Ember Island (40 page)

“I’ll loan you one of my dresses.”

Hettie’s mouth twisted wryly. “I will not fit your dresses, Tilly.”

Tilly turned her eyes up to the sky, thinking. A lone gull wheeled overhead, catching thermal currents under his wings. She smiled, watching it. “Do you think that gull would enjoy himself so much, if he knew he was on a prison island?”

“He’s in the sky. The sky isn’t a prison. Nor is the sea.”

Tilly turned her attention back to Hettie. “I will get you two dresses. One to wear on the day, that looks like one of mine. Then, if somebody sees you, they will think it’s me and not pursue you. And one for the onward journey.”

“Where will you get these dresses?”

“That I am also still working on. I could make them, but Nell would see and ask questions . . . In any case, let me take your measurements. Have you any garden twine?”

“No. But there is some holding the lemon trees straight. Wait here.”

Hettie shuffled off and Tilly waited on the grass. She might have to go to the mainland. It was a matter of asking Sterling, and he wouldn’t say no. They had not spoken more than a few words to each other since the night she broke the sherry glass. He usually said something friendly over dinner; she usually answered in short, dispassionate sentences, always careful not to be so cool as to arouse Nell’s suspicion.

Tilly stood when Hettie returned with a length of twine.

“Lift up your arms,” she said, and then wrapped the twine around her bust, tied a little knot at the right point. Then she moved down to Hettie’s thick waist, her mannish hips. She became very aware of the other woman’s physical presence. Because Hettie often kept her head low and wore a deferential expression in her soft eyes, Tilly had never noticed before how powerfully built she was. She thought of Sterling’s words; how Hettie had held two pillows over her husband’s face. Now Tilly could imagine it too well: the force in her hands, the strength in her arms and trunk.

Tilly balled up the twine and kept it tightly in her fist. “Hettie,” she ventured. “Why does the court record say nothing of your husband’s violence towards you?”

“It doesn’t? How do you know?” Her eyebrows turned up, her forehead furrowed.

“Sterling said that you had . . . another man, who helped you.”

Hettie’s eyes dropped, and she clenched and unclenched her hands. “Of course. Of course they would say that about me. I had a friend and, yes, I did love him. Yes I did wish for a life with him. But I knew it wasn’t possible. I’m not a fool.” Hettie lifted her head. “Look at me, Tilly. I’m not beautiful. I’m not young. I’m not you
with your milky skin and bright hair and long lashes. What man would love me? No, he was a friend to me. He lived across the road and that awful night, after I had . . . defended myself. After I had been hit over the head with a cast-iron pan and he had threatened the children . . . My husband had been away a little while, and he had returned with an intent to unleash all his stored rage upon us. So that night, after I smothered my husband, I called on my friend, my neighbor, and asked him what I should do. I was desperate. He helped me take my husband’s body into bushland.” Hettie took a big breath, her eyes going towards the sea. “He looked so peaceful there, lying under a tree.”

“Did you tell all this to the police? To the judge?”

“Of course I did. Tilly, they charged my friend too. He’s in prison too, because of me. On a much shorter sentence. At least they believed me that he knew nothing about the murder until after it was done.”

Tilly was silent a few moments.

“You believe me, don’t you?” Hettie said, her voice desperate. “I told them. I told all of them how he had treated me, what he had done to me. I showed them my bruises.”

“Yes, I believe you,” Tilly said. “I’ve not been in this world very long, but I have seen plenty of evidence that men do not like women’s tempers and seek to punish them for it. I have seen that they believe the worst of women very quickly, that a precocious girl is called uncontrollable, that we are thought to be ruled by our passions while they believe themselves rational and our judges. I believe you, Hettie Maythorpe. I believe you.”

Hettie managed a smile.

“I need to go away and think about how all this is to be done,” Tilly said, turning away. “I will find you when I know anything at all. You aren’t to worry. I will take care of everything.”

“Wait, Tilly,” Hettie said. “I need to ask you something.”

Tilly faced her. The cool rush of sea air lifted her hair at her nape. “Go on.”

“Why are you doing this?”

