“Has she heard from Mother?” said Samuel.
Ruth silently shushed him. “Yes, it was a sudden departure, but when the opportunity arose to meet with bankers in America, Mrs. Clay had little choice but to take it...No, it wasn’t expected, Mrs. Harris, but then—”
Mrs. Harris seemed to have a lot to say, and the whole time she was listening, Ruth played with the pin on the collar of her dress. It was silver with a four-leaf clover that sparkled with yellow stones, but Olive said they weren’t even a tiny bit real and that Ruth treated that pin like the royal jewels because her father had given it to her.
“I don’t know about that, Mrs. Harris.” There was a lightness to Ruth’s voice that hadn’t been there before. “I’m sure Mrs. Clay is very busy. Last I heard she was in Boston...Well, no, she wouldn’t be in meetings all day long.” She laughed. “Yes, traveling the world does sound rather heavenly but, as I say, Mrs. Clay is not on a holiday.” A pause. “Mrs. Harris, what a thing to say!”
Samuel couldn’t explain why he had a knot in his stomach or why Ruth’s laughter pulled on that knot until it was so tight he thought it might snap.
“Samuel?” said Ruth, glancing briefly at the boy. “He’s well.” Another pause. “Oh, yes, he keeps me on my toes. Actually, he’s eating his dinner as we speak and I best get back to the kitchen while it’s still standing.” Laughter. “That’s one way of putting it.”
He didn’t listen after that. His heart thumped in his chest and the anger was everywhere, seeping into his blood and rushing through his veins. Ruth had lied. She said lying was a terrible thing to do. But she lied. Lying and snickering with that old bat Mrs. Harris about his mother, making out she was having a wonderful time away from him.
Samuel didn’t make the decision to strike out—suddenly, it was just happening. He bent his leg back and then swung it forward, striking her hard as he could in the shin. It only occurred to him later that it was almost exactly the same spot where he had been wounded just days before.
“Ah!” Ruth’s cry made Samuel jump. What had he expected her to do but cry out? Pain flashed across her face and she took a breath with such force it sounded like a growl.
The boy ran then, bounding up the stairs. He stopped on the landing, squatting down, peering back at her through the wooden posts.
“No, Mrs. Harris, I’m...I’m fine.” But her voice had a tight rasp to it. “Oh, nothing. I just...knocked my leg, is all.” Her eyes flickered toward the landing but it was gloomy up there and Samuel hoped she couldn’t see him. “Yes, I’m very clumsy. Forgive me, Mrs. Harris, but I must be going...Of course I’ll let you know just as soon as I have word on Mrs. Clay’s return. Good night.”
Ruth hung up the phone and leaned on the side table for a moment or two with her eyes shut tight. Samuel heard her take a deep breath. Then she bent over, put a hand on her aching leg and cursed the devil.
7
Samuel didn’t see Ruth again before bed. He had waited for her to come, but she never did. Nor did her footsteps echo down the corridor toward his room. It was as if she had disappeared.
Occasionally his eyes would leave the door and travel around the bedroom, glimpsing the picture of his mother holding him as a baby that sat on his bedside table or his collection of World War II fighter planes clustered along the window ledge or the wooden replica of the RMS Queen Mary sitting on the mantel or the painting of his father on a horse when he was just a boy, hanging above the fireplace.
Eventually his eyes grew heavy, but fears crowded in, demanding attention. He had kicked Ruth, hurt her; he’d never done that before. But in time even the very worst of his demons settled and the boy fell under sleep’s spell.
He always slept deeply. So he never heard her boots on the wooden floors outside. Nor did he see her shadow under the door, nor did he hear the door open, gently. Light spilled into the room, though her silhouette carved out the best of it. The boy’s back was to her but she saw the rise and fall of the blanket and heard his indolent breathing.
She walked toward the bed, favoring her left leg with an unmistakable limp. Still, her steps were not heavy and apart from the odd creek of a floorboard she was soon there, looking down. She bent forward, hands on her knees, and called the boy’s name.
“Samuel,” she said playfully. “Samuel.”
The boy moved just a little but quickly settled again.
“Samuel.” She said it louder this time but still full of good cheer. “Samuel, wake up. Your mother has come home.”
The boy’s eyes fluttered open but his mind was still a fog. He stretched and turned toward the voice, blinking into the darkness. “Mother’s home?” Silence. “Ruth, is Mother—?”
