Secrets of the Past

by Estella McQueen

  Saturday 27th March

  Tunney has gone to London, and much rejoicing was there at his departure. At last Amelia can come out of her room and be active around the house. She has been kept from view far too long, and her spirits are quite depleted. The spring is upon us, and I entreated her to take a stroll down by the lake. She said she would if I would join her, and so I did, relieved for once to be able to accompany her without the need to report back to T.

  Tuesday 1st June

  Tunney asks me if Amelia has written or received any letters. I know of no correspondence apart from her letters to her sister, Grace Vickers. T says, ‘Well you must read them before she sends them!’ Sir? I queried, how am I to do this? ‘Sit with her’, he says. ‘Find out what she writes’. This I promised him, but am in much of a fluster as to how I should do it or what I should reveal. What if she has written criticisms of him, which she might have done in a private letter to a sister? Such confidence might be held between them, and she would unwittingly reveal herself to her husband. It is not a task I would relish, but he has ordered me to do it, and I would keep the household harmonious if I could. Surely it would be better for a lady not to have any secrets from her husband. It is not right to do so. If I reveal to him her small misdemeanours, I might save her from making a greater one.

  Friday4th June

  Such a furore! Amelia has thrown herself into a passion. I have never heard such an argument as the one she has had with Tunney this day. She should not goad him, he takes it so ill. There has not been a minute’s peace since he arrived home. Amelia was outside in the garden painting at her easel and was unaware that he sought her company. He ordered her to come indoors and greet him properly and when she did so, he told her it was an insulting, puny manner of greeting and he could not stomach it. She was not under the aegis of her beloved family now. She was not of vaunting high status, she was his wife, she must treat him with respect. He spoke roughly to her and then we were all banished from the room, none of us saw to what ill-usage she might be put, but sure she was in disgrace from then on.

  Sunday 5th June

  A brief interlude. Tunney was out visiting his friends in the next county when Mr B called upon my lady. Such smiles did she wear, as I have not seen in a very long while. Indeed the gentleman is very popular with everyone. There never was a more personable individual, such a friendly, cool spirited gentleman. The absolute opposite to her fiery husband. Amelia did welcome him in and spent a long while in his company, inviting him to dine. All too soon she mourned his departure, but I overheard him promise to her in whispers that he would call again.

  Tuesday 7th June

  Amelia has spent the day crying, and much irritated her husband the while. Her arm is quite sore after some kind of injury, and we none of us know how it came about, although we can guess - and he has ordered her to bed, and says she must not come out again until her manners have improved.

  Wednesday 1st September

  Mr B has called again this week. He stays with his family nearby. He takes care to visit only when T is absent. Amelia is quite altered when he is present, her spirits are lifted, her happiness pronounced. We are all quite aware of his effect on her, although she thinks she is being discreet. We know better, her thoughts being much disordered in general. She knows not what she does. It cannot continue of course. I wonder at her delusion.

  Thursday 21st October

  Great rejoicing. Amelia is with child. Tunney overjoyed. Pleased with all and everyone, no harsh words, no tyrannical rages, quite transformed. He even took his tea with me, and was quite jolly for a time. Long may it continue!

  Sunday 31st October

  In the breakfast room this morning, Amelia happened to say aloud she wondered at Mr B not visiting so often, when her husband cried out in great anger, ‘never mention that man to me! If you would wound me, then say his name again, otherwise be still!’ Amelia was much alarmed; her husband had not been in such a passion for a long while. We had hoped to have seen the back of his temper, none of us wishing to make its acquaintance again.

  Saturday 15th January 1820

  Amelia has been unwell recently, she is restless and unhappy. Her husband grows quite impatient one moment, is solicitous for her health the next. We are quite giddy, keeping up with him.

