(Late) Fiction Friday: Hunter's Return

This chapter is being posted a little late due to a correspondence I've begun with someone claiming to represent Emily Bracken's estate (!), but currently I think I'm well within my rights to continue to copy her work onto the internet. If that changes, I will be the first to let you know.

I was contacted by letter early last week by a solicitor named Mr Sedgeland who claimed to represent the Bracken Estate. His main contentions were that 1) Emily Bracken had never intended for her manuscript to be published and that the only extent copies belonged to the Estate and therefore should not be at large, and 2) the publication of Blackwell Hall amounted to a libel on the Estate itself as a legal entity.

After consulting some friends, I have dismissed Mr Sedgeland claims. I'm not even certain that he is in any way related to an estate, that if such an estate exists that it is actually the estate of Emily Bracken and the Bracken Family, and that if the Bracken Estate did exist that it actually owns the rights or physical print copies of Blackwell Hall.

Mr Diver came through the threshold with an antiquated blunderbuss slung over his shoulder. His boots were sheathed in crusted mud and he wore a look of such dejection that my heart at once went out to him. It was the face of a man without hope. I was startled out of my complacence by it. I have never seen such an expression absent a funeral or a grievous illness. I assumed something unpleasant had happened out in the wood, so I crossed the room to the doorway and took him by the hand. "Mr Diver," I said, "It is so good to see you again." I had taken brief stock of him on my arrival, you see. He didn't seem to know who I was, such was the shock he displayed when I approached him.

"Ms Bracken," he exclaimed after a moment's thought. His Highland accent was thick indeed, and I found my name nearly unrecognizable in the wilderness of r's and k's he spat. "I had nae expected to find you here in the hall. I was looking for my friend Mr Finch, who is apparently too good to come shooting with us."

"I'm sorry, Mr Diver," I replied. "I believe he's in the garden. But wherever are the others? Your wife and Mrs Finch?"

"Oh, I fancy they're comin' along," he muttered. I bowed my head.

"Perhaps you will be so gracious, Mr Diver, to sit and talk with me a while as we wait for them." He seemed inclined to snarl and deny me the pleasure, but after a moment he did sit. We both took up places by the fire. "Was the shooting... pleasant, then?"

Mr Diver adjusted his waistcoat and shook his head. He wore a bushy beard, very Scottish indeed, and could not stop fiddling with his watch-chain. "Pleasant? I wouldnae call it pleasant. Nay, not a' all. No game in this blasted countryside. Why the Finches insist on livin' out here..."

"It is their ancestral hall, I'm lead to understand," I objected.

"Aye! And my oon 'ancestral hall' is in Edinburgh. But I'm a modern man, and so should be Mr Finch. We keep a house in London and one in Lincoln. I haven't seen my home in Scotland in eight years. Don't see me tearing up about it and strokin' the stones like a lunatic." He was clearly out-of-sorts, though I could not divine why. Supposedly, the Divers were very close friends of the Finches.

I sniffed. "Well, I do not mean to be crass, but could it be that you are not descended from the gentry? You know, they feel a very strong pull to the land, as they are its stewards, and—"

"Oh! The gentry, the gentry!" Mr Diver grumbled. He chewed on his beard and would say no more. I left him, thinking him an odious and tedious fellow, though my opinion would change. I did not know then what troubled him. If I had, I might have been more sympathetic.

As it was, I rose from the hall and went to find someone more interesting to talk to. Highfold was nowhere to be found, and the other servants did not interest me just then. I spent some time prowling around the second floor of the house, which I discovered was divided into three distinct wings. There was no intermittence between them, and I had to take three separate stairways to reach the floor in three separate parts of the house. I thought it most odd at the time; whyever would you design a country house to be so dismally separated from itself?

Some time later, the others came home, trouping in to find Mr Diver sitting disconsolately in the hall. Mr Finch and Mrs Rail were still nowhere to be seen. I joined the hunters as they handed off a few grouse to Highfold, who had appeared from the kitchen. Allan the Groundsman had taken the majority of the kills, though there were a few had by Mr Rail. Lady Dorothy, Ms Diver, and Mrs Finch were all flushed red with exertion.

