-19-

Eliza

The scream curdled Eliza's thoughts. She knew at once from whose throat it had been torn. "Jane!"

She had barely righted her clothes before Bell streaked across the room without so much as an excuse me. Both she and Jem sprinted after him into the corridor. They caught up to him in the subterranean passage Eliza had heard the servants describe as the rat-run.

"Why have you slowed? Let me through." Eliza made to elbow her way ahead, but Bell stayed her with a hand clasped about her upper arm.

"Straighten your hair, Miss Wakefield. Whatever mischief is afoot won't be helped by you appearing disorderly, that much is assured." She reached a hand to it and found the coil of it that had previously been fastened at the nape of her neck partially unwound. This she restored with the adjustment of several pins.

"I can hear Linfield. Discord amidst the newlyweds?" Jem said, arriving at their heels. He'd taken the time to pull on his topcoat, but he was still missing his cravat, nor had his shirt been fastened at the neck. "Eliza, your earbob." He passed her the jewel that she hadn't noticed was even missing.

"I fear it likely something of that nature," Bell's bewigged head was tilted to better hear the rumpus. "There is never a moment of peace in this place. Not a blasted one. If it's not arguments, it's phantoms, and if it's not phantoms it's melodramatic maids or our fair hostess taking another turn." He advanced a couple of steps, before straightening up and proceeding with his usual long-legged stride. "Miss Wakefield. Jem, I think we might advance to the stairs. The wailer I believe is Mrs Cluett, not Lady Linfield, and if I'm not mistaken, young George has embroiled himself too. No doubt rallied to his mother's cause."

"So not a marital tiff." A deal of tension seemed to fall from Jem's shoulders.

"I definitely heard Jane."

"Then I fear whatever has occurred must have embroiled them all."

"I pray that we're not about to walk into the aftermath of another spectral visitation," Jem said. "They are most perplexing, and I do not care for the puzzle of it. In fact, I do not care for any more supernatural nonsense at all. Whoever is playing these games must desist in them."

"Then you truly believe this all a person's work?"

"Of course," he shot back, prompting Eliza to exchange a look with Bell. She did not truly doubt that fact for herself, only a part of her wondered. There were no explanations to be had for Jane's visions, nor her bed curtains' spontaneous ignition. She believed the maid. Matter of fact, she readily believed her testament over any other given her by the inhabitants of this place.

"Is that your opinion too, sir?"

Bell tugged on the end of his ringleted wig. "Most malice does have a human hand in it, and I confess, I spend enough time alone with the deceased to question the notion of vengeful spirits. One would think that if they were a reality then some of the souls that have crossed my dissection table would have objected more strongly to their treatment, both in their last moments of life, and in their eternal slumber. Yet not one has ever risen to haunt me."

That was certainly something to ponder. "Perhaps it was the nature of Old Lady Cedarton's death that's caused her to…"

Jem shot her a questioning look over his shoulder before he turned the bend.

Doctor Bell huffed. "Miss Wakefield, believe me the folks whose bodies have reached me have plenty that might prompt them to stir from their eternal rest, but perhaps we might ponder this matter later? It rather relies on the notion of a soul, and I can tell you that I have never found evidence of such a thing's existence."

"Nor would you, for in death it's departed."

"Or wasn't there to begin with."

"You're an atheist, sir?"

"Agnostic. There are no rational grounds for the justification of a divine beneficent force, nor a maleficent one."

Indeed, it was a discussion for another time. Eliza lifted her skirts and hurried up the first flight of stairs. For some reason his words disturbed her in a way she couldn't rightly fathom. She was not an overly religious woman. Of course, she attended church as any good woman did, and said her prayers, but to go as far as claiming that the existence of a soul—and the Almighty—was no more than a myth…. Well, coming from an anatomist, it gave her the shivers.

