-5-

Eliza

Jane soon arrived, along with everyone else, so there was no opportunity for Eliza to take her aside and grill her over her apparent sighting. They were not many in number; Eliza was surprised to find she had met all Cedarton's inhabitants. They were uneasy bedfellows, which was obvious enough from observing the various figures around the table: Jane steeled herself before every interaction with Linfield, then there was the calculating joviality of both Cluetts, coupled with a thread of obsequiousness from George. He rattled on at length about fishing and past wagers, all of which seemed to involve Linfield's ultimate triumph. Lady Luck evidently smiled upon his lordship.

For her part, she found Linfield an unremarkable sort. Sandy fine hair that fell over his brow in delinquent waves. He was, as many a young man she'd met, possessed of an old bloodline and an indecent allowance, an indolent wastrel. Perhaps in time he would make something of himself, many did, but at present he was still firmly entrenched in making as many of the errors of youth as seemingly possible. Starting—and she was desperately sorry to observe it—by marrying a woman he had not an iota of regard for. It wasn't just affection that was lacking between Jane and her earl's son. She was like an object come into his possession—one that would fall from his memory were it not for her unfortunate presence at his dining table.

Eliza swallowed her soup, hardly tasting it so sick did she feel for her friend. No wonder Jane hadn't wanted to speak of him. She could only wonder why Jane had ever consented to the match. It had to be a result of family meddling on both their parts.

Across the table from her, Doctor Bell cut his fish into flakes and stirred them around his plate. Eliza tried to recall if she'd seen him eat anything at all. He could do with a good meal. There wasn't much to him, though his height rather added to the appearance of slenderness. She would have liked to talk to Jem some more, but he was at the other end of the table. His presence remained such a pleasant surprise that the unexpected fizz of it still sang in her innards.

Linfield caught the line of her gaze. "How are you finding Cedarton so far, Miss Wakefield?"

Instantly the table gave Linfield their whole attention, leaving Eliza with a wary sensation crawling up her spine as if she was being led into a trap. They were probably simply affording their host the courtesy he deserved.

"It's been very agreeable, so far, and of course it is a delight to see dear Jane again."

"Jane—yes, Jane." He threw a sidelong glance at his wife. Jane in turn blushed and lowered her gaze to her plate. "I suppose it's good that you'll keep one another busy."

"I had observed the numbers were a little uneven before," Henrietta remarked. She shot a glance at her son, as if expecting an explanation from him, then hunched inwards when he failed to provide one.

"I'm sure that's always how you've claimed you prefer it," George shot her a constipated look across the table. "What is it you say? Ladies chatter like birds, and you can't abide their constant shilling?"

"I'm certain I never said such a thing in my life." Henrietta produced a fan and wafted away the very notion. "Yes, ladies like to chatter, but they aren't fishwives. They are graceful, unlike you gentlemen with your slovenly ways and determination to appear as if you've just fallen from bed. In my youth, the mark of a true gentleman was that he was impeccably turned out. Oh, the balls I could tell you of from when I was a girl…."

Eliza remained convinced, despite such proselytising, that Henrietta was not a day over thirty-five, even with a grown son beside her to suggest otherwise.

"Eliza? You are the acclaimed Miss Eliza Wakefield?"

The speaker this time was Doctor Bell. They had already been introduced, so it struck her a rather odd query. Jem seemed to think so too, judging by the glare he shot along the table.

"Is that significant?" Cluett regarded her through a squint.

"Really, George, must you glower like that? It's most unbecoming. How will you ever attract the right sort of young lady if you insist on glowering at them like that?"

George, ignoring his mother's complaints, continued to regard Eliza like a suspiciously undercooked vegetable. Only after a painfully long appraisal, did some penny or other drop, whereupon so did his jaw. "Not the Eliza Wakefield responsible for saving the Marquis of Pennerley's leg?"

"Ah!" Heat rushed to Eliza's cheeks.

"You? But you're just a slip of a girl."

"George."

Henrietta's admonishment again fell on deaf ears.

"It's said he insisted on you over any other surgeon, and that you dug the ball from his leg yourself."

"Well, yes. That is true, in a sense, but—"

"Your father was a ship's surgeon or some such," Bell remarked drily, and far too dismissively for Eliza not to take it as the slight it was clearly intended to be.

"No, indeed. He did not work. He was a gentleman."

