The Shadow in the Glass by JJA Harwood (any book recommendations txt) 📕

She would have written to Charles too, if she’d been in Felicity’s place.

‘It appears she’s prepared to forgive me,’ said Charles, standing up and gripping the back of his chair. ‘She said the wedding could proceed as planned, on the condition that I send the boy to the workhouse.’

Would he do it? Had he seen the workhouse children, with their shorn heads and thin faces? Eleanor had. When she misbehaved, Mrs Fielding had taken her to the St George’s Union and made Eleanor look at it. She’d point at the long, thin windows and hiss in Eleanor’s ear: ‘Keep on like that and the mistress will send you to the poorhouse. That’s where you belong.’

Eleanor smoothed out her skirts. In front of Charles, it felt more like caressing her thighs. She clasped her hands, quickly. ‘What will you say to Felicity?’

He sighed, still for a moment. ‘I cannot marry her.’

It was what Eleanor had wished for. But she imagined how Felicity would feel when she received that letter, written in Eleanor’s own handwriting, and something curled up inside her. Perhaps she’d been too hasty.

‘A lady in her position would know little of these things. Perhaps if she understood what she was suggesting, she might be more forgiving.’

He smiled at her. ‘You’re so reluctant to speak ill of anyone, Eleanor. It’s very gracious of you.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I must say, I wish you’d been less gracious about Felicity.’

‘I’m sorry, I—’

‘No, don’t apologize. I barely knew her.’

‘Would you be terribly upset if I asked how you met?’

He laughed, and sat back down. ‘Of course not! You needn’t worry about that!’

Mrs Fielding came in with a tea tray set for one. Eleanor poured him a cup, but when Mrs Fielding had left he passed it back.

‘It was at a ball, in Paris,’ he began, ‘in the spring. Paris is lovely in the spring, did you know that? Just to be there seemed like a gift; everywhere I looked I found something beautiful. But it isn’t at all like London. It’s charming, but it doesn’t have the … the substance London has. Sometimes it felt like the whole city could blow away in the wind. It’s difficult to explain … do you know what I mean?’

Eleanor shook her head. ‘I’ve never been to Paris.’

Charles sprang up and went to the bookshelves, grabbing an illustrated account of travels through France with one hand. He sat next to Eleanor and opened the book, ignoring all the words she’d savoured and flipping straight to a drawing of Notre Dame.

He pointed, grinning at her. ‘I stood in this exact spot,’ he said. ‘If you go down this street,’ he indicated a narrow road, ‘there’s a restaurant that does the most marvellous coq au vin. Napoleon himself used to eat there, the proprietor told me. You must go, Eleanor. You’d have them all eating out of your hand in days.’

Eleanor smiled. ‘Not the coq au vin, I hope. Isn’t that a stew? I’d ruin my dress.’

‘It’d be worth it, I assure you. And of course you must go to Versailles,’ he said, flipping through the book until he found the picture. ‘But only in spring. The smell of the gardens is wonderful …’

Despite her curiosity, Eleanor looked away. ‘I suppose that is where you met Felicity?’

Charles blushed. ‘Oh. Yes.’ His leg started jittering again. ‘Well, I was at a dance given by the Prussian ambassador, and I hadn’t spoken to an Englishman in weeks. The French were perfectly friendly, but sometimes there seemed such a gulf between us that I felt quite stranded. That was where I met her.’

A sad smile crept across Charles’s face. It tugged at her.

‘She was the first Englishwoman I’d met in Paris,’ he said, a faraway look in his eyes, ‘and we spent half the night talking of home. She seemed so familiar that I thought I knew her far better than I did. Father had spoken about marriage before I left for the Continent, and after a certain amount of time these things become expected. Her family were considering taking her home and she grew quite frantic, so I proposed. It seemed like the gentlemanly thing to do. But I never knew anything of her real thoughts or opinions until we returned to England. Of course, Father didn’t object; he was pleased I’d found an heiress …’

He trailed off. Eleanor set down the teacup and tried not to think about the morning room, mouldering under dust sheets; the coach house, its windows all smashed; the laundry room, deserted these past two years.

‘You must forgive me, Eleanor,’ he said. ‘Once I saw how she treated you, I knew I could not marry her. She … she was not the person I hoped she might be.’

‘There’s nothing to forgive.’

‘There is.’ He took her hand. A muscle in his jaw twitched when he tried to move his bandaged fingers. Eleanor kept them still. She would hold his hand for hours if it meant she could keep the pain at bay.

‘Eleanor, I cannot bear to disappoint you. My father failed to take care of you; Felicity failed to treat you kindly. But it was my choices that put you in their care, and the burden of your unhappiness is more than I can take. You deserve every joy in the world, and it shames me to think that I might have kept them from you. Say you’ll forgive me, please.’

She stared into his eyes. They were bluer than the ocean, and just as full of promise.

‘Of course I forgive you.’

‘Thank you.’

Eleanor and Aoife spent the next few days preparing the old nursery. It had been shut up for years, and every time they lifted off another dust sheet they would descend into a fit of coughing and sneezing. They washed the floor, shook out the mattress, swept the spiders from every corner, and found a little rag rug to sit beside the bed.

But it was all for nothing, because the little boy died.

Charles broke the news as they finished.