I hadn't realized Mr Rail had come. He was, true to his name, a slender man who stood taller than anyone else in the room. He looked a scarecrow, with his great oversized coat and his beetling brows. I had to be introduced to him, as he was a stranger. I was told that he arrived while Mr Diver was out hunting with Allan and that he had been given a spare gun to join in the amusement. The women were delighted to see him, though of course he seemed somewhat out-of-sorts that his wife had not been present.

I greeted him and introduced myself in turn. "You haven't seen Joanna about, have you?"

"You might try the garden," I suggested. Mr Diver must have heard me, because his bearded head swiveled around to face me. His mouth was open just a little, and an unkind light had been kindled in his eyes. Whatever this meant, I did not know nor pretend to knowing. I simply smiled at everyone and bobbed my head and played the obedient young girl. It's what is expected, you know, when you're in a strange place. If you start acting boldly, they may very well think you're petulant or mad. Even with Mary Wollstonecraft's excellent essays and books, people have a very hard time believing that a girl can have opinions without being in some way deranged.

Mr Finch appeared again shortly thereafter. I imagine a servant must have informed him that the hunters were back in the house. He carried an open book in his hand and wandered into the room, seemingly oblivious of the people standing about it. He murmured to himself, touched the book with his finger, then looked up and raised his eyebrows. "I say, welcome back," he said. "And Charles! A good afternoon to you!" He snapped the book shut with a single motion, then went to embrace Mr Rail. Mr Diver watched them with hateful attention.

I resolved to wait until dinner to begin prying.

Fiction Friday: A Garden of Yore

The earlier Blackwell Chapters can be found here.

While Mr Finch was walking the grounds, I found myself alone in the house. Having no desire to seclude myself in the sitting room—which bore more resemblance to the great of hall of a medieval manor than of a modern estate—I called for the staff. I was presented by the Finch's under butler, a startlingly dressed man named Highfold. He wore a fine weskit of brocaded cloth, trimmed with fine yellow thread. I was surprised to see such brilliant gear in the dim gloom of Blackwell. I had supposed, quite wrongly, that the Finches did not have any notion of colour or contrast because of the simple unadorned walls and the grim paintings they hung that featured seaside cliffs and ships of the line in storm-tossed waters.

Highfold bowed to me and muttered some platitude; probably "yes, my lady?" or somesuch meaningless greeting. I told him that I wanted a tour of the house. "I haven't had the chance to see it all yet, and the Finches have been rather too busy to shew it me."

"Mrs Finch is out shooting, mem'oiselle." I don't know where Highfold got his Frenchified airs, but I was to hear him give a false affect many times in the coming months.

I nodded at him. "Yes, yes, and Mr Finch is looking for Mrs Rail. But I want to see the house. Surely you're up to that task?"

The under butler had a pinched face framed by rather ridiculous looking side-chops. His eyes were too close together and had a tendency to water, and his crooked nose made a most poor combination with his one snaggle-tooth to give him the appearance of a mad wanderer of the moor. He ducked his laughable head. "Yes, mem'oiselle," he agreed. "I've been in the Finches service going on five years, I should say I know the grounds very well indeed. Where would the mem'oiselle like to begin?"

I confess, I know it very unladylike to walk a tour with someone as undignified as Edward Highfold, a raggedy looking urchin dressed up in the finery of a fine house, but I was left without amusement and I truly did wish to pace out my surroundings. After all, thought I, I would be spending all autumn and winter  at Blackwell Hall. I hoped my health would improve, truly, but even if it did not I had the hope that I would at least be entertained for the time I spent there. That was my chiefest concern: there is nothing worse than whiling away half a year without entertainment. You might as well be dead.

I told Highfold that I would like to begin in the library. The library, after all, is the heart of a home. The rest of the house unfolds from the library like the living leaves of a tree in spring. It is from the library that a house finds its spirit, and the genius of an estate resides there. The Finch library was a magnificent thing, suited to a man of the Law, as I later found Mr Finch had once endeavored to be. It was made of dark wood and opened, in great french windows, out onto the out-of-doors. Subaqueous light filled the room, dulling the glimmer of brass fittings.