This resulted in a tense silence, followed by several uncomfortable coughs. "Maybe you could give us a full account of it after dinner," Linfield suggested.

More dismissal. "I'm afraid it would make for a very brief story, my lord. I was on hand, and able to attend to the wound, which healed in time. Though it is true, I dug the pistol ball from his thigh. I did not, however, attend him during his convalescence as he had removed himself to one of his estates some miles from where I was staying."

"It's true," Jem confirmed, offering her an encouraging smile. His smile, unlike the garrulous ones of the other men, did reach his eyes. "Witnessed the whole thing. It was most extraordinary. She patched the other blood's finger too, that Pennerley had shot right off." Eliza raised her napkin to hide her own bemusement at Jem's referring to Joshua Rushdale as a blood. He was more accurately a sparrow. Small amongst the aristocracy he associated with, dressed in his nankeen breeches and brown and buff coats and waistkits. Not that she minded his drab plumage, for it was born of practicality. Joshua, like Eliza, was a worker not an idler. Those around her last summer had laughed over her willingness to engage with him, but actually, he was fascinating. He hadn't Jem's sparkling intellect, but he was good humoured and passionate about progress, learned, kind, and… lonely. That latter point had been all too obvious.

She still had his finger bone. She wasn't sure why she'd kept it. As a reminder, she supposed, back when she thought he would write. It had both perplexed and disappointed her when he hadn't. Perhaps he felt sheepish about his actions. It'd been he who'd demanded satisfaction from Pennerley. He who'd shot a marquis over his sister's involvement with the man. It had all been poorly done, with ghastly performances made on all fronts, but Joshua she at least understood. He was no villain, simply a man put in an impossible situation, trying to do the right thing. She wondered if he and Jem still maintained correspondence. Bella, his sister, the now Marchioness of Pennerley, often wrote to Eliza's sister Caroline, but she rarely mentioned Joshua in her epistles. They were focused on merrymaking, lasciviousness, and derring-do.

"You never mentioned Pennerley's leg," Jane accused, as they retreated into the drawing room after the meal was through, leaving the gentlemen to their snuff and port.

"I did, but you balked at hearing the details of it." She did not point out that Jane had kept back secrets of her own, not with Henrietta within hearing distance. It wasn't that she mistrusted the other woman, only that she wanted to drag the whole story out of Jane, and she didn't think she'd do so with extra ears listening in.

"Yes, but you saved a man's leg with your doctoring. And not just any man's."

"'Twas a leg like any other, not different by virtue of being attached to a marquis."

It continued to astonish her that Pennerley's leg afforded her such notoriety. His wasn't the only leg wound she'd ever treated, nor the only pistol ball wound, but to the high born of the land, the leg of a marquis was far more precious than an ordinary person's, which was wholly back to front if you thought about it. A marquis could function perfectly without his appendages. He had servants to do his bidding, and means with which to sustain such help.

Not that she begrudged Pennerley his leg. It was only that the farmers, the miners, and village folk she went among, they depended on their mobility. If they didn't work, they didn't eat. The loss of a limb to them was far more devastating. Consequently, they were far more likely to crow about the fevers she'd spared their children, the crooked limbs she'd straightened with splints, or the sight she'd helped return to their ancients, rather than the miraculous recovery of some nob who'd got into a pointless argument and hence shot as a result.

"If you are going to converse about such things, I will say goodnight. Since, if the previous ghastly cold nights are anything to go by, the men will be at their drinking forever and a day." Henrietta shot a backwards glance at the dining room, then beckoned one of the footmen to light her way.

"We can take the teapot up to my sitting room, if you'd prefer," Jane suggested. The drawing room was mostly shadows, save for the glow around the fireplace. The two lit candelabras were wholly inadequate for such a large, and drafty room.

"Let's just drink up quickly and then retire." Eliza had the sense that the gentlemen wouldn't miss them, even if they arrived in a timely fashion. Moreover, she had questions aplenty, now that she'd encountered Linfield. He and Jane… Well, it all seemed… It seemed very untoward and awkward if she was being wholly honest. They were distinctly uncomfortable in one another's presence, and as like as chalk and cheese in every regard that one could think might make them a suitable match. Their families—for that's who had to be behind the pairing—surely weren't blind to that fact. What had persuaded them to pursue such a wretchedly ill-suited match?

Money, she supposed. Was that not always the heart of such matters?

