by Wendy Reakes
She went to the dresser next to it. The two pieces of furniture matched, both displaying delicate marquetry and brass handles caked with dust. The second piece was a tall boy with six deep drawers. She attempted to open the one at the top, but it was above her shoulders and much too heavy for her to pull out. She pulled out the next one but that was empty. She tried the next, and it too was empty with just the same paper liners beneath it. She was about to give in, when she gave the next drawer a swift tug. It was heavier than the rest, so it came out slowly with a dragging noise that made her want to stop, for fear of being heard. The drawer was filled with white vests and long johns neatly folded and divided with yellowed tissue paper. She grimaced as she briefly wondered about the man who had once worn them.
She closed it and ventured to the next drawer down. That was filled with an array of woollen scarves, checked cloth caps and cable knit waistcoats and cardigans.
In the bottom drawer, her interest was caught when it revealed a stack of elegant boxes, some wooden and inlaid with mother of pearl, and others made of hardened paper with Savoy Gentleman’s Tailors written in scrolls over the top. She removed one and gently opened the lid. Inside was a fine silk cravat patterned with swirls of rich coloured thread. In the next box, she found black gloves wrapped in tissue while another held white evening gloves with tiny pearl buttons at the wrist.
The assortment of articles must have belonged to a man of great wealth and she wondered for a moment, that if he had died, what was the reason for his possessions being left inside the drawers and not passed down or stored for future generations? Surely, the items were too precious and well made just to discard in a dusty old attic.
Next to the dresser was a matching armoire. She opened the door on the right and discovered pull-out shelves full of gentlemen’s adornments such as garters, braces, waistcoats, round white shirt collars and formal hard shirt fronts. She reached inside the second door and opened a concealed latch. Two overcoats hung inside, a hunting jacket, a smart velvet smoking jacket, riding garments, fine linen shirts, tweeds for country pursuits and fine cloth suits for the day and the evening.
The overbearing scent of mothballs urged her to close the two doors until something caught her eye at the bottom. She leaned down and next to three pairs of black shoes and a hat box containing a shiny black topper, she found a large wooden box. She dragged it out onto the dusty attic floor.
The lid held a coat of arms like the one on the bedstead and a key protruded from the brass lock. She unlocked it and opened the lid, to find an array of items, packed and arranged as if the box had been made to accommodate them all. Shoe cleaning brushes, black and brown shoe polish, a clothes brush, a tooth brush, small bottles filled with cologne and various creams, a razor and a dish for shaving soap, hair brushes with decorative silver tops, two flasks for a warming a tot of brandy or gin, a metal cup, hand lotion, a jar of ointment, a small hand mirror, nail files and clippers with ivory handles. The items were exquisitely made and clearly belonged to someone who travelled a great deal.
Without pause for thought or conscience, Marley removed a hair brush and comb, along with the small oval mirror and the tin cup, which she thought might be useful to drink from. When she closed the lid, and went to push it back inside the wardrobe, another box at the rear caught her eye. Once again, the wood was fine mahogany, but the box was smaller than the first. She gasped when she looked inside. There, on a blue velvet tray, cufflinks made of silver and gold sat in pairs amid tie-pins of various decorative quality. A single solid gold band, a monocle and six small shirt buttons, sparkling like tiny white stars. She espied a small collection of bronze coins and as she inspected them close up, in the gloom of the attic, she could just make out the engravings. One said Lira with a monarch’s head on the opposite side and another Pesetas with a queen’s head. She didn’t know where they were from, but she knew they weren’t English coins. They were most definitely foreign.
She lifted out a solid silver pocket watch on an elegant silver chain and inside the cover, an inscription read; to my beloved on the day of our marriage, Elizabeth, June 3rd 1874. She placed it back in its box and tucked everything back inside, all except one item, which she put amongst her other finds on the floor.
