The Girl in the Attic

by Wendy Reakes

  She held my hand tight. “Don’t worry. Only if I have to, okay, Marley? I won’t let you die. I won’t.”

  A week earlier I had talked to Celia in all seriousness about the eventuality of my death in childbirth. “I want you to fetch my brother and let him take my body. And he should raise my baby, if he is wed now. If not, then the baby should be given to a childless couple in the village. I don’t want the baby to be taken away…okay, Celia? Not just taken to some awful workhouse or orphanage. I couldn’t bear that. Promise me, Celia.”

  How strange, I thought then, that I should already love this baby so much. It had been conceived without love, without any consideration or affection, but now, as it lived and breathed, I intended for it to never to live the rest of its life without love.

  “There’s something else, Marley.”

  I gasped. “What?”

  “My mother told me this morning that we’re going abroad again soon. In July. You’ll be all alone.”

  By midday the force of the baby weighing on my stomach was almost too much to bear. I was lying on the bed with a rolled rag in my mouth to prevent me from crying out. Despite its many layers, I could feel my teeth joining when I bit down, squeezing my eyes shut and feeling like passing out into sweet oblivion.

  Celia had come and gone twice. She had been instructed to stand ready with clean sheets for the mistress’s bed and to occasionally run errands, which had been a perfect excuse for leaving the room on the second floor to run up to the attic above.

  I had remained in numbed silence for the duration of the birth, but Celia told me the mistress’s screams were bringing the house down. It put a picture in my head of her lying on silken sheets surrounded by people who could serve her, while her husband, the Master, paced back and forth on a rug of Persian origin, and servants flittering around, serving tea and stoking fires with plenty of coal. Compared to my sorry state, the other mother would have everything at her fingertips, to make the experience as tolerable as possible.

  Outside, a storm was raging, not unlike the storm which had raged the night I lost my shoes. That in itself was poignant enough, since it was the night the baby had been conceived.

  Once again, the rain came down like silver bullets bouncing off the terrace outside the attic windows, spitting and smashing the glass like it wanted in. The sky had turned darker as the morning wore on, with thunder clouds cracking and the sky illuminated by some distance lightening.

  As the storm raged, it was of great surprise to me when my baby girl slipped out of my womb with one hard push. I looked at her lying on the sodden sheets between my legs. She was covered in blood and matter, looking up at me with big curious eyes with hair, jet black, just like her fathers.

  I called her Rain.

  She was silent.

  And we were alone.

  When Celia arrived only ten minutes after my baby had arrived, she stood at the end of the bed looking like she’d had the shock of her life. The little one was lying in my arms, wrapped in a towel, which had once belonged to baby William. Celia stared, silently watching the image of the now two beings hiding in the attic. Then she began to cry. “I wasn’t here for you, Marley. I wasn’t here for you.” She came around the bed and sat on the side while she reached out and let the baby wrap her perfect fingers around Celia’s thumb.

  “You were here for me, Celia,” I whispered. “I would never have gotten this far without you. No one could have been a better friend.”

  She smiled as she wiped away her tears. “I’m relieved you’re alright.”

  “Can you help me cut the cord. We’re still attached.”

  She jumped up. “Of course. And I know how to do it too.” She fetched my small pair of silver scissors and came back, opening the towel covering the baby. “The mistress had her baby, Marley. About ten minutes ago.”

  I shook my head, musing over the irony of us having our babies the same day…the same hour of the day at that. It was extraordinary and I longed to ponder the matter further, to make some sort of spiritual connection between myself and Her Ladyship. But how could there be any connection? She lived in a world I’d never be part of. “What did she have?”

  Celia smiled as she cut the cord. “A boy. They named him John.”

  Chapter 16

  My baby didn’t cry.She was silent, simply moaning from her lungs when she wanted feeding, her eyes screwing up in frustration because she was unable to release any sort of noise from her mouth. I knew she was mute from the moment she’d been born. She’d made no noise, a blessing in the scheme of things, but it was a breaker of hearts. Mine! And Celia’s.

