Sugar Island by Sanjida O’Connell 1859. Unrest is brewing in the South as Emily, an actress from England, arrives in Georgia to begin life with her new husband Charles. On arriving, Emily realises that Charles has been keeping a terrible secret from her – he is a slave-owner. On the surface, Emily appears to reconcile herself to his way of life, whereas in reality she finds herself irrevocably caught up in the lives of the slaves - befriending them, and helping them in secret. But as civil war threatens, Emily’s world becomes increasingly divided – and dangerous – and she realises her secret could cost her everything. Set against the brilliantly realised backdrop of the months leading up to the American Civil War, Sugar Island is a story of freedom and of loyalty in a time of chaos. www.johnmurray.co.uk First published in Great Britain in 2011 by John Murray (Publishers) An Hachette UK Company © Sanjida O’Connell 2011 The right of Sanjida O’Connell to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. Epub ISBN 978-1-84854-509-0 Book ISBN 978-0-7195-2184-3 John Murray (Publishers) 338 Euston Road London NW1 3BH www.johnmurray.co.uk To Jaimie Chapter 1 April 1859 Emily could see only the front row distinctly and it was filled with the Harvard boys who’d been coming for days, slipping past their parents or dodging their landladies. Their upturned faces, gleaming like oiled bone in the wan yellow of the oil lamps, were creased with knowing pity, as she discovered what they knew already: that she, Juliet, a Capulet, had fallen in love with a Montagu. The smell of oranges, the peel lying thickly between the seats, melting candy and hot wood rose towards her as the theatre warmed beneath a fierce sun. She bent over Romeo and kissed him softly on the cheek, at the crease of his lips. She tasted greasepaint. ‘Thy lips are warm!’ she whispered. She searched through his clothes and pulled out a knife, turning the blade between her palms so it glittered in the light of the single candle. ‘O happy dagger! This is thy sheath; there rest and let me die.’ There was a sharp intake of breath, a collective sigh from the audience and a woman cried out as Emily stabbed the blade into her chest and collapsed over Romeo, her heart beating hard. She felt Romeo’s chest rise and fall beneath her and her back grew hot where she rested upon him, trying to still her own breathing. She’d lain awkwardly again and the corner of the tomb bit into the fleshy crease behind her knee. Someone was sobbing in the cheaper seats. ‘For never was a story of more woe, Than this of Juliet and her Romeo,’ the Prince concluded. Emily counted for three slow beats and then rose as the audience, gently at first then growing in strength, started to clap and whoop and stamp their feet until they too staggered upright in one ragged mass. She held out her hand to Nate Doyle, who played Romeo, and they walked to the centre of the stage, where she curtsied and he bowed and she smiled at the Harvard boys, whose eyes glistened and mouths hung wetly open. She scanned the front rows for one familiar face: that of a young gentleman with curly, fair hair. He always sat on the third row to one side. Today, though, he was absent. She turned and, with a look, summoned the other members of the cast to join her. Mr Doyle’s hand was clammy and she let his fingers slide from hers. She stepped forward to receive the warm tides of adulation, smiling, smiling into the dark. In the dressing room there was, as usual, a neat bouquet of flowers: yesterday there had been salmon-pink dahlias and strawberry peonies cushioned on a bed of moss with a card that read, as it always did, ‘To Miss Emily Harris, From a Friend,’ the last word underscored so hard a tiny splatter of ink had been left in its wake. This time the flowers were cream roses with a hint of green running through their veins. Today, because it was a matinée, she opened the shutters in the dressing room to let the light flood in and a crowd of street urchins pressed themselves against the window. They stared and pointed at her dress, simple as she had had to insist, in white with a gold trim, and her gilt slippers and watched as she removed the faux pearl pins from her hair and the choker from around her throat. She closed the shutters again and began to wipe away the heavy stage make-up with cold cream. There was a knock. ‘Emily, it’s me.’ Her father was playing Capulet. ‘Come in,’ she called. John Harris put his head around the door. He had already changed and his overcoat was hanging over his arm, his hat in his hand. ‘The carriage is waiting.’ ‘I shan’t be a moment,’ she said, half muffled through the cream. Without his help she would not possibly reach the carriage through the dense crowd of onlookers who wished to catch hold of her clothes, call her name, claim her attention so they could say they had seen Emily Harris, that they’d touched her skirt and that she had smiled at them. It was early evening by the time they reached the house at Cape Cod and the white wooden walls glowed in the soft, dusky-pink light. Orange trees in terracotta pots were placed on either side of the door, the colour of the ripening fruit beginning to suffuse through the waxy green rind. As her father helped her out of the carriage, Sarah Crawford came to the door, stepping past the butler and the maid and holding out her arms. ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘you must be positively shaken to bits.’ ‘It was somewhat uneven,’ said Emily, laughing, ‘but I’m becoming accustomed to your deplorable roads and dreadful conveyances.’ ‘Forgive her, Miss Crawford,’ said John as he kissed Sarah’s hand, ‘she is terribly bad-mannered. She had a singular upbringing.’ Sarah smiled and tucked a wispy strand of hair back into her bun. ‘Ely is looking forward to seeing you, but I knew you should like to freshen up first.’ ‘Thank you, Sarah,’ Emily said. ‘I’m always grateful for hot water – it seems to be rationed in this country.’ The Crawfords’ house was as spare and elegant as they were: the walls were whitewashed, the wooden floorboards burnished. As soon as the maid had shown her to her room, Emily ran to the window and threw it open. The wind, sweet with salt, blew back the muslin curtains and the canopy around the bed until the room seemed full of fine, white fabric billowing like an unsheathed sail. Below her the beach stretched for miles, the sand a dull rose-gold. She would have liked nothing better than to run down its firm, hard length but the Crawfords were holding a dinner in her honour. The maid returned with hot water perfumed with orange blossom and soft, white towels. Emily wet one and held it to her face, moulding it against her features, breathing in the heat and scent until it grew cool. The maid helped her change into a shell-coloured raw silk dress scattered with seed pearls and trimmed with white velvet, and then styled her hair. The curls were so dark and neat it looked as if she squeezed them she might wring out drops of precious essential oil. Emily looked at herself in the mirror. She was small with smooth curves. Her large eyes were almost black and her face was heart-shaped. Her skin appeared opalescent against her dress. She did not realize that she was beautiful for the simple fact that her mother had often told her she was not. ‘Ah, my dear, you look magnificent,’ said Sarah, taking her hand and leading her into the drawing room. Sarah Crawford always dressed in black during the day and in the evenings changed into grey silk with a lace collar. She wore her brown hair scraped back from her face and pinned firmly into a bun but fine, frizzy strands constantly escaped. Her eyes were sharp and blue and her mouth was set in a straight, determined line. In her mid thirties, she had never married, choosing to live at home with her father, Theodore, and her younger brother Ely, and work as a novelist. The Crawfords lived almost spartanly but they entertained with great warmth and generosity. The room was filled with candles and gleamed with silver and crystal; a plate piled with delicate pastries was positioned in the middle of the table, around which stood a group of people, who turned towards Emily as she entered. Emily nodded and bowed. Sarah began to make introductions. ‘May I introduce a friend of the Bells, Mr Charles Earl Brook?’ she said, handing Emily a glass of champagne. ‘We have already had that pleasure,’ said Charles Earl Brook, holding out his hand and bowing slightly. ‘Mr Brook,’ she said. Charles slowly bent over and kissed her hand. She sipped her champagne and remembered the first time she’d met Charles. It had been January and she and her father had just finished the Christmas season in New York. It was bitterly cold and they were both exhausted. She’d been in America since the previous October and she was homesick and missed her mother and her brother, William. She had been tramping around the streets through liquid snow until her boots were quite soaked and had arrived back at the hotel, chilled to the bone, her ch...
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