The Secret Letter

Yorkshire, England, 1866

It was a cold, damp rainy August night. The streets were nearly silent, only the sounds of rattling carriages bore presence; as ravenous pests roam the alleyways; trying there hardest to score a meal.  No one would have expected a shadowy figure to roam the streets in this late hour, and certainly no one would have expected the shadowy figure to reveal itself, to be a young woman no more than two and twenty.

The young girl covered in dirt continued to walk forward, ignoring the blisters on her feet, and the pain it was causing her from that entire running. The sweat of the fever was taunting her; she was short of breath and moaning in pain. After hiding in different alleyways, she could not remember how far she journeyed. The last that she had remembered was the fear her brother, Michael pierced into her heart, when he had selfishly threatened to kill her.

So she fled her hometown and all that she held important to her heart. Her husband pleaded her to stay for the sake of their unborn child. But she firmly disagreed. Her husband did not know Michael as well as she did. Michael was a nitrous gang leader, and what he wanted from her was nothing but their father's wealth, which she alone inherited.

She stopped for a moment to take a deep breath. The life inside her was kicking its very hardest. It wanted to be born, and she knew that the time of childbirth was approaching.

At last, as she walked towards the end of the alleyways, there to her right stood a lone house. As she approached it, she could see candlelight flickering by the window.  She then stood by the door and frantically grabbed the handle and banged the door.

She did not have to count past four because in that instant, the door opened and out came an elderly woman in her night garment and clearly upset for being awoken during this late hour.

The elderly woman set her dark gaze on the young girl and in a flat emotionless tone she said in a Yorkshire accent, "What is it that you want, girl?"
The young girl looked at the elderly woman, and replied in a frail, shaky voice, "May I come in? I have nowhere else to go and I am—"

The elderly woman cut her off and said, "Nowhere to go? Where are you parents? Do you have a husband or any blood relations?"

The young girl bowed her head and fought hard not to cry. She did not want to remember the tragedy that stuck her family. Her beloved mother and father were murdered shortly after her marriage to her beloved, and remembering the cold blood that flooded the floor.

Her mother and father lay lifeless on the hard marble floor. She remembered trembling as she collapsed beside her dead father, the tears falling down in clear sparkles. She remembered taking the folded piece of paper in her father's grasp, opening it to find two words coldly targeting her: you're next.

Back to the present, the young girl tried to look at the elderly woman clearly but her illness made her eyes weak and her eyelids fluttered open and close. She could feel the salt tears trickling down her cheeks but did not realize that she was in tears until the elderly woman's emotionless face became alert.
"Are you well, girl?" the elderly woman asker her, but she did not reply.

"Oh God," cried the young girl, "The child's coming."

"What are you—," began the elderly woman began, but she then cut herself off when she realized that the young girl was pregnant.

"Dear girl!" exclaimed the elderly woman, "Why didn't you say you were having a child? Goodness! Come in, come in quickly!"

The elderly woman kindly allowed her inside.  The elderly woman gently helped her up the staircase and when the woman got to the spare bedroom. The young girl laid herself on the bed as the elderly woman went to fetch the midwife.