  “What have I done to her?” I cried when I fixed her to my breast. She looked so innocent, so vulnerable and needy, yet already she held a defect created by the world she lived in. “I should never have come here,” I cried. “It’s all my fault.”

  “How can it be your fault, Marley?” Celia sounded irritable with me. She was already tired. The last thing she needed was to hear my complaining. “This is the fault of the black-haired lout.”

  “I should have left when I had the chance. Perhaps my cousin in Taunton wouldn’t have turned me away. She may have welcomed me...us.”

  Impatiently, Celia rolled her eyes. “Is that really likely? You said yourself they wouldn’t have tolerated a young unwed mother. What would have happened to you then, eh?”

  I shook my head. My misery was open to her, yet she held no compassion for my silly yearnings. Only facts kept her going. Not like Celia at all.

  One evening, Celia arrived with clean cloths for the baby. She’s taken it upon herself to do the laundry for the infant downstairs. With the help of a scullery maid to wash the linen, she added the nappies I used for Rain and no one was any the wiser. She also acquired medicine to keep off the chill from Rain’s tiny lungs and to deter colic. We had often discussed the fortunate timing of the two babies’ arrival and even though the date of their birth was 6-6-99, we still said it was God who had let that happen. ‘There’s no devil in this child!’ Celia would say.

  Another morning, Celia brought up a small tin bath half-full of steaming hot water. She’d just been helping the nanny bathe the baby downstairs and instead of throwing the soapy water down a drain somewhere, she brought it to the attic for Rain. It was the first time I had dared to unwrap her little body, for fear of her catching cold from the attic. But with a kerosene lamp burning next to the little tin bath, finally I was able to wash away the remnants of her birth, making her perfect pink body glow. It was only then I’d noticed the small heart shaped birthmark on the back of her right shoulder. It was adorable. Celia and I both said so.

  After that, if Celia got the opportunity, Rain had a hot soapy bath almost every week. It was then I knew the other baby whom they’d named John, had truly been a gift from God.

  I became worried for Celia. She was caring for the baby downstairs each day whilst helping me with Rain. I could see in her eyes that the burden had become too much. “Celia,” I said one morning while she paced across the rug in my little parlour rocking the baby in her arms. “I’ve decided to leave.”

  She swung about. “What?”

  I nodded. “I can’t raise a child in these conditions,” I said solemnly. “It’s not right. It’s not fair to her…nor to you.”

  “To me?” she cried. “Why isn’t it fair to me?”

  I looked at her as if she had lost her mind. How could she even ask that question and not know the answer? “You can’t go on like this. You’re being run ragged. I should leave now before we are all found out and thrown in gaol. Before your dear mother finds out you’ve been lying to her, before…before baby John catches something, passed on from my baby to him through you. A disease…or germs…or something. Before my baby dies of consumption…or something in the winter to come…before…”

  “Stop!” Celia said sternly before she stopped her pacing and sat at the edge of the bed.

  I looked at her as she began to cry. An exhausted
cry. Like a new mother caring for twins. I reached out and closed my fingers around her arm. “It’s ok, Celia,” I said offering her soothing tones. “We’ll leave when the family goes away at the end of July. It will be like we were never here at all.”

  “But where will you go?”

  I tightened my fingers around her flesh. “We’ll think of something, Celia. We always do, don’t we?”

  As the baby slept and Celiacontinued her work in the house below, I began to formulate a plan. It was a dangerous plan, but workable. I would go to Taunton; acquire some lodgings; secure a job; contact my cousin to test the water before I told her about my daughter. Then I’d raise my child, teach her how to talk, how to walk, how to play. We will have a life, a good life, not spending our days hiding in a dusty old attic. It was a good plan, but first I needed Celia’s help.

