It would perhaps benefit the reader to elucidate certain points concerning the enigmatic Mr. Shawhannock.
As the sole heir of the Shawhannock fortune following the mysterious concurrent deaths of his five elder brothers, Berkeley Shawhannock took up dwelling primarily in East Wellington, and was known there as the master of Felstaff, the family estate; though a romantic figure among the women of the village, he was counted by all a most mysterious man indeed--one would oft observe, in the late hours of night, his silhouette, stock-still against the lavish illumination of the famous Shawhannock wrought-iron candelabras, and shiver quite unexpectedly. 'A sad, isolated man--perhaps dangerous--but oh! He is good-looking, very good-looking indeed,' was the common whisper, accompanied by unrestrained giggles, amongst East Wellington's lesser-to-do womenfolk.
It was a most uncommon occurrence that Shawhannock ever left Felstaff. Only the allure of Saddlebright Park in Freemanor, which had just let not a month past, and the perpetual supplications of his old friends Jaffrey Winslough and his sister Elinor, and of course the happier memories of childhood in Freemanor, persuaded him to leave the fog and cold iron of Felstaff for the wider fields and merrier company he knew awaited him at Saddlebright. Indeed, there was a marked change in the man; the Shawhannock who laughed so freely with Louisa and Rebecca Winslough they would scarcely have recognized but two months prior, as he had shaved his beard.

Berkeley Shawhannock was no stranger to the world of enlightening pursuits, and could oft be found in the parlor, or the porch, or the dining room, or the library, or the dressing room, or any one of twenty bedrooms, sprawled vegetable-like across a velvet chaise, a book dangling from his well-shaped fingers as he slept or perused its contents, which tended toward the esoteric and sensational. This was his current occupation when he was unhappily disturbed by a loud commotion from the general direction of the front parlor.
'Oh! oh!--do someone help!' came a woman's cry; then a tumbling of servants' feet; the throwing open of a door; the sounds of a thunderstorm freshly invited into the marble halls of Saddlebright; then the hysteric ramblings of a woman of some class reduced to classless gibbering, the subject of which he only caught the barest excerpts--words which seemed to concern a dead woman and a carriage.
Shawhannock frowned; then dismissed this as highly uninteresting nonsense and returned to the pleasanter skies and lovelorn shepherd girls in Andeline.

"It is often incumbent upon a narrator to dictate in detail the circumstances surrounding the general affairs of one's characters, often before thrusting into one's reader's view a hasty amalgamation of activity, the full appreciation of which, as has been stated, depends upon the narrator's disclosure of certain vital descriptions of those elements more widely known as 'setting,' of which the most simple of expositions concerning one or another character may well be part.

"Otherwise, one's reader may find the experience most unsettling, akin to wandering gibbering and unclothed in a waterless desert, or the streets of London."

Such were the words that flowed from Marianne Hensley's jolting pen; writing was her one consolation on the long carriage ride from Kerry to Freemanor. She hated traveling most dearly, preferring the comfort of familiarity and the warmth of an unmoving chair. The company consisted of an awfully destitute woman whose apparel seemed intent on conveying, poorly, that she belonged to any state other than her own. The woman was at the present laying quite still across from Marianne, a stream of saliva pouring pathetically from a brown-toothed orifice; like a badly-attired corpse now and then possessed by a spasm of the jerking carriage, she thought, hastily penning a description for a later chapter of her novel.
The driver, too, was most disagreeable. Despite the clearly apparent roughness of the country path, Marianne was certain the man jolted the carriage from time to time purely from spite -- a mutual sentiment at this point in her journey. Certain letters had become quite unreadable and there was more than one ink puddle splashed across her words like a hideous black tear-drop.
Marianne's chief purpose for embarking on a journey so fraught with despair and peril was to visit her dear friend from Wallencroft Girl's Preparatory Academy for Young Women, Louisa Winslough. Yet there was something more, she was sure; it was a rare impetus indeed that could pry her from her velvet writer's-chair, and acquaintances, however dear, however effusive in their appeals, did not oft occasion such reaction. What had spurred her to endanger herself and her well-being so? Marianne decided it was either the earnest plea for her company in Louisa's letter; or the well-crafted rhetoric; or the blackmail.

The night crept near as the carriage continued its rugged pilgrimage; Marianne sighed, shutting her book, distinctly aware that the inadequate moon was quickly becoming the only source of light, despite its unusual fullness.
Another fifteen minutes passed before Marianne was suddenly and inexplicably aware that her companion - the tragically-attired, socially decrepit woman - was, in fact, dead.

Introduction
Without a doubt, it was the hottest day in July.
It was Rebecca's good fortune that she and Louisa were engaged in lively conversation at the hat shop on Perry Street, else it would have been their lot to trudge, fabric-sotten and sun-weakened, the winding gravel path home to Kerrington. Louisa, the less pretty one (and therefore the one endowed with the wit and cleverness of the family), was distinctly aware of this happy providence and assumed, as the elder sister must, the responsibility to perpetuate the conversation, for as long as was necessary to bid the sun adieu; only then would she allow herself or her dear sister to entertain the faintest thought of any homeward embarkment. Also, she had asthma.
The henceforth unnamed conversant was none other than the handsome Berkeley Shawhannock and his equally appealing friend, Colonel Jaffrey Winslough, the girls' cousin. The henceforth unrevealed subject of the thrilling conversation - which was punctuated here and there with angelic peals of Rebecca's laughter and less-angelic peals of her sister's - was unstable.
"You should not have said so," Jaffrey was saying to the blonde-locked Rebecca with a hearty laugh; "you have spoiled it; I should never have guessed Sir Thornswall was capable of such tomfoolery!"
"Come now! I find that difficult to believe," Louisa interjected with a smile. "I should have thought of anyone you, having been his apprentice not yet five years ago, would have suspected him first!"
"Dear cousin," Jaffrey replied solemnly, "I only recall being severely reprimanded by a most austere trademaster. I do not dwell often on those sad months, slaving away in Sir Thornswall's stables."
He struck a tragic expression, so comically that all present had to release a small rivulet of laughter. His description of Sir Thornswall as severe, as well, struck a merry chord amongst all those present, who knew the Stablemaster to be a most generous and amiable old drunkard.
"Why, Jaffrey, how could you forget? That was the summer we met," Berkeley remarked with a wink. "Indeed, those stables hold more than the finest horses in Freemanor County; why, the very smell of my childhood lingers in those oaken walls."
The friends laughed again at the metaphor. Yet upon careful consideration one might have marked the darker shadow lurking behind the joy that now twinkled in Berkeley's eyes. Alas! for it is an inescapable truth, that with every beam of light cast upon the land there is a shadow that springs forth. Such truths flow in the veins of life -- especially in the life of any successful romantic drama.
Rebecca said starrily:
"Oh! I love horses. You must come and see Papa's newest; he's had it just a week. It is the most delicate gray thing you ever saw. I have named him 'Gloria.'"
The conversation commenced in much the same manner, until Mr. Barney Porter at last sent the giggling friends on their way from his stoop with a good-natured slew of curses.