Bride of a Distant Isle (22 page)

T
hen next morning broke beautifully, and I dressed myself and took a late breakfast. Maud and Mrs. Watts were having a heated discussion near the sideboard. It seemed Maud was rearranging items before taking a tray to Clementine, and Mrs. Watts told her that she did not appreciate interference in the household running—she would restock the condiments herself. At that, Maud let the lid drop heavily on the silver sugar-cube container.

“Good morning.” I helped myself to a crumpet and a poached egg resting in a silver steamer. Mrs. Watts nodded toward me before flouncing from the room, and Maud smiled.

“Good morning.” She held Clementine's tray in one hand. “Or, nearly afternoon.”

“I thought I might take Albert for a walk around the grounds,” I said. “I'd like to teach him to draw. Would you ask Clementine to send word if that does not meet with her approval?”

She agreed. “I am certain it will be fine. Do not forget Mr. Morgan arrives today.”

I sighed. I had remembered, of course. I wondered if she was reminding me to warn me for my sake or because someone had put her up to it.

Within an hour, I went to Albert's rooms. I told Lillian I would spend some time with the boy to give her a respite and handed over two notebooks I'd had in my trunks at school, the ones that had been returned.

“Latest systems for keeping track of accounts,” I said. “Some friends who were to start a school had begun to organize using them, and I thought they might be of interest to you . . . as a future shopgirl.”

She smiled softly and held them to her chest. “They certainly will. Thank you, Miss Ashton.”

I collected Albert, and we wandered out onto the lawn. There was a sturdy clump of trees to one side, beneath which seemed like an ideal place to draw.

I set down our blanket. “Just do not leave my side.” I pointed out the Edge of the World in the distance. “There is a steep drop-off, and you must promise me you will not wander off.”

“I promise.” He bobbed his little head and took a charcoal stick in his fat hand. “Pretty!” He pointed to a cluster of hosta plants, late bloomers.
Like me
, I thought, with a grin.

I pointed at a wide leaf. “What does it look like to you?” He sat back, thinking.

“This!” He stuck his tongue out as far as he could.

“Yes, that's just so!” I was delighted that such a wee child already had artistic insight. “Except your tongue isn't green, or blue, or streaky, except when you've been eating sweets.”

We sat sketching for about ten minutes, when all of a sudden Edward came racing across the lawn. He drew near to us and in an angry voice asked, “What are you doing out here with Albert?”

He scooped the boy into his arms.

I was bewildered. “We're drawing, of course. He's got natural talent,” I teased, showed him Albert's little drawing of a circle.

“Then do it inside,” he said, almost shaking. “Where there is no danger.”

Ah.
I understood. “I warned him about the drop and it's quite far away. I would never let him from my sight or even from my reach.” Never. The quicksand at the foot of the cliffs would swallow a boy whole.

Edward did not cool off. “I'm not concerned about that,” he answered. “Well, I am. But there are dangers right here, at ground level. Bees!”

“Bees?” I did not understand.

At that, he rolled up the cuff of his left sleeve and showed me his wrist, which whitened with his pull and seemed to be pricked and pocked with light scars, perhaps a dozen or more, all clustered at the wrist and toward his palm.

“Bee stings,” I whispered. “From long ago?”

“Yes.” He set the boy down and rolled down his sleeve, linking it again at the cuff. Unexpectedly, I saw tears fill his eyes.

We did not keep hives any longer, but I understood his horror.

He blinked a few times, and his tears receded. “Mr. Morgan will be here shortly.”

“I'll continue to draw,” I said quietly. “Perhaps he and I can take a walk. It's a lovely afternoon.”

Edward took a deep breath and composed himself. My answer had satisfied him. “Fine idea. I'll tell him where to find you, and Clementine can sit on a chaise on the lawn, nearby, as you stroll.”

I nodded my agreement, and he took Albert's hand and walked back toward the house.

I took my sketchbook to another part of the lawn, nearer to the sheep, where young Emmeline tended her charges. Her presence and the merry, bleating sheep comforted me somehow.

I sat on a stump near her, but I could not make myself draw. I looked toward the back of the estate, toward the abbey—crumbling, ruined, with rooms and nooks and crannies that had been used once to hide the gin barrels and other smuggled stuffs. The hives had been nearby, too. A memory pressed in, one I had forgotten.

“No, Papa, no!” I heard Edward crying. “Please. I'm sorry.”

“You're sorry, you are. I'm certain of it. But lessons learnt with pain are seared into the memory and will preclude poor future choices. You, young lad, will someday be responsible for all of this. I mean for you to carry on well. I'll see to it this is one mistake you do not forget. A father who loves his son is one who disciplines him.”

Edward's father drove him down the hallway and out the door. I tiptoed after them and watched as Edward was force-marched toward the abbey ruins and the bee colonies.

I brought myself back into the present moment. Bees would not have cluster-stung Edward like that unless his hand had been held immobile near where they swarmed. I looked at mute Emmeline in the distance and knew what had happened to my cousin: something very like that which Emmeline and Oliver had witnessed.

An hour or so later, Emmeline had enclosed her flock for the night and made her way to greet me. “Are you well?” I asked her, and she nodded. “I trust my supply of sweets and ices has met with your approval.” She grinned at that and nodded again.

