Well. After this little "preparation chapter" they will finally investigate the "Inner London Murders"! Yey! :D
I hope you will enjoy reading this chapter!
Chapter Four:
The Countess, Fearsome
"To make the deal complete, it was necessary to become someone else."
London, England, United Kingdom ‒ January 1847
Originally, my plan had been to return to my lovely manor in the countryside after wrapping up the case with Ronan Parrish. But while I was having breakfast in the parlour, my butler, Alfred Newman, approached me with a silver tray which carried a single letter. Right after taking a glimpse at it, I knew that my stay in London would have to be expanded for an unknown amount of time.
I took the letter from Newman and read it, sighing that I had been right like always, and Her Majesty hadn't just sent me an amicable letter. Was asking for a day off too much? But, of course, I couldn't decline a request by the Queen. However, she had written that the completion of this case wasn't very urgent, so I decided after finishing breakfast that I would let it be at least for today and spend my time with something else.
"You are late," Cloudia told him when he entered her private chambers through the balcony doors.
Last night, I had made a deal with an actual Grim Reaper. He had told me of a way to contact him and given me a necklace with a skull as a pendant before Newman had finally arrived and we could dispose of Parrish's corpse.
And after having breakfast, I had clutched my hand around the petite pendant and pressed it, signalising the Reaper to come. Right afterwards, I had gone to my private chambers and waited for him.
"I had work to do, Countess," Cedric Rossdale, the Grim Reaper with the long grey hair, explained and closed the balcony doors which she had left open for him, even though it was cold and icy outside.
"Still, this is no excuse for being two hours late," she replied and blinked to the big, heavy long case clock.
He covered his mouth with one of his overly-long sleeves and chuckled. "My, my, what a funny face you are making, Countess. Even though I want to see this face more often, I promise to reap the souls of the dead faster. I could even go and try convincing them to die faster. I could say something along the lines of 'Come on, Anton! You can bleed out more quickly! You only have to have faith in yourself and your abilities!'"
Cedric sat down on one of the large, heavy armchairs, which were covered in dark green velvet and stood in front of the chimney. Cloudia had assigned Newman to lit up a fire before she had opened the balcony doors, so she wouldn't freeze to death while waiting for Cedric. She laid down the book in her hands – The Battle of Life: A Love Story – and looked at him.
"I hope you are aware of the reason why I summoned you here?"
"I bet that this has anything to do with our deal."
"Exactly. A brain does seem to be hiding inside that head of yours after all." She leaned forward and smiled whimsically. "If you want to take part in my investigations, in my life, you have to accompany me everywhere."
"Even to the bathroom?" he asked and grimaced. "I can really live without seeing you..."
"However," she continued, scowling at him, "because of my social status and the fact that I am a noblewoman, I can't let you be seen with me in public. Not like you are right now at least. Therefore..." Cloudia's smile widened, and she even closed her eyes and slightly tilted her head. "... today's topic is to make you undergo a makeover and turn you into a fine British gentleman."
"I hope that Grim Reapers get at least basic education?"
After Cedric had involuntarily agreed to do whatever she wished, Cloudia had started to gather some books from her various shelves. Most of her useful books were in the Phantomhive Manor and not in the townhouse, but the ones she had on-site would do the work just fine.
"Before I became a Grim Reaper I didn't receive any education," Cedric told her after a while, and his words caused her to stop and turn around to face him.
"You were something else before becoming a Grim Reaper?"
He nodded and Cloudia frowned. He avoided looking directly at her. "Grim Reapers aren't born. We all were humans like you before we became Reapers."
"That's a fairly interesting piece of information," Cloudia meant. "And how do humans become Grim Reapers?"
Cedric hesitated for only a blink of an eye, but she still noticed it. "They have to die first," he answered her.
"Does that mean that every human becomes a Reaper after dying?"
He was strangely silent for a moment. "Only humans who died in a certain way."
Even though Cloudia wanted to know how exactly you had to die to become a Grim Reaper, she knew that he didn't like talking about this subject. And because she didn't want to displease him at this early stage of their cooperation, she let it go for the time being.