"I thought," Jane said, looking as if she might carry off the teapot. "That it might be fun if we bedded together tonight. Exactly as we were wont to do at school."

Fun was not precisely how Eliza recalled those times, stuck within the cold confines of the school's heartless, echoic chambers. They had clung together then for warmth, for what meagre comfort they could scrounge from one another, but it seemed Jane's memories had become frayed at the edges. "'Tis a sweet notion, but will Linfield not object to having his bride stolen away from him?"

All the lightness in Jane vanished with a hiss. She folded in on herself, hands settling primly on her lap, gaze frosting over. Eliza stretched an arm out to reach her, shocked by the transformation. Jane's hand was icy, like she'd wandered for hours in the bitterest wind, or spent an afternoon moulding snowballs with un-gloved hands. Immediately, Eliza set to rubbing some life back into her flesh. "I think you had better tell me how you came to be married," she said.

Jane's gaze shifted to the fireplace, so that the flames danced in the ink of her pupils. Un-spilled tears clung to her eyelashes.

"Jane?"

She scrunched her skirt in her fist. "There's nothing to say. One wedding is the same as any other."

"That is clearly untrue. Jane…please. I'm no fool. What possessed you? You implied it was a choice, not forced upon you. But it's plain as day that you're hopelessly ill-suited—"

She tore her hand away from Eliza's hold. "Don't say that. How can you or anyone else know that? You don't know him. You barely know anything of my life these last years."

"Then tell me! I know that your letters seemed full of joy. You seemed happy. Are you saying it has all been make-believe, that these last years have been wretched?"

"Not wretched, no." Jane clasped her hands tightly and brought them to her brow, shaking her head as if to deny all that had passed. "I was happy." She looked up, eyes alight. "My time in Scarborough was pure joy. I would not undo it, but it has left me pitiful, Eliza. I have left my heart there, and this place… It makes all seem so gloomy."

Cedarton certainly seemed weighed by its history.

"Then why so hasty a marriage? Why not wait and become better acquainted?"

There was no disguising Jane's wince, though she attempted to hide it by pouring tea, and fussing over milk and sugar. Eliza had almost lost hope of receiving a reply when Jane lowered her cup into its saucer with a decisive clatter. "A delay wouldn't have suited either of us. It was all rather now or never, and anyway, it is done now, so there's no point in chewing it over. I'm sure once we're better acquainted, we'll learn to rattle along together well enough. It's early days. We've yet to reach a quarter."

Eliza steepled her fingers before her lips. None of that sounded remotely appealing. "He's not the sort of man I expected you to marry." She had always imagined mousy Jane Morley would settle for a quiet, studious fellow, perhaps a parson or a country squire, not an aristocratic scapegrace. Many was the man who had a few boisterous incidents in his past. It allegedly added colour to their characters, but it was not the sum of who they were. From what she'd observed of Linfield so far, profligate and Corinthian manners was all that existed, hence there was little to recommend him as a lifelong companion, and surely Jane saw that too. Although, either way, the marriage was made. It would have to be borne. "Does he make any attempt to better get to know you, Jane?"

Jane cradled her cup, then made a performance of taking multiple sips of hot tea, but she couldn't quite maintain her poise, and slumped into melancholic misery. "It would be an outright lie to say he tries. We spend no time at all together. Not during the day, or the evening. It is only at dinner that we eat together. He either takes breakfast in his rooms or rises with the crows. Luncheon," She shook her head. "I don't even know if he eats such a thing, or if he's content to subsist on merely liquid sustenance."

"But, at night—?" Eliza broke off, prickled by the delicacy of what she meant to ask. "I realise you have separate rooms." That was hardly unusual in a residence of this size, though it was curious that their rooms were situated so far apart. "But does he…does he visit you?"

Jane's brow puckered. "You mean, does he demand his conjugal rights?" Her teacup rattled so much from the shaking of her hand that Jane was obliged to put it down. "Not since we arrived at Cedarton." She sighed heavily. "And to be truthful, only the once afore, on our wedding night. I suppose it was expected. Everyone wished to know that the matter was done. I expect his mother examined the sheets and was duly disappointed. There was a terrible row the following morn."

"Was it horrible?" Eliza asked, clutching her friend's hand, she knew how comforting a friendly touch could be in trying situations.

"Ghastly," Jane agreed, though she didn't elaborate.

