by Wendy Reakes
Just as I heard the horse come upon us, I went to turn about but the weight of my burden prevented me from changing direction to hail them down. With that, a single horse went galloping by and I just managed to glance at the rider as he carried on past. Well, the shame of him, I thought, passing us by without offering to help the poor lad and his carrier.
I was glad of the sight of the village as it loomed ahead. Soon I could offload the young man and make my way home and that’s with no help from the rider on the horse who had, so selfishly, passed us by.
The inn was just past our cottage on the left, just past the horse trough in the middle. “I can’t hold you much longer,” I panted. “We’ll have to find someone else to help you. Wait here and I’ll run ahead and wake someone up.”
But before I could go dashing off, he grabbed my arm. “Don’t leave me here in the middle of the street.” His eyes were pleading and for a moment I felt quite sorry for the lad.
Uncle’s house, the locksmiths, was near, so I’d guided him towards to it with the intention of letting him loose again before I went off to find some help.
Once more he grabbed my wrist to prevent me from running off. “Don’t go.”
“I must,” I said.
He hung on. “No, don’t.”
When I swung around to look at his face, I saw something in his eyes that came as a big shock to me. I’d just helped the ungrateful lout all the way along the road and now there he was with a look in his eye that was…well, I’d call it penetrating. Like he was looking into my soul and he wanted in.
I gave my arm one last shake to make him let me go but he held on fast. I couldn’t understand him. He needed to be helped. Then I saw him stand upright without any fault to his stride. It didn’t make sense. Had I just been duped, but to what avail? What purpose could he have to make me half carry him all the way home?
“Your uncle the locksmith told me to make sure you got back alright, he did.”
I’d shook my head. “No, he made no mention of you.”
“Maybe he forgot? We did a deal, see. He said I should make sure you look after me, he did.” He reached out and took a curl of my hair between his fingers.
Then I knew.
As fear enveloped my heart, I tried to bolt but he grabbed me and laughed. He held onto my waist, forcing my back against him as he powdered the skin on my neck with his hot breath. My eyes shot open as I tried to scream but he silenced me by putting his hand over my mouth. The taste of his filthy hands made me gag with sickness. I racked my brain for a way out, a solution of any kind to the dilemma I was facing. My brother! Why wasn’t he home to rescue me? Brent, I sobbed, as the lout dragged my body to the side of the house and threw me to the ground like I was a sack of coal.
His spare hand held my wrists in a tight bundle and pinned them to the dirt floor. The weight of him knocked the wind out of me as he flattened my stomach with his groin, and when I opened my mouth to expel that lost air, his wet mouth came down on mine, making my lips bleed as my hatred for him built to a crescendo. When he used his free hand to lift my skirts and fiddle about, he looked down at me as if he was mocking me, like he was playing. But that was no game. I knew what he was about to do and despite my reluctance to let him see into my soul as well, I cried tears of shame.
After three gruelling minutes, when he was done, he stood up and made off like he’d never been there at all. Except he had been there and now I was changed.
I wanted to rage like a madwoman when I stumbled to my feet. I could feel the wetness he’d left, running down my bloodied legs. I used my skirts to wipe it away, to wipe him away so that I never have to think about him again, but I knew that wouldn’t happen. He would be with me forever now. I would never forget.
I’d begun my journey home not one hour earlier and now I longed to go back and do things differently. I should have run past him when I heard him crying like a whimpering dog on the ground. I shouldn’t have stopped. Where was my sense? I shouldn’t have trusted him. Not when I was alone in the dark of night. And what of that lone rider? Why didn’t he stop? It would have made all the difference.
Wiping my face with my soiled hands, no longer sobbing, I welcomed the bitter rage in the pit of my stomach consuming me. I opened the back door of uncle’s house and slammed it in my wake. What was once a familiar place had become a home I hardly recognised, let alone appreciated. Yes, I was changed. I would never be the same again. Never.
