Preston Hall had begun life as the ancient manor of a small Kentish lord. Her father had told her it would have been a loud, smoky, rumbustious place, the lord and his retainers cooking and sleeping among the livestock, horses stabled inside, chickens laying eggs in the corners, the great hall as much a barn as a palace.
Most medieval manors had disappeared centuries ago, burned down in chimney fires and raids. The central hall at Preston was a rare survivor, protected by a warren of rooms added over generations. Eleanor liked the way the rooms rambled one from the other, giving the house an eccentric but pleasing aspect, like a kindly old gentleman. An ancient gentleman, born before the Domesday Book was written.
Maybe even earlier. A year ago, Mrs. Crosby’s new steward had been repairing the cellars when a workman had dug up a small hoard of Roman coins. Digging deeper, the men had uncovered a lovely mosaic floor showing that the Hall had been built on a Roman site fifteen hundred years old.
Eleanor hadn’t seen the mosaic until now, standing on a scaffolding looking down at the pebbled portrait of a dark-haired lady, her bust shown against a pale circular background. The colours were still astonishingly vivid after fifteen hundred years. Glossy red apples floated around the dark-haired lady, each with a pair of green leaves fluting from its stem. Apples! Her aunt’s orchard was full of apples this very minute, new green fruit the size of a baby’s fist. According to her aunt’s steward, the Romans had brought them here from Syria.
“The house is a palimpsest,” Mr. Denholm said, standing beside her.
Eleanor kept her eyes on the apples. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It refers to an old vellum manuscript from which the writing has been erased and written over. Except that traces of the original writing remain.”
An intelligent man, it was true. Eleanor looked up.
“I often think of the way each second of our lives is erased as time flows forward,” she told him. “But of course what happens remains written on each of us. I suppose we’re like palimpsests ourselves.”
“Miss Crosby, you’re far too clever for me,” Mr. Denholm said, turning to his brother. “Isn’t she?”
Captain Denholm was the great surprise of Eleanor’s arrival. The two brothers had ridden over that morning with an invitation to an informal supper at Ackley Castle. When the captain had walked into her aunt’s sitting room, Eleanor felt her heart explode.
“Captain?” she’d said so stupidly that the brothers had laughed. It looked like a set joke, one they’d played on other neighbours. As they sat, Eleanor was relieved that her surprise had covered up her embarrassment at meeting Mr. Denholm, which was just as genuine as her shock at seeing the captain. She hardly knew what unsettled her more, meeting the brother she was supposed to marry or the one she wanted to.
Yet as they exchanged the usual civilities—their mother’s health, the Yorkshire hunt—Mr. Denholm proved to be in an odd mood. He paid more attention to his immaculate cuffs than he did to her aunt’s conversation, his smile an absentminded tic he called up when silences demanded it. He soon got up restlessly to stand by the window, only reluctantly accepting Mrs. Crosby’s suggestion that Eleanor show them the mosaic.
Now he’d called her far too clever. Far too clever for me: Eleanor didn’t miss the emphasis.
“I wonder if any of us can be too clever,” the captain said, looking embarrassed for his brother. “Not with life so unpredictable.”
“Yours, in any event,” Mr. Denholm replied.
“My brother refers to the fact I’m going to India,” the captain told Eleanor. “A few days’ leave and then I’m off.”
“India!” she cried, feeling caught in another explosion.
“I consider myself lucky. Our father served there for a decade . . .”
“A decade!”
“. . . an ensign when he sailed out with Lord Wellington—Colonel Wellesley, as he was then—and a colonel himself when he came back to fight Napoleon.”
“And he would have made general had he not inherited Ackley Castle,” Mr. Denholm said impatiently. “As he will no doubt tell you at supper.”
The mosaic lay in a deep cellar lit by flickering candles. Eleanor was happy it obscured her repeated shock. Yet when she caught the pained expression on Mr. Denholm’s face, she thought she understood, at least, the reason for his mood.
“You’ll miss your brother,” she said gently. “Although no doubt it’s a fine chance for the captain.”
