"Cyril Atwater, sir," Jacobs, the butler, announced.

Frances Meredith looked up sharply at the syllables of that hated name. A moment later, the accompanying hated voice rang out. A sweet, bell like tone which might have been charming emerging from a woman's lips, but was nauseating when voiced by a man. Not in all the years since he'd last heard that voice had it ever left off echoing malignantly in his memory. "I don't much care for the custom of being announced everywhere one goes. It's vulgar. Makes one feel as though one is being put up for auction." Cyril Atwater breezed into the parlor in the wake of his voice. "I'd rather be a surprise," he said, smiling, displacing the dust of the road from his clothes with precise movements of his gloved hands. "But I trust you are surprised all the same?"

Frances was, indeed, surprised, but he was damned if he'd let Atwater know it. "If you were up for auction, I doubt anyone would bid."

"Very true," Cyril agreed amiably. "After all, how could they hope to afford me?"

Frances had not seen Cyril in years, and he was taken aback to find the man not much changed. Cyril was certainly thinner and more angular, lean like a racing hound; the years had worn much of the smoothness from him. His dark brown hair was streaked through with silver, and there was a kind of quiet tension straining at the corners of his mouth, a faint spray of lines about his eyes, but otherwise he looked much the same as he had in his twenties. It was commonly said of the Atwaters that they aged slowly and lived long-- so as to better spite their enemies, who were numerous. The Atwaters had sharp tongues to match their lasting good looks, a devastating combination.

"How very to see you," said Cyril.

"What are you nattering about?" Frances asked crossly. "Is that the kind of thing they're saying nowadays in those dens of disrepute you frequent?"

"No, not at all. It's just that ordinarily I would say 'How very good to see you', but good seems uncalled for in this case, wouldn't you agree?"

"Wholeheartedly."

Cyril shook his head, his expression one of mock wonder. "And to think! I never believed I'd see the day when we agreed upon something!"

"Why have you come here? Was it simply to grate on every last one of my nerves?"

"I've come to make a delivery. It was my understanding that Percy had apprised you of the situation?"

"Yes, yes. But he didn't tell me you would be bringing the boy. Otherwise I'd never have agreed to it."

"Perhaps that's exactly why he didn't tell you. Clever Percy."

"Clever is not the word. Deceitful would be more precise." Frances looked Cyril Atwater up and down. The man wore a snow white neckcloth at his throat, which he had skillfully managed to tie so that it was lush with folds yet simultaneously understated. As it was, the neckcloth detracted nothing from the exquisite fit of his dark green coat-- which hue made his eyes seem strikingly more green than blue-- and the ethereal cut of his trousers. "Do you think yourself Beau Brummell, dressed like that?"

"That isn't the proper question, is it?"

Frances narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you'd do better to ask whether Beau Brummell thinks he's me."

"I see you haven't changed at all." Frances folded the newspaper he had been reading and set it aside, rising to his feet, feeling better prepared to deal with Cyril standing. He stood facing Cyril as he might have faced an opponent on the battlefield, and in no small way, the parlor had indeed been made a battlefield, at least for the time the two men stood there, head to head.

"I thank you." Cyril gave a mock respectful bow.

"My words were not meant as a compliment. Not in the least. I'd have hoped age would have tempered your impudence, at least in some small measure."

"Vain hopes are the cruelest ones," observed Cyril philosophically, with a woeful shake of his head.

"Where is the boy?" Frances demanded, irritated by Cyril's banter, especially the lighthearted way in which it was delivered. Just as when they were younger, he couldn't seem to get any of his barbs to stick in Cyril's skin. The man was, to all appearances, impenetrable. "Can you not just leave him and go?"

