Their conversation was like rustling leaves in the background. I stared at the picture, transfixed. The woman was my mother. Her young face was so beautiful, so smooth. In her final weeks, she’d looked as worn as Death.
Puck came through the doorway, quiet as a murmur. He whispered something in Father’s ear. Father glanced at the ticking clock on the mantel.
“I’ll have to miss lunch and supper,” Father announced. “I started on a new project last night that requires myimmediate and prolonged attention.” He stood and kissed me briefly on the temple, like I was still just a child. Like I hadn’t traveled so far and risked so much to find him.
I shouldn’t have expected him to change. He’d disappear into his laboratory for days, and I’d be lucky to glimpse him at mealtimes. Just like it used to be.
Edward drummed his fingers on the arms of the leather chair, watching. His jaw twitched slightly.
I got the sense he understood my feelings. He’d left England to get away from his own father, after all, though he’d been evasive about the details. He’d done something, something that seemed to haunt him long before the Viola sank. Anyway, he had to know a thing or two about domineering fathers.
But this time, Father didn’t disappear into the laboratory. His black eyes glanced at the frame in my hands and then searched my face. “Let me make this up to you. Tomorrow we’ll take a picnic to a point where you can see all the island. I am curious to know what kind of person my daughter’s become.”
My lungs expanded, filling with fresh air and childlike happiness. I glanced at Edward, beaming. But he’d gotten up, arms folded tight, his back to me as he looked out the window.
And then Father said the one thing I’d most hoped to hear. “I’m glad you came, Juliet.”
Sixteen
THE NEXT DAY WE were to leave in the early morning before the afternoon sun made travel through the jungle a miserable affair. I waited anxiously, but Montgomery came at dawn, already sweating and smelling of horse, and told me there’d been a problem. An accident on the far side of the island. Some natives injured—one even killed. The picnic would be delayed a day. That day passed, and then another, and another, and Montgomery stopped bothering to tell me. Father was in charge of the island, so naturally he had duties and responsibilities more pressing than a picnic. But that didn’t begin to fill the hollow pit of my disappointment.
I spent those first few days exploring the compound, putting my cleaning skills to use when I could. It was a simple place, a farmstead, and the order and logic behind it was pleasing. Everyone had a job, even the little boy Cymbeline, who picked peas from the garden and fed the chickens. There was nothing of London’s chaos and filth and crowds and mechanization. After a few days, I got used to the rhythm of island life. I could have a future here, I thought. The idea made my head spin.
Alice stayed mostly in the kitchen, half hidden by woodsmoke and her own shyness. Edward kept to himself as well, brooding as if the island’s desolation made him anxious, though I managed to get one game of backgammon from him.
One morning, as I was brushing my hair with the silver comb, I heard a soft rap at the door.
“Yes?” I said, turning the knob. Alice stepped back shyly, keeping her scarred face turned away. Her fair hair looked shockingly white in the early daylight, and her eyes locked on the silver comb in my hand.
“The expedition will be leaving shortly, miss. The doctor asked me to see if you were ready.”
“What expedition?”
“Well, the picnic, miss.”
I blinked. I’d pushed the picnic out of my head with all the rest of my father’s unfulfilled promises, and it took me a moment to dredge it back into daylight. “Yes,” I stuttered. “Yes, I’m ready. Five minutes.”
She didn’t take her eyes from the comb. There was something so delicate about her, so vulnerable, and yet mature beyond her years. I’d seen it in the other lodging-house girls, especially the younger ones. I guessed she was an orphan. I knew what that awful loneliness felt like, though for me there’d been a happy ending—a long-lost father. For Alice, I doubted such luck.
I held out the comb. “Take it, if you like.” Her eyes widened. She didn’t move. I reached for her hand and pressed the comb into her palm.
“No, miss, I couldn’t.”
“I don’t need it.” I motioned to the matching silver brush from the dressing table. “See? I certainly don’t need both.”
A brief smile flickered on her face as she slipped the comb into her apron pocket. But then she covered her scarred mouth and, with a timid nod, slipped back to the kitchen.
She wasn’t one of the islanders, that was certain. How had such a young girl come to the island and found herself in my father’s employment?
I braided my hair and tried on Mother’s floppy sunbonnet in the mirror. The fashion was out of style, yet it made me look glamorous and bold. Someone to be proud of, I hoped. I found the wagon outside in the courtyard, loaded with a wicker basket and blankets from the salon. Edward leaned against the side of the wagon in crisp, clean clothes. He was recovering fast, and the bruises on his face were almost gone. I couldn’t help but notice that if it hadn’t been for the faint scar down his face, he’d have been almost handsome.
Montgomery hitched the harness to the horse, Duke, struggling with a stiff leather strap.
“Ah, Juliet,” Father said. A bouquet of bright yellow wildflowers rested next to him on the wagon bed. “Ready to go?”