Chapter 7
At first, Edmund was delighted to receive his first expectation as a Moulde. As he was still unfamiliar with the Moulde family, he assumed — quite incorrectly — that attending a family meeting would be an easy expectation to meet.
By the time he had made his way up the hill again, he realized it was an opportunity as well: In An Ornithological Watcher’s Primer, Lady Strumbrugge had been very explicit that the only reliable way to learn about birds was to watch them.
The dilettante bird-watcher had been clear: if a bird knows you are watching, you won’t learn anything about birds, you’ll just learn about birds that know they are being watched. Edmund assumed it would be the same situation with the Moulde Family. While in the case of birds, the solution was to dress up in bird-plumage, Edmund suspected this wouldn’t provide him the information he wanted.
Thankfully, he had a better option. If Wislydale was calling the meeting, surely that meant he was also going to do most of the talking? Edmund surely wouldn’t need to talk at all. If he sat off to the side and stayed quiet, they’d forget he was there — just like they had at dinner, just like Mrs. Mapleberry did, and just like the orphans always had.
The mansion had just begun to strike ten in the evening when Edmund found the giant double-doors to the large sitting room in the east wing. The room itself cluttered with chairs, side-tables, and cabinets full of strange metal devices, clay pots, and framed scraps of paper and cloth. Heads of various animals hung next to the fireplace while massive paintings dominated the long walls, each a portrait of some old and noble figure alternately smirking or scowling at the room. Two large settees sat facing the empty marble fireplace that dominated the far wall.
Dominated was the correct word; the fireplace was almost as big as the doors. It was shaped like an ornate gateway, with straight sides and a curving lintel. Around this fiery gate, the sides of the fireplace were sculpted into large tree-like pillars with pointed tops. Two stone ravens perched on these spires while the chimney breast rose like a white tongue covered with carvings of wolves and dragons, sextants and star fields. An ocean full of ships waved from the left while proud buildings stood firm on the right. Musketeers charged hills while lambs and farmers slept above them. It was a mural of history and myth that covered half the wall.
Edmund barely had time to settle in a large plush chair in the corner of the room — the most unobtrusive spot he could find — before his cousins arrived. They didn’t even glance in his direction as they filed in, settling in various chairs and settees while Wislydale headed for the large drinks cabinet. Junapa joined him, grabbing a small glass as she faced her relative.
“Well, Wislydale, we’re here,” she said as he reached for the large bottle of brandy on the shelf. “We’re having one of the first family meetings we’ve had at Moulde Hall in a very long time indeed. Now why don’t you tell us why you’ve called it?”
“Tricknee has not arrived yet, what?” Wislydale smiled. “We should wait for him.”
“Must we?” Tunansia sneered from her settee.
“I say, my dear gel, be a bit more patient, what?” Wislydale beamed at her. “May I pour you a drink? We’ve plenty of time.”
“Scotch. Time to do what?” Tunansia asked. “I’d rather be doing anything than having a friendly” the word was spat, “chat with you all — what is there to wait for? Why not get it over with?” She accepted a glass from Wislydale’s hand.
“I’m inclined to agree,” Kolb moaned theatrically, posing his hand on his forehead. “First a gin, then tell us what you have tripping about your tongue, Wislydale.”
“Tricknee should…really be here…” Pinsnip muttered, “and I’ll pour my own.”
“Why on earth do you want that old olfactory offense around?” Kolb sputtered, placing his hands on his hips as he leaned back. “He’s barmy as a Brazilian bat, and twice as ugly.”
“I say, steady on old chap,” Wislydale grimaced. “That is my father, what? I’d prefer if you didn’t use such common words; ‘horrid,’ if you please, or gristly if you must. Far more fitting, what?”
“He does have a tendency to say things quite bluntly,” Junapa smiled. “He was thrown out of the Beechworth’s ball last winter, wasn’t he?”
Wislydale gave a small cough. “I assure you, as uncomplicated as my dear father is, the Rotledges are far more troubled by his experiments than his behavior. They were worried some unpleasant questions might be asked…questions the old boy would have no choice but to answer, if you take my meaning.”
