by Abigail Agar
But she was unable to sleep. And when the first beams of grey light slid in through the crack in the door, she was dressed, her heart bolting against her ribs. After ensuring that nobody else was up or aware of her, she snuck from the back of the servant house, diving down a side cobblestone alleyway and heading around the corner, towards the bakery.
Baking bread smells wafted through the air. The chill in the late October air crisped at her nose and filled her lungs. She coughed twice before charging in through the bakery doors, finding herself beneath the warm, glowing light of the interior.
It was just after six in the morning, and several servants and maids swarmed the front of the bakery, pointing at a selection of baked goods and pastries for their ladies and lords. Marina bowed her head and dove into line, hunting through her pockets for a few pennies. It was just enough to fill her stomach with her favourite pastry—a glazed, raisin-filled tart, which would surely burn her tongue with its sweetness. She felt that tasting it might be akin to feeling alive for the first time since her arrival in London.
There was a hardness to this city she’d been unable to imagine. It was as if everyone had sharp elbows, was preparing to blast past you, bruise or bust you on their way to the top. And that was no more true than in this line at the bakery, where maids grumbled at her for not stepping up to the counter quick enough; where they called her fresh-faced and stupid, clearly not a member of their bizarre, angry tribe.
Although, Marina knew, they had every reason to be angry. They worked long hours, were continually dejected, were more or less regarded as less-than human. Another elbow was tossed towards her face before she shrugged up to the counter, pointing at the raisin, glazed tart. Her finger shook as she pointed. “Please,” she murmured, before tapping her coins atop the counter.
“Please,” the baker mocked her, arching his brow.
Marina blacked out her terror, tugging herself back into the swirling rain outside. The sky was low, grey, dotted with black clouds, but the tart was sweet, coating her tongue with a sticky layer. She paused at a shop window, nibbling the last of her crumbs, gazing up at a gorgeous ball gown made of thick fabric, its skirts wide and its neckline low. Marina closed her eyes, trying to imagine herself in such a thing. What would the Duke think, should she arrive at the ball in something like that? Would he immediately tell her he’d been wrong? That she actually was beautiful enough for him?
She snickered at these thoughts, knowing just how foolish they were. “As if the Duke would ever see me that way,” she said with a sigh.
But in another blink, she remembered something else. If she attended the ball, even in secret, she might be allowed to say goodbye to the children. To impart the words she’d longed to say to them since she’d left. “Be confident in yourself as you get older, for you’re all you have,” she imagined whispering to Claudia. “And take care of Lottie. You’re her only woman influence, which means everything. I didn’t have that much when I was growing up. My sisters avoided me, scolded me. It’s perhaps why I never grew into a proper one myself.”
The rain pattered, thicker against her nose and the top of her head. She rushed back towards Garrett’s mansion, knowing she was perhaps twenty minutes late for her first round of chores. The mansion and servants’ quarters were filled with swirling chaos in the morning, allowing Marina to tuck into the tapestry without anyone noticing she’d been gone. But the half-hour she’d been gone had only filled her with a deeper longing to flee that world. Every single servant and maid she came into contact with that morning seemed to ache with an inner darkness, as if each of them had given up.
After a gruelling, ten-hour day, Marina stomped up to Elizabeth. She felt unsure of how quickly to speak, or how loud, as she hadn’t yet heard her voice since ordering the pastry in the early hours. Elizabeth drew back in the kitchen corner, her eyebrows stitching together.
“You’re going to be a problem, aren’t you?” Elizabeth demanded, her voice low. “Am I going to have to report you to the Lady and Lord of the house, hey?”
“When is this ball?” Marina asked, pressing her arms across her chest.
“Why is that any of your concern? Jesus, girl, it’s like you’ve got your head in the clouds all the time. I watched you scrubbing the same goddamn tile for fifteen minutes today, wasting our time as well as yours. Like I said, if you’re going to be a problem, I will say something.”
“You must be preparing the Lady for the ball,” Marina said. “You must know when it is.”
The woman flipped her fingers across her forehead, removing beads of sweat. Each knuckle was ruby red from hours of work. “My girl, if it mattered at all …”
“Just tell her, Elizabeth.” This was Everett from behind Marina, tucked away in the corner, sipping from a mug of coffee. “The girl’s clearly an imbecile. Won’t last long in this house, or anywhere else.”
Elizabeth studied Marina’s face for what felt like several minutes. Marina forced her eyes up, to stare directly back, despite feeling that her cheeks were a bright red, giving away her fear.
“Tell me why you want to know so badly,” Elizabeth murmured. She reached for a towel on the counter and dabbed it over her knuckles, tilting her head. “It’s clear you’re a hard-headed girl, sure, but that gives no reason to your mission. You don’t know a soul in London, do you? Clear that you’re a country girl at heart. And in stature.”