“Thank you for enlightening me about my feelings,” Mr. Denholm replied.
“The posting is a bit of a surprise,” the captain said, stepping in, and shooting his brother a look. “Although a happy one, as you say.”
“I hope so. Given your long sacrifice. I mean of home.”
Mr. Denholm only grunted. So much for Mrs. Crosby’s bold prediction that he’d ask for her hand. Eleanor didn’t believe he loved her, and doubted he’d been hurt by her coolness when he’d left Yorkshire. More likely she’d wounded his vanity, and she didn’t care about anyone’s vanity. If it was inflated, it deserved to be punctured. But that didn’t make the visit any easier.
“My aunt plans to dig out the cellar,” she went on, not knowing what else to say. “Her steward says he can rebuild the exterior wall down to Roman level, and put in a row of high windows up there, you see, at ground level, to let in some light. Then she’ll hold a ball, and we can dance on floors that haven’t been trod in more than a millennium.”
“Ruining them,” Mr. Denholm said, with an unexpected tremor of feeling.
Eleanor felt out of her depth. “Why don’t we go back upstairs,” she said, “where it isn’t quite so gloomy? The lady’s used to being alone. I don’t think she’ll miss us.”
“The goddess,” Mr. Denholm said, as he led the way back up the stairs. “She’s likely a domestic goddess. That’s why they covered her with dirt, getting rid of her when the family converted to Christianity.”
“And you speak of me being too clever,” Eleanor said.
“Is this the way to the garden?” Mr. Denholm asked, opening a door at the top of the stairs. Without waiting for an answer, he walked outside.
It was a still day, warm for the season, and the humid air seemed to inhale the scent of the spring flowers; inhale and diffuse it so the air was indistinguishable from their perfume. Showing her aunt’s gardens, Eleanor thought this heaviness might be another reason for the odd tenor of their meeting. She was surprised to find the brothers in no hurry to leave, although they didn’t seem to want to be there, either. Even the captain seemed apathetic, and Eleanor fought faintness when she wasn’t a young lady who fainted. It was the strangest morning she’d ever spent.
“Are you well, Miss Crosby?” the observant Captain Denholm asked, walking beside her.
“It’s only the heat,” she said, pulling herself up. “It was cool when we left Yorkshire, and here the scent of flowers seems a bit loud.”
“Loud flowers,” Mr. Denholm said from behind her. “Are you secretly a poet, Miss Crosby?”
“I’m actually rather practical-minded,” Eleanor replied, aware that she never used to keep secrets from anyone. “You’ve seen my friend Catherine’s drawings, but as I think we’ve established, I only do accounts. Rather neatly; I will say that for myself.”
“It’s too bad your father didn’t push a little harder,” the captain said. “I can’t see any reason why ladies can’t become proficient at higher mathematics, at least the most clever among them.” He gave her a friendly smile. “It’s an elegant science.”
“Not loud?” his brother asked.
“Eight is a loud number,” Eleanor said. “Seven rather proud of itself.”
“And six a bit of a vixen,” Mr. Denholm said. “Rather like you.”
“Really, Mr. Denholm,” Eleanor said, turning on him. “I’ve been attempting to account for your rudeness, but quite honestly, I can’t.”
He had the grace to blush. Or perhaps he was flushing with anger. For a brief moment, Mr. Denholm met her eye and seemed ready to say something. Then he bowed abruptly and left, striding toward the stables for his horse, leaving Eleanor alone with the captain. That might have been her goal if she’d been capable of forming one.
“You’ll meet our father at supper,” Captain Denholm said, gazing after his brother. “Or renew the acquaintance. It’s not easy being his heir. I drew the long stick, being the second, and inclined toward the military.” After hesitating a moment, he said, “Perhaps you’ll show me the rest of the gardens, and I’ll have another corner of Kent to think about in the Punjab.”
With a little flutter, Eleanor wondered if he meant he’d think of her. She led the captain into Mrs. Crosby’s white garden, which she’d planted as a bride. Most of the plants remained green this early in the season. But there were beds of sweet white hyacinths, and the air was thick with their delicious caramelized scent.
