He had just passed Ruth’s bedroom when he stopped and backed up. The door was closed, same as always. Samuel pressed his ear to the door and heard nothing of interest. Being a housekeeper, Ruth’s bedroom was supposed to be in the servants’ quarters at the back of the kitchen. But Samuel’s mother thought that was a terrible idea; it would certainly make Ruth feel like a slave or, at very least, a second-class citizen. And how could you expect someone as proud as Ruth to sleep in some little room with hardly a window and still keep her dignity? If she was a part of the family, which she was, then she should be treated as such. Samuel’s mother couldn’t manage without Ruth. She was her right arm, that’s what she said, with a gift for keeping everything at the house humming along so that Samuel’s mother was free to worry about far more important things.
Samuel walked on, passing two more doors and then stopping in front of the next. He looked up and down the corridor one more time, which is what you did when you wanted to be certain. Now that he stood on the precipice of this wrongdoing, he felt the fluttering in his chest that made every breath sound as if he were sitting on a rattling train. Samuel bit his bottom lip and told himself that some rules made no sense and why shouldn’t he do this, which was hardly a great crime, was it? In fact, it was no crime at all. He reached for the doorknob. The brass handle felt cold against his skin, and though Samuel refused to admit it, this felt like an admonishment. As if the doorknob knew what he was up to and didn’t approve. With a twist and the feeblest of squeaks the door opened—what choice did it have?—and the boy stepped inside, closing it carefully behind him.
* * *
A mother’s bedroom is always pretty, at least in books and things. But not his mother’s. She preferred white walls and dark furniture, just a chair by her dressing table, a chest of drawers, plain curtains on the windows. She liked things simple and unadorned and found frills of any kind, and floral frills in particular, utterly demoralizing.
Though she hadn’t been in the room for a long time, there were traces of his mother there. The hint of her perfume and cigarettes, the scent of her leather gloves, her creams, which were arranged on the dressing table. Only the softest spray of moonlight wandered about the chamber, so Samuel turned on a lamp by the bed. When it was lit up, the bedroom was simple, unfussy and still. Couldn’t he just picture his mother sitting at the dressing table putting on a necklace or applying her face cream or dabbing her neck with perfume and couldn’t he hear the melody of her voice as she chatted with his father or Ruth about this or that?
The room had once been both his mother and his father’s room and there were still pieces of him there—but you had to know where to look. Samuel walked over to the dressing table and opened the center drawer, which contained several boxes all neatly organized. Only one interested him; it was rectangular and covered in red velvet. He opened it. Inside was a gold dress watch that had belonged to his grandfather and then his father and was something his mother called an heirloom. One day the watch would be Samuel’s, but until then, his mother kept it for herself.
From out in the hall, a floorboard creaked. Samuel froze, the watch nestled in his hand. He glanced at the door, held his breath, refused to swallow even though his throat was practically demanding it. Any noise was reckless at such a time. The boards made no further protest and the relief rippled through his body.
Samuel surrendered the watch, closed the box and returned it to the drawer. He walked silently around the bedroom. The boy looked at things, touched them, moved on, saw and touched the next thing, arriving at the chest of drawers. What a dull thing a chest of drawers was. It never held the great promise of a locked cupboard or a safe hidden behind a painting. With little enthusiasm, he pulled open the middle drawer and looked inside. It was as miserable as he expected—just a few pairs of stockings and undergarments, some old lace handkerchiefs and a photo album or two. He allowed a disappointed sigh. Then he opened the top drawer, which was littered with the gloves and scarfs his mother hadn’t taken with her and a blanket that had been his father’s when he was a baby.
The blanket’s wool was frayed but soft, peach colored, with lambs and blue birds embroidered over it. Samuel placed his hand on it, just to feel its soft promise, but the blanket resisted his touch. Samuel lifted it up and discovered a tin hiding underneath. A tea tin. Naturally, such a discovery had to be investigated. He unscrewed the lid and found inside a pair of gold earrings, the very ones his mother was wearing in the photograph of his parents’ wedding day on the bedside table, and a necklace with a sparkling red stone that his father gave to his mother when Samuel was born.
If finding them there puzzled him, the mystery was quickly solved. Hadn’t his mother said once that only a chump leaves their best jewels in the dressing table or even a safe? Much smarter to hide them in an ordinary box just thrown in somewhere as if of no value or importance at all. The tin was nothing less than a confirmation of his mother’s great wisdom. Samuel screwed the lid back on and placed the tin back where he found it. As he did, his hand brushed up against a small bulge in the last fold of the blanket. And there, tied with string, was a slim pile of letters.
Samuel sat down on the bed, untying the string. There were five letters in all, each one addressed to his father. Samuel recognized the handwriting right away. It was the same ornate scrawl that was on the postcards his mother had sent. These were her letters, sent to his father? Which raised so many questions and possibilities that Samuel was forced to stand up and then sit back down again. He opened the first letter with the fragile delicacy of a sacred scroll.
