The Key to Hiding

by Wendy Reakes

  Rain could feel her body sag under the weight of her emotional burden, her mother.

  Michael placed his hand on her shoulder. “I will speak to her. All right, Rain?”

  She nodded her consent, but in her heart, she already knew what her mother was going to say.

  “No, absolutely not,” her mother said when Porter showed her the letter Rain had written to Edward. “It cannot be done this way. I won’t allow you to expose yourself in a letter like this…expose us.”

  ‘I want him to know the truth,’ she signed.

  Marley stepped towards her as if she would strike her, but Rain knew her mother would never do that. “Do you have any idea what would happen to us, if we are found out?” Marley stormed. “I would surely go to gaol and perhaps even you, also. And what of dear Celia? Helping us over the years, stealing for us. What about her, Rain?”

  Porter stepped in. “Marley, I don’t think that would happen. People will understand what you went through.”

  “Really?” She faced him square on. “Can you be sure of that? Are you prepared to take the chance?” She looked at Rain. “Are you?”

  “Marley…”

  “Enough! Do you think I haven’t thought about confessing over the years? Going to the constable and telling him of my trespassing crimes? Well, I have, many times over, just so that I can give Rain a better life than this.”

  ‘Why didn’t you then?’

  Rain’s question was like a slap in the face. Marley was stunned to silence, until she said, “I couldn’t bear to lose you and I couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing you again…the thought of Celia taking the blame for my indiscretions. I couldn’t bear any of it.” She lowered her eyes, ashamed of her weakness and her inability to do the right thing.

  But Rain couldn’t blame her. She loved her mother with every ounce of her being. She could never hurt her. ‘I will give him up,’ Rain signed. ‘Let that be the end of it.’

  She walked away from them then, to sob silently on her own on the terrace outside the attic.

  Chapter 36

  RAIN

  It was dark when the carriage pulled up outside the front of the house. Rain was watching from above, stretching her body as far as she could over the balustrade surrounding the roof terrace. She knew the time Porter had been told to meet him from the station, so she’d been vigilantly alert ever since. But, now, as soon as Edward stepped out of the carriage, her view was minimal. Her disappointment was matched by her inability to forget him for her mother’s sake. Yet, her solemn duty was to withdraw from his affections, dreading endangering the two women she loved.

  Rain had no way of knowing how she was to accomplish such a task; to change her feelings, to stop dreaming and fantasizing about a life with him. All she could do was lose herself in her painting, to spend her passion on the canvas in driven strokes of the brush.

  The very next day, that’s what she did.

  It was a heavenly crisp, white day on the terrace outside the attic. The light was perfect for what she required and even though she still had to wear an overcoat to keep off the chill, she still had strength and freedom to vent her emotions over the canvas.

  Rain had told her mother not to disturb her. She was going to paint all day long, if the weather permitted.

  She tried to forget that the man she loved was in the house below her feet. She wanted to race through the forest of furniture to the attic door where she would fly down the stairs and into his arms.

  When she began that first stroke of the brush, the line was black, then grey, blended with a mixture of white and red, gone hard and then thinned. It was her favourite medium. It allowed her paintings to look three dimensional. ‘Spectacular’ her mother called them. Over the lines, she added only a thin, soft pale blue which darkened as it mingled with the grey and the black. Her hand shifted over the canvas with uneven dabs, pressing the paint into the weave, making it almost disintegrate within the fibres of the fabric.

  Edward’s face came into her head without invitation. He was simply always there and now he was guiding her hand, holding the brush at her side, breaking the boundaries of their passion for each other along a vivid, almost colourless landscape.

  Behind strokes of grey and blue, she positioned a sun, red setting, veiled by mist and clouds which prevented it from appearing no matter how hard it tried to force its way in. On the horizon, darkness threatened to overcome the image, forcing her to take over the image by destroying the beauty in its path.

  When the door opened, Rain was breathless.

  Michael and Marley appeared together from the attic. They seemed like a couple, yet they really weren’t. Not yet.

  ‘Mama,’ Rain signed with her hands stained with dried paint. ‘I would like to continue while the light is good.’

  Marley nodded. “We have something to tell you, dearest.”

  ‘What is it?’

  Marley paused as if she was unwilling to say the words she was forced to say. “Michael has offered to take you from here…to his home…as his niece…you see?”

  Rain put down her palette. ‘What do you mean?’

  Porter bowed his head as Marley spoke. “We’ve come up with a plan…a story…so that, if it is appropriate, Master Edward can court you…properly.”

  ‘Mama…’ Rain was aghast. ‘How?’

  Then Porter spoke. “Last night I had occasion to speak to the master…on our way back from the train station. He begged me to allow him to see you, even if it meant going over to Taunton while he was on leave.”

  He paused to witness her reaction, but she just stood there in stunned silence. She didn’t know what to say.

  “He said, if I would just give him the location of your family home so that he can ask you why you hadn’t responded to his letters...He said, even if I didn’t give him your address, freely, he would use all the means available to him, to find you and beg for your hand.”

