Worlds of romance by author Andrea Parnell . . .
DARK SPLENDOR
“This is an entertaining blend of eerie shadows and romantic interludes. An excellent gothic romance.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A beautifully written, lyrical—almost poetic in the narrative—book! . . . If you appreciate a great story and the true beauty of words that are put together the way they should be, you will love DARK SPLENDOR.
—Rendezvous
“The grand Gothic Romance could never be better represented than in DARK SPLENDOR.”
—Affaire de Coeur
“A tantalizing blend of suspense and sensuality, with all the thrills and chills that lovers of the Gothic enjoy.”
— Romantic Times Rave Reviews
WHISPERS AT MIDNIGHT
“The perfect blend of anticipation and apprehension . . . seductive tale by a superb writer of romantic suspense.”
—Romantic Times
“Takes romance, mystery and intrigue and weaves them into a good story.”
—Rendezvous
DELILAH’S FLAME
“First-rate…a devilishly delicious heroine. Her exciting adventures glue you to the book’s pages.”
–Janelle Taylor
“Delilah is a delightful, charming heroine…in and intriguing story.”
–Patricia Matthews
“A delicious and titillating romance.”
–Romantic Times
Dark Prelude
A prequel to the novel Dark Splendor
Andrea Parnell
Dark Prelude
Copyright 2011 Andrea Parnell. All rights reserved.
Published 2011 by Trove Books
TroveBooks.com
Publisher’s Note
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Frauke Spanuth, Croco Designs www.crocodesigns.com
There is a serpent in thy smile, my dear,
And bitter poison within thy tear.
—Shelley, The Cenci
Chapter 1
London, 1751
Shivering miserably, Silvia Bradstreet, clutched her heavy woolen cloak against the wind, her gloomy thoughts little better than the weather. Had she come to this? That she would freeze to death on the London streets? Winter held a formidable grip on the city, shutting out the sun with murky, grey clouds and the bitter pelting of a late snow that fell to the streets like a shower of brimstone to become dingy slush mottled by tracks of those unfortunate enough to be about in the treacherous weather. The fierce wind bore a chilling moisture from the sea as it wailed between blackened buildings, sounding like the mournful cry of despairing souls. How foolish she had been not to defy Uncle Hollister. Lately he had grown impossible, his sober days largely outnumbered by the drunken ones. But to send her on a fool’s errand in such weather was demeaning and cruel.
Still, she had little choice.
At times her uncle flew into a scalding rage over the simplest matter and she had begun to fear for her safety. Today his attack of angry words had wounded her pride and brought a flood of tears to her eyes. “Curse me, Missy. I’ll be master of this house ‘til my dying day and I’ll not have you trying to run it for me,” he had shouted and kicked a chair across the kitchen. “Left to you we would eat nothing but soup and stew! Now get to the butcher and buy the chops and have a dinner on the table this night that’ll fill a man’s belly! And don’t be forgetting your place again!” With that he had taken the stewpot from the stove and tossed it into the street. She choked back a lump in her throat. No danger she would forget her place again. She had no place. Her once kindly uncle had turned caustic and she was little more than a maid to him.
She sighed ruefully, then set her jaw and trudged on. Lips, blue from the cold, curved into a deeper frown. She had a more immediate concern than Uncle Hollister’s abominable disposition—getting home before the cold claimed her. Because of her uncle’s poor credit, she had been forced to walk blocks farther to find a butcher they did not owe. Passing the docks, as she made her way home with the bundle, the wind roared colder and stronger, biting and stinging her face like a spray of icy needles.
Behind her a carriage rattled its way along the cobbled street, spinning dirty snow behind its wheels. Before she could jump aside, a splash of filthy wetness splattered her cloak. The carriage swept past while Silvia shook the snow from her garment. Almost instantly a stabbing cold pierced the damp fabric to sap the little remaining warmth in her body.
She could fight the chill no longer and drew into the narrow, secluded entry of a shipping company to escape the angry wind. A lantern mounted beside the door flickered haltingly in the dimness of the winter afternoon.
Silvia folded her arms across her chest. Still she shivered with cold. She thought dejectedly of her situation. There was no reasoning with Uncle Hollister. He would have his way and damn those who tried to deter him. She sighed dispiritedly, longing to reach the warmth of the kitchen. But the numbness of her feet and the thought of the rude welcome she would receive from Uncle Hollister kept her from hurrying back along the street.