“I was mistaken when you arrived in Yorkshire,” Eleanor said. “I believe I said that I thought you’d be a clergyman.” They exchanged a smile at her pertness. “But now you imply you’ve always been inclined toward the military.”
“From the time I was a lad,” he said. “Wishing to defend not so much my country as its quite exasperating people. Meaning my family, I suppose, but also the nation. Of course I speak affectionately.”
“Exasperating, are we?”
The captain—Robert, Robin—gave his easy companionable smile. He showed none of his brother’s vanity, or his readiness to take offense. He was dressed again in his thick brown coat, the wool far more practical than the elegant weave favoured by Mr. Denholm.
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” she said.
He shook his head. “What happened, you see, is that my father heard about a letter the Duke of Wellington wrote to a nephew. The duke had advised him to get a university education before entering the army. He said the nephew would learn soldiering when he got his commission, but at Cambridge he would, and I believe I’ve got the exact words, ‘get that education both of learning and of habit which you will never get again.’”
They left the gardens to follow a path around the fish pond, dammed from a creek with grilles placed at either end to contain the fish. The path continued at the far side under an archway of freshly greened trees, their shade still blooming with bluebells. All was silent save for the mutter and splash of the creek beside them. The birds were resting as it approached midday and the buzz of insects was muted. It was peaceful with Mr. Denholm gone. His brother was a far more restful companion, humorous and attentive, and handsome despite his casual clothes, not because of them.
“So I went to Cambridge,” the captain said, “and surprised myself with a growing inclination toward the church. I must be outdoors, and the life of a country parson began to appeal. Collecting specimens, you see.”
He shot her an amused glance, seeming to say, Can you picture me as a parson? Pausing on a small bridge, Eleanor decided that she could, in precisely these rustic clothes and precisely this gentle country. She tried to remember what the local parsonage looked like, and pictured herself as a clergyman’s wife. That was what her father had prepared her for, knowing that she needed to be outdoors and active, just like the captain. As they stood together amiably, Eleanor felt rueful at the loss of a peaceful life, the loss of a possibility, a dream—nostalgic for what she wouldn’t have, now that she was the ward of an ambitious aunt.
“In the end, my father pulled me out of Cambridge and arranged a commission. I resented it at the time, but it was the right decision.”
“And here I’ve always thought young ladies were the pawns moved around by their parents. And their guardians,” Eleanor added, and met his eye candidly, acknowledging what neither of them could say. “But of course another of the pieces on the board is a knight.”
“Old men sending young men off to war,” the captain agreed. He smiled and shook his head again, continuing along the path toward the farmyard. Its funk reached a distance, and soon they heard the chatter and grunt of sociable animals. Rounding the stables, they walked among Mrs. Crosby’s flock of prize chickens pecking away at the straw and muck—pecking into the pigpen, and through the open stable doors—one rooster shaking his green tail feathers, a gleam of aged bronze.
Struck by something, the captain bent to pick up a chicken, cradling its hastiness against his tweed jacket, the bird’s head darting this way and that.
“They’ve got five toes.”
“Dorkings,” Eleanor told him. “They’ve always had the breed at Preston Hall. They’re good layers and the meat is superior. Lately my aunt has learned from her steward that they were probably introduced into Britain by the Romans. Like mosaics and apples, I suppose.”
He looked entirely charming: those eyes, those curls, that warm smile, holding the chicken expertly. Court me with chickens, Eleanor thought. Then she heard voices and saw her aunt coming from the house with her steward, Mr. Stickley. Mrs. Crosby halted, putting her hand on her voluble steward’s arm to silence him.
“Here you are,” she called, walking over. “And Mr. Denholm?”
“Gone home. As I must,” the captain said, stooping to release the chicken. Mr. Stickley signalled a stable boy to fetch the captain’s horse, a fine buckskin stallion. Scarcely a moment passed before he legged it up into the saddle.
“Until this evening,” he said, and rode off.
“Explanation,” her aunt demanded, having waited until they reached her sitting room.
