The Beloved

by Alison Rattle

  Eli would sit quietly with his hands folded neatly on his lap. ‘And what have you been reading today?’ Mama would ask him.

  ‘I have been looking at the atlas,’ Eli would reply. ‘I know where Africa is now.’

  I remember Mama clapping her hands in delight. ‘See, Arthur? See how clever our little boy is?’ I would wait, trembling, in Papa’s lap, knowing it was my turn next. I pushed my face deep into the tired tobacco musk of his waistcoat, until my breath was moist on my hot cheeks. ‘Alice! Get down from there.’ There would be Mama’s accusing voice. ‘She is not a dog, Arthur. Please do not treat her like one.’

  Then Papa’s legs would shift and he would sit forward and grip me around the waist. ‘Come on, Alice. Enough now. Do as your mother says.’

  But I wouldn’t let go. I never wanted to let go. And Papa would have to stand up and peel my small hands from their grip on his jacket. When he finally managed to set me on the floor, I was so angry with Mama that when she asked me, ‘So, Alice. Tell me what you have learned today,’ I would screw my face up tight and refuse to speak a word.

  ‘You see, Arthur?’ Mama’s shrill words would follow me out of the room when the nanny came to usher me away. ‘You see how you’ve spoiled her? She is like a little wild animal!’

  A noise outside my room pulls me sharply away from my memories. I look around, hoping to see Eli’s face appear as the door opens. But it is just the maid again, from earlier. This time she is carrying a tray which she sets down on my bedside table. She looks at me warily, then turns to go.

  ‘Wait!’ I say. She stops. But her hand reaches for the doorknob, and she lets it rest there. ‘What is your name?’ I ask her.

  ‘Sarah, miss,’ she says. ‘Me name’s Sarah.’

  I sit up and swing my legs off the bed. I see Sarah’s hand tighten its hold on the doorknob. She looks to be the same age as me – sixteen or so – but her plain face still has the touch of a child to it, despite the tired circles under her eyes. ‘Do not look so frightened,’ I tell her. ‘I only want to know if you have seen Master Eli today.’

  ‘Oh no, miss.’ She shakes her head. ‘I only normally works in the kitchens. First time I’ve done upstairs duties is today.’

  ‘Well then,’ I say. ‘Do you think you could do the kindest of favours and take a message to him from me?

  Her eyes widen. ‘Don’t think I could, miss. I wouldn’t know how.’

  ‘It’s simple, Sarah,’ I tell her. ‘I will write a note and all you have to do is take it to his room. It is the fourth door on the right, down the corridor.’

  She shakes her head again, vigorously. ‘I couldn’t, miss. Sorry, miss. But I’m to go straight back to the kitchens. Got me orders, you see.’

  ‘But it would only take you a moment. Look, I’ll write the note now.’ I fly across to my desk and tear a page out of my journal. I pick up my pen and, too late, I remember it is broken. ‘Sarah … ’ I turn to her. ‘You will have to tell Eli my message instead.’

  But Sarah has already opened the door. She looks close to tears. ‘I’m sorry, miss,’ she says. ‘I can’t do it. The mistress would have me guts for garters if I’m caught, I have to go.’ With that she leaves the room, and once again I hear the key turn in the lock.

  A blade of fear slices through my insides.

  I swallow hard. Eli won’t allow anything to happen to me. He won’t allow Mama to send me away. He won’t, will he? And besides …

  I am not mad.

  I am not mad.

  I am not mad.

  I chant the words over and over to myself. And as I do, I see Lady Egerton again, tumbling down the stairs, and I see Lillie’s gaping mouth, empty of words but full of blood. I did those things. I wished for those things to happen. And like a miracle, those wishes came true. For a brief moment, I forget my fear and am filled instead with a wonderful sense of power, as though the sun is caressing my bones from the inside. But the feeling is only fleeting. Soon, the dread is back, and I have to stand and walk again. I follow the same path as earlier: from the window to the bed and back again, from the dressing table to the door to the end wall and back to the window again. Nothing will happen until Papa comes home, I tell myself. Papa would never let Mama send me away. I am not mad. Papa knows that I am not mad.

