4.

     Great-Auntie Mildred was dead, Roger Avery knew. That was why they were here - in the Taker's parlour. He shifted uncomfortably in his new black jacket, pulling at the sleeves. His sister laid a hand on his and discretely returned it to his side. Caroline was supposed to be minding him while Mother and Father made arrangements with the Takers concerning Great-Auntie Mildred's body, and she took the charge seriously. She was forever bidding him be quiet and still.
     The Taker was an austere man with a thin, sallow face and an imposing nose. He wore his hair short and his collar low to display the registry tattoo behind his left ear, a crest the size of a sterling done in faded red and purple, and resting atop it, the skull which signified his position. Roger stared. His own ink - the barest outline of a sea bird in flight was impressive only in its delicate clarity.
     Then Mister Richards began showing Mother and Father coffins. Roger could no longer see the man's registry and so fell into contemplation about something else entirely. The gaslight candelabras reflected in the shine of his shoes, He turned his head to watch the glimmer shift over the convex curve of his toe. Caroline pinched him. Roger sighed. He'd thought the parlour would've been full of dead bodies and cupboards crammed with deadly poisons. Not to mention the weaponry, which should have, in Roger's opinion, decorated the walls. Instead it was all thick curtains and wood and brass. Thin, sallow windows let in almost no light, so the candelabras had to be lit mid-afternoon. There was not a cupboard or weapon to be seen, and all the coffins were empty. Roger was in actuality rather glad that there weren't dead people everywhere, but he would never say so.
     He fidgeted a trifle spitefully. Caroline shushed him primly again, then returned to her pose. She sat with her hands in her lap and her ankles crossed; her eyes gazed daintily at the floor. She looked the picture of a respectful and respectable griever in her black crepe. Roger had seen her practicing the image in her mirror at home.
     He twitched his shoulders in an attempt to settle his coat. It only earned him a reproving glance and still the thing would not lie tolerably against his body. It was his first mourning suit and had been made only just too big. Roger wondered if any of his other relatives were expected to die in the near future. Great-Auntie Mildred had been a distant relation, for whose death custom required the family to mourn one month. Roger thought wearing uncomfortable clothing a poor way to honor his great-aunt's memory.
     Caroline glanced up to meet his eye; in her look was a warning, but it also held a degree of commiseration. Despite the act she put on, Caroline dreaded the visit to the Taker's parlour as much as he, although for very different reasons. Caroline disliked death. It was the smell.
     Great-Auntie Mildred's house had smelled of menthol, ointments, and cloying rot. Caroline, who had with her mother spent many hours in her great-aunt's sickroom, had found it suffocating. But worse was the way the scents had changed after Great-Auntie Mildred's passing. Caroline had expected them to linger and compound in a sickeningly sweet manifestation of loss, but instead they had dissipated all too quickly. Only the faintest subtle miasma remained in her great-aunt's room. It seemed to Caroline that the house, having been in Mildred's care for longer than even Mother and Father could remember, was all too eager to shed the remnants of its possessor. And now they were here to choose a box into which they could place her great-aunts body so as to continue the process of forgetting her. Caroline found it cruel.
     The same odor of absence permeated the Taker's parlour As if everything within was tainted with talcum and faint mildew. It clung to her clothes and hair so that Caroline felt death stifled every inhalation and would not let her ignore this small tragedy. She longed to wash it off of her person.
     Mother was crying into her lace handkerchief; she had been particularly attached to Great-Auntie Mildred. Father put his arm around her shoulders. Roger tugged at his coat sleeves. Caroline took him onto her lap and rested her chin on his head. "Not much longer now," she whispered. "Please behave, Roger."
