The Shadow Fields, Part Six

Fiction By Mary // 6/17/2009

It was a gradual process by which I came to wish that I would never be required to leave Shadowfield. But it was with cruel suddenness that I realized the time to leave had arrived. Summer had reached its height of glory, and I was completely enraptured in it.
One afternoon, after a long day of working in the gardens with Robert and his father, I went into the house and up to my rooms to make myself presentable for dinner. Still giddy with the delights of summer air, I threw myself onto my back on my bed and stared at the ceiling. The sunlight beaming in my window had warmed the sheets, and I noticed that the book I had been reading the night before was still lying on the bed. Rolling onto my elbow, I pulled the book towards me and opened it.
The story had come to a sufficiently terrifying turning point – one wrong move either way, and all would be lost. I wondered briefly how I had ever managed to put the book down the night before (but then I remembered that I had fallen asleep mid-page). The heroine had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom by a wild fiend of the Bulgarian underworld, and her maniacal stepfather refused to pay the ransom on the grounds that negotiating with fiends of the Bulgarian underworld was not good form. And the handsome young hero had managed to get himself inside the walls of the perpetrator’s castle, but he couldn’t seem to find any way to rescue the heroine without bringing her under attack.
I scarcely realized that I had started reading when I heard a knock on my door. When I answered it, I found one of the servants waiting in the hall.
“Begging your pardon, Miss Elizabeth,” she said, “Your grandfather sent me to ask if you were well and if you would be coming down to –”
“Dinner!” I exclaimed, suddenly remembering, “Thank you, Harriet, I’ll be right down!” I slammed the door and changed my dress faster than I had ever changed a dress in my life.
By some stroke of Providence, I actually managed to beat Harriet down to the dining room. Granted, I fell down more stairs than I ran, but I still arrived first. The sight of me making my evening entrance by tumbling down the stairs and bursting through the door like the ghost hounds of the west were after me had somewhat a startling effect upon my grandfather.
“Great Scot, Elizabeth, are you alright?”
“Oh yes,” I panted, “Perfectly alright, Grandfather. And I do apologize for being late, but I was reading and – ”
“Reading, yes, I thought as much,” Grandfather said, smiling. “No matter. Come and have your supper.”
It took a few minutes for me to catch my breath enough to be able to eat. When I did, I ate with a good appetite until I noticed that Grandfather had scarcely touched his dinner.
“Something on your mind?” I asked.
“Indeed there is, Elizabeth,” Grandfather said with no hint of a smile.
The departure from his normally light-hearted mood alarmed me somewhat. “Is all well?” I asked. “Is there something wrong?”
“This has been my intention since I first learned that you were coming to Shadowfield, Elizabeth, only now that the time for it has come I find that I lack the heart for such grim business.”
In spite of my best efforts to catch it, I dropped my fork onto my plate and it clattered loudly. “Grim business?”
“Mmm.” Grandfather nodded. “Grim business indeed. Elizabeth, the time has come to think about school. I’ve already made arrangements for you to attend the finest boarding school in this part of the country. You’ll receive a fine education there – the best. You’ll be leaving in two weeks.” He folded his hands and leaned his elbows on the table with a sigh. “This was what we agreed upon when you came here, Elizabeth, and it was what I had decided before then. But I don’t want you to go. You’ve brought a life to this house, Elizabeth – life that left when your grandmother died.”
I reached my hand across the table and took my grandfather’s hands. “It will not be forever, Grandfather,” I said, “I’ll be home for Christmas, and for Easter, and for all next summer long! I’ll write to you every week, and so … maybe things won’t be so bad that way.” Grandfather said nothing, so I continued. “I am no more anxious to leave Shadowfield than you are to send me away. It has become a home to me these last months – a home like none I have ever had. I am loved here, and I wish I could stay, but you said it yourself: this is what we agreed upon, and it is what we must do.”
Grandfather slowly raised his eyes to look at me, and he looked at me for a long time before he smiled. “You’re a good girl, Elizabeth. Your grandmother would have loved you very much.”

It was with an aching heart that I spent the next two weeks preparing for my departure. I did not dread going to school; I wanted a good education and was grateful to have been given the opportunity to get one. But I could not keep myself from wishing that I would not have to sacrifice Shadowfield for it. Grandfather made certain that I had a completely new wardrobe for school, and that I was well supplied with everything he could imagine that I might need.
Two days before my scheduled departure, Robert and I went riding on the moors. The afternoon we spent was lovely, but too short. As dinner time approached, we headed back towards Shadowfield, where we would both be expected for dinner. We had nearly reached the gate when Robert spoke.
“I just want you to know, Elizabeth, that I hope all goes well for you at your school.”
“Thank you, Robert,” I said.
“And that it’s been good having you here.”
“It has been good to be here.”
“And that I’ll be glad when you get back.”
I suddenly felt the urge to cry, but I managed to hold it back. “So will I.”