It turned easily, proof, if any were needed, that the door was opened frequently, and there was not the slightest creak of the hinges as I pulled it open. Neither were there cobwebs to brush my face. The flight of stairs beyond the door led straight up, narrow, clean-swept, and, to my surprise, carpeted. Why would anyone carpet attic stairs? Except perhaps to muffle the sound of footsteps.
I pulled the door closed behind me in case Mrs Durbin should emerge from the kitchen and notice it open, then stood for a moment waiting whilst my eyes accustomed themselves to the pitch darkness. Then, feeling my way, step by rickety step, I began to climb.
It was a long flight of stairs, understandably so, since it reached beyond the upper storey of the house. At one point it widened out with a step on the left; I explored this but found only a small landing with a carved wooden chest stored upon it. I lifted the lid, feeling inside in case Tom’s bell should be hidden there, but it contained only cloth. Blankets, stored for the summer perhaps, or winter cloaks – in the dark I could not tell, nor was I much interested. I returned to the main staircase, creeping on upward.
There was still no chink of light and I wished I had thought to bring a candle. But, knowing there were attic windows, I had not thought it necessary. Suddenly my searching hands encountered solid wood. Another door! This explained why the stairs were so dark, but it was another setback. If this one was also locked I would have no hope of being able to see to find the right key. I ran my hands over it until I found a handle, and turned. It gave and the door opened a crack. Relieved, I pushed it wide.
And stopped short, my knees almost giving way beneath me with shock.
I was looking into a low room that spread over a large part of the top of the house. But it was not the dusty attic storeroom I had expected.
It was furnished – a chaise, a table and a couple of chairs, a bureau, a bed.
And there was someone there.
A woman, sitting in one of the chairs, a needlework frame balanced on her knees. A woman whose snow-white hair and grey gown gave her the appearance of a ghost. But I knew this was no ghost, knew instantly too that in spite of her ravaged face and wasted frame she was much younger than she at first appeared.
When she saw me she shrank back into her chair as if afraid; in truth, she must have been as startled as I.
‘Who are you?’ Her voice was cultured, but a little croaky as if from disuse.
I stared into that pale, ravaged face that was as familiar to me as the one I saw each morning when I looked into my mirror – only older, much older – and knew that I had no need to ask her the same question.
All my life I had sought my mother.
In that moment I knew I had found her.
* * *
I could not speak. I thought I was going to faint clean away. It could not be! I must be imagining things! And yet… and yet…
Suddenly so many inexplicable things were explained. The creaking of the boards above my head in the stillness of the night, which I had thought was the house itself settling. The wailing I had once heard. The ‘ghost’ Charlotte said she had sometimes glimpsed at the attic windows. Mrs Durbin emerging from the door into the hall with a tray. Her reluctance to tell me anything. The reason the door was kept locked. Selena’s remarks to Charlotte that her mother was ‘not there’ in the churchyard. All these things and more came to me in a flash as my head reeled and I clung to the door for support.
Only the biggest questions of all remained, and another barrage added to them.
Why did Francis and Selena pretend that Julia was dead? How long had she been locked up here – and for what reason?
‘Who are you?’ she asked again. ‘I’ve seen you in the garden – with Charlotte. You haven’t come to take her away, have you…?’ Her voice rose to a frightened wail.
Somehow I found my own voice, trying to reassure her.
‘Of course not! I’m here to look after her. I’m Charity.’
‘Charity?’ Of course, the name meant nothing to her. But I was surprised she could not see the likeness that was so apparent to everyone else – the likeness to herself as a young girl.
‘Yes, Charity,’ I repeated.
I was beginning to regain some control of myself, though my head was still spinning. I must not say or do anything to frighten her any more, for clearly she was already terrified and very confused.
I moved towards her slowly and felt I was moving in a dream.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ I said gently. ‘I mean you no harm.’
She shrank away again, her eyes, huge in her wasted face, never leaving mine, and I thought I saw a glimmer of recognition in them.
‘Charity. I never heard that name before. But you are…?’ It was almost a question – one which I dared not, for the moment, answer. Instead I asked one of my own.
‘Why are you here? Locked in the attic?’
She laughed without humour, a small breathy sound.
‘I live here.’
‘But why? Why not downstairs with your family?’
She swallowed. ‘I’m ill. I’ve been ill for a long time. Ever since Charlotte was born. They say it’s best I should be here. It’s for my own good.’
Anger rose in me in a white-hot tide.
‘Well you won’t be here for much longer! I shall see to that!’
She sobbed aloud, pressing her hands to her mouth.
‘No! No – I’m safe here…’
I knelt beside her.
‘You’ll be safe with me. Don’t worry, I’ll find a way. They can’t keep you here, Julia. I won’t let them. Only, you must tell me everything.’
‘I can’t… I don’t remember… Oh, please, just go away and leave me alone, whoever you are!’
‘I can’t do that,’ I said. ‘I’ll never do that.’