Eliza sat with her lips pinned. The marriage bed was hardly her area of expertise, though she wasn't oblivious to what occurred there. Birthing babies rather inevitably led to knowledge of such matters. Nor was she blind to what happened in the fields around her.

What she had discerned was that there ought to be some measure of pleasure involved for the participants, else why would the church need to lecture so doggedly upon wantonness and vice, and why did brothels exist, and men take mistresses? "Did it hurt?" She'd heard mention of pain the first time. Anything that resulted in blood-stained sheets surely involved some manner of trauma.

"Hurt?" Jane goggled at her.

"When he?" Eliza wove her hands into some sort of vague entanglement that only made Jane's eyes grow even wider. Then, her sour pout returned this time accompanied by a closing of her eyes. She covered her face. Eliza settled her hand on her bent shoulder. "Is that why you—why you said you'd seen the white lady?"

Up her friend's head popped like a burn blister. "Who told you about that? Oh, no, don't bother to answer, it's obvious enough. It was George, I suppose. Eliza, what I saw—it has nothing to do with Linfield. Leastways, nothing relevant to his performance in the marital bed." She sighed again, weary to her toes, and overburdened with sadness. "I'm not even sure what I saw. Do you think impressions of past events can be left behind on a building? I saw a woman in her nightrail or her chemise. It was hard to make out the details. Everything else around me was black, but her hair was loose, and I think she was holding something. Whatever it was, it burst into flames in her hand. I suppose I must have screamed, because George and Mr Whistler came tearing out of their rooms… It was nothing really, probably an overtired mind and fanciful thoughts inspired by finding myself mistress of such a monstrous place as this. It's all been very…" Her hands filled in her meaning where her words tumbled away.

What was clear to Eliza was that Jane had wholly avoided answering the bedding question. Might she then conjecture the worst case? While she believed pleasure was possible, she'd seen too often the counter of that—it was not always welcomed on the woman's part. Increasingly to her, it seemed marriage had little to recommend it. Rather it was a burden of numerous laying-ins.

She could not remain still and think of it. It bore her to her feet and set her pacing. The injustice of it all. The hours she'd spent scrubbing, pacing, and mending in attempts to dampen the furore she felt over her lot and those of her fellow maidens. At one point, she had thought change could be achieved through letters, that the vindication of women merely required that they opened the eyes of learned men. How foolish she had been. She'd since witnessed the attacks on the characters of those women who argued for such rights and observed their subsequent descent into ruin. But she was allowing herself to become distracted. What mattered in the here and now was how she could support Jane.

"Was it very…very horrid? You must tell him if it was, ask if he might not be more considerate of you. I know it's his legal right, but… but I cannot believe him to be such a wretch as to inflict such heartless discomfort—"

"Eliza, did you not hear me? I said he'd only come to me the once."

"But?"

"You have it all wrong, Eliza. Dammit! You mustn't think ill of me, but I have some prior knowledge of such things and how…how very distracting they can be. I can only think that Linfield knows and despises me for it."

"No one could ever despise you." Eliza cocooned her in her embrace, resting her head on Jane's shoulder.

She broke away at Jane's humourless laughter, fearing hysteria, but there was no trace of insanity in her friend's visage.

"I thought," Jane began. "I believed that even though we hardly knew one another, that sharing such pleasures would help us grow together. That we'd find a way to love one another, but… Oh, Eliza, I've made such a dreadful mistake. There is no chance of it, for Linfield is entirely indifferent to me. He won't notice if I'm absent from my bed and sleeping with you, any more than he'd notice if I bedded down in the stables with the hounds and horses, and it is entirely my fault. I have scared him off with my unmaidenly ways. I presumed to know best, you see. I acted contrary to his wishes, when he bade me do nothing other than to be still."

"I'm afraid I do not entirely follow," Eliza said, resettling herself in the armchair. "We are speaking of your wedding night? He asked you to lie still?"

