Chapter 8
The memory of the journey to Beaufort Mansion was set deep in Anne’s marrow, such was the cruel penetration of the cold embedded in her skin. She waited on the curb outside her house for several minutes, her heart filling with relief when the public coach finally arrived. Seeing as the inside was already full, Anne was forced to settle herself outside, next to the driver: a decision which cost her suspicious glances from the less charitable passengers.
The jouncing and jostling from the ruts and potholes of the roads so poorly maintained by the Turnpike Trust made it increasingly hard for her to read the letter she had just received. She only managed to make out half of it due to the tremors marring the cursive beauty of the copperplate.
“Dear Miss Lincombe,
In view of our agreement [...] yesterday, I would like to invite you to Beaufort Mansion, where you may browse our selection of novels to your satisfaction. The address is enclosed –
I remain your humble servant,
Henry Murdoch.”
Anne folded the creamy paper along its creases with painstaking neatness, and placed it back into her string purse, which she tightened shut with vigour. Pulling her shawl around her, which was fastened with the black and white brooch she wore every day, Anne closed her eyes and tried to imagine herself in warmer circumstances. Each stage was a gargantuan effort not to be thrown off her seat, flattening her satin bonnet with her endeavours to hold onto it.
The driver refused to place her right on the doorstep of her destination, so she succumbed and walked the way herself. It was a cold, clear November evening, following a day of rain. A touch of frost in the air had dried the pavements, and Anne’s footfall ringing upon the stones re-echoed down the empty suburban street. Above her dark head was a black, remote sky, thickly powdered with stars.
Anne finally reached Beaufort Mansion, and even in the dim lamplight, her jaw dropped. It was the biggest place she had ever seen. Five floors high with elaborately styled rooves, its irregular composition emphasised by its silhouette, bristling against the stars.
Anne began to walk up to the long drive leading to the building, several moonshine-sparked carriages parked by the side. The huge curtained windows were like sightless eyes, excluding the possibility of watchers. Though, Anne soon thought afterwards, what wretch would dare to trespass on such a formidable place? With a trembling hand, she rang the doorbell.
A hard-faced looking maid with a pristine white cap atop her hair opened the door. “Is it Miss Lincombe?” she asked crisply.
“Er...yes,” said Anne, flailing somewhat in resolution. “I...I believe Mr Murdoch – that is, Henry Murdoch – is expecting me?”
The maid looked at her crossly. “Of course. Please follow me, miss.”
Expressionless, she led Anne down the hallway. Her silence did not offend her charge, who was in complete awe at the front hall. It had a high-vaulted ceiling, elaborately carved in swirling arcs of a design that would have imbued elegance, wealth, and more importantly, power to its original occupant. Now its gothic facade only served to heighten Anne’s unease.
It was rather old-fashioned, sconces holding lit candles. Anne had not expected the house to have the modern gas-lighting, due to its ancient exterior, but the gloom was nevertheless, dispiriting. The hall was relatively bare, the only furnishings along the corridor being a scarlet-decked ottoman, a small round table, and a naked hat stand.
The place, if not cluttered, was well-adorned, however. The walls sported several crimson damask hangings, and great gild-framed paintings of fine-looking people – ancestors of Beaufort Mansion, Anne believed. They glared at her through the dark, mystifying, unflinching eyes that she recognised so well from Mr Murdoch’s countenance. Anne did her best to avoid their impenetrable stares, which were perhaps not unfriendly – but unnerved her, to say the least.
Finally, they reached a great oak door. The maid knocked on it and absconded after shrugging indifferently at Anne, as if to say she was on her own now.
Soundlessly, as if every hinge in it had been oiled to perfection, the large door opened. There, standing in the decadent gloom was Henry, in a slightly crumpled waistcoat, his top coat discarded on a nearby chair. The room was illuminated with candles as well, and so Anne could not tell whether a smile was flickering in the corners of his lips or whether it was merely the flames casting shadows across his pale face.
“Good evening, Anne,” he said in his soft, lilting voice.
Anne was about to return the greeting as she looked around the room. She saw the solid plush armchairs in front of an oak table with quill, ink and parchment. Her eyes perused the polished marble inlaid floor and sumptuous mahogany furniture spread about generously. And then Anne’s glance lifted upwards, to where the moonlight shone through beautiful stained glass windows – and she could not speak.
Books. Hundreds and hundreds of books, stretching up endlessly around her in breathtaking dark spirals. Row after row, shelf after shelf of unflinching beauty. Roman legends were depicted lavishly in magnificent mosaics carved across the extraordinarily high ceiling, but Anne did not notice or take an interest in them. She could merely stare at the wonderful, untouched worlds, carefully enclosed and bound in pages above her head.
Anne tried to speak, to express the overwhelming feeling that had just washed over her body, but all that came out was a combination of an awe-struck gasp and a breathy sob.
Henry smiled at Anne’s upturned face, positively glowing with euphoria. Her large tealight eyes were as huge as ever, the bristly black lashes flitting like butterfly wings to contain the tears that were brimming. The sincerity in that small white face moved him to an extent he could not understand, so he decided he had better speak, to conceal the uncanny feeling that had come over him.
“Do they please you, Anne?”
“Oh...” she murmured with a watery smile, tearing her eyes away from the bookshelves with reluctance, “Oh, how can you tease me so? You know it’s...it’s...”
“I am glad,” Henry replied quietly.
“I...I have never seen so many in my life,” Anne confessed, “Have you read them all?”
Henry chuckled softly, pools of candlelight glistening in his dark golden eyes. “Not a single one of these books have been read. My father bought them by the yard, building a whole library for my mother. But before she could live to enjoy them, the scarlet fever took her. Neither of us could quite bear to frequent it, after that.”
