by Wendy Reakes
“The mistress won’t allow married couples, darling. I’ve told you…And I have to leave now. I cannot wait another day, for fear of losing my new post.”
She handed Marley a posy of flowers. “Rain asked me to give this to you. It wasn’t her bouquet, as she was concerned about Edward asking her questions, but these are the flowers which decorated the table at the wedding breakfast. She wanted you to have them for your wedding.”
Marley’s heart broke as she raised them to her face to smell the experience of her daughter’s wedding. “Thank you,” she whispered.
She stepped away from me. “Porter will take care of you now. You have nothing more to fear, I promise.” She held a folded piece of paper in her hand. “I wrote you a letter. It’s important, but I didn’t want you to know about it until you were wed and away from the attic.”
“What is it?”
She shook her head. “No matter now. Read it sometime in the future. Not now. Go with Michael. Have a happy life, dearest Marley.”
“Will I see you soon?”
She nodded repeatedly. “Of course. I will visit often.”
But somehow, deep down Marley knew she’d never see her darling Celia again.
The house was everything she could ask for. A stone construction with a pitched wooden roof like the one in her attic. But unlike the place she was used to living, the door had been left wide open to let clean air circulate.
It was cool inside, despite the agar being fired up with a large kettle on it top boiling water for tea. In front of the cooking area, a grand table with six sturdy wooden chairs placed around it, held a vase of daisies. She ran her hand along the back of a chair. “Six?”
He put his hand around her waist. “It’s not too late to make our own family, is it Marley?”
Her eyes rounded at the thought of the whole process. She was to be his wife. She was still young. It was time to make babies in the proper manner.
“And Rain…she can visit us. It is only a short distance from the house.”
She smiled and patted his arm. “I don’t think so. She is gentry now. She isn’t for the likes of us.”
He took her hand and guided her to a room that held a large bed, covered in clean, white linen sheets with an eiderdown of quilted pale blue satin. At the side, on a small table with a lamp, was another display of daisies in a small ceramic jug, and there, in front of it was an empty gilt frame, waiting to be filled with a wedding photograph of her darling Rain.
He stood behind her. “Do you like it. Are you happy?”
She turned her head to gaze at him. She nodded her approval as she offered her deepest love for the man who wanted to give her a life of hope and splendour.
“I will go back to my lodgings now. I will be back for you in the morning. We will be wed and then we can both come back here. We can sit outside and watch the sun set across our field. A field you can run in, Marley, as you did when you were a child. Remember?”
She nodded.
He went through the door and left it ajar.
When he had gone from sight, her smile faded as she picked up her step, ran outside, took hold of the wooden shutters and slammed them tightly shut, blocking out the sun. She ran back inside and forced the door closed, resting her body against it to prevent it from opening again.
Inside her pocket was the letter from Celia. She reached for it and opened it from its single fold.
My dearest Marley, it read. How unfortunate that I have to be the bearer of grave news. It is perhaps the worst time to tell you, yet I would feel I was betraying you by not informing you immediately.
Marley’s pulse quickened. How like Celia to build her up and then give her the news. It probably wasn’t even that serious. She kept reading.
Do you remember the likeness you saw in the mistress’s boudoir all those years ago, when Rain was a baby? Do you remember what we said about the image looking like the man who had tortured you so?
Do you remember the embroidery you finished on behalf of Elizabeth, George’s wife, both of them now dead, yet still Edward’s grandfather and grandmother?
Do you remember us talking about how, if he was who you thought he was, then the person in the image could be the father of our own dear Rain? Then, do you remember how you said you were sure that it wasn’t who you had first claimed it to be?
What was the point of dragging all of this up now? Marley thought.
Today, at the wedding was a guest…a man with dark hair…from out Frome way…his name was William and I believe, I’m sorry to say, that he could have been your very own black-haired lout.
Marley dropped the letter to the floor as her knees buckled beneath her body. And as her eyes scoured the darkness of the cottage with only tiny rays creeping through the wood in the shutters, she allowed her tears to fall freely, mourning the loss of her girl and her familiar attic home.
Epilogue
By now He would find her gone. Soon he will come searching, and the attic would be the first place he looked as he had three times before.
“Marley.” His voice sounded like a growl, yet she knew it was not. He was the gentlest of men.
He appeared through the forest of furniture. “I want you to come with me now, Marley.” He held out his hand, waiting for hers.
Our bodies were trembling, both his and mine.
“You can’t come back here,” he said gently, even though I could detect a mild irritation in his voice. “We are wed now. Your home is with me. I want you with me.”
She shook her head, blocking out the notion of going outside once more. Perhaps if she could just stay for a little while… “I love you,” she whispered, “but being out there…in the open…well, it makes me fear. I’ve told you, it’s too big for me out there.”
He shook his head. “Soon, your daughter and her husband will return from honeymoon. What will she say, Marley? What will her new family say when they discover her mother is living in the attic?”
She pondered that for a moment.
And as the idea formed in her head and as the words worked their way through her lips, Marley realised her future was sealed when she said, “But Michael. Nobody needs to know.”
The End
Coming soon
My Mother in the Attic
A note from the author
Thank you for reading. I sincerely hope you enjoyed ‘The Key to Hiding’, as much as I enjoyed writing it.
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If you enjoyed ‘The Key to Hiding’. Look out for my other books on Amazon. I particularly recommend:
‘LOST. Under Ground’ and ‘The Birds…they’re back.’
Until the next time,
Wendy
