Spoiler! :
TWO
Dinner is simple; curry with lots of bread and butter and a rice pudding for dessert. Papa and Mama talk to Gabriel about his studies in art school, and Papa asks me how I enjoyed the gallery.
‘Very much, Papa,’ I say, heaping hope upon hope that Mama won’t say anything. Unless she’s told him all about it already—but Papa doesn’t seem cross. He smiles at me.
‘I hear Gabriel is planning to draw you again.’
‘If—’ I dart a glance at Mama, but she’s buttering a slice of bread and doesn’t look up. ‘If you and Mama think it proper, Papa.’
‘Proper?’ He laughs, his eyes squinting up into two dark slits that glitter in the light of the candles. ‘Why shouldn’t it be proper, you goose? There’s no earthly harm in sitting for a portrait.’
I glance again at Mama. She looks up this time and smiles at me. Papa’s laughter has changed to a coughing fit, and he presses his napkin against his mouth, his shoulders shaking. Mama lays her hand on his, and he presses her fingers under his own as though that will help him draw breath. I hate it when Papa coughs like this. Mama keeps on telling him to call the doctor, but Papa’s so stubborn sometimes.
I sneak a glance at Gabriel, but he’s busy spooning curry into his mouth and doesn’t seem to be listening to any of this. He takes a sip of water, pats his mouth with his napkin and says, very brightly, ‘So, has anyone received any of these new-fangled Christmas cards yet? Several of the chaps at the Academy were talking about them the other week.’
Papa manages to take a breath and says hoarsely, ‘How much do they go for?’
‘Oh, they’re only a shilling, Father, and they have a jolly picture on the front.’
‘A jolly picture.’ For some reason, Papa seems to find this funny, and he sips his water, smiling breathlessly.
After dinner is over and Lizzie is clearing the table, Mama says she’s going to bed early with a headache and calls me to her bedroom. I’m impatient, worried that I’ll miss seeing the baby, and I stand stiffly as Mama kisses me goodnight.
‘Oh Chrissy,’ she says. She takes a strand of my hair and pushes it back into my bun. ‘I know you’re still cross about the gallery.’
The warmth of her tone, the fact that she sounds sorry about my humiliation, catches me completely off-guard, and I stare at her in bewilderment. ‘Mama?’
‘But Chrissy, you know you can get very excited, and I don’t want... I don’t want things to get too much for you.’
I chew down hard on the inside of my lip. If I say anything now, she’ll think I’m answering back and get cross.
‘Chrissy?’
She wants me to answer her. I feel a surge of frustration. I can’t seem to win against these rules—they slip and slide in my grasp like a bar of soap.
‘Yes Mama?’
She sits down and pats the bed next to her. I sit down cautiously, but she puts her arm around my shoulders and hugs me tightly. ‘Chrissy, you know that I love you.’
‘Yes Mama.’ I rest my chin on her shoulder and breathe in the scent of her cologne trapped in her dress and the faint smell of soap in her hair. ‘I love you too.’
She releases me. I shift on the bed, but I put my hand on her arm and smile at her. She squeezes my hand like she squeezed Papa’s. ‘Do try to be better, Chrissy. Letting your temper rule you won’t make you or anyone else happy.’
‘Yes Mama, I know. I just...’ I feel awkward, Mama’s intent gaze on my face, my fingers laced tight together in my lap. ‘Sometimes I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel. Sometimes I feel—I feel angry and I don’t know why and then I feel sad and there’s no reason for it and—I will try, Mama.’
‘Pray about it.’ Her hand is back over my own. ‘Ask the Lord to help you and he will.’
I nod silently.
‘And I’ll be praying for you too.’ She leans over and kisses my forehead. ‘Now run along.’
‘Yes Mama.’ I get up slowly, and the bed makes a noise like a summer frog. I hesitate in the doorway, looking back. Mama goes to her mirror and starts taking down her hair. The light from the candle makes shadows under her eyes, lines her profile and brings out threads of gold in her hair; and for a moment, I want to blurt out everything. I want to ask her if Papa’s right and I can sit for Gabriel again. I want to ask her about having children. I want to tell her about seeing Lizzie’s sister’s baby.
‘Chrissy, please shut the door. There’s a draft.’
If I say anything about Gabriel, it might spoil everything. She would say I was too young to be talking about having children. She would think it improper for me to be so friendly with the servants. Lizzie’s not much older than I am, so she’s never really seemed like a servant—more like just a normal girl who happens to spend a lot of time in the same house as I. I know this bothers Mama, but I like Lizzie, and I like that she offered to show me her sister’s baby, even if she really is a servant.
I close the door carefully behind me and go down to the kitchen. Cook’s up to her elbows in soapy bubbles, Lizzie’s stacking plates, and sitting at the table with a baby in her arms is a woman who must be Lizzie’s sister. As soon as she sees me, she stands and bobs a curtsey. ‘Good evening, miss.’
‘Good evening,’ I reply, my eyes at once going to the baby.
Lizzie’s already finished her curtsey and is introducing us. ‘Miss Chrissy, this is my sister Laura.’
‘I’m very pleased to meet you,’ I say, smiling, but she looks down at the floor and shuffles her feet. I feel a prickling heat in my face. What did I say wrong?
I sit down at the table, but this doesn’t seem to reassure her and she stands awkwardly to attention. I swallow, a sinking feeling inside my stomach telling me that this was a bad idea. Mama’s right; I shouldn’t be mingling with this kind of people. Lizzie’s different; I’ve known her almost all my life, but I don’t know what kind of world her sister comes from. She might hate people who live better than she does and consider it an insult that I wanted to see her baby, as though I didn’t have anything better to do of an evening than stare at the maid’s niece.
