Chapter 10
Edmund awoke the next morning feeling different than he ever had before.
Leftover rain dripped from the roof outside. The storm had continued all night, letting up only slightly after the mansion struck six in the morning. The sudden silence had jolted Edmund from his shallow sleep.
His sleep had to have been shallow; getting to sleep had been so difficult. He had settled into bed at the stroke of one in the morning. Even so late, no matter how still he lay, his heart beat so fast and thoughts sped through his brain at such a rate that he had lain awake for hours, assaulted by a thousand ideas all demanding his attention.
There was so much to think about that every time his heartbeat slowed and his breathing become regular, a new thought would jump into his head and he would become wide awake again.
When the mansion struck three in the morning, Edmund jumped off his mattress; he had to get the noise out of his head. Running to his desk and scribbling on a piece of paper like a madman, he wrote out all of the thoughts that were swirling around in his mind like a whirlwind, hoping they would stay put once they were written down. Questions, diagrams, phrases, ideas, and concepts covered page after page.
Twice he had to stop to refill his ink pen with an eyedropper. Each time, the thought he had been desperately trying to trap on the page flitted away again, only to be replaced by the certainty that there had to be a better way to fill a pen…
When he had exorcised his last thought, he lay down on his bed, placing a piece of paper next to him and gripping the freshly-filled pen in his hand. Whenever a new thought popped into his mind, he wrote it down without even opening his eyes.
Before long, he barely noticed the thoughts before they vanished down his arm, through the pen, and onto the page. In no time at all, he drifted off into sleep.
Now, blinking in the morning light as it filtered through the sooty window, Edmund could read what he had written. After pulling the predictable tray of food in from the hall, he sat down at his desk with the other pages he had written before he slept. Eating his breakfast of leftover watery soup and stale bread, he poured over the ruminations that had plagued him during the night.
With a rested eye, the thoughts were more orderly and understandable than they had been last night. There were even a few things he didn’t remember writing; he must have scrawled them out while he was sleeping. It was a brilliant practice, he decided, and he resolved to always sleep with a piece of paper and pencil in his hand from now on, in case he thought of something important and needed to remember it in the morning.
First, he needed a goal. He was going to make the Moulde family better, yes, but how? What made a family better? His first step had been to fill an entire page with hastily scrawled superlatives.
Several qualities were self-evident: Rich, for example went without saying, as did Titled, Landed, and Prestigious. Being unused to upper-class society, however, he also added several qualities that would have insulted, had their presence on the list been known; such as Supportive, Straightforward, Charitable, and Tolerant.
The Mouldes were obviously not rich, but Edmund knew absolutely nothing about how to get money. He had a theory it had something to do with having a job, but he also knew that jobs were not for the gentry. There had to be some upper-class method for acquiring funds.
When he was certain he couldn’t immediately improve the Moulde’s wealth, he crossed it off his list. Landed and Titled were also crossed off for similar reasons. One by one he worked his way through the list, pondering whether or not he could help his family improve.
When he had finished, every quality on the list had been crossed off. It was an effective lesson: Edmund may have resolved himself to play the game, but he still didn’t know all the rules. He didn’t know Moulde Hall, or how to run the estate. He didn’t know his cousins, or the servants, or…well, anything. It was all well and good to know what he was trying to do, but none of it mattered if he didn’t know how.
Page after page of notes, ideas, and thoughts reiterated this simple lesson: Edmund wasn’t ready; he needed to be patient. If he was going to rebuild the Moulde Family, he needed to be smart about it. Even after he had rebuilt the Moulde Family to its former glory, it wouldn’t do to have everything collapse because of a mistake or misunderstanding on his part.
Besides, if he did start to thwart his cousin’s plans, they would definitely stop ignoring him. Then he would have to deal with them on their terms, and they had been Mouldes for longer than he had. How effective could he be against them once they knew he was coming?
On the last page, Edmund had drawn a simple diagram: a looped metal tool with a single bent end.
Edmund rummaged in his pockets until he found the bent-key he had made last night. Holding the bent-key in his hand, a spark lit the fuse of Edmund’s heart. He had only intended it to open his door, but in the haze of choleric youth he had overlooked its far more important use: the bent-key wasn’t just a key for his door, it was a key to any door. No, not just doors, but any lock it could fit in. The image of every lock in Moulde Hall swinging open shimmered across his mind like a reflection in a pond.