He didn’t see her hand draw back. He only felt the blow against his face, throwing his body sideways. He made a faint sound and the breath felt as if it were pulled from his body. Then that brief second or two when his skin tingled before the pain showed itself, spreading across his cheek like a flame. He shrank back, curling up into a ball and pulling the covers over him.
“You’re dreaming, Samuel.” Her voice practically sang. “Dreaming this whole thing.”
Then she limped from the room, closing the door silently behind her.
8
Samuel stayed home from school the next day. Ruth said he had the makings of a cold, though he had barely coughed. Samuel knew the real reason but he didn’t say it aloud. That’s how it was with them. By morning the red had all but faded and his cheek didn’t look any worse than what a short walk in a cold wind would do. It didn’t hurt much. Not anymore.
“Have you made your bed?” Ruth was picking up his breakfast plate. As she walked to the sink, Samuel noticed she was limping slightly.
“No, Ruth.”
Samuel’s mother insisted that the boy always made his own bed. She said this was for his own good and that children who did nothing for themselves grew into impractical lumps. Normally, Samuel made it as soon as he got up, but not today. He had woken early, same as always, but this time his first thought wasn’t about his mother. It was about her bedroom door. Her locked bedroom door. And how he might get into it.
As a general rule, Samuel always had a lot on his mind. So many thoughts and worries and troubles all bound up in the shape of his mother. But ever since he’d opened that letter, it was the only thing he could think about—though if he had stopped to consider it, this was bound up in the shape of her, too. His mother had written about him and told his father not to bring him down to Bath to visit her. Why? Why would she not want to see him? He had to know, that’s all. So there was no other option than to read her words from start to finish.
Which is why he hadn’t made his bed. He needed an excuse to go back upstairs and do the very thing he had been forbidden to do: break into his mother’s bedroom and invade her privacy. Ruth said it was wrong but somehow it didn’t feel anything but right. He simply had to read it. Now, that wasn’t an easy matter, as Ruth kept the key in her possession. Last night, when Samuel was still hiding under the sheets, his cheek stinging, feeling nothing but mad at Ruth and wishing she would fall down the stairs or slip on some spilled porridge and break her neck, he remembered something. His mother kept a set of keys in her study. He had seen them many times when he was looking for this or that, and surely one of those keys would open her bedroom door? People always kept a spare key, didn’t they?
“Well, then,” said Ruth, taking the kettle off the stove, “as your bed won’t make itself, I suggest you go and see to it. After that, you can do some work on that thing for Reverend Pryce. You’re to write out a psalm and draw a picture, aren’t you?”
“I left it at school.”
“Well, start again. I’m sure there’s a Bible in your mother’s study.” Ruth poured the hot water into the pot, clouds of steam rising around her like a mist. “Just because you’re home from school doesn’t
mean you get to laze around like a dandy. What on earth are you gawking at?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing indeed. Then would you mind getting a move on?”
“Yes, Ruth.” Samuel did his best not to look even slightly pleased as he hurried from the kitchen.
The keys were in the last drawer of the desk. There were three of them strung on a silver loop. One had an ornate design and Samuel recognized it as belonging to the study door, while the other two both were plain and looked very much like the key Ruth had used to lock his mother’s bedroom. There was a chance. Hope was alive. It was a small win and he took it.
Samuel was hurrying toward his mother’s bedroom, clutching the keys tightly so they didn’t jangle. He’d just reached the door when he heard her.
“Are you making that bed?” she called from downstairs.
“Doing it now, Ruth.”
“Playing with your planes more like it,” she replied.
“I’m not,” he called back, even in that moment unable to endure a false allegation.
Ruth may have huffed then or muttered something—he couldn’t be sure. Nor did it matter. As carefully as he could, he slipped the first key in the lock, hoping against hope that it would open. It jammed as he turned it. So he tried the second key, even asking his father to please let this be the one. His father was in heaven watching over him or was sleeping for eternity; Samuel had heard conflicting information. But at that moment he needed all the help he could get.
Biting down on his bottom lip, he turned the key. It twisted with ease; the sound of the lock slipping back was as sweet as church bells. The boy passed inside and closed the door behind him. He moved quickly across the room and opened the top drawer, looking for the letters—they were under the tea tin, which was under the blanket. The tin rattled with the sound of his mother’s earrings and necklace when he lifted it and in the quiet of the room it sounded like cannon fire.
