Beneath the Attic Read online

  “Would you know the train schedule?” I asked.

  He brightened with the opportunity to help me. “Where ya goin’?”

  “Alexandria.”

  “Oh.” He sifted through some papers and looked at a card. “Today?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “There’s a train at four thirty and nothing else until tomorrow.”

  “Thank you,” I said, rewarding him with one of my best smiles.

  I turned back to my telegram and pondered how to say this. I didn’t want to write anything that would even hint about what had happened. Of course, there would be lots of questions. As far as my mother was concerned, I had made such a big thing of my coming here to visit my great-aunt Nettie that my immediate return would sharpen her curiosity but feather her suspicions. My father, of course, knew my real reasons. One way or another, I would have to face him with something of the truth. But not now, not in a telegram. Just say it, I thought, as simply as possible.

  Dear Daddy,

  I’ll be coming home on today’s four thirty train.

  Corrine

  I handed it to the telegraph operator and paid him. Of course, he had to read it to send it, but he tried to make it look like he wasn’t thinking about the words.

  “You can watch me do it,” he said after he took my money. “They’ll be reading it on t’other end almost as soon as I send it.”

  Maybe he thought I was thinking he’d take my money and not send it or something, or maybe he just wanted me to be standing in front of him as long as he could get me to do it. I didn’t think I looked particularly pretty today, but then again, I was probably one of those women who couldn’t look unattractive to any man. He smiled, and I watched him.

  “You coming back to Charlottesville, I hope,” he said as he tapped out the words.

  “Maybe for a funeral,” I said, and his smile leaped off his face.

  “Oh. Sorry about that,” he said.

  Not as sorry as I am, I thought, and walked out to find Hazel. I found her choosing some fish for dinner. She was talking so quickly and excitedly about how she was going to make it and her special mashed potatoes that I almost didn’t have the heart to tell her what I was doing.

  “And I’m doin’ a pie for us, my apple pie with a secret ingredient. I brought that recipe from England,” she added in a whisper, as if she thought someone would overhear it and claim it for her own.

  “Don’t buy too much or do too much, Hazel,” I said. “I’m leaving on the three thirty to go home.”

  Her face seemed to regain years and lose every speck of hope and joy. “Why is that? You just arrived. After another day or two, your great-aunt might remember you without me introducin’ you again and again. And she has so much stored up that she can tell you about your family, your mother’s side, of course. She knows things no one else does, and there’s nothin’ as valuable to you as your own history, dearie.”

  I didn’t want to tell her that my mother’s family history held little interest for me. In fact, for me, nothing in the past mattered. It was only the future, my future, that commanded my thoughts and dreams. Right now, that future looked bleak again. It wouldn’t be long before my mother would convince my father I should be married to this man or that. She cherished the idea that she would put me in the direction she chose. It was almost as if marriage was a prison sentence, and she, influencing my father to help make it happen as she wanted it to happen, was the judge and jury.

  “The girl’s not sensible enough to find the proper husband on her own,” she’d say. I was like a playwright constructing my own drama, dialogues and all.

  But I could say none of this to Hazel. My mother might contact her with a letter and ask horrible questions. Poor Hazel would be forced to write things she never would say.

  “I know. And thank you for making me as comfortable as you could, Hazel.”

  Her face twisted with frustration. She tossed back the bigger fish she had chosen and nodded. “I don’t need much, then,” she said sadly, and finished her shopping quickly. She was quiet until we had started back to the house. “That man disappointed you?”

  I was silent, but she heard my thoughts.

  “Let’s just say it hasn’t turned out as I thought it might.”

  “Your aunt’s maybe lost her wits, but her memory of the Foxworths might have done you good service,” she said. She nodded to herself. “Probably a good thing you came and heard her, even if you haven’t stayed much more than a day.”

  I wasn’t going to make her feel better about it by saying I’d be back soon. I had no doubt Hazel would see through a false promise better than I could. She had probably lived through tons of them, growing up poor and being someone’s servant from the moment she could lift a washcloth. I wondered what would become of her the day after my great-aunt’s funeral, which was probably a day rising on the horizon like the morning sun.

  “Do you have any family left in England, Hazel?”

  “I have a younger sister who works for a Lord Appleby in Oxford. He and his wife live in a large manor house with ten bedrooms. We have an understandin’ that I’d return when the time came and help her with her duties. You young people don’t put as much value on it these days, but family is the best gold you’ll find. It takes some almost all their lives to realize it,” she added. “And by then, it’s usually too late. Worst thing on God’s green earth is dyin’ alone.”

  My abrupt leaving obviously had opened the door to dark thoughts and memories for her. I felt more guilty about that than anything.

  My great-aunt’s house came into view. Maybe because of what had happened, it looked more dilapidated and run-down than it had when I arrived.

  “If you want, you can leave your clothes for me to wash, and I’ll have them shipped home.”

  “Oh no,” I said, maybe too sharply, but I was worried about a bloodstain.

  She didn’t say anything until we reached the front door. “While you’re gettin’ your things together, I’ll send a boy to fetch you a carriage taxi to take you to the station,” she said.

