Of course, I had no notion, when I first arrived at Clairvon Abbey, that anything was wrong. Indeed, I was in such a flame at Mama and Papa for fobbing me off on Rosalind instead of taking me to Rome that I scarcely noticed how pale she was.
I still think it was all unnecessary, and I might have gone. It is all very well to say that I am a young lady of seventeen and to be presented next Season, but Mama knows quite well I care nothing for such things and am determined to be an author. That is why I keep this journal.
At least, that used to be the reason. Since I have been in Northumberland—three days, for I came on Tuesday—I have decided to set down everything that occurs while I am here, for it is a perfectly shocking place, and Rosalind is not happy, whatever she may pretend. And so I shall establish a record in case it should be necessary in future. I shall try, as Papa advises, to be both logical and complete.
(Perhaps, if I am to be honest, it is not quite true that I care nothing for the Season. But I might have come back from Italy in time to go with my aunt to the dressmaker—I shall have masses of new dresses! If I can travel to Northumberland on my own, surely I can return from Rome. But none of them would listen to me. I dislike excessively being the baby of the family.)
To begin, then, Rosalind is my eldest sister. Indeed, she is the eldest of us all, nine years older than me. First comes Rosalind, then Portia, who is three-and-twenty then James. Mama adores Shakespeare. I don’t actually mind being called Miranda. It sounds exotic and mysterious. But her next daughter was to be Titania! Papa strictly forbade her to call James, Oberon. He said she might label us girls anything she pleased, but no son of his would fight his schoolmates from dawn to dusk because he was named for a fairy king. Whenever we want to make James growl, we call him Oberon.
But that is by the by. I must keep to the facts. Papa says I must mind my tendency to stray from the subject in my writing. Rosalind has been married nearly two years. She was practically on the shelf when Papa providentially inherited the estate of his second cousin Alfred and became Sir Anthony Dennison, with heaps of money. (Mama says I mustn’t use such vulgar expressions, but I shall do as I please in my own private diary.) Before that we were disgustingly poor. Mama comes from a long line of impoverished clergymen, and Papa’s father, who died before I was born, was a famous classical scholar who spent all his inheritance on trips to Greece and Turkey and publishing his own works (which are frightfully tedious, hundreds of pages long and crammed with Greek quotations—I shall never show this to Mama!).
And so Rosalind got a dowry and was presented by Aunt Hattie and made a great marriage to Philip, Baron Highdene. At any rate, we all thought it a brilliant match, having no notion he would carry her off to Northumberland and imprison her there. Portia married a year later, and James went up to Oxford. That is why it was so unfair of them to leave me behind. It was only me, and I would not have been the least trouble in Rome. I had nothing to do with the monkey who pulled off the dowager Duchess’s wig at Ascot. It was all James and his horrid friends.
But Rosalind became a baroness. And Philip is prodigious handsome and rich. Papa says he looks very like Lord Byron. I have never seen Lord Byron, as Mama would not let me go to the theater the night they all saw him there, and, now that his wife has actually left him because he is so wicked, I don’t suppose I ever shall see him. (I have tried and tried to discover what Lord Byron has actually done. No one will say anything, so it must be terrible. Perhaps he made her join in some weird rites he learned in the East?)
Philip is tall and dark, with black eyes that positively burn with intensity under straight thick brows. His nose is straight, too, and his chin has a cleft. We all thought him the height of fashion when we first met in London, but, here at home, he dresses in riding breeches most of the time, his neckcloth knotted anyhow and no points to his shirt at all. His manners, which we thought so polished, have changed markedly. He was quite short with me at breakfast yesterday—not to say rude! I might easily put this down to living in such a lonely, dreary place, but Philip insists he prefers Clairvon Abbey to a hundred Londons. (Isn’t this positively sinister?)
It is so lowering to see Rosalind in such surroundings, for I have never denied that she is the prettiest and gayest of us all. She has Mama’s red-gold hair and neat figure (Portia tends to be plump) and the loveliest blue eyes. Fortunately, looks are a matter of complete indifference to me, since I intend to devote myself to a writing career, and so it doesn’t matter a whit that I am thinnish with pale yellow hair that will not curl and dark-green eyes. Papa says I have a vast deal more imagination than Rosalind, which I can see quite well is true.
And there are times when I look well enough. The new sprig muslin gown Mama had made up in the spring before she left is very flattering. I should wear green, Aunt Hattie said, which not every girl can do, and avoid yellow, which makes me look sallow. Aunt Hattie (she is not really my aunt, but an old school fellow of Mama’s who married a viscount) knows everything about fashion. Mama pays no heed (and looks splendid in the merest rag), and Rosalind and Portia have such different coloring. When I am in London, I intend to do whatever Aunt Hattie says about clothes.
But I must explain why I have begun to suspect that Philip’s resemblance to Lord Byron goes beyond mere lineaments. He is not at all what we thought him. He is silent and dour, and he lives in a great drafty castle that looks just like the home of the wicked, kidnapping duke in The Haunted Wood.
The day I arrived was cold and dank, as it always is here in the north, seemingly, even in June. I had made the long journey from London with some friends of Mama’s who were going to spend the summer in Scotland (fancy!) and offered to escort me. At the first sight of Clairvon, I was fascinated, I admit. It consists of mossy stone, with three turrets and masses of crenellations, and it stands on a cliff above the sea, with waves crashing on the rocks below and wind swooping down from the moorlands. One is strongly reminded of all one’s favorite romances, and I would not have been surprised to see a knight ride forth in armor to greet me.
You can imagine, then, my sentiments when Forbes opened the door. Forbes is the butler, and the tallest, thinnest man I have ever seen. He makes me feel an absolute dwarf, though I am well above middle height. He has a way of looking down with his eyes half closed and his mouth pursed up as if he smelled bad drains, and saying, “Yes, miss?” in a perfectly daunting voice. And he looks ancient, but not old, if you see what I mean. His face is craggy like the cliff rocks, and his hands are gnarled and gigantic. I asked Rosalind how she can bear to have such a servant directing her household, but she just laughed. I am afraid living all shut away here has turned her brain!
I’ve come to thoroughly dislike the place. My room is huge and drafty, with a fireplace that smokes and a ceiling so high I feel like a bug on a plate. The corridors are drafty, too, and dark and cold. They go twisting on for miles so that I am continually getting lost. And, outside, it does nothing but rain. I sew with Rosalind when she is free, or read. It is lucky I am training to be an author, for, without my journal, I expect I should go stark mad. I suggested yesterday that I go riding with Philip, for he rides every day, whatever the weather. That is when he was so rude, saying he “can only bear to ride alone.” I immediately wondered what he does out on the moors that he wishes to keep so secret.
And so, just this morning, I made up my mind to find out and to help Rosalind in whatever way I can. I don’t yet see just what that might be, but I shall stop at nothing in defense of my sister’s happiness.