About this story
Aldous Raeburn loses the poll at Market Malford; you find yours on the night ward at St Audrey's and at Jabez Tooley's condemned cell. Forty chapters carry the daughter of the house to a wedding met at the middle of the road.
How it opens
Morning mist lifted from Mellor Park and exposed an avenue whose missing gate matched the neglect nearer the house.
You were Marcella Boyce, newly recalled from London after your father inherited this ancestral but impoverished estate.
Mrs BoyceThe breakfast bell sounds grand enough to make our unpaid repairs feel almost imaginary.
Mrs BoyceYour father is correcting William again; the boy cannot learn while every motion earns a new order.
Choose
Ask William to bring the coffee and ignore the scattered crumbs.
Suggest that the experienced maid resume waiting until William has been trained.