Stars Across the Ocean

by Kimberley Freeman

Julius steepled his fingers and rested them against his chin for a moment, thinking. Then he said, ‘She sang to me every night before I went to sleep. Old folk songs she had learned when she was a child.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  He furrowed his brow, then said, ‘When I was eight or nine, I fell out of a tree in our garden.’

  ‘At Belgrave Place?’ Agnes remembered no trees big enough to climb in the garden there.

  ‘Yes, there was an old ash tree there at the time. I wasn’t allowed to climb it, but climb it I did. When I fell, I was sure I’d be for it. Genevieve couldn’t bear it when I disobeyed her, and would sometimes not speak to me for days if I was naughty.’

  ‘Julius,’ Agnes said lightly, ‘something nice, remember? Something good?’

  He smiled. ‘Of course. That day, when I fell from the tree, I tried not to cry, so she wouldn’t hear me and tell me off. But I was just a little boy and so I did cry, and my nurse came and she saw that I had cut my knees, so she called for Genevieve, which made me cry harder and louder. By the time she arrived in the garden, I was utterly undone. Sobbing and shouting not to tell Genevieve and that I was sorry and wouldn’t do it again.’ He dropped his eyes, picked up a fork and prodded his cake, but didn’t eat any. ‘Genevieve was not at all angry,’ he continued. ‘She put her arm around me and sat me up, and used her sleeve to wipe my face and she began to sing.’ He shook his head, almost as though he were disbelieving of his own story. ‘It was like a siren’s song. I was mesmerised by it, and my tears dried and my heart found its own rhythm again. Once I had stopped crying, she handed me back to my nurse and told her to take me to Doctor Farraday to clean up my knees. Within a week, she’d had the tree cut down. I always thought she did that to protect me.’

  ‘I reckon she did at that,’ Agnes said.

  He shrugged. ‘Perhaps she did it so I wouldn’t climb it again and cause her so much trouble.’

  ‘No, she loved you. In her way. She’s an unconventional woman, isn’t she?’

  ‘That’s one way of saying it.’

  Agnes reminded herself that Julius’s views were conservative and proper, and didn’t find him wanting for it. He had a strong moral compass and there was a nobility in that; for all that he espoused the views of his class and sex, he had been kind to her and didn’t judge her.

  ‘Will you go back to London now?’ Agnes asked.

  ‘Will you come with me?’

  Agnes shook her head. ‘Not yet.’

  He sighed, shifted in his seat. ‘I suppose we have to wait for the dressmaker to come back anyway. Shall we stay another week? Then I should get back to Marianna, and decide what it is I’m going to do with my life.’

  Agnes didn’t answer. She did not want to commit to a time to leave. Julius spoke as though it would be the easiest thing in the world for her to return to London, to tend to Marianna and sew his long johns. To be circumscribed by the walls of the house and the garden for the rest of her life. No, there was more ahead for her yet. She knew it.

  Instead, she said to him, ‘When you told Madame Valentine we were Genevieve’s children …’

  ‘Yes?’ he said, after she had paused for a few moments.

  ‘Why, she will think we are siblings.’

  ‘I suppose so. That is the usual way of things. As you said, though, Genevieve is unconventional.’

  She held his gaze for a little while then said, ‘Do you think of me as you would think of a sister?’

  ‘I …’ Words eluded him. His face grew pink.

  Agnes almost laughed. ‘No, then?’

  Julius recovered his composure. ‘You are dear to Marianna and always welcome in our home,’ he said. ‘In that sense, you are like family to me. To us.’ Again, his hand stole across to cover hers and this time she allowed it to rest there. ‘I know you think you want to meet Genevieve. I know you think that she will unlock for you the mysteries of your own heart, your own place in the world. Where you belong, as you say.’

  Agnes felt her heart pierced by his acute knowledge of her.

  ‘But Agnes, what if where you belong is somewhere you’ve already been and left behind?’

  Agnes twisted her wrist so her hand faced up, then Julius locked his fingers between hers and squeezed firmly. ‘It is for me to say where I belong, Julius,’ she said. ‘I still want to find Genevieve.’

  He nodded. ‘I understand, and I will help if I can. We may yet hear from Madame Valentine. We will wait, and we will see.’