“It’s terribly imperative that I know,” Marina whispered. “It’s for the good of four children who I love very dearly. It’s my last chance to tell them what they need to know. It’s my last chance to say goodbye before I give into this life forever. Forever a maid. Here. For I see no other option. After that, I will give in to your every whim. I will keep my head down. I will do each and every chore, without taking too long on a single tile. I will not even daydream, for I know it’s foolish.”
Elizabeth clucked her tongue, turning amused eyes towards Everett. Outside, a carriage shuddered away, crackling over the stones and dipping into the mud. “You should know better than to bring your personal life into this position,” she said.
“I know. It’s the first and only time,” Marina whispered.
“All right then,” Elizabeth said, lifting her chin. “The ball is already tomorrow evening, a Saturday. Although, if you’re anything like me, you’ve lost count of days of the weeks, as each day bleeds into the next.”
Marina’s heart bumped up to her throat. She found it difficult to breathe. For, if the ball was already tomorrow, perhaps the children and the Duke were already in the city. Perhaps she could find a way to them. She felt every instinct pulling her towards the door. But she swallowed, forcing herself to ask another question.
“Do you know of the best way to get to the palace?” Marina asked.
“You honestly think you’ll be able to sneak from the ranks of this house and go to Buckingham Palace?” Elizabeth sneered.
“As I said, it’s terribly important. It’s more important than I can really say,” Marina whispered. “Every single piece of my heart knows it’s horrific to ask you. But it’s even worse to imagine not going.”
Elizabeth spun her rickety frame into the sink. “If you must know, it’s my sister in the big house who’s the Lady’s attendant for the evening of the ball.”
Marina waited in stunned silence.
“I know she always brings a few other servants with her, to assist with things like hair and makeup after they arrive at the palace. I can certainly send word to her, if you like. I know you might have a bit of an upper hand, what with you arriving with the Lord’s little brother and all,” Elizabeth said.
Marina couldn’t smile. The intensity of the moment felt too great. But she stepped back, knowing to give Elizabeth her space. Her hands gripped the chest of her dress, nearly tearing the fabric. “Please, let me know if there’s anything I can do for you,” she murmured. “Anything at all.”
Elizabeth spun back, her eyes swimming and blotched with red. “J
ust leave me alone, won’t you? After this. I don’t want to see your little, hopeful face around this kitchen when I’m here. Not again. Avoid me.”
Marina nodded. She hurried away from the servants’ kitchen and shot beneath the covers of her cot, quaking. She sensed that Elizabeth’s anger was misguided, that it wasn’t necessarily because of Marina herself. But she still felt it shimmering through the air of the servants’ quarters, affecting her dreams, and creating within her endless, grey nightmares.
Within twenty-four hours, she would see the children again. She would hold them tight against her, inhaling Lottie’s lavender curls, mussing up Christopher’s hair, leaning close to hear Max’s anxious whisper. How she ached for them, her reasons for life. And now, she had to prepare to say goodbye.
How strange life was. At once, it was filled with hope, many years of comfort and love stretched out before her at the mansion. And in the next, she was feeling the snarling anger of an older maid, a direct representation of what would happen to her if she remained. But she hadn’t another outlet, another path.
So, she would wrap up her emotions from the past in a neat little bow, and she would say goodbye to the old Marina. She would be nameless, now. Just another ruddy, sombre face in the crowd. As her mother had told her, she’d always been foolish to imagine anything else.
Chapter 33
The carriage ride to the palace was a chaotic affair. The Duke hunkered to the side of the carriage room, watching as his children swarmed, crying out and laughing, picking fights and then making up moments later. Lottie had cried big, glittering tears twice over the two-hour ride, thus far, and they were only halfway there.
It was the Friday evening directly before the ball. That morning, in order to collect the children, the Duke had arrived back at the estate from several days in London, where he’d ensured that the instruments were in working order and that the orchestra was fully-prepared for the event. “The Duke of Wellington’s instruments are the finest vessels on the planet,” the Queen had said to the orchestra, in that studied, articulate tone.
The words had thrilled him. He’d gazed out at the orchestra, mid-rehearsal, as the bows had streaked over the strings, the musicians’ heads bobbing and their eyes closing with passion. His own fingers had itched to join them, but he’d held back, a force of dominant energy, watching his craftsmen’s work come to fruition.
The Queen had thanked him herself, immediately following the rehearsal, allowing him to draw his lips to her vein-filled hand. She smelled of thick perfume, and her skin was strangely thin, completely see-through from up close.
“Can you children quiet down?” the Duke demanded, halfway to London. He glared at Christopher, who’d insisted on bringing his crutches and was now tapping the wood against the glass window.