  Friday 18th February

  Amelia has been in London this past week, and caused much conflict with her husband because of it. He insists she saw Mr B there, she declares it not so. Tunney asks me what I have seen, and I confess I did not see the man in person, but I was not with Amelia every single minute, and cannot be certain that a message did not pass between them. T sufficiently convinced that evil was afoot, has confined her to her room once more, something he had not done in a while. Amelia furious with him. ‘Your child, madam,’ he told her, ‘think of it, and be calm.’

  Thursday 30th March

  Great news, Amelia delivered of a baby boy this morning before dawn. Although come too early, and consequently very small, he is a pretty mite. Amelia quite enchanted, her husband quietly joyful. The household at large quite restored to happiness.

  Sunday 2nd April

  Alas, the poor precious boy succumbed last night. He did not thrive past three days, and it was necessary that the doctor must attend, although there was little he could do. Amelia distraught. Tunney equally so. I find I cannot write more at this time, I am much grieved and sore in my heart. It is too painful to think on today.

  Tuesday 30th May

  This morning, after many weeks of sorrow, Amelia professed herself eager to go into town. Tunney would have none of it. Alas, their fights grow worse. We are in for squally times once more. Her health is not what it was. He entreats her to rest and recover her wits. She accuses him of being the cause of all her woes.

  Monday 5th June

  Much alarm caused by Tunney’s temper. His wife had been playing on the harpsichord in the drawing room quite some time and with rapt concentration, when T had stormed in from the fields and demanded, ‘what is this horrible noise?’ Before Amelia had chance to speak he violently slammed down the instrument’s lid, and if she hadn’t snatched away her hands in time, he would surely have severed her fingers. Indeed I thought he must have done so, judging by the cry she gave out and the way she sank to the floor once her husband had quit the room. Then the tears came fast, and nothing I could do or say would abate them.

  Thursday 22nd June

  After much pleading, Tunney has allowed me one week’s freedom, and I travel to the Fawley’s tomorrow. Amelia, however, is forbidden to accompany me. He wishes me a swift return home. Not because he enjoys my company or presence, of course, but because he fears that I might embarrass myself in public with my ‘peculiar ways’. He would rather avoid such opprobrium.

  Friday 30th June

  Amelia much overjoyed at my homecoming, thankful that I can take my place betwixt her and her husband - assuming that I find it easy to conciliate! My hypocrisy burns me like a naked flame. How I wish I was back with my friends again. Lady Fawley introduced me to her niece, Eleanor, and her nephew, Samuel. Both were absolutely charming, Samuel in particular. I did not disgrace myself, in fact everyone seemed perfectly content in my company; I have proved that I can be trusted in public. Such a happy time I had there. Here we are all on tenterhooks, each and every day.

  I believe Amelia may suspect me of collusion with her husband. Some of her remarks to me have been most pointed. I have had to keep a check on some of my replies.

  Wednesday 12th July

  Great discord between husband and wife. I understand she has told him she cannot abide his presence. I fear he has insisted upon it. Consequently Tunney has charged me with great responsibility. I am to read all Amelia’s correspondence, all her letters. ‘Before they leave the house,’ he growls, ‘you will know what’s in them.’ Likewise, she must not receive any letters without them being opened and examined first. I cannot hope to be so vigilant, but if I make an objection, Tu
nney grows fierce with me too. ‘If it please you, you must be my eyes and ears,’ he says. ‘It does not please me,’ I say. ‘Have a care,’ he replies, ‘think what you are saying. Remember your place.’ He decrees that his wife must have no knowledge of this. She must not suspect.

  Charlie felt queasy. This was no flighty jaunt amidst Regency manners and affectation – fabrics chosen for dresses, the ordering of wigs, the acquisition of bibelots and gewgaws – it was a record of an abusive marriage. He steeled himself to read on.

  Sunday 30th July

  Amelia is not speaking. All she does is apply herself to her needlework, forever working away at the patchwork quilt. She works quickly; she is an accomplished needlewoman, almost as skilful at the work as she is with her drawing and her music. She does it to spite her husband. I tried my best to amuse him in her stead, but he was not the least bit interested in anything I had to say, taking no more notice of me than he would a fly buzzing around the tea table.