Midway up the second flight of stairs, Eliza caught sight of Jane in the shadowy entrance hall. Despite it being only mid-afternoon, the large fireplace was lit, along with a number of cheap tallow candles, the stench of which permeated the air, adding to the sense of neglect and ruin that lingered over the whole castle. Several long shadows cast by the various stuffed stag heads loomed large across the chamber floor, so that it appeared as if two great grasping hands stretched out to seize the occupants scurrying about the cavernous interior. George and Linfield were lobbing items at one another.

Jane collided with her as she reached the top, drowning her in a cloud of rose pomade. "Eliza." She threw her arms fast about her and proceeded to snuffle against Eliza's shoulder.

"Dear, what has happened? What ill befalls you now? Not another scare… another sighting?" The room's other occupants were in such a state of chaos it was impossible to tell what was going on.

"What I have seen is nothing worse than hell itself. Oh, I wish I could cut it from my mind."

Eliza coaxed her upright, and hands clasped fast to her friend's cheeks looked her square in the face. "Jane, what in heavens have you seen? Old Lady Cedarton? Has she appeared to you again?"

Her friend released a hysterical cackle. "Old Lady Cedarton. Oh, dear no, 'tis much worse than that. I am made wretched… wretched. 'Tis all a farce, a marriage in name and naught else. His affections lie with another. Eliza, it is as we suspected, he has a mistress, and that mistress is Henrietta."

"Henrietta?" She could not keep the astonishment from her voice. "Come, you must tell me all. Surely, there is some misunderstanding."

"'Tis a gift-horse of a marriage." Jane clasped Eliza's hand in a fearsome grip and dragged her through into the dining room away from the others. Here there was no fire lit, and the air held enough chill that their breath steamed before them. Outside, the daylight was already fading into night, making the rain streaming down the glass seem like a blackened waterfall. Jane cast herself into a chair and slumped against the table, only to bob back onto her feet a second or two later and begin a military-like march before the empty hearth.

"Jane, that seems… surely you're mistaken."

Her friend planted her hands assuredly on her hips. Her delicate feature screwed into a frown. "Mistaken, I am most certainly not. I saw them together, as plain as I see you. Heard her giggling and playing the coquette and caught him with his…with his falls unbuttoned and his… his… It was in her mouth. In her hand… No, both, I believe."

"In the hallway?"

Jane laughed. It was a laugh bordering on mania. "Is that the only part of this you find far-fetched? That he should make merry with his mistress in our hallway rather than a bedchamber or another room with more comforts?"

"Jane, that is not at all what was in my thoughts. I merely question what you think you saw."

"Yes, as everybody does. I see spirits after all. I am most unreliable. He… Linfield has already tried that line with me, but it is no fallacy. I know very well what I saw. I am not mistaken, and if you try to convince me otherwise, I will know you are no longer my true friend."

That was just enough of a retort that a rush of heat bloomed across Eliza's cheeks. "I don't mean to call your judgement into question." She simply wished to calm her down. Jane's limbs were aquiver, her heels drumming against the floor, and her poor lower lip was now bitten into ruddiness. "It's only that I have such a scant understanding of what has occurred, that it all seems outlandish. Perhaps if you give me a fuller picture."

"I do not see how much fuller a picture I can give. Eliza, she was kneeling before him, and had her hands on his…"

"Prick," Eliza suggested.

"His…prick…yes." Jane dragged her tongue over her teeth as if to remove the stain of the word from their surface. "And she was bent as to kiss it. He was encouraging her, while she whispered all manner of sweet talk to him." Emotions getting the better of her, Jane slapped her hand against the back of a chair, only to wince at the impact and curl her fingers before bringing them to her lips and spilling a fresh round of tears over them.

"How horrid for you. I wish it were otherwise and that your husband has not proved himself the rogue his reputation foretold. However, it does not follow that one incident equates to an ongoing arrangement."

"What else would it be? He spurns my affections, and now it is clear why. What use has he for them when he has his whore staying alongside us under this very roof? Did we not… did we not both observe that it was an oddity for a man to bring along his mother to such a gathering? Well, now I should say the purpose of it is entirely clear. Oh, I hate this place. Hate it, and despair of it. Nothing but calamity has befallen me since entering this accursed castle."

