Page 2 of A Most Abhorrent Vessel

“Well, if it counts for anything, you’re a proper archaeologist to me! But I know you aren’t here for my opinions. I suppose you’d like some food. Was tea not enough for you?”

“Tea?”

“Godfrey brought it to your study.”

“Oh,” I say, running a hand through my hair.

She places a sandwich on the table. When I move to pick it up, she chuckles. “Maybe you want to wash those hands first, eh?”

I look down at myself. My hands are ashen from the dirt, and my shirt is sprinkled in shades of brown.

“I apologise, Mrs. Tully.” I stand up and turn to the door.

“Never mind propriety, sir. Simply wash your hands over this here sink and then just eat your food. I’ll make you another cuppa while you finish.”

I comply, rather embarrassed by my current state, but the groaning from my stomach stops the feeling before it can fully take hold.

“And please, call me Geneva,” she adds.

With my mouth full of food, I nod absently. I finish the four cucumber and cheese sandwiches quickly, then drink two glasses of milk. The gourds are crisp, the cheese is pungent, and the bread is so fragrant, I’m sure Mrs. Tully—I mean, Geneva—baked it this very morning.

When my body finally settles, I thank her, brushing crumbs from my trousers.

“It’ll be alright, sir. I know you’ll find something soon. Don’t give up hope just yet. I have a sense for those things. I always have,” she says with conviction, nodding at each word as if it were a law of nature.

“I have not lost hope.”

“Just make sure to tell that to your face as well,” she smiles brightly.

Is my disappointment really that obvious?

I feel utterly gawkish, standing completely filthy in the middle of the kitchen. Mrs. Tully is still smiling at me. My hands are much too heavy at my sides. I lift them and then drop them again.

“Thank you for tea,” I finally say, then quickly leave the kitchen.

When I cross the foyer toward the stairs, Godfrey approaches. “Do you need my help for your toilet, my lord?”

“No, thank you, Godfrey. You aren’t my valet; this exceeds your duties.”

“Maybe you might consider hiring a valet now, sir?” he says without reproach.

I know I must look like I’m in a state, but I don’t need reminding.

“I’m perfectly alright, thank you. I don’t need someone to help me dress as if I were a child. I am quite capable of that myself.”

“As you wish,” he says with a click of his heels.

I wish he were less formal, but he’s been my family’s butler since I can remember, and he still clings to the same archaic values as my parents. I know he hails from an entirely different generation. I cannot begin to imagine how much the world has changed in his lifetime. Of course, I’ve read about it in books and heard so in my grandparents’ stories. Even in my comparatively short years on this earth, I’ve experienced the advent of the lightbulb, the motorcar, and the phonograph.

I remember as a child, I would look at the daguerreotypes of my parents’ wedding, so strangely stiff and silver-tinted; yet now, moving pictures are a common pastime, entire stories told on a flickering screen accessible to the ordinary man. Inventions arrived in such rapid succession that people had little time to adjust to the changing world around them. What was it like to live in a world where music could only be enjoyed if it was played by someone in the same room? What a silent world it must have been for the artistically uninclined.

Then were my family’s archaic values.

I remember the way my grandfather spoke of the title, as if it were the most precious occurrence to happen to our family in generations. When he was around and not dozing off in a dark corner in his favourite armchair, he would speak of the day he was granted the lordship. He told it so often, I practically had it memorised.

What would he think of his grandson now if he knew I cared nothing for such a thing? What do titles mean to me? They convey no signs of good character. No intelligence. No kindness. No good deeds for humanity. Only riches, luck, or old parentage.

In the bathroom, I open the left tap all the way, wishing for the hottest water possible.