Flames of Revenge

Secrets

Her voice becomes sad.

"But she was very old, and near the end she became very confused. She started to think that I was her real daughter, and I didn't have the heart to tell her otherwise." Siobhan sighed. "When the old lady died they took me away to be trained as a maid, and when I turned thirteen, they said that they had found a job for me in a big house in the countryside, so here I am."

I had never realised. I had no idea that Siobhan was an orphan too. I never thought to ask. I didn't think to care. I had been so caught up in my own misery, my own petty problems, that I never thought that I wasn't the only one.

"What's wrong, Miss Rosalynn?"

"Huh?"

I realise that I've stopped playing. My fingers hover over the ivory keys, shaking slightly.

"Oh. I'm sorry." I start playing again. Softer, this time. More thoughtfully.

I'm only now beginning to realise how young Siobhan is.

I know how she feels. In some ways, our stories are almost identical. She, too, lost her parents. She, too, was taken in by a kind benefactor. We both found out way to Chapworth manor. Perhaps it is fate that brought us together. And yet...

"Tell me about you, Miss Rosalynn," She says, her eyes wide and innocent. "You always seem so sad. Tell me what's wrong. I want to help."

What happened in my past has been my secret for all these years, my secret alone. I've not dared to tell anyone, not even that kind gentleman who took me on and taught me piano before I came here. But somehow, I feel like I can trust little Siobhan. Perhaps it's the unlikely connection we have. She's been through suffering, too. She's lost people she love, just like me.

"My parents died in a fire, eight years ago."

Siobhan gasps, clapping her tiny hands over her mouth. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Miss Rosalynn. I shouldn't have asked."

I shrug. "Being sorry about it won't change the past." I play louder, as if to drown out my thoughts. I know that if I think about it too much I will change my mind about telling her. But she deserves to know the truth about me. And besides, I'm tired of hiding everything, all the time. I tell more lies than I tell truths these days, and I want to change that.

"They were workers in a factory," I say, "We were poor, but we managed. Those earliest years of my childhood were the happiest. Mother always made sure that our clothes were clean and ironed, and that we never went to bed on an empty stomach. My parents couldn't afford to send us to school, but they taught us everything they knew. My mother had been respectable once. She had been the daughter of a wealthy family - they owned an ironworks company - I think. A long time ago."

Siobhan doesn't ask me how she had been disgraced, how she was cast off by her own family until she was little more than a pauper, and I don't intend to tell her.

"I remember that my parents were always working. They did everything they would to keep the two of us alive." Eliza and me.

I had loved Eliza so much. Even though she was less than two years younger than me, I felt like I was responsible for her. I was always so protective of her, trying my best to keep her out of harm's way. But in the end I couldn't save her.

"I had a sister too," I told Siobhan. I had thought that digging up all these buried memories would hurt, but strangely it doesn't. I feel so detached from it all. So emotionless. "Her name was Eliza May, and I loved her more than anyone else in the world."

I tell her about ice-skating on the Seine when it froze over in winter, making shadow puppets in the dim light of the candle stubs we lit, and about cold winter's nights huddled up in front of the fire, telling each other stories about pirates and adventurers and princesses in golden castles that glistened under the sun. We often lay in bed dreaming of scrumptious feasts; roast duck and chicken and turkey, honey-glazed hams, iced buns and bowls of strawberries and cream. I suppose that we were some of the lucky ones. Even though often there was nothing to eat but dry bread, at least we got something. Anything was better than starving.