When Alexander woke up, eyes still heavy from too little sleep, it sounded like a whole regiment of screaming children had marched into the hall and set up camp. In reality, he knew that it was only three: His nieces Eliza, of age eight, and Sophia and Georgiana of age five. Penelope and the children had already arrived, and that meant that Alexander had severely overslept.
Groaning, he dragged himself out of bed and got dressed. The clock in the corner showed almost half past one, and Alexander swore under his breath. He'd have missed breakfast, and quite possibly also the midday meal. Damn it, he thought. In Turkey, his insomnia wasn't usually as bad, and he'd forgotten how much it changed for the worse when he was back in England.
Still fighting with an unruly tie around his neck for some semblance of control, Alexander walked down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairwell, he met Matilda, who looked less than pleased at the sight of him. She was wearing the blue evening dress again, and it seemed like she had hesitated to turn right and open the doors to the small dining room beyond. Whatever lay beyond the oak doors must've been a frightening prospect to make the unabashed Matilda Waters hesitate, Alexander thought.
"You look tired," she noted with a hint of schadenfreude as if he deserved it, but nevertheless waited for him at the bottom of the staircase. Her hands rested atop each other on the white stone of the bannister.
"Thank you for the kind words," Alexander said dryly, his tone not in the least expressing gratitude. He was sure that she was right, even so. "What did I miss?"
"Nothing important, just the arrival of Penelope and her brood, and the reunion of two loving sisters, separated for ten years by fate and misfortune. We took tea in one of the parlours. It was a jolly good time." Matilda said with an air of sarcasm and glanced at the closed door leading to the dining room. From within the wood panels, loud shrieking noises of ill-behaved children could be heard.
"Lovely," Alexander dryly answered. Penelope had telegrammed the Ritz in Paris that she'd travel to London to receive them when they'd arrived, and Alexander would be a liar if he'd claim he had not been curious as to how the reunion of the two sisters would go down. After all, Alexander had known Penelope for close to twelve years, and she had never as much as mentioned the existence of her sister. Impressive for a woman, whose main leisure activity was to be the centre of attention, Alexander thought. Had Penelope and her sister been close, she'd concealed it both masterfully and very uncharacteristically.
"Will you send for my things today?" Matilda asked, rolling onto the heel of her feet and back down again like a bored child. She looked at Alexander, who was still fidgeting with that blasted tie like it was entertaining to see him frustrated. Alexander sends her a stern glare.
"I already told you I would."
"Just making sure," she said but didn't move away from the bannister. She made no move as to join her sister and nieces in the dining room behind the oak door. It seemed to Alexander, that for Matilda, he'd become the lesser of two evils since the arrival of Penelope and the children. In a way, he sympathised with her.
"Shall we?" He asked, just as the tie gave up its ardent fight of resistance, and nodded towards the door to the dining room. The noise of the children had not stilled, but it seemed it wouldn't, no matter how long they waited.
Matilda nodded and followed Alexander.
"Good morning," Alexander said, as the door opened to the informal dining room, a light parlour with a long table in the middle and a console with heaps of food on it at the furthest wall: Kippers with egg, minced meat pies, cold cuts, Yorkshire pudding and steaming boiled potatoes with butter and fresh chives.
It smelled heavenly, Alexander noted and his stomach rumbled.
His sister-in-law was sitting on one side of the long table in the dining room, dressed in a heavy black serge and bombazine mourning gown. Beside her sat three blonde girls, all in white muslin mourning dresses. Two of them, the youngest, were quarrelling over one thing or another, while the eldest, a girl of 8, was reading a children's book while chewing on a piece of toast. On the opposite side of Penelope, close to the door, Matilda sat down and smoothed over the rustling taffeta of her gown.
They looked so different in the bright morning light, Alexander noticed. Whereas Penelope was all soft blush, rose water, Turkish delight and powder snow, Matilda was rough-edged, calculated, lime-zest sharpness. It seemed to Alexander, that while Penelope was born to take tea in rooms with whipped creamed ceilings, Matilda would stick out like a sore thumb in a Queen Charlotte's ball. She might even have made Penelope's heavy mourning gown look natural. How on earth they were siblings, Alexander had yet to understand.
"Finally, you're up!" Penelope said, her voice not in the least worn down by the atmosphere of the sombre outfit she donned. "We couldn't wait - the children were being impatient, and I couldn't hold them off any longer. Apologies. Oh good God, what happened to your face?"
"Not to worry," Alexander said and suppressed a yawn. The bruise on his face apparently hadn't gone down overnight. "It was just an incident in Paris. Don't fret about it."
He took a plate from beside the food and dealt himself a serving. Sitting down two seats from Matilda, who rose to fetch a serving for herself, he looked at the girls.
"Hello, Uncle Alexander," the eldest, Eliza said in a soft voice not unlike her mother's. She was a lovely girl, with an apparent penchant for reading, and she was the only of the three that Alexander had met before, though only once when Edward had brought the young girl to London shortly after Alexander had been home from Oxford. The two youngest, still in their quarrel, didn't lift their eyes to neither Alexander nor Matilda.
They exchanged a few pleasantries, and Alexander made a promise to show Eliza the library (which she, to his astonishment, had never been told by her parents was a thing the family possessed), and then Penelope dismissed the children from the table. A lady's maid with a long face came to fetch the kids, and as they scurried out, the sound of their argument became weaker and weaker and more and more distant.
The room went silent with the tender awkwardness of three people, who should be as close as siblings, but in reality, didn't know each other in the slightest. As if to break the unwanted awkwardness, Penelope smiled at Matilda, who was chewing on a piece of pie.