Slumping against the wall in despair, Silvia brushed the snow from her lashes with the back of a dusky wool mitten. Her gaze lingered on a notice posted beside a window frame in the entryway. The lines blurred together until her eyes cleared.
Able bodied men and women wanted
Passage paid
Sailing date: the twentieth of March, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and fifty-one.
Indentured servants. She had read of them and many she knew had left England for a new life in the colonies. Perhaps she should inquire, since a dim future waited her in London. No more than a few shillings lined her pockets, and that not for long if Uncle Hollister found them. Her frown slipped away as she pictured herself sailing out of the harbor and for a moment the heaviness eased from her heart. Bond servants received a tract of land at the end of their term. At best, here she could expect to be a ladies maid, and even those positions were hard to find without the proper connections.
Behind her the heavy door creaked and swung open, trapping her against the wall. When it swung away she turned to face a bent figure swathed in a black topcoat and thickly furred cap. A pair of shriveled lips curled in the patch of face she could see. Silvia shivered, not against the cold but from an inner wariness.
“Come inside.” His gravelly voice whipped in the howling wind and reached her ears as a guttural plea.
She set her mind to refuse. Instead she stifled the impulse and followed him through the doorway. Perhaps it was madness, or the cold, or perhaps fate had intervened in her favor for once.
He led her through another door off the narrow hallway. In the small office Silvia stood motionless as the warmth from an iron stove melted the chill from her bones. The old gentleman removed his coat and cap and carefully, painstakingly, hung them on a polished walnut rack. Under the strong light, she discerned the fine worsted fabric and the wide beaver collar of the garment. The expensive quality painfully reminded Silvia of her threadbare cloak.
“What’s it to be, girl?” He lowered himself into a chair slowly, deliberately, as if the effort took all his strength. His skin held a grey pallor and stretched thinly over a bony frame. His hair, but a few dull strands, circled around his skull from temple to temple. A pair of gray eyes, small and beadlike, peered from behind his spectacles with a curious keenness that momentarily alarmed her. His teeth were yellowed as old tusks and his skin like crumpled parchment, his face cratered with ancient pockmarks a pair of wide
mutton chop side whiskers would not cover.
Apprehension held her immobile for a moment. Her shoulders shook a bit though the stove had started to warm her chilled hands and feet. She acknowledged to herself that the old man’s appearance gave her pause until she chastised herself for her uncharitable thoughts. Had Uncle Hollister so embittered her that she was distrustful of everyone, even the compassionate old gent who had brought her in from the cold?
“Will you sign the paper now? I’ve waited the whole of the afternoon and you are the last of the lot,” he said patiently.
What was the accent? Germanic, perhaps. But what could he mean?
“I’m sorry, sir. I believe you have mistaken me for someone,” she said, lowering the scarf from her hair so that he could see her face clearly. She tried to smile and the attempt seemed as difficult as moving features of stone.
Her braided hair fell across her shoulder as she pulled her scarf loose. She quickly lifted her arms to anchor the braid in a twist at the back of her neck. Her hair was dark, a glossy black, and her skin fair and smooth as cream. Cheeks, too bright from the cold, were softly rounded and her lips bore the natural pout of a little girl. Wide, honey brown eyes with black curling lashes dominated her face. When her hair slipped from its confines as it had in the wind, it curled about her temples, and she looked like an innocent, lost waif.
Silvia met his eyes as he lifted his head to look at her sharply, absorbingly. He stared, his small eyes now keenly alive. A slight flush tinged his lined skin. An expression of excitement replaced the look of hollow disappointment on his dour face.
“Why you are a mere child, my dear.” Surprise now tempered his countenance and the accent was far heavier than she had realized. An odd, slightly eager look lit slits of light in his eyes.
Silvia responded quickly and crossly giving her chin an annoyed tilt. “No sir, I am not. I have seen twenty and two years and long since left childhood.” She frowned, wishing she had spoken in a less bitter tone. Her misfortune was in no part due to this old man. And even if offered by mistake, he had let her dry her cloak by his stove and warm her limbs enough to complete her journey without feeling so dreadfully the bite of the cold.