“I’m afraid I’m rather hungry,” Eleanor said, throwing herself on the sofa and unlacing her boots. “After such a morning.”
Her aunt didn’t ring the bell.
“Mr. Denholm was unbearably rude,” Eleanor said, tossing her boots aside and flexing her toes. “His brother is going to India, and I think he’s upset about the captain leaving. But when I said as much—and sympathetically, Aunt—he thanked me for enlightening him about his feelings. A few more jabs and he left. The captain was embarrassed, and hinted at some unpleasantness with their father, although of course he couldn’t say what.”
Mrs. Crosby rang the bell, not quite looking at Eleanor as she spoke. “I wonder if your indifference when he left Yorkshire might also be a factor.”
“I thought of that, too,” Eleanor said. “But I imagine a mild flirtation—on his side, I mean—can dwindle very easily to nothing.”
“Mr. Denholm needs to marry.”
“I don’t see why. He can’t be six-and-twenty.”
“It’s true he seems young for his age, but his father insists.” Seeing Eleanor’s frown, her aunt added, “No, I haven’t spoken to the colonel. Lady Anne got it from her son, and you know very well she can’t keep anything quiet.” Mrs. Crosby checked herself. “I speak, of course, as her very close friend.”
“‘Love your enemies’ the Bible says.”
“I have no enemies.”
“‘And do good to them that hate you.’”
Her aunt paused to consider this. “At least to their faces,” she agreed. “Behind their backs one can be more resourceful.”
When Eleanor laughed, Mrs. Crosby said, “I imagine the colonel has known for some time that the captain is bound for India. Of course he’s anxious for a grandson.”
“And yet,” Eleanor said. “I remember you saying the colonel was a third son himself. The two eldest died in Kent, while the colonel survived two decades of war abroad.”
Her aunt started nodding, then halted and looked at her coolly.
“I see,” was all she said, and they were silent until the housekeeper opened the door.
As they drove toward Ackley Castle, Eleanor felt as if she were nailed inside a coffin. The cloudy evening light seemed thin and she felt breathless, trapped, the future pressing in on her, a darkness at the edge of her field of vision. This is dread, she thought. She dreaded seeing Mr. Denholm, suspecting he was capable of being even ruder than he’d been that morning.
The colonel would be worse. Eleanor pictured a martinet, as thin as a knife, bullying his heir and poor overborne Mrs. Denholm, who had retreated into melancholy. Hypochondria, that useful new word. Her aunt had told Eleanor that Mrs. Denholm’s illness recurred unpredictably. She would wake up one morning unable to walk and only rediscover her legs some weeks later, rising from her chair like a phoenix. Most physicians felt that such a wandering illness was hysteric in origin. Melancholic, hypochondriac. Imagined, really.
Eleanor couldn’t see herself succumbing to imaginary ills, but perhaps marriage to Mr. Denholm would wear her down. It struck her that marriage might not just be Eve’s Burden but God’s Test. Eleanor was facing a test; that’s what had started. Although her father had disliked the thought of a God more judgemental than loving. It was a sour and depressing belief, he said, that cast a pall over far too many lives.
Just as dispiriting to picture were the marriage negotiations: the colonel asking not just for the inheritance of Goodwood but for such a grand dowry that Mrs. Crosby hesitated, bargained, and chipped him down until they reached an acceptable compromise. Acceptable, that is, to the older generation. In the end, Eleanor would be truly trapped, and Mr. Denholm ordered by his father to accept what he obviously no longer wanted, once he’d thought it through.
What he neither wanted nor needed, Eleanor thought, glimpsing the richness of Ackley Castle through the trees. Soon they turned down the drive, crossing the old moat on a gravelled dike. Inside the walls, she was surprised to see the family waiting courteously outside the great wooden doors to the tower. Mrs. Denholm was in an invalid’s Bath chair and her husband was standing behind her: a tall, thin upright man. A knife, as Eleanor had suspected.
Yet his expression was welcoming and Mrs. Denholm seemed far from oppressed. As they stepped down from the carriage, Mrs. Denholm gave them a lovely smile. Eleanor saw no sign of fretfulness, and the colonel nodded courteously as he walked toward them. Certainly he was commanding. Used to being in charge. But that was hardly surprising in a senior army officer tested in years of war.