  Rain gasped. Edward loved her. ‘Oh, mama.’

  Marley was watching her, waiting to see how the scene played out. She was forcing back her tears. Rain could tell.

  “Porter will come for you, very early in the morning. He will take you to his lodgings where you will wait until he can inform master Edward of your arrival. He will tell the master that you have come to visit, as your mother in Taunton (Michael’s sister), has sent you to spend time with him, to help him around the house…He will make out his leg is playing him up…”

  Porter nodded. “It’s the simplest story we could come up with. We are trying to keep it uncomplicated, for fear of being caught out.”

  Rain nodded glumly. ‘So many lies,’ she signed.

  Sternly, Marley said, “It’s the only way. We are too vulnerable.”

  ‘But you can come, mother, and we can go to Michael’s new house in the far field. That would be better, surely.’

  Porter shook his head. “The house is not ready. I can’t take your mother there yet. Not until the new year when it will be made comfortable enough for her to move in. It’s the roof, you see…and there’s no water yet.”

  Marley nodded her understanding of Michael’s dilemma. They had discussed it often, ever since he had proposed. Porter spoke directly to Rain. “We could wait…but I understand Master Edward could be sent back from leave before we reach that point.”

  Rain’s head was spinning. Could it be true? Could she be seeing Edward, in the morning? It was too wonderful to realise. ‘I have no proper clothes.’

  “Celia will see to that. She’ll provide you with a day dress.”

  Rain turned to look at her half-finished painting. ‘Is all of this really happening?’ she signed.

  Marley stepped towards her and swung her about. “Listen to me, Rain. There’s only so much we can do, in the circumstances. Edward is in a precarious position, marrying a girl with no name. We don’t even know if the mistress will allow such a match. She may reject the idea out of hand and advise Edward to marry someone with a title…do you see
? The rest is out of our hands.”

  Rain couldn’t sleep the whole night. Nor could her mother. At four in the morning, when the household was asleep, Michael came to fetch her. She would only be gone a short while, just until she saw Edward, but to leave her mother alone in the attic tore at her heart.

  Before she left, Marely took her hand. “This could be the start of a new life for you, my darling. I want you to embrace the change because how could you stay the rest of your life living in this draughty old attic?” Marley spoke as if she was convincing herself of the fact.

  “It’s alright, mama. It’s in God’s hands now.”

  Rain followed Porter through the forest of furniture, the route she knew so well. All the while she thought about her mother, how brave she was, how unselfish. Then Rain vowed, that whatever happened to her in the future, if she was to live a new life, downstairs, in the open, below the attic, she would find a way for her mother to be happy too.

  Chapter 37

  Rain was Now Married. Celia and Marley stood side by side, her hand resting upon Marley’s waist. They were staring out of the window of Celia’s own room, to the drive at the front of the house, where soon, Rain, a woman now, would ride with her new husband, in an automobile, a horseless -but not noiseless- carriage.

  “Will she be happy?” Marley’s voice was a whisper. She had asked the question, but she hadn’t expected an answer. Who could know if her girl would be content as a married woman? Would Edward encourage her to paint? she wondered.

  Celia pressed against the small of her back. “Yes. She will be very happy!”

  “That might be dangerous.”

  “Marley.” Celia snatched her hand away and swung about to look at her so that her back was next to the window. “Happiness is good. Happiness is a healthy thing, especially for a girl like Rain. It’s what she deserves.”

  “Uhmm,” Marley snarled without meaning to. “I was happy once. Remember? Before that black-haired lout took my life away.”

  “He didn’t take it away.”

  The comment almost chocked her. The words were strange coming from Celia. What was she saying? What did Celia mean?

  Marley forced her eyes from the view outside, fearing she’d miss seeing Rain and her husband drive towards the gates. How she wished she could see the front door. To watch her leave, wearing her beautiful new dress and matching bonnet. Marley’s curious expression landed on Celia’s face like a rough woollen scarf scratching the surface of her skin.

  “You took it, Marley.” Celia defied her look of innocence and stood up to her, as she had stood up to her many times lately. “You made your life this way, not he.” Her anger was rising; stirring like a boiling pot in the pit of her stomach, rising to her flushed cheeks.

  “How can you, of all people, say that to me?” Marley’s words spat from her mouth as if she was a hissing snake with fangs bared, intent on killing its prey. “You know what he did to me all those years ago. You know.”

  “You aren’t the only girl to be defiled so brutally. There are surely, hundreds of girls across the land being treated as if they have no choice in what happens to their body’s…But they are not all victims. Not all have allowed their attackers to rule over their lives…most of them…the stronger ones…have surely moved on and made their own history…” Celia’s words, cutting as they were, came in short bursts, the pauses before each statement serving as a slap across Marley’s cheek. “They wouldn’t allow their darkest thoughts to devour them…to possess them, like they were once possessed.”

  She looked back to the window where they stood like intruders looking upon a world which wasn’t theirs to witness. Her eyes went skyward to the celling, where above, Marley’s parlour served as a constant reminder of her isolated life. “Living like this was a mistake. A mistake that has lasted too long,” Celia finished.