“Didn’t I hear something about…um…wasn’t the Church getting involved?” Pinsnip asked, a wry smile flashing under his mustache like a shy lizard. “Well, I don’t think the Mouldes want anyone around who…um…attracts that kind of attention, either.”
“If we’re discussing flaws, Pinsnip,” Wislydale cocked his head. “I rather think attracting attention is the forte of your nature, what?”
“It’s true,” Tunansia jumped in, glaring through her bangs at Pinsnip, “your hobbies tend to make newspaper headlines.”
“Well…yes but no-one can…nobody’s ever…I mean, the police have never even questioned me!”
“Regardless,” Junapa smoothly interjected, “It is about time we laid our cards on the table. There is far too much at stake for us to keep pretending we don’t know what’s going on.”
“Dear me,” Kolb crossed his arms, tilting his head back. “Our magnificent Matron has masterfully mollified your Machiavellian machinations. This is why I have forgone the foul formulation of familial flim-flaming in favor of friendship.”
“Flattery won’t get you anything, Kolb,” Tunansia smile was brittle as dried leaves. “You’re asking for too much.”
“It’s a much better deal than what you are leaving her,” Kolb shot back.
“That’s my mother’s idea!” Tunansia hissed, her composure fading as she savagely fingered the locket at her neck. “Besides, everyone in this room is offering more than anyone else, and then she goes and gets an heir? How could she have gotten the idea? She was never so fashionable. Mouldes don’t adopt!”
“I promise you,” Kolb’s arms embraced the room, “as far as Matron is concerned, none of us are Mouldes. We’re Charters, Popomuses, Knittles, and Rotledges. If it wasn’t for the scandal of it, I’m sure she would find a way to have all of us arrested — or worse, dis-owned!”
“Scandal,” Pinsnip sighed. “What about the…the scandal of adopting? Of…just inviting someone into the family? If she’s willing to do that, then…well…/we’re/ hardly safe.”
“She likes us better than anyone else in the family,” Junapa waved a hand dismissively.
“That doesn’t mean much, what?” Wislydale murmured into his glass. “I doubt she likes anyone or anything.”
“No matter,” Junapa snapped back. “If she can tolerate us, that means we have a better chance of getting what we want!”
“Matron’s no fool,” Pinsnip sighed. “She may…um…tolerate us, but that doesn’t mean we’ll see a dime. If anyone else gets into the will, or…or finds some legal loophole…well…um…we haven’t a chance.”
“By Jove, won’t we?” Wislydale said. “I say, that’s a spot of bad luck, what?”
Now everyone was looking at Wislydale, who calmly tipped his glass into his mouth and refilled it with gin.
“Alright, Wislydale, What are you planning?” Junapa asked, clasping her hands in front of her as a smile slid across her mouth. “Was this whole thing your idea? You didn’t happen to send a letter to Matron about someone’s plans, did you?”
“Perish the thought,” Wislydale smiled, sipping his glass. “I merely can see the opportunities that you all seem to have forgotten, what? Seize the day, and all that.”
“There must be something you can see,” Tunansia grumbled, drumming her fingers on her glass. “Because to me, it looks like a complete mess.”
“As much as I hate to descend to the juvenile taunts of the schoolyard,” Kolb slapped his stomach with his hand, “I’m afraid there is no better response to your statement than that it takes a mess to recognize a mess. I think I understand our cousin’s point; there’s a chance we could shift this situation to our satisfaction. Perhaps we could pivot our plans to potentially prevail against our pernicious parent?”
“Why bother?” Tunansia hissed, leering at Kolb through her eyebrows. “Isn’t there an easier, and more final way to return the status quo?”
There was an uncomfortable pause.
“It’s terribly bad form,” Wislydale drawled. “Please curtail your instincts, Tunansia; we mustn’t invite a scandal, no matter how simple it might make things.”
Tunansia might have responded had Tricknee not stormed into the room, throwing himself on the nearest chair like an old dog.
“Right,” he snorted, crossing his arms. “What do you want?”
“Very well, now that we’re all here…it’s simple, really,” Wislydale strolled towards the fireplace, his shoes squeaking as they crossed the thin carpet. “Our ultimate problem isn’t that our dear Matron now suddenly has an heir, what? Our problem is the same that it has always been. Matron controls the estate.”
