by Wendy Reakes
Marley hadn’t eaten much all day, so when she looked at the food, hers now, her mouth watered, and her belly rumbled.
“Go on, keep it, Marley. It doesn’t matter none now.”
Pleased with her approval, she grabbed a piece of pie, and without worrying about whether or not she should save a portion for the following day, she ate the lot, all in one go.
“What have you done to your foot?” They both looked at the makeshift bandage covering Marley’s ankle above her foot gloves.
She shrugged. “It’s just a sprain.”
“Let me see?”
She shook her head. She didn’t want her to worry about that too. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
“I should get back now.” Celia said. “I’ll come back again tomorrow afternoon after my chores, when I’m free. Then we’ll talk about what we’re going to do.”
When they both stood up, Celia reached out and embraced Marley. The gesture was the most wonderful, reassuring feeling in the world; to have another human hold her with such affection.
After she walked her to the door and she slipped through it guided by her candlelight, Marley went back to her little abode and crawled into bed.
That night a storm raged outside. It was a violent storm, with lightning firing up the sky and torrential rain smashing against the windows and upon the lead roof above her head. She wasn’t afraid. She’d never been afraid of storms. Instead she revelled in them, yearning to be part of them and imagining herself running over a meadow of flowers with the rain lashing her face. She had accomplished that once, that night she ran away, three months ago when she’d left her old life behind and started anew.
When Celia returned the following day, she brought with her a half cup of milk. It was the dearest of gestures and Marley secretly blessed her for having such a kind heart. That’s when she made a promise to herself, that if at any time in her life she saw someone needing, she would help them as much as she was able. But her thoughts turned dark when she thought of the black haired lout, who she’d so willingly helped that fateful night. She wondered if she would ever help anyone again. To trust again. But she trusted Celia.
Celia handed Marley the cup and she poured it into the tea, making the dark transparent liquid turn a creamy opaque. All the time, Celia chatted, and Marley relished both. They sat on the floor in the same spot they’d sat the night before, looking out through the windows to the grey coloured sky beyond. “I’ve been so excited,” she said, “to finish my chores, I mean. Think of it, Marley. Everything’s going on as normal down there and here you are, hiding in the attic without anyone realising it. I feel like I’m writing a book and that this all fiction.”
Marley smiled. A bit of fantasy in Celia’s world was such a pleasure for her. “What would you call your book?”
“I think…‘Little Princess’,” Celia said. “It can be about a beautiful princess who becomes poor suddenly and has to live in the attic.”
She chuckled. “That sounds like an engaging story.”
Celia shrugged. “I’d have to work out the details.”
They both chuckled. “I can imagine you being an authoress, Celia.”
She nodded. “Me too. I have an aunt who writes novels… Aunt Francis Hodgson. She lives in Manchester. She married a man called Swan…her second husband…can you imagine it?” Celia’s eyes were wide with disbelief. “But Mr. Burnett…that’s Swan…he died this year. It’s very sad, but now we’re all wondering if she’ll marry again.”
“Well perhaps you can talk to her about your book.”
She shook her head. “That would give away my true princess, wouldn’t it?” They laughed together. “Besides, she’s moving to America soon. My mum thinks we will never see her again.”
“You may move to America too. It looks like such a wonderful place, Celia.”
“But I couldn’t leave you. Not while you need me.”
Marley placed her hand over hers. “Let’s pray that won’t be for long.”
“Hmmm, I can write about my princess going to America.”
“To escape the attic?”
Her eyes lit up. “Yes, wouldn’t that be wonderful? She could be happy then, couldn’t she?”
Marley thought about how Celia had shaped her character on her. “You know, Celia. I think I am happy. I’ve never said that before…and even though I am hiding away in this place,” she looked around her parlour when she said that, “I feel free. I may not be a princess, but soon I shall have a daughter of my own.” Celia placed my hand on Marley’s belly. Nothing showed, but she knew she was in there, “and someone else will need me instead of the other way around.”
“How can you be sure it’s a girl, Marley?”
She contemplated her question. “I don’t know…I just know it’s a girl. Is that queer?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think it is.”
“What will you call her?”
“I don’t know that part yet.”
“Don’t you have any other family?” She had a look of hope in her eyes, maybe hoping Marley would say yes, so that she could be sent there…but she had no one. “You have your uncle and your brother.”
She suddenly felt sad and wished Celia would change the subject. “Not anymore.”
Since the tides had turned on their happy-go-lucky conversation, Celia became serious. “We need a plan, Marley.”
She nodded. “Yes, but I don’t know what.”
“I was thinking about things last night. Maybe we should tell my mother.”
Marley grabbed Celia’s hand. “Oh, no please. I couldn’t bear to be sent back and that is what she’d do. She’d have no choice and then I would have to live in shame with the whole village knowing, and my uncle…” She started to sob. Her situation seemed hopeless.
