30. Amelia
30
AMELIA
WALHALLA, 1 APRIL 1902
ONYX: Support during stress, holds past memories that affect the present
I am folding linen in the afternoon, when the thud of my front door sets my sleeping daughter off again. Ivy’s eldest, Gwyneth , stands before me with a twisted expression on her face.
‘ Hurry if you please, Mrs Treloar . Mama said I should stay with the baby.’
‘ Whatever has happened?’ I frown.
‘ The bonfire… You must make haste. Please go…’
Dread presses a hand upon my chest. Gwyneth steps inside and lifts a grizzling Maude into her arms, then braves a short nod that does little to hide the fear in her eyes.
Smoke hangs above the cool, cloudy morning, and a thick band coats the sky. I admonish myself for not having noticed it sooner and approach the Penryns ’ cottage, my heart racing in confusion at the sound of the children’s cries. My stomach grips and churns. I have seen this before. The stench of burnt cloth and singed flesh I have known from the past. Lifting my skirts, I dash the short distance uphill, chanting under my breath for the flames to disappear.
Who has set the bonfire alight this early? Ned rids his property of dried autumn leaves and rakes them into piles but waits until nightfall to burn them.
Then I curse my lack of regard, realising Alice’s earlier enterprise. April Fools ’ Day . The older children make paper pintails to pin on their backs in a first of April tradition. Fool . So drugged from lack of sleep and sorrow, I was focused on the preparation I was making for her sister instead. To my shame, I had barely listened to Alice’s chatter.
My fears are soon realised. Scattered over smouldering charcoal are the remnants of the children’s tails. Scorched curls of dampened paper are strewn on the ground around the fire, while the refuse of twigs and leaves smoulder in the ash.
‘ Ivy ? Alice ? Alice , where are you?’ I look towards the house.
My throat constricts and fear weighs me down. Confused , I scan the faces, and pick over the children like a crow searching its mark. Searching for Alice .
’ Tis the terror in their expressions that frightens me.
Mae’s face is smeared with soot and dirt; she buries into my skirts. ‘ Alice ran away…down to the shed,’ she sobs. The poor child’s hands are red and blistered, with skin peeling like paper. ‘ Please help her. She’s burning! I couldn’t stop it.’
‘ No ! Alice ! Alice , I’m here!’ I scream and follow her. ‘ What happened?’
‘ Mama said to wait for her, but he lit the fire…he wouldn’t…he didn’t wait.’
My confusion is interrupted by Ivy’s shouting from the shed at the bottom of their plot. ‘ Quickly , Amelia , here!’
I rush towards the shed with Mae right behind me and hear what sounds like the anguished mewing of a kitten.
‘ She’s closer to this end,’ Ivy waves me to her, ‘but I cannot reach her.’
I pick up the crape of my widow’s weeds and scurry to the opposite end of the shed with my chest heaving.
Alice’s cries pierce my heart. I take a deep breath and speak in a low and even tone, my murmuring words far smoother than the thrust of my emotions.
‘ Alice …my sweet, can you hear me? Please come to me.’ I touch my fingers to Thomas’s mourning brooch attached to the collar of my blouse, still shiny and new with a lock of his hair inside.
At the sound of my voice, her wailing changes and my darling child’s cries take on a frenetic, high-pitched keening. It cuts through me like a hot knife and fills me with terror. ‘ I’m here, Alice . Hush , my darling…’
Trapped between the shed and the fence, she is well beyond my reach in the middle of the narrow chasm. Ivy leaves me to attend to Mae’s burnt hands.
‘ Please come to me, my love. I will help you…’
I beseech her to crawl to me if she can manage it. I cannot imagine the extent of her injuries. My tears fall in anguish. How can I reach her?
Suddenly , she shrieks like a banshee.
I shake the wall, desperately concerned by the scale of the problem. Then I drop to my knees and dig the earth with my fingers to make the opening larger—clawing like an animal to get closer to my daughter.