  When she came to the attic late afternoon, while the rest of the household went about their business, I told her about my plan to escape the house. “It’s the best idea I can come up with. I think it will work.”

  She looked pained sitting on the floor with the baby asleep on her lap, swaddled in a fine wool blanket which I’d found in one of the chests when I’d first arrived. The attic was warmer now that the sun had been shining for near on six weeks. It had been my misfortune for the winter to have hung on as long as it did. Apart from a few days in April and May, the rest of the time had been particularly chilly. Now the sun shone in through my wall of windows.

  Whilst I was still waiting for the baby to come, I’d taken a heated pale of water and scrubbed those windows clean, scraping off the pigeon muck and cast-off feathers; destroying the moss and dirt brought there by the wind and weather. Celia had brought a scrubbing brush from the scullery and some soda salts which enabled me to remove most of it. Even the terrace had been scrubbed and by the time I was finished it looked like a shiny new pin. I had to confess it had been laborious but now, at least it was pleasant out there when I walked around with the baby.

  We had taken down the Bedouin tent, allowing the air to circulate around the attic so that my small parlour didn’t heat up so much as the sun shone. Celia had put the blankets and sheets back into the storage chest, saying we could get them back out next winter. Except there wasn’t going to be a next winter. Not for Rain and me. Not in that old attic.

  Celia was stroking Rain’s rosy cheek. The baby slept a lot and her crying was unusually absent from a place which had brought in a new human being. It was true that in normal circumstances she’d be crying for a feed and the attention of her mother, but my baby was silent as the nine months she laid dormant in my womb. “How will you get there?” Celia said slowly. “You can’t walk all the way to Taunton. Not with the baby.”

  “That’s where I need your help, Celia.”

  She looked up with a peculiar frown in her face. “Go on.”

  “I’ve saved some money over the years,” I said. “You know, from selling my jams and tomato compote. I’ve hidden it behind a broken brick, underneath an old dresser in uncle’s house.”

  “You want me to get it.”

  I was curious about Celia’s response. She seemed unenthused about my scheme to escape the attic and I was left wondering why.

  She nodded. “Alright. I will. Tell me how.”

  As fortune would have it, Celia told me the next day that she was being sent into Mells to collect some sheets which had been repaired by a local seamstress. Old Porter, the groundsman, would be taking her that very afternoon.

  Chapter 17

  Celia sat on the buggynext to Old Porter, clicking his tongue at the horses trotting along the road towards Mells. The day was bright with just a small breeze to cool her brow under a plain straw bonnet.

  Celia’s thoughts were all over the place. She knew she should be politely conversing with Old Porter, since he’d been good enough to take her into the village but Celia wasn’t in the right frame of mind for chatting. Not like her at all.

  Her heart had practically broken when Marley said she wanted to leave. Celia knew it was for the best, for the good of Marley and her new baby but in all sincerity, she was going to miss them bad. Marley had brought new meaning to Celia’s life. She was the best friend she’d ever known. And the baby…well, Celia felt like she was the daddy that Rain would never know. What would life be like when they were gone? How would she fill her days? No, Celia didn’t feel like chatting one little bit.

  Then suddenly a notion popped into her head as if the angels had put it there. What Marley needed was a husband. Someone who would take her in and love her and care for her baby as if she was his own. Now wasn’t that a good idea? Celia pondered as her mood brightened.

  She turned her head to stare at the man sitting next to her on the buggy.

  Porter was a big man with broad shoulders and long bulging arms, tanned from the sun. A short silver speckled beard covered his strong jawline and his nose was straight and fine. His eyes were grey and on his temple, a scar ran across his left eyebrow leaving a white stripe parting the hair.

  Celia wondered how old he was. At least thirty-five, forty. Old indeed.

  He was silent as they drove through the gates of Wilbury House. He said he wasn’t used to company, especially not from a pretty young lady as she. She’d blushed and smiled sweetly, certainly not used to compliments from men with regards to her looks. In the past, some of the footmen had tried a thing or two; a touch, or something in the way they looked, but her mother saw to it that no one ever got any further. No, courtship was not allowed as far as her mam was concerned.