The bookshelves filled three walls, and wrapped around the four doorways that lead in and out to the other chambers of the house. The books themselves were bound in earthen tones. Mr Finch favored red-gold lettering on his spines. I wondered who his printer was, or if he had found himself a bookseller of repute to service the Blackwell house. I flitted from shelf to shelf, marveling not so much at the quality of the books (which were dusty and little-used) but at the fine nameplates, the step-ladders, stools, chairs (again, of a very masculine quality), candelabras, his fine writing desk with its pens, inks, and crisp undisturbed white sheets of paper.

The french windows were covered with a scroll of ivy, as though the gardener and groundskeeper didn't know their business. I asked Highfold if the abominable Allan was in charge of keeping the windows clear. "The master doesn't mind if the windows are clear or not, mem'oiselle," was his reply.

Mr Finch grew stranger and stranger by the minute. I was fully intending to continue my impromptu tour of Blackwell when I heard his voice coming from somewhere without. I crept to the windows and told Highfold to make himself scarce. I was fair interested in hearing what was going on, and it was (it is) somewhat improper for a young lady to perch herself in a secret listening cove and spy upon her hosts.

He was in the garden, which was hidden behind the sweep of the house. I could see it from the windows, if I stood on my tip-toes and squinted through the screen of foliage growing against the pane. A distinguished gentleman can be recognized at any distance, and Mr Finch's violent shock of hair was nothing if not distinguished. He stood by a stone fountain, all replete with graven images of dolphins and ships, though the water had, by the looks of it, long ago been silenced and reduced to a murky quagmire, a sort of scum in the bottom of the basin.

"I will not have you—stop that, Joanna—I will not have you making a mess of things, do you understand?"

The object of his speech was invisible to me, and her responses went unheard. I could make out the faintest reply, but its contents were so soft as to be unintelligible. I shifted my position so as to lose sight of Mr Finch (a sorrow) but to gain a view of his companion. It could be none other than the poetess, Mrs Rail.

She was a slender dark woman, with dark hair all piled up atop her head and falling down her shoulders in tendrils. Her eyes were the deep brown colour of trunk liner and her gown was gossamer white. She stood out amongst the ancient and hoary plants as a fairy would. There was a nimbus about her that I still, to this day, cannot account for. Perhaps it was a trick of the light.

"Now, Joanna, your husband is worried about you. No—no, he hasn't. But he will, and you must keep yourself apart from Eric Diver, do you understand? I won't have it, madame, not in my house. Oh, stop it. You'll not fool anyone with your hysterics. I want you to—" Here I watched her level her burning gaze on him and speak a muted accusation. I shrank back from the window. "How dare you, Joanna," he replied in a distant and husky voice.

I crept slowly back. There were things afoot in Blackwell Hall that I had no notion of. Nor had I any desire to pry further, at least not at that moment. My chiefest thought was to extricate myself from the library and find a way to silence Highfold, for it occurred to me that he would likely tell the other servants what I had been up to, and gossip in a household often gets back to its master. Whatever dark secret connected Joanna Rail and Jacob Finch, and I could guess very well what it might be, I had no desire to learn its details. I rather like Mr Finch, and the thought of him learning that I was spying on him and that, indeed, I had something very worthy of the tale to tell, shivered me.

I found Highfold in the kitchen with Mary and Ms Taylor. There is a certain familiarity about country servants that is not true of London. I found Mary and Ms Taylor, rather than being scandalized, quite happy that I joined them. The kitchen of Blackwell Hall was, like its sitting room, something out of a grim Tudor story. It was all in stone, as though there were fear that a fire might spread to the rest of the house. There were three enormous hearths set into the wall, two of which had not seen a fire in at least a generation. It was all over festooned with garlic, sausage, and other country niceties hanging from smoke-blackened rafters.

Mary bid me welcome and sit and gave me a cupful of wine. "You're the Bracken lass," she said with not a hint of deference. "The one what came in so late the day prior. It's good to see you looking so healthy, miss!"