  Agnes smiled at him, because he was lovely and with her hand in his she felt a strange sort of shifting feeling that was both pleasant and full of promise.

  But she didn’t tell him that she wasn’t the type of woman to wait and see.

  •

  The rain set in. Agnes had only ever experienced Paris under a blue summer sky, but now that the grey clouds hung low, the city seemed crowded and suffocating. She was glad to return to her room at Hotel Londres, where she spent the afternoon thinking about ways she could make Madame Valentine tell her where Genevieve was. After supper with Julius, she read – a supernatural tale by Mrs Oliphant that Julius had bought for her – until her eyes felt heavy, then extinguished her lamp.

  Sleep would not come. Her thoughts chased themselves through the alleyways of her brain. She would doze and then start, doze and start, until finally, after midnight, she found herself wide awake, listening to the rain hammer on the window.

  Agnes rose, pulled on her robe, and drew the curtain to look down on the street. The insistent traffic had stopped. The bars and dance halls were all closed. Gas lamps shone in puddles. The whole city was asleep. She thought of Julius, sleeping in the room upstairs; of Molly, sleeping somewhere in a hospital; Madame Valentine, sleeping in her apartment on Boulevard des Italiens. All of them asleep, while she was awake with a raging brain.

  The concierge. The concierge at Madame Valentine’s apartment was also asleep. A plan began to form.

  Agnes dressed and pulled on her shoes. The opening and closing of the door to her room seemed impossibly loud in the dark hallway, amplified by her apprehension. She made her way down the stairs and across the chequerboard floor of the foyer, then out into the rainy Paris night.

  She had been so fixated on leaving that she had brought no umbrella; in fact, she didn’t own one. The last umbrella she’d had was the ragged one Julius had lent her, and she wasn’t about to alert him to her need for one now. Rather, she decided that the empty wet streets would work in her favour. A pair of drunk, laughing men stumbled past, but otherwise the rain had kept everyone inside. Even the street-sweeping machine sat, without horse and rider, on the side of the road. Agnes ducked under trees and overhangs where she could, but was soon thoroughly wet. A trickle ran down the back of her collar and her shoes squelched in puddles. The discomfort would be worth it. She could sneak right past the concierge, wake up Madame Valentine and refuse to leave until she told Agnes where Genevieve had gone. Agnes didn’t think too closely about the details. Details were for the timid. She marched on. In the distance, she heard a bell strike three. Apart from that, the city was so quiet that she could hear the hollow hiss of the lamps that lit her way.

  Up ahead on the corner, she saw a man, standing like a statue under the awning of a shop. She hesitated, dropped back. From his outline, including his large cavalry sword, she identified him as a member of the gendarmerie. Agnes crossed the street and ducked through an alley to avoid him. She arrived on a wide boulevard with shops lit from inside. She passed a jeweller and a dry-goods store, a book binder and a seamstress. Then finally found herself on Boulevard des Italiens. The rain thinned a little, and she palmed water off her face. She made her way down to Madame Valentine’s apartment building and reached for one of the handles on the big double doors.

  They were locked. Of course.

  Agnes wanted to kick herself. How had she been so naïve as to think that people’s houses would be open at three in the morning? If she rang the bell, she would
wake the concierge, and get no closer to Madame Valentine.

  She backed up and stopped beneath the same tree she had stood under earlier that day, looking up. Which window was Madame Valentine’s?

  She counted the floors. Flat three was surely the third one. She bent to the ground and scooped up a pebble, aimed and flung it at the window. It fell well short, bouncing off the brickwork on the second floor.

  Agnes glanced around. A vendor’s cart was parked nearby. It rested on a slant, its high roof at an angle. But still … Agnes found a handful of pebbles then climbed up the running board of the cart. Her ankle twinged, so she found her balance before climbing onto the cart’s roof. She planted her feet wide and counted the windows again. When she was certain she had found one that was Madame Valentine’s, she began pelting it with pebbles. The first two missed, but three and four found their mark. She waited. Nothing. More pebbles. Five, six, seven.

  A light went on. Agnes tossed another pebble, just to be sure. It bounced off the wall and clattered softly to the footpath. The window opened and Madame Valentine leaned out.