May 19, 1957
Dearest Vincent,
Yes, it was his mother writing to his father. The back of the envelope was an address in Somerset—a place called Lansdown in Bath—and the date was May of 1957. Samuel quickly deduced that this must have been when she was away resting. The letter had three pages and, unlike his postcards, the words were crammed tightly together as if his mother had a great deal to say. Her handwriting wasn’t hard for him to understand as his teacher said he was a fine reader, better than almost everyone in the class except for Violet Winchester, even if he didn’t have any regard for punctuation.
Samuel’s eyes scanned down the first page and then the second, flying over the blur of words and only stopping when his own name practically leaped out at him, as a person’s own name will. Samuel. His mother was writing about him. Even though she had been far away in Bath, she must have been thinking of her boy. Why did that make him so happy? Of course she would be thinking of him. That’s what mothers do when they’re away from their children—they miss them dreadfully, a pain so awful it brings on fits of tears and heart shivers, and there’s nothing that can fix it until they are reunited with their little ones. Samuel thought it best to scroll back to the previous sentence and start from there.
Please do come next weekend if you can, though I know how difficult things are at the factory. I would love to see you, my darling, but I think it would be better if you didn’t bring Samuel. Dr. Boyle says it might
Samuel stopped reading. The trouble with a closed door is that there is always the possibility that someone will fling it open, especially when you are somewhere you aren’t supposed to be. So a part of Samuel wasn’t entirely surprised when he heard the door handle release its feeble squeak. He jumped off the bed and tucked the letters in the waist of his pants, covering them with his jumper as the door swung open. Ruth was there at the threshold, pale light flooding in around her.
“You’re not to be in here,” she said.
That was true. His mother never liked him being in her bedroom or the dressing room down the hall because these places were her sanctuary. Samuel was always getting under her feet, that’s what she said, but surely his mother would have fallen down if he were under her feet? Which she never had, not once. Still, she needed time to herself. And he would always be tugging at her arm, begging her to play hide-and-se
ek or to go outside and watch him ride his bike or fly kites—but it wasn’t fair to pester his mother because an afternoon of silly games could bring on a headache that lasted days. She wanted to play with him—there was no question about that—but his father had been better at that kind of thing, and besides, there was so much that needed her attention and a person only has two hands.
“What are you doing in this room, Samuel?” Ruth said.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Ruth walked into the bedroom as if she wasn’t in any great hurry. “I find that very hard to believe.”
“I just... I was thinking of Mother and missing her, so I came in here.” Samuel tried his best to look as if he wasn’t hiding something. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
Ruth’s lips pursed in condemnation. “So that’s all you were up to? Standing in the middle of your mother’s bedroom missing her?”
Samuel nodded.
“What’s that under your jumper, Samuel?” Ruth said this soft and calm, which somehow made it worse. “Samuel, I asked you a question. What’s under your jumper?”
The boy clenched his stomach as if the letters would magically sink into his skin and disappear. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” said Ruth for the second time.
“It isn’t anything at all, Ruth. Like I said, I was missing—”
Her hand shot out, grabbing his jumper and yanking him toward her, while the other hand flew under his shirt and pulled the letters from his waist. She inspected the thin bundle. “Reading your mother’s private letters is a wicked thing to do.”
The boy said nothing.
“Is that what you’ve become, Samuel?” Ruth’s once-soft voice crumbled under the familiar weight of her displeasure, heavy and full of sharp edges. “Is that what you are? A boy who sneaks about in bedrooms looking through drawers?”
“I just wanted to read them.” He said this faintly.
“If it was meant for your eyes, your name would be on the envelope.”
He didn’t dare look up at her. “My name’s inside, I saw it.”
“Even more reason not to be reading it.” Ruth cleared her throat. “You read every word, I suppose?”
Samuel shook his head. “Just a line or two.”
“Yes, well...”
Ruth put the letters back in the drawer, closing it so hard it made the pictures on top rattle. Samuel stood rooted, unsure whether Ruth had reached the borderland of her anger yet. He heard her stalking back toward him, muttering something he couldn’t catch, then her hand caught the crook of his arm, and she pulled him from the room.
“Deceitful, that’s what you are,” she said.
Out in the hallway she fished a set of keys from the pocket of her plain gray dress. “Just imagine it,” she said, the crisp snap of the lock echoing through the corridor. “Having to lock Mrs. Clay’s bedroom door so her own son won’t sneak in and steal what doesn’t belong to him.”
It was the injustice that always bit hardest, sinking its teeth into him, making him say things that anyone with an ounce of common sense would keep to themselves. “What’s so wrong with me reading Mother’s letters? Did she say I couldn’t? Father is gone, so he can’t read them, and Mother told me I’m to have all that belonged to him and that must include those letters, too.”
Ruth checked that the door was locked and dropped the keys into her pocket. “Well said, Samuel, and quite right, too.”
That wasn’t what he had expected. Well said? Quite right? He looked up at her and saw from the stony look in her eyes, that unblinking stare, that she hadn’t meant it at all. That she was making fun of him. Ruth released her hold on his arm in such a way that he stumbled, needing the wall to steady himself. She put her hand on his chest, pressing him against the oak panels. “Right is right and wrong is wrong and nothing you can say will make what you’ve done any less wicked. I expected better of you, Samuel Clay.” She dropped her hand and smoothed down her dress. “Stay in your room until I call you for dinner. Is that clear?”
