There was no one in the main room, though there was a cheerless greeting from the wall in the form of a photograph of an austere looking man with sideburns sitting on a chair, a woman with a plain face standing beside him with her hand on his shoulder, and four solemn children standing around them. Not much had changed around the room since Nate and Tobias since they were boys, other than the sofa having been replaced, a child's spelling medal having been removed from the mantlepiece, and the piano of Tobias' first wife, Sally, making the entire room seem just a little less bleak. A small picture of her still adorned the top, offering Nate the only smile in the room.

The door to the kitchen opened and the maid peeked out. "Oh Mr. Appleton. I didn't know ye were comin'!"

The austere white walls reflected not only the coldness of the room, of this whole bloody house. It didn't used to always be so, for a younger Nate remembered when the room was bright with folk tunes and stories around the fire. It was now preserved as immaculate monument to stubbornness and indifference.

Nate looked at the photo; he couldn't recall the exact date that was taken but did remember the eternity he had to stand there looking dower for the photographer. Now that same image stared down at him from the mantle on high, as if in judgement. His father's gaze saying:

"Ye have failed indeed, my son."

Jenny blushed when the man didn't seem to hear him. He was staring hard at the wall, and whatever was on his mind, Jenny didn't want to disturb him in his rumination. Mr. Appleton would want her to make tea anyway, no matter how many guests there were. And so she quietly disappeared back into the kitchen.

Quiet girls voices could be heard upstairs. There was the noise outside of the cart being moved, Tobias' voice and that of a boy, and chicken out in the yard.

Nate was at a momentary loss of what to do. Stuck here in this place, surrounded by echoes from his past while in the same space the sounds of the present were all around him. Plus he was still carrying Anne's bag.

"Anne," he called upstairs "Your case is in the hall!" the girl was probably too busy reconnecting with her sister to care about a silly bag. Anne seemed to deeply care for her sister. Was a bond that strong common among fishergirls? At least that is the sense that Nate got from her on the journey over here. Come to think of it, he still had not met his brother's wife. The social graces of the Appleton clan not withstanding, Jenny's offer of a cup sounded good.

There was a dismissive "thank you!" from upstairs, but the girls didn't come down.

At last, Tobias entered, putting his hat on the stand by the door. "Jenny should have taken your things. Come," he said and he held out his hands. He was glad that there was something he could do so he wouldn't have to talk.

At the sound of his voice, the voices upstairs had ceased.

Nate handed over his bag with a nod of thanks. It was filled with his most precious possessions, those he would save from a fire. A copy of Voltaire, a book on Common Law, his law certificate, and a keepsake from a girl in London. The rest of his belongings would come over from Leeds in time, but with the bag, he could at least have things around him that gave him comfort. Unlike his brother.

Tobias had meant his coat and hat, but he took the bag anyway. "We'll put ye in my old room. Yours is used for storage at the moment," he said.

Then he took the bag up. On his way back, he told the girls to come down. Soon there were muffled voices having an argument upstairs.

Jenny, meanwhile, came in with a tray with tea and sandwiches. "Here we are. Oh, can I take yer coat and hat, ser?"

Tobias came down, his face a little red. He sat down opposite from where his brother was standing. "Alice and Anne will be down in a moment," he said, before falling silent again because he had nothing else to say to his brother other than statements of fact.

"Oh thank you, Jenny." Nate gratefully accepted a steaming cup of tea, wrapping his hands around it.

"So, I see you haven't changed much about the place." That was as much an attempt at idle conversation, desperate to fill the vast empty silences that often hung between them. It was a dig at his brother, a not-so-subtle suggestion that Toby was a dreary, unimaginative sort, fossilised in a house that was moribund memorial to the past.

The maid Tobias missed the spite in those words, probably because he liked things to stay the same and didn't see the harm in it. He looked around. "Yes..." he replied. What else was there to say? He had already mentioned Bess, already asked about Leeds, already asked what he was here for. That exhausted the list of relevant topics of conversation with his brother he could come up with.

He didn't have to suffer the silence for long. Alice came down the stairs, followed by her sister. He rose, "Ah, may I introduce ye to my wife, Alice. Alice, this is my brother, Nathan."

She didn't care about meeting Tobias' stupid brother. She wanted to stay in her room in the comforting presence of her sister. But Tobias had threatened to send Anne home, and Anne had begged her to comply. It was for her sister's sake only that she now came down the stairs, dressed in a blue skirt and bodice that seemed a little too loose on her.

She looked pale and moved slowly. Her hair was pinned up in a simple bun. Her mouth was slightly pursed. As soon as they had reached the bottom of the stairs, Anne rushed to walk by her side, holding her arm.

Alice looked from one brother to the other as introductions were made. Then she dropped her sour expression to smile at Nate and extend her hand. "Pleasure to meet you, Nathan," she said. She looked at Tobias and tilted her head. "I thought you said you were the younger."