The Elites Manor

The last of the crescent moon was beginning to fade in the morning sky as the carriage wheels jostled and upset Isabella's neck as she stared up into the grey and lifeless firmament. It was drawing slowly up the long and well-trodden driveway to the imposing Gothic house that stood silhouetted against a thicket of shadowed trees. Its walls were carved and featured innumerable demons and crooked angels that watched with slowly receding stares the few flowers below shrink and die in the cold and wasteful winds of late winter. Isabella held in her hand the last letter she had received from her mother before she had left for this place. She had known there was something amiss when there was no one there to pick her up from school at the beginning of December. Boarding school in the holidays was a lonely place, and she had struggled to maintain her sanity as the echoes in the hallways seemed to tell of some great evil lurking in the dark beyond her dorm room.

Receiving news of her father's death in the letter had not helped matters, and her mother's absence, a drifting and empty state brought on by grief that kept her bound to her bedroom in Paris, did nothing to quell the empty feeling that had once seemed so far away in those final weeks of the winter term. The letter had, she saw as she glanced down once again at it from her seat in the carriage, a few spots of dried tears, and more than a few folds and crinkles from being carried with her permanently since she received it on Christmas eve. The letter also told her of this place – of her Uncle, and of her living arrangements for the foreseeable future. The house, in its austere and foreboding cast, was not welcoming. Nor, in fact, were the grounds. Everything about them held a dark quality. The trees were all grown out in deep green that was rendered brown in the distance, and the darkling sunlight that barely pierced the canopy of the mysterious forests painted upon the grass and withering plants a silver film.

Feeling inspired, Isabella snatched up her satchel from beside her feet in the carriage, and, producing a pencil and paper and leaning against the back of the satchel, decided to write a letter to her mother.

"Dearest Mother,

I do hope you are starting to feel better. I cannot believe that father is dead, and I am very, very sad. I carry your letter everywhere with me and I am just now arriving at Uncle Edward's house. It looks very scary here but I am sure that it will be very nice and that you will come here and see me.

Love,

Isabella"

She folded the completed letter and stuffed it into an unmarked envelope that she had spare in the front pocket of her satchel. She resolved to send it first thing in the morning, once she had settled in to this strange new place, and once she had met her Uncle, Lord Edward, for the first time. Just as she was putting the letter back into her satchel, the carriage pulled to a halt outside the steps to the house. A man in a black set of tails stood on the steps. His hair was white and stuck out in awkward tufts from his head and face in an unruly manner. He seemed to float down the last few steps that separated him from the drab and dirty carriage before swiftly opening the door and motioning with his hand for Isabella to step down onto the damp driveway.

'Good morning, madam. Lord Edward is engaged at present, and asked me to pass on his apologies for being unable to greet you in person on this occasion.'

Isabella eyed the man suspiciously for a moment before stepping down. Her light blue dress immediately seemed more faded, and the air tasted heavy, almost metallic, imbued with some quiet energy from an unknowable source.

'It's alright. Who are you?' she said after a pause, and squinted through tired eyes at the man standing above her.

'You bloody idiot! No, no, I'll deal with it – you have already been paid, don't loiter around for a tip. Go on, now'

Isabella looked at her suitcase, burst and fallen, lying on the ground behind the carriage. The driver backed away from the case he had lifted from the roof of the carriage a moment ago and mounted the driver's seat, muttering to himself. Putting the horse forward, Isabella stood still and took in her surroundings once again. Duncan tried to salvage what clean clothes were left in the case, but all but one of the pieces had fallen into the damp and filth that coated the driveway. The leather on the case took on a sheen from the fine rain that began to fall presently, and she gripped tight the letter she still held in her hand as the rain began to add to the drops left by her tears. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath.

'You'd best get some clean clothes from the attic – there are some of Olivia's old clothes somewhere in there, I believe'

'Olivia?' she asked

'Lord Edward's daughter, madam. She died quite suddenly many years ago, poor thing.' How much she was discovering in one day! She had never known of this person, her cousin, until this very moment. It was rather overwhelming. She considered the strange man in front of her for a while as he squatted beside her suitcase and began to bundle up her filthy clothes. How obedient he was – how amenable, yet how strange. She thought about how this man, this aged manservant with a black set of tails, knew her uncle, her own blood kin, better than she did. Moreover, he had known her cousin, this girl Olivia, with whom, in another life perhaps, she may have known quite well, even grown to care for.

When Duncan had all of the clothes back under control in the dominion of the suitcase, he repeated the gesture he had performed as she stepped down from the carriage, this time leading her to the open double doors to the house. She climbed the steps slowly and suspiciously, while he followed behind.

'You will find the door to the attic on the top floor, along the hall, and up the last set of steep stairs. I shall be down here putting these in the wash if you should need me.' He nodded towards the filthy clothes as he said this before continuing on in a darker tone. 'Please do not disturb Lord Edward before this evening, madam.'