"Ah, ah!" Cyril chided. "Patience. In due time. Vivian is waiting in the carriage, and I will escort him in presently. First, I need to discuss the matter of Vivian's treatment with you." Frances had not offered him a seat, and Cyril made no move to sit, but stood in the middle of the parlor floor as elegantly as if standing in parlors was the undertaking he was most suited for on this green earth. "I will be quite frank with you, Frances." A wry smile tugged on the ends of Cyril's mouth.

"Please do try to be brief as well as frank," Frances sighed.

"Yes, of course. We don't like each other, do we? In fact, I think it's safe to say we despise each other thoroughly. I must tell you, I think Percy is making a grave mistake by sending Vivian here. But for some strange reason, he has not yet lost all faith in his brother. I, on the other hand, never had faith in you. But then, Percy must be disabused of his faith, whereas mine must be won."

"How you do go on. You're worse than a woman. The point of the matter, please."

"You're too kind. I do aspire to be worse than a woman, but I fear I have not yet attained such glory."

"The point," Frances repeated.

"But of course. The crux!" Cyril made a sweeping gesture with one hand, introducing his point to the conversation. "It is rather a simple one. If you treat Vivian badly in any way-- if you make him feel beholden to you, or assign him menial chores, or punish him more harshly than he deserves-- if you lay even a single hand upon him, if you so much as disturb the lay of the hairs on his head, or if you make him feel in any way lesser than your own sons--" Cyril paused to indulge in a cheerful, ear-to-ear grin. "If I ever hear you have done any of these things, I will have no choice but to ride here straight-away, chop you up into mincemeat, make a pie of you, and feed you to the pigs."

Frances gaped. "Have you gone mad?"

Cyril considered. "No, I don't believe so. Then again, they do say it's a sign of madness, saying you're not mad. But isn't it a sign of madness to say you are mad? What sane person would call themselves mad, after all? In conclusion, I can only assume that everyone is mad, in which case, yes. I am mad."

"I thought as much! I can't believe you have the nerve to threaten me in my own parlor!"

"You mistake me, Meredith. I am not threatening you. I am merely stating, in a factual manner, what I will do if Vivian suffers any insult or harm as a result of your words or actions."

"Of course I won't harm the lad. He's my own nephew. What do you think I am?"

"I think you are what you are," Cyril observed coolly.

"What I am, Atwater, is his uncle. You are not. I have been charged with looking after him. You have not. You have no say in the matter."

"A fine uncle you make! Never even sent Viv a letter. Or a present on Christmas. But I will admit that I have no say in the matter, practically speaking. I do, however, have a say in my own actions, and I am in no way exaggerating when I say it will be with great glee that I chop you into mincemeat."

When Frances next spoke, it was in a low voice like a growl. "I want you out of my house this minute." He took a step towards Cyril.

"Not a minute too soon," Cyril returned. "There's a stench here which offends me." There was another infuriating thing about the man. He always knew just when to stop, never pushing things too far, so that one never quite had good reason to strike him, but hovered always on the verge. Cyril turned to go, and with a final glance over his shoulder, said, "I'll fetch Viv then, shall I?"

***

It was regretfully that Cyril watched the great Meredith house recede into the distance as the carriage moved slowly but relentlessly away from the large but rather dull edifice. He hated having to leave Vivian there. It would have been better, in his opinion, to take Vivian with them, but Percy had wanted to shield the boy from his mother's madness. Furthermore, Percy had a half-baked notion of mending the breach between his brother's branch of the family and his own. Percy seemed to think that Viv might serve as the necessary bridge between the two by forming bonds with his cousins. Poor Percy. Always hoping for the best. As he'd told Frances in the parlor, vain hopes were indeed the cruelest. Cyril could not, of course, imagine that anything of worth had sprung from Frances's seed. Although to be fair to Frances's scions, he could scarcely believe that Percy and Frances had been cradled in the same womb, which went to show that anything was possible. Not everything, however, was likely.

"I'm so sorry, my dear Viv," Cyril murmured, looking back, feeling quite suddenly and unaccountably old. "I do wish I could have been born your uncle instead."