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

see her, with brittle smiles and evaluating eyes. Charles had secured her an invitation to a friend’s ball and Eleanor laboured over her thank-you note, etiquette books spread in front of her. It had to be perfect; Charles was going to present her there as his fiancée.

She did not think about what she had done to get there. Eleanor only regretted killing Mr Pembroke when she saw the shadows under Charles’s eyes, and then she buried her guilt under silk and satin dresses and drowned it in champagne. Nor did she feel guilty about Mrs Cleary’s death – Eleanor mourned her, of course, but she hadn’t asked for Mrs Cleary to die. The black-eyed woman had killed Mrs Cleary to upset Eleanor, and the best way of honouring Mrs Cleary’s legacy was to enjoy it. Eleanor had inherited her money in unfortunate circumstances, but that did not make it any less hers.

She had such plans. She’d written to Aoife’s family, promising to arrange a doctor to treat her brother. She’d thought about trying to find Aoife, too, but thought better of it. If the black-eyed woman had used Aoife to strike the killing blow, Eleanor should not draw attention to her. For now, Eleanor busied herself with making enquiries for a house of her own: she never wanted to set foot in Granborough House again. But that could wait until after the honeymoon. Charles had brought the atlases from Granborough House – mildewed, now – and they’d planned it out together, just as they had done that night in the library. They would go all around Europe, and they would do it in style.

For the first time in her life, she felt like she could do anything.

Her stomach was not growling. Her shoulders were not slumped forward. There was no pain in her back, no twinges in her knees. She soared above the dirt and the cold where no one could touch her. At long last, her rightful place in the world would be acknowledged, and no one could take it away from her.

Nothing would ever touch her now. She was immune to poverty, hunger and cold. There would never be another night spent shivering in a garret, or curled up against the foot of her mother’s bed, waiting for the coughing to stop even though she knew what that meant. What did it matter that when she asked for help, no one had come? Now, if she wanted help she could pay for it, and people would come running. Eleanor would float above it all and watch other people scurry around, carrying out her orders, and every single one of them would thank her for the privilege of serving her. After all, why should she spoil her lily-white hands, when she’d worked so hard for them?

She flicked through her letters. Invitations, enquiries, bills of sale – and something written on soft, cheap paper. She opened it, ink smudging her fingers.

Dear Miss Hartley, she read, thank you most kindly for condessending to inquire about a certain Miss Leah Wallace. It is with the uttmost joy that I humbly beg to inform you that the said Miss Wallace is currently residing in our humble institushion. Miss Wallace & her child, a boy named Josiah, are receiveing every care & attenshon a busy poorhouse may provide …

Leah was alive. Her child was alive. How? The winter had been so cold, and Leah had been so thin. But they were alive, thank God, they were alive.

Eleanor clutched the letter, certain that she had made the right choice.

The cab sat in Hanover Square, outside the St George’s Union. The shadow of the workhouse spilled across the street. Yesterday’s letter crouched in her purse like a spider. Eleanor stared at her gloves, her dress, and the inside of the cab, but she could still feel the long windows of the poorhouse watching her.

Her parents could be in a pauper’s grave behind those walls. She’d never found out where they’d been buried. She might have been told, right after it had happened, but after the bed had stopped shaking and Alice Hartley had breathed her last, all Eleanor could remember was the wait for someone to find her, and the smell.

Charles helped her down from the cab. ‘It does look severe. Do you think it shall be safe?’

It would be safe, for him. Anyone could tell. He had never worn through his shoes, or eaten his dinner fast enough to prevent other people snatching it. Eleanor had grown plump. Her hair was glossy. Her shoes did not pinch, her dress was neatly fitted, and her gloves were brand new and thin enough to tear. But stepping into the shadow of the workhouse, Eleanor became acutely aware of how fragile such things were. A harsh winter or a bad investment would take them away from her, like leaves being snapped off the stem of a rose.

She took a deep breath. Even in May the air still tasted of smoke. She stared up at the long, thin windows and felt them staring back. She took Charles’s arm. The last thing she wanted was to step into that place alone.

‘Miss Hartley?’

Eleanor looked up at the sound of an unfamiliar voice and saw the workhouse matron. She was an unremarkable woman, tired and stout with jangling keys at her hip. The building seemed to dwarf her.

‘Do come this way,’ the matron said.

Eleanor glanced at the workhouse. There were faces at the windows, dark smears against soot and bird droppings. The front door was taller than it needed to be and under an arch on the brink of collapse. It shrank her down. Had Leah felt so small, when she’d stood outside the workhouse, or had she only been relieved to be behind dry walls?

She followed the matron inside, into a cheaply tiled hall where every footstep rang down the corridor. Eleanor’s dark green dress looked unnatural against all the shades of brown and grey. She’d thought it demure and perhaps