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

Eleanor stopped. Aoife was wearing a new dress of fine merino wool. There was lace at her collar and cuffs. And still, she would not look at Eleanor. Fear reared its head.

‘Aoife,’ Eleanor said quietly, ‘what have you done?’

At last Aoife raised her head. Her eyes were burning. ‘I’ve done nothing! Don’t you dare—’

‘Then where’d you get your new dress?’

‘He’s come into some money,’ Aoife muttered. ‘He says we’ll all get them. He only gave me mine first because …’

Eleanor laid a hand on Aoife’s arm, feeling horribly sick. ‘You don’t have to say it. I know you don’t like talking about these things.’

‘You don’t understand, Ella!’ Aoife said in a rush. ‘I’ve a family to think of! Micheál’s worse by the day and the master says if I do as I’m bid he’ll give me a little extra for the medicines and it’d be better, wouldn’t it, than just waiting for him to … to …’

No, Eleanor thought, not Aoife, please, not Aoife…

‘You haven’t—’

Aoife glanced over her shoulder. ‘Not yet,’ she hissed, ‘but I’m going to. Don’t you dare try and give me a talking to, Ella, I’ve enough of that from Daisy!’

Eleanor gripped Aoife’s arm, digging her nails in. She remembered Leah’s bruises and horror and revulsion crashed through her in waves.

‘Aoife, you don’t have to do this,’ Eleanor hissed. ‘I’ll find a way to get you out, I promise—’

Aoife tugged her arm away. ‘You said that before,’ she said, ‘and I’m still here. By all that’s holy, Ella! I’ll not sit around and wait for you to come up with another stupid plan. I’ve made my choice.’

Aoife stalked off. Eleanor did not try to follow her. She did not think she could. All her bones seemed hollowed out, frail as porcelain. One wrong move and she would shatter.

She turned.

Mr Pembroke was standing at the window of Granborough House. He was watching Eleanor, and he was smiling.

The rain had curdled into a fog that pressed up against the windows, greasy and black. It had grown dark long before the sun had set. A feeble streetlamp tried to penetrate the gloom, but all Eleanor could see from her window was a slightly lighter patch of darkness.

Eleanor remembered every detail of her journey back from Granborough House. She had stared at the vast iron beams of Victoria Station, the rough wooden seats in the third-class train carriage, the cobbles under her feet. She had crammed all her horror and disgust and fury into a tight, pulsing little box to let herself get home safely. When she’d pushed open her front door, she had gone straight up and lain on her bed, fully dressed, staring at the ceiling until she heard Bessie go upstairs for the night.

The clock chimed midnight. The old memory rose to the surface, as it always did – the foot of the iron bedstead at Eleanor’s back, her own hands pressing against her ears. The bed had shaken with her mother’s every cough, springs creaking, and the metal had knocked into Eleanor’s spine. If she had gone to her mother, she might have been able to soothe her, but instead she’d curled up into a ball, wishing that the noise would stop – until suddenly, it did.

She’d done nothing, then. She’d been too young, too scared. But she knew what she had to do now.

Streetlamps glowed dimly outside her window. There were no sounds coming from the street outside. It wasn’t like Mayfair; when this street closed its doors, everything slept. Eleanor lit a candle and crept into the kitchen.

She uncorked a bottle of brandy.

The smell made her eyes water. The taste would be worse. She slopped some into a glass. For a moment she felt guilty – it was expensive, she should save it – but she ignored it. It was her damn brandy.

No. It was Mr Pembroke’s brandy.

She’d bought it with his money; therefore, it was his. It was his house too. Never mind that she actually lived there, and had done her best to make it a home – it was still his house. Had she ever had anything that was truly hers? Even if she made her dresses herself, she’d never bought the cloth. It always came from someone else. And someone else could always take it away.

She gulped down the brandy. It burned; she spluttered, and made it worse.

She’d had enough. How long had she put up with that man plunging his fingers into every corner of her life? There was nothing he wouldn’t take from her. Even Aoife – poor, sweet Aoife. He’d smiled to see the despair on Eleanor’s face when Aoife had walked away. He wanted Eleanor to know that he could take her friends and crush them.

Eleanor topped up her glass. She knew she shouldn’t. She knew she shouldn’t make the wish, either. This, more than anything she had done before, would make her a murderess. But if she waited any longer, knowing what would happen, what would that make her? She might be making herself a monster, but even in all her nightmares, she could never be as monstrous as him.

She drank again.

And after he had finished with Aoife, what then? Would Eleanor have to simper and smile at him in order to get her allowance? No. For years she’d been what she needed to be: a dutiful daughter, an obedient maid. They were masks. She had put them on and taken them off for as long as she could remember. Did she even have a face beneath them?

She would not do it any more. Not for him.

This time, she drank straight from the bottle.

How many more girls was she going to watch him ruin? It wouldn’t stop at Aoife. There were always maids who didn’t listen to the rumours. And he, with his well-shined shoes and well-cut clothes, would always be safe, cosseted and ignorant behind piles of sovereigns and shillings.

She drank again. Better to put him out of his misery, if he was going