FORBIDDEN LOVE
By Anna Rose
*
Glancing up and down the cluttered street as my family and I waited for someone to answer the door we’d stopped outside of some minutes ago, I took in the row of thin terraced houses, all identical in their bleakness, windows thrown open with shabby garments hanging out of them to dry in odorous air. This was to be our new home, I thought in wonder. To think that mere weeks ago we had all been living the life of the privileged upper class only to have it all snatched away from us seemingly overnight following my father’s untimely death. We were a long way from our country estate in Surrey; longer still from our handsome townhouse in London’s Kensington, now at the mercy of creditors.
“Oh, God – it stinks ! And it’s so…depressing.
“William!” My mother warned in disapproval, frowning at my younger brother, but he merely scoffed at her reproachful look.
Insistently, he said, “But it does – I think I’m going to chuck up my breakfast-”
Although I tutted at his theatrics, the smell coming up from the harbour beyond was rather potent. I swallowed, trying to ease the unsettled feeling stirring in my belly which wasn’t helped much by the nervousness that had been afflicting me all morning.
“It’s just our luck Aunt Sophia resides near a sea port,” William cringed, following my perusal of the dreary Maypole Street with the same distasteful look on his face that my mother wore. “What I want to know, mama, is how you ended up marrying our father and Aunt Sophia end up here …” William arched his dark brows expansively, frowning at our mother in curiosity.
“Really, William,” she scolded. “Sophia has done very well for herself. Why, at least she has a roof over her head. Her poor husband may be six feet under, but he left her with this security at least! What have we ? Tell me?”
I patted my mother’s arm in flimsy comfort as she started to weep, throwing my younger brother a frosty look for his lack of tact.
“We’re lucky she’s taking us in at all,” she continued then on a sniff. “After your father’s good for nothing relations turned their noses up – not to mention our so-called friends! Well, good-riddance anyway, I say! As it happens, I’d not have taken their charity anyway. Now, I’ll have none of your impertinence, William, do you hear me? You’ll be respectful to your aunt and cousins and that’s the end of it,” my mother ordered, face pinched. “Until – well, until things turn out right for us again, we shall be guests in their home and we shall be very grateful for it.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say severely, “Things will never turn out right for us,” but I curbed my impatience. My mother’s refusal to accept the hard facts was wearying and lately I’d found myself at the end of my tether with her inability to see reason, to accept the truth of our new lot in life; but she had already suffered enough and I hadn’t the heart to chastise her.
I knocked impatiently again on the faded door we were all currently huddled around in the cold November morning, our hands full of our remaining possessions, what few of them there now were, and on a frown, I reached tried the door’s rusted handle, looking towards my family in surprise as it opened onto a dark hallway.
“Well, that’s rather unsafe – anyone could walk in,” my mother declared, but she stepped past me into the narrow space. “Come, children,” she waved over her shoulder, placing her luggage on faded wooden floorboards, and I slipped in behind my brother, closing the door on the busy, malodorous street.
“Lydia?” disembodied voice floated over, and a thin woman approached from one of the few doors lining the walls.
“Oh – oh, Sophia!” my mother cried then, throwing herself into the other woman’s arms, sobbing into her neck.
My brother and I exchanged wry
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