I gave her a polite sort of inclination of my head and raised my cup to her. It was a pleasing sentiment, if not wholly appropriate. But then, when was I known to be wholly appropriate? It was not in my nature, just as it was not in the nature of Blackwell Hall.

"I wonder if you could tell me something of the garden," I said, eyeing Highfold. I wished him to know the reasons for my secrecy without blurting them out to the maid and chef. It would hardly do to have him sworn to silence if the news were to travel all throughout the house on the wings of silver trays and dustpans.

Highfold caught my eye and gave a courteous little half-bow. "Indeed, mem'oiselle. The garden. Quite a private place, being as it is shielded from the countryside and the park by the bulk of the house." I gave him a considerate nod. I prayed he would go on. He did: "It is a place where dark deeds have often been buried, I fear, mem'oiselle. In that, it is very much like the family gardens of yore. Where you might have once found a red rose and wondered if it had not been painted so, the same might be said of this moorland garden. Indeed, Mr Finch keeps it quite well stocked with plants of all the ancient types."

"But surely such talk would never be repeated?" I asked.

He smiled. By now, I fear that Mary and Ms Taylor were no longer amused, being lost amongst our talk. "Of course," he replied. "Such talk is not to be thought of outside the garden. But that does not mean, mem'oiselle, that it does not have power."

And just like that I was once again secure in my person and reputation in the house. I smiled pleasantly and wished Highfold a good afternoon. He was to become my confidant in the days that followed, bound to me by the burden of a common secret. I would learn something of him too, though the time is not yet ripe for me to tell.

I asked Highfold to find a novel from the library so that I would not need to go in again and listen to the dark and mysterious conversation between Mrs Rail and Jacob Finch. He fetched me something to my room, where I gazed from my casement and watched the sun travel across the sky. The dark and twisted trees of the forest moor rubbed their branches together greedily. The garden, ancient and hoary, was spread out below, but I could not now see the figures of Mrs Rail or Mr Finch.

I waited. Surely, I thought, they will shortly return, and someone will be sent to bring me down as company.

The hunting party returned before they did.

Fiction Friday: The Mighty Tree

As I perused the pages of Blackwell Hall, I became ever more convinced that its setting was none other than Somerset—but there is no mention of a Blackwell, Thrushford, or Finch family in the region, at least not as masters of any hall or Park. It is my belief that these names are ciphers for other places which Ms. Bracken knew well, but wished to disguise for some reason or another. She refers several times to her condition, which will become clearer in this chapter. It may account for her mysteriousness about the location; for a long winter season, when she was younger, she removed to an undisclosed family friend's house in Somerset to recover her strength from a malady which is not quite clear in any of the other accounts.

Blackwell might very well be the friendly home where she retreated, albeit through the dark mirror of Ms. Bracken's memory.

There are several other Blackwells in England, two of which are in Derbyshire, but there is no record of a Blackwell Manor, Blackwell House, Blackwell Hall, or Blackwell Park in Somerset.

You can read Chapter 1 of Ms. Bracken's memoire here.

Allow me to resume: my occupation at Blackwell Hall. I was first recommended to the Finches by my aunt, who was the Lady Dorothea Longspur, and whom you have already met in the preceding pages. She was the eldest of her siblings and also the shining star of the family; she married Lord Claude Longspur, 11th Baron Strange, cousin to none other than His Lordship George Murray, Duke of Atholl. Scotts, you see. They have very little prejudice about marrying into the lower gentry of England, or so I gather. This is how my aunt, who I knew as Lady Dorothy, became a baroness.

Lady Dorothy was well-known throughout the whole countryside and her friendships reached into many little houses and manors that were otherwise unknown amidst the London quality. Blackwell Hall was one that my aunt visited with some regularity, for she was a dear friend to the Finches. Mr. Finch had studied at All Souls with my uncle, the baron.