"Mrs Halverston called on me yesterday to take afternoon tea with her this afternoon, and I thought that that might include you, Tilly? Along with the children, of course," Penelope said.
"I'd rather not," Matilda said, not looking up from her plate.
"Well, at some point you'll have to come into society, so you might as well start today," Penelope answered in a practical voice. Matilda didn't answer.
"Of course, we'll also have to visit the modiste," Penelope said and eyed Matilda's dress with distaste. It was the dark blue taffeta gown - hardly an appropriate day dress. "Can't have you called on in an evening dress all day. Otherwise, you can borrow some of my gowns. I'm confined to this black mourning contraption for the rest of the year, anyway."
"God forbid I wear the wrong colour," Matilda said under her breath and received a frown from her sister.
"It is," Penelope started, and raised her index finger at her sister, "imperative that you are seen as good society as soon as possible."
"I don't care about good society."
"Well, I do, and since I'm responsible for your future standing, you will join."
The awkward silence returned yet again when Matilda didn't answer her sister. Alexander had a sneaking suspicion that she did it on purpose. It was becoming painfully obvious, that Penelope hated the silence and the mere thought that all was not peaceful contentment in the Duvelle household. Keeping up appearances, even within the confinement of their home, was of almost vital importance to the younger dowager countess of Ellismere. Alexander sighed.
Piercing a piece of cold-cut ham with as much vigour as if it was the embodiment of the tension in the room, Penelope stared at it with disdain and said: "We simply have to find a new chef. This banality will not do when the ton comes to call on us. Monsieur LaCroix would never have allowed such blandness."
Matilda looked from Penelope to Alexander, as if questioning him silently if she was the only one who didn't find anything wrong with the servings. Alexander cleared his throat to change the subject.
"Did the police want anything from us in regards to the investigation?" He asked and cast a glance at Penelope, who dropped the piece of ham on her plate along with her frown and put her most pleasing societal expression back on. "I assume that you've been cooperative, of course."
"Investigation?" Penelope looked at Alexander in surprised guilelessness. "What investigation?"
Alexander eyed Penelope with a feeling of knowing exactly what she was going to answer to his next question. He'd naturally assumed that his mother and Penelope would have the police look into the death of his brother. Now the creeping feeling of there not being an investigation at all sat uneasily but impossible to ignore in the back of his mind.
"The investigation into Edward's death, of course."
"There was none," Penelope said innocently and arranged her cutlery in a neat position on her platter.
"What do you mean, there was none?"
"Well, me and Mama agreed that it was best not to poke too much around in it," Penelope said with a slight shrug and an indifferent face. "Accidents do happen, of course, and we all wish it was different, but there's no reason to have Scotland Yard running all over this house. Imagine the gossip!"
Alexander was stunned. How was it not a good idea to have the police look into the sudden death of an earl with a seat in Parliament? An earl who, by all looks of the books, Alexander had been going through all night, had left an estate so indebted, that any loaner in London knew not to waste the time and energy calling on him for repayment? An earl, who, even as a boy had had the confidence of the grandest of men, and was not unlike to have provoked some geezer or lowlife to violence?
It must've been some foul act that caused Edward's demise, Alexander was sure. In fact, it had been the first supposition when he'd received the telegram about Edward's death: there was no other possible explanation. The cause leading to it was naturally more dubious - Alexander had assumed a game of cards gone wrong at first, like so many times before, but after seeing the dire state of the estate's finances, he had realised that it might not have been as simple. Without an investigation, there'd be no explanation though, and Edward's death would forever be an unrectifiable injustice.
With a slow but steadfast heartbeat, Alexander could feel the first wave of anger begin to course through his veins. He didn't care for society and had never understood nor respected the rules that governed the ton, but he'd adhere to them as long as it was sensible to do so. Covering up a possible crime for the sake of societal standing was not one of those times.
Matilda sat silently in her seat, her eyes darting from the earl to her sister, but not without a glint of wicked entertainment. Penelope was fidgeting with a napkin, now seeing that her words had upset Alexander.
"So you just intend to ignore the fact that my brother - your husband, and a very vital man of 31 years - has dropped dead without any apparent reason?"
"I mean, when you put it like that, I-," Penelope started, but Alexander interrupted her.
"Did you even do an autopsy, or was it completely off the table to even begin to understand why Edward died?"
"Well, it would be highly improper!" Penelope began to protest. "Alexander, think of the things people will say about us! I can't even begin to imagine what slander and salacious gossip people can come up with these days! To even suggest that something irregular happened to Edward would be ruinous!"
Alexander didn't say anything. He simply glared at Penelope. To think that she preferred to ignore justice for Edward and answers to the mystery of his all-too-early demise, just to keep her own peace was the drop that made the cup run over.
"I've sacrificed my happiness many times for yours," Alexander said, in a hard but calm voice, painfully aware of the bruise still decorating his face. "I've brought back your sister from Paris. I'll fix the debts left behind by you and Edward's lifestyle, which are not, might I add, small enough to be covered by your dowry. I did and will still do anything to make your life as easy as possible, Penelope, and I will go beyond my means to keep up the appearances that you so clearly want to preserve."
Penelope's nervous fidgeting had fletched into a full-on cower.
"But I will not help you cover up the mystery of my brother's death for the sake of your pride."
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Heinrich Schliemann was a German (bad) amateur archaeologist, who was one of the first to excavate Hisarlik (Troy) in western Turkey. He was a character, to say the least, and he often took the sole credit for the excavation, even though the site had actually been excavated by a British archaeologist called Frank Calvert first.
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First posted on 28/4/24