  I see the tray that Sarah left on my bedside table. I lift the white linen cloth and there is the usual cup of beef tea and bowl of watery gruel that Mama sees fit to punish me with. I spoon out a small amount and put it to my lips. It tastes of nothing. It is invalid food. I spit the gruel back into the bowl and throw myself on the bed.

  Then the tears come, taking me by surprise. A torrent of them, bubbling up from some place deep inside me that I never knew I had. They keep coming, robbing me of my breath and soaking my pillows. I cannot stop. I cry until my throat hurts and my tongue grows thick in my mouth. I cry until my head pounds and my stomach turns inside out. Then a shaft of sunlight creeps from the window and slides across my legs, covering me like a warm blanket. And gradually, with great shuddering gulps, I fall into an exhausted sleep.

  Grey light filters through my eyelids. How long have I been sleeping? I ease one eye open, but it aches so much that I have to close it again. For a brief, blissful moment, my mind is empty of thought. But then I try to open my eyes again and I feel my face tight with salt and suddenly everything comes rushing back and my mouth turns dry.

  Where am I? I look around wildly, staring into the gloom. Strange shapes loom in the shadows. There are bars at the window. I sit up and my breaths turn to gasps.

  It is too late. They have taken me while I was sleeping. My heart batters against my ribs as the horror of it all dawns on me. I am locked in a cell. In the madhouse.

  I push back against the headboard, my knees drawn up to my chest. Oh God! Mama did it. She finally got rid of me. And she didn’t even wait for Papa to come home.

  I press harder against the headboard, praying the solid oak will stop me from falling down the dark hole that has opened beneath me. As I struggle to make sense of my surroundings, I suddenly hear a sound in the distance, a familiar sound, a sound I have heard every day of my life. I half laugh, half sob with relief as I count the long-case clock down in the hall strike eleven times. I look around the room again, and the strange shapes rising up from the gloom room reveal themselves to be my wardrobe, my washstand, my desk, my dressing table and chair, and the bars at the window to be simply the folds in the curtains.

  My hand shakes as I reach out to my bedside table and feel for the cup of beef tea. It is cold, and a film of grease coats my teeth as I swallow it hurriedly. The liquid swirls nastily in my stomach, but it is nourishment, at least. After a while, when my nerves have calmed and my stomach has settled, I climb from the bed and pull the chamber pot from underneath. A pungent smell catches at my nostrils and tells me that no one has been to empty it since I relieved myself earlier. I squat over the pot, knowing that I will have to bear the indignity of its contents for the rest of the night. Someone will surely come to attend to me in the morning. When I have finished, I walk over to the window. There is no means of lighting a candle, but the moon is high and silver and I can see the empty street below my window almost as clearly as if it were daylight. There is a yellow gaslight spluttering at the end of the street, but other than that, there is no other movement.

  I am gripped by a sudden and horrible sense of loneliness. Is there no one in this world that I can turn to? Is there no one in this world who understands me? Only Papa, I think, but he is not here. Eli has abandoned me and as for Mama, she has never wanted me from the moment I was born. I am not the daughter she wanted. But how can I be someone else? How can I be anyone other than me? I lean my forehead against the glass. Would it help if I opened the window and screamed for help? Would anyone answer me? And if they did, would they too think I was mad?

  I have already slept for so long that when I eventually return to my bed, all I can do is lie there and count the hour
ly strikes of the clock, and watch how the grey light darkens to thickness in the dead of the night, and how it gradually pales again as dawn approaches and another day begins.

  Ten

  It is early morning. The clock has only just struck six. I am restless, hungry and longing for someone – even if it just Sarah – to come and open my door. My mouth is watering at the thought of toast and a pot of hot tea. Will I be permitted to breakfast downstairs? I could see Eli then, and tell him what I overheard between Mama and Dr Danby. But even as I pretend to myself and imagine that things could go on as before, there is a much bigger part of me that knows with a hard and cold certainty that nothing will ever be the same again.

  I climb out of bed and stretch. I look down and realise I have slept in my gown. I have never done that before. This small thing somehow helps. It is as though there are no rules any more; and that from now on, anything is possible.

  Time passes slowly. Hunger grinds at my insides and boredom weighs heavy on my shoulders. If I shouted and banged and kicked at the door, surely someone would come. You could wish for someone to come. You could wish for someone to come, a voice in my head tries to persuade me. I shake it away. I dare not wish for anything, not after what happened to Lillie.