When I was first appraised of my condition, my aunt Dorothy recommend that I spend a winter at Blackwell for the air. This, you will recall, was one of the reasons that I chose to make my way by foot from Thrushford. There were other health benefits touted by my doughty aunt, but I was uncertain as to what they were meant to be. To be honest, the arrangements were all put together by my aunt and mother in a secretive cabal of the womenfolk designed to spirit me away from London before the height of the winter season—for which I was not ungrateful. My autumn would be much better spent, thought I, in the rustic comfort of some country squire's hall than in the townhouse.

Before I continue with my tale, I should also take account of the other quality that were present at Blackwell when I arrived and those came shortly thereafter, at least before the winter blanketed the wood. The Divers, Misses Rail, and the Crakes were all present; Mister Diver was an ironmonger from the Scottish highlands; Misses Rail was a poetess prone to weeping fits and hysterias. The Crakes were a different pair altogether—a theologian and an historian. This was the circle, though the Crakes were yet to arrive at the time when I stumbled into the hall.

Mister Diver was a short highlander with a head of curly black hair and a lecher's eye. His wife was of that loud breed of northerner who thinks her nose belongs in everyone else's business. As for Misses Rail, she came without her husband. She claimed to be very much in love, but her waifish waisting told another story—all gloomy was she, with mooning looks backwards cast.

These three are those who were in the hall, along with my aunt Dorothy, the servants, and the Finches. They swamped me and asked me many questions; all but Mister Finch, who as I noted remained back and aloof, pretending to read his book.

"My dear girl," Dorothy chided. "You must be half dead!"

The servants—Elizabeth, Taylor, and the chef Margaret being chief amongst them—hovered near at hand. I told my aunt that I was not half-dead, nor even a quarter-dead if it came to that. Mister and Misses Diver tut-tutted and patted my hand in turn. I made it known that I was in dire wont of supper, and we adjourned to the dining room. Only Mister Finch declined to accompany us.

Nothing of interest was said at supper, save that I was introduced to those of the Finches' circle who had already arrived. Misses Finch presided as hostess, making excuses for her husband. It was Misses Rail who spoke of the others. She introduced herself to me as we passed into the dining room by lightly touching my arm. Misses Rail wore gauzy white dresses that accented her sickly figure. Dinner was held by candlelight as the westering sun was obscured by heavy cloud cover. Misses Rail played the harpsichord afterwards—an old but traditional past time.

I was shown to the suite that would comprise my rooms, away in the back of the house. They were paneled with dark wood and looked out at the deep forest from the ground floor. To myself I thought them the kind of thing one might suspect exists in a convent. I wondered if it was my Aunt's manner of reminding me of my duty to marry; whether she had requested I be placed in such an austere chamber with only a bare cross for decoration. I soon found, however, a small collection of journals stored in a basket by the hearth. I confess I could not help but read one: it was simpering stuff, the childhood ramblings of some lonesome little girl. I put it away and went to sleep shortly thereafter.

The following day, I rose late. I suppose it was due to the long walk I had taken on the afternoon prior. Mister Finch was alone in the house with the servants, reading again by the fireplace. "Good morning, Miss Emily," he greeted me when I made my first appearance after tending my toilette. He was every bit as polite and deferential as last evening, and made quite the dashing figure by the fireplace in his weskit. The fire was going, and a great hound was sleeping by his feet. Two of the house cats—for the Finches kept four of them—were drowsing languidly with the beast.

"I take it your sleep was sound? The wind did not disturb you?" As if on cue, the leaded windows rattled with the gusts.

"It did not," I admitted. "But has everyone vanished?"

Mister Finch shook his head. "Not quite," he said. "They've gone off to shoot on the moor. Wolves need thinning this time of year, you know, else they get into quite big packs."

I examined him from the doorway. "You aren't shooting, though," I said.

"That I am not," he agreed with a smile. He put his book down on a side table. "Sit, if you like." I did. "I don't enjoy it, I find. Something about the buck of the gun. Or maybe its just Allan." He chuckled to himself, but I could see he was watching me very keenly for a response. I allowed myself a polite and ladylike smile. This apparently pleased him, for he nodded ever so slightly and went on. "I didn't think you'd find it much fun, either, and what with you still abed I did not want you to waken and find the entire house deserted."