Well, it’s too late to do much about it now. I lift my chin and smile determinedly at her. ‘What’s your baby’s name?’
‘Lizzie, miss.’
‘Oh, after our Lizzie?’
‘Yes miss.’
‘That’s nice.’ My smile is beginning to pinch my cheeks. ‘Does she have another name?’
‘Another name, miss?’
‘Yes, apart from her Christian name. Does she have a middle name?’
‘No miss.’
Her tone is perfectly polite, but there’s nothing else there. I can’t tell what she’s feeling. She just stands there, the baby held tightly in her arms, her eyes darting here and there under her brows. Her hair is brown, just like Lizzie’s, only streaked with silver. I desperately want to look at the baby, to touch it, but, as stupid as I know it is, I don’t dare ask.
Cook’s finished washing up by now, and after cleaning herself up, she takes her coat and bonnet and lets herself out the kitchen-door. Lizzie’s cleaning the range, but I know from the way her head tilts that she’s listening to my attempts at conversation. Now she turns around and says, ‘Laura, help me with the ashes, will you? They need to be emptied outside and it’s so much easier with two.’
‘What about baby?’ Her hand cups the baby’s head, as though to protect it.
‘I’ll watch it for you,’ I offer eagerly.
‘Well, Miss Chrissy, that’s downright thoughtful of you, that is.’ Lizzie grins at me, and I make a mental knot in my handkerchief to remind me to give her a shilling at my next allowance.
Laura is clearly uncomfortable at this, but there’s nothing she can say, so she carefully places the baby on the table and goes to help Lizzie with the pan of hot ashes. Between them, they ease it out of the stove and carry it out of the door into the dark garden.
The baby kicks in its blanket. I stand up, lean over it and peer into its face. It’s not as round as the babies I’ve seen in the streets, pushed up and down in big black perambulators, but its eyes are very round and blue and it thrashes its arms about, little curling fingers outstretched, as though trying to hold onto something. I put my finger within reach and it immediately latches on, gripping so tightly that I laugh. ‘Hello Lizzie. Lizzie the Second. How are you, Lizzie the Second?’
She stares at me, her eyes like the sky, wandering over my shoulder. Something seems to amuse her and she smiles, gurgling and pulling on my finger, her legs kicking like the tail of a beached fish. I look over my shoulder, expecting to see Lizzie come back in, but there’s no one there.
‘What is it, little Lizzie?’ I touch her small nub nose with the tip of my finger. ‘What is it? What makes you laugh, Lizzie my love?’
There’s a loud bang behind me. I jump, losing little Lizzie’s grip on my finger and whirl around. It’s just the kitchen-door, blown shut by the wind and thudding back and forth on its hinges. I giggle quietly to myself, embarrassed, and heartily glad that no one was watching. I turn back to Lizzie, and my heart explodes like a gunshot.
There’s a man on the other side of the table. I didn’t hear him come in (how could he have got in?) and he’s bending forward, long arms outstretched, reaching for little Lizzie, and his fingers aren’t fingers, they’re claws and his eyes are enormous black holes in a paint-white face and he’s got his claws in little Lizzie’s blanket, drawing her towards him.
I snatch her back from him, the blanket tumbling about in my arms, and Lizzie lets out a wail, high and shrill like a cat. I spin around but there’s another of them, and where his face should be there’s only a mask, glittering red like bloody diamonds, and I can’t see his eyes, but his hands are clawing at me, clawing at Lizzie. I scream, rip away from him. They’re between me and the door leading back upstairs, and there’s nowhere to go, nowhere to go and (oh Lord please don’t let them hurt Lizzie, don’t let them hurt me, help me Lord, help me) they’ve stopped moving, they’re just looking at me, looking at me before they kill me and (oh Lord Lord, please)—
‘Give us the baby.’
I can’t tell which one said it. I can’t hear anything over my heartbeat thundering in my ears. My hands are shaking, and I grip onto handfuls of the blanket. (Mustn’t drop the baby, mustn’t drop Lizzie...)
‘Give us the baby now and we won’t do anything to you.’
I can feel the wall close and cold behind my back. Lizzie’s squirming in my arms, crying, and I cup my hand under her head the way Laura did. I can’t think. Where’s Papa? Where’s Gabriel?
The red mask lunged forward. I scream at the top of my lungs and kick him in the leg, wheel around and make a dash for the kitchen-door, still banging in the night wind. It joins with the pulse beating in my head until there’s nothing left, just Lizzie’s weight in my arms, the hammering noises, the dark mouth of the doorway opening and closing, and I’m there, I’m through, the cold air like a slap in the face, but something drags me back, a hand twisted in the collar of my dress and we’re pulled back, and over the blood roaring in my ears I hear a voice raised like the cry of a fox at midnight.
And then—darkness.
* * *
K, I'm very anxious about this chapter, especially the last bit, because I kind of suck at writing action-y scenes and I get the pace all wrong and blah and it sucks. So if you could comment on how well/badly the ending worked, and as always, character impressions and whether you want to read on or not, I'd greatly appreciate it. General rambling is welcomed too. ^_^
I did read the first section, but my only comment, really, is to cut back on your use of names within dialogue. Observe any natural conversation and you'll find that, unless they're yelling across a room to get someone's attention, people rarely say each other's names. Mother, Chrissy, and Gabriel all seem to address each other by name an awful lot, even for whatever antiquated time period it may be.
Overall
I think you did a fine job with the ending -- at least I was on the edge of my seat! I should've done this ages ago, shouldn't I? But you know, I've been busy with my chipboard life that is Ikea. 
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