Underneath the picture of the bent-key, two words were written in his sleepy handwriting; “Secret passage.”
The hidden passage could be a great asset. If there was one hidden passage, there were probably more. If his cousins didn’t know about them, Edmund would have a quick and sneaky way of getting around the house. He could listen at keyholes and unlock doorways only to dart through a secret passage before anyone caught him.
He considered giggling at the idea, but decided it was more appropriate for the Heir to the Moulde Estate to give an appreciative nod instead. He did so, and, dissatisfied, resolved to practice.
The inspection of his notes complete, Edmund was now forced to consider what to do with them. He didn’t want to burn them, (such an idea would take almost twenty years to become acceptable to him, thirty to become central to his endeavors) but leaving them out where any inquisitive eye could see them was dangerous. He briefly considered the idea that leaving them out in the open might cause them to be overlooked by a spy in favor of searching for hidden panels and secret compartments, but while such a childish stratagem might work for an amateur Parisian detective, it was a foolish idea in a house full of Mouldes.
Instead, Edmund rolled them up as tightly as he could and slipped them inside the brass tube that jutted from the raven’s mouth in his bathroom. It wasn’t an ideal hiding place, but it would do for now. He couldn’t spend too much longer in his room, after all; he had a mansion to explore.
Excited, Edmund nodded to himself. That’s what I am.
Edmund found the secret passageway right where he had left it, invisible against the wall. It took several minutes of running his hands up and down the stone columns before he found the right one, but once he did it was but the work of a second before he was sliding his way between the walls of Moulde Hall, his way lit by a tiny candle he had plucked from a chance candelabra.
The passages were thin, but usable. They moved up and down through Moulde Hall like worms, surrounding rooms and providing shortcuts for Edmund when he wanted them.
As was proper, throughout the passageways Edmund found metal straps that covered peepholes in the walls. With his candle-snuffer bell pressed against the wall, he could see and listen into the rooms on the other side of the walls with surprising ease. He made a note for himself to try the peepholes when next there was a family meeting.
The time that Edmund didn’t spend exploring the hallways was spent opening locked doors with his bent-key. There were still doors Edmund couldn’t open — either because they did not have locks at all, or were barred shut — but the rooms that Edmund could open were amazing.
Most were filled to the brim with paintings, statues, furniture, bookshelves, and carpets. Stuffed hunting trophies filled one room, while another had a large collection of ancient wax cylinders. Another was packed full of suitcases, chests, cabinets, and ornate boxes, all empty.
Some rooms defied definition. One was filled with strange glass equipment that was covered in hairline cracks. One room had only a fountain with stagnant water. One room was empty, but for a gust of wind that blew past Edmund when he pushed open the door, like the air had been under pressure. Another room had nothing but eight identically ornate mirrors arranged in a circle facing inwards. Edmund tried stepping in the middle to see what it looked like, but the mirrors had been bolted to the floor and couldn’t be moved aside.
Despite the best efforts of lovers, poets, and politicians, time continued to pass. Edmund woke up every day, dressed for breakfast in ill-fitting clothes, and ate leftover soup for breakfast while reading the notes he had written himself in his sleep. This could take up to an hour, with Edmund thinking, cross-referencing, imagining, strategizing, and thinking some more.
He had tried hiding his notes in different places at first, but then he decided it was less important to hide his notes than it was to know if anyone else had seen them. He began locking them in his desk with several carefully placed hairs, thin ink-lines, and balanced pins to alert him if anyone had searched his room and desk. He was equally delighted and disappointed that they were never disturbed.
As time went on, Edmund learned which secret doors lead to which floors and wings. He learned which rooms were largest, which Mrs. Kippling regularly cleaned, and where his cousins frequented.
He saw his cousins less and less. Dinners became solitary affairs with Edmund occupying the large chair at the head of the massive table, barren of any other Moulde. Sometimes an official apology was sent through Ung, absences explained as the result of feeling ill, unforeseen business, or prior engagement. Edmund didn’t mind; he didn’t relish the idea of being a dinner host ever again. When he did see his relatives in one of the many rooms or wandering the halls, they would either ignore him completely or chat over aimless banalities before making some obvious excuse.
