The domestic violence is over, fortunately. You’re about to see how Samantha escapes.
To start at the beginning, Chapter 1, Part 1:
https://open.substack.com/pub/whimsicalwords/p/hauntings-of-claverton-castle?r=5m2is&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Chapter 2:
https://open.substack.com/pub/whimsicalwords/p/hauntings-of-claverton-castle-chapter-5e3?r=5m2is&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Hauntings of Claverton Castle, Chapter 3
Samantha stifled her sobs, in hopes that her uncle wouldn’t hear her, never mind that she would need to weep very loudly for him to hear from the ground floor. She didn’t wish him to discover any signs of vulnerability in her. Tears fell untouched down her pale cheeks. She decided to comfort herself with one of her favorite Goddess chants, an ode to the Celtic mother goddess Arianrhod, which she whisper-chanted in halting breaths whilst sniffling.
Samantha exhaled deeply and eyed her wardrobe. She couldn’t continue living in her uncle’s house. He never beat her when her Aunt Roseanna, Samantha’s last blood relative, lived with them here in Bath. Samantha recalled her school friend Harriet’s open invitation to be her houseguest. Samantha couldn’t reside with Harriet and her family forever—only until she figured out what else she could do.
Still quaking, Samantha threw open both doors of her wardrobe, removed her capacious portmanteau, placed it on the bed, and began packing. An insatiable reader, she put a small number of books in the bottom of the bag; she had few in her room, since they were customarily stored in the library. With a shake of her head, she considered it absurd to dwell on books and libraries now.
Crying as quietly as possible, she pulled a black silk frock out of her wardrobe and tossed it onto the four-poster bed. She did the same with several other, high-waisted frocks, choosing exclusively garments she favored and knew she’d wear frequently. She surveyed the bed and carefully folded up the frocks and shoved them into her portmanteau.
Pulling somewhat random garments from the wardrobe and throwing them onto the bed, Samantha hastily added a green silk evening gown, a green satin spencer, two shawls, four pairs of gloves, twenty handkerchiefs, a reticule full of money, and various undergarments. She was in mourning, but much of this clothing was not black; she figured she’d be in hiding. She alternated between stuffing items into the portmanteau…and pulling them out and discarding them on the bed.
She managed to fit her blue wool pelisse and a muff into the bag, although this was summer. She wouldn’t return soon, to allow her uncle to continue beating her.
Samantha knew she had no safety in this house. Without her aunt, she was as much a scapegoat as any servant. Perhaps Uncle Bradford intended to dismiss kitchen staff and demand she toil, untrained, in the kitchen. She’d far rather continue playing and composing her own music than occupy herself with housework. Perhaps she was shiftless. She frowned and shook her head, reflecting that she was no more so than the average genteel young lady.
With that in mind, Samantha sniffled and added her boots to the now-bursting portmanteau. Sitting on the bed and wincing in pain, she squeezed the bag shut and snapped the fastening. Its tiny click quickened her heart, for she didn’t wish Uncle Bradford to hear.
He was no doubt on the ground floor now, probably back in the drawing room, drinking more of that horrid gin. Samantha wondered why he drank gin more than port, but accounted for it as a sign of practicality, despite everything. Better to consume gin like a pauper on his drunken evenings than to waste quality alcohol.
Samantha felt too aware of her aches and pains, including a budding headache. She began pacing back and forth and wringing her hands, and every step supplied her with a dull ache in her hip. It was a mercy her uncle hadn’t broken or sprained one of her limbs. She surmised she was only developing bruises.
She resolved to wait until the sun had fully descended before she crept out. That would be about ten at night; summers in England involved extensive daylight.
Since her aunt’s death, Samantha’s uncle typically drank so much that he became unconscious and sprawled on a chaise lounge in the drawing room. Until tonight’s outrageous behavior, she had felt pity for him, owing to the loss of his wife of many years; never mind that he had always been so callous. Indeed, he’d always consumed a great deal of alcohol, though it seemed more excessive lately. Samantha tried to disbelieve his estimation of her as selfish, considering her ability to pity her enemy. She admitted pity was not genuine compassion. She wondered if he had beaten her aunt during his drunken fits.
Samantha turned on her heel and told herself to stop pacing and focus. She faced her little shrine, a small, round table covered with a fine linen cloth she’d embroidered with stars. She walked to the shrine and stood before it with her eyes closed and head bowed. She took several deep breaths and whispered, “Please help me to help myself, oh Mother Goddess Anu.”
She lifted a tinderbox from under the small table and lit the rush candle before her diminutive porcelain statue of the goddess. She closed her eyes again and mindfully breathed, following her in-breath and her out-breath. This was sufficient to calm her enough to relieve her trembling.
After she opened her eyes, she ceremoniously picked up the goddess statue. She flinched at the pain on the back of her left shoulder; it must have been from when her uncle shoved her backward and she fell onto the floor. Now she carried the sculpture to the portmanteau and managed to fit Anu in, wrapping her with handkerchiefs already in the bag. She managed to squeeze the portmanteau shut.
Samantha kept pacing and chanting prayers to Anu, but her headache didn’t abate. She reached up to delicately touch her punched eye and winced at the soreness. It was indeed swollen. If anyone saw her, they would know she’d been hit.
She periodically pulling back the curtains of her tall bedroom window to check the light. Finally, she wondered if her uncle heard her pacing, since she was upstairs. She sat down in front of her dressing table and reached for a novel she’d been reading, The Druid Priestess of Wakefield.
Waiting, she pondered her near future. Though she stubbornly held the book in front of her, she couldn’t concentrate. She thought it a pity that she must abandon The Wanderer. Recalling her uncle pummeling her in the stomach, Samantha thought it absurd for her to worry about a book. Her health and well-being were at stake now, she realized.