As she stood up, she noticed in the corner of the attic, in-between the two chests and the robe, a valet-stand on three legs, where behind, leaning against the wall, was a collection of cricket bats and wickets, fishing tackle of nets and rods, a pair of oars, two swords and a musket and a rolled-up flag set on a pole. She stepped through the furniture and pulled up the heavy fabric at the corner of the flag. She knew the emblem because she’d seen one before when a travelling tradesman came through Mells selling books and bolts of fabric. She remembered him because the cart he’d pulled was of a curious design, with a rounded canopy over a flatbed base and a circular opening at the back so that she could see all the way through to the front where the tradesman sat steering his black and white speckled mare. At the side of the strange canopy draped a Union Jack with a crown and a golden sun in its centre with a slogan Heaven’s light our guide. When she asked her uncle what he’d made of it, he told her it was the emblem of the British Empire in India. At the time, she wished she could buy it to give to her brother Brent to drape over his bed, but the cost of it would have bought a leg of lamb to feed them for a whole week.
Now that she was behind the furniture and feeling ashamedly confident that she could scrounge whatever she fancied, she found trunks and boxes stacked two high. She worked the first box to the edge of the one beneath and it fell to the floor with a thud. She stopped and pricked her ears for any reaction to the noise. For all she knew there could have been someone below, or even the groundsman who’d come looking for a runaway. Her! The thought of being discovered and taken back made her heart beat faster as she imagined that cad taking what he wanted from her, while uncle encouraged the scoundrel.
Detecting no more movement, she opened the box on the floor. It was a marvellous find, since it was full of folded newspapers and pamphlets stacked to the brim. She wondered why anyone would keep them instead of using them for making up the many fires around the house, but as she read the headline of the one on top, The London Gazette, dated 1st January 1801, she deduced they had been kept as a reminder of major events, some she had never even heard of.
The first headline read, Great Britain and Ireland merge to become the United Kingdom. She flicked to the Gazette underneath the first. Royal Navy dominates the seas, defeating French and Spanish fleets. That one was dated 21st October 1805. She had heard about the Battle of Trafalgar when uncle had taken her and Brent into Bristol, and while he worked, he allowed them to visit the museum. It was one of the most memorable days in her young life, since it was a day when uncle had let them partake in something interesting without any grumbling on his part.
She found myself seated on the floor as the journals engaged her interest. October 23 1815 Napoleon exiled to St. Helena. She read a sample of a letter written by an ally of Napoleon, Comte de Las Cases, who had kept a diary.
‘The Emperor Napoleon, who lately possessed such boundless power and disposed of so many crowns, now occupies a wretched hovel, a few feet square, which is perched upon a rock, unprovided with furniture, and without either shutters or curtains to the windows. This place must serve him for bedchamber, dressing room, dining room, study, and sitting room; and he is obliged to go out when it is necessary to have this one apartment cleaned. His meals, consisting of a few wretched dishes, are brought to him from a distance, as though he were a criminal in a dungeon. He is absolutely in want of the necessaries of life: the bread and wine are not only not such as he has been accustomed to, but are so bad that we loathe to touch them; water, coffee, butter, oil, and other articles are either not to be procured or are scarcely fit for use…’
Marley was so engrossed in the article relating the plight of the French emperor, that she’d failed to be alerted to the sound of footstep
s coming up the stairs towards the attic entrance. It was only when they reached the top and opened the door, she stopped her rustling of paper and sucked in her breath.
Chapter 6
Hidden behind the gentleman’s armoire, she was grateful for having fortune on her side since she was out of sight of the one who had entered her secret abode. She was hidden, but that wasn’t to say the intruder wouldn’t sidle behind the furniture and find her.