  “How are you getting along with that young ‘un, little miss?” Porter asked.

  Startled, Celia reddened. “What do you mean?” she asked with an air of suspicion in her voice.

  He shrugged. “Looking after a new baby is hard, I reckon. With all that crying and all,” he chuckled.

  Celia swiftly realised he’d meant Master John. Relieved, she said. “It’s fine, Mr Porter, thank you.”

  “You can call me Michael, if you’ve a mind to.”

  She blushed again. “I’m not sure that would be allowed, Mr Porter.”

  He chuckled again. “Alright then. Have it your own way. He took a sideways glance at her and shook his head.

  She smiled back. He was a nice man. “Are you married Mr Porter?”

  He clicked his tongue at the horses as they slowed. “Walk on,” he said as they drove past a field of cows. “Never met the right girl, Miss.”

  “Why not? There are some nice ladies about aren’t there?”

  “And, what would a nice young lady like you know about that sort of thing?”

  She blushed again. “I know about what happened with Mr Culpot and the cook. I was told everything. And…well in a big house like Wilbury you get to see and hear a lot.”

  “I can imagine.”

  Celia held her breath. What she was about to ask him was going to shake him to the core she reckoned. “What if I knew a very nice young lady looking for a husband?”

  He chuckled. “Who would that be then?”

  “No one. Just someone I know.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “Oh, yes. Very pretty. And she...well she needs someone more than anyone has ever needed someone in their life. She’s lost and she’s alone.”

  “That sounds like a very sad story, Miss.” He looked at her in a familiar manner, as if he cared about her. “I don’t think I’d be much good to any young lady, Miss.”

  “Why not?”

  “Can you keep a secret?”

  “Oh, yes. I’m very good at keeping secrets, Mr Porter.” He couldn’t know how she’d meant that with all her heart.

  “It could cost me my job if anyone found out.”

  She gasped. “What is it. You can trust me. I wouldn’t tell a soul, I swear.”

  Celia looked downwards as he reached to the floor and pulled up the leg of his britches. She gasped again when she saw a wooden calf beneath his black boots.
/>
  “Lost it in the Boar war. I’ve still got my own knee, but the rest of it is as wooden as my old skull here.” He illustrated by knocking the side of his head, below his cap.

  “No one knows? Not even the master?” Celia’s eyes were popping out of her head.

  “The master knows. We served together see. He was an officer. That’s how I got this job. A long time ago now that was.”

  “Then why is it a secret, if the master knows?”

  He shrugged gently. “The master said the lady wouldn’t appreciate someone working the grounds with only one leg to his name.”

  “Celia pouted as she thought about that. “I don’t see why not, Mr Porter. You seem to manage just fine from what I can tell.”

  “Oh, ah. I manage just fine. Don’t you worry none, Miss.”

  “There are many young women who would see past that sort of thing, Mr Porter.” Celia felt very wise for her years.

  He tossed a smile her way. “Maybe. Maybe not, I reckon.”

  “So, you don’t think you could see yourself getting married?”

  “No, Miss, I don’t think I can.”

  They arrived at Mellssometime later. The rest of the journey had been quiet, except for the odd comment about the weather and a brief appraisal of a piece of land on the left of the bumpy road they had travelled along. Old Porter had pointed to the field where a small tumbled down cottage sat in its middle and where a hill in the distance guarded its crop from severe weather. He told her that was the field the master had promised him when he eventually retired. “The master has bequeathed it to me as a gesture of good will.” Porter had said with a shrug, looking a bit embarrassed to admit he had been instrumental in saving the master’s life during the war.

  Now, they were in the village and Porter helped Celia dismount the cart. He pointed to a house next to the pub. “That’s where the seamstress lives. Just go and knock on the door. I’ll meet you back here when I’ve done with my business.”