The Unaccomplished Lady Eleanor

ONE

Nottingham, England -
May 1815

E
leanor
Myers was miserable. 
In fact, in all her nineteen years and five months, she could rarely recall ever feelin
g more miserable.  The
wretched
interminable carriage journey
was adding
to her despondency: the lumbering and jolting
of the conveyance
mirroring
perfectly
the
emotions
roiling and
jostling in her stomach. 
T
he weather
, too, was doing little to lift her mood
,
fo
regoing all the
characteristics normally associated with
the first week of
May, in favour of those m
ore attuned to
a depressing day in
autumn.  The sky, a menacing
shade of
grey, had
been blithely dispensing
a series of heavy downpours throughout the day and, by the sound of fresh drops clattering on the
carriage roof
, was
about to provide
another unwelcome torrent.

Heaving a weary sigh,
Eleanor closed her eyes and le
aned her head against the
blue velvet squabs, pondering her dire predica
ment.  The anger and resentment
which had been coursing through her veins since the previous eveni
ng, when her stepmother and
fa
ther had elected to make their
‘
a
nnouncement
’
,
had now melted away
,
replaced by a deep sense of dread.  

Of course
,
Eleanor
had known from the moment her father had brought his new wife into their home that things would never be the same: that the woman was likely to implement some changes to
the running of the household at
Merryoaks
,
despite Eleanor having done an admirable job of managing the domestic side of the estate herself for the last
six years. Perhaps, she had n
aï
vely
thought, the new Lady Myers would wish to change the laundry day
,
or take in hand
the
volatile behaviour
of their
cook
, whose
erratic
mood
s
produced a variety of culinary results ranging from absolutely outstanding to disastrously diabolical
depending on her temperament an
d the alleged shape of the moon
on any particular day
.  To
Eleanor’s
chagrin
,
however, it was not cook who had borne the wrath of the newest addition to the household but,
somewhat
unexpectedly, Eleanor herself. 

Of course, r
ecalling her inauspicious firs
t meeting with the woman
, perhaps she should not be so surprised.  Her father had invited the then Hester Scones to dinner in order that his fiancée and his only child could make one another’s acquaintance.  Despite her well-planned intentions for the day, Eleanor had found herself embroiled in a mission of mercy with Zach, the local farmer, aiding his rescue of a stray lamb, which had
ended up on the opposite side of the river to the rest of the flock.  Far from being distressed by its lonely predicament, the lamb h
ad
appeared quite content
and, despite
their e
nergetic attempts
, had demonstrated no inclination whatsoever to return to its fold
.  The
messy, but hilarious
ly funny
task had lasted most of the day
,
culminating
in
one indignant lamb being returned to its rightful place
,
and a dishevelled Eleanor arriving home much later than planned.   Placing more importance on welcoming the woman her father had fallen in love with, than wasting time changing her attire,
Eleanor
had bowled into the drawing
-
roo
m eager to meet her future step
mama.  It had been clear
,
however, from the cool, disparaging look with which Hester Scones had greeted her, that Eleanor’s enthusiasm was entirely one-sided.

‘
Really, my girl,
’
the future Lady Myers had sniffed, as she’d examined Eleanor through ice-cold blue eyes,
‘
I would have expected you to have made a little more effort given the significance of the occasion.
’

Eleanor
’s
first
thought had been
that the older woman
was
joking
.  B
ut one did not need to be long acquain
ted with Hester Scones to realiz
e that the woman never joked. 
In fact
,
Eleanor had wondered, on more than one humourless occasion, if Hester actually knew what a joke was.  Quite unaccustomed to such rudeness, Eleanor had
attempted to maintain her welcoming smile whilst explaining the comical adventure which had resulted in her tardiness.  She had a gift for relating an entertaining tale
- s
o
much so, that her hilarious recounting of some of the pickles in which she had found herself had often reduced her father to tears of laughter. 
But that e
vening, it had soon become clear that all attempts at humour were futile
.  E
ven her normally ebullient papa appeared to have discarded his sense of humour under the spell of the po
ker
-faced widow he was soon to make his wife.