“Well of course she does!” Junapa stood from her chair and paced the room. “The estate belongs to the Mouldes, and as far as Matron’s highly-paid lawyers are concerned, none of us are legally Mouldes.”
“If only she’d…well…died before she’d adopted an heir!” Pinsnip whined, gulping at his brandy. “We’d have been able to get her…her estate transferred to one of us. I’m sure there was…was something about that in the original deed.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Tricknee grumbled, stroking his chin. “That rotting crow is sharp. I’d be shocked if the old bag hadn’t done something tricky with her will.”
“It wouldn’t stand with the other founding families,” Junapa shook her head. “The deed would have to take precedence, since it was signed by her great-great-great —”
“A moot point,” Wislydale coughed, speaking a bit louder than before. “I dare say I have a plan that will render Matron’s hold over the estate completely…impotent.”
There was a pause. Thunder cracked somewhere overhead.
“I consider it quite bad form to keep us in such suspense, Wislydale,” Junapa sighed. “Get on with it.”
Wislydale reached into his pocket and pulled out a small piece of paper. He unfolded it and held it up like a preacher’s bible, gripping his drink to his chest like a crucifix. A glint crept into his eye as the languid drifting drawl faded from his voice.
“I have here the name of a noted solicitor from a reputable family, who, after several conversations over dinner and drinks, is prepared to put in writing that our dear Matron has succumbed to the infirmities of age and is no longer mentally fit to own the Moulde Estate.”
Kolb let out his breath. “This again? You’ve had that paper for years, Wislydale. You know as well as we do, it won’t favor any of us to mark our malodorous Matron as mentally maladjusted.”
“Won’t it?” Wislydale flapped the paper. “If she is declared mentally infirm, the estate will transfer to her legal guardian, what? And that would be her closest living relative.”
Tricknee rolled his eyes. “Fool! Every genealogist, solicitor and heraldic scholar in Brackenburg has been arguing who that is for years.”
“Yesterday I would have agreed with you,” Wislydale nodded, “but today, our dear Matron has outsmarted herself! That question has been quite officially resolved!”
In the span of a heartbeat, the air in the room had changed from exasperated to astonished.
“Him?” Tricknee’s mouth dropped open.
“Resolved by city hall,” Junapa raised her finger. “By adoption. The Founding Families will never abide by such a plebeian institution.”
“But would they take action?” Wislydale spread his arms wide. “The other eight families hate Matron as much as we do. Would they prevent us from removing her as head of the Moulde family?”
Kolb smiled. “You think we should shift our subterfuge to a somewhat simpler subject?”
“He would be easier to manipulate than Matron, that is without question,” Junapa said, cocking her head to one side.
Edmund leaned an inch closer. Were they talking about him?
“We would have to be…quick,” Pinsnip muttered. “She’ll do something quite vicious if we…um…let her.”
“If we let her?” Kolb clapped his hands. “My dear Pinsnip, I doubt very much there is anything we could do to stop her! But for a few lucky breaks of late, she has managed to befuddle our individual efforts at every turn.”
“She wouldn’t have missed something so simple, would she?” Tunansia asked.
“She is getting old,” Wislydale shrugged, “and tired. I’m afraid that in thwarting our efforts she has left herself wide open to a clever and inspired riposte…from yours truly.”
“No…she hasn’t,” Pinsnip groaned, sitting down heavily. “He…well…legally…he’s not of age yet. Any contract he takes part in becomes…his guardian’s. Control of the estate would fall to…”
He was interrupted by Wislydale’s waving the paper in the air like a flag. “That’s absurd!” He sputtered. “She’ll be mentally unfit!”
“I’m sure your lawyers would love to lever open that legal whip-lashing of the law,” Kolb chuckled.
“So you’re right back where we started from,” Tricknee laughed, slapping his knee with a loud crack. “It was a stupid idea anyway, wasting time with that worm.”
Were they talking about him? There was only one sure way to find out. Structuring the question in his mind with proper meter and rhyme, he took a deep breath and politely coughed, to draw attention to himself.