"That's right. Stay quiet and still as a board, and turned away from him so that I could hardly breathe for having my face buried in the pillows. ‘Don't turn about or raise your head,' he says. ‘Don't try to touch me. Don't speak. In a moment it will be done, and thereafter, I won't trouble you above once month, and not at all once the line is secure.' But I didn't do it, Eliza. I couldn't do as he asked. I think he meant for us to rut like beasts, and I couldn't bear the thought of it being so… so utterly impersonal and devoid of love when I know… I know so very well how it can be. So, I didn't stay still, or quiet, or anything. I wanted his touch, you see. Why is it so bad that I wanted his hands on me—all over me? His mouth too. I longed for his kisses, the taste of his breath, his weight over me. So much, I wanted him to lose himself in his desire for me, for then, surely, certainly, it would all work out. We would be happy." She paused, a hand covering her mouth, then began again, voice cracking. "I said to him. I said… ‘I'm certain it would be better if we were face to face.' Well, I might as well have cracked his head open with a vase if you could have seen his reaction. Twere as if I'd asked the unimaginable. He up and left and has not returned. So, you see, I have quite spoiled everything."

She set to sniffling into her sleeve. Eliza gazed at her utterly perplexed. That he should behave in such a way made no sense at all. However, the foibles of young Corinthians would have to wait. "Jane," — she swaddled her in a tender embrace— "I'm sure that's not true."

"Then why has he not returned?" her friend mumbled into her clothing. "Why does he avoid my company? Ignore me? Gaze at me with such utter distaste."

"I'm sure it's all just a misunderstanding. Perhaps… perhaps, he is waiting for some cue from you to say that you might begin again, since the first time went so badly." Linfield did not strike her as the sort to think of anyone's feelings but his own, but she was loathe to condemn him after such a short acquaintance.

"Oh, to think I considered him my salvation." Jane screeched with surprising vigour. "The proposal was so timely."

She shook her head, then pulled at the pins securing her coif, releasing the strands of her hair in a tumbling cascade, before making thorough use of her handkerchief.

"I have heard," Eliza said tiptoeing into the subject. "That some men imagine their wives too delicate for such pleasures, and that they feel quite unable to demand of them what they seek without remorse from a mistress."

"You think he has a mistress?"

"That is not…" This was ridiculous. Of course the man had a mistress. Probably more than one along with a score of bastards to his name too. He'd be a funny sort of rakehell if he didn't. But there was no sense in disturbing Jane's mind with such thoughts, since there was clearly no mistress residing at Cedarton to provide Linfield with the satisfaction he ought to be seeking from his new wife.

"Eliza, I fear he means to leave me here." Jane wrung her hands. She looked up, eyes red, and skin ashen. "Once whatever this matter is that has brought us here is resolved, he'll gallop back into town with his barnacles, and I'll be left here to wither with only the housekeeper and a maid for company." Her lip trembled, and hot tears spilled.

"Now you are being far-fetched. I'm sure that's not true. His family will expect an heir at the very least."

She believed that, even if she couldn't entirely depend upon Linfield himself. Like any man, he could not be relied on to do anything that wasn't in his own self-interest. Even though it would be utterly wrong to abandon Jane to the isolation of Cedarton, she had no trouble imagining him doing it. Moreover, what could she or Jane do to prevent it? Men had all the power, both in and outside of marriage.

"Then you must do whatever you can to ensure he doesn't."

Jane worried her swollen lips with her front teeth. "Do you think?" she began hesitantly. "What if I… went to him. Do you think that would make this better or worse? I fear if I wait for him to make the next move I shall expire before our marriage is ever consummated. And it must be, Eliza…must. It's God's will. The very point of forming such a bond."

"I thought you feared he thought you too forward?" Eliza said.

"I don't really know. 'Tis only a theory. Perhaps if I promise to lie as stiff as he likes and not make a single murmur."

"As long as you realise—." Eliza stilled her tongue. If she primed Jane to be ready for rejection, then it would be even more likely to materialise. In any case, Jane was already on her feet, and pulling her shawl around her shoulders. "You mean to go to him this minute?"

Her friend confirmed it with a vigorous nod. "I shall lose my nerve if I don't act now."

"He may still be entertaining." Surely, Jane did not mean to barge into the gentlemen's after dinner conversation and proposition Linfield? That would be most extraordinary.

"If he is at his port, then I will wait in his chamber. Goodnight, Eliza. I hope you will not mind that I'm not right next door when you choose to turn in, but I must do this to secure my future."

"I quite understand," Eliza said, not understanding at all. Jane kissed her goodnight and left. The hall was echoic and lonely without a companion to share the fireside with, so Eliza banked the coals and took up a candle. She would not turn in just yet, but she would retire to her room. She had a feeling that Jane might yet need her again before the night was through.