The heavy footsteps were familiar. It was the groundsman again. Perhaps he had heard the box of newspapers fall to the floor and now he was there to investigate what had made such a thump. She wondered if he’d imagined the maker of the noise to be an intruder of the human kind or animal. Rodents wouldn’t be unheard of in an attic, or perhaps he imagined bats. She prayed he wouldn’t venture further along the attic to the end, where he would see the bed newly assembled and neatly covered in blankets, and where a wooden clothes horse had been erected on the terrace outside the windows. Not forgetting footprints embossed in the dust on the floor.
The sound of his boots halted on the other side of the armoire, where behind she stopped a whisper of a breath leaving her body. She could feel herself building up to a sneeze made from the dust circling the attic. She closed her eyes as she heard the groundsman’s footsteps turn-about. He walked along the floorboards and down the three steps to the entrance. The door opened and closed again and just before she released a sigh that was to sound as loud as two symbols, she heard him turn a key.
Now she was trapped. Locked inside the attic.
She wondered if she should call out and alert the groundsman by her own accord. It was a terrifying moment of contemplation. Should she…or not? How could she live up there without provisions of any kind? What if she was maimed somehow? Who would come and rescue her? Then, as if an angel had placed his hand on her trembling shoulders and whispered a word in her ear, she stopped her moment of panic and began to think more strategically. Soon, the family would be back and Celia would be there to release her from captivity. Yes, that would work. In the meantime, she should fare as best she could with what little food she possessed. But what of water? She had nothing to drink. How would she quench her thirst without liquid of any kind?
A few minutes had passed by the time she finished her worrying. Gratefully assured the groundsman was now gone, she took the newspapers from her lap and placed them on the floor and when she happened to look up to the beams running along the attic ceiling, to the cobwebs hanging and draping like flimsy transparent curtains, she spotted an opening in the roof. It was only small. She doubted if she could have put a finger through it but she could still see a dot of blue sky beyond. Her eyes travelled downwards to three stacks of old tea chests. One of the stacks had tumbled slightly, leaning at a precarious angle, but the stack just below the opening in the roof was straight and the crate was a different colour from the rest.
She climbed over some chairs to get to it and by chance, just as she was about to place her bare foot on the floor once more, she looked downwards to a mouse trap with some hard, rotten cheese still in situ. She moved her foot to the area alongside it and imagined just for one thoughtful minute, what would have happened if she hadn’t noticed it and the darn thing had sprung and trapped her toes? The notion wasn’t helpful. She needed to carry on, regardless of any potential mishaps.
At the other side of the attic, just below the eaves, she arrived at the place where the crates were stacked and began her ascent by placing one foot on a protruding corner and working her way upwards. Her hardened soles after years of running barefoot served her well now as she gripped each corner with strong and pliable toes. By the time she reached the third crate, she was able to look over the top one and see inside.
Brent had always called her resourceful. Despite her precarious position up there on the chests, she still managed to recall an occasion when she was nine and Brent had badly hurt his foot whilst out in the meadows beyond uncle’s house. He was unable to walk, and his ankle had swelled to the size of a football. “Go fetch help, our Marley,” he’d said as he panted through the pain.
“I will,” she’d replied, “but first I should bind that ankle. It could be broken.” With that, she went and whipped off her shawl and ran to the stream only a few yards away. She dunked the shawl in the water and wrung it out again, running like the wind back to where her brother writhed in pain on the grass. “Here,” she directed. “Give me your foot.” She tied the sodden shawl around his ankle and pulled it tight.
He’d yelled out, but when she accused him of being a baby, he stopped his whining as she set off back to uncle’s house. Most of the villagers were out working in the fields so when she came across two friends playing hopscotch in the square, she called for them to help. When they returned, the three of them were pushing uncle’s old wheelbarrow and calling out to Brent that they were coming. By the time they got him on board, the three girls were giggling so hard, it took time to lift the barrow up onto its wheel and cart Brent back to the house. That was when he called her resourceful. And she was only nine at the time.
Now, as her resourcefulness had once again helped her to get out of a tricky situation, there, as she peered into the tea chest, she found it full to the brim of pure rain water. She had found her heaven-sent, much needed water supply.