“Well done, my boy,” Tricknee sneered. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more elaborate way of doing nothing in my life.”
“Not me,” Tunansia smirked. “Though I’ve spent more time with Junapa than you have.”
“If we’re discussing doing nothing,” Junapa said, her eyes narrow, “Then I have to ask how well you are faring at Grimm’s. I’ve heard tell that you’re not much for impressing the teachers, are you?”
Edmund coughed again. It was raining hard outside; maybe they just hadn’t heard him?
“They don’t know anything,” Tunansia snapped, “and I didn’t go there to impress anyone.”
“A wise move, darling,” Kolb smiled. “Best to set reasonable goals for oneself.”
“Don’t make me laugh,” Pinsnip interjected. “I’ve never seen you set…a reasonable goal in your life. You just…um…bumble around making mistakes!”
Something was wrong. Edmund took a large lungful of air, and coughed as loudly as he could.
“Don’t bring me into this, you petulant pup!” Kolb snapped. “Or need I bring up the trouble we had last year, hiding your little mishap? I can only imagine the scandal if one of us decided to send an anonymous letter to the police.”
“Bringing up scandals, Kolb? We’ll be here for hours recounting yours,” Tricknee rolled his eyes back in his head as he leaned back in his chair.
“At least Kolb is productive,” Tunansia muttered. “All you care about is your damned laboratory.”
“Well isn’t that the flask calling the beaker glass!” Tricknee snorted. “I’ll have you know my laboratory is more productive than the rest of you put together!”
“Really?” Tunansia smirked. “In what way?”
“Ha!” Tricknee grinned. “Nice try, gel! Looks like I’ll have to get rid of a few traitorous servants when I get back home.”
“What?” Tunansia balked. “Why?”
“Excuse me,” Edmund said, foregoing the cough entirely. Still they ignored him, pecking and croaking at each other like angry ravens.
“Come now, dear,” Tricknee’s smile was perfectly patronizing. “You’re fifteen now, you’re old enough to know your own tells. Clumsy bluffs like that are what make your mother so disappointed.”
“I believe this meeting is over,” Junapa’s voice sliced through the room like a dagger. She swept to the door, glancing over the rest of the family as she passed. “I think we can all agree that this has been an informative evening, but not a fruitful one. If no one else has any other business to discuss, I will adjourn to my room.”
Finishing his drink in a single swallow, Wislydale poured another before following. Kolb, Tricknee, and Pinsnip left after, leaving Edmund alone with Tunansia.
“Enjoy that?” she asked.
Edmund’s skin start to crawl along his back as Tunansia stood, turning to face Edmund with a savage look in her eye.
“If you really want to be involved with any of our little meetings, you won’t be able to survive on coughs and politeness. Then again, I don’t think you’re going to survive at all.”
“You heard me?” he asked.
Tunansia glared at him as she fingered her locket. “Of course we did. We saw you too. If you were trying to hide, you were doing a damn poor job of it, sitting out in the open like that.”
“People usually don’t notice me.” A thunderclap rippled through the room.
“I’m not surprised,” Tunansia laughed, “but we’re Mouldes. We notice everything people might want to hide, anything someone could be ashamed of; of course we noticed you. Then we decide exactly how useful whatever we notice is, and if it’s not significant, we ignore it.”
Tunansia gave one final smirk and walked out of the room while a crack of thunder split the sky.
Edmund didn’t move as the storm raged outside. What was this feeling? It wasn’t just cholor or melancholy…it was both? Anger and sadness swirling about, mixing and separating again like inconsistent chemistry…
Neither the anger nor sadness made sense. He was sad for himself? No…/at/ himself? Edmund understood how to be mad at someone, but sad at someone? And he was mad at himself at the same time?
They had ignored him. They didn’t care about what he did, but hadn’t forgotten he was in the room. It was a sharp contrast from Mrs. Mapleberry, who cared a great deal about Edmund’s behavior, but could never notice him.
He had wanted them to ignore him. That was why he had been so still and silent. He had wanted them to ignore him, so he could listen and learn how to be a Moulde.
So far, he had learned Mouldes were cruel.
