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

‘Not lie,’ Eleanor soothed, ‘she’s your mother, she’ll know you’re only being silly. Besides, the world is always so much nicer written down.’

‘She will?’

‘Of course! Tell her … tell her the other day you met a Mughal prince in the street, and he offered you a pearl as big as your head as thanks for directing him to Buckingham Palace. Only you did not take it, of course, because you are a smart girl who knows that the only payment worth having is diamonds.’

Aoife gave a small smile. ‘I’d not be smart if I turned down a pearl as big as my head.’

‘Tell her a rare and brilliant tropical bird escaped from the home of a distinguished professor,’ said Eleanor, warming to her theme, ‘and all the pigeons and sparrows and crows in our square are dunking themselves in paints of every colour out of sheer envy.’

Aoife giggled. ‘But Ella, they’d never fly!’

‘All right. Tell her I’ve run off with a handsome Russian boyar named Sergei – no, two boyars, and they both arrived on the same night and everyone was just mortified. I’ve told them both I will marry the man who lets me hold the sun in the palm of my hand, and they’re both pulling out their moustaches trying to accomplish it.’

‘Which one will you choose?’ said Aoife, laughing.

Eleanor pulled a thoughtful face. ‘I suppose that depends. Which one is taller?’

Aoife tried to give a scandalized gasp but laughed halfway through. ‘After you put them to all that trouble?’

‘Of course! It’s a poor man who can’t solve my riddle by holding up a hand,’ she said. She held out her hand palm up and shuffled into Aoife’s line of sight. Eleanor tilted her hand so it sat flush with the rooves of the house opposite, and through the dirty, darkened glass of her window, the sun set in her outstretched fingers.

The next morning, Eleanor felt Leah’s absence like a missing tooth. She stood in the doorway of her friend’s room, staring at the stripped bed and empty drawers, still half-open from where Leah had packed in a hurry. She should have done more, Eleanor thought. She should have given Leah her wages, or smuggled her back upstairs – but it was too late for that now. She didn’t even know where Leah slept last night. Hindsight could not help her.

Daisy opened her bedroom door as Eleanor walked past, the tight black curls she had inherited from her West Indian mother springy without their pins. Her dark eyes flicked to Leah’s bedroom door and back.

‘She’ll be all right,’ Daisy said.

Eleanor sighed. ‘Do you think so?’

‘It’ll be hard,’ Daisy yawned, ‘but she’ll get through it. Listen, Ella, be a dove and get some water going on the stove. My hair’s not behaving; I’ll never hear the end of it from Mrs Fielding if I don’t fix it.’

Eleanor nodded and went downstairs. Even Lizzie was quiet. She avoided Leah’s place at the kitchen table and ate her porridge in silence, her eyes darting between Eleanor and Aoife. There was a calculating cast to Lizzie’s face that Eleanor mistrusted and, not for the first time, she wondered how Lizzie had lasted for the eight years she’d been at Granborough House.

With Leah gone there was even more work to divide among the girls. Eleanor spent the morning running up and down stairs: down to the garden to empty the slops bucket, up to the drawing room to rid it of dust and dead flies, down to the cellar where she found Aoife sobbing over Leah, her face streaked with tears and coal dust. Eleanor led her out to the pump, got her to wash her face and hands, and brought Daisy to comfort her. She left the two of them standing in the shadow of the coach house with their arms around each other. She cobbled together a lunch of bread and cheese with her back to the door, trying to pretend she hadn’t seen the quick kiss Daisy had buried in Aoife’s hair.

They came back inside fifteen minutes later, still a little tearful, and there was a knock at the tradesmen’s entrance. Aoife was wiping her eyes and Daisy had been collared by Mrs Banbury again, so Eleanor put down her lunch, brushed away crumbs and answered it.

It was the butcher’s boy. He looked taller when he wasn’t behind his counter. ‘Afternoon, Goldilocks,’ he said, grinning. ‘You got your order for this week?’

‘You’ll have to speak to Mrs Banbury about that. Shall I fetch her for you?’

He winked. ‘Best not.’

Eleanor took a step back and raised her voice, so the others would notice. ‘I can’t speak for the kitchen staff. Excuse me.’

She turned away and he caught her sleeve. She thought of Mr Pembroke and the finger-shaped bruises she’d seen on Leah’s arm and tugged her hand away, fast. ‘Mrs Banbury!’

The butcher’s boy whipped his hands away into the air as the cook whirled around. ‘All right, all right! Didn’t mean to give you a fright. I thought, nice girl like you, she oughtn’t to be by herself …’

There was a sound from somewhere over Eleanor’s shoulder. She turned around and saw Lizzie standing in the kitchen, a carpet beater hanging limply in her hand. The butcher’s boy darted out of the door up the steps into the garden. Lizzie ran after him, yelling, ‘You come back here, Bertie! Just you come back here!’

Mrs Banbury ushered a stunned Eleanor over to the kitchen table. ‘You all right there, pet?’

‘I didn’t mean any trouble.’

Daisy snorted and sliced the top off an onion. ‘Shouldn’t have been having it off with the butcher’s boy then, should you, Miss Eleanor?’

‘You mind your tongue!’ Mrs Banbury snapped.

Eleanor sat down. ‘Having what off?’

They went quiet, exchanged a significant look, and Eleanor finally realized what they meant.

She gasped. ‘You think I would—’

‘No,’ snapped Mrs Banbury, glaring at Daisy, ‘we don’t. And we’ll say no more about it.’

‘They … they have an understanding!