“Come ON, Christopher!” Claudia scoffed. “You need to behave yourself.” She ripped the crutch from Christopher, and he staggered forward, nearly busting his nose against the window.
Christopher fell into a raucous laughter, after this, making eyes at his father. “Tell Claudia to leave me alone!” he cried.
Beside Claudia, Max swiped through a picture book. Lottie slept with her head bobbing against the Duke’s arm. His heart fizzed in his chest. He was reminded of those weeks before he’d gone blind when the stress from his children had nearly caved his head in. He’d hated how volatile his words had become. How on earth had Marybeth been so patient? How had Marina learned to control them so well—even falling into fits of giggles herself when they acted out?
It had been a few weeks since Marina’s disappearance, and still, the house hadn’t recovered. There was a dark void, a hollowness that the Duke couldn’t quite articulate. While he was overjoyed to see his children’s faces fully, with his eyesight even improving day by day, he still wandered the grounds in the icy chill, his hands shoved in his pockets, wondering if there was a way he could bring Marina back. But there was hardly a way to know where she’d ended up.
Once, about five days after she’d departed, the Duke had woken in sweaty bedclothes, imagining reading about Marina in the London newspaper. Murdered, dead, starved. Whatever it was, she’d surely met a devastating fate. He’d had to leap up from bed and rip off his clothes, inhale deeply, to try to halt the racing thoughts. But he couldn’t shake the image of Marina, tossed dead in a gutter somewhere.
The image of her had nothing to do with her hazel eyes. It had nothing to do with the fact that she’d once reminded him of his dear deceased wife. The image had everything to do with Marina Blackwater, the girl he’d cast from his study. The girl who’d given her life to their family, without pause. Until she’d felt she couldn’t any longer.
The children hadn’t taken to her absence well. And perhaps that was to be expected. He’d hired a new teacher, who’d flung the children into harder-hitting education—forcing Claudia into upper maths, and making Max read things that didn’t have pictures in them. More or less taking all pleasure from their work hours. “It’s probably for the best,” Margaret had said to the Duke sadly, taking away his half-eaten dinner several evenings before. “They’re children. It’s their time to learn.”
But still, seeing their hollow eyes when they retreated from school upstairs made the Duke’s stomach clench. The children no longer verbalised how deeply they missed their old governess. But he could see it reflected in their eyes.
He missed Marina, too.
They were nearing London when the all-out fight broke out between Claudia and Christopher. She reached up and smacked his cheek with a firm hand, making him flash his head back and clunk it against the window of the carriage. The Duke reached up to grab Claudia’s upper arm, a bit too hard, perhaps. She looked at him with quivering, fearful eyes.
“Don’t you dare hit your brother like that,” the Duke spat.
“I wish you would have never seen again!” Claudia cried back, tearing her arm away. “I wish you would have never sent Marina away. Why did you do it, Father? What did she do wrong?”
The Duke fell back in his chair, blinking at each of his children. He opened his lips, and then closed them again, struggling to find his voice. The carriage continued to clunk on towards the city. Already, he could smell it—that almost sinister scent of too many people, all packed upon one another. Lottie began to weep from the tension in the carriage, tossing herself into Claudia’s arms. The Duke seethed at his inability to control his family.
But before long, the carriage clambered to a halt outside Buckingham Palace, and his four eager, bright eyed children were shoving their faces towards the window, so hungry for a view. Christopher’s pink lips formed a round O. Lottie murmured, “Is this really where the Queen lives?”
“Yes, Lottie,” the Duke said, opening the carriage door. “And it’s our home for the next several days.”
Lottie scampered out of the carriage, her lace dress gliding over the top of the rocks and collecting mud at the edge. She leapt into the air, her arms high above her head. Suddenly, another carriage bolted past her—narrowly missing little Lottie as it streamed back into the street.
The carriage driver yelled out volatile words to Lottie, shaking his fist. The Duke fell from his own carriage, racing to reach her. And by the time his hands gripped her armpits and drew her into his chest, she was wailing with fear.
“It’s all right, Lottie,” he whispered, drawing his hand over her hair. “It’s going to be all right.”
One of the Queen’s guards met them at the entrance of the palace, releasing the carriage to the carriage house near the far edge of the grounds. Lottie remained in the Duke’s arms, while the rest of his children walked along beside him. All seemed petrified and quiet after the near-trampling of Lottie. It was as if they were prepared for the city to swallow them whole.
Once inside the palace, one of the servants showed them to a series of rooms that had been set aside and prepared for the Duke and his family, complete with a gorgeous, fit-for-a-princess space for Lottie and Cla
udia, and a more regal room for the boys. Max marched into the room, his chin high and his face scrunched, while Christopher leapt into it, jumping atop the mattress.