Indeed, thought I, and there might yet be other reasons he wished to remain alone in Blackwell Hall. "Tell me a little of this place, Mister Finch," I asked him. "It's very quaint." He began to speak and I took the time to surreptitiously dab my lips with my kerchief.

"Well, you know," he said, stretching his long legs and then, at length, standing with care not to rouse the dog, "Blackwell is a very old house. Very old! First built in the time of William Rufus, I believe." He strolled to the fireplace and leaned on the mantle, I suspect so that he might make a romantic figure framed against its light. Indeed, though he was an older man, and though he had run to fat, he still boasted a well-turned calf. "That's just this room. It was a hall of some kind, for the holding of the march. The rest wasn't built until the fifteenth century. Still, the lords and squires of Blackwell Hall have built on to it, bit by bit, in their own way up until the very present. The old Blackwells themselves used to live here. There's was a great and mighty tree, when it blossomed."

"And when its autumn came?"

"Well, we may pray never to see such an autumn ourselves," quipped Mister Finch.

I found this more than passing interesting, despite my better inclination. I knew I should be quiet—let him return to his book—but instead I cocked my head and asked, "And you, Mister Finch? How did your family come into the Hall?"

Mister Finch looked pleased indeed. "Well, it's interesting that you ask, Miss Emily. As it so happens, my own family line is, well... a rather shabby shrub compared to the ancient Blackwells, but still, descended from men who played quite a role in history if I dare say so myself. Sir James Finch served King Edward the Fourth, you know. He was given Blackwell as a sort of place of exile by King Richard the Third for being a bit too... zealous in his support of the old king. Some say he was even involved with the boys in the tower." He waggled his eyebrows. I, of course, was quite tired by his banter by now and gave him no more play to feel superior at. It is amazing how, simply by the withholding of a laugh or a smirk, one can move a man who thinks himself in all ways superior to the lowest depths of dejection.

Finch returned to his seat and shrugged. "That, in essence, is the story of Blackwell Hall. But that's not why you're here, to learn all about our history."

I shook my head. "No indeed, Mister Finch," I said. I paused and let the atmosphere grow thick with awkwardness before I spoke again. "But it did not hurt to learn it," I offered him at last. I saw him settle more comfortably into his seat. "I thought I might take a stroll, if you don't mind."

"Mind?" he asked. "No, not at all. I do believe Misses Rail is about somewhere. She cannot stomach hunting, either."

With a little curtsey, I left the squire's presence in search of the weeping poetess.

Fiction Friday: The Road to Blackwell

This matter was brought to my attention by a close friend of mine; Ms. Bracken's manuscript was written as a memoire and was only published in a few very narrow circles. She was embarrassed by the quality of her writing, and besides, by the time she was ready to go to press the Brontë sisters already dominated the scene. However, a handful of her books are still in circulation—the Book Trader Cafe luckily had a singular weather-worn copy of her work on their shelves and little knew what they possessed. I have here set forth Ms. Bracken's work as deserving of a wider audience, and I will continue to post a chapter from her memoire (entitled Blackwell Hall) each week until either my audience shrinks away or it is complete.

It should be noted that I have added the chapter names myself, and they are not original with the work.

Everything began, as it were, on that damnable walk. Others, friends, had implored me to hire a coach up to Blackwell, or at least to take a steed up all the way. I, however, was (and am) remarkably stubborn. Firstly, one cannot let the desires of others overwhelm one's own, and secondly the air up by Blackwell Park is quite bracing. I thought it might do my condition some good. It was with some eagerness that I set out that morning from Thrushford. The walk was meant to take something like six hours, but I have never shied away from such exercise. Of course, that was when the omens began. Shall I say omens? Yes, I think I shall.

The first was the discovery of a queer stone that had undoubtedly been put in place in some pagan age. It stood just a little taller than my head, and had carved into its chalky surface something eerily approaching a face. There were three men on the road in that place, guiding an ox toward Thrushford. "Oh, my lady, never should ye stop here," said one.

"And whyever not?" asked I, piqued. I have never found it amusing to be coddled with male attention. They certainly may find it very funny indeed to pretend that one is a flimsy thing of crepe-paper, but I do not.

