“Has anyone ever escaped?”
Nell shook her head. “Fourteen prisoners have tried. Eight were recovered, six died.” She held up her translation. “Are you going to check this?”
Tilly brought her mind back to the present. “Of course,” she said. She returned to the desk and reached out to take the paper.
Nell grasped her wrist. “You really mustn’t feel sorry for them. Papa is a good superintendent. He is very humane. But we must remember that they are here to be punished and that is good for them and for their souls and for the communities left behind.”
“Thank you, Nell. I have much to learn about living in a place like this.”
“I’ve been here since I was three. I know no other life. You can always ask me.” Nell gave her a dazzling smile. “I bet you find no errors in that translation.”
Nell bet right. Tilly then set her the task of resewing the bad embroidery, with a metronome timing her stitches so she couldn’t rush. It ticked on in the dusty library while Tilly sat on a chair pulled up to the window, a book open but unread in her lap. Her mind was out there, in the cane fields, with the prisoners chained, one to another, for their sins. She had chains for her sins too, attaching her forever to things she couldn’t run from and no golden plants high enough to hide behind.
•
While Tilly was already growing fond of Nell, her company was exhausting. Her mind ranged from one thing to another with lightning speed; she had an opinion about everything and was certain Tilly wanted to hear it; and she liked to be physically very close, which Tillly found cloying in the sticky humidity. Returning to her company at suppertime after a short break meant Tilly had to hide a sigh of exhaustion. The previous night, her first night, Nell had talked to her as insistently as a steam train for the entire meal. But tonight was different because Sterling had joined them.
“Good evening, Tilly,” he said. He had taken off his jacket and was in a white cotton shirt and vest. His sleeves were rolled casually up towards his elbows, revealing a pair of surprisingly strong forearms. Tilly felt the first flush hit her cheeks and had to look away.
“Good evening, Superintendent Holt,” Tilly said, sitting down next to Nell.
Nell immediately moved her chair closer. “What are we doing in lessons tomorrow?” she asked.
“Tilly isn’t working now,” Sterling said gruffly. “Give her a chance to breathe, Nell.”
Nell dropped her head and Tilly felt sorry for her, so she rubbed her arm lightly. “I’m sure we’ll have a lovely day no matter what we do.”
An awkward silence descended. The maid brought out a small roll of roasted pork, bowls of potatoes and peas, and a gravy boat. Sterling stood to carve the meat and they passed the plates around in silence, helping themselves. Then Sterling cleared his throat and said, “Tilly, I wonder if you would join me in the parlor after our meal so I may speak with you alone?” His face was very serious.
“Of course,” Tilly said, cursing the guilty ticking of her heart in her throat. She had no reason to assume he wanted to speak to her about her past or that she had somehow offered him some offense that needed pointing out.
Nell pouted. “Why can’t I join you?”
“Because you are a child, Nell,” he answered, without elaboration.
Nell knew when she was defeated. She ate in sulky silence. The quiet was broken only by the tick of the clock and the clank of their cutlery against their plates.
When they were finished, Sterling urged Nell to go fetch the maid to clear up, then head off to her room to read before bed.
“You will come with me?” Sterling asked, setting down his napkin and pushing his chair back.
“Yes. Please lead the way.”
Evening was closing in now, and she followed Sterling into the parlor by the light of a lantern. He lit the other candles in the
room and went to the liquor cabinet beside the piano. The floorboards were partly covered by a thick rug with an intricate Indian design on it. She had the urge to slip off her shoes and sink her bare toes into the pile.
“Please sit,” he said. “Can I offer you a drink? Brandy?”
She shuddered. The smell or taste of it would bring back too many dark memories. “No, I . . .”
“Sherry?”
“Yes. That would be lovely.”
He set out two small crystal glasses and pulled the stopper from a bottle of sherry, speaking the whole time. “I hope you don’t mind me taking you aside, but I need to be able to speak to you freely about Nell.”
“I’m happy to do as you wish,” she said.
He handed her a glass. “Before I start I need to reassure myself that Nell isn’t listening in.” He cocked his head and, sure enough, Tilly heard footsteps retreating. He shook his head regretfully, clinking his glass against hers. “Nell is a terrible eavesdropper.”