“Mrs. Crosby. Miss Crosby,” he said. “It’s been far too long.” With his strong handsome features, he looked like Captain Denholm. Or rather, his son—hanging back near the entrance—took after the colonel. Mr. Denholm looked far more like his delicate dark-haired mother, who would have been a beauty when young and healthy.
“My dears,” Mrs. Denholm said warmly, and took Mrs. Crosby’s hand.
Eleanor found it a puzzle. She couldn’t imagine that the happy-tempered lady in the chair had peevishly called her son back from Yorkshire, and wondered if Mr. Denholm had used a letter from his mother as an excuse to escape a flirtation that was getting out of hand. He was so mercurial, Eleanor had no idea. Now, walking forward, bowing, saying her name quietly, he looked much different than he had in the morning, subdued and apologetic, with a downward tilt to his head like a well-trained dog that had misbehaved and knew it.
“I was told you’d grown, Miss Crosby,” the colonel said, walking them toward the castle. “Which is just as well, since you must have been all of ten years old when I last saw you.”
“I believe I was rather a spindly little girl,” she replied. “My father used to call me his crane fly.”
“Your excellent father,” Mrs. Denholm said, entirely unperturbed as two footmen carried her chair up the steps. “I do remember you as being rather skittish. Blond curls and such dark eyes.”
“Hazel,” her aunt said. Apparently one was supposed to ignore the chair. “In some ways, my niece hasn’t changed.”
“An innocent,” the colonel surprised her by saying.
“Perhaps we should say genuine,” Mrs. Denholm said. “To your credit, Miss Crosby.” The footmen put her chair down inside the door, one of them moving smoothly behind it to push her.
“I’m more often accused of being blunt,” Eleanor said, following Mrs. Denholm into the castle. “I’m surprised your sons didn’t mention that.”
Captain Denholm looked amused; his brother as if he agreed with her. Yet Eleanor was distracted as she walked further into the tower and her eyes adjusted to the penumbral light. To every side were suits of armour and weapons hung on the ancient walls. Swords hung above their scabbards and pikes with long oiled shafts. A wide wood staircase curved toward a higher floor, and behind it were stained glass windows with scenes from the Garden of Eden: Eve with her hand on the head of a lamb, a lion lain down, his yawn lordly in the sombre evening.
As Eleanor craned to look up at them, the low sun emerged from the clouds and splintered through the windows. Fragments of rich-hewed light struck the armour, the colours breaking into shards of yellow and crimson and indigo as they fell into fragments on the grey stone floor.
“Oh! How wonderful!” Eleanor cried. “It’s like being inside a kaleidoscope.”
She turned a slow circle, clasping her hands in delight at the riven colours, there for just a moment before they fled, the sun disappearing again behind the clouds.
“I couldn’t have been here before at this hour,” she said, coming to rest. “I would have remembered this. How extraordinary!”
Eleanor realized the others were watching her indulgently, and wondered why people always looked at her that way. The brothers had smiled at her just as complaisantly when they’d first met in Yorkshire, gazing down at her like gods on a clever young mortal. There was another time in London, she couldn’t think quite when, but she’d found herself alone in a street. “You shouldna be here,” a tiny ragged Scotswoman had said, taking Eleanor’s elbow to lead her away. They didn’t do it with others and she had no idea why they did it with her.
“You certainly aren’t shy any longer,” the colonel said. “Not a timid gel. When Mrs. Denholm got up a simple family supper to make sure you were comfortable.”
“That’s so kind,” Eleanor said, following Mrs. Denholm’s wheeled progress through a series of grand chambers. They didn’t pause. Mrs. Denholm didn’t play chatelaine, showing off her domain. But they went slowly enough for Eleanor to admire the high frescoed ceilings, the great carved mantles, the devout and bloody paintings on the red flocked walls.