The gentleman rubbed his boney chin thoughtfully. This girl would suit his needs far better than the one his clerk had found. He noted the fine lines of her face and the worn state of her clothes. The dark hair, the look of innocence ignited his thoughts. She was just what he had been searching for, just the right one to deliver to his employer. And here she had walked right in his door when he had been about to settle for a lass who was in no way her equal.
“Sit down, miss. Perhaps good fortune has brought us together.” A labored kindness sounded in his voice and why it should cause her to shiver, she could not discern. “If I had a pot of tea...but it is not a custom I have adopted from you British.”
She arched a dark brow. “Oh no, sir. I see your mistake and mine and must be on my way home.”
“You have a family, Miss . . . ?”
“Miss Bradstreet. Silvia Bradstreet. Only my uncle, I keep house for him,” she answered with a touch of resignation to her tone.
She was beginning to think it had been wrong to come in. The old fellow seemed too intent on her. She had thought he might be able to tell her about the notice. But the idea of traveling to the colonies as a bond servant had left her mind as the chill had left her body. Uncle Hollister would give no quarter to having his dinner late. She would scarcely have time to roast the lamb for him even if she hurried home.
“Your pardon, Miss Bradstreet, he said after a moment. “You are right. I did mistake you for another, but perhaps fate has intervened,” he paused, letting his eyes sweep over the papers spread before him. “You see, had you come an hour later, the quota would have been filled. But as you are here now, I am quite willing to reward your endeavor on this cold day. There is one berth left and it is yours.” He paused, waiting her reply, his eyes now alight and seemingly larger.
Her brows arched. She felt a rise of unease. “Sir, you speak of dealings that are unknown to me. I merely stopped to take shelter from the cold. The notice aroused my curiosity, nothing more. I believed you had taken pity on my plight and invited me in to warm myself.”
He stirred a gnarled hand on the desk top, pulled out a sheet of paper and removed the cap from an inkwell. With a shaky hand he dipped in a pen and wrote a few lines.
Looking up he said in a low voice, “Again I am mistaken and I beg your indulgence. My name is Weber.” His hands wove together momentarily as if he needed to control them. “I am in the employ of Wilhelm Schlange, owner of this shipping company.”
He paused and stared at Miss Bradstreet. If his instinct for judging people did not fail him, this young woman told him a little less than the truth. She had been interested in the notice, anxious for a chance to run away from someone or something. The look had been there in her face. He could not have been wrong. She was hesitant, unsure, but not lost to him yet. There was something she wanted to get away from, or someone. He knew most of those who entered willingly into bond service were not so much seeking a new life as fleeing the old one.
“I thought you sought passage to the colonies.” He continued. “A Schlange ship, the Eastwind, sails in two weeks and the position is one of importance on Mr. Schlange’s estate. And a fairer agreement than most. If you should change your mind, you can notify my man Wickes here to make the arrangements.” He paused and Silvia thought how penetrating and unusual his eyes were as they searched her face. “There is good opportunity in the colonies for a young, healthy woman. And when your time of service ends, you would have a share of property with what wages you earn.”
“Sir, I thank you but I have no wish to leave England.”
He seemed not to hear as he opened an embossed leather box on his desk. From within he lifted a block of black sealing wax and a gold signet. His feeble hands scrawled a few words with pen and ink then folded the paper. With more sureness he struck a flame to life and dropped a glossy spot of wax on the fold of the paper. The heavy scent of the melted wax reached her nostrils as he pressed the seal into it.
“Take this.” He stood and handed her the letter. “It bears the Schlange seal. If you change your mind, give it to Wickes here.” He indicated a man in a distant shadowed corner whose back was to the two of them. “I bid you a good evening, Miss Bradstreet.”
She took the paper and tucked it into her pocket thinking it might be best to humor the old man. “Good evening, Mr. Weber. I thank you for your kindness.”
Her first intake of breath outside came in a rush that filled her lungs with such freezing air it yanked her back to reality. For that very few moments in the warm shipping office she had glimpsed a chance to be someone else, to start a new life. But now on the familiar dismal street she remembered the task before her.
