The Beloved

The Quietness

The Madness

For my Beloved Mum

‘Alice? Are you asleep?' Papa's voice is like soft, warm feathers tickling my ear. I smell the familiar weight of brandy and tobacco on his breath – rich and hot – and I am reminded as always of steamed fruit puddings and the scent of polished wood. I open my eyes and the closeness of his face startles me a little. I can see the stiff white hairs protruding from his nostrils and the yellowed edges of his moustache.

‘No Papa, I am not asleep,' I say. ‘I cannot get comfortable. Please can you talk to Mama?'

‘Oh Alice,' he says, standing back up. ‘If I thought it would do any good I would go down to the drawing room this instant.' He sighs. ‘But you know what she is like. When her mind is set, there is no one in this world who can persuade her to change it.'

Papa strokes my wrist where the leather strap chafes at my skin. ‘Besides,' he says, ‘I am certain it is all for the greater good. Your mother may have her strange ways, but she loves you very much.'

‘Does she?' I whisper. I think of how Mama looks at Eli, how her eyes shine and how her voice grows soft. She has never looked at me that way.

Papa smiles down at me. ‘My darling girl. I am glad you have your own mind, but you must never question your mother's motives. She loves you and Eli more than anything. You must always remember that.'

I try to roll and stretch my arms to relieve the ache. ‘But it hurts so much! Does she mean me to be in such pain?'

‘Alice,' Papa warns.

I relax my arms and I wince as the leather straps bite into my wrists. ‘Be brave, my dear Alice,' says Papa. ‘It will not be for much longer.' He leans in to kiss my forehead and his bristles catch at my skin and set off an itch that I know I shan't be able to scratch.

‘Now Alice, I have to travel to Bristol tomorrow and will be away for most of the week. Please be good while I am gone. Can you promise me that? It will make my life a lot easier if I know I can trust you to behave in my absence.'

My heart sinks. I hate it when Papa is not in the house. ‘Please, Papa!' I try again. ‘Please speak to Mama before you go!' I blink hard and it is not difficult to summon tears. I look straight at Papa as they roll from the corners of my eyes. I see how his face softens. I see how his hands are itching to unbuckle the straps around my wrists. ‘Please, Papa,' I murmur.

But then the fear comes into his eyes and shrouds his face like a dark cloak and I know I've lost him. He will never stand up to Mama. He will never go against her wishes. I love Papa so much, but his weakness spoils everything. Why can he not see Mama for what she really is? Why does he have to love
her
so much?

He looks at me tenderly and sighs deeply. ‘Goodnight, my darling girl. Sleep well,' he says. Then he blows out my candle.

I do not reply. I turn away from him and stare into the darkness of my room. Papa walks out and closes the door gently behind him. I lie still for a moment, frozen by the anger that sits heavy and cold in my belly. I want to scream out loud and shatter the windows with my fury, but instead I begin to beat my feet and legs on the mattress, harder and harder, faster and faster, until the bedlinen falls to the floor. I pull and wrench and turn my wrists inside the leather straps. But Mama is never careless or inattentive. She has done the buckles up tight as usual. I groan and spit harsh whispers into the night air. ‘I hate you!' I scream silently at Mama. I twist my head from side to side, trying to rub my forehead against the top of my arms. The itch that Papa's kiss set off is infuriating me now.

Suddenly, I stop. Tiredness washes through me and I feel empty and numb. I know none of this flailing around is of any use. I lie still and catch my breath. My nightgown has ridden up my legs and the night air is cold against my skin. The steel bones of my stays crush my insides as cruelly as Mama tries to crush my spirit. I start to shiver and I know I have no choice now but to call Lillie.

Lillie is my lady's maid, but in reality she is Mama's little lapdog. She is thin and spiteful and carries with her a sickly sweetness that is only surface deep. And like the ruinous pollen of the flower she is named after, Lillie will drip her own poison wherever she can. Mama will not hear a word against her. She came highly recommended by Lady Egerton, you see, and as Mama is impressed beyond reason by true gentry, Lillie can do no wrong.

Lillie sleeps in the bedchamber next to mine and thinks herself very fine. Behind her back the other servants call her ‘the toffee-nosed tart'. I am glad it is not only me who dislikes her.

‘Lillie!' I call. ‘Lillie!' She will make me wait, I know it.

Lillie is a constant annoyance to me, like an unpleasant clump of horse manure that I cannot wipe from my shoe. She wakes me in the mornings, she helps me to dress, she brings me fresh water to wash with and she lights my fire. She is always in my room, fiddling and neatening and tidying. She is supposed to take good care of my gowns, but I know she deliberately tears the lace of my cuffs, then reports it to Mama who sees it as another example of my careless disposition.

‘Lillie!' I shout again. I am sure the whole household will have heard me by now.

At last, the door opens and Lillie greets me with a reluctant ‘Yes, miss?' She stands over me and the light of her candle accentuates the dark hollows under her eyes. Her black hair hangs loose and lank around her shoulders. I remind myself she is only a servant and not some ghoul just risen from its coffin. ‘Yes, miss?' she says again. Her eyes glide over the leather straps that hold my wrists to the bed and a smirk plays around the corner of her mouth. She is as ugly as a turnip.

‘I am cold, Lillie. You can cover me up.' Lillie walks around my bed, her bare feet slapping hard on the wooden floors. I remember the first time Mama strapped me to the bed, and how I foolishly thought I might be able to appeal to some soft part of Lillie's nature. I soon learned there was no soft part to Lillie's nature.

She heaves my bedlinen from the floor and flings it roughly over me. I am too tired to ask her to do it tidily. I just want to sleep now and for morning to come. ‘Anything else, miss?' she asks.

I ignore her and close my eyes. Lillie huffs loudly and slams the door on her way out.

The creak of Lillie's bed springs settles, and the small sounds of the night echo inside my head. The servants are closing up downstairs. I can hear doors being softly shut and the air stirs as the last of the maids creep up the back stairs to their rooms at the top of the house. Wooden floorboards scrape overhead. The plane tree outside my window taps a bare branch against the shutters and I think of its yellow-scabbed trunk and the small hole at the base that I made by digging out the crumbling wood with my fingers one long, boring afternoon in the spring when I was supposed to be stitching my sampler. The long-case clock down in the hall chimes eleven. I have eight more hours to pass before my hands are released.

I have learned in recent weeks that if I try hard enough I can go to a place that is outside of my body and this bed and this room and this house. It is a place where I can no longer feel the pain in my wrists or the stiffness in my sides and back. I wish for this place and sometimes it comes to me easily. Sometimes it does not come at all and the night is long and hard and cold as stone. Tonight I am lucky. Tonight my place is there ready and waiting for me behind my eyes. It is a meadow of the brightest green and I am alone in the centre of it with not another soul to be seen. I am wearing a loose shift and my hair is flying about my face as I move and stretch and run through grass that smells as sweet as freshly made butterscotch. No matter how far I run, the meadow never ends. I run faster, and the grass swipes at my bare ankles, and then I run faster still and faster and faster until my feet leave the ground and I am flying towards the morning.