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Eliza

December 1801, Yorkshire.

If Eliza Wakefield was certain of one thing, it was that only the foolhardy or truly stubborn willingly undertook carriage journeys in the month of December. Though she dearly loved the moors of her beloved Yorkshire, she was the first to admit that they were prone to trying fits of pique, especially in the grey months of the year. Today was such an occasion.

The dark clouds had folded themselves around the hilltops like a smothering shroud sometime after two and were now inching into the valleys. Soon the entire landscape would be nothing but mist so thick one could barely see one's own hands held before them.

"I don't know how wise it is to press on, Miss," Martins, the coachman, advised in his throaty drawl. The poor man had been injured in battle fighting in the Americas, and since, had always sounded rather strangled. "Even with the lantern lit, Posey can barely see the way, and I don't know these parts well enough to be sure of them in this wuthering nonsense. Perhaps…"

"Perhaps?" Eliza prompted, allowing the coachman a moment to gather his thoughts. Martins was prone to rather woolly thinking. After a rather lengthy pause, when he seemed unlikely to reply, she added, "I agree that it's not ideal weather, but our destination is surely closer now than home, so it would be illogical to turn back. Nor will I sit here in this damp in the hopes of it clearing. No, Martins, we must be almost at Cedarton by now. We will press on."

"If you think it's best, Miss, I won't gainsay you, but Posey ain't too fond of this. She's getting twitchy, so she is."

Posey, being perhaps the mildest mannered mare ever to have pulled a gig, was enjoying the moment of relative idleness to feast on the surrounding vegetation. If she was twitchy, she wasn't displaying it in any way Eliza could discern.

"There's the worry of boggarts, too, if we stray from the path."

"Boggarts?" Eliza heaved an inward sigh. "Yes, I suppose that is a concern, but I put it to you, Martins, I'd rather risk an enchantment than huddle in this rickety vehicle for an indeterminate amount of time. Why, it doesn't even have the luxury of multiple walls to shelter us, merely this rather inadequate hood."

A fat bead of moisture dropped from said hood at that very moment and worked its way inside the collar of her pelisse. "Come, get Posey to trot on. We'll all be happier once we arrive."

~Ж~

Cedarton was not what Eliza expected. To be fair, she'd had little to go on beyond the name, which had conjured in her mind a vision of autumn: bright days, blue skies, fresh breezes, and leaves swirling around in a rainbow of golds and bronzes. Built of stately grey stone, Cedarton Castle ought to have impressed one with a sense of solidity. Instead, it squatted like a fat moggy about to pounce. To Eliza, gazing on it for the first time as the gig came to a jerky halt, it inspired a sense of menace. This was no cosy manor, rather a weather-beaten, battle-scarred fortress, complete with iron-pinned doors and soot-stained ramparts.

"Seen some troubles in its history, I should say," Martins muttered under his breath. "I'm not well acquainted with the folks or lore of this stretch, but I'll hold to my earlier warning: you're to be on the lookout for boggarts, spectres, and the likes, Miss Wakefield."

"I shall certainly keep your words in mind, Martins." Eliza slipped from the high seat. The moment her feet touched the gravel, the great door opened, revealing dear, Silent Jane. It seemed quite a feat for her to have captured a viscount.

"Eliza…Oh! It is so very good to see you."

"And you also," Eliza accepted her swaddling embrace with a degree of perplexed amusement.

"I can hardly believe you are here. When the fog came down, I was certain you'd about turn, but bless my heart, I am joyful that you did not. It has been so, so long." She grasped Eliza's hands tight and led her towards the entrance. "We are a small party for the week. Friends of Linfield's. I should be quite lost if you were not here too. You must tell me all that has happened since we last saw one another in… was it really April? But first, come inside. I am forgetting myself. You must be half perished after your journey. I'll have Mrs Honeyfield draw you a bath."

"No, indeed," Eliza waved away the offer. "A fire and your company will soon ward off the chill. Although I will not say no to a saucer of tea."

"Which you shall have at once."

Martins had handed down her trunk to the footmen and was all set to turn the gig about. He doffed his hat at Eliza by way of goodbye.

"Your manservant's not staying?" Jane enquired. "Oh, but he must, at least until the fog clears."

"They're expecting him back home. You'll be quite all right, won't you, Martins?"

"Aw reckon the moon'll be peeping out afore long, Miss. Don't see no sense in lingering. I'd rather be tucked up snug afore the witching hour comes around, so seeing as you're all square, I'll be gannin, though I do thank yers kindly, Lady Linfield, fer ya offer of warmth and victuals. Alls be back at end of ah week t' get ya, Miss Wakefield, as arranged." He touched his cap again and was off, the mist swallowing him within a couple of feet.