Lifting her skirt to avoid the muddy slush, she ran as best she could in the wet snow and reached the row of plain, dark houses where she had resided since the age of fourteen. Inside, all was quiet. She went straight to the kitchen, thankful Uncle Hollister was not home. A disquieting excitement lodged in the back of her mind as she thought of the strange events and her conversation with Mr. Weber. But then she shook off the thought. It was out of the question. Uncle Hollister would never consent.
Tension tightened her shoulders as she went about her work. Apprehension swept through her head with a depressing thought. He would arrive half drunk at the dinner hour, for he never missed it. Food and drink were the only events for which Uncle Hollister observed punctuality.
At seven the chops were roasted and the vegetables boiled. Silvia set the table with two pottery plates as she heard a rattling at the door and the thump of a cane in the hall. Fear and anger knotted inside her as she quickly stoked the fire in a blackened grate and set the kettle on. Two rough wooden chairs at a table covered by a muslin cloth filled the dim kitchen. Uncle Hollister had sold what good furniture they had until
the house was barely furnished and the only decent pieces remaining were the small cherry dresser and wash stand in her bedroom.
She flinched but forced a smile as he burst into the kitchen like a burly hound eager for his supper. The red veins in his face prominently lined a bulbous nose and flabby cheeks. As he loosened a waistcoat splattered with ale, he grunted a greeting. She detected the aroma of his breath, rancid with the foul staleness of drink. Silvia shivered in spite of herself as she watched in disgust while he settled his heavy frame in the kitchen chair. A pity. Since Aunt Agatha died, he had sunk deeper and deeper toward the gutter until his business was ruined and what little money he made, he lost in gambling.
The meal passed with not a word uttered until he had finished the chops. “That’s a good girl, Missy.” He wiped his greasy mouth on a sleeve and leaned back in the chair. “Now you mark it down to consult me before you set dinner on the table. Never could abide a stew, more broth than anything else. A man needs meat and that’s a matter you should take note of if you want to catch a husband.” He paused a moment to light his pipe and puff until the acrid smoke filled the kitchen. “Past time you found a man, Missy. Too choosy I say. There’s room in the house and a pretty girl’ll have no trouble gettin’ a young gent to say the words.”
Silvia’s cheeks reddened a little and her eyes flashed with anger. He rankled her with his talk of husbands. She suspected his interest in her state of matrimony was solely aimed at finding a new provider for the household. They had come to harsh words many an evening after he had brought home one swain after another for her consideration. Finally she had stamped her foot and refused to come down from her room if he paraded another “gent” through the house.
“I dare say I don’t want to catch one. The last thing I want is another man to be cooking and cleaning for. I’ll marry when I find a man who will give me love and a good life. Be assured he will not be one of your unsavory blokes who waste his wages and his wit in a tavern,” she retorted hotly, holding the edge of the table with fair, slender hands. “And as for your fine appetite, I know we haven’t a shilling to pay the butcher. Perhaps you should look for meat in your tankard.”
Uncle Hollister’s face reddened and his black eyes, like stones, lost any trace of warmness. “You forget I took you in when you had nowhere else to go.”
“I know who took me in and who spent the little inheritance Mama and Papa left. And who sold all of Aunt Agatha’s things after she died.” She lifted her chin proudly and her nostrils flared angrily. “Until we are reduced to living in squalor and shrinking from the door lest the knock be from a creditor or another of your gambling gentlemen here to threaten.”
His bushy brows twitched angrily and then he dropped his head and covered his face with fleshy hands. “You do me ill, Missy, to remind me of Aggie and the sorry state I’ve made of things.” Tears welled in his reddened eyes and he drew a soiled handkerchief from a coat pocket and snorted into it. “She managed it all and when she was gone the life was gone from me.”
He snorted again and Silvia gave up the cause. Every attempt to jolt some sense into Uncle Hollister ended with him in a breakdown of self pity. She would have to take in more sewing. Her skill with the needle was gaining her a fine reputation as a dressmaker and she hoped someday to be able to open a shop. But if Uncle Hollister did not end his gambling, she would never be able to save the money.
He broke into a fit of coughing and wheezing and roughly shoved his chair back as he rose. Without another word he put on his topcoat and hat and left the house. Silvia had no doubt his destination was the Hare and Hound and it would be far into the night before he returned. With a heavy heart, she cleared the table, covered a loaf of bread with a napkin and stored it in a cupboard. Tomorrow morning it would be as if the quarrel had never occurred, and in a few days the same one would erupt again.
