The Wellfields: A Novel. Vol. 1 of 3

The old abbey holds secrets in its stones. When Jerome Wellfield returns to Wellfield Abbey after his father's death, he finds more than grief waiting for him: a crumbling estate, a vanished fortune, and a family name that weighs heavier than the ancient walls themselves. Jessie Fothergill's 1881 novel unfolds in the shadow of the English countryside, where walking trails through charming villages lead to difficult conversations about money, power, and what it means to preserve a home when the means to do so have disappeared. Jerome must navigate the expectations of his station while facing the possibility that everything he inherited may slip through his fingers. His bond with his sister becomes crucial as they confront an uncertain future together. And when he encounters Sara Ford, an artist carving her own path in a world that discourages such ambitions, something shifts: a connection that promises both hope and complication in equal measure. The novel moves with the deliberate pace of Victorian society itself, every polite conversation hiding currents of anxiety, loyalty, and desire. Fothergill captures the particular ache of inherited responsibility, the way pride both sustains and imperils a family, and the small rebellions that happen quietly, in walks and glances and conversations held just beneath the surface of propriety.