Page 3 of A Devilish Element
“Indeed, you do.” Eliza linked their arms, eager to see off the gloom cobwebbing her friend’s shoulders. “But surely there are more than ourselves in residence? Linfield’s family?”
“Some of his friends, but the family are all at Bellingbrook.”
Eliza shook her head, the name being unfamiliar.
“Bellingbrook Hall in Lincolnshire. You’ve not heard of it? I’m told it’s preposterously grand, but I haven’t seen it, and we weren’t invited. Linfield and the earl are,” —she chewed her lip— “well… They’re father and son, and Linfield doesn’t care to be ordered about, you see, and here at Cedarton he can entirely please himself. It’s not part of the Earldom.”
“It isn’t?”
“No, it came to him via his mother’s people. That’s why it’s been abandoned so long. Linfield’s had no need of it while he’s been engaged with his studies, but—”
“Oxford?”
“Yes.”
“And did he?” It seemed hideously unfair to studious Eliza that she was excluded from the halls of England’s universities simply for being a woman, when a man might be awarded a Bachelor’s degree without once opening a book or attending a single lecture, providing he was of sufficiently privileged birth. Equally confounding to her was that anyone would waste such an opportunity.
“He has a tutor,” Jane blurted. “So, you mustn’t brand him a shirker. He’ll take the examination in the new year.”
“Of course,” Eliza said, still choked by the unfairness of the system. Linfield would sail through life, never once thinking about the privilege his rank granted him, never once considering how another life may have benefited from the education he paid for, but never engaged with. If she could learn, then she would listen to every lecture, read every book.
“You’re in the Grey Room, close to me.” Jane coaxed her across the upper gallery and then wound a path through a horrendously disorientating series of poorly lit and increasingly spider-filled corridors. The deeper they went, the more the taint of dust and mildew battled with the scent of the beeswax candles.
“This is you,” Jane announced at the end of a corridor thick with shadows. She turned the handle of a near invisible door, only for a shadow to bolt across the runner. She shrieked, as if something mightier than a mouse had startled her. One pale hand clutched to her chest.
“Jane, are you—”
“Darned vermin. I’m sorry, Eliza. I’ll have Mrs Honeyfield set more traps and see if we can’t acquire a decent mouser. If you wish to leave in the morning, I’ll completely understand.”
Leave? “Don’t be absurd.” It would take more than a single mouse to scare her away, especially one so eager to make itself scarce. “I’m not going anywhere. But tell me, Jane, what necessitates that?”
Her attention, initially drawn by the mouse, had travelled along the runner and discovered a door hidden amidst the gloom, and not just any door, but an iron-pinned monster, secured with a wooden bar and a series of heavy bolts. “Are we expecting invaders?”
“Of course not.” Jane clasped Eliza’s elbow and began to steer her into the Grey room, but Eliza turned away from the unlatched door in favour of the bolted one.
“Another wing?” She claimed the candlestick from Jane’s hand and raised it to make a closer inspection of the iron-pinned monster. It was the strangest of doors to find at the end of an upper wing corridor, its strength more suited to an entrance one wished to defend. The wainscoting ended short of its position, and the grey stone wall in which it sat was unadorned by painting or tapestry, but streaked with light-stealing stripes, leading to the impression that a squid-like entity was attempting to squeeze its bulk around the frame.
“Don’t you wish to change out of those travel clothes?”
“Momentarily. Whatever is beyond here?”
Jane stayed by the door to the Grey Room as Eliza inched forwards. Now she was level with the strange door, its proportions were more clearly defined. Eight feet tall, at least, and almost the same across. She touched the brickwork, and her fingers came away stained.
“Soot?”
“There was a fire in the past. There’s nothing beyond now.”
“So many bolts, there is something.”
“Ruins. That is all. It was the Lady Tower, but now it’s only a shell. Throw back the bolts if you must. They’re a safety measure, as the key is lost, and there’s a sheer drop on the other side.”
Far too intrigued to pass up the invitation, Eliza drew back the bolts, even though it was clear the door predated any fire, and thus its purpose remained obscured. The ancient hinges protested with a whine as she drew the door open, revealing a vast abyss that snuffed the candlelight.
Her breath caught, and Jane hurried to her side. “See, there’s nothing of interest here. Please come away.”
Nothing of interest, and yet Jane’s fear was palpable.
Also, not strictly true. As Eliza’s eyes adjusted to the murk, the shadows yielded the shell of what must once have been the grandest and tallest of Cedarton’s towers. Further sooty tendrils reached towards the absent roof, while several storeys below, weeds poked up in inky thickets, and between her and them, the remains of floorboards and charred furniture hung suspended like the tiers of an off-centre wedding cake.