I would find out how Grim Reapers came into existence. I just needed to wait for the perfect moment to get this piece of information out of Cedric.
I couldn't await it.
"After being reborn, the Grim Reaper Dispatch taught me how to write and read among other things," Cedric continued while gazing directly into the fire in the chimney. "A lot of people who are reborn as Reapers cannot read because of their past, because they, for example, lived in great poverty as humans, so they had to teach us the basics. A Grim Reaper, who isn't even able to read a Death Book, would be useless after all."
"So you can read and write. What else have they taught you?" Cloudia questioned him further. It was quite interesting to get to know more about the society of Grim Reapers.
"Maths. History. Geography. Foreign languages. Dead, ancient languages. Science. Everything human children learn at school." Cedric suddenly chuckled and stopped being serious and started being Cedric again.
"Come to think of it – in the last five years in which I've followed you, I never saw you sitting in class and learning with other children your age. Don't you go to school, Countess? You're just a kid after all." He giggled. "Kids should be in school and not murdering people."
Cloudia scowled at him, and he looked up at her, the fire was reflected in his glasses.
"Male Phantomhives attend Weston College," she informed him. "It's a prestigious boarding school in the area around London which is only for boys. Female Phantomhives are either home-schooled or sent to Miss Peregrine's School for Fine Ladies. Even if I am the current family head, I cannot attend Weston College like my predecessors as I am a girl and not willing to play being a boy for seven years while going through puberty and sharing a room with other boys. Therefore, I should actually go and study at Miss Peregrine's School for Fine Ladies. But because it's also a boarding school and too far away from my manor to go there and come back home every day, I cannot attend this school either. Or any other prestigious school for girls as they are all boarding schools. After all, my mother isn't able to lead the household in her current condition. Thus I cannot leave her and the manor alone. Therefore, I am home-schooled."
Laughing like a lunatic, Cedric fell from the armchair and onto Cloudia's lovely Chinese carpet.
"Miss Peregrine's School for Fine Ladies! I can't hold it! That's too much! Hahaha!"
She sighed.
If he weren't helpful in any way, I would have shot him by now and hung him over my chimney, before continuing to read The Battle of Life: A Love Story while drinking Fortnum & Mason tea.
"Miss Peregrine's School for Fine Ladies! What a horrible name! Bwahahaha!"
Cloudia kicked Cedric and sent him flying towards the armchair's heavy legs.
"Stop this nonsense," she ordered him while looking down at him. He was lying all messily in his large black clothes in front of her feet and blinking up at her. His glasses were inclined on his nose.
"My, my, Countess, don't you think that the name of this school is nothing but hilarious? Miss Peregrine's School for Fine Ladies! What a joke!"
Cedric continued to roll over the expensive carpet, and Cloudia was reminded why she had thought of him as a maniac upon their first meeting.
Actually, the name was hilarious as it was utterly ridiculous. I couldn't believe that the girls who were born into the Phantomhive family line had to attend a school with such a name. But, of course, even though it was honestly funny, we, I, didn't have any time for this kind of nonsense.
"Snitchey and Craggs had each, in private life as in professional existence, a partner of his own. Snitchey and Craggs were the best friends in the world, and had a real confidence in one another; but Mrs Snitchey, by a dispensation not uncommon in the affairs of life, was on principle suspicious of Mr Craggs; and Mrs Craggs was on principle suspicious of Mr Snitchey."
Because Cedric was still laughing on the floor and seemingly didn't intend to stop his unutterable behaviour in the foreseeable future, Cloudia had decided to spend the time until he would calm down in the best possible way: with continuing to read The Battle of Life: A Love Story.
"'Your Snitcheys indeed,' the latter lady would observe, sometimes, to Mr Craggs; using that imaginative plural as if in disparagement of an objectionable pair of pantaloons, or other articles not possessed of a singular number; 'I don't see what you want with your Snitcheys, for my part. You trust a great deal too much to your Snitcheys, I think, and I hope you may never find my words come true.' While Mrs Snitchey would observe to Mr Snitchey, of Craggs, 'that if ever he was led away by man he was led away by that man, and that if ever she read a double purpose in a mortal eye, she read that purpose in Craggs' eye.'"