This wasn’t anger, this was…frustration? Resentment? No…no…
He had wanted this, hadn’t he? He wanted to learn how to be a Moulde, and he had. He wanted to be ignored, and he had been. True, they had ignored him instead of him making them ignore him, but the result was the same.
Wasn’t it?
Shame. I am ashamed.
The Mansion struck eleven, the chimes rippling through Edmund like a heartbeat. After a few minutes, he filed Shame others for their failings into what it meant to be a Moulde, and headed off to his room
The first night Edmund lay in his new bed — the second in Moulde Hall — he had trouble sleeping.
It wasn’t because it was his first time sleeping in a bed larger than himself, with a mattress that was packed tight with feathers. Nor was it because he had never had more than one blanket before, and never one that didn’t have holes. He didn’t have trouble sleeping because he felt like he was suffocating in a pile of clouds, or drowning in a sea of down.
He had trouble sleeping because whenever he started to drop off to sleep, he would suddenly remember who he was, where he was, and why he was there. With these facts at the forefront of his mind, it proved impossible to stop his mind from churning away like a steam engine.
The lack of sleep didn’t worry him; he never slept more than three or four hours a night. He had only stayed in bed in the orphanage out of obligation. Just the same, when he climbed out of his massive bed the next day, he was acutely aware of how much sleep he had not gotten.
The first thing he noticed upon waking was that it was still raining outside. The storm hadn’t let up since dinner the night before, and looking up at the black cloud of Brackenburg through the gray-frosted windows provided no promise of it easing up anytime soon.
The second thing Edmund noticed was the large pile of books sitting on his desk. Ung had stacked them very neatly, with the thickest and largest books on the bottom. Edmund ran his fingers over the black and brown leather. He could almost feel the words inside, clamoring to be read.
The third thing he noticed was that he was hungry.
Edmund had already learned that Ung was a reliable butler, and sure enough, a tray of breakfast sat outside Edmund’s room. He pulled the tray inside to eat while he flipped through a few of his coveted books. He sampled each one like a connoisseur, reading a chapter or two before moving on to the next, and then the next, with the black rain providing a staccato backdrop to his meal.
He had sampled all of his books in an hour.
They were not ideal. The history books were little more than lists of dates and small descriptions. The law books were overly verbose, and the lettering was too small. The financial books were little more than lists of formulae and symbolic logic, something Edmund would have found amazingly interesting if they weren’t so bland. Symbols were introduced, demonstrated, and then ignored, with no style, passion, or…well, poetry. Edmund barely had to glance through the book before he understood the principles, and then there was nothing more to say.
All in all, the books were unsatisfying drops of water in the book-less desert of Moulde Hall. He hated the idea that these books were all he had, but the fact was that these books were all he had. His only hope was that, the deeper into the books he read, the more interesting and valuable they would become.
Nevertheless, the idea of ploughing through the books at the moment was deeply unappealing, so instead, Edmund washed and dressed himself in preparation to explore more of Moulde Hall.
Anyone who has taken the time to walk down the halls of any reputable art-gallery in England — and indeed, some of the more civilized foreign countries — will have seen at least four portraits that originally hung in Moulde Hall. It is one of the great blessings of Edmund’s early life that he saw no less then all of the paintings that the Moulde family had commissioned and displayed across the mansion.
At first, Edmund spent his time wandering a bit aimlessly, opening interesting doors and ignoring the dull ones. Every room was different; some were sparsely furnished, others full of haphazardly thrown about furniture. Many had an obvious use, but others appeared purposeless. In one room the furniture was covered in thick white linen, giving the chairs and tables the look of mushrooms growing from the white carpet. One room was vacant except for a strange brown stain on the wooden floor. Few of the rooms appeared regularly used.
Several times he found a door with ornate designs covering the front or foreign languages framing the doorway, only to try the handle and find it solidly locked. He always tried to peek through keyholes of these rooms, but he never saw anything worthwhile. He listened at one locked doorway when he thought he heard music, but it stopped as soon as his ear brushed the wood. One door had even been boarded up from the other side — he could see the nails sticking through.