Everything changed when he spied on his family from the hidden passages.
He saw Wislydale without a glass of liquor in his hand, clear-eyed and firm mouthed. Edmund watched as he scribbled on papers and letters, chewing on the end of his pen in thought. Finally, he shook his head and selected a single letter, which he then folded, sealed with wax, and handed to Ung the next chance he got. For several days he drank heavily until he received a reply, after which he drank more than ever, though Edmund couldn’t tell whether to celebrate or to forget.
He saw Kolb without a smile on his face, pacing his room like a worried tiger. He spoke silently, his mouth working with no sound coming out. Some days he stood as still as a statue, alone in his room for hours on end. Other days he wandered the grounds with a spring in his step or a whistle on his lips. He went into town regularly, always after cleaning and loading a small gun that he slipped under his jacket. Edmund never saw him unload it.
He saw Junapa invite strange men with tall hats and wide mustaches into her room, where they sat and talked about the weather. Sometimes Junapa had a fan, other times a cocktail glass. The men were sometimes dour, other times all charm and smiles. The only constant was that every time, Junapa bid her visitors farewell with an air of satisfaction, while the men left under a cloud of discontent.
He saw Pinsnip rocking back and forth on his bed, sweating profusely and shaking his head before jumping up, grabbing a letter opener from his desk, and driving it repeatedly into his feather pillow until he felt better. Later, Edmund would realize he was a fool for not recognizing the warning signs, but at the time he assumed this was perfectly reasonable behavior.
He never saw Tunansia; she spent most of her time in her room, which had no peephole. Meals were delivered by Ung, and when she left the room, which was rare, she always had her nose buried in a book.
He saw Tricknee pouring over books and letters, muttering to himself and inspecting Googoltha constantly with an assortment of doctor’s tools pulled from a black leather bag. Once a week he injected her with a bubbling green liquid before sending her out of the room. Once Edmund saw him cry.
Then there were the family meetings. At first, Edmund had thought his cousins were all fighting for the same cause; but after a few weeks, Edmund couldn’t imagine how he had ever thought they were working together. Matron may have been clever, but she couldn’t have done anything that hindered her relatives more than they hindered themselves. Edmund was beginning to realize exactly what Matron had meant about her cousins; they were spiteful, shortsighted, and as much as they wanted to acquire Matron’s estate, they were far more insistent that the other cousins did not.
Every family meeting began with strained etiquette and subtle insults, and ended with raging tantrums and bitter oaths. Junapa’s ploy to use another family’s wealth to buy Moulde property collapsed when Pinsnip waylaid her suitor. Kolb’s plan to give a socially prestigious gift to Matron on condition he be entered into her will fell apart when the police reclaimed it, thanks to a tip from Tunansia. Wislydale held a ball to gather support for his latest plan, but failed to attract the really important nobility after Junapa sent letters to various newspapers.
In less than half a month, Edmund could not count on his fingers the number of times one of his cousins attempted some scheme, only for the plot to fall to shambles through some clever maneuver or sudden alliance from the other cousins. Edmund saw plans formed, allegiances made, secrets revealed, and hopes dashed — often times all in the span of a single evening. Then, within a day or two, the whole process would begin again.
When Edmund wasn’t spying on his cousins, he was studying the mansion. He learned the carvings on every door, the wood, the stonework, even the fine metalwork on the handles were becoming familiar. He memorized the tapestries, busts, statues, and all the ornamentation that covered the walls. He spent days running from room to room, poking, prodding, and always carefully re-locking every door he opened. Gradually, the impossible maze of Moulde Hall became familiar and frighteningly comfortable.
Every day, after his bland dinner, he would return to his explorations until the mansion struck ten, at which point he would return to his room to read from the history, law, or financial books that provided the only literature he could avail himself of. Twice he returned to the study to exchange a stack of books for another, but each time the study’s meager books provided little sustinance for his mind.
Inevitably, he returned to poetry. While most noted scholars accept that he wrote at least two poems a day during this period, high estimations place the number closer to five.
The only pause in Edmund’s efforts — apart from sleep and eating a lonely dinner at six of the clock precisely — was taking Matron her tray of lunch.
