Agnes of Haywood Hall by Hayden Thorne

Author:Hayden Thorne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gay, gay romance, epistolary, victorian, alternate universe, humor
Publisher: Hayden Thorne
Published: 2021-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

PRUDENCE HONEYSETT’S JOURNAL

22 November (continued)—Freddy and Mr. Beverly are dining at Haywood Hall, at least for lunch, allowing us to go about our ghost-hunting business without any trouble.

Not that I consider my dear nephew trouble, of course, but the boy’s more puritanical than a nun in an armored chastity belt when it comes to certain things involving ghosts than I’ve come to expect from gifted mediums. I’m not particularly keen on being pulled aside for a lecture on behaving nicely toward dead people or else.

Surely, gifted mediums ought to be brash and aggressive in their dealings with the dead. I’ve been teaching the boy to be direct and honest, especially with the dead, God help me, seeing as how subtleties don’t really find their mark in non-corporeal humans. Exaggerations and extremes are preferable in seeing progress made, I say.

I hope he’s at least trying to apply such a bold approach in his dealings with this Agnes person in Haywood Hall. I should have pulled Mr. Beverly aside and advised him on this, and I’m now kicking myself for forgetting. I shall have to do just that on their return.

Anyway, digressions aside, I’m quite pleased to say my friend and I have successfully conducted our preliminary interviews with Saunders and Coombs as well as the other servants who’ve yet to see the ghastly specter leering at them in the mirror. And so far, this is the conclusion we’ve arrived at: the ghost chooses to bother younger girls and, apparently, only younger girls.

Mrs. Drummond (who’s about my age), Brody (who’s young but male), Mr. Cruickshank (who’s my age and male), and our occasional laundress, Mrs. Maddox (who’s about the same age as St. Grimald priory), have not been affected or at least have been pointedly avoided by the ghost. And that leads us to our second conclusion: the ghost is a bloody degenerate. Was he one in life, or did he acquire this foul lifestyle (the irony!) in death? One’s aging brain can only manage so much, I’m afraid, and between the two of us, we haven’t done much more than agree to this.

So where does that take us for now?

Can’t say much at the moment. I do believe this calls for a healthy serving of cake as our reward for a job well done (so far).

22 November (continued yet again)—I found the missing book! It was shelved at the very end with the others, but it wasn’t in the kind of spot I’d normally put it. Perhaps I was too excited to have Mr. Headley finally here that I didn’t pay much attention to the way I stored the new novels. At least Freddy hasn’t clapped eyes on any of them and let curiosity overrun common sense. I fixed the book’s placement, and now my personal shelf looks exactly as it should.

Incidentally, I truly did have a bit of a laugh at the covers Mr. Headley had chosen for these new books. He threatened a medieval design, and he clearly pursued the idea.

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