Dearest sister,
Have you heard about Mr. Tulkinghorn's death? It is shocking – absolutely shocking. I hardly know what to say. Our dear cousin Sir Leicester has declared it an affront to civilization, to have his very own private attorney shot through the heart in his very own office, and it is of course – but it is more than that.
How can I explain? This is different from any other parting we have known. When our poor dear Mama, God rest her soul, passed away, were we not both in floods of tears? Did we not sit up nights together over cold cups of tea, sharing stories until the small hours of the morning? We remembered how she altered that old white silk with her own hands so you could wear it to your coming-out, because we could not afford a new gown. We remembered how she had to lock the door on O'Brien, or else the dear old soul would have gone on working for us without wages. We remembered the Spanish songs she used to sing.
There are no stories to be told about Mr. Tulkinghorn.
Of course not, you may say. He was Sir Leicester's attorney. We barely knew him. But not even Sir Leicester has told us anything, except that he was a true and loyal servant to the Dedlock family, and that his death is a disgrace upon the country. Lady Dedlock has nothing to add; in fact she seems more silent and frosty than ever, and I declare, it frightens me. Please don't laugh; there is something not quite right about that woman. I have always said so, you recall, since Sir Leicester married her.
However, returning to Mr. Tulkinghorn – you remember, I suppose, how much he fascinated me when we were younger. Of course I set my cap at him – why not? A brilliant young attorney, supported by a wealthy employer, would have been a fortunate match for me, never mind what you and Mama always said about Blood. And of course he would have none of me. I believe he never even noticed, wrapped up as he was in his career. Perhaps that is a mercy; intelligent as he was, he would have come to despise me soon enough.
It was his smile, do you remember? Such a handsome smile, but without any spark of joy in it. Also, I believe that in forty years, I never once heard him laugh. Have you? Sometimes, I have wondered if he could be entirely human – superstitious nonsense, I know, but one does hear such eerie stories. Marlowe's Faust. Mozart's Don Juan. At other times, watching his black velvet coat absorbing the light as he swept across the drawing-room of Chesney Wold, I wondered if he was simply lonely. Yet even his loneliness was not like other people's, for when I feel lonely, all I have to do is write to you. Whom did he have to write to? Who is there now to weep for him and tell stories?
Perhaps I am the only one – and that, dear sister, makes me more sorrowful than I can possibly express.
Yours affectionately,
Volumnia