She had just finished page 19 and started page 20. While waiting for Cedric to arrive, Cloudia had read and finished The Chimes, another novella by Charles Dickens, but this time from 1844. But because he had arrived when she had just read the very first sentence of The Battle of Life: A Love Story ("Once upon a time, it matters little when, and in stalwart England, it matters little where, a fierce battle was fought."), she hadn't arrived that far in the story. Also, although she had resumed reading after it had become clear that Cedric would not stop laughing soon, Cloudia didn't get very far. After all, it was fairly hard to read while someone was rolling on the floor and laughing like a psychologically unstable person – and this directly in front of your own feet. After a few hours Cedric, finally, calmed down.
"By the way, what are you reading, Countess?" he wanted to know and sat himself up.
"A Dickens novella," Cloudia told him, put a bookmark, which her cousin Cathleen had made her when they had been little children, in-between the pages and laid the book down on a side table made of dark wood.
"I hope we can finally resume our lesson? We lost plenty of time, and we have a lot of work to do."
Of all the Grim Reapers I could have encountered, it had to be the one who would burst into laughter because of even the tiniest of things.
Verily, I was an unlucky young lady. But as I had proposed the deal, I had to endure it.
Also, I was the Countess of Phantomhive – a laughing Grim Reaper should not be able to drive me crazy.
"As putting you on a test to clarify your state of knowledge would swallow up a lot of time, which we simply do not have, we skip it and go directly to manners and etiquette."
Cloudia signalised Cedric with a hand wave to sit down at her work table, while she put out some crockery and cutlery, which she had borrowed from the kitchen before Cedric's arrival, and lined them up neatly on the table in front of him.
"It is quite impossible to avoid dinner or tea parties when you are my associate," Cloudia said. "So you have to be aware and able to implement the rules and manners for meals. Or don't Grim Reapers have to eat?"
"We have to," Cedric informed her, eying the strange set-up suspiciously. "Grim Reapers have to eat, sleep, use bathrooms... We are basically like normal humans. Except that we are immortal and have enhanced speed, power and endurance."
"That's wonderful. Then you don't have to learn how to pretend that you're eating." Cloudia picked up the spoon on the far right side and smiled broadly. "Let's get started. Silverware is to be used from the outside in, but first of all, I want you to become familiar with the individual parts of the basic table set. This, for example, is a soup spoon..."
After teaching him the names of all elements of the table set, how to use them properly and how to actually eat effectively with this knowledge, I continued to teach him the rules of picking up food and everything else Cedric needed to know about formal dining.
Then, I worked on his way of walking. He walked without grace or at least a straight back. I piled the books I had taken from my shelves earlier on Cedric's head and amused myself with his failure to keep them in place. After he had finally managed to walk properly – unbelievable that he couldn't even do that! – I let him sit down on the armchair again as we now had to discuss other important aspects.
"Your clothes," Cloudia started without making a friendly, appeasing introduction.
"What's with my clothes?"
"Have you never realised that they are far too big for you? You're basically a blade of grass whereupon a towel was thrown. I hope you never thought, that you could accompany me to social events and gatherings of nobility with these monstrosities you call clothing."
Cedric grinned impishly. "Then I will have to lie."
"You are a rather painful creature, aren't you, Cedric Rossdale?"
"You are a rather stern and serious being, aren't you, Cloudia Phantomhive?" His grin widened. "I hope you know that I don't have any other clothing which doesn't look like the outfit I wear today."
"Didn't you wear that yesterday already?"
Cedric held his belly in laughter. "You're so hilarious, Countess! Even though you seem to be a sadist with making me remember all these spoon names and letting me balance all these heavy books, I think I made the right choice in agreeing to your deal. You frequently give me a reason to laugh! Of course, I didn't wear this robe yesterday! It possesses a totally different shade of black than the one I wore yesterday! That you don't even know that, Countess! I'm disappointed! Guehehe."
Cloudia sighed.
I was Cloudia Phantomhive, the Countess of Phantomhive. I. Would. Not. Turn. Mad. Because. Of. This. Laughing. Maniac.