  ‘You?’ she said. ‘Go away. I’ll send for the police.’

  ‘Tell me where Genevieve is,’ Agnes called up to her.

  ‘Be quiet. You’ll wake my daughter. Go away.’

  ‘I won’t go away. I’ll stay and I’ll make more noise. All you have to do is tell me where—’

  ‘Sh!’ she hissed. Then, ‘You’re soaked.’

  ‘I need to know where she is.’

  Agnes could not see her face clearly, but detected a change in her posture; she was thinking about capitulating. A moment passed. Another.

  ‘Wait there. I’m coming,’ she said. The window closed.

  Agnes gingerly climbed down from the vendor’s cart and waited at the door to the apartment building. It seemed to take a long time and she was considering pelting all the other windows with stones when she heard the lock clunk. The doors opened, and Madame Valentine stood there in a dressing gown, a lamp in her hand. ‘Come in, then,’ she said. ‘What was your name again?’

  ‘Agnes.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Nineteen, ma’am.’

  ‘Who wasn’t a fool at nineteen, I suppose,’ Madame Valentine muttered, leading her up the wrought-iron stairs, Agnes dripping all the way. She pushed open a door on the third floor and let Agnes in ahead of her.

  While Madame Valentine placed her lamp on a side table, Agnes looked around. The room was tidy, but gloomy and small. The rug was thin, the upholstery worn, the brass unpolished. It spoke of a family that had fallen on hard times. Madame Valentine gestured Agnes to a small sofa, then sat next to her, pulling her dressing gown tight over her chest and holding the collar together.

  ‘Thank you, Madame Valentine,’ Agnes said. She was damp and cold, but excited.

  ‘My name is Rashmi. That is what you should call me.’

  Agnes nodded.

  ‘So, you insist on knowing where your mother is?’ Rashmi asked.

  ‘Aye, I do. I’ve met her but once, and she didn’t know me. We are … estranged. It is my dearest wish to know her.’

  ‘You have heard the expression, “Be careful what you wish for”?’

  Agnes nodded. ‘I have.’

  ‘If you want me to tell you where Genevieve is, first you must allow me to tell you who she is.’

  Agnes tried not to sigh or show impatience. ‘Certainly. If you feel you must.’

  ‘Well, you are a most demanding girl. There is no doubt you are related to her.’

  Agnes could not repress a small shine of pride.

  At that moment a door opened, and a girl emerged, rubbing her eyes. She had dark hair like her mother, but pale, milky skin. Agnes guessed her to be about twelve.

  ‘Mama?’ she said.

  ‘Go back to bed, darling. I have to talk to this lady, but she will be gone before you wake up.’

  The girl looked at Agnes. Agnes remembered being twelve, in a body that grew in all directions at once, and she smiled gently at the girl. ‘I promise I won’t stay long,’ she said.

  Rashmi rose and put an arm around the girl’s shoulders, said a few quiet words to her, and then dispatched her to her bedroom before rejoining Agnes on the sofa.

  ‘Are you ready?’

  Agnes nodded.

  Rashmi turned her eyes towards the lamp and began. ‘My family have been tea merchants for eighty years. My mother was born in Darjeeling but I was born in London, to an English father. Like you, I never knew my mother. She died while giving birth to me. I was the only child of the marriage and my father was very protective of me. He did not remarry, and he made certain I had the best of everything, and that included finding me the best husband when I turned twenty. One of his colleagues had a son, Saul. Saul Valentine. We were married a week after my twenty-first birthday. He and my father immediately began to do business: Saul believed that Ceylon could be as good a producer of tea as India. Up in the highlands, where it is cool and rainy. Father invested money in Saul to travel and plant tea. He bought land in the Kandy district – just twenty acres – and built a factory. At first, nobody believed he would succeed. Ceylon was for cinnamon, India for tea. But within two years his first export arrived in London: one hundred pounds of Ceylon tea. He bought more land, grew more tea. Others were quick to move in and plant tea as well, but Valentine Tea enjoyed five good years. We did very well.