The man grabbed his cap and chewed the cud he kept behind his bulging cheek, but said nothing more. Just to show them I wasn't afraid of their silly country superstitions, I ran my fingers over the rough pagan stone and gave them a wicked smile.

But that was only the first omen. The second was when I stumbled climbing a steep grade and found myself tumbled to the foot of a precipitous slope. There, at its base, sat a trio of old crows like witches plotting over their cauldron. Yes, they were the witches, save that their cauldron was a half-devoured fawn. Its rib cage was splayed open like the fingers of a grasping hand. At that, I merely wrinkled my nose, regained my composure, and went deeper into the hills.

Then there came the third sign. I am not one to put credence in idle bedside fairy stories, you understand. I find it to be insulting in the highest degree, and my intellect is not leashed and chained to the dance of any piper. But here, when one sees not one but three omens in an afternoon, it becomes time to reconsider one's position.

The third sign was the calf. This I found not far from the gate of Blackwell Park. It was hurt, poor beast, and I heard its pitiful cries from the road. They were haunting and feeble. The mewling drew me to it and I saw at once, under leaves half-matted with rain and blood, that the thing had been attacked by wolves of the heath. That was not what startled me, for I am used to morbid sights. I am no shrinking violet who will see blood and draw back. But the mauling was not the worst of it—no, no matter the pitiful nature of its injuries. I could see that it must have wandered from its safe pen and been near-devoured by those that stalk to the high moor. Worse, far worse, was its natural condition. For the calf had one pair of eyes that stared askance and rolled in fright, glazed with terror, and yet a second set. You see, the thing had been born with a vestigial skull emerging from the base of its neck and there was the sound redoubled through a second throat. I should have destroyed it and put it from its misery, but the awfulness of the sight so shocked me that instead I hastened on to Blackwell Park, little heeding the beast's pain.

The Park, as it was known in those parts, for it was the only such establishment for many many miles about Thrushford, was a vast acreage of wilderland hemmed in by the stark hills of that country. I will not say quite where it is about, for if my reader does not know of Thrushford, it is perhaps better that you never learn of its precise locale. Suffice to say, then, that it is high in the lonesome country where wholesome things do not stray. All about the Park there runs a chest-high wall adorned with iron spines. The grounds include forest and hill, all dark and knotty. It is a place of thorns, and dust, and choking bramble.

When I arrived at the gate, there was no one in the little cottage to let me in. I was tired and thirsty from long travel, and did not expect to find the groundskeeper's house unattended. Though the air was chill and wintry, I was all prickled with sweat from my exertions. At once, the fear ran through me that I would not find my way in, that I would be stranded without the Park until nightfall, or later; that the wolves of the moors would find me, as they had found that unfortunate calf, and that I would sooner join it. I must admit, I had not eaten much since my abbreviated lunch upon the road and I feared as well that my strength was failing me, draining through my limbs.

I rattled the gates as hard as I might. My limbs were filled with fevered strength. The chain wrapped about them strained and groaned, but came nowhere near to breaking. I nearly slumped against the wall in my anger. By then my stomach was sick with fear—they were right, those nosy friends who'd told me not to walk along the high roads alone to Blackwell Park. I should have been in a coach— but then, how would the coachman would have sorted anything differently?

It was only moments, I am sure, that I sat at the base of that brick wall with my head lowered between my hands, but it seemed to me that an entire hour or more passed. The sun was a bleary nail in the sky, moving not an inch, which is how I know it was fear that exaggerated my distress.

A man in a cap with a short hunting jacket, marsh boots, and gaiters came upon me. He had slung over his arm a pellet gun of some ancient make, and his teeth clenched a fuming pipe. "Well, mistress, yer seem to have fallen. Allow me to help ye."

He hauled me to my feet and drew from one of his pockets a key. This, he fitted into the gate and undid the chain. At the same moment, I saw him take a slug of liquor from his flask. I wrapped my hand around it as he attempted to return it to his pocket and took it for myself. "'Ere now," he complained as the stuff passed my lips. I thrust it back to him, staggering the man. His fantastic whiskers bristled. "Unladylike!" he declared to no one.

