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Eliza

They were to gather in the drawing room ready for dinner. Fashionably late. Linfield insisted on London hours. No one seemed to have mentioned that dinner was served earlier in the countryside. It made Eliza glad of all the parkin Jane had plied her with earlier, for she was so famished her stomach was engaged in some unladylike gurgling. If not for that, she might have taken the opportunity of being ready a little early in order to return to the still room. Doctor Bell would surely be elsewhere. Even quacksalvers were expected to dress for dinner.

She shook, trying to dislodge the feeling of irritation he'd wrought, so arrogant, so dismissive. Her intellect was in no way diminished by virtue of being a woman, only less-honed, as she had been largely deprived of tuition and barred entry into the seats of learning he was welcomed into.

All at once, she missed her still room and garden at Bluebell Lane with its pungent aromas and seas of blooms that flourished from March to November. Within its confines were so many miracles of nature. After dinner, she would make time, find an opportunity to slip away and mix that powder for Mrs Honeyfield. The poor woman probably already imagined herself forgotten by the gentry she served.

For too much of her life, the Wakefield's had only been one step away from destitution themselves, and the fact that Freddy had changed that did not always feel like a boon. Now, her tolerated foibles—bookishness, healing, and the vindication of women—were no longer considered accomplishments. All anyone cared about was whether she could embroider, sing, paint, and produce something delicate on the ear upon the harp or pianoforte. As it happened, she could not.

Next door, she could still hear Jane bustling about with her toilette. Feeling stifled, Eliza determined to make her own way down to dinner. The castle's layout was really not so very confusing as it had first seemed. She found the red drawing room with ease and entered to find a couple already present: a young buck with sandy hair and a ruddy complexion, round of face, but long-limbed, and a lady—a relation, if twin snub noses were to be relied upon. Her hair was bound beneath a brightly striped turban and dressed with a plume of feathers Eliza thought probably better suited their original owner.

The buck leapt from his seat at once on spying her and darted forward, all courtly charm. He dipped into a bow.

"Good evening, you must be Lady Linfield's friend."

Eliza allowed him to brush his lips against her knuckles. The stock he wore was so large that it almost swallowed his head as he bowed. "Excuse the presumption, but as our hosts are not yet down, allow me to introduce myself. I'm George Cluett. Linfield and I are old school chums. I'm told that is how you and Lady Linfield are acquainted. What a hoot! And this lady here is my mother, Mrs Cluett."

Her suspicions were correct.

The lady rose, graceful as a ballet dancer though she was plump as a French hen, with cheeks a cherub would have envied. There was a bloom about her that maturity hadn't stolen. If Eliza had not just had it confirmed, she would not have believed her old enough to have an adult son. "Henrietta, please dear," she chastened in good humour. "I can't abide pointless formality. We are thrust here together in the wilds, and such a cosy party, I expect we will all know one another very well soon enough." To Eliza she added. "You are Miss Wakefield, I believe."

"Eliza."

Henrietta swaddled her in a bosomy embrace. "It is very good to make your acquaintance, Eliza. Come in, you must take the other fireside seat. George can stand. I confess I'm quite astonished to find you among us. I believed we were quite cut off by this ghastly mist. I cannot think how you managed to find your way. It is worse than when the fog rolls in off the Thames. Did I not just say that to you, George? Of course, at least then, one has a source of navigation, a lamplighter, coachman… Out here, simply miles upon miles of desolation."

"I had both a coachman and lamp," Eliza assured her, not wishing her to labour under the supposition she'd arrived alone on foot. "Truly it was not so very bad, other than the very last stretch when we dipped in and out of the dells."

"Ha—the wind whistles across those moors," George said, planting himself between the two armchairs with his back to the fire. He made a spectacularly efficient fire guard.

Henrietta returned to her chair and pulled a blanket over her skirts. She waved Eliza towards the other. "A local girl, are you? Hardy, I expect, not comfort born like George here. Doesn't know the price of coal, he doesn't. What do you think of Cedarton?" She did not give Eliza the opportunity to answer but dived headlong into an opinion of her own. "It's not what I was led to believe. Not a jot. Mice always scampering about. Dead birds on the window ledges." She sniffed and cast a beady glance at her son, making it plain that she blamed him for the discrepancy.

"Mother," George whispered a chastisement under his breath, that his mother seemed likely to ignore. "It's good of Linfield to invite us."

"It would have been a bigger mercy to have been spurned in this instance." She snapped her gaze back to Eliza. "Come, dear." She patted the cushion, indicating once again that Eliza should sit. Eliza drifted closer but found she did not care to sit. It was all she'd done since leaving Bluebell Lane that morning, and it was not in her nature to idle. "You must forgive me my grumbling, Eliza dear. Like my son, I am a creature of comfort, and this ruin, it is like something out of a nightmare. Have you seen that half the rooms are exposed to the elements? Holes in the roof, experiments in the basement, mice scurrying about as they please—there were a whole litter of them on the canopy of my bed that the housekeeper had to remove—and there's barely a soul to speak to. Just two maids, for a house of this size? It's unthinkable. Only a trio of male staff, too, and no butler. Oh, well I suppose there's the grizzled groundsman too, but he hardly counts. Do you think he counts, dear?"

