The Shadow in the Glass

JJA Harwood

• Publisher: HarperVoyager
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN:
  9780008368111
• Print ISBN:
  9780008368098
  9780008478407
• Subtopic: Historical Literature

A deliciously gothic story of wishes and curses – a new dark fairy tale set against a Victorian backdrop full of lace and smoke.

'Deliciously dark'
Woman Magazine

Once upon a time Ella had wished for more than her life as a lowly maid.

Now forced to work hard under the unforgiving, lecherous gaze of the man she once called stepfather, Ella's only refuge is in the books she reads by candlelight, secreted away in the library she isn't permitted to enter.

One night, among her beloved books of far-off lands, Ella's wishes are answered. At the stroke of midnight, a fairy godmother makes her an offer that will change her life: seven wishes, hers to make as she pleases. But each wish comes at a price and Ella must decide whether it's one she's willing to pay…
A smouldering, terrifying new spin on Cinderella – perfect for fans of Laura Purcell and Erin Morgenstern.

If anyone caught her, Eleanor would be dismissed on the spot.

The house clicked and creaked as it settled into sleep, the heat of the last days of August quietly slipping into the night. Eleanor was the only one awake. On silent feet, she was as insubstantial as a flame. She could drift past cold fireplaces and dust sheets looming like glaciers and all she would leave behind was the faintest stirring in the air.

Candlelight shimmered on the walls as she crept into the library. The dark spines of the books were rows of windows, waiting for the shutters to be pulled back. Open one, and she would know the secrets of Ottoman palaces; open another, and she would gaze across deserts. Granborough House would fade away. Eleanor smiled. Some things were worth risking dismissal for, especially with the master out of the house for the evening.

Eleanor set down her candle and surveyed her subjects. Damp equatorial rainforests, steaming in the heat. Versailles, glittering in the dark like an Earthbound star. Verona – Juliet on her balcony, sighing into the darkness. It was a perfect night for poetry: she could stretch out her legs and whisper sonnets into the slow, hot silence. But she would cry, and Mrs Fielding would be able to tell the next morning. Better to keep her face blank, in case the housekeeper grew curious.

Eleanor locked the door, slipping the library key back up her sleeve. She’d stolen the key from Mrs Pembroke’s housekeeping chatelaine. Even though the mistress of the house had been dead for more than three years, shame still crawled under Eleanor’s skin when she went through Mrs Pembroke’s things. Not that Mrs Pembroke would have minded. She had spent the last few months of her life propped up on pillows, telling Eleanor how to care for everything she would inherit from Mrs Pembroke’s will.

The weight of the key against Eleanor’s forearm felt like shackles. Mrs Pembroke never would have wanted Eleanor to creep around the house like a thief, just for something to read.

The lady of the house had not wanted Eleanor to be a housemaid at all. Versailles, Verona, perhaps even the rainforest – these were all places Eleanor might have visited, if only Mrs Pembroke had lived. A lump crawled into Eleanor’s throat. Mrs Pembroke had been planning to take her on a tour of Europe when Eleanor was old enough to enter Society. Suddenly it seemed cruel to have so many travelogues spread out in front of her, when she’d once been so close to seeing the places all these men had written of.

Eleanor gave herself a little shake. She’d told herself not to get upset.

She lifted The Fairy Ring off the shelves and felt better the moment it was in her hand. Her own fingerprints from years ago marked the table of contents – smaller, of course, than they were now – the corner of the back cover was fraying slightly, from all the times she’d plucked at it as she read.

Settling into her favourite chair with that book in her hands, the lump in her throat melted away. At seventeen, she knew she ought to have grown out of such things, but it was difficult to set aside a world where trees grew delicate gold and silver branches and strange creatures lurked in cool, clear water. She lost herself on narrow paths twisting through dark woods, yearned to spin straw into gold, and envied the twelve brothers who had been changed into swans. It seemed like a fine thing to be a clean white bird that might fly anywhere it liked.

She put the book back when the clock struck midnight, making sure to replace it exactly where she found it. The chimes were quiet, but the sound dropped through to the pit of Eleanor’s stomach like a leaden weight. An old memory struggled to the surface of her thoughts – she was nine years old and curled into a ball, back pressed against the leg of an iron bed as a cheaper, harsher clock tolled midnight – but she shook it off. It wouldn’t do to think of her own mother now, she’d make herself upset again. Somewhere outside a hansom cab rattled over the cobblestones; she flinched, heart pounding, and almost knocked her candle over. Mr Pembroke was supposed to be dining at his club tonight. What if he’d changed his mind and come back early?