"Not your man, then?" Jane observed.

"The cobbler's. Desperately superstitious, the whole family is, but Freddy's of a mind to train him for better things. I'm not sure what will come of it."

"Your brother is well?"

"Aye, and all my sisters, and my niece too, but what of you, Jane? I was most surprised, I must confess, when you wrote at Michaelmas to say you were wed, and to an earl's son, no less. ‘Jane has married a viscount!' Caroline was positively astonished. ‘How did such a mouse capture such a man?' she said, but it is perfectly obvious, for what man could not look at you and stumble. You have grown lovely, my friend. I believe your hair was still in plaits, with no hint of curl papers last we met. I think marriage suits you."

Jane tapped her hand in gratitude at the compliment, but there was a strain to her smile that showed plainly in her eyes. "I don't know that it has entirely sunk in. It has all been rather… overwhelming. A veritable whirlwind, what with the marriage and the move. We've only settled here these last two weeks, and you will surely know it when you see what I have invited you to."

"I'm sure I will be very comfortable, and very much at home. The fire is delightful."

Seeming to recall her friend's recent arrival, Jane nudged Eliza closer to the hearth. The entrance hall was a large square space, blessed with an enormous fireplace, and oak-panelled walls, over which were draped a series of ancient tapestries. It created a welcoming feeling, but it was true too that a certain mustiness sat in the air, and cobwebs still clung to the ceiling rafters, conjuring a sense of abandonment and crawling decay.

"I'm afraid Cedarton has not been a home for a good many years, and no amount of fires can quite take away the chill in its bones. I hope you will not find it too uncomfortable."

Eliza bore Jane's fussing a moment, before warding her off by handing her the shawl from her shoulders. Prior to the visit, her middle sister, Caroline, had been only too eager to relate all the gossip and rumours about Cedarton and its unhappy history that she could muster. Most of it had no business outside of a novel. All of it was overblown and fanciful.

"Don't fret so, Jane," she squeezed her friend's hand. "I'm certain I'll find it very pleasant indeed. Besides, once Cedarton has seen your touch, it will be transformed into the very warmest of homes. But, let us not talk of property. You must tell me of your adventures. How came you to be Lady Linfield?"

"Oh, there is little enough to tell. We met a time or two, and now we are wed, and that's really all there is to say of the matter. I wish you would tell me of your doings instead."

"And so I will, but you will not divert me so quickly. Is this to be your main abode? Are there grounds to explore? How many rooms? Have you other guests? And of course, both Caroline and Maria beg me to ask for a full account of your romance with Lord Linfield."

"Perhaps if we head to your room and take that tea." Jane shooed a footman off to see to a tray and drew Eliza through a doorway towards a grand carved staircase. "I will show you around as best I can once you are properly warmed and settled, but I hardly have a proper sense of the place myself. It is rather vast and sprawling, too large really, for two people alone, but the housekeeper is very good, and has everything in hand. I thought we would stay in London, but"—she shook her head sadly—"there is some… I don't know. A difficulty that Linfield prefers to avoid, and so we are here, tucked away in the countryside, away from everyone and everything. I confess, I had no idea Cedarton was so remote. I supposed when he said it was on the moors I ought to have realised, but Yorkshire always brings to mind your quaint little cottage, or the cobbled streets of Harrogate, or the seaside at Scarborough."

"What sort of difficulty?"

"Scarborough was so glorious this last summer," Jane replied, as if she hadn't heard Eliza's question. "I had such fun chasing waves and paddling in the sea. It was thoroughly delightful." Her expression took on a wistfulness that Eliza couldn't fail to notice. Something about her seaside stay had obviously made a lasting impression, and she didn't think it likely it'd been the North Sea pounding the shore. Matter of fact, she'd hazard it was a person—a man—responsible for that glow in Jane's eyes, and not the one to whom she was now wed.

"It was right after that Linfield and I were engaged," she said, practically confirming Eliza's supposition.

"You said there was some difficulty in London," Eliza prompted.

Jane tipped her head from shoulder to shoulder. "Oh, don't ask me about it, for I don't know a thing. It's a trivial matter. He says we can return in the Spring."

"You must miss your family," Eliza hazarded, seeing her friend's smile fade. "And here I am glad to have a break from mine, but are Linfield's family not here? Is there no sister or cousin you might strike up a friendship with? No company?"

