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

and smell the last curling trail of cigar smoke caught in his clothes.

She wanted him to lean down and kiss her. She was terrified of what she would do if he did.

‘I’d better go,’ she said, her voice hoarse. ‘Mrs Fielding will want her coal scuttle back.’

‘Oh. Oh, yes. Of course.’

Still, she hesitated. Then she slipped the tin into her pocket and left, the empty coal scuttle bouncing on her arm.

She was silent as she put it away. She said nothing as Mrs Fielding locked the door and Daisy and Aoife unrolled their straw pallets. Aoife slowly unpinned her dark hair, and Eleanor saw the hungry way Daisy watched it fall across her shoulders. From the languorous movement of her hands, Aoife knew Daisy was watching.

Eleanor climbed the stairs, and remembered everything she touched. The warp of the old steps under her boots. Her fingers, curled in her skirts as she climbed. The way her corset shifted above her hips as she moved. The weight of the tin in her pocket, like a secret, or a hand. Alone in her room, it was worse. Undressing seemed indecent when she felt every pull and swish of the material sliding over her skin. Across her hips and down her arms, it felt like bandaged fingers.

She splashed her face with cold water before she could imagine anything else.

She got into bed. It was cold and lumpy, and she’d never been more grateful. A sliver of moonlight came through the window and turned the little pot silver in the palm of her hand. She hesitated, and opened it.

It was soft and slick, and it made her blush.

They squelched their way to church, picking through mud and puddles and the damp refuse of the pavements. The street was hidden beneath a forest of umbrellas, with only a hatless beggar visible every now and then through the black canopy. Charles would follow them in a hansom; he was still tearing through his clothes press, looking for a cravat, when they left.

At least, he said he had been.

Eleanor’s mind was full. Every swish of her skirt over her hips felt like a caress. When she closed her eyes she could still see his face, made golden by the firelight. He hadn’t looked at Mrs Fielding when he’d said he would follow them to church; was it Eleanor he was truly hoping to avoid? Was he thinking of her too?

And, when she finally succeeded in pushing all thoughts of Charles out of her head, she was faced with another puzzle.

Were souls real?

Thoughts buzzed around Eleanor’s mind like flies. How did she know, truly, that she even had a soul? She’d always assumed she did. The part of her that lived behind her eyes, which felt the tug of strange new worlds whenever she opened a book – that must be the soul. What else could it be? But, Eleanor realized, thoughts and feelings came from the mind and from the heart – what did the soul have to do with it? What did the soul have to do at all?

Did she only think she had a soul because someone had told her she had one?

They reached the church before she knew it. The gravestones cast long shadows across the churchyard, reaching for Eleanor’s feet. She stumbled over the wet path, mind still reeling. She felt as if she was viewing her own thoughts through a telescope. If souls were not real, what had she given to the black-eyed woman? And if it wasn’t there, then what was she? Had Eleanor only been imagining her, all this time? She seemed so real.

Eleanor could not stand it. She seemed to be half-outside her own head, both detached and screaming at the detachment. She drifted over to the reverend, amazed that she was able to put one foot in front of the other.

‘Might I have a word, Reverend?’

The reverend blew his nose. ‘Now, Miss Hartley? The service is about to start.’

She ignored him. ‘I wondered what you could tell me about the nature of souls.’

He gaped at her. ‘I’ve not heard such a question since my university days! What interest could you possibly have in souls?’

Eleanor groped for an excuse. ‘I … I am simply curious. I wish to better understand things …’

‘Excessive curiosity in a young woman can be a dangerous thing, Miss Hartley. You must be careful not to overstimulate your mental faculties. It can lead to hysteria. You must think of your health.’

‘But—’

The reverend looked stern. It was rather spoiled by his runny nose.

‘Unless you are thinking of taking the veil, such topics are hardly appropriate for one such as yourself. You’ve not been reading again, I hope?’

‘No,’ Eleanor said, immediately.

‘Then I would advise you to put the whole topic out of your mind. Really! My dear girl, what has come over you? A certain childlike curiosity is understandable, even appealing, in matters such as these, but if I hear any more from you on these subjects I shall have to speak to your guardian.’

Eleanor wondered what Mr Pembroke would have to say on the nature of souls, and realized it would not matter. He would seize on the excuse and have her carted off to Bedlam, safely out of the way. The thought came laced with panic. If souls were not real, and the black-eyed woman was not real, then perhaps Bedlam was where Eleanor belonged.

‘Turn your mind to more agreeable things,’ said the reverend, ‘and now if you will excuse me, I must begin my sermon.’

The bandages around Charles’s hand were shrinking.

Eleanor had been trying to ignore it for days. When the last of the bandages came off, the library door would be closed, and she would be shut out of its warmth forever. The thought was like a cold hand on the back of her neck.

They were alone in the library. The rain muffled everything but the scratch of her pen and Charles’s low voice. Eleanor forced herself to push all thoughts of souls and