  “Thank you, Hazel. I will miss you.”

  She glanced at me with a face full of skepticism, a face that said, Don’t bother with that. I’ve swum my way through lies of every kind. I wondered how long it would be before I added her expression to my own catalog of telling looks. I was that miserable about myself. It clung to every part of my body like honey would if I had bathed in it, but there was nothing sweet about this feeling, nothing at all.

  Without much to pack, I had my bag ready quickly and started down the stairs. Hazel was sitting with my great-aunt, who had just woken but was still dazed from her sleep. When she looked at me, she wasn’t surprised, but she didn’t show any signs of recognition, either. It was as if she was looking through me.

  “Your carriage just arrived,” Hazel said. She was holding my great-aunt’s hand. “I just started to tell her you were leavin’.”

  “I’m sorry I have to go so soon, Aunt Nettie. I’ll try to come back.”

  “Rosemary’s daughter’s leavin’, Nettie.”

  Her eyes widened as she became more fully awake. “When Rosemary was a little girl, she broke her finger climbing a tree. My sister wanted to give her a whipping, but her husband wouldn’t hear of it. Rosemary loved her daddy, but she didn’t have him long, and she was as jealous as a Barbary pigeon.”

  Hazel smiled. “She does that on and off these days, remembers things way back and spins them out and then doesn’t talk for hours. You gotta be around to scoop them up. She can’t hold a pen long, or I’d have her write some of it down.”

  “Who was she jealous of?” I asked, now truly curious.

  Hazel looked at my great-aunt, who was just staring at me now. “Who else,” Hazel asked me, answering for her, “but other girls who had their fathers to love and have them love them?”

  It was as if a curtain had been opened a little. Hazel was right. Family history was important. It could
help you realize who you were and who your parents really were. But right now, I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to forget I was here. Nevertheless, I put down my bag and hugged my great-aunt, who looked at me with surprise and delight.

  “She’ll talk about her sister all day now,” Hazel said, rising to walk me to the door and then out to the waiting taxi. The driver had taken my bag and started to help me in when Hazel reached out for my arm.

  “When you have a bad memory, Corrine, you think of dippin’ a spoon into the ocean. Don’t hold the memory long. Drop it back in, and tell yourself you’ll never find that spoonful again. That’s what my daddy taught me.”

  She hugged me, and I got into the carriage. As we pulled away, she nodded, waved, and then turned to go back into my great-aunt’s house, where my great-aunt waited to spin her memories like pieces of a puzzle, a puzzle she would never finish. Even so, I was still feeling sorrier for myself.

  Once I was on the train and looking out the window, I couldn’t help my wishful imaginings. In my fantasy, Garland, realizing how upset I was, went to my great-aunt’s house and found out I had just left. He whipped his horses and came running to the train station. As soon as he set eyes on me, he apologized and begged me to stay, offering to buy me new dresses and shoes. Of course, I would get off the train. He’d have a wonderful dinner for us at Foxworth Hall. He’d hire musicians to play for us while we ate and the piano player to play his new piano in the ballroom afterward. Everyone would be working harder to please me. I’d be treated like a queen.

  When the train jerked and started forward, I was still imagining my romantic scene. I didn’t look back, however, and soon my eyes were closing, and I was feeling tired again. I fell asleep quickly. At one point, the train rocked harder than usual, and I woke. Other passengers looked concerned and frightened, but whatever had caused it passed, and the remainder of the ride was uneventful.

  My father was waiting for me at the station in Alexandria. I knew from the expression on his face that he was upset. He took my bag without saying hello or hugging me and walked out to his carriage. I got in quickly, and he started away. It wasn’t until then that he began to speak.

  “What turned you around so soon?” he asked.

  I quickly decided to blame it all on the house and Great-aunt Nettie’s condition.

  “Hazel had to keep reminding her who I was. The guest room was disgusting. There were spiders in the dresser drawers. I didn’t take my clothes out of my bag. They have no hot water most of the time. The ceiling in my room looked like it might fall in on me.”

  “What are you not telling me, Corrine?” he asked sharply. “It’s better you tell it all to me before we get home and your mother starts asking you questions. She may look oblivious at times, but she’s keen.”

  “I didn’t like Charlottesville. It’s too busy,” I added.

  He shook his head. “You saw Garland Foxworth, didn’t you? We both know that was your chief reason for going there. Well?”

  “Yes. He came to see me late yesterday, and we talked in the living room. It was embarrassing to bring anyone in there, much less a man as wealthy as he is who lives in what’s practically a castle.”

  “So you went to his home?”

  “No,” I said, probably too quickly. “He promised to come by at noon today to take me there and give me a tour, but he sent a messenger instead to say he was called away on business and wouldn’t see me while I was at Great-aunt Nettie’s. He wrote that maybe he could do that some other time,” I added, not hiding my bitterness. At least, this part was true.

