She cleared her throat. “Now,” she said to the class. “What do we do once we have the brominized collodion? Miss Esther?”
“We drop it into the solution,” Miss Esther said shyly. “One drop at a time, and we mustn’t forget to stir.”
“Like rum essence into batter,” said Mademoiselle Claudine, who had not a shy bone in her body. Giggles erupted.
“Quite right,” Hattie said when silence was restored. “And what is the result?”
“Silver bromide?”
“An emulsion of silver bromide. How long until it can be used? Mademoiselle Claudine?”
“There is no set time, but it has to sit until the consistency is like cream, which usually takes fifteen hours.”
“Bravo.”
Seeing her pupils’ heads bent in concentration and watching their pens fly filled her chest with warmth. She knew now why they called it getting a big head, or getting too big for one’s boots—with every swell of teacherly pride, every elation over a small success in her makeshift laboratory, she could feel herself stretch and grow beyond her old delineations. Old fears were relinquishing their hold on her; ever since her word blindness might have saved her life by pointing Lucian the right way, the terror associated with academic learning had begun to ease. She had simply recruited Miss Esther for checking the numbers in her formulas so she didn’t accidentally teach instructions for explosives, and her pupils never remarked upon it. Very few questions were asked here at the enclave. Most of the women arrived under a false name, and personal information filtered through only as mutual trust grew. It was freeing, not being known. She was a blank slate, and could sketch whatever she wished.
Life slipped by pleasantly in Mytilene. She taught from morning until noon, and in the afternoons, they set out on group walks through the marshlands with their cameras and tried to capture the wildlife. The most popular subjects were the wild white horses that freely roamed Camargue and the flocks of flamingos dotting the shallow waters. The bright pink of the birds inspired Hattie to keep experimenting late into the night with different carbon pigment ratios in bichromate gelatin to bring out the color on the plate.
On Sundays after chapel, she read novels and essays and drank dry cider in the walled orchard. She wrote many letters. To receive mail from Scotland took unnervingly long. In case you wish to pursue your plans of becoming a soap maker, the women’s trade union office in your region now offers business loans for female entrepreneurs, she had informed Mhairi soon after her arrival in the Camargue. She knew this because she had put part of her separation settlement to good use. PS: Can you forgive my hasty departure? The answer came weeks later on thin paper: Rosie Fraser says all will be forgiven if you return and finish what you started. Madam, I won’t be a soap maker. Hamish Fraser asked my hand in marriage and I accepted … I’ll be a miner’s wife … or a novelist’s wife, should he ever finish his edits …
Now and again, she wondered how Lucian’s political machinations and his plans to communalize the mine progressed. She tried not to think of Lucian himself. And during her busy, laughter-filled days, he let her be. At night, when she was alone in her spartan chamber, he claimed his space—in her dreams and in her bed, and she would wake with the lingering sensation of his hard body against hers and an echo of his whispers in her ear.
Easter approached, and her class was stenciling Easter eggs, which she planned to use for a study of contrasts and texture. As she wrote instructions on the blackboard, the class was restless behind her.
“Madame,” said Claudine. “There is a man.”
Alarmed, Hattie looked out the window. Indeed, there was a rider on the dirt path, moving in a cloud of dust. A sharp, quick emotion squeezed her heart. The broad set of the man’s shoulders was recognizable even from a mile away. She realized she had her hand pressed over her chest, dusting her green bodice with chalk. Brushing at it made it worse.
“Worry not,” she said, her voice sounding thin. “I know him.”
Relief rippled through the room, then the women crowded around the windows, speculating whether he was handsome.
“Allons-y.” Hattie clapped her hands. “Mesdames, attention on the blackboard, if you please.”
By the time the class was finished and the students dismissed, her face felt feverish. She stood next to the teacher’s desk with its scattered papers and the riotous collection of flasks and jars and pieces of chalk and waited. How she had waited.