     Mister Richards made an obsequious gesture of comfort to Mrs. Avery. She stifled her tears, spoke gently to her husband, then collected the children, leaving everything in Mr. Avery's capable hands. They took an omnibus to Felicity-on-Claret and then walked the cobble streets which narrowed and grew quieter as they neared their destination. Copperplate House stood at the end of a cul-de-sac snug between its neighbors. The stone wall surrounding it had weathered with the years and no longer posed as a true barrier between one garden and the next. The wrought iron gate, however, appeared to be a recent addition, turning smoothly on its hinges as the family walked through. The latch clicked softly behind them. The house itself was tall and narrow, a three story brick construction with copper colored shutters on the windows. The front door featured a leaded glass design. The front garden bespoke elegance with minimal care. Flowers lined the walk; a singular pear tree had grown up next to wall. It was unremarkably middle class.
     Upon arriving, Roger went to the nursery, Caroline to her bath, and Mrs. Avery to the basement to see about the tea. Cook was, as ever, in the kitchen stolidly awaiting instructions. Mrs. Avery mentally devised an adequate menu. And checking Cook's boiler to ensure that she'd enough fuel for the meal, Mrs. Avery pressed the buttons for watercress sandwiches, tea cakes, and Ishtan Jubilants, which Roger adored, but she put the kettle on herself because, despite Cook's abilities, Mrs. Avery did not trust her to make a drinkable pot of tea. Oh her husband could declaim the merits of metallic servants, but she was never completely comfortable around all the buttons and spindly arms which jerked and twitched under unseen pressures. She missed Clara, the human who had been both cook and housekeeper for her family from the time Mrs. Avery was a small girl.
     Mr. Avery was enamored with works, useful considering his line of business; she still found it disconcerting. She supposed it was a matter of that to which one had become accustomed. Her husband understood the quiet sophistication of a works for every task, but she preferred flesh domestics. Aside from the mark of status they conferred, one could row with the live ones most satisfactorily when one felt the need. The machines either worked or didn't with no regard for one's feelings. However, much as Mr. Avery would have liked to cater to his wife's preferences, they simply couldn't afford to house, feed, clothe, and pay the help.
     Mrs. Avery had made what her peers acknowledged to be a bad marriage, or certainly a poor one. She had been an In-Law by birth. Her mother sat on the boards of various charitable committees until health began to fail; her father still sits on the Upper collegiate of the Institute. Her elder brothers were first an extravagant wastrel, second a professor of letters, and the third was studying to take robes. Mr. Avery'd had money, but not enough to make him readily desirable. Her circle assumed that she'd married for love and she said nothing to dissuade them, for she did love her husband. But she considered her marriage to him an investment.
     The kettle whistled, interrupting her idle musings. Mrs. Avery made tea. She sent it upstairs in the dumbwaiter and took it into the parlor. A few minutes later, a bell rang to signify that the remainder of tea was waiting for her already in the dumbwaiter. Cook was efficient, she had to admit. After everything was arranged to her liking, Mrs. Avery went upstairs to fetch the children. Caroline was still in the bath.
     When they were all assembled in the parlor, all clothed in their somber black, Mrs. Avery poured them cups and passed around plates for her children to serve themselves. Roger took mostly Jubilants. Mrs. Avery placed a single sandwich on his plate but hadn't the heart to scold him. It was a quiet tea. She didn't expect their father back for hours yet. The calls of condolence would not begin for another week. Roger ate as though he could not escape fast enough. Caroline barely touched her food.
     "Mother, do you think that-"
     "May I please be excused, Mother?" Roger interrupted.
     "Now, Roger," said Mrs. Avery.
     "Please, Mother," Roger said, anxiety spilling form his eyes.
     "If you must," she said and let him go. Roger almost ran into the back garden. Chance's, the puppy's, bark greeted him in a joyful concussion of noise.
     "Mother," Caroline began again, "do you think that Great-Aunt Mildred approved of me?"
     "Oh, darling, of course she did. Why would you ask such a thing?"
     "She was just so, well, peculiar. I couldn't tell. Sometimes it seemed so. But then she would-"
     "She was very ill, Caroline. Now I want you to say no more about it."
     Caroline touched her neck where the silver chain rubbed raw against her bare skin and decided not to tell her mother about the promise she'd made her great-aunt. Mrs. Avery and her daughter finished their meal in silence. From out in the garden, Roger and Chase could be heard playing games that little boys and pups imagine in the autumn dusk.