I ran my finger under the edge of my dress collar, trying to loosen it a little but it snapped back into place around my throat with the fabric digging into my skin.

The sun streamed in through the church windows, designating it the warmest day in April so far. Beads of sweat trickled down my back and I shifted uncomfortably but nothing could stop the back of my dress from sticking to me or the sweat that made the entire thing much more unbearable. Mother placed a light hand on my shoulder to stop me from fidgeting and I tried to stop moving but I couldn't help it.

We were packed into our local church with countless other members of our congregation and those beyond it with all of us gathered for an impromptu memorial to those who died during the sinking. They estimated that over a thousand people died that day due to a lack of lifeboats onboard and there were rumours that some of the boats left half-full. Grandfather was not on any of those boats. After almost a week, Father knew that he wasn't coming home.

The few staff Grandfather had attended the service with us - none of them went with him - and amongst the crowd of people were other family members who had come to mourn those who died when the ship sank. There were so many people that many were standing outside and I wonder how they were able to hear anything being said. Such a large-scale tragedy brought everyone together.

When the memorial inside the church finished, I followed Mother and Father out of the church and to the churchyard where everyone had started to gather. People moved through the gravestones and I wonder whether Grandfather would have one even if they never found his body. We moved through the crowd of people in the churchyard until we found my aunt and uncle with Grandfather's staff returning to the house.

"What happens now?" Aunt Charlotte asked, a handkerchief scrunched up in her hand.

Father shrugged. "We can stay at the house until Father's affairs and finances are in order, I asked the lawyer to hold off until after the memorial."

"Will Grandfather have a headstone?" I asked, tearing my eyes away from the graves that surrounded us.

"Yes, he will."

"I'll see to it." Uncle Zachariah said, smiling at me. Hannah gurgled in his arms and then started to whimper. "She was quiet during the service, I suppose it had to happen at some point."

"I can take her for a walk in the pram, try and settle her a little," I said.

"Thank you, Izzy." He lowered Hannah into her pram. "Why don't you all go? It will give us a chance to talk."

"Harry, Frank, you too." Aunt Charlotte turned to look at her sons.

"I'll watch out for them."

I grabbed the handle of the pram and started to push it along the path with Anna and John running on ahead and weaving in between the people gathered in the churchyard. They both managed to stay just within my sight with John having to stop every few seconds to stop his spectacles from falling off his face. Anna always waited for her brother when he stopped and they couldn't get very far away from me.

Florence skipped happily beside me with Harry and Frank lagging behind, neither of them too impressed about having been lumped in with the younger ones. I was the oldest of the group with Harry a few years younger than me and Frank a year younger than him. The twins had just turned six and Florence would be five in two months. Hannah was the baby of the family, her mother - Uncle Zachariah's wife - had died in childbirth a year prior.

The lap of the churchyard did very little to quell Hannah's tantrum and it didn't feel right to take her back to her grieving father if she was still so grizzly. Instead, I started to weave through the headstones to see if the slight rocking of the pram did anything to help her. Behind me, I could hear Harry and Frank grumbling about having to stay with us and I rolled my eyes which received a slight snicker from Florence.

We weaved through the headstones with Florence pausing on occasion to read the names on them and resight stories about how they might have died - no one could beat her for her imagination. Eventually, we stumbled upon a grave that I had seen before. The grave was of an old friend of Mother's, the very person I had been named after although Mother never told me how she died no matter how often I asked. There were some things she just wouldn't discuss.

"You're a miracle worker, Isabel. She's fast asleep," Uncle Zachariah said when we returned from our walk. Hannah had fallen asleep during the weaving amongst the headstones.

"There is no harm in hiring a nursery maid, Zachariah. We had one," Father said.

"None of the others were raised by nursery maids and I have no intention of starting now. It's not how Emily wanted to raise them." He reached in and lightly tickled Hannah's chin. "Besides, who needs a nursery maid when I have Izzy?"

"Only if I get paid."

"You definitely take after your father." Uncle Zachariah laughed.

"What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, dear, nothing." Mother placed a hand on her shoulder but even she couldn't hide her laughter. Father just frowned and looked a little bit like a toddler.

"Shall we head back to the house? The children are getting a little restless," Aunt Charlotte said.

Father nodded. "We'll meet you there."

He placed a light hand on my shoulder and steered me through the churchyard and towards the gate that encircled the entire area. Marsh stood behind the car with this hand grasped behind his back and his hat drawn low over his head. Father had insisted he join us in the church for the service with the other staff but he must have returned to the car once it had ended. In all the year's Marsh had worked for Grandfather, he had barely said a word to anyone.

We followed the road back towards Grandfather's house, passing several other cars and several people on bicycles who occasionally nodded their heads towards Marsh. Many of those we passed were dressed in black as well, either in memory of someone they lost or out of respect for those that died. It felt like everyone had gone into mourning after the sinking which I don't think anyone found all that surprising given how many died.

When we reached the house, the three of us entered the parlour where a selection of sandwiches and beverages had been laid out by Mrs Smith. Mother wouldn't let me start on them until the others arrived so I slumped down on the sofa and just stared at the table, my stomach grumbling and complaining. A photograph of Grandfather had been placed on the mantel just above the fireplace with his eyes feeling like they were following me whenever I moved around the room.

I stared at it, taking in the mischievous glint that had somehow been captured by a camera. Grandfather used to be the root cause of whatever scheme I did, he was the one who whispered the ideas into my head. Once, he convinced me to steal someone off Father's supper plate when he wasn't looking and I managed to swipe almost half of it before he noticed. Whenever there was a joke or something wasn't working the way it should have been, he was usually behind it.