  “Perhaps you should have told me that a long time ago, Celia. Perhaps now it’s too late for recriminations.” She was challenging her comments, but if she was honest, deep down, she knew she was right. Hurtful as it was.

  “It’s not too late.” She sat down upon her bed as if she had given up the notion of the marriage car leaving the front of the house to go along the drive. “I think….no, I know, it’s time for you to leave. Today must be the end of this life. You must start another. Begin a new chapter, Marley.” Her eyes were pleading now, changing from the urge to be direct, to suddenly questioning the words she had spoken so harshly.

  A noise struck the gravel of the drive outside. They both swung about, for a moment forgetting the words between them, to concentrate on watching Rain in the open automobile. There she was, looking exquisite in blue; her hat held down with one graceful hand as she looked upwards to the two most important women in her life. When she released her husband’s hand and raised her arm to wave, already Marley ached for her. Already, she wished she was back in the attic as a little girl, resting her head in her lap while she read to her, day after day.

  Marley lifted her fingers to her lips and pressed the kiss against the glass in the window.

  Now Rain was looking forward to the road ahead as rose petals flew in the air, in the wake of the newlyweds and their strange horseless carriage.

  Marley went upstairs before any household servants came back to their quarters. Celia had already left her, claiming the need to finish some chores. The words she’d uttered while they’d waited for Rain were still echoing in Marley’s head, stinging her conscience like needles and pins.

  Then, behind her, she heard his steps strike the floorboards until he was standing above the worn Persian carpet in the parlour. She turned to gaze at his handsome face and she felt a sudden joy. The man who she could now love freely, in a normal way, had come to take her home. His home.

  “She’s gone, Marley. The house is quiet. It’s time to come with me and leave this place forever.

  “Michael…”

  “The house is ready. It’s ours now. Yours and mine. We will live together as man and wife, as others do. It is time.”

  Marley held back her tears.

  So much had happened.

  When Rain left with Porter that morning -a month ago now- he’d installed her in his lodgings while Celia waited with her. Then after breakfast, he went to fetch Master Edward.

  As soon as he was told, Edward kicked up his heals and ran outside, to the place where Rain was waiting. When they saw each other, Celia told Marley that she had to turn her face away, so vivid was the love and the passion in their eyes. Edward proclaimed his undying love and Rain agreed to marry him on the spot.

  Later, Edward’s mother, the mistress, was livid. She tried to deter him from making such a bad decision. A decision, which could cause scandalous waves through English society, but he was unfazed. He was master now and he could do as he pleased. ‘And damn propriety,’ he’d said.

  On the matter of Rain’s inability to speak, Edward planned vocal lessons, a gift her mother could never have provided.

  Now Michael held Marley’s hand, towering over her in such a masterful way that she felt taken-aback. Not since that night when the black-haired lout had forced himself so shamelessly upon her, had a man made her feel as if she was being threatened. But this was a new type of threat; forcing her from the home she’d known for seventeen years…and the memories.

  “The same preacher who married Rain will preside,” Michael said. “It will be a small affair, but tomorrow we will be wed, proper like.”

  He reached up to wipe her tears and she smiled a half smile. “Very well, Michael. Yes, it is time.”

  He took her hand and they walked through the forest of furniture, where out of his sight, Marley ran her fingers across the wood of the dressers and broken chairs. She stroked them to offer a goodbye, to thank them for protecting them for all those years in the attic.

  The door had been left open. It was an unnatural sight, unfamiliar to her as running across a field of wild flowers. She almost faltered as she crossed the thr
eshold, but Michael’s hand held firm, offering his protection for whatever they faced ahead.

  Outside, the corridors were quiet. No servants rushed through its doors. No loud footsteps echoed around the walls. They walked past the door to the bathroom where she had once, seventeen years before, taken a solitary bath to rid herself of the evil brought onto her by the black-haired lout. She had hidden behind the door as Porter had entered, standing naked and wet, shaking like a flag in a blustery wind.

  Now, guided by him, she walked down the stairs to the bottom of the house, along the corridor past the kitchen, to the back door she had once entered seventeen years before. Beyond the door, the sun shone so bright, her eyes squinted as she passed from the gloom into the light.

  As the warm air hit her face, panic rose from the pit of her belly to the top of her head like a volcano with red hot lava about to erupt. She dragged on Michael’s hand, pulling him to a halt as she took one step backwards.

  A voice behind her said. “It’s alright, Marley. Take it slow.” Celia moved to be closer to her. She leaned into her shoulder and whispered. “I’m sorry for all the terrible things I said.”

  Marley looked to the ground. “No, you were right. I deserved the truth. I have been making excuses for too long.” Even though she said the words, a part of her defended her decision to remain in the attic for all those years. Anything could have happened in the real world. Rain could have been hurt, as she was hurt.

  “I am leaving now, Marley,” Celia said as Michael waited. “It is time for me to start a new life too.”

  “I wish you could stay. I would like you to be at my wedding. And the house will surely need caring for when Rain returns from her honeymoon. She will need you.”