Each wing and floor had its own decor; ranging from Medieval, with suits of armor holding sentry next to tapestries bearing coats of arms; to clusters of ancient weapons and wooden masks; to Grecian, with busts of dour looking men and women glowering at the opposing wall; to ancient Norse; and everything in-between.
Large drops of black soot-filled water splattered hard against the walls of Moulde Hall as he wandered, the gas-lights casting deep flickering shadows all throughout the hall. The building shivered and rang whenever the clock in the foyer struck the hour, turning the whole mansion into a giant clock-bell. He was barely needed to stop walking anymore when the floorboards quivered under his feet. He only staggered once, notable only because when he picked himself he nearly hit his head on a slim dagger sticking in the wall where he hadn’t remembered seeing one before.
When Edmund guessed he was near the middle of Moulde Hall, he rounded a corner only to find himself face to face with a small cylindrical elevator shaft. Edmund had read about elevators before; or more specifically, the principles involved in their function; and he was excited to finally experience one.
There was a large button nearby lined with ivory, obviously for calling the elevator. Edmund pushed it and waited patiently while distant gears and hissing steam echoed through the shaft.
Slowly, a cylindrical room lined with alabaster and porcelain rose into view. Brass railing and grating wound about its sturdy frame. The lever that moved the elevator up and down was a beautiful design, carved like a leaping hound with its nose pointing to the ornate numbers that marked the current floor.
Edmund stepped inside and pushed the hound so that its nose pointed at the number one. There was a whirring thunk and the elevator began to move; slowly at first, then gaining speed. The hallway outside the gate rose into the air followed by the third floor rising into view. The second floor soon followed, then the first, before the elevator came to a shuddering halt with an echoing clang.
Edmund spent a few minutes riding the elevator, reveling in the mechanical wonder that had replaced the mansion’s archaic stairs. Streams of poetic verse about rising and falling on the whims of physics flowed through Edmund’s mind.
Eventually he became bored. He stepped out of the elevator on the ground floor, only to run into a flustered flurry of Mrs. Kippling as she dashed back and forth across the hallway.
“Oh!” she gasped, clasping her hand to her chest, striking herself full in the face with a feather-duster. “Master Edmund! You gave me quite a start! Begging-your-pardon, I’m just doing the dusting before lunch. Are you enjoying the thunderstorm?”
“It’s very nice,” Edmund said politely, “I’m exploring.”
“Ah yes,” Mrs. Kippling sighed, turning to look at the large suit of armor that dominated the near wall. It rattled gently as the Mansion shook from an ear-splitting thunderclap. “Such a lovely building, filled with such ornate decorations. And every one has a story!”
“Do you know them?” Edmund asked. He had been making up his own in lieu of any readily available ones.
“Oh dear me, no!” Mrs. Kippling waved her duster at Edmund’s face. “Why, most of these are centuries old! Old Matron Iseybel was a bit of a collector, you know…among other things. Have you gone and seen the statue garden yet?”
“I did,” he said. “They were very nice.”
Mrs. Kippling sighed with a wistful smile. “Oh, isn’t that just the truth. We had some of the best sculptors work for Moulde Hall, back in the day. And every Matron and Patron commissioned their own statue once they were appointed. Patron Plinkerton put in the clock, and Rotchild put in the snake and sword…Of course, no one has been keeping them up for years, so they’re all a bit crumbly now. Not-my-place, but out of all the statues in the Mansion, I think my favorite was the Gran Gargoyle, old Kahmlichimus.”
“Kahmlichimus?” Edmund stumbled over the bizarre name.
“Oh yes,” Mrs. Kippling grinned maniacally. “He were an old statue that used to sit right over the grand entrance. Mightily handsome he was, carved by great stone-workers and fit as the keystone to the entryway of Moulde Hall. They said he would eat anyone who tried to enter Moulde Hall who was unwelcome, or had murderous intent in their hearts. A great statue not-my-place.”
“Where is it now?”
“The poor thing got pulled down years ago and thrown into a storage room. Matron Victrola said it was ugly, ‘course, she never had great taste begging-your-pardon. I think she couldn’t help but have murderous intent in her heart all the time and was getting nervous. It were only a statue, after all, and even if she had murderous intent, that didn’t make her much different than any other Moulde who walked through that door. Oh, but he was a sight; even had the Moulde Family Motto carved under him.”