But what was I to do? I needed time to think, to plan. And to come to terms with the realisation that the mother I had thought was dead was not dead at all. But in the meantime…
What would Francis and Selena do if they knew I had found Julia? They would stop at nothing, I feared, to keep their secret. I was vulnerable, she more so, and heaven only knew how Charlotte would be affected if she learned the truth in some shocking manner. For her sake if nothing else I must not act hastily but work out a plan that would cause her the least distress possible.
‘Listen,’ I said urgently. ‘You must not tell anyone I have been here. Even Mrs Durbin.’
‘Dear Mrs Durbin.’ Her face softened. At least, I thought, Mrs Durbin had been kind to her.
‘This is to be our secret,’ I went on. ‘But I will be your friend. I’ll come and see you whenever I can. You must be so lonely.’
Her face clouded, her eyes going far away. ‘Lonely? Oh no, not any more. I can watch from the window. I can see Charlotte playing…’
‘Winter is coming,’ I said. ‘Charlotte won’t be able to play in the garden much longer. And the days will be short and dark.’
‘I’m safe here,’ she repeated. ‘It’s for the best. When Charlotte was born…’
‘What?’ I pressed her. ‘What happened when Charlotte was born?’
She lowered her head, knotting her hands in her lap.
‘I don’t remember.’ Her voice was shaking, yet stubborn. ‘I don’t want to think about it.’ This I knew was not the moment to press her. First I had to gain her confidence.
‘Is there something you would like?’ I asked. ‘Something I could bring you?’
She shook her head, then hesitated. For the first time a little light came into her eyes.
‘Roses!’ she whispered. ‘I should like to have some roses.’
My throat tightened. How ironic that Charlotte and I should have taken roses to the place we thought she lay. But now the roses were so nearly over and, in any case, bringing them to her would be a great risk. They would scent the attic room; even if I found an out-of-the-way corner to put them in, Mrs Durbin would be sure to notice.
‘I�
��ll do my best,’ I said.
And I had no way of knowing then the reason she had asked for them. No way of knowing that though she had closed her mind to what had happened to cause Francis to incarcerate her, she cherished memories of the happiest years of her life. Roses, for her, signified those years. The years she had spent with John. The years when she had given birth to another baby – a little girl. Me.
Sixteen
Julia
There were roses around the door of the little house John bought for her in Flushing, the settlement opposite Falmouth where many of the packet captains lived and which had got its name from the Dutch engineers who had come to build the quays and seawalls a century earlier.
By the time they had returned from Brazil Julia was pregnant. Clearly she could not sail with John in such a condition and, in any case, horribly mindful of what had happened before, she was determined to cosset her unborn child and give it every chance of healthy survival.
She adored the little house, which was as different from Morwennan as could be, and soon she had turned it into a home. John managed to arrange shorter trips – to Spain and Portugal instead of the Americas and the West Indies – and while he was away Julia sought the company of other captain’s wives, who understood one another and lent mutual support in the lonely times. If any of them suspected Julia and John were not properly husband and wife, it was never mentioned.
She visited Aunt Prudence, too. The old woman told her of Francis’s fury and distress when he had learned she had run away, but seemed to think he had washed his hands of her.
‘He’s never been back but the once,’ she told Julia.
‘And if he ever comes again you won’t tell him I am living in Flushing, will you?’ Julia begged.
‘Be sure I will not – though even if he turned up at your door he could hardly carry you off bodily – especially in your condition,’ Aunt Prudence assured her.
Julia worried about it all the same, just as she worried that it was some inherent weakness in her and not the terrible attempts at abortion that had caused the malformation of her little son. If such a thing should happen again – if this baby should suffer the same fate – she did not think she could bear it.
She need not have worried. Her baby – a little girl – was born on a beautiful day in early summer.
The confinement this time was short, the birth so easy Julia could scarcely believe it. When the baby was placed in her arms love and joy filled her, but she could not feel completely satisfied until she had unwrapped the length of flannel that swaddled her and seen for herself the perfect smooth body and the small, gently waving arms and legs, and counted every finger and toe, each capped with a tiny shell-pink nail. Then and only then did she bury her face in her baby, drinking in the fresh sweet smell of her, rubbing her cheek against the thatch of silky soft hair, lost in wonder and gratitude.
‘What shall we name her?’ John asked when he was allowed into the room, and stood proudly beside the bed looking lovingly at his wife and admiring his child.
‘Nancy,’ Julia said. ‘I’d like to call her Nancy.’
John smiled. ‘Why Nancy?’
‘It has a joyous sound to it, don’t you think? Nancy.’
‘That’s fitting then,’ he said, satisfied. ‘For this child will surely bring us much joy.’
* * *
The two years that followed Nancy’s birth were undoubtedly the happiest of Julia’s life.
Nancy thrived, growing from a contented baby to a sturdy happy toddler, adored by both her parents and perhaps even spoiled a little, for Julia could scarcely bear to chastise her. Not that she needed to. Nancy followed her around the house as soon as she could toddle, helping with the chores or playing with her favourite toys, a rag doll Julia had made for her and a tambourine which John brought back for her from a voyage to Spain.
His frequent absences were the only blot on an otherwise idyllic landscape, for Julia missed him sorely when he was away. When Nancy took her first faltering steps she longed for him to be there to share the moment with her; Nancy’s first word was ‘Papa’ and he was not there to hear it.