Mr. Denholm walked beside her silently, his brother a few steps behind with her aunt. Mrs. Crosby hadn’t fussed Eleanor with instructions, and she was determined to try to treat the Denholms naturally. Yet as the magnificence continued, one room opening into another, Eleanor began to understand what it meant to be heir to ten thousand pounds a year—what it might mean to be his wife—and grew terrified.
Finally they reached a pleasant sitting room where the Denholms obviously spent much of their time. The scent of flowers blew through the open French doors and the latest books were stacked on tables, with sheet music scattered on a new pianoforte. A magazine caught Eleanor’s eye. She grasped it like a lifebuoy.
“Mr. Dickens’s new maga,” she said, leafing through it. “He said he planned to start another novel this month. It seems he has.”
“Perhaps my father can read it for us after supper,” Mr. Denholm said, a hint of treacle in his voice. Eleanor didn’t like it, but remembered what his brother had said about the difficulties of being their father’s heir.
“As the ladies wish,” the colonel replied with model courtesy.
“It would be a treat,” Eleanor said. “It used to be, at home. My father read so beautifully.”
“Mrs. Denholm is right, as she always is,” the colonel replied. “Your father was an excellent man. Precisely the sort of clergyman one wishes to seed throughout England. My wife knows, Miss Crosby, that I’m in favour of a national initiative to civilize the British native, sending out a cadre of well-trained missionaries. The usual lackadaisical clergy have led England into a sorry state. I don’t know which is worse in a backwater like Yorkshire. The peasantry, the yeomanry, or the aristocracy.”
Eleanor bristled, but her aunt touched the back of her arm and she reined herself in, only meeting the colonel’s eye. He was looking at her keenly, and she realized he didn’t mean a word he’d said.
When the time came for supper—the doors closed and the fire crackling—two footmen wheeled in a round table already set with silverware and flowers. They positioned it close to the fire, lighting the candles and pulling up chairs to the butler’s silent instructions.
“If you wish to be seated,” the colonel said, inflexibly correct.
Afterward, the footmen wheeled in savoury courses on a succession of carts as the butler almost invisibly served, appearing like a shadow at their elbows.
Yet Mrs. Denholm began to fidget, apologizing, unable to make herself comfortable. Her cushion irked her, and the angle of the back of her chair. A note of petulance entered her voice (“I am cramped !”) and for the first time, Eleanor could imagine Mrs. Denholm writing to demand her son come home. As she wheeled herself restlessly back and forth, the ticking of her bath chair and the constant rolling of laden carts made the room resonant with wheels. Eleanor could almost hear the old drawbridge rising outside, the creak of ancient winches and pulleys, the dull echoed thump of wood meeting wood as the bridge locked itself in place.
She started feeling trapped again, unable to think of anything to say to Mr. Denholm, who sat to her right. He couldn’t seem to think of anything to say to her either, concentrating on his supper, while on Eleanor’s other side his mother grew more and more petulant, finally shoving her dish aside irritably, her fork clattering to the floor.
“Mrs. Denholm got up a simple family supper to make you feel comfortable.” Perhaps not. A long formal dinner would have been excruciating for the poor lady, although when Eleanor gave her a sympathetic smile, Mrs. Denholm looked fierce.
“Well,” the colonel said, seeing this and standing, taking the role of the wife signalling withdrawal of the ladies from the dining table. “I’ve been extorted of a reading from Dickens. Perhaps we can join you later in the library.”
Turning to Eleanor. “You will, of course, excuse our unconventional ways.”
Eleanor smiled reflexively and rose, giving a brief regretful glance at her half-eaten chicken. They were only partway through the meal and she was still hungry, always suffering from a healthy appetite which required bowls of porridge or bread and cheese when they arrived home from more fashionable dinner parties, where young ladies were supposed to subsist on two peas and a prawn. Fortunately, when she and her aunt came into the library, they found plates of sweetmeats and bowls of fruit on a table, the footmen ready to serve, the shadowy butler directing the staff with almost imperceptible nods of his head.