Eleanor listened at the door, forcing her nerves into submission. Nothing from downstairs. If she was quick, no one would even guess that she’d left her room. She crept back up the servants’ staircase and slipped into her little room, trying not to wilt at the sight of the bare boards, the skeletal iron bedframe, her useless scrap of curtain hanging limp over the window. She crawled into bed, ignoring the smell of mildew from the blankets and holding the memory of the fairy stories like hands cupped around a tiny flame. When she slept, she dreamed of vast wings carrying her away, and she could not tell if they were her own.

It was hard to believe in fairy tales when you woke up to the smell of damp. Eleanor’s shoulders felt like a bag of rocks and her knees were already aching. Nothing felt magical in her little garret. Her chest of drawers was small, cheap and splintery; her jug and washbasin were chipped. The sloping roof came too close to her head and damp mottled the walls and ceiling. She might have been sleeping at the bottom of a well.

Eleanor pulled on her uniform – a hard-wearing brown wool dress, which still scratched no matter how many times she washed it – remembering the steady beat of wings she’d dreamed about. She’d tell Aoife about it later, and they’d list all the places they’d fly away to while they polished the silver.

As she did every day, Eleanor checked her money drawer before she left her room. She didn’t open the drawer properly, just dragged it out a few inches so that the purse lurched forward, coins clinking. It was a silly habit, but hope rekindled in her chest at the sound. She had almost twenty-five pounds now: nearly enough to rent clean and pretty rooms for a few months, but she would need to find a way to live after that. She wouldn’t be emptying other people’s chamber pots for much longer.

She crept along the corridor and knocked on Leah’s door.

Without her stays Leah’s stomach stuck out like a hillock among the valleys of sheets. Her dark hair was spread out across the pillow, long limbs sticking out from under the blankets. She twitched in her sleep, eyelids fluttering, wincing as the baby shifted. The rest of the maids had been pretending not to notice while Eleanor helped Leah let out the waistline of her uniform. Anger flashed through Eleanor like lightning. Eleanor would’ve pretended for the full nine months and feigned surprise when the baby came, but it was not up to her. It was up to Mrs Fielding, and everyone knew that the moment Leah could no longer hide her condition, Mrs Fielding would dismiss Leah without a reference. Leah knew it too. Her carpetbag had been packed for weeks, just in case.

Eleanor cleared her throat. ‘Leah?’

Leah started awake, her eyes flying open. ‘God above, Ella! I thought you were—’

‘I don’t think he’s back yet,’ said Eleanor, closing the door behind her. ‘I wondered if you’d like some help getting dressed.’

Leah flushed. ‘I’m only showing a little.’

Eleanor kept her voice gentle. ‘More than a little, these days.’

Leah eased herself out of bed and got to her feet, and when she was standing Eleanor felt a flutter of hope. Her friend had always been full-figured, and when she drew herself upright perhaps Mrs Fielding would think that Leah had only put on weight. Of course, there were other signs too – dark circles under Leah’s eyes from all the sleepless nights, a slight thinning in her face thanks to the morning sickness – but all the maids were tired, and Leah could always say she’d eaten something that disagreed with her. Perhaps Leah wouldn’t have to leave just yet. Perhaps things would be different this time.

There was no mirror in this room, which was as small and shabby as Eleanor’s, so Leah shook out a stocking and tried to wind it around her waist, to see how much she’d grown. The ends only just met. She threw the stocking aside, hands shaking. Eleanor picked it up and smoothed it flat, folding it up so she didn’t have to look at Leah’s face. It took longer than it should; a slow, desperate frustration made her clumsy.

‘Mrs Fielding might not have—’

Leah gave a hollow laugh. ‘If you noticed weeks ago, Little Nell, then there’s no hope for me at all.’

The old nickname had a sting to it, like a needle slid under Eleanor’s fingernail. She fought to keep her composure. ‘You never thought about … about bringing on your time a little early? There are women who can—’

Leah stared at her, her grey eyes full of disbelief. ‘I could never! Where did you hear about something like that?’

Eleanor flushed. Leah hadn’t been the first maid to fall pregnant at Granborough House. ‘Oh, of course, I couldn’t either,’ she gabbled. ‘But you don’t seem very happy and I thought I’d—’

‘Of course I’m not happy!’ Leah snapped.

Eleanor reached out a hand, but Leah batted her away.

‘You’d better get on.’

Eleanor went downstairs, leaving Leah to wrestle with her stays. The vast basement kitchen of Granborough House was still and dark; the street-level window splashed a thin slice of light across the floor. Eleanor filled the coal scuttle and lit the kitchen range after three attempts, before the rest of the servants came in. The coal smoke stung her eyes, but she stared at the flames until tears were streaming down her face.