I knew I had to get away before uncle returned with some of his drunken friends and let them do to me what that young rogue had done. God help me. My tears were falling and I was angry at myself for being so naïve, so trusting…so damn stupid. As I staggered about, thinking about what I should do, I realised I did have someone to turn to. A friend. A girl who worked up at the manor. Celia.
Without further ado, I ran to the hooks on the back of the door where uncle kept his keys in the pocket of an old coat. I knew which key I was after since I’d seen him use it often enough. I held it like a lifeline, while I grabbed the oil lamp and went to the cupboard under the stairs.
I knew I had to work fast.
I shoved the key in the lock and pulled open the door and using the light from the lamp to guide me, I ducked my head and went to the end where there hung row upon row of shiny new keys. I fingered them to the end of the rack and finally when I moved the lamp closer I saw a metal tag attached to a single key. The tag said, Wilbury House, back door.
I grabbed the large key and buried it inside the pocket of my soiled dress. Then, after I locked the under stairs cupboard once more and shoved the bunch of keys into the coat hanging behind the door, I fled.
Chapter 2
by the time I reachedWilburyHouse, I was all done in. From the river at Mells, after I’d thrown my shoes into the water, I’d traversed six different meadows, cutting through hedgerows, hurdling kissing gates while panting like a thirsty dog. I was soaked -more than just the top layer of my skin- as if the wet had seeped into my pores, weighing me down like a flogged horse. In the distance, from where I’d stopped to catch my breath, I could see the top of the great mansion silhouetted against the sky, it’s towering chimneys and turrets looking like a charcoal painting with black strokes and no colour to brighten its mood. Above the building, the air lashed dark blue and sheets of rain fell from heaven as if it was hell-bent on striking the land it sought. And as I kept walking, only the occasional flash of lightning guided my way.
I shoved all thoughts of the black-haired lout from my muddled mind as I concentrated on my goal, to find Celia so that she can help me.
Arriving at the bordering wall, the familiar cobbled passage I had only twice before entered, dipped under a brick arch with no gate to deter unannounced callers such as I. In front of me, the open courtyard looked as big as a cricket field and I knew that if I crossed it, I would be seen for the wretch I had become and my dishevelled, shameful attire would be exposed for all to ponder.
Since the moon had seen fit to turn out its light behind those rotten grey clouds, I walked blind, skirting the courtyard by memory, touching bricks with my broken nails and feeling my way. It wasn’t easy, but at last I reached the door I knew I could enter, since I had the key.
In one last attempt to end my terror, my body slammed against that door as if my shoulder was doing the knocking. My feet were invisible that far down from my head but I knew they must have been as muddy as those night clouds and I didn’t have to see them to know they were cut and bruised, any more than I needed to see the rest of me to know I was spent.
The rain lashed down, plummeting my poor bones as I rummaged in my pocket for the big key. It was cold and clumpy between my shaking fingers, but just as a cloud rolled past the moon, a gleaming shine cast itself upon it, reminding me of a lighthouse beacon o’er a violent sea, stopping me floundering on the rocks.
I pushed the key into the lock, wondering briefly if there would be someone inside to discover me breaking in without invitatio
n but I was at the point of not caring. If I was going to get caught now, let it be so. I was ready to give up the fight. Like I said, I was all done in.
I turned the key with trembling fingers and the lock slid across as if it were gliding along a block of butter. The door opened without any force on my part and I fell into the space inside as if I was a drunkard on his way home to kick the cat.
I couldn’t move another inch. I wanted to shut that door but my body was blocking it. That was until a flash of white shot out of heaven and almost roasted the bottom of my leg. I scarpered like a sodden rat into the hallway, using my foot to kick the door closed behind me.
I must have gone deaf, since I couldn’t hear a thing when I was shut inside, just rain behind the door sounding like rustling dried leaves, and the occasional roll of thunder. I leaned up against the wall in the hall leading to goodness knows where. My fight had gone. I could do no more.
In the dark, I felt around and happened upon a piece of furniture, narrow against the wall. My hand grabbed a heavy oiled cloth hanging from it. I couldn’t tell what it was, it was too dark to see, but I was beginning to crumble inside. My heart was about to be squeezed out of my chest by my tightening ribs, so in the end, I just made one swift tug and the whole lot came crashing down, burying me.