"I have you."

"Indeed, you do." Eliza linked their arms, eager to see off the gloom cobwebbing her friend's shoulders. "But surely there are more than ourselves in residence? Linfield's family?"

"Some of his friends, but the family are all at Bellingbrook."

Eliza shook her head, the name being unfamiliar.

"Bellingbrook Hall in Lincolnshire. You've not heard of it? I'm told it's preposterously grand, but I haven't seen it, and we weren't invited. Linfield and the earl are," —she chewed her lip— "well… They're father and son, and Linfield doesn't care to be ordered about, you see, and here at Cedarton he can entirely please himself. It's not part of the Earldom."

"It isn't?"

"No, it came to him via his mother's people. That's why it's been abandoned so long. Linfield's had no need of it while he's been engaged with his studies, but—"

"Oxford?"

"Yes."

"And did he?" It seemed hideously unfair to studious Eliza that she was excluded from the halls of England's universities simply for being a woman, when a man might be awarded a Bachelor's degree without once opening a book or attending a single lecture, providing he was of sufficiently privileged birth. Equally confounding to her was that anyone would waste such an opportunity.

"He has a tutor," Jane blurted. "So, you mustn't brand him a shirker. He'll take the examination in the new year."

"Of course," Eliza said, still choked by the unfairness of the system. Linfield would sail through life, never once thinking about the privilege his rank granted him, never once considering how another life may have benefited from the education he paid for, but never engaged with. If she could learn, then she would listen to every lecture, read every book.

"You're in the Grey Room, close to me." Jane coaxed her across the upper gallery and then wound a path through a horrendously disorientating series of poorly lit and increasingly spider-filled corridors. The deeper they went, the more the taint of dust and mildew battled with the scent of the beeswax candles.

"This is you," Jane announced at the end of a corridor thick with shadows. She turned the handle of a near invisible door, only for a shadow to bolt across the runner. She shrieked, as if something mightier than a mouse had startled her. One pale hand clutched to her chest.

"Jane, are you—"

"Darned vermin. I'm sorry, Eliza. I'll have Mrs Honeyfield set more traps and see if we can't acquire a decent mouser. If you wish to leave in the morning, I'll completely understand."

Leave? "Don't be absurd." It would take more than a single mouse to scare her away, especially one so eager to make itself scarce. "I'm not going anywhere. But tell me, Jane, what necessitates that?"

Her attention, initially drawn by the mouse, had travelled along the runner and discovered a door hidden amidst the gloom, and not just any door, but an iron-pinned monster, secured with a wooden bar and a series of heavy bolts. "Are we expecting invaders?"

"Of course not." Jane clasped Eliza's elbow and began to steer her into the Grey room, but Eliza turned away from the unlatched door in favour of the bolted one.

"Another wing?" She claimed the candlestick from Jane's hand and raised it to make a closer inspection of the iron-pinned monster. It was the strangest of doors to find at the end of an upper wing corridor, its strength more suited to an entrance one wished to defend. The wainscoting ended short of its position, and the grey stone wall in which it sat was unadorned by painting or tapestry, but streaked with light-stealing stripes, leading to the impression that a squid-like entity was attempting to squeeze its bulk around the frame.

"Don't you wish to change out of those travel clothes?"

"Momentarily. Whatever is beyond here?"

Jane stayed by the door to the Grey Room as Eliza inched forwards. Now she was level with the strange door, its proportions were more clearly defined. Eight feet tall, at least, and almost the same across. She touched the brickwork, and her fingers came away stained.

"Soot?"

"There was a fire in the past. There's nothing beyond now."

"So many bolts, there is something."

"Ruins. That is all. It was the Lady Tower, but now it's only a shell. Throw back the bolts if you must. They're a safety measure, as the key is lost, and there's a sheer drop on the other side."

Far too intrigued to pass up the invitation, Eliza drew back the bolts, even though it was clear the door predated any fire, and thus its purpose remained obscured. The ancient hinges protested with a whine as she drew the door open, revealing a vast abyss that snuffed the candlelight.

Her breath caught, and Jane hurried to her side. "See, there's nothing of interest here. Please come away."

Nothing of interest, and yet Jane's fear was palpable.

Also, not strictly true. As Eliza's eyes adjusted to the murk, the shadows yielded the shell of what must once have been the grandest and tallest of Cedarton's towers. Further sooty tendrils reached towards the absent roof, while several storeys below, weeds poked up in inky thickets, and between her and them, the remains of floorboards and charred furniture hung suspended like the tiers of an off-centre wedding cake.