Eleanor hadn’t managed to talk to her aunt. The moment they’d left the room, they’d been surrounded by busy aproned housemaids frantic to lead them to closets and help them to everything they might require, from pitchers of hot water to soap to (whispered) rags should this be your time, miss. If Goodwood was a great echoing ear, then Ackley Castle was an anthill, an untold number of soft-footed servants moving ceaselessly through its rooms and corridors, answering needs before they were expressed and preventing talk by their presence.
Aunt, she might have said. This is dreadful. How would I breathe here?
How will I breathe here?
Mrs. Denholm didn’t join them in the library and no mention was made of her absence. When the gentlemen came in, the captain managed to catch Eleanor’s eye and smile apologetically. She fell into his sympathy, and for a brief moment felt warm and happy. Then she remembered that she shouldn’t, or couldn’t, and in some confusion she looked around for his brother, finding Mr. Denholm leaning against a window sash staring moodily into the darkness.
Edward Denholm clearly wanted nothing more than to slip outside and disappear. But his father was already standing before the fire, magazine in hand, waiting for them to settle. When all were ready save his son, a sharp, impatient, nearly invisible clench of the colonel’s fist brought Mr. Denholm immediately back to himself. He hurried toward some chairs, which had been set out in a theatrical line, as if this were a box at Covent Garden and the colonel occupied the stage. Throwing himself in the nearest chair, Mr. Denholm looked around with ill-
concealed annoyance, and a footman brought him a plate of fruit directly.
“The old curiosity shop,” Colonel Denholm remarked, and Eleanor smiled at the description of his household, before realizing it was the title of Mr. Dickens’s new number.
“‘Night is generally my time for walking,’” the colonel read, still sounding conversational, as if he were the one who liked walking. “‘In the summer I often leave home early in the morning, and roam about fields and lanes all day, or even escape for days or weeks together, but saving in the country I seldom go out until after dark, though, Heaven be thanked, I love its light and feel the cheerfulness it sheds upon the earth, as much as any creature living.
“‘I have fallen insensibly into this habit both because it favours my infirmity’”—and here Eleanor felt jolted, for rather than having any infirmity, Colonel Denholm seemed as fit as a much younger man. Then she remembered that this was Mr. Dickens speaking—or rather, his narrator—and felt fooled and foolish and amused at herself.
“‘Because it favours my infirmity,’” the colonel repeated, as if he’d caught her mistake, “‘and because it affords me greater opportunity of speculating on the characters and occupations of those who fill the streets. The glare and hurry of broad noon are not adapted to idle pursuits like mine; a glimpse of passing faces caught by the light of a street lamp or a shop window is often better for my purpose than their full revelation in the daylight.’”
Perhaps this wasn’t the narrator, then, but Mr. Dickens himself describing the way he found his stories. This time, he or his narrator encountered a pretty little girl named Nell out very late on an errand. She’d lost her road and needed help getting home, although what she was doing out so late, she said, “‘I must not tell.’”
A mystery. Eleanor sighed with pleasure.
“Are you called Nell?” the colonel asked, looking up from the magazine.
“My father did sometimes,” Eleanor replied, wishing he would continue.
“And is the reading up to his standard?”
“Yes. Conversational. Thank you, sir. Telling a story rather than indulging in the melodrama of bad actors. I dislike that sort of reading, although some find it clever.”
“So you have good taste, Miss Crosby.”
“Because I enjoy your reading, sir?” she asked.
“Perhaps because I want you to have it. Knowing that, like Little Nell, you hope to inherit a fortune.”
“Leave it, Father,” Mr. Denholm said.
“I beg your pardon.”
“Don’t tease her, sir, on top of everything else. She’s asked for none of this.”
Mr. Denholm got up abruptly and left the room. Eleanor caught a quiet mutter: “Making her feel like a pawn.” She blushed heartily to find that the brothers talked to one another (of course they did), having never meant Mr. Denholm to hear what she’d said.
“Please go on, Colonel,” her aunt told him imperturbably.
“I think not,” Colonel Denholm replied, making to flip the magazine aside before controlling himself and putting it carefully onto the mantle.
“I think so,” her aunt said, to Eleanor’s surprise.
The colonel glanced at her with shocking dislike, then picked up the maga and read on.