Then clutching her belly, she burst into another round of angry sobs. "'Tis all bad. I am ruined. How shall I ever convince him the child is his, when he is untempted by my person, and our marriage remains unconsummated? He has her. Does not need me. Is only disgusted by me. I should scratch her eyes out if I could. Why must she be here? Why must she have his love?"

"Jane, you do not know that is the case. You are shocked and overwrought, and with sound reason, but you jump to conclusions that may not be facts. Come sit." Eliza drew out two chairs from the dining table and having positioned them facing one another propelled Jane into the first, before settling in the second. Thence, she clasped Jane's icy fingers and held them in a comforting grasp. It was deuced cold in this chamber, and she longed for a warmer locale to have this conversation but having only just managed to get Jane to settle, she did not want to divert her attention even to secure them both some warmth.

"Tell me from the point that I left you at your lacemaking all that occurred. Do not leave anything out. Do not speculate. Tell me simply all as it occurred."

Jane mopped her face with her kerchief. "Linfield claims my mind is addled, that he was merely taking a piss in a chamber pot. As if I am so foolish to believe that. Does he imagine me blind? Am I to suppose Henrietta was holding it for him? It is so preposterous."

"Jane," Eliza coaxed softly. "From the beginning."

Jane's thoughts were soon wrangled into a narrative, one in which she'd been engrossed with her bobbins and making steady progress. Mrs Honeyfield had brought her more tea, along with marmalade and bread, but she had not eaten because she'd been disturbed by the sound of footsteps hurrying about, and the banging and creaking of many doors. "Trust me, I was most wary of investigating, for Cedarton has proved itself an unfriendly place, particularly to me, but I will not be enfeebled, or made to tiptoe about the place in fear of being alone. I cannot ask you always to be here with me." She squeezed Eliza's fingers tightly. "I may not like it here, but it is my home, and my right as Lady Cedarton to live here. Anyway, I lingered a while, wary of investigating. I was sure that you would return afore long, and then we might look together. Cedarton is not so extensive that you would not be able to traverse the whole of it inside an hour, not even if you had ventured into the ruins of the Lady Tower. You did not, did you, Eliza? It is quite unsafe, and the rain has been so utterly relentless this afternoon."

"I did not. You need not fear."

"That is good." She tried to pat Eliza's knee while still clinging tight to her fingers. "But the hour passed, and you did not come, but the noises continued. I felt quite sure that someone was meaning to frighten me with a trick, so I did some tiptoeing of my own. You'll recall that I can be quite light on my feet. Was I not often applauded at school for the lightness of my gait when the dance tutor came?"

"You were, Jane. Often and heartily. You always had the lightest step amongst us."

"Precisely, and so they did not hear me." She shot a gaze at the door onto the hallway. "Eliza, they were in the Billiards Room together. Linfield had his back to the table and Henrietta was knelt on a footstool alongside him. She must have fetched it from the Hunting Room next door, for I swear I've never noticed it in there before. Anyway, she was kneeling, right before him. Should I show you?" She made as if to fall to her knees.

"No need."

"Well, she kept talking to him in a coaxing fashion, saying all manner of sweet and encouraging things."

"What sort of things?"

A blush scalded Jane's ashen cheeks. "I'm certain I shouldn't wish to repeat them in full. It was all about Captain Standish and how she'd soon persuade him to stand for the ladies, and Linfield saying that man Thomas was not at all eager, but if she had it in her, then…then he could see to giving her what she wanted, as a show of his gratitude and the like."

That did sound rather damning.

"Well, I'm sure I didn't mean to burst in as I did, but I couldn't rightly stand there and let them carry on canoodling unchallenged, not when it became obvious from the bobbing of her head that she was not just fondling his…thing… gentleman's thing… but kissing, nay even suckling him down there—"

"No, I suppose not."

