*** This is my first story, let me know what you think. ***
***
It was mid-afternoon, and a girl ran hard across the field. The grass was short, and even though she wore a half-inch heeled boots, it provided excellent footing. Her flowing ankle length dress billowed wildly around her long legs as she descended into a natural dip in the landscape.
On her heels was a man riding a horse. The sound of the galloping stallion echoed loudly through the countryside. For a brief moment he reigned in the beast, which was panting and sweating hard. He had lost her, but then she appeared. His nineteen year old quarry was heading for a wooden boundary fence. He struck the riding crop firmly against the horses rear, urging it after her.
Emily swung her legs over the fence. As she landed, she took a fleeting glance at her pursuer. His horse was bringing him ever closer. She could feel her chest heaving with exertion, and her heart fluttering with anticipation. Without a second glance, she was running again. The faster she went, the more her legs felt like jelly, and the more her breathing labored.
Victor took the fence with ease. His horse landing with a satisfying thump. He caught sight of his prey and smiled. Not long now, he thought. On he rode. The distance between the pair shortening every second.
Desperately, she headed for a small wood. She hoped it would slow him down.
The barbs of a wild blackberry bush caught the fabric of her linen dress. Rather than hampering his progress, it was slowing hers
Victor, seeing her enter the wood, took his horse to the right, skirting around the wood. He knew this land well, and he intended to cut her off. Better to take her there, than on the open field, he mused.
She made it deep inside before finally stumbling over an exposed root. It turned her ankle painfully, and with a limp she headed into a clearing.
Victor's horse was quick, it was bred for the race track. He had found a log cutters path and had made his way inside.
Emily stopped. There he was, blocking her only path. His horse snorted loudly.
Her limbs felt weak, and her ankle burned with fire. She dropped to the ground, her dress ballooning around her.
He slipped off the saddle, his leather riding boots landing with a thud on the ground. as he approached her, he tapped the leather riding crop against his leg.
She looked around. There was no way out. This clearing in the wood, on the Keeley Hall estate, was where she was going to be deflowered, and she couldn't be happier.
***
Keeley Hall didn't have a lord. The last one died almost twenty years previously. Some said he had been driven mad by a curse. Other said, that he simply drank himself to death.
The abandoned estate was bought by the Lancaster family. A once middle-class household, brought high by the industrial revolution. The patriarch owned mills, mills that made them money. The money in turn bought them a grand seat in the countryside.
Their position waned though, bad debts and an over extended credit line at Chesterton and Son's bank. It had taken them a mere handful of years to lose Keeley Hall.
The bank took the mills, and the hall, but not all the land, they kept a small holding for themselves on the estate. A small cottage with a tumbledown farm.
John Lancaster was born in the slums, lived in a country mansion, and died in a small cottage. The locals blamed the curse. His family blamed his poor business dealing. He had left them a home though, and a small inheritance. Still, though, for his wife and daughter, the life they had lived was now no more.
Louise and her daughter Emily, lived relatively peacefully in the shadow of the Georgian house. Then as all good property, it was bought.
His name was Victor Jellico, Not a lord, but a disgraced peer. Scandal followed him. He had enjoyed cards, actresses, and drink. It wasn't until he took the honor of a married woman in the confines of a carriage that his wild lifestyle caught up with him. The rumors grew and spread. Once fine establishments now turned their back, and friends stopped calling. He fled the city in search of peace.
"I think that's his carriage. " Emily said, excitedly to her mother.
Louise nodded, as they stood at the gates to their meager home. She loved her daughter, and always enjoyed her enthusiasm for the simplest of things. They both stood and watched it rising over the hill, making its way to Keeley Hall.
The week before they had done the same thing, only that time they were watching a procession of servants and groundsmen taking their residence before their master. The hall had to be ready for his arrival. One of the cooks had come the day before to talk. He needed eggs and fresh produce, and liked the prospect of having a small farm nearby for such things. It would also mean a small amount of extra income.
"We can't see him." Emily said, a little disheartened.
"I'm sure he is a stuffy old man." Louise said. Her daughter was nineteen now, and her interest in men was gaining steam. She hoped that she would find a nice local boy in the village to marry.
In Emily's mind, the man in the carriage was handsome and dashing. Someone to take her away from her life of drudgery and boredom.
If he had the blinds of the carriage open, and he looked their way, from that distance he would have seen two women that didn't look so dissimilar to each other. There both shared the same build. Average height, and with a slight slender frame. Emily also took her mothers hair. A light chestnut colour, that each of them had tied up tightly against their scalps.
It was only at a closer distance that the differences were noticeable. The lines on Louise's face befit a woman of her age, while Emily's freckles that adorned her smooth youthful complexion spoke more towards the innocence and inexperience of the young. The boys in the village also noticed a similarity much to their delight. Emily had also inherited her mothers ample bosom. It was even more apparent as it pushed willfully against the linen dress she wore. A dress that desperately needed to be adjusted to accommodate her burgeoning body.
"Do you think he will be safe from the curse?" She said, to her mother.
Louise shook her head. "There is no curse, it's just a silly tale to entertain the small-minded."
Emily thought about that, as her mother went back into the cottage. A boy from the village had told her more about the strange things that went on at Keeley Hall. The noises at night, the sad fates of all the previous occupants. To her it all sounded very interesting. Her mother would hear nothing of it. Maybe because her late husband was now part of the folklore.
After the excitement of the carriage arriving Mother and daughter went about their daily routine. Louise went to clean out the chicken coup and Emily, having already completed her daily tasks, went into the fields nearby. She wandered alone looking for flowers for her scrap book. It was almost full now, she thought.
She returned to the cottage an hour later, with a handful of poppy's. In her room she went about her routine of pressing them between two heavy books. Both were volumes of an encyclopedia that her Father had saved from the debtors. A to B, and C to D, did the job nicely. It would take some time for gravity to do it's work.
"Do you think he is married?" She asked her Mother, who was now busy washing pots in the kitchen.
"I'd hope he would be, living in that house." She answered. "Give me a hand with these."
As they washed and scrubbed, there was a knock at the door. Louise answered it to find the cook from Keeley Hall. They greeted and shared a few words about the weather.
"Do you have anymore eggs?" He inquired.
"Emily, go fetch this man some eggs." She said.
Emily nodded happily, glad to get out of the kitchen for a change.
As she walked with him to the chicken coup, he introduced himself. His name was Mr Laithwaite, and he was middle-aged, and fat. A sign of a good cook, Emily thought wickedly.