“She has a quick brain and gets bored easily.”
“I know. And I am so glad that you know already. Her last teacher, one of the turnkeys’ wives, never understood that about Nell. She thought the girl was simply trouble.”
Tilly remembered that Dr. Groom had called Nell “uncontrollable.” “Well, I like Nell very much.”
“And she clearly likes you. I couldn’t have wished for a better start for the two of you. But tonight I saw her cozy up to you and I . . . I needed to say something.”
Realization dawned. Tilly felt embarrassed that she hadn’t understood until now. She had already allowed Nell to be too familiar with her. “I understand,” she said, “and I will absolutely keep my distance from now on if—”
“No, no,” Sterling said, raising a long hand to stop her. “No, that’s not it at all. Our capacity to love is what sets us apart from animals, Tilly. I am happy for Nell to grow to love you, which I am sure she will. You are everything she wants to be one day: clever and graceful.”
Tilly willed herself not to blush.
“I simply wanted to say . . .” He paused, struggling for words. “Nell’s mother died only a year ago. If she does come to love you, will you promise not to leave too soon? You are a young woman of many accomplishments and some perceive Ember Island to be an unpleasant environment, so isolated, so far from everything. Could you guarantee me a full year at least?”
So isolated, so far from everything. Exactly where Tilly needed to be. “I can absolutely guarantee you that, Superintendent.”
He smiled at last and it transformed his face. She could imagine how he might have looked as a boy: with a hairless jaw and freckled nose. “Then you’d better start calling me Sterling,” he said.
•
At four o’clock on Friday, when the heat was cooling off the island with the sea breeze and the lengthening shadows, Tilly finished Nell’s lessons for the week and changed into a housedress for gardening. She was curious to see the small plot that Sterling had set aside for her and think about what she might do with it. He had told her that Prisoner 135 worked in the afternoons and evenings to avoid the worst of the sun, so Tilly set off down the front steps and into the sprawling garden to find her.
Tilly saw her kneeling at the foot of a row of hydrangeas, pulling weeds. She wore a plain white shirt and white skirt, that were
stained with grass and mud. Black writing was printed across the back of her clothes. Tilly paused, watching her for a while, not sure how to approach.
Then the woman stood and turned, almost as though she had heard Tilly coming. She was older than Tilly by fifteen or twenty years. Her dark hair was streaked gray and tied back in an untidy bun; she was sturdy and florid, with dark eyes and heavy eyebrows. She considered Tilly without expression, offering neither welcoming smile nor hostile scowl.
Tilly said, “Hello . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to call the woman 135, so she trailed off and waited.
“Are you Miss Lejeune?” the woman said.
“Yes.”
“The superintendent said you might come. Let me show you the section of the garden that will be yours.” She offered a small smile, and Tilly’s shoulders relaxed.
She fell into step beside the prisoner. “Thank you. I would like that. I . . . Look, I know your name is Hettie. But I know I’m supposed to use your number . . .”
“Call me Hettie. Some of the turnkeys do. The chaplain always does.”
“Good. Thank you, Hettie.”
“The superintendent told me that you are a keen gardener.”
“I find putting my hands in soil soothes me,” Tilly responded, guardedly, not sure how much small talk was too much. Sterling had been very clear that she oughtn’t befriend Hettie.
“I agree,” she said, emphatically. “If I didn’t have the garden . . . well, I would have sunk into despair by now I am certain.”
Tilly said nothing, though she wanted to ask a million things. What did you do? Why are you here? When will you be allowed to go home?
Hettie led Tilly down a long row of rose beds to a back corner. “You’ll have to clear it first. I can help.”
The plot was ten feet by ten feet, covered in old garden rubbish and weeds. There was enough shade here from a spreading fig tree for her to work in the afternoons without fear of freckling. It was right at the edge of the escarpment, so she could catch the sea breeze and be distracted as often as she pleased by the view of fields and bay. Her heart leapt at the possibility that she might find some happiness here.
“I’m afraid I’ve used it as a dumping ground for all my cuttings. But we can put those over the other side of that line of bushes and nobody will see them, and this can be your own little corner of the gardens.”