  “Is that all of it?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  I wasn’t fond of lying to my father, but I couldn’t tell him about the night before. I certainly couldn’t tell my mother. I had no one to tell, no one to confide in who would sympathize. I wouldn’t even tell Daisy, who would be shocked and worried that if something like this could happen to me, what would happen to her? Any of my other girlfriends would luxuriate in my discomfort. I knew how jealous of me they were and how happy they would be learning I had been seduced. Drugged was more the way I saw it. Drinking all that limoncello was as damaging as smoking opium, not that I had ever done that. I had just read about it and heard stories about young girls who were sexually assaulted in those dens of sin. How was it any different for me? Where had I been if not in a den of sin that just happened to be located in a great family mansion?

  My father glanced at me and then looked forward, silent all the rest of the way home. I couldn’t remember a time when I felt more miserable. As I anticipated, my mother practically pounced when I walked in the door. She came flying out of the living room, ready to pin some crime on my chest.

  “Well? What did you do to upset my aunt?”

  “What? I didn’t do anything to upset her. Who said that?”

  “No one has to say it, Corrine. You were so determined to visit her and made light of any of my warnings about her condition, Hazel’s, and her home. So what happened if they didn’t ask you to leave after spending only one night? Did you make fun of them, criticize them, mock the condition of the house, and make them feel terrible?”

  My father stood behind me, waiting to see what I would say to her.

  I put down my bag and started to cry. He didn’t come over to hug me or save me from my mother’s burning glare, however, so I took a deep breath and wailed through my words, hopefully putting on the most convincing act I could.

  “You were right. I should have listened to you. It was worse than you described. The guest bedroom was more disgusting than . . . than a woodshed. There were spiders and cobwebs and mouse droppings. I couldn’t bathe because they were having trouble with their burners, and my great-aunt . . .”

  “What?”

  “She doesn’t know where she is. Without Hazel, she would starve or wander off and die in a ditch,” I added. “It wasn’t any sort of holiday for me. I was afraid to breathe. The room I was in probably hadn’t been used for years and years. I opened the window, but I couldn’t get rid of the smells, and all the dust from the street came flowing in. I think maybe something died in that room recently,” I added. “How would they know? Why didn’t I listen to you? I promise, though, I didn’t say anything about any of that. I think Hazel assumed I was just bored. I’m not used to old people.”

  She looked satisfied, especially since she was being proven right. She took a deep breath and nodded. Now she was feeling sorry for me.

  “I told your father not to let you go, but no one listens to me in this house. Go give yourself a nice bath and rest,” she said. It felt like any moment she was going to bless me like the pope because I had confessed.

  I picked up my bag and started for the stairway.

  “You can leave your clothes to be washed. Bugs could have crawled into that bag and will escape into this house.”

  “Oh no, I don’t think . . .”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Harrington?”

  “Do as your mother asks, Corrine. I’m going to see to the horses.”

  It was difficult to look at him, because I could see he knew I was holding something back from him as well. Who knew me better than he did? I nodded and dropped the bag.

  “Have you eaten anything?” my mother asked.

  “Very little.”

  “Then maybe you should come down after your bath and have something before you go to sleep. Wash your hair,” she added. “Bed bugs can burrow into your head.”

  I wasn’t thinking of all this, but now that she had brought it up, I felt even sicker. I had passed out last night. Anything could have crawled through my hair without my having realized it. Wash my hair I would, and vigorously, too.

  My father left, and I started up the stairs. I glanced back to see my mother pick up the bag, but holding it away from herself as if touching it would contaminate her. That was good. She would probably close her eyes, pinch my clothes, and drop them into a basin to wash them. An hour later, I was dr
ying my hair. I was still not very hungry, but for now, I didn’t want to disobey anything my mother had told me to do.

  When I went down to eat, she had more detailed questions to ask me. My father was already retired to the living room to read his business news.

  “They weren’t living like paupers, were they? There was enough food and such?”

  “Yes, and Hazel is still a very good cook. She baked us a golden rod cake.”

  “I remember. My uncle was well-to-do, but like most women unschooled in the value of things, my aunt let most of their fortune slip through her fingers after my uncle died. Your father did his best to help her. Frankly, I’m surprised Hazel has stayed with her this long.”

  “Oh no, she loves Great-aunt Nettie.”

  She smirked. My mother always thought the worst of people first. Right now, I was thinking she might be right to be that way.

  “Didn’t Aunt Nettie say anything sensible?”

  “She mentioned your mother occasionally and told me about when you once broke your finger.”

  “She remembered that?”

  “Hazel says she remembers the first fifteen or so years of her life better than yesterday. You never talk that much about your parents,” I said. “Especially your father.”

  “I talked enough about them,” she replied, and began to put things away.

  I went right up to my room, not even stopping in the living room to say good night to my father. I couldn’t remember ever feeling this tired and was happy to sleep in my clean bed with my oversized soft pillows.

  No one bothered me the following morning, even though I had slept until nearly noon. When I finally dressed and went down to the kitchen, my mother was already outside with her two best friends, describing my trip and elaborating with her own details. After all, to them, I was headline news.

  “Young women today just don’t have the common sense we had,” I heard her say. “The best thing that could happen to my daughter is someone responsible and decent decides to ask her to be his wife. I swear, she exhausts me, and my husband is just too busy to realize what I endure. Children should be born older so you don’t have so much trouble getting them to become responsible adults.”