After a brief lull, the first lady spoke again. “What do you make of the pamphlet’s claim that a phrenological assessment was performed on Eleanor when she was an infant? The authors state that she possesses the propensity to behave like her mother.”
Ella jolted. They were speaking of her! How could she see the folly of such assumptions when all the adults around her considered them truth?
Ella could stand to hear no more.
It was as if some other power suddenly took control—as if all the grief and anger spiraled together, culminating in one overpowering force. “How dare you!” Ella sprang from the hedgerows onto the brick path, her cry disrupting the swallows on the garden’s branches. “How can you say such cruel things about someone you called a friend? Your lies are far worse than anything my mother ever did. At least she told the truth. You are the bizarre, vile ones! If my mother were alive, she’d never forgive you.”
With her shouted words still echoing from Keatley Hall’s stone exterior walls, Ella whirled and ran. The garden’s colors of sage, ochre, and saffron commingled as tears blurred her vision and theheat choked her, making each breath feel as if fire smoldered in her lungs.
Someone called her name, but she did not stop running. She raced through the garden, through the iron gate, and over the craggy meadow. She did not slow her pace until she reached the shadowy shelter of the forest’s canopy.
Gasping, Ella dropped to the mossy ground, ripping her stocking on a broken stick and scraping her palm against a chunk of decaying bark. She panted for air.
She’d been rude. Disrespectful.
But she would nevereverforgive those cruel gossips.
It didn’t matter what they had said. She was not bizarre or radical or any of the other words she’d heard whispered in recent days, and neither was her mother.
Most importantly, their words were now etched in her memory, and even if it took until her very last breath, she would prove them wrong.
Chapter 1
KEATLEY HALL, GILLHAM, ENGLAND
AUGUST1820
BITING HER LOWERlip in concentration, Ella Wilde balanced her mother’s handwritten journals in her arms. She’d spent the last week poring over their pages, compiling evidence to strengthen her argument.
In less than one month, the entire body of the Natural Philosophers Society of London would once again descend upon the Keatley Hall School for Boys for their annual symposium. Preventing the event would be impossible, but maybe, just maybe, she could convince her father to discourage Mr. Bauer’s attendance.
With each step along the uneven wooden planks of Keatley Hall’s first-floor corridor, Ella silently rehearsed her rationale. Until now her father had met her attempts to broach the topic with lukewarm tolerance, but time was running out.
Without knocking, she turned into the open door of her father’s study. The late-morning sunlight flooded the narrow room, illuminating the dust motes hovering in the stale air and splaying across a desktop cluttered with letters and haphazard stacks of books.
Philip Wilde looked up from the letter he was writing. Hisattention fell to the journals in Ella’s arms, and after a long sigh, he plucked his spectacles from his nose and lowered them to the desk.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Ella interjected energetically before he could speak. “But this is something you need to hear.”
She placed the journals on the desk and scurried to the tall leaded casement window and pushed the heavy pane outward. It squeaked as it opened, and cool air swirled in.
Her father leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. “The decision’s already been made, Ella.”
“You might change your mind if you would but read Mother’s accounts of Mr. Bauer’s past actions. They’re atrocious! You’ll see—”
“It’s out of my hands,” he interrupted, his tone firm. “The Natural Philosophers Societywillcome to Keatley Hall, and Mr. Bauerwillbe the speaker.”
“How can you say it’s out of your hands?” Ella challenged as she adjusted the window’s stay to prop it open. “Keatley Hall belongs to you, not the Society. Surely you have a say in what occurs under its roof.”
“I’ve already given the itinerary and guest list my blessing. I know you have reservations, but I—”
“Reservations?” Ella spun from the window. “Father, that man helped to write that horrific pamphlet. He accused Mother of insanity, not to mention me. How can you even consider allowing him to step a single foot into Keatley Hall?”
With renewed energy she approached the desk. “This gathering is an opportunity to expose the true nature of phrenology. The very notion that the shape and size of a person’s head could affect their behavior is ludicrous.Everyonewill be here. A little education,healthy debate, and we can put the entire matter of phrenology to rest. I emphatically believe it is what Mother would have—”
“No.” He fixed his light, rheumy eyes on her with unwavering directness in a rare display of authority. “Hawthorne’s made his choice, and as the Society’s leader, his decision is final. I’ll not prevent it. Regardless of what we may think of Mr. Bauer personally, he is respected in his field and will be here as the Society’s invited expert. And need I remind you that the Society’s endorsement is the singular lifeblood of Keatley School? If they were to retract their support, where would we be? Any argument that should arise will not be ours to engage in, and you will not contradict him. Am I clear?”
Ella noisily exhaled the breath she’d been holding and peered out to Keatley Hall’s still forecourt to refocus her thoughts.