“I didn’t know we had a motto. What is it?”
“Momento Mori,” Mrs. Kippling smiled. “It means ‘Remember you will die.’”
Edmund stared at the strange armor as the staccato beat of the black rain beat on the walls of the mansion. It was a strange motto; at once a philosophy and a threat. So that’s what it means to be a Moulde.
“Oh!” Mrs. Kippling gasped again, her feather-duster momentarily covering her face before dropping to her side again. “It’s just about time for you to take Matron her lunch! Come along, quickly now!”
Edmund shook himself free from his thoughts as he ran after Mrs. Kippling. Something else was tickling at the back of Edmund’s neck; he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had missed something important, but he wasn’t sure what.
It was still raining.
It was an odd respite for Edmund, taking lunch to Matron once more; simple chores were a comfort, not a burden. He thought wistfully for a moment about the life of a butler and how happy Ung must have been to work for such a reliable Matron.
His respite was short-lived, however, as his traitorous brain reminded him of Matron’s stern gaze and cold frown. Would she have heard about the family meeting? Did she know about Edmund’s embarrassment? Would she look at how far he had come, how much he had learned about being a Moulde, and think it not enough?
The thunder outside rolled as he stepped next to Matron’s door and raised his hand to knock.
His hand stopped an inch away from the wood. Matron was not alone in her room; he could hear voices through the thick wood. The rain was loud enough on the walls of the mansion that he couldn’t quite hear them clearly, but he was certain Matron was one of them. He wasn’t eager to knock and have to apologize for interrupting her conversation, so he set the tray outside her door, the same as Ung had done for him.
His second thoughts were that he wanted to know who Matron was talking to.
His third thoughts were that someone behind the door had just said his name.
Eventually, Edmund was able to amass several hundred qualities and behaviors that went into ‘being a Moulde,’ compiled in his Principia Humanica; but at the time he was unaware that listening at keyholes was considered common and a clear sign of laziness by the upper-class. Ignorant of such prejudices, he leaned his ear against the tiny hole under the door-handle.
Instantly, the muffled voices were crystal clear.
“I wasn’t aware the Moulde family could stoop lower, in your estimation.” Matron’s voice was as harsh and grating as ever.
“Oh, I am as surprised as you are,” was that Tricknee? “Ever since Plinkerton your family has been subject to one degenerate head after the other. Look at you, Matron; the last real Moulde, alone with two servants in a house built for sixty. I thought we had a deal.”
“Did we? I’m getting older, you know. My memory is weak. Do you have a contract, perhaps? Something I signed?” Matron sniped at her converseur in sharp thrusts.
“Do you realize what I am doing for you, you old hag?” Tricknee’s rattling voice parried every jab with a grave persistence. “Do you know what my son tried to do yesterday? He tried to have you declared mentally incompetent! He would have locked you up in your own Hospital. I’m at least trying to give you a deal.”
“How kind. I get another mouth to feed, while you get a sizable sum of money and the Church off your back and onto mine? I must be old, because I am unfamiliar with this new definition of deal.”
“You get an heir. A real one, not some adopted gutter-rat, but a legitimate blood connection to the Setterson Pattenburghs! Practically royalty!”
“A connection I would never be able to claim.”
“You would know the connection was there, and the Matron I used to know could turn that single piece of information into a gold-mine. Damn it all, Matron, I’m throwing you a rope!”
There was a pause, and a shuffling noise that was barely louder than the rain slapping against the side of the mansion.
“You’ve fooled the others,” Tricknee’s voice was soft. “Ever since Plinkerton, the Moulde family has been wasting away, year after year…and then you become Matron — at age eleven, no less. Even now, they think you’re planning something. That you’ve got some grand scheme, or master plan. At worst, they think you’re a little tired. They don’t trust any of their victories, because they think you’re still the same Matron you were years ago…but I’m just as old as you are and I know your dirty little secret. You’re desperate.”
“Am I.” It wasn’t a question.
