Grandmother's sudden declaration that she would be coming to supper, regardless of how Mother and Father felt, sent the entire household into a tailspin.

Mrs Smith complained under her breath about having little to no warning about additional supper company and I heard her mention something about Mrs Jenkins, the old housekeeper, at the same time. She busied herself with preparations for supper with the help of Mary and Helen who handled the sudden flurry of activity like professionals. The same, however, could not be said of Father.

He took the next day off work, sending a message to both the hospital and Doctor Isaacs about a family incident that had cropped up. I watched from the doorway the evening before the supper as he fretted about what would happen and how both Grandmother and Aunt Matilda would behave during the meeting. At one point, he started to reel off a list of excuses we could use to back out of a meeting that had been thrust upon all of us; apparently, Grandmother expected me to be there.

I wanted to take the day off school so I could help with the preparations, but Mother had none of it.

"School is important, Izzy. You missed enough last week and I doubt Miss Reid would be pleased if you missed anymore," Mum had said when I asked her at supper.

"But I want to help. It's just one day."

"One day on top of the several you missed out on last week and the lessons you missed when we were at the seaside. You can't miss any more school days until the end of the academic year. That's my final decision on the matter.

"Your mother is right, Izzy," Father said. "You can help out when you get home, I'll send Marsh to get you from school. Education is important and you shouldn't miss it because of Mother."

"Fine." I huffed and stabbed a carrot on my plate, sending it hurling across the table and almost landing in Father's wine glass.

After supper, I retired to my room so I could work on the mathematics problems we had tackled in class; I still didn't fully understand them. In my room, Father had placed the old writing desk that had once been his which I perched at with my chalk slate resting on top. The desk faced out the window with the fading sunlight almost mocking me because I couldn't go outside and instead had to do my schoolwork.

I worked my way through some additional mathematics problems but my mind kept back to the supper we were hosting and just what might have caused the rift between the family. It had to be serious, there would be no reason for such a deep rift if it had been something simple like an argument over supper. Not only that, but it also had to be something bad enough for no one to want to even discuss it, even if it was twenty-four years after the fact.

My entire family had turned on Grandmother for what she did and yet I couldn't for the life of me imagine what it could have been. I drummed the end of my pen on the desk and continued to stare out the window, trying to figure out what had happened. Uncle Christopher had said they were trying to protect me, but protect me from what? Although he said that they weren't treating me like a child, it still felt that way.

It felt like they were keeping something important from me, something that I should know about. They couldn't protect me forever and I didn't like being treated like one of the twins when I could make my own mind up and decide what I wanted for myself. If Miss Reid thought I was old enough to determine my future, then why couldn't my parents see I was old enough to know the truth about what caused the rift?

At school the next day, I spent our lunch break brainstorming potential professions that might interest me in the future. It turned out to be a rather difficult task.

"What are you doing?" Evelyn asked. She dropped down in the chair at the desk beside mine and tilted her head towards the piece of paper.

"Miss Reid asked me about my future prospects yesterday and I'm drawing up a list of things I might want to do," I said.

"How is that going?"

"Not very well. I can't think of anything."

"You could be a school teacher. My sister works as one, maybe you could talk to her. She's staying with us for the next few days, you could come to mine after school, Mother won't mind." Evelyn looked at me with pleading eyes, she had never been a very popular girl in school and no doubt liked the idea of having someone to stay for supper.

"I'd like to, but I have a family event tonight," I said. "I have to have supper with my grandmother and aunt, both of whom I didn't know existed until recently."

Evelyn frowned. "How could you not know they existed?"

"No one ever told me." I shrugged. "Maybe I could talk to your sister later in the week? How long is she staying for?"

"Until Sunday evening. I'll talk to Mother and find out when would be best."

Evelyn smiled and walked to the other side of the room and grabbed one of the leatherbound books from the small shelf. She then crossed to the cloakroom and curled up to read the book before we had to return to lessons for the day. Most of the other girls in our glass thought Evelyn to be of an odd sort since she often had a smile on her face, even if she had no reason to smile. Most people stayed away from her, but Mother always taught me to see the good in people no matter what.

After school, Marsh picked me up and we drove back to the house where preparations for supper were well underway. The dining table had already been laid, Mother and Father were dressed in their evening wear and it looked like no extravagance was too little for such a simple event. It felt odd that they were going to such lengths for a woman they weren't all too keen on, but I could hardly judge since I had no idea what had caused the divide.

Mother shooed me upstairs the moment I arrived, telling me that a dress had been laid out and that I was to change and run a brush through my hair - not that it would make the slightest bit of difference to the state of it. The dress she had chosen was a dark blue colour that came to the bottom of my calves and the sleeves ran down to my wrist. It flared out a little at the waist, a little different from the tea dress most expected me to wear.

I changed into the dress and replaced my school boots with a clean, more appropriate pair. Once changed, I ran a brush through my hair as requested, but it didn't make a difference and somehow managed to make the curls more unruly. After adding a blue ribbon to my hair, I returned to the entranceway where Mother stood fidgeting with a hairpin. The entire house felt like a weight had been dropped on it, as though the building itself had started to hold its breath.

When the doorbell rang, Mrs Smith stepped forward to open it although she didn't appear happy about it. She most likely would have gone along with one of Father's plans to avoid the meeting were she given the option to do so.