Marley felt Celia’s arm about her shoulder. “Shh! don’t worry, I won’t tell. It was just a thought. You can trust me, and I will take care of you. No one else shall know. I promise. Except…” She paused. “Old Porter…”
“No,” Marley gasped.
She hurried to explain. “He is a decent fellow. We could let him in on it. He wouldn’t give you up. Honestly he wouldn’t.”
“Please, Celia. Let’s just work this out for ourselves. The more people who know will increase the chances of me being discovered. We will think of a plan, and then I can leave, and no one will be any the wiser. I think that’s a start, don’t you?”
“Yes, I think that’s a very good start, little princess.”
End of Part One
Part Two
Chapter 11
Christmas came. Snow fell on the ground for three days ago, making the white landscape outside the attic window more beautiful than ever before. White trees, white meadows, white hedgerows and brambles, white fences and walls…but it was bitterly cold in the attic, colder than ever before. Marley had been hiding in the attic for four-months now, but it had seemed longer.
Thanks to Celia, she was better equipped to deal with the cold that inched through the slates on the roof. Her amazing friend had provided Marley with four kerosene lamps. She told her about the existence of a large supply of lamps in the outside stores next to the stables, along with drums of Kerosene that wouldn’t be missed at all. The house –apart from the servant’s quarters- had been converted to electricity the previous year, so they were no longer needed; except in the event of a power cut. “Four lamps won’t be missed,” she’d said.
The lamps, along with a good supply of Kerosene, were a godsend. Not only did they provide light on the darkest of days and bleakest of nights, they also gave off some warmth. Marley spent most of the days in December in bed, sewing, finishing off the quilt of mixed fabrics. Not only did it serve to keep her from becoming idle, but it covered her up at the same time. Along with her small fire -a flame really- which she used to cook her food and heat water for tea, she was kept comfortably warm, just as long as she wore her newly designed clothes and blankets.
&nb
sp; Before winter had set in, she’d acquired underwear from the gentleman’s closet. The smell of the long johns had been most undesirable since they had been stored inside that old chest of drawers with moth balls among them and sachets of lavender. With her needle and thread and silver scissors, she’d adjusted the size of the long johns and vests, until they fitted her like a glove. When she showed Celia how she had created something practical beneath her frock, she’d gushed her approval and said how she wished she had some. On her feet, Marley wore two pairs of glove slippers, which looked a little strange but were very practical in the attic to keep her feet warm and to make her footsteps quieter on the floorboards.
One afternoon, when the rest of the household had been dining, Celia had performed what she’d called her ‘sound test’. The room she shared with her mother was just below the second section of the attic where Marley’s little secret bolthole waited to be used in the event of an emergency.
Celia had instructed Marley to walk quite heavily across the floor, while below in her room, she could judge if she heard any noises. When she returned, she asked Marley if she had done what she’d been told to do. She assured her she had, so she was delighted to report that her sound test had worked and that even though Marley was moving around the attic, nothing could be heard in the rooms below.
Celia said the result of the test would allow her more freedom to move about, even when the servants were in their quarters, but Marley still took no risks. If she didn’t need to move around, she remained still and quiet at certain times of the day. She felt it was good practice to stick to a routine and to challenge her willpower by not doing what she wanted to do. It served as a punishment to herself, for being such a conniving sneaky wretch who deserved nothing in the way of allowances for deliberately intruding on that great house.
One cold morning she took out the gentleman’s large black evening overcoat from his wardrobe. It was too heavy and cumbersome for her to move freely inside it, so she put it back and pulled out a green checked shooting jacket instead. The jacket was lighter and easier to wear as she walked around doing her daily chores. Chores? Necessities! To get her through the days ahead whilst she and Celia came up with a plan to get her out of there.
Providing food for herself was the most important of all. Celia had offered to sneak up half of her plate each mealtime, but Marley wouldn’t allow it. She told her it was too risky and that if anyone suspected, they would surely be found out and they’d both be carted off to gaol. Instead, she smuggled the odd apple, or a handful of tea, or a piece of cheese or pie when she was sent to the pantry to collect something for the household’s meals.
Alongside her duties as a self-proclaimed general dogsbody, Celia had been given the job of trainee assistant housekeeper to her mother. The position, now that Celia was approaching her sixteenth birthday, was an honour for someone so young, but she said she had been shadowing her mother for so long, she already knew the job inside out. Her mother had said that she hoped someday Celia would carry on where she left off, thus securing a job for life and a permanent roof over her head.
For now, with her elevated position among the household staff, Celia had more freedom of the house than ever before.
The rest of Marley’s food supply came from the pigeons, still roaming around and settling on her terrace outside the windows. By the time Christmas had arrived, she’d worked out how to catch them, smoke them and preserve them. The concept was a wonder to Celia when she told her one day what she had discovered.
That day she’d smuggled three sweet biscuits in the pocket of her pinafore. The crumbling shortbreads had tasted sublime when Marley swilled them down with a nice cup of tea.
“What have you been up to today, Marley?” Celia asked.