“Of course you are. When your father was taken away, you still had at least ten servants, and a few close relatives. Now, you are the last Moulde of Moulde Hall. You have no husband, no children, you fell back on adopting. I’m giving you an alternative; send the boy back, and sign Googoltha into your will.”
“And pay you enough to settle your debts,” Matron muttered. “Beware Rotledge’s bearing gifts.”
“Tell me you wouldn’t rather die than lose to one of those miserable little tenth-rate upstarts.”
Matron snorted, or perhaps laughed. “You think I’d rather be the Matron who signed away a centuries old family — gone with the stroke of a pen — to the Rotledges, of all families?”
“Re-name her!” Tricknee’s voice shrieked. “Make her a Moulde, if you must! Your fancy solicitors know a thousand tricks. This isn’t about the Mouldes and the Rotledges; this is about you and me.”
“Hardly. This is about your grandaughter, and my…my heir.”
“Pah!” Tricknee spat. “That miserable little snot-rag? He couldn’t find his way out of your ratty old hedge-maze with a compass and a map.”
“You think you’re any better?” Matron’s voice was clear. “You may be as old as I am, but that means I’m as old as you. I sign anything over to you and yours, and you’ll lose it as fast as I would.”
“Yes…alright, damn you, yes; I’m just as tired as you are. You know as well as I do that this damned feud between the Mouldes and the Rotledges has nothing to do with us anymore. Haggard Hill, the coal, all of it…we’re old, Mander. We’ve been fighting each other for decades; we’re such good enemies we’re better than friends. No, not enemies; adversaries. Our real enemy isn’t each other, it’s them. It’s who is coming after us.”
There was a sigh before Tricknee continued, his voice sagging like an over-soaked rag. “Honestly, Mander, why on earth did you adopt that boy? Did you honestly think that having a filial heir would stop them? Our generation, maybe, but them? They’ll chew him to pieces and spit him out. They don’t follow the old ways like we do.”
The temperature in Matron’s voice dropped. “Old ways? You march that…girl…into my Mansion, and dare to mention the old ways?”
“She,” Tricknee’s voice snapped like steel “is my granddaughter, whatever else she is.”
“Is she now? And I suppose the boy isn’t my son, whatever else he is? The Church won’t be hunting for him, will they?”
“They…don’t know about her. They probably never will, and if they did — "
“If they did, you think I’m in a better position to protect her than you? Or is the Moulde family a more acceptable loss than your own skin?”
There was another pause. Edmund pressed his ear hard to the door, straining to pick up any hint of response through the rain outside.
Finally, Matron sighed again, irritation clear in her tone. “Far be it from me to tear a child away from her loving family; I am afraid Googoltha will have to make do with being a Rotledge; please convey to her my sympathies.”
“You’re as intractable of an old bat as always. This could save your family.”
“And then what?” Matron said, “As you so eloquently put it: this is about who is coming after us. I will not pay you a living-wage for handing me an heir when I already have one, especially that heir. Good day.”
Edmund quickly moved to the other side of the tray, rubbing his sore ear, as Tricknee shoved his way through Matron’s door. He didn’t even bother to stop as he stomped past, a sidelong glare the only sign that he knew Edmund was there.
Picking up the tray, Edmund waited for the door to swing closed before he carefully knocked, fully prepared to apologize for the lateness of her meal.
He needn’t have worried; she barely let him speak. No sooner had his hand lowered, then Matron flung open the door and grabbed the tray from him with a startling speed, given her age and frailty.
“Tell me, boy,” she snapped, “What do you know about dowries?”
Edmund knew absolutely nothing about dowries, and immediately wonder if they were something else he should apologize for. Perhaps it was yet another strange adult thing that Edmund would not be able to understand until he grew older. Of course, by that time Matron would probably be dead, and he wouldn’t be able to ask if he was right.
Confronted with yet another confusing question that he was obviously expected to know the answer to, Edmund could do little more than shrug before the door was slammed firmly in his face.
A thunderclap shook Moulde Hall as Edmund stared at the closed door. Was this what it meant to be a Moulde? Being asked questions at unexpected times for no easily discernible reason? If so, Edmund knew he was drastically under-prepared.