Uncle Bradford was but a relative by marriage, for his wife had been her mother’s sister. Samantha couldn’t comprehend why her statuesque and golden-haired, mild-mannered aunt married this man. She hadn’t ever considered asking. She sometimes wondered if they had been in love when they married. It was difficult to fathom this horrid brute in love with anyone.
Samantha had always clashed with her uncle, perhaps through no fault of her own. It wasn’t her fault he continually falsely accused her and uttered scathing remarks about her, in her presence and whilst talking about her in the third person to others.
Once, in front of guests, she said, “Uncle, I am not deaf. I hear your slanderous lies.” He hurled abuse directly at her, accusing her of being an insufferable and impudent harlot. “More lies!” Samantha replied before leaving the room with her back straight but her cheeks burning. His insults echoed down the hallway, even in front of company.
For the first week after her aunt’s demise, neighbors and a few distant relatives called on Uncle Bradford and Samantha and brought baskets of food, but they had trickled down to nobody a week past. The callers since then had only been friends of Uncle Bradford, and Samantha found them all too fond of drink. Clad in black, she had crept out to a bookstore or the Assembly Rooms a few times as a reprieve from brooding and struggling to avoid drunkards.
Samantha considered Aunt Roseanna kindly, serene, and well-meaning…yet she invariably remained silent whenever Uncle Bradford berated and castigated Samantha. Aunt Roseanna would have been courageous if she had defended and protected her niece instead of silently sitting without comment during torrents of hateful words. Samantha did frequently hear Uncle Bradford hurl vicious words at his wife; perhaps she wished to defend Samantha but feared the repercussions.
Samantha’s relationship with Aunt Roseanna hadn’t been perfect. They hadn’t had much in common, other than occupying the same house. Samantha’s attempts to have deep conversations with her aunt, or to discuss her tastes in literature or art or theater, proved in vain. The woman didn’t connect with Samantha’s internal world—whether it was her childhood imaginary friends and other fancies, or the ghosts only Samantha saw. Yet Aunt Roseanna had never yelled or snapped at her for attempting such conversations. Her comments were ignorant but devoid of malice, unlike those of Uncle Bradford. Most evenings, they sat together in the same drawing room. It was not a profound closeness; nonetheless, her death was a distressing loss.
Since her aunt’s death, Samantha spent her time mostly brooding, crying, reading, and trying to avoid her uncle. She ate her meals in her bedroom and in the garden rather than with him, even after he stomped out into the garden and castigated her for not joining him at the table. She imagined that to most people her behavior would be considered “highly irregular” or simply “the behavior of an over-indulged brat.”
Locked in her room, Samantha read for perhaps an hour. Unable to concentrate on the book and flipping few pages, Samantha rose and pulled back the curtain again. The sun was setting. The sky was a darkening blue with streaks of purple. She dropped the curtain and returned to her wardrobe.
Samantha acknowledged that her aunt and uncle had supplied her with sufficient material wealth: a home, food, and good clothing. After she stopped growing, her aunt allowed her a comparatively elegant and serviceable wardrobe, though a humble one compared to members of the haute ton. She received an education proper for genteel young ladies.
She removed from the wardrobe a day dress with a high ruffled neckline and long, multi-puffed sleeves. She struggled to carefully slip the frock on over the black sateen mourning dress she currently wore. She would leave with most of her wardrobe.
Samantha looked down at her flat shoes, reminiscent of ballet slippers. She wondered if she should wear her boots instead, considering that, regardless of the weather, she would be traversing on rough terrain and had a prodigiously long walk ahead. She sat on the bed and grabbed the portmanteau. She switched her dainty evening slippers with boots, pulling them on over her black silk stockings.
She cast one last glance out the window—confirming that the sky was dark blue, nearly black. She approached the lowboy and placed one glove each underneath its four legs before she proceeded to gently and as quietly as possible move it away from the door. She clenched her teeth at every scrape and groan the lowboy’s four feet emitted against the floor. She donned her favorite bonnet, took a deep breath, and grabbed the portmanteau and a reticule that had been lying on a side table. As she lifted the reticule, coins chinked inside.
Samantha knew the front entrance was an indiscreet choice of egress, but it was the closest. She opened the bedroom door and felt grateful toward the oiled hinges. Carrying her portmanteau and reticule, she tip-toed into the hallway and paused, listening. The only sound was a slight snore. Profoundly relieved by this sound, Samantha moved a bit faster. A floor board creaked under her foot. She froze and listened again: still snoring. She reached the stairs and crept slowly down the staircase, across the soft rug of the front hall, and out the front door.
Outside, the slightly cool air hit Samantha’s face; the night was mild and clear. Breathing as deeply as she could in a corset, she glanced up at a star-lit sky free of precipitation. Her footsteps crunched on the gravel. She heard naught but the distant croaking of frogs.
She hoped nobody would witness her traversing on foot unchaperoned. The notion of propriety and chaperones seemed a world away. She stepped forward along the stone-paved walk, moving in a normal pace and manner. If anyone saw her, she was acting less suspiciously than if she were still tiptoeing. Samantha made as long strides as possible in her ankle-length gown and trudged down the path flanked on both sides with shrubbery.
She had a short distance before reaching the black iron gate and opening it. She stepped out, closed the gate, and proceeded down the paved walk, past the long row of identical, high, and slender houses.
Nothing separated the sides of these houses, save their own walls. They all featured Ionic columns, red brick walls, and tall windows topped with pediments. As soon as she reached the entrance to an alley, she slipped down it. She ran between the brick and stone walls encompassing row after row of back yards.