‘ Crawl to me, darling. I know it hurts, my love, but come closer. Let Mama help you…’
I shovel like a miner beneath the surface until my fingers bleed. Then a shadow appears behind me and the cold presence hangs over my head. I ignore him, remaining on my knees and willing Alice to crawl out of the narrow cavity.
‘ Those pintails are silly… I told her to take them off. I told her. But she kept dancing and running away from me. Serves her right. She’s just a stupid girl. Only sooky babies cry…’
Lionel . I curse under my breath. How I stop from flinging my hand to switch the back of his bare legs, I cannot think. I bite my lips and ignore him, for I have no care to listen to his babble now. My only thoughts are for Alice .
I continue to placate her until her moans grow softer, imagining her terrible pain. I am beside myself, wishing the pain mine to bear instead of hers. My beautiful girl. Come to me.
Unable to entice her from her position, I lean against the shed and continue whispering until her whimpering falls silent. Every so often there is a murmur, and I urge her to me. I cannot see how else to reach her.
Ned is deep in the mine and those on the other shift are too far away to help. Ivy has sent for the doctor and retrieved Gwyneth and Maude from my cottage. Lionel and the children have dispersed.
I lie on the ground and speak of where she was born, of Cornwall and the sea. I tell Alice stories of mermaids with seaweed tangled in golden hair, and of woodland faeries and the call of the wind. I insist she is as stoic as the bravest knight and as beautiful as Guinevere . I speak of anything to ease her pain and continue until my tears cease falling and blackened embers streaked with ash dry on my face. I urge a calm into my voice beyond my despair, to encourage her from her hiding hole.
Finally , Alice shuffles closer and with one last surge of agonising effort, reaches the end of the shed. I scoop up her shivering body and hold my breath to the stench of fetid flesh, sickened by the sight of her charred skin burned to a cinder. She shrieks in pain and her body shakes, her frock and pinny little more than a shredded shroud. Threads and strips of fabric are stuck to her. Gone are her beautiful chestnut curls, and her face is burned too.
Placing her on a bed, I bathe her hot and weeping flesh with cool water dripped from linen flannels. There is no sign of my sweet Alice . Grotesque burns, too many to tend, cover her body. Tears blur my eyes at the sight of skin shredding in layers like an onion. I attempt to apply a salve, but there is nowhere on her shaking body to smear it. Every inch of her is red and raw. Soon the cloths on her body are sticking too. I bite my lips in anguish; the pain and metallic taste of blood is preferable to letting her hear my cries. I must stay brave for my darling daughter.
‘ Forgive me, Mama ,’ a tiny rasping voice whispers from the faceless shape on the bed.
The doctor takes one look at the bed and shakes his head at my hopeful glance. Droplets of laudanum are eased into her mouth and Alice flinches at the bitter taste. Tears flood my eyes, spilling and running down my cheeks like a babbling brook, and drip from the tip of my chin. He touches my shoulder briefly and withdraws from the room, turning his head in a vain attempt to hide his distress.
Death is not far away now. My heart breaks for the love this child gives, and for all she signifies. How cruel to have her die before me. What merciful God would allow such a curse? Or for so young and beautiful a child to endure such a painful end?
I lean in to her whisper. ‘ I’m frightened, Mama , are you there? It is dark…will you light me a candle? I cannot see…’
I hold back a sob; searching the sockets where clear blue eyes shone a mere few hours ago. ’ Tis daylight, but for Alice , the world is ever black.
‘ Here I am, my love. I will never leave you. A candle is by your side to light the way.’
‘ Mama . I am so very tired…’
‘ Rest now, my sweet girl. You are safe. I am with you.’ I suck in a breath and then press a fist into my mouth to stifle my cry.
Her breathing alters, and the labouring groans of the death rattle begin. Ever polite and sweet natured, my darling Alice rasps her dying breaths with little complaint. With one final shudder, death comes for her and she is taken from me. Then her soul departs, and my angel leaves us mere mortals behind in this life.