  I walk to the window. It is going to be another beautiful day. A day when, if I wasn’t me but somebody else altogether, I could sit in the garden at the back of the house with a parasol to shade me from the sun when it grew too hot. There would be a jug of lemonade by my side, with chips of ice inside it, bobbing and sliding between stray lemon pips. Ice – all the way from the mountain lakes of Norway – that Papa paid the ice-man to deliver in a block, every day. There would be cucumber sandwiches too, cool slivers of cucumber, salty butter and wafer-thin bread. Eli would come and sit next to me and we would read to one another or play backgammon. I would beat him, of course, and he would feign disappointment before smiling chivalrously and chasing me across the lawns.

  But I am not somebody else. I am only me.

  I start from my daydream. There is a cab rumbling down the street. It is a black, plain affair, much like the one Dr Danby uses. My heart catches in my throat as I watch it draw nearer and nearer. I close my eyes, praying that when I open them again, the cab will have passed by, taking its early-morning travellers to a destination that is anywhere but here. But it is not to be. I do not need to open my eyes to hear the cab jangle to a halt outside the house. Who would call at this hour of the day? My heart pounds in the back of my throat. It can only be Dr Danby.

  He has come to deliver the news of my fate.

  I open my eyes and watch as the driver steadies the horses. Then the cab door opens, but instead of Dr Danby’s thatch of salt and pepper hair, it is the thinning flaxen hair of Papa’s valet, William, that emerges. How can that be? I must be seeing things. Then, as William holds the cab door open, the familiar and solid shape of Papa climbs down the cab steps and alights on the pavement. Before I can stop myself I am banging on the window until the glass rattles in its frame and I am shouting, ‘Papa! Papa!’

  He rubs at the back of his neck wearily, then looks up at me and raises his hand in greeting. Papa is home! And I did not even have to wish it. Before I can grasp the full marvel of it all, the bedroom door opens and I turn to see Mama, and Sarah, struggling under the weight of a laden tray, following close on her heels. Mama looks stern, her lips set in a tight line. As she crosses the threshold, her nose wrinkles in disgust. She takes a handkerchief from her sleeve and puts it to her face. Then she gestures to Sarah. ‘Open the window, girl. Air this room and get it cleaned up.’

  Sarah begins to bustle around the room. I am glad to see her remove the soiled chamber pot from under my bed. I look back at Mama. She is staring at me as though I am a stranger. ‘And you,’ she says. ‘You are a disgrace. You will wash and change your gown immediately. Illness is no excuse for uncleanliness.’

  ‘I am not ill, Mama.’ I hate the whine in my voice. ‘Why do you insist on saying that I am?’

  Mama raises her eyebrow in a small, triumphant arch. ‘But it is not only me who says you are ill, Alice. If you remember, you were examined by Dr Danby only yesterday. It is his opinion that you are ill. And we cannot argue with a doctor, can we?’

  I cannot bear that she looks so pleased with herself. So I walk over to where she is standing and cross my arms over my chest as I look her straight in the face. ‘And you would have me put in a madhouse, wouldn’t you? I say.

  Surprise, then annoyance, flash across her face. But only for an instant. She licks a shine of moisture across her bottom lip, and her face settles back into its usual perfect blankness. ‘Sarah!’ she barks. ‘Please leave us now.’

  Sarah scuttles out of the door, her face flushed red.

  Mama glares at me. ‘Do not talk of such things in front of the servants!’ She crosses her arms over her bosom too. ‘If Dr Danby recommends that you are sent away to be cured, then that is what will happen.’

  I want to shake her. I want to take her by the shoulders and rattle her so hard that her teeth knock together and her eyes jump in their sockets and her tightly coiled hair comes loose and hangs in trembling tatters around her face. I want to shake her until her beautiful, hard shell cracks and the pieces smash to the floor and all that is left behind is a soft and ordinary woman who will put her arms around me and love me like a mama should. But I won’t do that. Not because I don’t dare to. But because I am scared that if I do crack her shell, I will find there is nothing inside but a hollow space.

  And then what would I do?

  ‘Papa won’t allow it!’ I scream at her. ‘He will never let you send me away!’

