Free Birdcage Walk by Kate Riordan Page B

“That trunk is far too heavy for you or I to carry. It won’t take George more than a few minutes and then he can take some elevenses before he goes. That’s all, Milly, off you go.”
    The maid scuttled away towards the back of the house, and disappeared through a doorway. Moments later, the clash of metal issued from the kitchen, somewhere deep in the house. Clemency aimed a small smile at George.
    “Well then, let us go up and tackle this awkward trunk, shall we?” Mrs. Drew started up the staircase without waiting for a reply.
    George, following her at a respectful distance, took the opportunity of not being watched to observe himself, able at last to drink in his surroundings. High above the curved staircase was a large window that had apparently been cut in the ceiling. Through its panes, which formed an oval dome, he could see the same sky he watched from his window at night. They arrived at a small gallery that was punctuated by half a dozen closed doors. A large oil painting of a dour-countenanced man hung on one wall, his dark clothes seeping like molasses into the shadowy background. Clemmie, seeing George stare as they passed, spoke quietly behind him.
    “That’s my father’s father. He’s an old man there but when he was younger he was in the Royal Navy, just like my father’s older brother. Father is in the Merchant Navy, that’s how he knows Mr. Booth, you see.”
    George nodded, not really seeing at all. He didn’t know what Mr. Booth and his book about London’s poor had to do with the sea. Perhaps he could ask Miss Clemmie later, when he wasn’t so intent on not stumbling up the stairs. Through a door they reached a second staircase, narrower and darker than the previous one, and without any deep crimson carpet covering the treads. Mrs. Drew’s buttoned boots echoed on the unvarnished wood and George made sure his own steps were light. At the top of the flight were two plain wooden doors facing each other, both of them closed. From a ring attached at her waist by a narrow silk ribbon, Mrs. Drew removed a small key and placed it in the lock of one.
    The attic, hidden behind such an unremarkable door, was far larger than George had expected. The narrow stairs had made him imagine that the house grew smaller the higher you climbed. In fact, the attic was formed of one room which extended almost the width and depth of the whole house. The other door on the small landing could only have led to a box room, or perhaps it was where the maid slept.
    The height of it impressed George as much as its length. He could have stood without stooping at the lowest part of the roof’s pitch, his head only just reaching the eaves and their cobweb fronds. The air in the room was old and close and the sunlight streaming in through a pair of round windows revealed swarms of dust, each mote catching the light in turn. It was quite different to the grander hallway downstairs with its elegant balustrade and panelled doors, though no less fascinating to George.
    The walls were unpapered, the lime wash a replica of the cold, hard white of the sky when the cloud cover is high and even. The contents of the attic were covered in pale sheets to protect them and, what with the unvarnished boards, the overall effect was strangely ethereal to him, more accustomed as he was to drab colours and busy patterns which hid the grime.
    While George looked around, Mrs. Drew had hastened over to one corner and whipped the sheet off a large trunk. She stood back to let the dust settle, raising a hand to cover her nose and mouth. When she was satisfied she wasn’t going to choke or sneeze, she bent to undo the latch. Lifting it, she peered inside and then straightened up stiffly.
    “This is the one I want to sort through today. I knew it was here. It’s full of maps and atlases that I’m sure my husband would like to see again but has forgotten all about. Much of it came from his uncle, who left many papers and books to him in his