The
reco
unting of humorous tales, it soon transpired
,
was
just one of many of Eleanor’s attributes upon which the
new Lady Myers thought fit to pour scorn.  After only a few weeks in her new home
, the woman had compil
ed
a long list of what she perceived as her stepdaughter’s failings
, readily airing
her views to anyone who cared to listen and
,
indeed, to those – such as Eleanor – who did not.  Eleanor’s wardrobe, for example, she had described as
‘
not fit to dress a servant
’
; her behaviour as
‘that of an outspoken tomboy’;
and her ac
complishments as a young lady,
‘
positiv
ely shocking
’
.  Whilst not using quite the same extre
me descriptions
, Eleanor did acknowledge that, having been without the influence of a female for almost half her life, her wardrobe could be described as out-da
ted; her manner, given
that she had no interest in the inane chit-chat indulged in by the rest of her class, could
p
robably be viewed as outspoken; her embroidery skills did leave much to be desired
;
and her
playing of the
pianofort
e
was
verging on the
excruciating.  During her upbringing
,
though, both she and
her father had placed little importance on such matters
.  Instead,
he
r father had focussed on p
roviding
a happy, intellectually stimulating environment for his energetic, inquisitive young daughter.  The two of them had read poetry together, mastered their horse-riding skills, and regularly enjoyed heated discussions regarding their favourite topic of politics.  Eleanor’s upbringing, wit
h the sad exception of her
dear
mother’s death, had been fun, carefree and interesting – a highly enjoyable period for
both
her and her father.   

With the arrival of the new Lady Myers, not only had the easy-going atmosphere in the house dissipated, but her father’s priorities also appeared to have altered.

‘
Perhaps Hester does have a point,
’
he’d murmured sheepishly,
when he’d commented
that Eleanor had been wearing the same gown for several days, leaving her with little choice but to inform him that his new wife, with neither Eleanor’s knowledge nor consent, had gi
ven
her other dresses to the l
ocal
s
eminary,
deeming them
‘shoddy’
.

‘
I blame myself,
’
he had continued morosely. 
‘
I should have been aware that young ladies require instruction in fashion.  I should not have left it so long before marrying again.
’

Eleanor had resisted t
elling
him that she wished he had
not married
at all; that she had been perfectly content with her
‘shoddy’
gowns and with their
life pre-Hester.  Instead
, she had attempted to reassure him that, in her eyes, he had no failings whatsoever
as a father – except one
she did not dare to point out:
that he appeared
completely besotted
with
his dour new wife,
giving in to her every frivolous whim.  Some of these whims Eleanor had understo
od, such as ridding the drawing-room of its
previous
faded
green décor and replacing it with more fashionable – albeit rather gar
ish – shades of yellow.  Other ‘whims’
,
she
suspected
,
had been
acted on from
pure malice
.  Such as
instructing the gardeners to rip out the herbaceous borders Eleanor had lovingly tended over the years
, and replace them with an
uninspiring arrangement of roses; relegating her mother’s cherished collection of china teapots to a box in the cellar and substituting it with a very dubious display of thimbles
;
and forbidding Eleanor to continue her voluntary work at the
local orphanage for fear she might
carry home some dreadful disease.  Despite the hurt and anger these actions had caused
,
Eleanor had stoically bit
ten
her tongue, not wishing to spoil her father’s newfound happiness.  Howeve
r, when Hester had invited
her old Uncle Arthur
to
dinner
the previous
week, and the ancient specimen had freely groped her leg under the table, Eleanor had found herself devoid of all tongue-biting skills. 

‘
I beg your pardon, sir,
’
she had declared indignantly, holding up the wrinkled, liver-spotted hand and
placing it firmly on the table
,
‘
b
ut I appear to have found something of yours - on my knee!
’

In a histrionic outburst, Hester had
gasped loudly and
fled from the room in a torrent of mortified tears
. 
Eleanor’s fath
er
, apparently glued to his seat,
had
stared
at his daughter
aghast
.  Uncle Arthur
,
meanwhile,
the only
member of the party
unperturbed by the incide
nt, had merely giggled before summoning
over the footman
to enquire if there were any more sprouts.

When Eleanor had been informed the next morning that
Lady Hester was suffering
an attack of the vapours and had taken to her bed, she had strongly – and, as it had turned out,
correctly - suspected that the woman was utili
z
ing the time to plot her retributio
n. 
But w
hat even she had not expected
was the extreme
s
to which
even
Hester wo
uld go to achieve her
goal of having her husband all to her
self
-
and Eleanor
out of the house. 

Yesterday evening,
Eleanor, her father and Hester, had taken thei
r seats around the supper table.  Hester, having apparently sufficiently recovered
from her vapour attack
,
had made her way down
stairs leaning
pathetically
on her husband’s arm.  The
y
had just received their first course of
ham and pea
soup, when the revenge – in all its spiteful glory – was revealed.  The announcement was
preceded,
Eleanor
notice
d
, by Hes
ter granting her father an
indiscre
e
t
kick under the table.  The
loud
yelp
that resulted had been
hastily
converted into an unconvincing cough.