I had no idea of the hour when I opened my eyes. It was close to morning, judging by the line of dim light from beneath the door. It was no longer raining outside. Everything was quiet and still, which was scary in itself. I wouldn’t have objected to a door banging or some glass shattering somewhere. At least I’d know I was still alive and well and that whatever the noise was, I wasn’t alone. Something was covering me. I moved my body to try and sit up but to no avail. I was trapped. I shuffled sideways. A flagstone floor lay beneath me, but unlike the rough one in our small house in the village, the stones were smooth as if they had been scrubbed a thousand or more times a day.
I crept, like a slithering snake, out of the bolthole and by the light of the early morning filtering through some orifices somewhere, I rose to my feet. There I discovered I’d spent the night covered by a heavy oilskin coat. Its top part was still attached to the coat rack I had pulled down, now lodged between the place it had once stood and the opposite wall, looking as if its solid frame, like a lean-to, had sheltered me as I slept.
A pair of boots covered in dried mud laid flat on the ground. No doubt they had once stood to attention awaiting their owner’s feet to fill them, and in my panic last night, I had unwittingly dispersed them across the floor. A man’s cap sat next to them and a walking cane displaying a ram’s head carved on its top. I’d made quite a mess in my frantic bid for shelter and now I had to repair the aftermath before someone came along and discovered me.
I stopped.
Reality slapped me in the face. Look where I was and what I was about to do! I almost visualised the reason for being there but I managed to kick that thought out of my head as quick as a racing greyhound. There was no time for that but there was time to reflect on my surroundings and what I was going to do next.
The house was still, which was peculiar since I’d always assumed life in a big house like that began early in the morning with breakfast and such like.
Then I remembered. It was September.
Uncle once told me the family and most of the servants were away at that time of year. They go abroad and they don’t come back until the second week of September.
So, I was alone. My plan had been to seek out Celia and ask her to help me, with the intention of getting away somehow so that uncle wouldn’t find me if he came looking. I knew I couldn’t do it alone, not without the means and certainly not in the state I was in; all bedraggled and full or sores and bruises. But now, if I were alone in the big house, what would I do and who could I turn to who wouldn’t send me back from the place I had fled?
I stumbled in a little further, which was one more step to trespassing as far as my conscience was concerned, I saw a line of small window panes revealing the kitchen beyond it as the morning light filtered through the windows over the other side. I’d already established how I was going to get that hall stand back upright, so all I had to do now was to put my plan into action.
My canniness was a shock to me. I had no idea I was such a calculating trollop. I saw a glass display case on the wall, showing keys to all the rooms in the basement quarters and the house. Next to that was a square hole in the wall revealing a dumb waiter with the door open and a single rope running up the side.
Just as it occurred to me what a conniving little sneak I was, and that I was surely the devil incarnate, I opened the glass cabinet and let my fingers run along the rows to find the key to the main kitchen. There it was, with an engraved metal tag dangling from it. Main Kitchen.
When I unlocked the door and stepped inside, I was immediately taken by the aroma. It smelled of baked bread and cabbage with a tinge of stewed apple. The smell made me feel ravenous, but I couldn’t think about food when I still had the task of getting that hallstand upright. If I left it like it was, I would surely be discovered and find myself in gaol before I could say Welsh Rarebit.
I saw an old drying rack with a few ladles and pots hanging from it. It was strung up above the table next to the row of small inner windows looking out to the hall. But I wasn’t after the rack. At its side was a pulley with a long run of rope secured to a strong double hook in the middle of the wall.
I placed my foot on the under bench and when I climbed up on top, I opened one of the window panes by pulling the frame down from a brass latch. I untied the rope and when I had a piece long enough, I threaded the lot through the window. With my mission filling my heart and mind, I jumped back down and padded barefooted back out into the corridor. I reached up and took the rope coming from the open window pane and then tied it to the metal hooks on the underside of the coat stand. Happy the rope was secure, I raced back into the kitchen, jumped back onto the table under the window and threaded that rope once more through its pulley. When it came to a stop. I secured my bit to the wall and rushed again outside. There was the hallstand, now upright and back in place.