"What happened?" Having drunk her fill of the view, Eliza took a step back from the edge.

"A fire, some fifty years back. You'll have to ask Linfield if you desire the full particulars. I don't know them and don't care to. I believe the last Lady to live here died in the inferno." She shivered and drew her shawl more tightly around her shoulders.

So Caroline's tales of Cedarton's terrible past weren't entirely unfounded. "It must have been an inferno indeed. It's a wonder the rest of the castle was spared."

Jane shrugged, as if she'd given it no thought, which was practically confirmation that it had weighed on her mind, but Eliza saw no sense in pressing her. Jane would reveal her thoughts in her own time, at her own pace, as had always been her way. She'd never been one to bleat about a matter until it suited her to do so. "It won't give you sleepless nights, will it? I would spare you that at least, given Cedarton's lack of comforts."

"Jane, you are being too hard on the place. It's a little gloomy, but far less bleak than you're making out. In any case, I'm not given to flights of fantasy. A dark history will not disturb my rest. Come now, show me my room." She refastened the bolts, then let Jane lead her into the bedchamber. "See, this is quite delightful."

The room was large, with a low ceiling fashioned with plasterwork embellishments. A large, open hearth dominated the centre of one wall. The fire was lit and cast a pleasing glow over the room. There was an armoire, and a grandly dressed window with a sill wide enough to be used as a seat, and a writing bureau beside it that she might use to write to her sisters as promised. The bed, an old-fashioned canopied affair, sat square and central, its drapes of grey and green Kidderminster stuff, which also covered the lower half of all four walls. If the house had been more recently occupied, the Kidderminster would surely have been banished to the room of a minor servant by now and replaced with more fashionable paper hangings. Still, it had been thoroughly aired, and was to Eliza, so used to doubling up, both pleasant and expansive.

"So much space," she observed.

Jane drew her attention to a door she had presently overlooked, presuming it to be a closet. "Look, through here is where I am. We shall have ever so much fun. It will be like school all over again."

School had not always been a particularly pleasant affair.

"Linfield?" she enquired. Surely the adjoining rooms were intended for husband and wife.

Jane knotted her hands and dragged her teeth over her lower lip. "His rooms are in the other wing."

A knock prevented her from saying more.

"The tea you asked for, milady."

"Good, yes. Bring it in."

Two plainly dressed servants carried in a tray, along with the smaller valise Eliza had brought.

"This is Mrs Honeyfield," Jane introduced the older of the two women before she could make her escape, "Who has been so good to us in seeing that Cedarton was made ready."

The housekeeper appeared to be barely a year or two Eliza's senior, making her far younger than was typical for a housekeeper for a house of this size. She bobbed a curtsy, prompting the maid, who wasn't above thirteen if she was a day, beside her to do the same. "Eliza, you must ask Mrs Honeyfield if you need anything, for I know she will find it. Now, Mrs Honeyfield, this is my very dear friend, Miss Wakefield whom I've been telling you about. I wish her to stay as long as possible, so we must do everything we can to make her stay perfect and not frighten her away with Cedarton folktales and its eternal draughtiness."

"Good day, Miss Wakefield. There's warming pans aplenty, an' we'll keep fires stoked. If you want owt, be sure to ring and we'll be reet on it."

"Mrs Honeyfield is very efficient. Whereas you, my dear friend, are being overly dramatic. I'm sure I'll be very comfortable without any sort of fuss being made."

The housekeeper winced.

"I'm sorry, are you all right, Mrs Honeyfield?"

The housekeeper cupped her cheek. "Aye, Miss. It's nowt. A spot of toothache, that's all. If you don't need owt else, milady, we'll be off."

"I think we're all set," Jane said.

"Perhaps I might look at it, if it's painful." Eliza's offer stopped the servant before she'd taken more than a step. "I have some skills in that regard. You've a still room, haven't you, Jane? It won't take me a minute to mix a remedy."

Jane, who had already settled at the tea table, paused, teapot in hand. "I quite forgot about you and your potions. You were forever patching us up at school. There is a still room, and very impressively stocked if you can believe it, though I can't take any credit for it. It's not my doing. It's Linfield's. Leastways, it's a benefit of him having his personal physician in attendance."

"Linfield employs a personal physician?" Eliza said at the same time Mrs Honeyfield made another anguished gasp. "I suppose he is too high and mighty to see to a servant's comfort, or is it that he doesn't see teeth as a necessity to a body?"