Fetching the first lot of water was always the worst part of Eleanor’s morning. The iron bucket smacked into her shins as she walked up the steps to their little slice of garden. Grey light oozed over the high walls. The herb garden, the trees and the old coach house were vague shapes in the gloom. As she went to the pump at the end of their overgrown strip of grass, the broken windows of the abandoned coach house glittered.

The trough underneath the pump was full of water and a fine layer of dead flies. She wrenched the handle. The pump made a horrible sucking noise and spat water all over her skirts. Beyond the wall hansoms rattled past, fast and sharp. The houses around them were only just beginning to stir to life. Eleanor could hear doors opening, buckets clanking, the subtle sounds of chimney after chimney warming up along the street. Mayfair was still quiet, but she could already hear the racket when she turned her head towards Marylebone. Slow rumbling announced the arrival of the costermongers’ carts, already laden down. From far off came a cry of ‘Coffee! Hot coffee!’ – Speakers’ Corner, she guessed. The costermongers always got there early, selling pigs’ trotters to zealots so concerned with their souls that they forgot what they put in their bodies. But that was the best way to eat the costermongers’ wares. The fruit-seller at the corner of Wigmore Street had been boiling his oranges, and that wouldn’t be the worst of it.

She hauled the bucket back inside.

By the time she was done most of the maids were huddled around the kitchen table. Skinny, frizzy-haired Lizzie was yawning into her bowl of porridge. Leah was still absent. Aoife smiled at Eleanor, bleary-eyed. Daisy, their last remaining kitchen maid, was hunched over the stove, the muscles in her strong brown arms flexing as she stirred the heavy porridge pot. As Daisy ladled out another bowl, Aoife caught Daisy’s eye and blushed. Eleanor could’ve sworn she had seen Daisy wink.

‘Where’s Leah?’ Eleanor asked. ‘Is she still dressing?’

Aoife tore her eyes away from Daisy, blushing. ‘I’ve not seen her.’

Eleanor handed an empty bowl to Daisy. ‘Well, we ought to set something aside for her. She’ll need her strength.’

Lizzie, the head housemaid, rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, spare me your moralizing, Ella. It’s her own silly fault she’s eating for two.’

Eleanor whirled around, her temper flaring. ‘It is not her fault and you know it.’

Lizzie smirked. ‘There’s a lot of things I know, Miss Eleanor.’

Leah clattered into the kitchen and Lizzie fell silent. Leah hadn’t managed her stays properly; her dress bulged and sagged where they hadn’t quite fastened. It made her stomach seem larger than ever, and her eyes were very red. Still, she grabbed the porridge that Eleanor had set aside for her and wolfed it down.

‘You took your bloody time,’ Lizzie muttered, looking away.

Leah set aside her bowl and gave Lizzie a long, cool look. ‘You didn’t. There’s hardly any porridge left. Tell me, does food taste better when you take it from someone else?’

Lizzie flushed and slammed her spoon onto the table. ‘You watch how you speak to me!’

Mrs Fielding swept into the room before the argument could properly ignite, already immaculate despite the early hour. Her black dress had been brushed to a shine and her brown hair, greying slightly, was twisted into a savagely tight bun. Mrs Banbury, the cook, slouched in after her, short and stocky, her grey-streaked hair sagging down her neck. Both of them already looked hot and tired.

‘Still eating, girls?’ Mrs Fielding asked, rubbing an old scar on her neck. ‘Come along, we’ve lots to do.’

Lizzie simpered at Mrs Fielding. ‘We’ve just finished, Mrs F.’ She turned back to the table. ‘Ella, you can clear this lot away now.’

Mrs Fielding nodded. Looking over them all, her eyes landed on Leah, took in the bump, and they all saw the decision settle into place. Eleanor watched her jaw clench, the tip of the scar twitching, and knew that there was nothing she could do or say to make Mrs Fielding change her mind.

Tonight, Eleanor would go to the library again. She would read until her eyes ached. She would drown herself in words, sink into the vanilla-smell of the binding, replace her blood with ink. She’d feast on other worlds and make herself anew. A fresh, clean, charming thing with a story from every continent, safe in a world where good, kind girls would not be abandoned …

‘Get to work, girls,’ Mrs Fielding snapped, staring at Leah.

Eleanor had been told to wash the kitchen floor when Mrs Fielding led Leah out of the kitchen, past the abandoned laundry room and into the housekeeper’s private rooms. Eleano...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three
• Part Four
• Part Five
• Part Six
• Part Seven
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• About the Publisher