Just as I was cleaning upmy muddy footprints near the door, I heard a noise that made the air in my lungs expel from my mouth as fast as a runaway horse. I don’t know where I’d gotten my nerve. I should be locked up in gaol I reckon, for the number of devious plans I had up my sleeve.
I had already returned the kitchen key to the glass cabinet, hiding all evidence of my presence, and I'd even had the foresight to pull on the rope inside the dumbwaiter so that the large wooden casing arrived empty. I'd already scouted the hall and realised in good time that while all the doors leading from the hall were locked, there wasn't one nook or cranny in which to hide if hiding is what I needed to do. The only place to go was up the stone staircase or into the dumb waiter. I had no way of knowing if a person searching for an intruder like me would arrive through the back door or from down the staircase, so I deduced the best place to seek solace, if I so happened to require it, was in the safety of the dumb waiter.
Now, I’d been alive fifteen years when I saw fit to break into that grand house, but I couldn’t remember any time during those years when I’d acted so cannily. I had no history of it, so I didn’t even know it was part of my nature. I thought I was a good girl; someone to be trusted. Instead, when I heard that noise coming my way, I swiftly hopped onto the ledge of that dumb waiter, squeezed my body inside, tucked in my dirty feet and pulled the two doors shut behind me.
Then I listened some more.
The sound of a key turning was the part that got me all a-quaking. It was the metal on metal noise and then a clicking turn that served to represent the end of me and all my dirty dealings in the big house that morning. I stayed as quiet as a dead mouse and even though my knees were threatening to knock together to make a noise louder than a book being snapped shut, I still remained without consequence to anyone outside that dumb waiter. I shuddered when
the two little doors clicked open on their own. They were my enemy now, threatening to reveal me as the dastardly intruder inside the big house. I leaned forward and secured two of my fingernails into the back of two screws. It was enough to stop the doors from swinging open further but the defensive action played havoc with my cuticles.
I heard footsteps inside the hall. They were heavy on the floor, making me imagine a man of great height and girth coming down the corridor to haul me out. Like a sneak, I peered through the gap. The door down the hall had been left wide often and I could feel a bit of a breeze wafting my way. It made me thirsty, leaving me feeling as if I would commit bloody murder for a long cool cup of fresh water.
The man was someone I recognised. Not only was he the lone rider who had left me to my cruel fate the night before, he was also the groundsman of the big house. I'd often seen him in the village carrying shrubs and vegetables for the old folk. He was big, just as I'd imagined when I heard his heavy footsteps, but he had no fat belly. Instead, he was lean, with broad shoulders and a silver cropped beard. On his head, he wore a cap and now he was sitting on the seat of the hallstand pulling on the boots, unaware that only minutes before that the hall stand was in no state to be sat upon. Outside the door, a dog was barking. The animal had no doubt picked up my scent and now he was after my blood. The whole affair must surely be over now. I was to be discovered and ravaged by that snarling hound and carted off to gaol for the rest of my sorry life.
Suddenly the back door slammed shut and everything went quiet once more. I leaned my head against the two small doors and sighed for as long as I saw fit. Then, without debating whether I should or I shouldn't, I took hold of the rope and began pulling on it so that I moved up the shaft inside the dumbwaiter.
Up and up I went. I wanted to close my eyes to shield myself from what would surely happen next. I would undoubtedly come upon a person, a servant perhaps, and they would scream when they saw the contents of that dumb waiter. Instead, since I couldn't afford to close my eyes I silently prayed I wouldn't be discovered. I had to keep them open, keep myself alert and be completely aware of everything about to be revealed to me. Up and up I went. I'd passed two sets of doors already. The first must have been the floor where they all lived and dined, took tea and played the piano. Twenty feet or more after, the second was surely positioned on the upper landing where they slept and changed their fine clothes, and now, another twelve feet up, I was almost upon the third.