  Monday 31st July

  Amelia suspects she is with child again, but professes herself miserable. ‘I don’t want it,’ she told me, sounding horribly disturbed, it made me quite fearful for her sanity. I felt it best to impart this wisdom to Tunney, knowing full well that it would provoke him, and yet I still determined to do it. Am I quite wretched to do so? I confess I did not take joy in it, but he has pressed me so often to tell all I know, and on so many occasions I have had naught to speak of. These tiny fragments are all I can offer. He did look grave for a while, and then announced he was going out. I do not think he saw his wife for the rest of the day, but who knows what passed between them in the evening.

  Friday 11th August

  Mr B visited again this morning. Amelia had tried to keep his presence a secret, but I did spy them walking towards the woods. Some intrigue passes between them. If I were to tell Tunney what I have seen, it will not bode well for both of them. I am torn as to what I should do for the best. If I keep their secret, how will it all end? In truth, I do not know for sure that there is anything sinister in the relationship, but there is undoubtedly great affection between them. What will be the outcome? It is too much responsibility, I would rather it was out of my hands.

  Saturday 12th August

  Sad, miserable day, the most awful of days. Amelia has been much trammelled by fate these past few months. It seems an awful scene occurred between husband and wife - I know not what - and at close of it all, there was a terrible accident. Amelia had been carried indoors and put to bed, before I was summoned. I fear she has lost this baby too. I have questioned Sally and Thomasina, and neither can tell me what happened, but we can all guess at it.

  Tuesday 5th September

  A strange mood is upon Amelia, one I have not seen before. Rather than quick flashes of anger, she seems unusually calm, as though she had passed some sort of crisis. I can only welcome such a change in her, perhaps we will go on calmly henceforth. She does not know of my pretence. For how long this charade can be kept going, I know not, but Tunney has charged me with upholding it, and so I must promise him that I will do as he asks.

  Wednesday 20th September

  Tunney away again, Amelia free from her rooms. Alas not free from her wandering mind. I grow fearful of her when she is in her agitated moods. But when she is calm again she is the sweetest, most obliging creature. Although I have never felt a great affection for her, my task is a hard one to perform. I wonder how much longer the semblance can be maintained. At times I wish we could all resolve to be parted from each other.

  Saturday 18th November

  I have received another invitation from my friends the Fawleys. They are planning many festivities for the end of the year. Unlike our pitiable household which continues gloomy. Lady Fawley wishes to keep me for longer this time, but Tunney will not allow it. Such a blissful merry time I had last time, I so longed for it to continue.

  Thursday 23rd November

  How I hate this house! How I hate to be bound up in its fortunes! I wish for my own company, my own counsel. Amelia hates her husband, and he knows it. She cannot give him his heir, her babies are dead, and there is no point in torturing her any longer. He should be ashamed of himself, utterly. Where once they had managed a sedate respect for one another, it is all Amelia can endure to be anywhere near him. He has made her that way; he has worn her down with his intractable moods, his peremptory orders, his rages. He thought he could bully her into loving him, but he was wrong. She never loved him. She will always love another.

  As for me, my heart can only hope that the acquaintance I have made with Samuel might be allowed to bear fruit and my awful existence here, end. This is the only bright spot I can see for myself. How I look forward to the New Year and perhaps another visit to my friends in the spring! Tis something to cherish.

  And there the diary ended. A journal of events, painstakingly kept by the meticulous Mary Ellen, but not of her own life, that of poor ‘tramelled’ Amelia Tunney. Mary Ellen was spying on Amelia, recording everything she’d done, everything she’d said, everyone with whom she came into contact. Reluctantly perhaps, nevertheless it provided her with some purpose to an otherwise uneventful and empty existence. But what happened next? What did poor Amelia do?

