Harriet said, helping my sister to her feet. ‘Jones is even now airing the bedroom facing the garden. Let me show you the way.’

  I watched them leave, then I stood and made my way to the window, and sat in the sill looking out into the garden through the little diamond-shaped panes. Wild pink roses bloomed in profusion on a bush under the window. Emile had given me wild roses. I have always loved wild roses; there is something pretty and unassuming about them.

  Had I been allowed to keep you, I would have called you Rose. I do not know what your name is now.

  The evening was approaching fast, and it had been a whole day without Emile. Tomorrow was Sunday, and I hoped I would surely see him at church. Harriet couldn’t scold me for greeting him politely.

  I knocked my head lightly against the glass. It was hopeless. What did it matter if I saw him? I was being foolish, so foolish. The sooner I adopted my sister’s practicality, the better. There was no future with Emile.

  •

  I rose early the next morning, and chose a dress that was pretty but not too frivolous for church – pale blue with gold buttons – and took particular care to brush my hair into golden waves, then rolled up the back loosely and plaited and pinned the sides. I watched myself in the mirror, turning my face from one angle to another, wondering how he saw me. Were my cheeks round enough? My lips arched enough? Quite clearly they were not, and I despaired, then cheered myself by remembering that Emile seemed to like me as I was, then despaired again because whether we liked each other or not made no difference to our fates. I was quite exhausted by the time I d
escended the stairs to look for my aunt and sister to go to church.

  I found them in the drawing room. Harriet was bustling around, and bossing Jones too, while my sister lay on the sofa still in her nightgown with her hair loose.

  ‘Aren’t we going to church?’ I asked.

  ‘Your sister is too unwell,’ Harriet said.

  ‘I am!’ she averred from the sofa. ‘This monstrous headache simply will not go away.’

  ‘And so I have sent a message to the vicar that he must come here after the service and give us our own. You needn’t go to church either, my dear.’

  I hesitated a moment, furious with my sister who was no less well than I, then said, ‘But I want to go to church. I want to go out. It’s a fine day, Aunt. I don’t want to stay inside.’

  ‘Release yourself then, Little Sparrow. I shall stay and play nursemaid. Why, only two days ago Madame Azhkenazy said I would be called upon by somebody younger than me, in their hour of need. I had thought it might be you, but here it is your sister. Fancy that!’

  I met Jones’s eyes across the room and could see she and I shared an opinion on this nonsense. Luckily for me, I did not have to be pulled into it. ‘I wish you all well, then. But I am going out to church.’

  I don’t think my aunt noticed me leave.

  The bells on the church rang out between the houses and the shops and the inns, and the folk of the village in their Sunday best meandered along the same route as me towards the church. Inside, the seating arrangement was mixed: some families had occupied the remaining box pews, some sat on mismatched chairs that had been brought in until the new pews were finished. I made my way to the front to one of Emile’s pews, running my hand along the beam at the back of it as I found a seat. He had carved the back of each one with a pattern of wild roses and I sat, fingers tracing the carving in front of me, until the gentleman who sat in that pew turned and glared at me.

  I tried not to look around too eagerly for Emile as the church filled up. I tried not to turn my head every time I heard the door open. But when the vicar stepped up to the pulpit and opened his book of prayers, Emile was not there and my heart felt like a stone.