"Suckling like a babe would at a teat." Her voice was rising again, growing increasingly shrill. "Of all the things! I'm quite sure I didn't comprehend that one might even do such a thing before witnessing it. It doesn't seem at all right or proper that a dame should do that for a man. Not that any sort of congress is entirely right or proper, but…" She fell into momentary silence.

No indeed, fucking was not proper, nor sucking, but wickedly delightful all the same. 'Twas hard not to recall the joy of taking Jem thus only yesterday morning, and how glorious it had felt to have him return the favour in the surgery just now.

"Of course, if that is what he requires in order that he bed me, then… then of course I will obey him in this whim." Jane's wild eyes briefly closed, and her face screwed up into a knot. "Oh, I do not understand why he would do this. I swear I have made myself as amenable to him as any woman possibly could. Why does he choose to fornicate with her and not with me?"

If there was an answer, then alas Eliza didn't possess it.

"Why, Eliza? Do I revolt him so very much?"

"I am sure that is not the case."

Linfield was a queer kettle to be sure, if he desired Mrs Cluett's favours over those of his new wife. Not that Henrietta didn't have her charms, but Jane was his to use how he wished, so unless he had somehow discerned the Jack in her cellar… Could that be it? It seemed most unlikely, there was as yet no obvious thickening of her waist, and he had hardly been so intimately acquainted with her person to note such a thing.

"Jane, I know you will not like what I have to say, but I think… I think you're going to have to address him on this matter."

"Speak to him about it!"

Eliza gave a decisive nod.

"You did not hear him, nor all the foulness he threw at me. At me, who had done nothing wrong, only expressed my horror over finding him so compromised as any wife would surely do. It is deplorable of him, it truly is, for him to have brought that woman here."

"Jane, I'm still not entirely certain she's his mistress, and this wasn't anything more than an opportunity seized in a moment."

"He promised her recompense."

"I did not say there wasn't a bargain struck, but it does not necessarily follow that it's an ongoing arrangement."

"If it's a first, then that is almost worse, for doesn't it only emphasise his repulsion for me?"

Refusing to support the way Jane seemed determined to demean herself, she sucked her lips into a pucker. "The only way you'll know the truth is if you talk to him. I know you do not wish to and with every reason. He owes you an apology, plain and simple. But Jane, you have both sworn oaths and agreed to this union. If you cannot make good of it, then I fear you will both make one another very unhappy."

"But to address him so directly on such a topic, and after how violently he swore at me? I don't think that I can. And even supposing I do, what if he tells me that he won't be rid of her? Or that he means her to continue to share our home, and intends to go on making use of her favours? What shall I do then?"

"Persevere." Eliza offered her another hand squeeze. "I am so sorry that this is your lot, Jane. It is undeserved, and alas convinces me that I will preserve my spinsterhood."

"Truly?" Jane queried, letting go of Eliza's hand to rub and dry her eyes. "But I thought I detected a fondness between you and Mr Whistler. Surely you would take him if he offered. Wouldn't you, Eliza?"

She could not be certain that she would. Though she didn't say that, it must have been clear in her expression for Jane worried her poor lip again and tutted, then took to patting her hand as if she were the one in dire need of comfort. "I pray only that you don't make my mistake, Eliza. Do not think you can love and be free, for you cannot. Not without consequences, and such folly is precisely what has led me here to this doomed marriage, in this wretched place. Had I not been so na?ve, so foolish, then I would have had the option to object to my father's negotiations with Lord Bellingbrook."

"What is done is done and can't be altered," Eliza advised.

Jane's sighs seemed to wriggle up from her bowels. "You are a goddess among friends, Eliza. I cannot thank you enough for being mine. Almost everyone would have severed our friendship the moment they knew of my predicament, but not you. You are more steadfast. You are a true friend. A saint amongst them." She fell into wretched silence, whilst chewing on her lower lip.