Samuel didn’t answer, walking quickly to his bedroom and slamming the door. He half expected Ruth to come in and make a fuss again. But she didn’t. If there were tears, he did his best to deny them. Ruth was a nasty beast who should be thrown down a well or locked in a dungeon. She didn’t understand that he was only trying to be near her, that his mother was a creature in orbit and the one way he could feel close to her was to linger in the traces she left behind. All Ruth saw was the wrong he had done. That’s all she ever saw. With a head full of sorrows, the only thing he could bear to do was stand by the window, arms folded, scowling out at the darkness. The night had rendered the garden an inky swamp and a part of him longed to dive into it and be gone. Mostly, though, he was thinking of his mother and those letters and what it all meant. Wondering where she was right now when he needed her most and willing her to come home to him.
6
He had all his meals in the kitchen with Ruth. It was easier that way and Ruth couldn’t be expected to set a fine table morning and night for just one boy. Mostly they ate together, sitting opposite each other, talking about some little thing or other. But not always. When there was a chill between them, Ruth couldn’t abide eating with the boy. She would wait until he was done, send him on his way and then take her meal.
Samuel didn’t mind. Why would he want to eat with a rotten apple like Ruth Tupper, who wouldn’t let him read those letters? Didn’t he have every right to know what his mother said about him? How could he just go on with things when he knew there was a message from her locked away just across the hall from his bedroom? She hadn’t wanted him to visit her in Bath. That’s what she wrote. It would be better if you didn’t bring Samuel. And that’s what really sat under the frown on his face, whispering the question over and over. Why didn’t she want him to visit?
“Are you eating that food or rearranging it?” Ruth put a glass of water in front of him.
Samuel looked down at the roast beef, potatoes and peas, the fork dangling from his fingers. “I don’t like roast beef.”
“Fine.” Ruth picked up the plate and snatched the knife and fork from his hands. “Don’t eat it, then.”
“Give that back,” said Samuel, and he didn’t care that his voice was louder than Ruth would allow at the dinner table. “I said, give that back.”
“Why would I do that? You don’t like roast beef, remember?” She went to the scrap bin and dropped the contents of Samuel’s dinner into it. “If you don’t want what I’ve spent all afternoon cooking for you, well, I wouldn’t dream of forcing it on you.” She looked over at the boy and sniffed. “The same goes for those shortbread I set aside for your dessert.”
“I’ll tell Mother you threw my dinner away!” he shouted.
“Will you now?” Ruth sat herself down at the opposite end of the table and began filling her plate. “And will you also tell her what you were up to in her bedroom this afternoon?” She pierced a piece of beef with her fork and held it there. “I’m sure she’d want to know all about it—though I can only guess what she’d think of you then, Samuel.”
“She would understand.” But there was doubt in his voice and they both knew it. “Please, Ruth, let me see those letters. I promise I won’t ever go into Mother’s room again. I promise I won’t, but Mother was writing about me and I just want to—”
“That subject is closed. You should be filled with remorse about what you did. Instead, you’re boldly asking to invade your mother’s privacy again. As if it’s nothing at all.” She was shaking her head now. “Shame on you.”
The telephone began to ring out in the hall. Ruth looked toward the door, then back at Samuel. She said, “Don’t move.”
“I’ll answer it,” said Samuel, getting up.
Ruth stood, her finger pointed. “You’ll do no such thing. Sit down.”
Sh
e walked from the kitchen, her shoes clicking along the stone floor. They didn’t get many phone calls at the house, not at night, anyway. Something was already stirring inside Samuel—right from that very first ring. It could be his mother calling or Uncle Felix, telling him that she had sent a telegram and that she was already sailing home. A phone ringing in the night was a promise, a promise of news. How could he sit there and wait?
* * *
The hall had a large chandelier, all crystal pendants and curved glass, but it wasn’t burning and the lamps were switched off on account of economizing. What light there was spilled in from the kitchen with a little help from the half-moon outside, which cast the hall a foggy blue. Ruth was nearly at the phone when Samuel entered the hall. He was running by then. She didn’t turn to look at him, but Samuel was sure she must have heard him coming, because she quickened her steps, practically snatching the receiver just as he reached her.
“The Clay residence,” said Ruth, slightly out of breath.
“Is it Mother?” asked Samuel.
Ruth shooed him away with her hand. “Good evening, Mrs. Harris.”
Mrs. Harris. His mother’s friend from the next village. She taught piano and every second Friday she read tea leaves and talked to spirits for anyone with five shillings. Mrs. Harris had once sent word directly from Samuel’s father, all the way from what she called “the other side.” His mother didn’t say what the message was but she came home all teary and said it sounded just like him. And now Mrs. Harris was on the telephone. Samuel couldn’t have been more disheartened if he tried.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Harris,” Ruth was saying. “Mrs. Clay is still abroad...No, I don’t have a firm date for her return, unfortunately.”
The Boy at the Keyhole Page 3