  Lying on his back, Charlie gazed up at the morning sky through the skylight. For a brief, intense moment he had the strongest feeling of déjà vu, which was strange, because he was pretty sure he had never lain on a mattress, in someone’s attic, contemplating the clouds in the sky, before. It had to be a bona fide first time experience.

  Chapter Six

  Astrid was in the kitchen, pyjama-clad but barefoot, buttering some toast when Charlie joined her. ‘Want some?’ She unscrewed the lid on the jam.

  ‘Thanks.’

  She switched on the kettle. ‘Sleep all right?’

  ‘Not bad,’ he said, as they sat down together at the fold-out table. ‘The sun woke me.’

  ‘Oh God! I forgot to tell you. There’s no blind at the window.’

  In the struggle to get her up the stairs in one piece, there’d been precious little conversation; after depositing her in the bedroom he’d worked out the whereabouts of the attic room for himself.

  ‘Tipsy,’ she said, apologetically. ‘But I wasn’t hammered.’

  He demurred and reached for the cornflakes.

  She sat down opposite and rested the warm mug of tea against the side of her face, looping her thumb through the handle. ‘What we were talking about yesterday, this ability of yours, do you think you could explain it to me? Tell me how it works?’

  ‘You wouldn’t get it.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘People from the past,’ he said simply, ‘events from years before. In vivid detail. In front of me. Retrocognition is the technical term.’

  Her face was a picture. ‘Retro - what?’

  ‘Google it,’ he said.

  ‘When did it start? This retro-cognition?’

  He pondered a moment. ‘I suppose it was the day I read a Times article my grandfather had written in the Sixties. I could clearly hear his voice when I read it.’

  ‘That’s not so unusual.’

  ‘Maybe not but imagine, if you can, the timbre of his voice – the masculine tenderness of it - and imagine it soft and gentle in your ear, lulling you into a comfortable repose as warm as bedtime. Imagine you’re reclining on a soft furry throw, on a mound of fat satin cushions, with the plumpest, most luxurious of all behind your head. Imagine him as a velvet voiced Radio 4 announcer broadcasting through a pair of walnut framed speakers, and you might begin to understand the effect it had on me.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said.

  ‘And it wasn’t just his voice... I could see him writing it at his desk; I could see the things that were on his desk. I could see my grandmother reading a magazine in the conservatory, I could see my Dad lying on the sofa listening to Prog Rock -’

  She was watching him intently.

  ‘I could see my Dad’s brothe
r playing with his Eagle Eye action man; I could see a chip on the lip of a Chinese vase on the window ledge from when it got dropped once.’

  ‘You could have got all that from a photograph,’ Astrid pointed out.

  ‘I could, but I didn’t. It was a moving, breathing, active piece of action – like watching -’

  ‘A home movie,’ she interrupted, putting her mug down and shoving a piece of toast in her mouth.

  It was a familiar argument. The evidence for ‘Retrocognition’ was non-existent – impossible to prove one way or the other. Maybe he experienced some extra hard core déjà vu; maybe his brain was wired in reverse; either way it was impossible for anyone to have ‘knowledge’ of a past event if they’d never actually been there. But that didn’t explain the boy with the dog and the large stick at the end of the street, or the girl on the edge of the yellow field with the graze on her knee, crying. Or the car parked at the side of a country road in the middle of nowhere surrounded by acres of yellow plants bobbing and weaving in the breeze. Or the smell of the car’s interior; the sticky seats, the metal door handle red hot to the touch, the trickle of blood. And the woman sitting tight-lipped in the passenger seat, staring through the windscreen. Or the dozens of other experiences he’d had.

  ‘It’s dubious in the extreme, highly implausible,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’m incredibly good at invention, an accomplished, convincing story teller. It might all be happy coincidence. But I imagine you accept that certain people have a psychic susceptibility; otherwise you wouldn’t have asked me here?’

  ‘The mind can play tricks,’ she said, ‘it doesn’t mean that there are deeper forces at work.’