Taming Jane

Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

“Eleanor,” Jane repeated quietly, testing the name on her lips. She met Eleanor’s eyes timidly. “This is probably an absurd question, rather obvious actually, but ... am I dead?” Jane wasn’t sure whether she wanted to hear the answer.

“Do you think you’re dead?” Eleanor countered. She paused and waited for Jane to catch up to her so that they could walk together.

Jane furrowed her eyebrows. “You have a little more experience in this realm then I do,” she replied awkwardly.

Eleanor smiled but didn’t answer her question. She closed her eyes and looked up to the sky. “Isn’t the sun lovely?”

Jane looked around the bright field. In the distance she could see the edge of the woods that bordered Southerby but all she could see was endless fields around her. For a moment she forgot she was dead, and she thought of proposing that Daniel do something practical with the land, like turn it into farm land.

“This is my favourite place, I always thought that Daniel and I should farm it,” Eleanor sighed, still smiling.

Jane gasped. “I literally just had that thought.”

“Did you?” Eleanor asked, raising her eyebrows.

Jane wondered if Eleanor was being cryptic on purpose. She had said that she had been watching her; perhaps she knew how she felt about her husband. Was she telling Jane that she was damned and sending her to hell? She panicked – she hadn’t been committing adultery, has she? “Elea ... Mrs Winchester ... Lady Southerby,” Jane stammered, feeling embarrassed.

“Just Eleanor,” she corrected.

“Eleanor,” Jane breathed. “Why am I here? Do you need to tell me something? If I’m dead I think I’d rather meet Saint Peter sooner rather than later.”

Eleanor dropped to the ground and sat cross legged in the grass. “I told you I would show you my favourite place, it is everywhere in Southerby. This place was my home for my entire life,” Eleanor said distantly, looking around. “It was not meant to be a sad place with sad memories. Wonderful things have happened here, marriage through the generations, dozens of births and all the happy memories that come with that. Having my name being a taboo is a bad thing, don’t you think?”

“I don’t want to be remembered sadly,” Jane replied. The thought of her being ‘remembered’ was terrifying. What would her mother say? What would her mother do? Not to mention Sebastian and Emilia and their children. Why did she have to get on that horse?

“I can’t imagine anyone would,” Eleanor sighed and played with the long grass at her sides. She looked up at Jane with tears in her blue eyes. “Isn’t your Sabine lovely?”     

Jane was taken aback. “My Sabine?” she repeated. “I don’t understand.”