‘I don’t know. I have never been to The Bridge.’
‘What? You haven’t seen it either?’ It was incomprehensible. For an ancient family, the Bainbridges didn’t take much pride in their ancestral seat. Even Rupert, at the age of forty-five, had possessed no memory of the place. He only seemed to recollect he owned an estate when the lawyers were ratifying their marriage contract. ‘I cannot believe it. Did you not visit even when you were little?’
‘No. My parents often spoke of the gardens, but I never saw them. Rupert took no interest in the place until . . .’
‘Until he met me,’ Elsie finished.
She swallowed back the tears. They had been so close, hadn’t they, to creating the perfect life together? Rupert had gone up to make the estate ready for spring and the heir who would arrive to inherit it. But now he’d left her, with no experience of running a country house, to cope with the family legacy and an impending child, alone. She envisaged herself nursing a baby in a mouldering parlour with tattered, pea-green upholstery and a clock on the mantel swathed in cobwebs.
The horses’ hooves squelched outside. The windows began to mist. Elsie pulled down her sleeve and rubbed it against the glass. Dreary images lumbered past. Everything was overgrown and shabby. Remnants of a grey brick wall poked up from the grass like tombstones, while clover and bracken swarmed around. Nature was coming into its own, reclaiming the space with brambles and moss.
How could the road to Rupert’s house be in such a state? He was a fastidious businessman, good with numbers, balanced in his books. So why would he let one of his possessions degenerate into this mess?
The carriage rattled and stopped abruptly. Peters cursed from up on the box.
Sarah closed her book and placed it aside. ‘What’s happening?’
‘I think we’re getting near.’ Leaning forward, she peered as far into the distance as she could. A light mist snaked up from the river running alongside the track and shrouded the horizon.
Surely they were at Fayford by now? It seemed as if they had been jolting along for hours. Boarding the train at London in the smudged, whisky-coloured dawn felt like an occurrence of last week, not this morning.
Peters snapped his whip. The horses snorted and strained in their harness, but the carriage only swayed.
‘What now?’
The whip cracked again. Hooves sloshed in the mud.
Knuckles rapped on the roof. ‘Hello in there? You’ll have to get out, ma’am.’
‘Out?’ she repeated. ‘We cannot get out in this filth!’
Peters jumped off the box, landing with a splat. In a few wet steps he was at the door, swinging it open. Mist swept in and played around the threshold. ‘No choice, I’m afraid, ma’am. The wheel’s stuck fast. All we can do is yank at it and hope the horses do the rest. The less weight in the coach, the better.’
‘Surely two ladies do not weigh so very much?’
‘Enough to make a difference,’ he said bluntly.
Elsie groaned. The fog pressed against her cheek, damp as a dog’s breath, carrying the scent of water and a deep, earthy tang.
Sarah tucked her book away and picked up her skirts. She paused, petticoats lifted above her ankles. ‘After you, Mrs Bainbridge.’
In other circumstances, Elsie would be pleased to have Sarah defer to her. But this time, she would rather not go first. The mist had already built with surprising speed. She could just make out the shape of Peters and his hand, reaching towards her. ‘The steps?’ she asked, without much hope.
‘Can’t get ’em down at this angle, ma’am. You’ll have to jump. It’s only a little way. I’ll catch you.’
All her dignity had come to this. Heaving a sigh, she closed her eyes and sprang. Peters’s hand touched her waist for an instant before he set her down in the mud.
‘Now you, miss.’
Elsie stumbled away from the carriage, not wanting Sarah’s big feet to land on her train. It was like walking on rice pudding. Her boots slipped and stuck at strange angles. She could not see where she placed them; the mist floated up to her knees, obscuring everything below. Perhaps that was as well – she did not want to see the hem of her new bombazine gown edged with filth.
More chestnut trees appeared in patches through the fog. She had never encountered anything like this; it was not yellow and sulphurous like a London Particular, it did not hang, but moved. As the clouds of silver and grey slid to the side, they revealed a cracked wall by the line of trees. Bricks had fallen from it, leaving gaping holes like missing teeth. About halfway up there was an empty, rotting window frame. She tried to see clearly, but the images dissolved as the fog glided back.
‘Peters? What is this ghastly building?’
A cry ripped through the damp air. Elsie spun round, her heart pounding, but only white mist met her eyes.
‘Easy now, miss.’ Peters’s voice. ‘You’re all right.’
She released her breath and watched it seep into the mist. ‘What’s going on? I cannot see you. Did Sarah fall?’
‘No, no. I caught her in time.’
Probably the most excitement the girl had experienced all year. A jest was on the tip of her tongue, but then she heard another sound: lower, more insistent. A deep, stretched groan. The horses must have heard it too, for they jinked in their harness.
‘Peters? What was that?’
The noise came again: bass and mournful. She didn’t like it. She wasn’t used to these country sounds and mists – nor did she wish to be. Lifting her train, she tottered back to the carriage. She moved too fast. Her foot slid, the ground slipped beneath her and her shoulder blades smacked against the mud.
Elsie lay on her back, stunned. Cool slime oozed into the gap between her collar and her bonnet.
‘Mrs Bainbridge? Where are you?’
The blow had knocked the breath from her. She wasn’t hurt – she had no concerns for the baby, but she could not find her voice. She stared up into the billowing white. Moisture soaked through her gown. Somewhere, in a distant part of her brain, she cried over the damage to her black bombazine.
‘Mrs Bainbridge?’
That groan came once more, closer now. The mist moved like a restless spirit above her. She sensed a shape over her head, a presence. She croaked feebly.
‘Mrs Bainbridge!’
Elsie cringed as she saw them, inches from her face: two soulless eyes. A wet nose. Black wings like a bat. It sniffed her, then it lowed. Lowed.
A cow. It was just a cow, tethered by a length of frayed rope. Her voice came flowing back on a tide of embarrassment. ‘Shoo! Get away, I have no food for you.’
It did not move. She wondered if it could – it was not a healthy creature. A stringy neck supported its head and flies hovered over its jutting ribs. Poor brute.
‘There you are!’ Peters moved the cow out of the way with a few kicks. ‘What happened, ma’am? Are you all right? Let me help you.’
It took four attempts before he managed to heave her up. Her dress left the bog with a sticky rip. Ruined.