Chapter 4
Chapter Four
The drawing room had grown dim before anyone remarked upon it. The fire burned low; the lamplight gathered softly against the walls. Elizabeth stood at the escritoire, the Trustees’ letter open once more beneath her hand.
Mary had already withdrawn to fetch her music. Kitty sat close to the hearth, shawl drawn about her shoulders, the cough that had troubled her these past two days held at bay by hot tea and honey.
Mr Gardiner removed his spectacles and folded them with care. “You are not obliged,” he said for the third time. “You must not feel pressed.”
Elizabeth did not look up. “I am not pressed.”
Her aunt regarded her gently. “It is a considerable undertaking, Lizzy. Northumberland is not Hertfordshire. And I cannot… Well. Your uncle and I have our obligations here. We could not stay with you.”
“No,” Elizabeth agreed.
“I could go with you,” Kitty offered. “I have always wished to see the sea.”
Mrs Gardiner shook her head. “You shall see it one day. Not in October. You would be ill within a month.”
Kitty drew breath to protest, but it emerged as a rasping cough, as though to confirm the wisdom of that pronouncement.
Elizabeth folded the letter. “If Jane had been here,” she said, not loudly, “she would have gone.”
Mr Gardiner leaned back in his chair. “Perhaps. You do not know that.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “I believe I do.” She tapped the edge of the folded letter on the desktop. “I do not quite like the notion of Trinity House assuming control. Or worse—the land sold to some mining concern that sees the coast as an investment rather than a charge.”
Her uncle’s brows rose faintly. “Why ever not? Trinity House would ensure the safety of the coast, and they have both the resources and the expertise to see it done.”
“I am sure they would,” Elizabeth replied.
“But was it not strange how the trustees mentioned Trinity House almost as an afterthought? Why, I am sure of it, for earlier in the conversation they even mentioned that if I should refuse, I had still three more sisters who might take up the charge. Did they or did they not say that, Uncle?”
The faintest approval flickered across Mr Gardiner’s face.
“If not stated directly, that much was certainly implied. Although...” He passed a fleeting glance over Kitty, who was trying to swallow her tea without sputtering, and Mary, who had returned with her music and was happily engrossed with her piano.
“If they had met your younger sisters, they might not have considered any of them an option.”
“Uncle,” she chided him gently. “Do be serious. Did it not seem to you as if they were spending a great deal of effort impressing upon me the magnitude of the task and the personal expectations of the role, only to confess at the end that they have a means to abolish the old trust entirely? Declare the stewardship extinct and sell the land or turn the affair over to Trinity House? I think they would prefer that I declined.”
Her uncle lowered his book fully and frowned, then heaved a long sigh. “You mean to go. I might have known that those gentlemen telling you how hard the thing is would only inspire you to attempt it.”
Elizabeth met his eyes then. “Yes.”
Mrs Gardiner rose and came to stand beside her. “You must understand the terms fully before you bind yourself.”
“I do.”
Her aunt studied her a moment longer. “And you comprehend the clause respecting residence? It is no small thing to remove yourself for a year.”
Elizabeth’s mouth curved very slightly. “I have already removed myself.”
Mrs Gardiner did not flinch at that, but her gaze sharpened.
“Lizzy, I must speak plainly. A young woman of one-and-twenty, unmarried, establishing herself upon a remote property with a man already in residence—a man of whom none of us knows the first particular—that is not a circumstance any respectable connection could countenance without provision.”
Mary, who had lifted her head from the pianoforte at the word “man,” set down her music. “It would be a scandal. Even in Northumberland.”
“It would be talked of,” Mrs Gardiner corrected. “Which is worse, for talk does not require evidence. Your uncle and I may know your character, but the world does not know it, and the world will form its conclusions from the arrangement, not from the woman.”
Elizabeth’s hands stilled upon the letter.
She had considered the distance. She had considered the isolation, the cold, the year away from her sisters.
She had not, until this precise moment, considered how it would look.
A single woman, alone on a headland, with a keeper whose name she did not yet know, and no relation within a day’s travel to vouch for the propriety of it.
“You are right,” she said. “It must be managed.”
Mr Gardiner cleared his throat. “I took the liberty of making enquiries this afternoon. It appears the Trustees have already anticipated the difficulty. A Mrs Hargreaves has served as housekeeper to the cottage for some years—she is, by all accounts, respectable, sober, and of sufficient standing to satisfy any reasonable concern. The Trustees have confirmed she will remain in that capacity throughout the stewardship.”