Eliza heartily wished she had more wisdom to offer and could do more than offer her friendship and support for she could see that Jane was trapped. Both here in this mouldering ruin of a castle and in the bed she'd made for herself by tying the knot with Lord Linfield. And indeed, the one she'd made for herself by trusting a previous man's word.

She would gladly wring his neck if she ever discerned his name.

Jane took to her feet again. Indeed, Eliza followed her up, for it was overly cold to linger too long in one position. The damp had a way of inveigling its way into your joints if you did, and she was young still to be complaining of aches and cramps and stiff limbs.

"I must compose myself before I even think of confronting him. I am so torn." Jane was marching again. She seemed to think best on her feet and in motion. "In truth, I confess, I do not desire him, and if the circumstances were other than they are,"—she cradled her arms around her middle— "I think I should be wholly relieved that he does not care to bother me. But they are as they are, and he must bed me. Eliza, he must believe this child is his. All must think it. For I fear for both our fortunes if it is found out."

'Twas the only thing persuading Eliza to hold the information close. It was not a deception she cared to be privy to, though she completely understood the necessity of it. Jane ought not to have wed him, but that was done and past. The best had to be made of the circumstances. Also, she rightly feared Linfield's reaction were he to find out. She already held a deep suspicion of him. Too much circumstantial evidence pointed to his involvement in all the ghastly goings on. Perhaps Jane was correct, and Henrietta was his long-term mistress. Perhaps they were co-conspirators in trying to relieve Jane of her wits.

"Will you come with me to the Lady's Parlour?" Jane asked. "Only it is too chilly here to think properly. My toes are like ice, and I mean to return to my bobbins. I know the activity will help me straighten out my thoughts. They are in a frightful whirl."

"Of course, I will come."

They did not return the way they had come but wove a path through the drawing room and its antechamber and several small rooms to reach their destination. Whatever squabble had abounded between Linfield and George seemed to have ceased. Nor could they hear Henrietta's screeching any more.

"How did George come to be involved?" Eliza asked as they walked with their arms linked, and Jane's wrap about both their shoulders.

"I think he must have heard my cry. He arrived from the Hunting Room and quickly discerned the cause of the discord. Then he grew enraged, though I'm not sure who he was most angered by. He took up a billiards cue and tried to jab Linfield." She made a forward thrust as to demonstrate, dislodging the shawl, which Eliza caught. "But he had no kind words for his mother either. She got out of his way when he raised his hand, else I think he would have struck her too."

"He landed the blow to Linfield, then?"

"Yes. Perhaps. I'm not rightly sure. But Linfield started throwing the billiard balls at his head, and that's when he chased George out into the hallway. I do hope the Cluetts will leave. I pray that when we go to dinner tonight it will be two less around the table, and a swift end to all the discord. Then, I shan't have to say anything to Linfield, nor smile at that snake of a woman. To think she has been nothing but sugar and kindness to me, but it has all been a lie. In all my days, I don't believe I've ever encountered such a duplicitous," —she swallowed what was surely an awful name, before substituting— "woman."

That she was duplicitous herself did not seem to cross her mind. It made Eliza wonder if anyone in this castle was entirely honest. And what of the argument she had witnessed between George and Linfield? How was that connected? She felt certain it had to be.

They reached their destination, and Eliza went to stoke the fire, while Jane settled at her table, the cushion with her lace pinned to it before her. A horrific thought struck Eliza as she stabbed the coals. What if Linfield had in fact already been wed before he recited vows to Jane? What if he was in fact wed to Henrietta, and it was Jane who was the interloper? That might explain a good deal about why the "spirits" were haunting her and proving shy of anyone else. No one besides that one maid who'd left her employment had witnessed the visitations.

But no, it could not be. She'd overheard George as he'd begun to recite the names on that certificate. He'd said Jane, hadn't he? But then why had Linfield flown into such a terrible rage?

Ought she to voice her concerns to Jane? Oh, but she couldn't, not without certainty. It would destroy her friend utterly. No, she would have to find the certificate George had claimed and view it for herself.