She was getting tired. It must have been close to midday as the attic became stifling in the heat of the sun bearing down upon the roof. She had only been up there for a day and already her mind and body had resorted to survival mode. That instinct seemed bizarre as she contemplated how her intent to remain there longer than necessary wasn’t part of the plan at all. She supposed she was preparing for the worse possible outcome: that Celia wouldn’t return for a few more days yet, if indeed she returned at all.
Now that she’d found water, she was desperate for that cup of tea. She didn’t think she could go another hour without a brew, let alone another couple of days.
She used the tin cup from the gentleman’s belongings and filled it with water from the tea chest. She almost succumbed to stealing a sip, but she knew the water could be contaminated, maybe with lead from the roof. She needed to boil it first to rid it of its impurities and to make it drinkable.
Her biggest challenge was going to be making up a fire. She already knew how she was going to accomplish the feat, but her biggest quandary was how she was going to keep a fire going without the smoke wafting upwards and over the terrace, thus alerting the groundsman. She could have gotten away with it if the family was in residence, using the smoke from their flames through the chimneys to disguise her own. But since she was alone in the house and the groundsman was probably watching for any sign of disturbance, she would be hard pressed to conceal any smoke generated by her fire. Finally, realising she had little choice in the matter, she decided it was time to take a risk.
The items she’d already found were beginning to serve her well. She used the cut-throat razor to shred small pieces of lint from one of the gentleman’s vests and she’d taken a newspaper from the collection of issues, ripped out some pages before rolling the pieces into small tubular shapes. She used a journal which perhaps held less importance than the papers on top. In terms of historical points of interests, the one she chose was dated 1820, with its bold print reading, Antarctica Discovered. She confessed to having little interest in the tales of Caption C. Scott, although his demise along with his team, in 1819, allowed her a small amount of pity for explorers of foreign lands, like her. She was about to add the journal to her pile of collectables, when an additional article at the bottom of the page caught her eye. Surviving the Great Outdoors. Now, she wasn’t one for believing in angels, but how strange, she thought, to find something so relevant to her particular dilemma. How to make a Dakota Fire Pit. She had to chuckle to herself since the instructions were way beyond her comprehension. Regardless, the apparently smokeless fire was meant for outdoors, not for an attic that could potentially catch fire. No, she had n
o intention of following the directions of a fire making method when she had all the knowledge she needed just by lighting fires in uncle’s house and the fields outback.
In the wooden box of gentleman’s accessories, sitting in its centre was a metal tripod holding a small silver coloured bowl. She guessed it was used for shaving soap and water when the gentleman was travelling, but for her, it would be a perfect substitute for an ingle and cooking vessel. She went to the drawers of the tall boy and removed the second drawer down, then she turned it on its upper side. As she suspected, thin wooden gliders ran along the underside, perfect little pieces for making her fire. She took a metal nail file from the box and used it to prise off the runners so that they fell into her hands to use as kindling. Then she pushed the drawer back into its slot.
She’d found a single lead slate on the terrace outside. She thanked the angels once more for allowing the slate to slip from the roof into her welcome and needy hands. Upon it, she piled the kindling, criss-crossed with bits of lint from the white vest and small strips of paper. The hard part came when she had to light the fire.
Using the monocle, she’d swiped earlier, she angled it towards the sun just outside the attic windows hopeful of catching a reflection of rays. Her hands ached after holding it for more than forty minutes, blowing tiny breaths upon the kindling below the paper. She was about to give up as her mouth dried to the point of having to lick her lips with her own decreasing supply of saliva, when suddenly, she saw a wisp of smoke rising from the fire. She sucked in her breath as she held the eyepiece steady over the point of burning, while praying the sun would shine harder for her. When the smouldering paper caught alight, she almost cried for joy. She contained her excitement as she placed the tripod over the top. The tin cup, filled with water, sat nicely above it.