“A housekeeper,” Elizabeth repeated. “She resides in the cottage itself?”
“That is my understanding. You would share the household. It is not elegant, but it is correct.”
Mrs Gardiner considered this. “And the keeper? Where does he reside?”
“In the tower, or in rooms adjoining it. The cottage stands some distance apart—close enough for the business of the property, far enough for propriety, with Mrs Hargreaves on site.”
“Provided she is a woman of sense,” Mrs Gardiner said.
“Provided she is there at all,” Mary added. “If she should fall ill, or leave—”
“Then I shall write to you at once,” Elizabeth said, “and we shall make other arrangements. But I will not refuse this charge because of what might be said by people who do not know me, about a situation they have not seen, in a place they could not find upon a map.”
Mrs Gardiner’s mouth softened. It was not quite approval. It was the expression of a woman who recognised an argument she could not win and was deciding how best to fortify the position instead.
“Very well,” she said. “But you will write to us regarding Mrs Hargreaves within the first week. Her character, her situation, whether the arrangement is as it has been described. And if it is not—”
“If it is not, I shall say so plainly.” Elizabeth met her aunt’s gaze. “I am not so proud as to confuse duty with folly.”
Her aunt held her look a moment longer, then inclined her head.
Mr Gardiner stood. “Very well. We shall speak to the Trustees tomorrow to inform them that you mean to accept the charge. You will need to find out what further arrangements must be made, but if you do mean to go north, we should not delay. The roads will worsen soon.”
Elizabeth nodded.
Only when she was alone later did she unfold the letter again and trace the name written upon it.
Blackscar Lantern.
She spoke it once under her breath, testing its weight. Then she folded the page and sealed it into her travelling case.
The house had been unusually animated for a Thursday.
Mrs Gardiner insisted upon marking Elizabeth’s one-and-twentieth birthday properly, though the celebration had been modest—a cake, a pair of new gloves, a book chosen with care.
The gaiety had not been forced, but it had rested lightly upon them all, as though no one quite dared to disturb the surface of it.
By the following afternoon, the gaiety had vanished entirely.
The carriage waited below, the horse stamping at the curb as if impatient with sentiment.
Elizabeth’s trunk had been carried down an hour ago. The travelling cloak was fastened, the stout boots laced, the heavier gloves tucked into the side pocket where her aunt had insisted they remain. All that was left was the leaving.
Mary was first down the stair, as though she might secure departure by reaching it ahead of everyone else. She carried a small parcel, which she pressed into Elizabeth’s hands at the foot of the steps without ceremony.
“It is not grand,” she said. “But it is useful.”
Inside lay a small leather-bound volume of sermons and reflections—not ostentatious but marked in the margins with Mary’s careful annotations.
“You will not have the pianoforte,” Mary said, with more feeling than usual. “But you may have this.”
Elizabeth touched her sister’s hand. “You shall expect it returned improved.”
“Naturally.” Mary straightened. “And you must observe the construction of the lantern mechanism. I should like a proper description when you write.”
“You shall have diagrams. With annotations. If I can manage to learn how to draw—I suppose I have a year, but I shall never have Kitty’s talent.”
Mary approved of that.
Kitty lingered halfway down the stairs, one hand on the banister, and would not be hurried. When she reached the hall, she produced a narrow ribbon of blue silk.
“For your bonnet,” she insisted. “The north will not soften you. You must do it yourself.”
Elizabeth submitted with a small laugh while Kitty tied it with earnest concentration.
“You must not walk alone upon cliffs,” Kitty added. “I know you, Lizzy. You will take your book and forget where your feet are.”
“I shall walk only where I may see my feet.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No,” Elizabeth conceded. “But it will serve.”
Mr Gardiner stood in the doorway giving instructions to the driver. “The trunk must not ride upon its side. There are books in it.”
“The books will survive, but they might crush the gowns,” Elizabeth corrected. “Gowns stiff enough that you may crumple them without consequence.”
“Your aunt would never forgive me.”
Mrs Gardiner adjusted the fall of Elizabeth’s cloak and stepped back to inspect her. The inspection took longer than the cloak required, and when she nodded, the exhale came out as a tremble rather than satisfaction.