As the colonel finished the story, his wife wheeled into the library. Once again she didn’t apologize, but wanted, she said, to bid them farewell. Deeply relieved at their dismissal, Eleanor stood quickly, having to restrain herself from running for the door. Instead she was forced to keep pace with the lady’s slow-moving chair. Mrs. Denholm spoke to her pleasantly, failing to mention her elder son’s absence as they retreated through the extravagant rooms, each lit now by candelabra. Housemaids held them high, their faces turned to the walls, one a little scrubs whose tired arms shook, making her candles cast unreliable shadows. The resonant art appeared even bloodier in the flickering light, and the hulking ancient furniture looked as if Mr. Dickens had written it into reality.
The tower felt barbaric. It was lit by rush torches, and in the hissing circle of light, Eleanor pictured the coats of armour awakening from their long slumber. Spectral knights would creak and groan, sensing their weapons and leaping, flying high onto the castle walls to grasp the ancient swords. Skeletal horses would burst through the doors, and the ghostly party gallop off into the night, crying out hoarsely for Might and Right and the Holy Grail.
In fact, it was the colonel who spoke, stepping behind Eleanor to say, “You’ll do,” in a voice so low she scarcely heard it.
Did she hear it? Certainly, outside, she heard her aunt’s coachman apologizing for a delay. The traces had snapped and were being mended. Behind her, she could also hear the older ladies disagree politely about whether Mrs. Denholm should step inside (hastily corrected) go inside to avoid the night air, and whether Mrs. Crosby ought join her. Eleanor had no intention of going back inside the castle. She drifted away, heading for a chestnut tree just coming into bloom. Even from a distance, its flowers smelled ecstatic.
A man stepped out from under the tree. Eleanor’s hand went to her throat.
“I mean you no harm,” Mr. Denholm said.
She couldn’t see him: nothing more than a man’s form, no moon to light his face.
“You startled me!”
She couldn’t go on.
“I owe you an apology,” Mr. Denholm said.
“You’ll do,” his father had said. You’ll do. Eleanor could feel inexorable wheels bearing her forward and wanted nothing more in the world than to run away.
Yet an unexplored corner of her mind lit up with the knowledge that it would be wise to appease the man she was bound to marry. She never used to have secrets, nor had she ever been calculating. Now she knew she needed to charm Mr. Denholm if she was going to live her life with him. Unless, Hope chattered inside her, Edward Denholm ran off like his cousin Mrs. Julia Holmes, mistress of whomever.
He was no more likely to run off than she was. At least, not very far. It was surprising how well she knew Mr. Denholm after such a short time.
“Since no one can hear us,” Eleanor said, “I’ll agree the evening was awful. I do feel a pawn. One wishes to have at least the pretence of a choice. I’m sure you must feel that, too.”
“I know something about it,” Mr. Denholm said wryly, before his voice changed. “But you see, I care for you, and I would like it if you’d marry me. Even though I’m afraid you don’t like me very much. In fact, I’ve grown really rather certain that you don’t.”
“But I do,” Eleanor said, her voice a scratch. “Like you.”
She felt rather than saw or heard his delight. But the carriage was arriving. Her aunt called her, and without saying anything else, Eleanor turned and ran back to the entrance, telling them she was here.
Afterwards, in the carriage, her aunt asked, “What were you saying to Mr. Denholm?”
Eleanor was surprised she’d seen them and didn’t know what to say.
“Perhaps I should ask instead what he said to you,” her aunt persisted.
There was no way to avoid it. “I think he asked me to marry him.”
Her aunt waited.
“And I think I said yes. But aunt,” Eleanor added hastily, “from what I know—from reading novels, not Mr. Dickens’s novels, bad novels that Kitty and I laugh at”—because how could she take this entirely seriously, or completely tamp down her hysteria?—“he didn’t say enough that you can have a breach of promise suit if he withdraws. I couldn’t testify to that. Nor did anyone hear us. And nothing was put in writing. Obviously.”
“It shall be,” her aunt said comfortably, as the carriage wheeled them home.