"Eliza, you are so hard on men of learning. I'm sure if Doctor Bell is made aware of the matter, he can prescribe something."

"I shall be very surprised if it's for anything with any efficacy," Eliza retorted. "My remedy, on the other hand, works a treat."

"Old family recipe?" Jane enquired.

"The basis of it, but I've modernised it some. I never found that the honey helped do anything other than sweeten the patient's temper. Tell me the way to the still room, and I'll make it up right away."

"Eliza, truly? You've not been here five minutes. If you really must, then can it at least wait until after we've taken tea? It will be cold if we have to wait until you've attended your patient, and I'm sure Mrs Honeyfield can soldier on a little while."

"Aye, milady. It's kind of ya to think of us, Miss Wakefield. It's much appreciated. Me John knowed about such stuff. It's times like this I don't half miss 'im."

"Oh, you lost your husband recently?" Eliza asked, more eager to explore Cedarton's still room now than she was to take tea, but when Jane waved her towards a chair, she nevertheless sat.

"Aye, a wee bit back, Miss. I should get back t' kitchen now. Cooky'll be havin' conniptions over t' feast his Lordship asked for. But I'll be mighty grateful for that tooth remedy if you've time to mix it." She winced again but followed it with a tight little smile before departing.

"Honestly, Eliza, your things aren't even in your room and you're already meddling," Jane admonished as she poured. "I'll tell you right now that I doubt Bell will let you through the door of the still room, so you might as well forget any thoughts of potion making. He's very protective of his domain."

"His?"

Jane nodded. "It's not a mere still room he's set up. He's taken over three whole rooms on the ground floor and furnished them as a consulting room and surgery."

"Is he setting up practice? I thought you said he was Linfield's personal physician."

"That's right," Jane confirmed. She thrust a plate of parkin at Eliza. Jane, herself, was already biting into a second square. "Though it confounds me as to why it's necessary. Linfield's the picture of health. You don't mind that it's parkin, do you? I've had a proper hankering for it of late, and the only other thing on offer is some marmalade that Linfield's mother sent. It's horridly bitter, but apparently Linfield loves it. I daren't say that I've not the same love of it in case it gets back to the Countess."

"Yes, probably best not to slight your mother-in-law's marmalade afore you've met."

She accepted the offered piece of parkin and tucked in.

"As for Bell," Jane continued. "Well… I suppose I had better tell you now, that he's no ordinary physician, before you go rattling on about his sort never sullying their hands. He's very well respected, but rather eccentric. Mixes his own potions like an apothecary and he's performed for the Royal College of Surgeons in Lincoln's Inn Fields and studied at the Anatomy School in Oxford."

"I see." He didn't sound much like any physician she'd had the pleasure of meeting, more like a—

"Don't, don't say it."

Ginger exploded fiery on Eliza's tongue. "—body thief."

Jane sighed into her teacup. "Please don't say that to his face. It's not at all accurate."

"I know," Eliza thoughtfully chewed on her cake. "He dissects corpses. Resurrectionists only dig them up. Although, one has to wonder which is worse. Personally, I thought the role of the physician was to keep people alive."

"You know as well as I that's the whole point of… of chopping people up. Can we talk of something pleasanter? I hope when I go, I'm left peacefully in my grave, not relieved of my organs and pickled in a jar. The whole idea makes me feel nauseous." She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth as if she might gag.

"You were always squeamish." At school, Jane could be relied on to faint dead away at the sight of the merest scratch. Eliza was made of hardier stuff. Delivering babies required it, as did the recent forays into anatomy she'd made for herself, not that she was about to tell Jane of them. Her friend was already gulping tea as if her life depended on it.

"I'll be scrupulously pleasant to your Doctor Bell, I promise—"

"I'm pleased to hear it."

"—for how else will I get him to share all his tricks?"

Jane put her head in her hands. "You ought to have been born a man." She sighed.

There was much Eliza could have said about that too, but Jane looked too pale to handle it. She'd seemed the picture of health when Eliza arrived, but on closer examination it was plain there were dark smudges beneath her eyes, and a pallor to her skin not manifested with powder. Eliza stretched across the table and squeezed her friend's hand. "Tell me about Linfield. I can still hardly believe that you're wed. How long have you known one another? It must have been a whirlwind match."

When her friend remained silent, Eliza said, "I could tell you about the pistol ball I removed from a man's leg."

Jane raised her hand. "Stop. I will tell you everything you could ever want to know about Linfield, if you'll only spare me your love of blood and guts."