I patted her hand. My heart ached for her. I wanted to encourage her, to lift her up, to free what had long been held back by fear.

“No more lost sheep?”

She shook her head no.

“I trust that if they wander or are confused you shall find them straightaway!” I continued. “I hear you've been entrusted with collecting the mail from Mr. Galpine's. That's a lovely responsibility and one not given lightly.”

She beamed and indicated that she'd like to take my charcoal and paper in hand.

“By all means.” I handed them toward her.

Quickly, and with great skill, she sketched a face. The likeness was remarkable. “This is who you collect the mail for?”

She nodded, proud, again, to be doing something important for the mistress of Highcliffe.

“Well done!” I hid my concern. She'd taken the mail, including the letter addressed to me, one assumed, to Clementine. Had Clementine actually received a letter for me or had one not come at all, and Mr. Galpine had been mistaken? Maybe Clementine had withheld the letter knowing Edward's wrath. Perhaps Emmeline was helping Clementine with whatever she was up to, and realized it. She was mute, not unintelligent.

I did not have time to muse on that thought because Mr. Morgan arrived in a cloud of dust and sought me out. At the sight of him Emmeline curtseyed a little, charmingly, and ran off.

Morgan brought two chairs. “Miss Ashton, I'm delighted to find you enjoying the autumn weather.”

“So much more peaceful than London.” I tried to make light conversation. His shadow fell upon me, rendering me in near darkness.

“Will you walk closer to the sea?” he asked, voice rumbling. In a moment, my mind flashed back to the spider he'd given me, trapped in amber, twinned with the memory of Mrs. Howlitt's poem, which we'd once taught at the Rogers school.

“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly,

“'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;

The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,

And I've many curious things to shew when you are there.”

“Oh no, no,” said the little Fly, “to ask me is in vain,

For who goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down again.”

“Miss Ashton?” Morgan's voice pressed into my mind.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Morgan. A poem came drifting back to me just then. Yes, let's walk.”

He set the chairs down, braced against a tree, and offered his arm to me. Reluctantly, I took it. I could see Clementine in the distance, relaxing, face shaded by her bonnet, in a chair on the lawn.

“I have not forgotten that you like books,” he said. “Which is why I purchased that Poe volume for you. Perhaps I could purchase the poem for you? I would be delighted.”

“You've already been far too generous,” I said. “But thank you for that kind thought.”

“I enjoy purchasing gifts for you; it's my pleasure and I hope to do it for a long while. Different kinds of gifts, novelties, which are easily acquired when one imports.” He looked at me, and though his sinister nature did not diminish I saw some earnestness in him and remembered that he had once been a boy, too, like Albert, like Edward. A child, like I once was. He glanced at my neck and frowned. I was not wearing the caged diamond.

“I've always been a bit peculiar,” he continued. “My mother said so, pointed it out to others, but I've come to terms with that. You are unusual, too, Miss Ashton. But that makes us
interesting
, does it not?”

Goodness above, I would never use the word
interesting
again; it had lost any novelty and charm and had, instead, taken on disturbing overtones.

He licked his fat lips until they glistened like slug trails. “It's one reason I've always known we belong together . . .”

The terminus of that thought nauseated me.

“Happily, your cousin agrees,” he finished. “He's . . . promised me.”

“Promised you what?” I insisted. It might as well come out now.

Mr. Morgan would say no more. I looked out at the sea, not knowing what to say. What dark debts were owed by Edward that could not be satisfied by my simply becoming a governess, but instead, required I be given to Morgan?

“Perhaps I might purchase some rosary beads?” Morgan asked. “I want you to know that your religious leanings do not trouble me in the least. I find them . . .”

Interesting
, I expected him to say.

“Acceptable,” he finished, his voice growing more authoritative, his grip on my arm tightening. “Just so you understand, I would never forbid someone practicing their faith.”

He had taken a leap in his mind. He believed he would soon be able to allow, or forbid, me at will. “Rosary beads are rather private and personal,” I said. “They are not like jewelry. But thank you.”

I changed the topic. “Look, what a charming bird. They are so small and vulnerable; they are among my favorites. I love to hear them sing.”

“You love them, these particular ones?” His voice pitched in eagerness. I should quickly dissuade him from following that path lest I end up gifted with several of these birds after they'd been shot and had a brisk visit to the taxidermist.

“Just in the wild, Mr. Morgan. Just as they are,” I said. We walked and talked uncomfortably for another thirty minutes, about his life in London, and his country houses—though he didn't quite say where they were located—until I guided us back to Clementine. “I should like to rest before dinner.”

“I shall look forward to seeing you then,” he said, and remained to talk with Clementine, who looked at me affectionately as I rounded the steps. I went to my rooms and firmly closed the door.

I removed the caged diamond necklace from the jewelry box; I would be expected to wear it at dinner. I closed the box and opened the drawer with the amber pieces, looking once more at the spider ensnared within. I glanced out of my window and saw Emmeline in the distance.

Perhaps the young woman I needed to lift up, to rescue, and to free from the sticky trap of a fearsome past and threatening future was myself, and not that young lass. But how? Every step I'd taken webbed me further in distress.