George cast an exasperated sigh toward the ceiling.

"I shouldn't hope for any decent conversation from the gentlemen, either, they are too preoccupied with their sports and science experiments."

"Mother, please."

"I was promised music, George. The cream of the local gentry. I'm told there's many an aged squire about these parts, past his prime and secured of an heir, but still desirous of an amenable companion, although like as not, they're all smugglers. And what was the other thing? That's right, scenery that would melt my heart. Freeze it more like. If there is beauty to be found out there, it is well hidden. There aren't even any gardens one might perambulate about, just thickets. I shall be glad to return to London when this house party concludes."

"I rather like it," Eliza said. To her, Cedarton possessed a bleak sort of beauty. She was looking forward to the fog lifting so that they might ramble across the moors, and explore the very thickets that Henrietta despaired over. It was too cold for a picnic, but she was not the fondest of those, anyway. Really, they were the delight of Maria and Caroline. Her youngest two siblings found inordinate amounts of joy in eating al fresco sat upon an old blanket or shawl. "I'd quite like to take a good look at the tower ruins too. The shell of the gallery was rather fascinating."

"The ruins? Good gracious, I can't imagine how anyone could find anything appealing about such decay." Henrietta rubbed her hands together, as if to confirm they were soft and smooth, not cracked like the abandoned furnishings in the destroyed rooms.

George lifted his coat-tails to better warm his rear. Eliza ambled over to one of the long windows and peered out, only to find her reflection obscuring the view, and straight after, Mr Cluett's too. "Forgive my mother, Miss Wakefield. She has quite the imagination, and I fear we weren't as circumspect as we ought to have been last night with our storytelling."

"Now you have me intrigued, Mr Cluett."

"Must you, George? I beg you, don't encourage him, Eliza. Last night was quite bad enough, between your talk of fires and apparitions, and Doctor Bell's obsession with morbidity."

Eliza clapped her hands. "You were telling the tale of the Cedarton fire, perhaps? I am sorry to have missed that. The ruined tower is quite close to my room. Such damage, I'm quite fascinated."

"Fire is not a good thing to be fascinated by," Henrietta muttered.

"Perhaps you haven't heard. Cedarton has its very own ghost," George confessed, a dimple winking in his cheek. "No mere story intended to thrill, either, it's been sighted, and recently, I might add." He tapped his nose. "Very recently."

Intrigued, Eliza bowed her head towards his.

"Not a week gone, the scullery maid saw it on the upper floor. 'Twas a lady, handsomely dressed, but chilled as if frozen. Didn't make a whisper, and translucent as glass. The maid near expired on the spot. Bell had to tend to her. Have you met Doctor Bell? I think he scared her twice over. Pretty cadaverous himself, an absolute twig, and eyes like a blanket burned through. And not a clue how to speak to a woman, let alone one scared out of her wits. Dosed her up on laudanum, he did. It was the only way to quiet her shrieking. Anyway, next day she was gone when everyone woke. Butcher's boy brought a note yesterday morning, asking for her wages. She's got the whole village stirred up, so she has. Course, Linfield's not happy about it. Had a devil of a time finding staff to open the place up, and now this has got tongues and fingers wagging all the more."

"But she didn't really encounter a spectre."

"You don't believe in such things, Miss Wakefield?" George seemed intrigued by that possibility. "You are a confirmed sceptic?"

"I prefer to rule out rational explanation first, and there surely is one. It's an old building, with many dingy corridors."

George conceded this point with a nod. "It was up on the third floor, near that great oak door to the Lady Tower when she saw it. You've seen it, I suppose? A door with that many bolts is there for a purpose, don't you think?"

"I thought it was commonly accepted that spectres were not confined by walls."

"Ah—she has you there, Georgie," Henrietta piped up.

The gentleman didn't seem the slightest bit perturbed. He returned to the fireside. "There have been rumours about this place for years. Heard most of them direct from Linfield himself right in the schoolroom. Frightful business, was quite surprised when he said he meant to open the old place up again." He patted the mantlepiece affectionately, as if the building were possessed of sentience, and he wished to mitigate any offence it might take at being spoken of in such a manner.

Henrietta gave a theatrical sigh and fanned her bosom. "George, really, you and your gossipy superstitions. Cedarton's nothing more than bricks and mortar that ought to have been pulled down in favour of a modern building long ago. Is that Linfield's intention, do you think? A generous modern house."

"I'm not aware of such a plan, mother. Perhaps it would also be better to keep such a suggestion to yourself, rather than seed any ideas that he might not wish to take root. You wouldn't want to be the source of any potential discord between him and his new bride."

"Oh, I'm sure Jane has no fancies in that regard."

"A new wife often wishes to redecorate."

"That is hardly the same as tearing the place down to its foundations and rebuilding it anew."

The Cluetts exchanged tight-lipped expressions, the sort that were a form of silent shortcut between familiar persons. Eliza had enjoyed many such conversations with her siblings. Some sort of accord was evidently reached, for George harrumphed, and Henrietta, hand settled across the top of her bosom said, "Perhaps dear Jane hasn't told you that she's also seen the ghost."