He spoke evenly, no emotions choking his words, and Anne was finding him more unsolvable by the second. “Am...am I not intruding, then?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“No! No, of course not. High time somebody put them to good use.”
“I...I’m glad then, too,” said Anne. “There’s something so...so very sad about an unread book.”
Henry’s face broke out into a grin in spite of himself at Anne, the way she managed to make such statements in quiet genuineness, without the little affectations that irritated him so much in his other female acquaintances.
“Well then!” he interjected, in more cheerful tones. “Shall we commence?”
Anne let out an inaudible cry of delight, like a child standing in front of a sweetshop. Then, she precipitated towards the tall wooden ladders leaning against the shelves like frigid pilgrims. “May...may I?” she said, but didn’t wait for an answer. She kicked off her smart satin shoes in a frenzy and, gathering her crinoline skirts, began to climb.
“Careful, Anne,” said Henry. “The ceiling is high, and it is a very long way down.”
On a whim, he himself began to ascend the neighbouring ladder, until he had drawn parallel with Anne. Henry slid himself over until he was but an inch away from her.
“Oh, it’s...it’s wonderful,” she uttered breathlessly, fingering the spines of every book in her reach. “I...I just want to drink it all up.”
She glanced toward him, loosening her grip on the ladder. “You think me foolish, do you not?”
“Not at all,” he replied after a short pause. “Not at all, Anne.”
“I am so grateful,” Anne said, in a quieter voice, lowering her eyes. “I am so grateful for this. You...you could have given me the world and it would not have made me happier.”
Henry averted his gaze. “Yes, well...Come now, let us fix our attention on the books, and forget other matters.”
Anne was bewildered, but too excited to ponder this further; so she nodded her head and eagerly resumed her browsing. She mounted further and further, hooking her bare feet over the rungs, until she had reached the very top. Anne occasionally withdrew a book from its cranny and ran its fingertips along the engraved cover, or felt the tiny indents on the leather encasing its cover, or gently handled the fragile spines.
“I notice you do not read,” remarked Henry, watching her with a bemused smile.
“Oh no,” said Anne. “That would never do. These...these are books to be savoured, not devoured in a rush. They need to be treasured slowly, or they will all be gone before I know it.”
Henry laughed warmly. “I am sure there are enough in here to last you a lifetime, Anne.”
“Indeed.”
Gently, Henry reached out and touched her hand, gently folding the long fingers in his palm. Anne looked up, surprised. Her mouth went dry, and the ache her jaw had felt from grinning so widely disappeared. Her pulse started to quicken, and she let go of the book she was holding with a gasp. It fell in a long, soft spiral to the floor, where it resounded on the marble with a faint crumpling sound. Anne thought it looked rather like a dead bird, crushed wings outstretched against the ground.
Henry did not seem to notice she had dropped the book, seemed oblivious to everything but her hand, that he was holding across the ladder in such a firm but gentle grip. His dark golden eyes were staring at her with such a beseeching look in them; though Anne could not interpret what he was trying to say. His regard was so preoccupied, so nebulous that it was impossible to read Henry Murdoch like the books she held so dear.
“Sir...Henry. What is the matter?” she asked, though it came out in more of a croak than the steady voice she had hoped for.
“I...” his voice trailed off and he let go of her hand, running his fingers agitatedly through his bronze hair. “I...I don’t know what has come over me.”
Anne then became conscious that Henry was observing her; but she refused to demonstrate this through a change of expression, though her cheeks were flushing in spite of her and her fixation on the books had disappeared.
Henry mused on how remarkable the stillness was of her head; she might have been in a trance, to somebody who was not aware of her consciousness. He perused her features but could not manage to drag his gaze away from her eyes – those deep, expressive eyes, of an unusual tealight colour that he had never encountered before.
The sincerity and openness in those huge, dewy pupils were maddening, distracting, infatuating. Henry could reproduce them mentally, such was the amount of times he had scrutinised them. Offhand, as somebody who loved her, he might have described them as perfect, though perfect they were not, and that was what rendered to them such magic.
Unable to contain himself, Henry took up her hand again, and disposed upon it the gentlest of kisses. Anne withdrew her hand in shock, taken completely by surprise.
“Forgive me,” Henry said. “Forgive me, it was not my intention to be so forward. But Anne-”
“Stop!” Anne cried out. “Stop, before you say something you regret. I...I am not somebody you want to attach yourself to. You do not understand, sir – Henry – you do not understand why your father has become a benefactor to my mother and I. I...I could never allow you to form –”
Henry hushed her. “I do not mean it as a liberty,” he said, “But in all sincerity, Anne dear, I have found myself quite devoted to you.”
Anne was about to protest, but at that moment, the door of the library opened and a flushed, grubby little girl ran in, closely followed by the hard-faced maid, who subsequently exclaimed, “Oh I...I am sorry, sir. I couldn’t keep ‘er out. Opened the door to her, I did, and she dashed straight in. I’ll remove her at once.”
“Wait,” said Henry wearily, staring down at them from his high perch in the ladder. “Child, why are you here?”
“It’s...it’s a message for her,” gasped the girl, pointing a grimy hand at Anne whilst straightening her bonnet that had grown askew atop her head. “You’re...you’re to come home immediately, miss. It’s your mother. She’s...she’s been taken ill, all of a sudden.”
Anne gave a quick nod, and with shaky legs, began to climb down the ladder, feeling like her descent would never end.
You're lovely for following this all the way through.
I really enjoyed it. The imagery in it was great and the characters are even more developed. Furthermore you end on a cliff hanger and I so want to know more. I really really enjoyed it. Henry is developing even better as is Anne. Very good chapter, this crit is kinda rubbish 