Tilly couldn’t speak for a long time. There were so many possible answers. In the end, she said, “Because I have to.”

Hettie seemed about to ask for clarification, then changed her mind. “I will see you soon,” she said.

“As soon as ever I can,” Tilly reassured her.

•

It was early the next morning that Tilly arrived at Sterling’s office door. She had not slept well, again, and gave a brief, vain thought for the dark shadows under her eyes. But then she reminded herself she had no claim on Sterling, no future with Sterling, so it wouldn’t matter if she had grown two heads. She gave two sharp raps, and heard him say, “Come.”

Tilly opened the door.

His surprise to see her was in his eyes, in his body language as he quickly put aside his work and stood to greet her. “Tilly. I hadn’t thought to see you here.”

“I need to speak with you before lessons start for the day,” she said, keeping her voice very even. She wouldn’t have him thinking her irrational. “I have come to request a short leave of absence to travel to the mainland.”

“For what purpose?”

“My business is my own,” she said.

Sterling nodded softly. “Of course it is,” he said. He walked to his window and looked out. “It’s a beautiful morning. Let us walk.”

“Walk?”

“I find it helps me to think things through.”

“There is nothing to think through. I want a leave of absence and I want some of the money I am owed for working here and—”

“Yes, you will have your leave. I am not arguing against it. But there are other matters I wish to discuss with you and this”—he gestured around—“is not the right place in which to speak of them.”

She hesitated. All her body and heart bent towards him, to go walking with him on this clear, sunny morning. But her brain warned her against it.

“Come, Tilly. A short walk. Ten minutes. Then we will both get on with our days.”

“Very well, then,” she said, trying to sound cool, as though her heart wasn’t thudding madly.

They descended the front stairs and walked down the road, taking the path west, away from the stockade and down towards the little strip of beach. Sterling didn’t speak for a long time, maintaining a gruff bearing for any of the men they passed who called out good mornings. He walked swiftly and she had to hurry to keep up next to him, all the while sneaking glances at his face to see if she could guess what he intended to speak to her about.

“Here is a good place to sit,” he said, indicating the flat rock at the beach where she and Nell often sat. He perched on the edge, but a small part of her wanted to defy him. She had walked all the way down here with him and now she wouldn’t sit. She chose instead to stand on the sand, facing out to sea.

“Did you know Nell calls this Seven Yard Beach?” she said.

“She does?”

Tilly turned. “She has a map. She adds to it all the time. Everything is slowly acquiring a name.” She hid a little smile. “The escarpment is Sterling Cliff. She said it was a stern enough name for the place.”

Sterling leaned forward, his hands folded between his knees, his gaze going out to sea. “Stern? She thinks I’m stern?” The waves were low today, rolling softly onto the gritty sand and breaking with a quiet shush. The air was thick with the smell of seaweed.

“I don’t know. It’s what she said.”

He shook his head. “I love that girl too much,” he said.

“There is no such thing as too much love,” Tilly said, her voice growing hot. “One can’t measure or control it. One must simply feel it. It is the only moral thing to do.”

Sterling said nothing for a long time, as her face cooled and she recomposed herself.

She watched him watching the sea. A seagull went by overhead. The sun was in Sterling’s hair, the wind pushing it back off his face so she could see clearly the broad plane of his brow, the strong angle of his nose. She couldn’t remember ever finding any other face so pleasing to look upon, and it began to irritate her that he wouldn’t speak. As though he had brought her here just to put a spell on her with his lovely countenance.

“Why did you bring me here?” she asked. “What is it you want to speak of?”

“I am sorry, I . . .” he said, searching for words. His eyes were still on the water, squinting slightly against the glare. “I treated you ill. Last time we spoke, I realized that I had not apologized. Perhaps my apology will help you. I meant it when I said I wished to keep you as my friend. I miss our conversations, but currently you seem uninterested in conversing with me.”

Tilly said nothing for fear she would cry.

This time, he looked directly at her. His eyes were sad. “As a man, as an older man, in a position of responsibility, I should have been far more careful with you, your honor, your heart,”
he continued. “I have said it before: living on this island feels as though we are outside society somehow. We spend so much time around people who have murdered or brutalized others, that our own behavior seems beyond reproach.”