"I take it you're the groundskeeper here," I accused. He nodded. We walked beyond the girdling gate into the Park itself. The trees were darker within the wall, I noticed, and the thickets deeper. All grew more twisted and twined about than even on the headland by the sea, where noisome groves once housed midnight ceremonies and meetings between conspirators against the Crown. "Well, an abominable time for you to be away. I am Miss Emily. You were certainly informed of my coming."

Well, he was informed; the man was a brute called Allan. He went only by one name, and all the time I spent at Blackwell Hall I never heard him given another. Simply Groundskeeper Allan, who stalked the Park with his antiquated gun and beetling brows. The glow of his pipe was ever present to give him a hellish demeanor, lighting up his tangled whiskers with its sizzling embers.

We came to the house after a few moment's walking. The spirits I took from Allan had restored mine, lifting them again after my unpleasant journey from Thrushford. Blackwell Hall is a magnificent manor of gutrock stone. Both at once grotesque and beautiful, choked by antiquity and blessed with deep roots. It was—no, it is—the embodiment of all that is ancient and stultified, but also the stately grandeur of our shared past. It is all of this, and more. Gazing upon it, one is at once moved to awe and repulsion in equal measure. This, then, is Blackwell.

It is a great horseshoe of graven stone. Its has a leaded roof well-grown with mosses, as though the earth itself crawled up upon the tile. Its namesake, the deep-sunken well, stood all fraught with ironwork, its bucket hanging from a rusted chain. Allan the groundsman glared at me and gestured to the heavy oaken door. He would not touch it, as though for fear of the lash. "Here, mistress, is the hall."

He said no more. I glared at him across my shoulder, and went then to the door.

It opened at once into the hall where a smoky fire was blazing in the hearth. My aunt was there, as she had promised, and so was Blackwell Park's master and mistress. Everything I knew about Blackwell until that point was related to me by my aunt. She told me that the squire was a perfectly commendable man, and his wife was a fine specimen of her sex. I found them to be quite up to her description as I came into Blackwell Hall, but it was not to last.

Jacob Finch, of whom I'm certain you shall never have heard, bore the air of a once-dashing fellow. Quite leonine was he in appearance, and possessed of a great mane of graying hair. I could tell that, in his youth, he must have been quite the thunderer; he had the mien of a scholar. I could see him as a young prefect causing absolute chaos, and being quite liberal in the defence of his peers when it came to the whalloping stick.

The woman who stood behind him, Miss Finch, was clearly devoted to him, but I could also see the curl of a sneer coming into her face as he spoke. He was an object of deep feelings that were inextricably intertwined.

"Ah, my dear Miss Emily," he said when he laid eyes upon me. How he knew my name, I do not know. Perhaps my aunt had warned him of my desire to walk up from Thrushing, and after all it could not have been quite so common for young women to show up on his doorstep. "Forgive me for not sending after you. I had assumed you would leave tomorrow. My, but you look tired. Come in and have a seat."

There were a number of seats to be had, all very mannish in their upholstered leather and brass buttons. Big claw-feet clutched at the carpet before the fireplace. I obeyed Mr. Finch and found myself being attended by his domestics. My aunt was fluttering around me, and a handful of other folk of gentle breeding also appeared. "This is quite a welcome," I said, flattered. I fancied that Mr. Finch paid somewhat more attention to me than he cared to—once or twice he lifted his eyes above the half-rims of his glasses and his gaze wandered from the book he was so valiantly endeavoring to read.

That was the most singular thing about Mr. Finch, I believe: all throughout the interview that followed, the probing questions from my aunt and Mrs. Finch and all the rest, he pretended to keep his eyes upon the page. As an avid reader and avoider of conversation of my own,  I could see his ears perking like a curious cat's. He was listening to us, not reading at all! I was confirmed in this suspicion when I found that he never once turned the page. This intrigued me, I must admit, as did the occasional sidelong glances from his wife.

As for the conversation... but it grows late now and I must put down my pen. Perhaps next I take it up, my dear reader, I will illumine you as to my position at Blackwell.