In My Dreams

I knew Papa was a liar. He told me that Mama was dead, but she visited me often. The first time it happened, I startled from sleep to find the room illuminated by moonlight and Mama standing at the foot of the bed. I leaped out of bed and hugged her waist. She stroked my hair and kissed me. She was wearing a shabby grey cotton gown and smelled strange.

“Mama, why aren’t you wearing your own dress?” I whispered.

She put her finger to her lips and shook her head.

“Not a word to anyone, or I will not be able to come again. Go back to bed.”

I slipped under the covers and when I looked again, she was gone.

In the morning, despite my promise, I was unable to contain my excitement.

“Mama came last night,” I blurted out to Hilda, the housemaid, when she came to open the curtains in the morning.

Hilda stopped in her tracks and frowned, her face pale.

“Perhaps you had a dream, Miss. Leonie.”

“No, no,” I said. “She was real. I hugged her.”

Hilda cleared her throat.

“Hush. She'll hear you,” she muttered under her breath, before plastering a smile on her face. “Good morning, Miss Harris.”

My governess was watching us, having silently appeared on the scene as she was wont to do. She was tall and slender, with auburn hair tightly pulled back into a chignon. Her pale blue eyes were hard and suspicious. The servants and I despised her equally.

“What is all this chattering about? Leonie, you have been told many times not to be overly familiar with the staff.”

“Yes, Miss,” I said.

Hilda marched regally out of the room.

“Such impertinence,” said Miss Harris, glaring after her. 

I saw Mama infrequently after that. She never touched me again, but the memory of her visits sustained me. Hilda warned me not to mention her.

“Your mama suffered from her nerves. She said a lot of strange things. You don’t want people to think you have the same problem.”

What problem? There was no one I could ask. We lived a very secluded life. Papa was a forbidding figure who believed in children being seen and not heard. The servants would not talk about Mama. Miss Harris had come into the household well after Mama had disappeared. I dutifully persevered with my lessons and needlework, and life dragged on in the same old routine day after day.

Papa and I were sitting at dinner on the evening of my sixteenth birthday, when Miss Harris joined us. I stared. The governess usually ate on her own in the nursery. She would not consider dining with the servants, but she was not one of the family. Papa stood and pulled out a chair for her, an odd, awkward expressionon on his face. Miss Harris smiled condescendingly at me as she sat down. I looked at Papa enquiringly.

“Leonie, I have something to tell you. Grace, er, Miss Harris, has done me the honor of becoming my wife. We thought it best to have a quiet private ceremony.”

I dropped my fork with a clatter.

“But…but Mama is not dead,” I blurted out. “She has visited me many times.”

Papa scowled, any trace of joviality gone.

“You're lying. It seems you have inherited the inclination for fantasy that blighted your mother’s life.”

I jumped to my feet and tossed my napkin on the table.

“Then tell me the truth. What happened to my mother?”

We glared at each other. Miss Harris looked on in alarm. The dishes rattled as Papa crashed his fist onto the table.

“Enough! We have arranged for you to go to a finishing school for young ladies. I think it best that you go as soon as possible. You will stay in your room until it is time for you to leave.”

I rushed upstairs and collapsed onto my bed, numb with shock. After a few minutes, there was a tap on the door and Hilda slipped inside.

“Are you alright, Miss? I’m to help you pack.”

I sat up.

“Hilda, for the love of God, tell me what happened to my mother.”

“We was all sworn to secrecy, but it's time for you to know,” Hilda said with a sigh. “You’re not no little girl anymore. Your mother was a kind, sweet lady, but she couldn’t never do anything right as far as your Papa was concerned. He took all the pleasure out of her life. She told me one time he’d just married her for her money. When you came along, your Papa was furious that you wasn’t a boy. That’s when your mother started saying strange things, like he wanted her dead. She fell downstairs one day and swore he'd pushed her. She said he was drugging her. He made sure that she didn’t see her family much, but she managed to smuggle a letter out to her brother, your Uncle David. He came to the house demanding to see her, but what proof did she have? Your papa said that her stories showed how crazy she was. Finally, he sent her to a lunatic asylum near here.”

“So, I really saw her that time?” I asked.

Hilda nodded.

“My cousin worked at that place. She said your mama managed to slip out and came back here to see you. They caught her afterwards. She was trying to reach her brother. They made sure she was locked up good and tight after that.”

“And the other times?”

“Now, that I couldn’t say, miss,” Hilda said, fiddling with her apron.

“But I’ve seen her,” I said. “I’m not making it up.”

“I believe that you believe you saw her,” said Hilda. “I know you don’t tell lies. Who knows if it was dreams or maybe her spirit? I have something to give you.”

She pulled a wax-sealed envelope out of her apron pocket and a crumpled piece of paper.

“Your mama slipped that to me not long before they took her to that place. Said I was to give it to you when you was grown. That’s your Uncle David’s address in London on the paper. Give him the envelope. He never did believe what your papa said about her being crazy.”

“How can I do that?” I said, stifling a sob. “They’re sending me away to school, and I don’t have any money.”

Hilda rummaged in her pocket again and pressed a purse into my hand.

“Here,” she said. “She gave me this money for you in case of emergency.”

“Papa will be angry,” I said. “I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“He said you had to stay in your room,” said Hilda, smiling. “He didn’t tell us to lock the door or the window. Put your pillows under the covers to look like you’re sleeping and slip round to the kitchen door at dawn. Dress as plain as you can. Hide amongst the churns on the milk cart and Rob from the dairy will get you on the early train. When you get to London, ask the station porter to hire you a cab to your uncle David’s house.”

I threw my arms around her and wept.

Somehow, I made it to my Uncle David’s house. When he had recovered from his surprise at seeing me, he opened the envelope and perused the pages of densely written script. Taking off his glasses, he looked at me and laughed.

“Well, I look forward to congratulating your father on his marriage, though I fear that he will not be pleased to see me. There is a codicil to your grandfather’s will. It states that in the event of your mother’s death, her money passes to your father, unless he remarries. In that case, all her money goes to any children of hers. Your father must have thought he could conceal this when she died. Luckily, she gave this copy to Hilda. You are a very wealthy young woman, my dear.”

“So, Mama really did die?” I said, tears welling.

Uncle David embraced me gently.

“I am afraid there is no doubt about that.”

“I must have been dreaming when I thought I saw her after that first visit,” I said to Hilda later. She had followed me to employment as my companion at Uncle David’s house. Hilda looked at me, twisting her hands.

"Miss Leonie, I never have known how to tell you this. Not long after your mama visited you, the asylum burned down. The windows were locked and barred to prevent the inmates from escaping, so most of them died in the fire, including your mama."

I gasped in horror. Hilda hugged me.

"I think her love for you was too strong to be destroyed, no matter what she went through."