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they laughed at the lot of those poor souls who have been confined to Ember Island. Papa is always careful to say that the prisoners are here to be reformed, to be helped to see their mistakes, not to be judged by us because the Lord is the only Judge.
    But one prisoner, a hulking man as big as a side of beef, with rotted teeth and fists like hams (I confess I didn’t see him, but the tale is much more colourful with the beef and the ham added), heard the children giggling and it enraged him. He had already been brought low, I imagine, by his arrest, his trial, his sentence, his transportation. To hear children laughing at him was more than he could endure. He went wild. According to Chief Warder Donaghy, whom I overheard reporting it to Papa afterwards, he roared and smashed out with his manacled fists, catching the blacksmith on the chin and sending him crashing to the floor. Then he shuffled to the window of the blacksmith’s shed, dragging the next prisoner on the chain with him, and reached through the window to pull Bertie Randolph up by his scruff. Anna had, by this stage, decided the game was no longer any fun and scarpered. Bertie, legs swimming in the air, screamed for his mama and flooded his pants; the turnkeys in the shed all pounced on the prisoner and it took six of them to take him down, none of them daring to fire a shot lest it accidentally hit Bertie.
    After which, Warder Randolph came to Papa and demanded to be sent away from Ember Island because it was too dangerous for his children. Papa pointed out (I overheard him . . . I’ve found that if I sit behind the curtain in the windowsill of the dining room and press my ear against the knothole between that room and the next, I overhear a lot), that if his children had obeyed the first rule, none of this would have happened, and that two of his men were injured in the fray and he held Anna and Bertie solely responsible.
    An argument ensued, during which Warder Randolph used the most hideous names for my father, slurring his character, his judgement, and his ability to be satisfactory to women (oh, Papa would be appalled if he knew I had heard, and even more so if he knew I understood! Perhaps he ought not have let me read Chaucer). But Papa did not lose his temper; he was as cool as an autumn breeze. Papa is not the kind of man to rage and shout. He is good and calm in all things. He endured Warder Randolph’s tirade, then spoke clearly and slowly.
    “You and your children would evidently be happier on the mainland with your wife. I will sign any paper necessary to see you transferred at the earliest opportunity. Good day.”
    Where does this leave me? The only child on the island, for the first time since we arrived here. Bliss, I thought. I have always held Mrs. Randolph to be a poor teacher. Her knowledge of the medieval period is sketchy and she once spelled “definitely” with an “a,” so it is clear she has no idea about Latin roots: there is no “a” in finis.
    I told Papa that I would prefer to teach myself. I have sufficient books and a good brain. Papa countered with a threat: either I accept the governess or he will engage the chaplain to take my lessons. It is a clever threat and I admire him for it as much as I am constrained by it. Compared to the chaplain, Mrs. Randolph was a genius.
    Papa insists this governess will have to speak French and read either Latin or Greek—both, for preference—have a good brain for figures and have the mythical ability to help teach me to cross-stitch neatly. My hope is that any woman who is accomplished enough to do all those things would not be willing to come to a high-security prison island surrounded by mangrove swamp. My fear is that Papa will then hire whomever is willing, and I will be tied to them for hours every day.
October 2, 1891
     
    It is confirmed. I have a new governess and she will be here within a week. Papa has been across to the mainland to meet her and he says that she can do