Lighting the stub of a candle, she started up the gloomy, creaking stairwell that led to her room. Such a shame. Uncle Hollister had been a fine enough man while Aunt Aggie lived, but he had gone completely soft in the head the four years since he lost her. Perhaps she had been wrong to stay, but he had been a pathetic case at the funeral and had begged her not to leave him alone. Silvia shut her eyes tightly just a moment to rid herself of the thought. No use thinking about it anymore tonight.
She closed the door behind her. The candle on her dresser gave a soft glow of prettiness to her small room as she slipped into her warm flannel gown. At night she could not see the faded, peeling wallpaper nor the cracks in the neglected floor. Sitting at her dresser she could dream of being in a fine house as she brushed her long sable hair. She could look at the tiny portrait of Mama and Papa and remember the happy evenings of childhood when Papa would read fairy tales and Mama would tuck her in with a kiss.
Her face paled. It was gone! Frantically she opened the dresser drawer, praying her fears would not be realized. Her heart seemed to sink a little in her chest. The remains of the miniature portrait of her parents lay beneath a pair of stockings, ripped asunder when it had been roughly removed from the small silver frame.
Frantically, she searched the drawer. The frame was not to be found. With a sob and trembling fingers, she took the shreds of canvas, torn so that the precious faces were visible no more, and gently touched each piece. He knew how much the portrait meant to her but it had not stopped him. She glanced at her trembling fingers. She still had her mother’s wedding ring and wore it proudly on her right hand. But the portrait had been her greatest comfort and now it was destroyed.
There was only silence in the house and in the void Silvia could hear the thunder of her heart. Oh, Uncle Hollister! How cruel! He had pawned the frame. He must have. And he had destroyed her most precious possession.
Aching as if part of her heart had been plucked out, Silvia climbed in bed. Fitfully, she turned and twisted and cried until a troubled weariness overcame her and she slept.
But at some point in the night she awoke, terrified. Her eyes opened but she dared not move. Blackness shrouded a hulking figure, yet she could feel the threatening presence, hear the guarded breathing. Her muscles quaked with fear as the ominous sound of padded footsteps, ever nearer, sliced into the silence like a knife blade in soft flesh. Someone crept stealthily across the floor. Inside her fear she knew it, saw the black shape of him coming closer. Yet she could not flee. Her arms weighed heavily against her sides like wooden limbs she could not move.
The seconds were leaden, time hanging frozen with terror until she felt a horrifying grasp draw her arm from beneath the covers. For a moment longer her lungs were paralyzed and she thought her heart would burst with fear. Then a sudden pain as if her finger was being wrung off spurred her to life and she screamed.
The black shape stumbled back, tottering to stay upright. “Hush, Missy. It’s me. It’s your uncle.” His voice was thick and the stench of his sour breath sickening.
She felt suffocated by his nearness, her breath a ragged catch in her throat as she massaged her sore hand. “What do you want, Uncle Hollister? Why are you waking me at this hour?” Her voice trembled with fright and anger. Presenting a boldness she did not feel, she flung the covers aside and hurried to the dresser to light a candle. “What is it?”
He put a hand to his brow, shielding his eyes from the sudden brightness. “Be calm, Missy. I only came to see if you were sleeping soundly. Just looking in on my little girl.” She turned to see him in the light. Above his round face his hair was disheveled and his eyes puffy with drunkenness.
“No you weren’t. You were taking my ring. Taking it off my hand while I slept.” She tucked her arms behind her and backed away from him, repulsed and feeling as if her last link with humanity had been stripped away. “You took the frame and you destroyed the portrait. The last thing I had from Mama and Papa. You took it to feed your drunkenness.” Her reproachful gaze turned full upon him and she sobbed. “You have no heart left, Uncle Hollister. In another month you’ll be wandering the
streets not remembering where your own house is.”
“Hush girl!” His black stare came from a livid face Silvia had never seen. And then he lifted a stocky arm and swung at her. His blow missed, thanks to the work of the ale. But she fell against the dresser dodging him, knocking the candle to the floor and shutting out the light.
In the darkness Uncle Hollister staggered out.
