The constant sun imparted a dull glare that reminded her of the light in the sky on their ill-fated voyage aboard the Coventry. By the clock, it was getting on toward midnight, but she knew that there would be no proper night. Here, it was all a seamless unraveling of time, and she knew that she’d already taken, in the eyes of God, far more days than could ever have been her allotted share.
Michael. Michael Wilde. The moment he came into her mind, she did feel her thoughts lift. He had been so kind, and then, when he had taken the liberty of joining her on the piano bench, so mortified at his transgression. Importunate as his conduct had seemed, Eleanor did understand she was in a new world, where customs differed. There was so much she would have to learn. Symphony orchestras that played from little black boxes! Lights that came on and burned steadily with the flick of a switch. Women—and African women, to boot—serving as doctors!
Then she remembered how shocked her mother had been at the idea of her traveling to London—a single, unaccompanied young woman—to become a nurse. Perhaps everything that was once shocking eventually became routine. Perhaps the terrible toll of the Crimean War had startled the conscience of humanity and put an end to such mindless slaughter. Perhaps this world was a more enlightened one. A world where even ordinary things were made to smell sweet and nations settled their differences with raised voices but never raised swords.
She allowed herself to feel an unfamiliar ray of hope.
It had felt so good—so normal—to be seated at the piano again. Her fingers had so enjoyed touching the keys. It had brought back all of her lessons from the parson’s wife, playing in the front parlor with the casement windows flung open and the family’s cocker spaniel chasing rabbits across the wide green lawn. Mrs. Musgrove had a standing order with a music shop in Sheffield, and twice a year they sent her a selection of popular compositions. That was how Eleanor had come to fall in love with so many of the old, traditional ballads and songs, like “The Banks of the River Tweed” and “Barbara Allen.”
Michael had seemed to enjoy the song, too. He had a sensitive face, but there was something haunted about it, too. He had borne his own tragedy, of some kind, and perhaps that was why he had elected to come to such a lonely place. Who would choose such a destination if it had not, in some way, been chosen for him? She wondered what it was that had befallen him…or from what memory he might be fleeing. She did not recall seeing a ring on his finger, and in their time together he had certainly never mentioned a wife. Though she couldn’t have said why, he struck her as a bachelor.
Oh, how she longed for sunlight—true sunlight, not an empty imitation. Sunlight as warm and golden as syrup, pouring over her. She had lived an eternity in the shadows, fleeing with Sinclair from one town to another lest they linger too long in one place and their secret be discovered. They had made their way from Scutari through the Carpathians, then on to Italy, where Eleanor had held her face out the carriage window just to catch every ray she could of the warm Mediterranean sun. Often, she had suggested they stop and stay somewhere, but as soon as Sinclair felt any of the local inhabitants taking too much of an interest in who exactly this mysterious young English couple was, he insisted they leave again. He lived in dread of his desertion being discovered, and often said that he hoped his father would hear only that he had been lost on the battlefield at Balaclava.
As for Eleanor, she didn’t know which she feared more—never seeing her family again or seeing them and knowing that they could sense she had changed in some ineffable way.
In Marseilles, Sinclair had spotted an old friend of his family strolling along the quay, and dragged her into an artisan’s shop to escape detection. When the shopkeeper asked what he could show them, Sinclair answered, in perfect French so far as Eleanor could tell, that he was interested in the first thing his eye happened to fall on—an ivory brooch, with a gold rim, lying on a worktable.
The shopkeeper had lifted the brooch into the light from a window, and Eleanor had marveled at its execution. It was a cameo of a classical figure—Venus rising from the waves.
“What more perfect theme could we have chosen,” Sinclair declared, pinning it to her bodice, “than the goddess of love.”
“It’s lovely,” she said, in a low voice, “but shouldn’t we save what money we have left?”
“Combien d’argent?” Sinclair asked the shopkeeper, and settled the bill without question. Eleanor never knew where their funds came from, but somehow there was always enough to transport them to the next spot. She suspected that Sinclair, posing as someone he was not, managed to borrow funds from Englishmen they encountered abroad, and parlayed those loans into even greater sums at the gaming tables.