"Welcome, Mother, Matilda," Father said when Grandmother stepped through the threshold. He had a smile stretched onto his face, although it looked to be rather painful.

"Robert," Grandmother said. She turned to Mrs Smith who accepted the parasols and coats from both women. "You are rather familiar."

"This is Mrs Smith, you may remember her better as Esther, one of the servants who worked under you all those years ago."

"Ah, yes. Whatever happened to that other girl? What was her name? Sarah?"

"Sarah moved onto a different household, ma'am," Mrs Smith said.

"Hm, shame."

Grandmother stared at Mother but said nothing although it looked to be on the tip of her tongue. I stood beside Mother, feeling her place a light hand on the small of my back but I think she did it to steady herself rather than help me. Mrs Smith hung the coats up in the cupboard along with the parasols and quickly disappeared down to the kitchen to make sure supper preparations were going smoothly.

Behind me, Mother took a shaky breath and I could almost hear her heart thumping away inside her chest. She certainly didn't appear that comfortable with the supper. Still, she was the one to suggest we make our way into the dining room for supper. The table had been laid with the placemats that I had seen Grandfather use around Christmas time. All of the glassware and cutlery had been polished within an inch of its life and nothing appeared out of place.

I slid into my seat and placed a cloth over my lap to prevent any unfortunate accidents, although I had nothing to protect the front of my dress and I had never been known to be a clean eater. Grandmother watched me out of the corner of her eye and I did my best to follow the etiquette lessons Mother had given me.

"I am rather surprised she is not in a tea dress. She is the right age, I assume," Grandmother said.

"Isabel isn't all that fond of a tea dress, she says they get the way of her adventures on the grounds," Mother said.

"Hm. Perhaps you should not encourage such behaviour, it is hardly becoming for a young lady."

"Who says I cannot be a young lady and still enjoy looking for frogs in the pond? It's not as if anyone else sees me," I said.

"That is hardly the point, girl."

"If you are going to address my daughter, at least address her by name, Mother. Unless you do not want the same courtesy."

Before Grandmother could respond, Helen and Mary appeared in the doorway with supper. They handed around bowls of Cream of Barley soup, something I had only had once and did not like the taste of. Although I struggled through it as best I could, there were several moments throughout the course when I thought I might vomit and had to either take a sip of the water provided or pretend to wipe my mouth so I could spit it out.

I still found it strange that Father would go so far to impress Grandmother when it had become clear he didn't like her. A starter at supper was a rare event and yet he had pulled out all the stops for a woman he didn't like. None of it made much sense to me and I couldn't understand why Father wouldn't want to show her a normal family supper. PArt way through supper, I found myself glancing up to the portrait of Grandfather and wondering what he would think of it all.

He would never have pulled out the stops like Father did for someone he did not like, in fact, he most likely would have refused to even entertain the idea. I wished he was sitting with us at the table. His chair at the head of the table had been left empty and I knew he would have found a way to diffuse the tension that had settled over the entire house. Even after a week, I missed him as much as I had when we first heard about the sinking, but Father looked like he didn't care.

Uncle Christopher had said they never would have disrupted Grandfather's memorial on purpose, but it felt like Grandfather had become a distant memory. We were staying in his house, eating his food and living normal lives like nothing had happened, but it had. Grandfather was gone and it felt like I was the only one who cared.

"Has there been any word from your father's lawyer regarding his will?" Grandmother asked when Mary and Helen appeared to remove the soup bowls.

"Not really," Father grumbled. "He is still trying to figure out the real value of the estate and sort through any important documentation."

"I had no idea it took so long. Will you be staying in the house until then?"

"Yes. We had been charged with looking after it when he left and I intend to follow through on that promise until the will has been settled."

"Does Isabel go to school?" Aunt Matilda asked, speaking for the first time that evening.

"Indeed she does. We've been educating her since she was a child."

Aunt Matilda appeared to scoff. "Is she bright?"

"My teacher thinks so. She asked me about which profession I wanted to move into afterwards," I said, becoming a little irate that everyone spoke around me and about me rather than to me.

Grandmother glared at me and even Mother gave me a warning look that I should not have spoken out of turn. I resist the temptation to roll my eyes, wondering why I had even been asked to join them if no one had the decency to address me directly. Somehow, the tension in the room weighed down a little more and I gripped at the cloth on my lap and then flexed my hand out again.

With the tension growing stronger and everyone else refusing to tell me the truth about what had happened to cause the tension, I decided I needed to find out what happened. I wanted to be treated like an adult. I wanted to have them address me rather than talk through me. I didn't want to be treated like a child anymore.

"Grandmother?" I said.

"Yes?"

"How come I didn't know you existed until last week?"

The silence was so strong that I could have heard a pin drop.

~~~

A/N - We are back with Chapter Five! I've just finished Chapter Twenty-Nine and with the history of this series, we know that it will have a twist ending! I've almost finished writing it offline and it's a weird feeling xD

Questions! What do you think of Evelyn? Is Mrs Ealing still being her old self? Do you think she will tell Isabel the truth about their past?

Comment below!

Dedication - This chapter is dedicated to ratpoison1600 for their rather interesting suggestion on what career Isabel may choose!

First Published - June 8th, 2021