Momentarily, she heard the vicious slam of his door. Her cheeks burned with fright and a bruise throbbed on her thigh where the sharp edge of the dresser had struck. A gasp of breath came out in a panicky rush and her muscles tightened in outrage. Hurriedly, she propped a chair beneath the doorknob. A brief flash of anger gave way to a calm resolve. Tomorrow she would visit Wickes.
Her eyes did not close all night. At the light of daybreak she arose but stayed in her room until midmorning when she heard her uncle go out.
In her pocket she found the paper Mr. Weber had given her. Turning it carefully in her hands, she examined the seal. Odd she had not noticed yesterday how unusual the design was. She touched a finger to the dark wax imprint of a serpent, an evil looking creature, forked tongue flashing from an open mouth, its body entwined ominously about the trunk of a sapling. A shiver of revulsion pulled her fingers away and she dropped the letter to her purse. She could only hope Mr. Weber would be true to his word.
As she approached the shipping office, her mind raged a tempest of doubts and questions. Could she do it? Could she brave an ocean voyage, a new land? Would she find the better life she sought? Or a worse one? She stopped in the street in front of the weathered building to read the sign lettered on a plank above the door: Schlange Shipping & Trade Company.
Through the window she could see a rather round man wearing a brown waistcoat. Wickes, she hoped. His head was bent over his desk, not the one Mr. Weber had used, but a smaller desk across the room. Silvia entered, shutting the street door quietly behind her, her heart pounding rapidly against her chest. With her hand to the knob of the office door, she paused and closed her eyes, whispering a little prayer that she was right to do this thing. Then with a surge of courage, she stepped inside.
The man did not see her at first; he worked so intently at his ledger. “I wish to see Mr. Weber,” she muttered hastily. Silvia had worn her best dress, a grey wool, piped in black and cut in a plain but flattering style. Her hair was arranged and pinned high on her head to make her look her years. Anxiously, she awaited a reply.
The clerk lifted his face, plump and owl-like, a tuft of spiky whiskers rounding out his chin, and when he spoke his head seemed to bob on a fat neck. His eyes lingered appraisingly on her face and a pleasant smile formed on his full lips.
“Mr. Weber is not in the office, miss. He had business elsewhere this morning. Had to see a ship off.”
The color drained from her face and the hope from her heart. “But he told me the ship sailed in two weeks,” she insisted anxiously. Her alarm seemed to startle the man and he lowered his pen from a black ledger. She couldn’t have misunderstood. And there was the letter. Silvia barely heard the man speaking as she rummaged in her purse for the letter.
“Yes, the Eastwind sails the twentieth. But Mr. Weber saw off the Anne Marie this morning. Mr. Wilhelm himself was on board. He is not well and wished to leave this cold climate as soon as possible. If you had some business with Mr. Weber, perhaps I can be of help.” He smiled again, his round eyes wide with curiosity and an obvious appreciation for a pretty distressed woman.
She opened her purse and withdrew the sealed paper. “My name is Silvia Bradstreet. Mr. Weber instructed me to give this letter to a Mr. Wickes.”
He stood at once. Suddenly his eyes registered surprise and his face a quick nervousness. “Why Miss Bradstreet! Why didn’t you say so straight away? I’m Wickes. At your service, miss.” He took the paper in the short stubby fingers of a pudgy hand. “Mr. Weber left specific instructions if you were to come.” Wickes broke the seal and read the message from his employer to confirm she was who she said. When he was done he stroked his whiskers fussily.
Somehow she contrived to keep her composure. How thankful she was. Indeed she had given Mr. Weber no real indication she would return. Yet it seemed he had expected it.
“I wish to contract as a bond servant. Mr. Weber said you would attend to the matter.” Saying the words gave her a sense of freedom, a strange feeling for one agreeing to a term of indenture. If she could keep her plans secret from Uncle Hollister for two weeks, she thought derisively, she would be on her way to a new life.
Wickes expelled a fluttering breath and scurried from behind his desk. “I’ll send for the carriage, Miss Bradstreet and drive you to Mr. Schlange’s solicitor. Those were Mr. Weber’s instructions.” He hurried through the office door, leaving Silvia to wonder at her good fortune. She had never heard of a bond servant being treated so well. Perhaps Mr. Schlange had a weakness for the unfortunate. Perhaps her luck had changed. And she would be glad of it.