"Very well. So you do not have any more passable clothing as it seems," Cloudia said while Cedric whipped away some tears of laughter.
"I hope you don't suggest to take me shopping. I'm not very fond of shopping."
"Of course, we won't do it today as we simply do not have any time for it. But we have to do it in the foreseeable future, or all this won't go anywhere."
"I wonder why none of your servants has run away by now. You're quite a slave driver and sadist, Countess. Also, I hope you're aware that I can break our deal every time."
Cloudia leaned forward to him, a wicked smile all over her face. "You agreed to the deal, knowing very well who I am. You followed me in the past five years. Therefore, you're aware of my social position. I am not an orphan from the streets or someone from the lower classes. I am the Watchdog of the Queen. I am a Countess. I am of nobility. And nobles are very, very fond of social gatherings. And because I am a noblewoman, I am obligated to attend some of these gatherings, although I'm not very pleased about it.
"Our deal contained you accompanying me during my investigations. And if my investigation leads me to such a gathering, you have to bring a certain degree of decency, manners and grace along. Also, I cannot walk around the streets with a man who wears sack-like clothes and doesn't even know the basics of the fine etiquette. Therefore, I cannot investigate with someone like that by my side. It would damage my reputation. It would ruin the facade I had built up over the past years. It would hinder my investigations.
"This deal is a deal to help and not to ruin each other! You knew absolutely well what would await you if you took the contract – and you still did it. So just stick to the conditions of our bargain."
Her smile grew wider.
"I don't know why you agreed on my deal as you are a supernatural creature after all. But I know that you certainly had a reason. And whatever this reason was and still is, it has to be something so big, so important to you that you simply will not end our bargain right now. After all, this reason lets you make a deal with me – a mere human, the head of the Phantomhives.
"So, if you want, if you dare, to threaten me again, please do so in a way which builds up on a less obvious lie. If you truly want to work with me, you have to become sneakier.
"And now – let's continue, Grim Reaper."
"I know that you dress up like a man on occasions – but why exactly do you possess clothes for males which are too big for you?"
I had given Cedric an outfit of mine I thought could fit him. It wasn't the newest piece of clothing, but I had only worn it once, so it was still in a formidable state, and due to its fine fabrication and colour scheme absolutely acceptable to wear nowadays.
And, naturally, I had been right: Cedric fit perfectly into the clothes as if they had been tailored just for him.
"It's an old story," Cloudia answered and watched Cedric how he gazed at himself in the mirror as if he was looking at someone entirely different.
"One year ago, I received a request from the Queen to investigate a certain person. After I had found out that he was smuggling opium, I had to eliminate him and his supporters. It wasn't a difficult thing to do. But right before I could eliminate the last of them, he pushed me into the sea – only to be shot in the face the moment afterwards. I had to climb out of the water. Newman was waiting for my signal to come – I normally use a flare gun for that –, but I had lost said flare gun in the water and Newman wasn't nearby, so I would have caught a cold by the time I reached his waiting point. It was November and London is a bit cold the whole year anyway.
"Fortunately, I came across a little tailoring. I broke into the shop and changed into some dry clothes. But because I was in a hurry, I just took clothes which fit together and didn't check their sizes. Nobody should catch me after all; also I had to go to Newman as fast as I could, or someone could have found the ship with the opium on it and run away with it or something like that. I disposed my own attire and went to see Newman so that he could drive me to Scotland Yard."
Cedric chuckled. "My, my, you gave me a stolen outfit!"
"But it fits you, and you do not look particularly horrible in it, so you can use it until we have time to get you some more clothes. You need a lot of attire if you're with me. Also, I left money in the tailor's shop for the clothes back then."
Cloudia rose from her emerald-green armchair and walked towards Cedric. She touched his hair. "We need to comb it. Have you ever thought about cutting it shorter?"
If she let her black hair, which was usually braided to a wreath at the back of her head, fall loose, it would be around as long as his.
He firmly shook his head. "No," he answered. "I like it as it is right now."