After their tea in the rain, Edmund had hoped that Matron would be kinder to him, or at least more forgiving. To his delight, he found her neither cordial nor patient, but much more predictable.
A tradition had begun to form around their midday ritual. Edmund had become quite adept at timing his travels between the kitchen and Matron’s room. He rarely had to wait outside her door for longer than two minutes for the Mansion to chime twelve noon, at which point he would knock politely and take one half-step backwards.
In less than a second, Matron would throw open her door, look Edmund up and down for two and a half seconds on the outside, and then grab the tray from Edmund’s hands.
“What is the current price for a pint of milk on Baddling street?” She would ask, or some similarly unusual question. She asked him about stables, wheel-spokes, paint-brushes, felt, and stray cats. Edmund had long since given up trying to find some pattern in her questions, and instead developed the habit of simply shrugging and shaking his head in ignorance.
On some days, however, this tradition changed without warning. Sometimes, Edmund would knock and take his half step backwards, only for Matron to shout from her room to leave the tray outside. Other times she would command him enter and sit, only to stare at him in silence while she finished her soup with loud, painful slurps.
These days were horrible, and their unpredictable nature added a sense of dread to the walk from the kitchen to Matron’s room.
Little did Edmund know that the day he broke the tradition would become one of the most important days of his early years at Moulde Hall. It was the thirty-third day after his adoption, and on that day, he had an answer for Matron’s question.
“How does the wine taste in Locklenshire?” Matron’s cold eyes bored into him after her gnarled hands had snatched the tray from Edmund’s grasp.
Edmund had already begun to shrug his shoulders, when a flicker of memory lit in his mind. With a dawning sense of confusion, he realized that this wasn’t the first time he had heard of Locklenshire. Where had he heard it before?
A muted voice, from the other side of the wall. Deeper, but lilting, and with a different pacing…slower, but with fewer rests…smooth and lyrical but sloppy…
He opened his mouth, careful not to scare the memory away.
“It tastes…” what had Wislydale said? Edmund conjured up the sensations in his mind; his ear pressed against his bell as it sucked up the sound of Wislydale arguing with Junapa on the other side of the wall, delivering it to his ear. Shards of conversation drifted through his memory. "…find yourself up north…" “…proper steel…” “…fine service…” “…an overreliance on steam…” “…time-tables…”
They had been discussing trains? Bit by bit, Edmund reconstructed his memory.
“A fine service, old thing,” Wislydale smiled. “If you ever find yourself up north, Locklenshire station at least knows that a fine wine shouldn’t taste like — “
“Not like over-steeped tea,” Edmund said.
Matron’s eyes widened. For a moment she simply stared at Edmund, and then; “Who told you that?”
“Wislydale. He was telling Junapa about the Locklenshire train line.”
“Locklenshire Station,” Matron corrected, her eyes narrowing. “It’s a restaurant up north. What did Pinsnip say after Kolb waved him off?”
Edmund blinked. “Kolb wasn’t there.”
With the inevitability of a setting sun, Matron leaned closer to Edmund.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” The memory was clearer, now. “It was only Wislydale and Junapa. In the forth floor western drawing room.”
Matron’s mouth twitched. Straightening again, she glanced back and forth down the hallway, over Edmund’s head. After a moment she turned back. “Indeed…and what did Junapa say to Wislydale?”
“She called him an self-inflated wind-bag for thinking so.”
“Really?” Matron’s eyebrow shot upwards. “Self-inflated? Not self-important?”
Edmund nodded.
In the blink of an eye, Matron had vanished back through her door. There was a clatter of the tray and a brief moment of loud scratching before the door opened again and a folded letter was shoved into his face.
“Take this to Kolb,” she said, sharply, “and slip it under his…no. Make sure he takes it from your hand. Let him see your face.” Her sneer returned with reinforcements. “Take him his lunch.”
Edmund stared at the letter in his hand, and then back up to a face full of foreboding malice.
“Is this some adult thing?” he asked.
Matron gave a sharp crackling laugh. “Not at all, boy. It’s very childish indeed. Now get a move on — I have a letter to write to an old friend up north.”
The door slammed behind him as Edmund returned to the kitchen. He didn’t know what a letter had to do with wine, but it was clear that something important was happening, and this time he was in the middle of it.