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

Daisy grinned. ‘… work out where to put it?’

Mrs Banbury slammed a pot onto the range. ‘I said, we’ll say no more about it!’

Daisy rolled her eyes. Eleanor peered at the steps that led into the garden, worried.

‘Do you think I should go and explain?’

‘Never you mind them,’ said Mrs Banbury. ‘They’ll sort things out themselves.’

Eleanor got out of the kitchen before Lizzie came back.

Eleanor was hiding in the dining room with the window cracked open, listening. She could not tell if Lizzie’s shouting had stopped over the noise of pipers, costermongers, cart-horses and dogs barking in the street. She glanced at the clock; half an hour had passed. Surely Lizzie and her sweetheart would’ve reconciled by now.

She swept down the dining-room table and began to polish it. Fretting would not make Lizzie calm down any faster, she reasoned, and she needed to look busy in case anyone found her. Besides, the dining room still smelled of yesterday’s dinner. The hot, dark room and the smell of poached salmon clinging to the crimson curtains reminded her of Jonah, sitting in the belly of the whale.

The furniture polish was sharp enough to hide some of the smell of old fish. The rag glided across the table, smooth as ice. A vague, dark outline emerged, and for a while she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her until she recognized her own reflection.

The door opened and closed again with a snap. Eleanor looked up and saw Lizzie gripping the back of a chair, her knuckles white. Her face was raw with anger. Panic curled itself around Eleanor and squeezed. She’d never seen Lizzie like this.

‘Lizzie!’ Eleanor said. ‘Are you quite all—’

‘Don’t,’ she muttered. ‘Don’t you dare.’

‘I only—’

‘Don’t you say a bleeding word! You’ve done enough damage already!’

‘Lizzie, I never meant to cause any—’

She laughed. It sounded hollow. ‘Oh, you didn’t mean to, did you? Lord in Heaven, how many times have I heard you make that excuse!’

Eleanor frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘No,’ Lizzie spat, ‘of course you don’t. You don’t think I remember what you was like when you first came here? You were some wild little urchin best left to the workhouse! We tried – Lord, how we tried to be kind to you. You were an animal!’

‘What?’

‘Kicking and screaming and scratching and biting like a bloody monkey! Left half of us with black eyes and tore Mrs F’s neck half open! And when you was done you’d blink up at the mistress and tell her you didn’t mean to.’

Lizzie was shaking. Her grip on the chair was so tight it rattled against the floor.

‘Well, you never had me fooled. You meant it, all right. Just like you meant this.’

Eleanor threw down her cloth. ‘I never meant any such—’

‘You knew me and Bertie was walking out together. You see this?’

She reached into the collar of her dress and slapped something onto the table. It was a ring, hanging from a fine gold chain.

‘D’you know what I had to do to get this? How many times I had to simper at his daft old ma, how many times I turned a blind eye to his sprees? I’ve put up with damn near everything to get out of this place, and I’ll not have you take it from me!’

‘I hardly think I’m responsible for your sweetheart’s—’

Lizzie kicked the chair out of her way. Before Eleanor could run she was in front of her and drawing back her hand. The slap, when it came, was brutal.

‘Don’t you talk back to me! High and mighty Miss Eleanor, putting on airs and graces like the Queen of bloody Sheba!’

Eleanor darted away from her. ‘Calm down, please—’

‘You hold your tongue! You think you’re better than me because a dead woman told you you’re special?’

‘Lizzie!’

‘Well, she ain’t here, is she? And there’s nothing else standing between you and him.’

Eleanor went cold. ‘It’s just as likely to be you!’ she snapped.

Lizzie smirked. ‘How d’you think I’ve lasted here, Miss Eleanor? All it takes is a word in the right ear. As long as there’s another girl here, I’m safe.’

Eleanor couldn’t move. She thought of Leah, and all the girls before her who’d left Granborough House in disgrace. Lizzie had sent all those girls – sent her friend – to Mr Pembroke. She’d seen the tears, seen the bruises, and still she sent them to him. Horror crawled up Eleanor’s throat, choking her.

Still smirking, Lizzie lowered her hand.

‘Bertie’ll come back in a few days,’ she said, her voice low and insidious, ‘and I’ll forgive him, like I always do. But it’ll be too late for you then. The master’ll have his claws into you by the end of the week. I’ll make sure of it.’

She stalked out of the room. Blood pounded in Eleanor’s ears. She tried to pull out a chair to sit down but missed, her hands were shaking so badly. Soon, Eleanor would be trapped on a dark and humiliating path she could not escape from. Mr Pembroke would break her, and Lizzie would let him do it.

Eleanor’s chest was tight. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps.

She couldn’t let it happen.

‘Ella? Are you in here?’

Eleanor jumped out of her chair, stumbling on unsteady legs. She wiped her eyes. The others couldn’t see her like this – pale and puffy-eyed and wrung out like an old dishcloth. If Lizzie knew it was this easy to frighten her, she’d have won already.

Aoife came into the library, a feather duster wedged under one arm, a dustpan and brush clutched in one hand. She gasped when she saw Eleanor.

‘Your face!’

Eleanor’s hand fluttered over her throbbing cheek. Her fingers still trembled. Lizzie’s slap had left one side of her face red and swollen – the benefit of all her years of service, Eleanor thought, bitterly. That butcher’s boy didn’t know what he was letting himself in for.

Aoife set down her things and started looking around the shelves. ‘Have you anything cool in here?’

‘I’m quite well, Aoife,’ said Eleanor, her