She nodded. "Then you have to comb it neatly and arrange it into a ponytail with a ribbon which you tie into a bow. You will look classier like that. It's also good that you have black glasses with a thin frame. They will harmonise nicely with all colours, so we don't have to worry about that.
"Now please sit down again. Before Newman comes and tells me that dinner is ready, we have to discuss a few other things."
They sat down in front of the chimney again. The fire inside was still dancing and trying to escape from its prison made of stone. It had shrunken a while ago, but Cedric had lit it up again, so the fire could continue its struggle.
"We need a new name for you," Cloudia said straightforward. "A new identity. If you have already lived once under the name of Cedric Rossdale, you could be tracked by my enemies and some nasty nobles who become suspicious of you. It would cause too much trouble if anybody found out that you actually died once. Also, if you take upon a new identity, it's easier for you to get accepted by the nobles. We could come up with a fake title, a fake background and lineage for you, and say that you came from far away and didn't inherit the title until a while ago. They will believe that, and if they try to track you down under this false name, they will only find the lies we have positioned in front of their feet. Like that, we wouldn't have to rewrite the history of Cedric Rossdale, but to create something entirely new. And this would certainly be easier.
"Don't you agree, my dear Undertaker?"
Cedric frowned. "'Undertaker'?"
She shrugged. "Aren't you one?"
"I'm a Grim Reaper, Countess. I'm not an Undertaker at all."
"But don't you think that Grim Reapers and undertakers are quite similar? The work of both starts when someone dies after all. And both hold the responsibility to bring a living being to a proper and peaceful rest. Another similarity is the fact that both get to work because of me. Also, I think the designation 'Undertaker' suits you quite well, doesn't it?"
Cedric leaned back. In his new attire – the dark trousers, the polished black boots, the starched white shirt and the dark blue waistcoat – he actually looked good. Finally, Cloudia was able to see his figure which was so, so thin and fragile-looking. But because he had been able to lift a huge scythe and she hadn't been able to free herself from his grip yesterday, and because he had told her that Reapers were physically stronger than humans, his outer appearance was nothing more than deceptive. And you had to be deceptive to survive the life of a Phantomhive.
"So – how should we name you? What title should we grant you, Undertaker?"
I didn't like calling him "Grim Reaper" at all. But if he just called me "Countess," I guess "Undertaker" should work just fine for him. Also, I liked the sound of it. Undertaker.
Cloudia tilted her head, an idea appearing in her mind. "What's your middle name, by the way? I know it starts with a 'K,' but I don't know the full name."
"It's 'Kristopher,'," Cedric told her, and she smiled.
"Then we have a first name for you, Kristopher..." She thought for a moment. "... Underwood."
He frowned. "'Underwood'?"
"It's the most similar name I could think of to 'Undertaker,' and I think that both names fit perfectly together. Kristopher Underwood. It sounds like the name of someone important, but it's not too extravagant simultaneously. It's perfect, don't you think, Undertaker?"
Cedric gazed at Cloudia and folded his arms in front of his chest. "I guess it works," he said after a while. Then, he started to giggle.
"You're someone who has to plan everything frantically in detail, aren't you, Countess? Manners, clothes, name. You're just hilarious." More giggling.
Cloudia ignored his remark. "Fantastic. And now, a title! What title of nobility do you want to have?"
"Viscount Kristopher Underwood," Cedric tried. "Marquess Kristopher Underwood. Baron Kristopher Underwood. Hm..." He giggled and covered his mouth while doing so. However, this time, he couldn't do it with his sleeve and had to use his hand.
"Duke Kristopher Underwood sounds quite good."
Probably, he just wanted to suit a noble rank above mine.
"Very well," Cloudia said. "This is settled then too. I will work on the rest." She stood up and went to her desk. She opened one of the drawers and took out a letter. The red wax signet had already been broken. Cloudia handed the letter over to Cedric who took it with a raised eyebrow.
"The last topic for today: Queen Victoria gave us our first assignment as a team today. We will start investigating tomorrow, so please, do not be late."
I made most things up. Like Cedric's middle name or a lot of stuff regarding the Grim Reapers.
I hoped you liked this week's chapter! And until next weekend! :D