  She smiles at me pityingly. ‘But your father is not here, Alice. And therefore the decision falls to me.’

  ‘But … ’ I quickly glance back to the window. Does she not know he has returned? A smile slides across my face. Now it is my turn to be triumphant. Before she can stop me, I push past Mama and rush out of the door. I hear her gasp as she stumbles against the door frame, but by then I am at the top of the stairs and I am flying down, taking two steps at a time and calling out ‘Papa! Papa!’ As I turn the last curve of the staircase, there he is, standing in the hall, pulling his gloves off, finger by finger.

  ‘Alice?’ Papa has no time to brace himself, before I fling myself at him and wrap my arms tight around his waist.

  ‘What a greeting! But do let me take my coat off first.’ The reassuring tone of his voice soothes me like a cooling ointment on a cut. I cling to the firm comfort of him and for a moment I am lost for words.

  ‘Arthur! You are home unexpectedly. You should have sent word and I would have had the servants prepare for your arrival.’

  I turn my head and there is Mama gliding down the staircase towards us. She has her eyes fixed upon me. ‘Papa, Papa,’ I whisper urgently into his shoulder. ‘She wants to send me away. She wants to send me to the madhouse. Please don’t let her. Please!’

  Papa pulls my arms from around his waist and studies my face. His brow wrinkles in concern. ‘Calm down, Alice. Why are you so excitable? What do you mean you are being sent away? Temperance, what is the child talking about?’

  Mama is beside me now; the cloying scent of her lavender hangs between us. She takes my wrist and squeezes it tight. ‘Alice needs to go back to her room,’ she says. She tries to tug me away. ‘Come on, Alice. I have to talk to your father.’

  ‘No!’ I slap her hand from me and grab Papa’s arm. ‘Please, Papa. Don’t listen to her. She wants me in the madhouse.’ Papa looks at me, his eyes wide and puzzled. Then he looks back at Mama.

  ‘Take her to her room, Arthur. You can see she is hysterical. Please take her now, and then I will explain everything to you.’

  ‘Yes … yes,’ murmurs Papa. ‘I think that is a good idea.’ He puts his arm around my shoulders and takes one of my hands gently in his. ‘Come on, my darling girl,’ he says. ‘Let’s get you upstairs and comfortable, then we wil
l see what the problem is.’

  ‘I told you!’ I hiss. ‘She wants rid of me.’

  He presses his hand into my back and I lean into him, suddenly exhausted, as he leads me up the staircase and back into my room. ‘Now,’ Papa says as he settles me on the bed. ‘I will have some tea sent up to you, and you will stay here and calm yourself, while I go downstairs to talk to Mama.’

  ‘Don’t leave me, Papa.’

  Now he is here, I cannot bear for him to go. I hold tight to his hand. Panic grips at my heart and sets it racing. ‘She will tell you things that are not true. She hates me, Papa, she hates me!’

  ‘Oh, Alice,’ Papa kisses me gently on the top of my head. ‘You know that is not true.’ He sighs deeply. ‘Let me go now.’ He eases his hand away from mine. ‘And please don’t worry yourself. I will sort out this problem, whatever it is.’

  ‘Promise me, Papa?’

  ‘I promise,’ he says. He smiles at me, and because he looks so sincere and because of the way his eyes crease so kindly around the edges, my heart steadies and I allow myself to believe him.

  Eleven

  Arthur Angel listened patiently as his wife recounted the events of the last two days. He watched as her white, tapered hands gestured and pressed to her breast. He gazed at the green of her eyes as they flashed hard then grew soft with tears. He was always amazed that, whenever he came back to her after being away for any length of time, her beauty had the power to shock him all over again.

  He had been glad to cut short his business trip when he had been taken ill on the first night. A piece of rotten meat, no doubt. His stomach had always been sensitive. He was glad to come home because, in truth, it was where he wanted to be the most; as near to Temperance as he could be, and with his children as solid evidence of her love for him.

  But his surprise homecoming had not been as he had imagined. As he listened to Temperance tell him of Dr Danby’s visit a great sadness twisted at his heart and brought beads of sweat to his forehead. His darling girl was severely disturbed, that much was clear; he had seen it for himself. And Temperance, normally so calm and collected, was at her wits’ end.