“Thank you so much,” Tilly said.
“Don’t thank me. Thank the superintendent.”
Tilly looked back towards the house. From here she could only see the roof past the trees and hedges. It would be a place that she could get some distance from Nell, too, if she needed it. Like Hettie, the work in the garden might keep her from sinking into despair. “I’m grateful for your offer of help,” Tilly said, “but I am keen to do this myself. Not to have to talk, just to think . . .”
“I understand,” Hettie said with a smile. Her mouth was very small and her smile was little more than a turning up of the corners, but her eyes were kind. “But I am here if you need me. And I can work in silence if needs be.” Hettie drifted off, disappearing back amongst the bushes. Tilly stood for a few moments, reflecting on the work that needed doing. She had guaranteed Sterling at least a year. She had plenty of time to clear and turn soil and plant and tend. She wandered back to the house in the afternoon cool, only to collide with Nell coming the other way.
“Oh, there you are!” exclaimed Nell. “I wondered where you’d got to.”
“Your father has given me a plot in the garden.”
“Can I see?”
“Follow me.”
Nell chatted idly as they walked, then stopped to view the plot with a look of concern. “But that will be such a lot of work for you.”
“I don’t mind it. I’ll enjoy it.”
“I can help.”
Tilly took a deep breath. She had been anticipating this. “Nell, you know when you are reading a truly wonderful book, how you like to imagine the world has gone away and it jars you terribly if somebody speaks to you or interrupts you?”
Nell looked back at her with big, sad eyes. “Oh. I see.”
“I will be a better friend to you if I have time on my own at the end of every day.”
Nell formed a resolved expression. “You are quite right. And I do need to devote much more time to my epic if I ever want to save Prince Claudio from the maw of the Firebeast.”
“Absolutely. I cannot wait to see how he escapes.”
“You can always ask 135 to help too,” Nell said, then dropped her voice low. “You needn’t be afraid of her, I know what—” The wind picked up then, rattling through the treetops and pulling strands of Tilly’s hair loose. Nell looked up at the sky. “Another storm coming,” she said.
Tilly didn’t want to change the topic. “What were you going to say? I know what . . . ?”
Nell put her fingers to her lips. “Perhaps I oughtn’t say. Will you be cross and tell Papa?”
Tilly shook her head, leaned in against Nell’s ear. “I want to know.”
Nell turned her head, met Tilly’s eyes. “I know what they say about her. That she won’t commit the same crime again. She can’t commit the same crime again.”
“Why? What did she do?”
Nell held her gaze, didn’t blink. Then whispered, “She killed her husband.”
T
illy closed the door of the little stone chapel behind her, shutting out the bright sun and humid heat. In the last two days, the fierceness of the subtropical summer had become apparent. Damp heat clung under her arms and between her breasts, perspiration beaded along her hairline, and she wanted more than anything else to strip down to her chemise and petticoat and sit very still somewhere cool. There hadn’t even been the respite of an evening thunderstorm. She hadn’t the slightest inclination to work in the garden: the very idea of doing hard physical work in these conditions made her ill. Instead, she had sewn two cotton nightgowns, thin and sleeveless, to wear as she melted into her bed at night. Then she lay, in and out of sleep, on top of the covers. Window open, fighting off the occasional buzzing mosquito that made its way under the net. Nell had reassured her that it wouldn’t remain this hot forever; that all that they needed was a change from the southeast that would bring cool ocean air flowing over them. But in the meantime, she sweltered.
So the comparative cool of the chapel was welcome. She made her way down between the rows of wooden pews and slid into the front one. Trapped air and unfinished wood. One little window let in a beam of yellow sun. She bowed her head and clasped her hands and prayed, as she had every day since Nell had told her about Hettie’s crime.
Forgive me, Father. Forgive me for what I did to my husband. I didn’t know he would die. He wasn’t without sin, but it was for you, not me, to decide his punishment. I am sorry. I am sorry. Forgive me.
She raised her head and looked at the icon of Jesus on his cross that hung on the wall behind the lectern. “Forgive me,” she said aloud.