A knock at the door caught my attention and I listened to the sounds of Mrs Smith's footsteps echoing through the hallway. I could hear the low hum of conversation in the hall before the door closed and Anna and John came running into the room, jumping on the sofa I had been sitting on and disrupting the cushions.

"Careful you two," Uncle Zachariah said, he wheeled the pram into the room and took a seat beside Father.

"Sorry," Anna muttered but I caught her smiling at John. They were up to something.

"I'm hungry," Frank said.

"Go ahead, boys." Father gestured to the sandwiches. "Izzy's been eyeing them up since we got back."

"I have not."

"Yes, you have. Go on, it has to get eaten."

I resisted the temptation to stick my tongue out at Father and grabbed one of the sandwiches, sliding onto the floor so Aunt Charlotte and her husband Jasper had somewhere to sit down. Florence came to sit beside me with Harry and Frank just lingering in the doorway and looking for a quick exit when the time came. Neither of them liked being with other people, even their own family but they always tolerated it and kept to themselves. Father said they took after Uncle Jasper more than Aunt Charlotte.

"Were your brothers at the service, Rosie?" Aunt Charlotte asked.

"They were, we saw them briefly before we went in. Someone Christopher worked with had been on board, his wife and daughter got off but he didn't."

"Such a tragedy." Aunt Charlotte glanced over to the mantel and the picture of Grandfather. Uncle Jasper placed a light arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer to him.

I nibbled on the corner of my sandwich, my eyes focused on the picture of Grandfather that appeared to be staring at me from its placement on the mantle. Even though we had been staying at the house prior to the announcement that the ship had sunk, it still felt odd to be in the house without him. Part of me expected him to walk through the door at any time with his briefcase in hand and a large smile on his face. The idea of him not coming back didn't feel right.

We pick at the sandwiches and drinks in near silence, the small clock ticking away and Florence occasionally sniffing beside me. Despite there being so many of us packed into the parlour, it somehow managed to feel large because a big piece of the furniture was missing. It just felt strange and a feeling I didn't think I would ever get used to nor one I wanted to get used to. I wanted him to walk through that door.

Almost everyone looked at the photograph at least once whilst we ate with the silence getting heavier to the point that it felt like I was suffocating. I didn't think I could stand it for another half an hour.

"I have a question," I said when Mary and Helen walked in to clear up the now empty plates."

"Here we go," Father muttered, earning a clip around the ear from Mother. "I mean, go on, Izzy."

"What were your favourite memories of Grandfather?"

Mother smiled. "The first day I met him. I actually met your father first and I had a cut on my head and a fresh burn on my arm. He gave me something for the burn and looked at the injury with no charge, although your father had something to do with that." She looked at Father who grinned and I could see a blush rising in his cheeks. "He then offered me a temporary placement in this very house even though he didn't know me."

"And the rest is history, as they say." Father lightly kissed her hand. "Mine would be when I was about six and we went down to the coast. He picked me up and threw me into the sea fully clothed. I don't know why he did it, but we had a laugh all the same."

"I remember when Emily and I first told him we were expecting twins. He laughed and said it was a consequence of how Charlotte and I behaved when we were growing up. I'm starting to think he might be right."

"We weren't that bad." Aunt Charlotte laughed. "I think mine would have to be when I dropped strawberry jam on the rug in the drawing-room when I was four. He helped me clean it up and even told Mother he was the one who did it, not me."

"He was a good man," Mother said.

"The best."

Father's eyes flicked over to the photograph and I could see the slight trace of a smile on his lips at the thought of the man that Grandfather had been. He could light up a room the moment he walked into it even though he could look rather scary, and sound scary as well. He always knew the right thing to say, the right way to act and how to cheer us up if we were down for some reason or another. Grandfather was one of the best men I had known.

Although we fell back into silence, it didn't feel the same as the last one. There was no weight to it, no added pressure, just a relaxed moment of silence with everyone thinking back to their favourite memory of Grandfather over the years. We all had one, but we didn't have to share them.

My favourite memory would always be from when I was five. Mother and Father had gone up north and I had to spend three days with him until they returned. During that time, I became unwell with what turned out to be a rather simple cold. Despite that, and despite Grandfather knowing that due to his many years as a doctor, he took the two days I was unwell for off work so that I wouldn't be stuck with only the staff for company. He read my stories, told jokes and even tried to build an elaborate castle out of blocks. I never forgot it.

Outside, the low drone of a car engine grew louder and louder with Father frowning and turning his head to look out the window.

"Who on earth is that?" he said.

He scrambled off the sofa with the rest of us following. We all crowded around the window to watch the car come to a halt on the gravel path just a short distance away from the front door. The chauffeur climbed out and opened the door, allowing two women to climb out, one older than the other.

"Oh, I don't believe it. The nerve," Father said.

"She wouldn't," Mother said, shaking her head slightly.

"She has."

"Who is that?" I asked.

"That, Izzy, is my mother and older sister."

~~~

A/N - We are back with a cliff-hanger! Of course, Mrs Ealing would be coming back, I couldn't help myself xD Also, I'm onto Chapter Fourteen offline and am blitzing through the story. Isabel is an interesting narrator for me and nothing like Rosie.

Anyway, questions! Any predictions for what will happen? Do you think Mrs Ealing and Matilda have changed at all? 

Let me know!

Dedication - This chapter is dedicated to cluelessasevxr who was the first person to comment on Chapter One!

First Published - May 18th, 2021