Still nothing.

“Tilly? Speak to me.”

“All I have heard here is that because you are a man you are more able than I am to know what is right, to protect my honor. And that our lovemaking was ill treatment and that falling in love with each other was somehow comparable to criminal behavior,” she said.

“I said none of those things.”

“You said all of them.”

“You are twisting my words. Why must women be so . . . ?” He stopped himself, but he had already said the thing most likely to light her fuse.

“Tilly, I miss you. But we can’t be together yet. We must be patient, we must control ourselves—”

“I don’t want to control myself!” she shouted at him. Then she turned and ran back towards the house, leaving him on the beach alone.

•

Nell and Sterling both stood on the jetty to see her off. Nell, blithe to the underlying passions between her father and Tilly, was bright and excited.

“Enjoy your holiday,” she enthused. “Buy yourself something pretty.”

There was room enough in Tilly’s bag for a number of new dresses, but she wouldn’t be bringing dresses back for herself.
“I will see you in a week or so,” Tilly said, kissing the girl’s forehead. “In the meantime, get to work on that new story.”

“Good-bye, Tilly,” Sterling said. The sun was in his dark hair, on his skin. She saw lines around his eyes, a few gray strands in his sideburns. She longed to touch his face, kiss his lips.

“Good-bye, Sterling,” she replied.

He took Nell’s hand and they stood on the jetty while Tilly walked up the gangplank of the steamer. It bobbed on the morning tide. The sun glistened off the bay, which was blue-green today. The wet season had passed and the dry season, with its crisp sun and cool air, had finally come. She left her case downstairs and went up to the top of the boat to watch the jetty. They were still there, hand in hand. Nell waved at her with Pangur Ban. Sterling lifted his hand also, as the crew untied the ropes and the boat pulled away. They waved at her as though she were family.

But they weren’t family. And this trip to the mainland would ensure that they would never be. That she was moving inexorably into a future that they could not be part of.

T
illy had not had time to write ahead and organize somewhere to board, though she’d lied to Sterling and told him all was taken care of. She remembered a draper and dressmaker near Mrs. Fraser’s boardinghouse, where she had stayed on her arrival in Australia, and so she took the tram from the dock back to Mrs. Fraser’s, hoping there would be room for her to stay. She found herself on the doorstep just past midday, ringing the bell at the tall boardinghouse, with its iron lace railings and creaking weather vane.

Footsteps inside, then the door opened.

“Yes?” asked the young woman.

“Is Mrs. Fraser in?”

“No, she’s at the shops. Can I help?”

“I need a place to stay for a week. Mrs. Fraser knows me. She said she’d be happy for me to return any time.”

“We are full.”

Under the circumstances, small complications took on enormous
proportions to Tilly. Her resolve fluttered. “Yes, but Mrs. Fraser knows me. Chantelle Lejeune. She said . . .” Tilly trailed off. If they were full, they were full. “Do you know anywhere else?” she finished limply.

“About five miles down the road on the esplanade there’s a bed-and-breakfast.” The young woman’s eyes flicked away. “Run by a gentleman. Perhaps a single lady such as yourself will not want to stay there alone. You could head towards town . . .”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” she said. Then reconsidered. Sterling had been right. The island skewed judgment of what was appropriate. Nonetheless, she needed a place to stay, so she walked down to the esplanade, where tall trees bent over the road. A horse and carriage trotted past and she jumped out of the way, narrowly avoiding a pile of horse dung. She hadn’t been on this side of the bay for many months. She passed couples, families, men heading to the beach with towels and bathing caps. Nobody was dressed in white or blue uniforms. They were free to move about, to come and go to town or further. She strained her eyes across the water but wasn’t sure she could see Ember Island from here. Many islands dotted the bay, and it was hard to tell one from another. Over there: prisoners and orphans and displaced natives and lepers. Over here: civilization.

At length, she reached the place the young woman at Mrs. Fraser’s boardinghouse had told her about. A little wooden house with a low front verandah and an overgrown courtyard garden. She stood across the esplanade from it, considering it. It didn’t even have a sign; it looked like an ordinary, small home.