Whispers in the Dark by Jonathan Aycliffe Page A

myself fortunate to have a pair of old shoes and a cheap hat and an evening off once a week. I was old enough for the streets, my body was grown enough to be worth a shilling or two to a sailor in Newcastle or South Shields; but I knew next to nothing of that trade, just the nods and winks I had observed listening to other girls gossiping in the workhouse.
    Summer passed. Some days the heat in the kitchen was unendurable. I slipped out into the yard whenever I got a chance, which was seldom enough, and looked over the yard wall and the roofs of the houses round about, up at the blue sky, wondering what it must feel like to be out there, to be as free to come and go as a bird. In its way, summer was worse than winter. I cried more often, alone at night on my scraps of rag. And I thought of Arthur, of the games we had played in our garden at home, where flowers had blossomed and huge trees cast a welcome shadow on soft grass.
    Autumn arrived with soft winds, then hard. The days flickered past, one rushing into the next without distinction. One night, very late, I wakened suddenly from a dream to hear the wind kicking and squalling in the streets outside. Something heavy was rolling back and forth in the back alleyway. I could not shake the dream out of my head.
    I had seen my brother Arthur. He had been standing alone at a window in a dark house, with a light behind him, the pale light of a candle. He was scratching at the window with his hands, scraping his fingernails against the glass, as though trying to escape from something. I could still hear the scratching, it would not go away. And suddenly, in the dream, I had realized that I myself was standing in the room in the dark house, in the room with the candle, and that Arthur was outside the window, that he was scraping hard with his nails, trying to get in. And I had not wanted him to enter. I had been afraid of his pale face and his long, thin hands.

    In October, the first signs of winter appeared. There was a day of hail, and a day so dark the lights were left on from early morning. The next day something wonderful happened. At least, it was wonderful to me. There was a new arrival at the back door, someone—so Lottie said— come from the workhouse to be lady’s maid to the oldest daughter of the house, Miss Emily, now turned fifteen. I was in the kitchen when the new girl entered, and I nearly dropped the pan I was scrubbing when I caught sight of her: it was Annie, barely recognizable in a cap and shawl, shivering on the doorstep.
    Venables brought her through the kitchen before whisking her away to the maids’ room in the attic. As she went by she turned her head and winked at me. I could barely contain my excitement.
    That night I lay awake, knowing how close some sort of salvation lay. Every day after that, I waited impatiently for Annie to appear. The longer I waited, the more my hopes fed off her, the more I fantasized about our reunion. But it was over a week before we had our chance. On the second Sunday after her arrival, she sneaked downstairs after lunch.
    I shall never forget the look on her face when she clapped eyes on me. She just stood staring at me, up and down, as though I were a freak in a sideshow at the Hoppings. When she finally spoke, her voice was low, as though she were trying to keep it hushed in the presence of the sick.
    “What have they been doing to you, Charlotte? You’re like a skeleton.”
    The next moment we were in one another’s arms, both of us in tears, then Annie had me at arm’s length, clucking and tutting like an old hen.
    “You’ve got to get away from here,” she said at last, “You’ll kill yourself if you stay on.”
    “Get away?” The thought terrified me, as much as the idea of spending the rest of my life in the Lincotts’ kitchen. “Where to? Where can I go? I’ve got no money, I've got no one to go to.”
    Annie shook her head.
    “Of course you do, hinnie. You want to find your brother, don’t