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

from those oysters – was it really surprising she’d caught something she couldn’t quite shake off?

That was it. That had to be it.

Her hands slipped down to her stomach. She pressed down, hard. She couldn’t feel anything. But that meant nothing. There were things you couldn’t always see and feel, but they were there all the same. Eleanor couldn’t always see the black-eyed woman, and yet she was still there.

Of all people – of all things – she would know.

Eleanor cleared her throat. ‘I’d like to talk to you. Can you come out?’

The shadows shifted, and the black-eyed woman was there. ‘Of course.’

‘I … I need to ask you something. If I do, will you answer me truthfully?’

She smiled. ‘I always do, dear heart.’

Eleanor closed her eyes. ‘Am I with child?’

‘I believe you know the answer to that.’

Nausea swirled through Eleanor. Her stomach twitched – was that it, making itself known? It couldn’t be. She wasn’t ready. She’d thought about children, but in the same vague way she wondered what she might look like if she had red hair. Perhaps in ten years, she might have liked some, once she was married to Charles and had seen the world twice over. Not when she was unmarried, not in the depths of winter, not before she got her next wage packet. Not now – oh God, oh God, not now.

‘That’s no answer,’ Eleanor said. ‘I thought you were supposed to know these things!’

‘I do.’

‘Then tell me!’

The woman’s eyes flickered. ‘I can tell you this. It will be a boy. He will be born in July; not too far from your own birthday, I believe. He will be a healthy child when he comes into the world. After that I cannot say.’

‘What? Why?’

‘That depends on you.’

Eleanor sank down onto the bed, her head in her hands. All her grand plans were splintering – France, Italy, the lingering tour of Europe she’d dreamed of. Her stomach had opened up into a yawning pit. ‘How could this have happened? I’ve been so careful!’

‘Not careful enough, it would seem.’

Eleanor sneaked into Charles’s room the first chance she got. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, brushing his jacket clean, and he beamed when he saw her.

‘Eleanor? This is an unexpected – good Lord. Are you quite well?’

There were two glasses on his bedside table, sticky and purple with last night’s dried port. Eleanor picked one up and rolled the stem between her fingers, her throat suddenly too tight to speak. Sunlight caught all the facets of the crystal as it turned, the light leaving each piece as quickly as it came. A new fear was gnawing at her. Was all they shared just as insubstantial – nothing more than a flash of light in the dark?

‘Charles, I am with child.’

She rolled the glass again, and watched the light flicker. Charles closed his bedroom door and locked it. Never had the click and grind of the lock seemed so loud. Was he locking her in, or locking the rest of the world out?

‘What are we going to do?’ she asked.

‘Pack your things. We’re going to Gretna Green.’

Charles lifted up a corner of his mattress and rummaged around. He pulled out a train timetable and read it, running a hand through his hair.

‘We’ll get the express tomorrow morning,’ he said. ‘I have a few things to attend to before we leave, but they won’t take long. We’ll need money, and clothes – is that all you have? That won’t do for Scotland, you must keep warm. Oh Lord. Where’s my trunk?’

‘But what about all our plans?’ she whispered. ‘What about all those places we were going to see together?’

‘Oh, Eleanor,’ he murmured. ‘We don’t have to have grand adventures to be happy.’ He drew her close and tilted her chin up to his. ‘I could live in a little village for the rest of my days and count myself a lucky man, with you beside me.’

Eleanor tried to smile. ‘But … but it won’t be like we planned.’

‘It’ll be better than we planned,’ he assured her. ‘A little slower, perhaps, but that’s nothing to fear. And we can still travel, once the baby is old enough. We’ll only have to wait a little while. Right now, all I want to do is to protect you and our child, and give you both the best I can.’ He beamed at her. ‘Our child. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?’

He kissed her. Eleanor knew she ought to be pleased. Charles was going to keep his promise and marry her. They would be starting a new life together, far from the smoke and the city and all the things she’d done. She probably would be happy with a life like that, but it would be a happiness she would have to settle into. And for all that Charles said they could still go away together, Eleanor was not so sure. She saw her dreams become smoke. How old would she be – and how many more children would she have to worry about – when she finally saw all the things she’d dreamed of? Would she never get a chance to dance in the shoes she’d wished for? How many nights would she lie awake, thinking of all she had given up?

‘I’ll have a cab waiting at three o’clock in the morning,’ Charles said. ‘You’ll be careful, until then?’

‘I shall be the soul of discretion.’

He laid a hand on her stomach, very gently. ‘That’s not what I meant. No heavy lifting. And you must take care with what you eat – oh Lord, what are you supposed to eat?’

Eleanor smiled at him, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘It’ll be in a book somewhere.’

He kissed her again. ‘Three o’clock. Don’t be late.’

Shouting rang through the house. Full of trepidation, Eleanor went to the dining room under the pretence of cleaning. From there, she could hear something of what was being said.

The smell of Mr Pembroke’s dinner – old mutton and onion