Symphony of Lilacs

10. Drops of Ink

"Stay here with the little girl, will you? Papa has to talk to this woman."

The man pats his son and gives him a small push into the living room.

A girl peeks her head out-- large brown eyes wondering. The boy shrugs, walking to her.

The man and the woman walk into the room-- the former closing the door for the children.

Sighing, my back hits the chair in Henry's study room.
The lonely night parades its few beams of moonlight through the curtains and onto my face.

Still, I do nothing to remove it from my sight.

After not being able to sleep, my feet stalked towards this study room, while hands began finishing Henry's work in his handwriting.

The ink pot nearby keeps my secret as my pen meets the paper.

My fingers begin surveying the parchments again, some are as new as yesterday while some are almost as old as thirty years.

That is till the corner of the bottom page shows me a familiar name.

The candlelight glowers over me, as my hands rock like the unsteady waves in a storm, either by exhaustion or haste.

"Walter Penrose and Percival Knightley."

Father's name with a Penrose?

The rest of the words have a faint ink, hardly discernible now with the years past.
Running a hand through my hair, I groan.

If this document is here, then there may be more as well.

Pulling my chair back, I trudge with large steps towards the spotless glass shelf where almost all documents are placed chronologically.

Henry has always been quite the perfectionist...

I shake my head.

1884... 1880...

I move further to the east.

1870... 1860...

This seems like the most suitable one.

Sliding open the glass door, I wrestle with the documents. That is till my eyes land upon the only one with the same compound needed.

Only one?
But then again, such old documents are mostly in offices, not domestic estates.

"Ah!" The document falls from my grasp, as my left palms holds my right wrist. A single line of blood trickles down.

Bloody paper cut...

Bending down, I pick up the document to read it peacefully under the candlelight.

Maybe now I'll know why Mathilda seems so familiar.