“Well it’s something strange and I’m worried you may not approve.”
Her eyes had stretched in wonder of what Marley was about to reveal. “What is it?”
She put down her cup. “Come and see.” They went out of the window door, onto the terrace where they turned left and stopped next to the wide chimney stack which pointed up to the sky like a towering furnace.
Marley fell to her knees while Celia waited. From the bottom of the stack, three rows up from the terrace floor, she removed two adjoining bricks protruding from the wall and pulled them out. As smoke billowed through the hole and caught the wind, rather than choke, she kept her face averted as she grabbed the fishing rod, taken from the gentleman’s sporting items, and reeled in her catch. At the end of the line were two pigeons, hanging lifeless and blackened with coal dust.
“What on earth, Marley!” Celia exclaimed.
“See, Celia! I’m smoking them instead of cooking them, so that the smell doesn’t waft through the attic to the servant’s quarters.” She laughed at her expression of bemusement. “They need a couple more days hanging in the chimney, but when they’re done I’ll strip off the feathers and eat the delicious flesh beneath the skin.”
“I think it’s a clever idea…but Marley, honestly, how do you have the stomach for killing these birds?”
Marley hadn’t thought about that. She was used to killing them by now, but she could see it must have looked strange to a house girl like Celia. “I’m a country girl. Catching and killing game is normal for us.”
Celia looked at the birds cooing as they strolled about the terrace and perched on the side walls. “But they’re so sweet.”
Marley could tell Celia disapproved of her tactics. And she…well, she resented her response. For the first time, Celia and Marley didn’t see eye to eye. She put the fishing rod and the pigeons back inside the smoking hole and bunged it up with the bricks. When she stood up, she said to Celia. “They’re not pets to me, nor do they look sweet. They’re my food, and until I get out of here, this…” I swept my hand over the terrace to illustrate, “this, I’m afraid, is my pantry.”
That evening, Celia came bearing gifts of cheddar cheese, a slice of delicious ham and a chunk of homemade bread. Marley had been miserable all afternoon and sincerely regretted the stern tone she’d used with her. Not because she was frightened that she’d give her up, but because she couldn’t have borne losing her friendship.
When she came in, she rushed to Marley’s side and they hugged. She cried as Celia put her arm around her shoulders and held her as a sister would. “I’m sorry, Marley. How can I judge you when you are so brave? I’m a terrible, mean girl.”
Marley laughed. “You’re not terrible or mean, dearest Celia. You are my greatest friend in the world and I would never want you to think of me as anything but your sister.”
The tension between them was soon dissolved as they both swore their eternal friendship and devotion. “Forever and ever, Amen.”
On the 25th OF December, Celia was unable to visit the attic since the festivities between the family and the servants went on all Christmas day, but she did manage to sneak up for a couple of minutes mid-morning after she’d told her mother she was going to her room to fetch a clean apron.
In her hand, she held a small gift wrapped in colourful patterned paper with a red bow tied about it. When she presented it to Marley, she took it and gazed at the little parcel in awe. Not because she was excited about what was inside, but that she had, just for those few minutes, become part of Christmas at Wilbury House.
“Go on, open it,” Celia urged.
“I can’t. It’s too pretty.”
They were both thinking the same. “Well, maybe you can wrap it back up after you’ve seen the gift,” she offered.
Marley laughed. “Yes, I can do that.” Now, she was excited at the prospect of finding out what was inside. She gently removed the ribbon and the little piece of holly tucked inside the bow, keeping them in her hand as she unwrapped the paper. From inside, she pulled out a pair of thick black stockings. “Wonderful,” she exclaimed with perfect happiness.
“My mother gave me two pairs. My old ones are still wearable so I’m giving one pair to you. She shru
gged. “She won’t notice, and if she knew about you, I’m sure she’d approve wholeheartedly.”
“Thank you, Celia,” she whispered. At the bottom of the parcel was a small booklet and attached to it was a long, thick piece of wood, painted yellow with a point at the end. “What is it,” Marley asked as she turned the contraption in the palm of her hand.
“It’s called a pencil. Look…” Celia opened the booklet containing small squares of writing parchment. She used the pencil to scribe her name at the top, Marley.
She had never seen anything like it. A fountain pen and ink was the only instrument she knew of to write letters and sometimes white chalk in the classroom. Uncle possessed a set of fine pens to write his accounts for his business, but she was rarely allowed to use them. “That is so marvellous,” Marley gushed. “Oh, thank you, dear sister. Thank you.”
Quickly they both went quiet as the sound of music entered the loft. They turned simultaneously to go through the window door and out onto the terrace. There, the sweetest sound wafted up from the grounds below as carol singers sang their song,
Deck the halls with boughs of holly, Fa la la la la, la la la la. Tis the season to be jolly, Fa la la la la, la la la la. Don we now our gay apparel, Fa la la, la la la, la la la…
The memory of that moment would be one Marley would relish forever.