  ‘I didn’t see him, of course. He was always in Ceylon. He had a house at the plantation, another in Colombo. I asked to travel with him, but he always said no. I did love him, in my own way. I saw so little of him that I built in my imagination a version of him that perhaps was not quite true. Hardworking, committed, loyal. He was none of those things, really. We saw each other so rarely that it took six years before our daughter came along. When she was born, he stayed home for six whole months. I thought perhaps it was to be with us, but I see now that this was the time when his business fell apart. I lost my father that year and I was always grateful that he didn’t live to be ruined by Saul’s business dealings.’ Rashmi, who had been looking away the whole time, now shifted on the sofa and turned her gaze towards Agnes. ‘My poor father. Did you know your father, Agnes?’

  ‘No. And while I’ve wondered, I have no image of him in my mind to pin my dreams on,’ Agnes said.

  ‘I have no doubt Genevieve might have known many men. I wonder if your father is Saul. There is nothing of him in your countenance. I suppose if you meet her you can ask her. She doesn’t strike me as the type to mind if she’s exposed as a woman who has loved many.

  ‘In any case, back to my story. There were many debtors after us in London, and that’s when Saul took up with Valois, who’s a cad.’

  Agnes nodded vigorously. ‘Oh yes. I have met him.’

  ‘I am still not sure quite how Saul got into so much trouble with money, but I assume it was a combination of poor management, bad speculation, and the fact that he couldn’t be sober for more than a few hours at a time. If there was claret nearby, Saul didn’t stop drinking until it was gone.

  ‘We moved to Paris. Saul bought us a beautiful apartment and I convinced myself we would be happy. He continued to travel and Valois built the other end of the business here. We sold tea to a few of the big hotels in the city and things went well for a while. I was in the store with my daughter several days a week, doing what I could to reduce our costs. I helped weigh the tea and package it, read over invoices and so on. Then Saul returned from a trip to London and said we needed to hire more staff so I could return to raising our child. That’s when Genevieve started working for us.

  ‘I had no idea then who she was. She certainly didn’t present as a woman who came from a noble family. She had no airs and graces, and she worked hard. Very hard. She became indispensable very quickly. She visited all the hotels and charmed the management sufficiently that they began to order from us, or increased their existing orders. Valois had installed her in an ap
artment on Rue du Temple and in four months we became the most successful tea merchant in Paris. Genevieve ruled everyone with an iron will. The staff despised her, but my word she got results. When Saul was home, he couldn’t stop talking about her. He stayed late at work with her in business discussions. Or so he said.’ She pursed her lips and fell silent for a moment, then continued.

  ‘In fact, he had known Genevieve for years. At least since around the time our daughter was born. I have no clue when their acquaintance warmed from friendship to love, but hiring her to work at Valentine and Valois was not a business decision, for all that it turned out to be good for our business.

  ‘I was blissful in my ignorance. I only rarely went to the store because I despised Valois so much. When I went there, Genevieve was sickeningly nice to me. For a while, she came by my house a few nights a week when Saul was away. I found her odd, but endured her company because of her importance to our business. She ate dinner with us, and sometimes played with my daughter, who adored her of course. Genevieve was beautiful and fair and shone somehow, as though the rest of us were all a little dull and lightless by comparison. But I knew her niceties were not her real self, because I knew how she treated the other staff at the store, and I heard how sharply she spoke to my servants, even the nurse who was the sweetest, warmest woman one could know. I sensed there was a cruel edge to Genevieve, and I still do not know what those regular visits were about, unless they were a way of being in Saul’s life while he was far away.’ Here she sighed and paused for a little while. The rain outside was easing, but Agnes was still very damp and cold, and she willed Rashmi to keep going.

  ‘She was in my house, in my life, in my daughter’s life,’ Rashmi said. ‘I feel as though she has been everywhere that was precious and private to me. But soon enough, she disappeared for a long time. I did not know why and nor did I ask. I assumed she was gone forever and for that I was a little relieved.’ Rashmi shrugged. ‘Fool that I was. Eight months later, Saul returned from Ceylon and I overheard him mention Genevieve to Valois. He had taken her there! She was turning her iron will to the business in Kandy, but this time it wasn’t working quite as well. Saul had been insightful enough to take the risk on growing tea in Ceylon, but his success had inspired many, many others. He had to share the market.