But the separations kept their love fresh and new. Each time he returned home and they fell eagerly into each other’s arms it was like the first time but even better, for now there was the ever-growing bond between them, their shared life and dreams for the future, the certainty of their love for one another. Julia learned almost to treasure the pain of parting when she stood in the harbour, Nancy in her arms, to watch his ship set sail, for she knew that her joy would be the greater when he returned.
Sometimes the wives of the captains or first officers sailed with their husbands. Since that first voyage when she had run away with him, Julia had not done so, for she felt it was unfair to a baby to subject her to life on board a packet. But in the summer when Nancy was two the Guinevere was detailed to sail to Madeira and John suggested they should accompany him.
Remembering her own terrible seasickness on her first voyage, Julia hesitated. Suppose Nancy should be as ill as she had been? Suppose she should be ill again herself and unable to care for the little girl? But John laughed off her fears. Nancy was his daughter through and through – she would take to the water just as he had. And if Julia was ill it would be for only a few days and he was certain there would be plenty of willing nursemaids amongst the crew, all of whom adored Nancy and loved to play with her, tease her, or jog her on their knee whilst they sang rousing sea shanties to her.
At last Julia agreed. The temptation to be with John was too great. It was to prove to be the most fateful – and tragic – decision she had ever made.
* * *
The outward voyage passed pleasantly enough. Nancy showed not the slightest sign of sea sickness. She played happily in the cabin and was thoroughly spoiled by the officers and crew. Julia herself, after a day or two of queasiness, found her sea legs. She loved watching John go about his work by day and when he was not needed on deck she revelled in the luxury of falling asleep in his arms at night.
They were approaching Madeira when disaster struck – a mast snapped, badly injuring a crewman, and the Guinevere was forced to limp into port. But as John made arrangements for the repair of the mast and the crewman began a slow but sure recovery from his injuries, Julia had no premonition that a chain of events that would change her life for ever had been set in motion.
She fell in love with Madeira, the soft warm air, the towering green mountains, the exotic perfumes on the gentle breeze.
‘Oh, John, I could stay here for ever!’ she said one night when Nancy was asleep and they sat on the verandah of their lodgings sharing a drink and watching the sun set over the sea.
‘At present it looks as if you might get your wish,’ John said seriously. ‘The repairs are taking a good deal longer than I had hoped. Men here work more slowly than they do at home – it’s the warm sunshine, I suppose. It makes them lazy.’
Julia stretched luxuriously.
‘Well they can be as lazy as they like so far as I am concerned. Truth to tell, I feel lazy myself!’
His gut stirred. ‘Too lazy to make love to your husband?’ he teased her, and when he reached for her, drawing her close, it was easy to forget his nagging concern over the continual delays with the repair work.
But next day he was fretting about it once more. With the Guinevere in dry dock he was losing money he could ill afford – the crew’s wages still had to be paid. Worse, the delay would mean that the calm summer weather would be at an end before they reached home. John knew all too well the storms that could blow up; he did not like the idea of Julia and Nancy having to endure such uncertain conditions. But complaining to the native workers seemed only to make matters worse.
There was nothing for it but to make the most of these stolen weeks, enjoy the opportunity to spend time with his beloved wife and child, and pray the storms they would almost certainly encounter would not be too severe.
Seventeen
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br /> I was in turmoil. To whom could I turn? I could trust no one in this dark house, not even, I thought, Mrs Durbin, for although I had no doubt but that she cared for Julia, she and her husband depended on Francis and Selena for their livelihood, the very roof over their heads. And with so many years in their service, the Durbins must surely feel a sense of loyalty to their employers. If one or other of them should mention that I knew this terrible secret, I feared the consequences.
By the same token I did not feel able to confide in Tom. He was too close to Francis. And however much I might try to make excuses for him I could not avoid the unpleasant suspicion that he was out for his own ends. I did not understand his reasons for snooping and searching for a ship’s bell, but the fact that he was prepared to do it said things about his character that I did not like and could not deny in spite of the attraction he held for me. There was a hard edge to Tom that disturbed and even frightened me a little. He could be ruthless, I sensed, and I was not sure enough of his feelings for me to trust him.
There was only one person in the world I felt truly sure of. My dear Joshua. But Joshua was not here. He was far away on the north coast, in St Agnes. I turned the problem over in my mind and finally came to a decision. I must arrange to go and see him. Joshua would know what to do. Joshua would help me.
‘I would like to visit my brother,’ I said to Francis.
Francis looked puzzled – almost momentarily alarmed, I thought.
‘Joshua Palfrey,’ I explained. ‘You remember he came to call on the day of the fair? I miss him greatly and I was hoping I might be entitled to a few days off. I have had precious few in the months I have been here.’
Francis considered. ‘I dare say it could be arranged. I will speak to Selena.’
My heart sank. That one was likely to say she could not spare me, I thought. But in the event she agreed. I wrote to Joshua to make the arrangements and eagerly awaited his reply.
Morwennan House Page 20