“Samuel?” It was Ruth. Her footsteps now drumming the corridor outside.
The boy held his breath. Kept as still as he could manage, the letters clutched in one hand, the tea tin in the other. He heard Ruth pass by the door and he reasoned she was heading toward his bedroom. Moments later, he heard her coming his way again.
“I’m in no mood for games, Samuel Clay.” He heard Ruth sigh then. “Bed unmade, clothes on the floor. No better than a vagabond.”
The percussion of her footsteps slowed as she passed his mother’s door. Then they stopped. A tremor slithered up Samuel’s spine. His hands began to tremble. If she opened the door, that would be it. He’d be done for. His eyes were fixed on the door handle. He prayed to his father for help again, hoping he’d intercede. Then the click of Ruth’s boots on the floorboards broke the silence. She was walking back toward the landing.
The boy let out a shallow breath. He thought better of taking all the letters. What if Ruth were to check? So he took just the top one that he had been reading the day before. Then he placed the parcel of letters at the bottom of the drawer and covered them with the tea tin and the baby blanket. Next, he wiped the perspiration from the top of his lip, thanked his father for the help and hurried out to make his bed.
9
Ruth didn’t search for long. She retreated to the kitchen and Samuel heard her banging about in there as he came down the stairs, the letter folded in his pocket. He knew how out of sorts she got when she couldn’t find him and he thought that might explain all the pots and pans getting pummeled. Still, he had made his bed and he would just tell Ruth that he was up in the attic looking for a box of his father’s old toys. He’d done that before so it wouldn’t sound unlikely.
Samuel practically ran to the study. He put the keys back where he found them and then searched the bookshelves for a Bible. He found one, a large volume with embossed gold lettering, which he’d never seen his mother or his father holding. Then he sat down at his mother’s desk and opened the book, searching for Psalm 3—all about David, who was fleeing from his son Absalom—which is the one he had to write out for Reverend Pryce’s school visit next week. Everything had to look just so should Ruth suddenly appear. Which she certainly would.
He retrieved the envelope from his pocket and took out the letter. His mother had numbered the pages in the top right-hand corner. There were three in all. So, he began.
May 19, 1957
Dearest Vincent,
I received your present yesterday and it was a lovely surprise. The scarf is beautiful and just the thing to wrap around me when I take my walks through town. I could write for days about the hot springs, though I fear that would bore you silly! Oh, but they really are something. The heat was a shock to begin with, I won’t lie, but I have come to love it. I really believe the water and the vapors have great healing powers and my soul feels all the lighter for it. Heavens, I must sound ludicrous! But honestly, my darling, Bath is just as Dr. Boyle said, the ideal place to refresh myself.
The letter went on like this for the rest of the page, and as much as Samuel wanted to savor every one of his mother’s words, he really only had one destination in mind: the next page, where he knew she had begun to talk about him. He read quickly, about how his mother was filling her days bathing in the hot springs and going for long walks and something she called sessions with a Dr. Boyle. Samuel didn’t know why she would need a doctor when all she was doing was resting, but he decided that perhaps a doctor was just the thing with all that hot water and vapors.
I can breathe here and think clearly just like my old self. Does that make me sound horribly selfish? I do try to be all that I am supposed to be, I hope you know that, but it is very hard. I want to be better when I come home, better for all of us. At the moment, however, I do not feel ready, which makes me feel like a heel. I know how much all this is costing and that it is money we don’t have.
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 set me back.
He also says that I must be honest with you and so I will. When you write and tell me how much Samuel misses me and how he cries for me, it only makes things worse. If you only knew how wretched I feel when he is
“Samuel, are you in the study?” Ruth’s voice swept in from the great hall and the boy was suddenly aware that she was walking toward the study.
“Yes, Ruth.” Samuel folded the letter and slipped it between the pages of the Bible.
She entered the room with her hands already on her hips. “Just where were you when I was calling all over the house?”
Samuel told her about being in the attic. As he did, he tried hard not to look down at the Bible. Ruth noticed things like that.
“The attic?” Ruth scowled like she hadn’t considered that. “I suppose you’ve dragged more clutter down for me to dust?”
The boy shrugged. “I didn’t find anything worth playing with.”
“Is that so?” Ruth let her hands drop down as she walked toward Samuel. “Up in the attic with all those treasures, old boats and toy soldiers, and you come down empty-handed?”
Samuel nodded, glancing down at the Bible without meaning to.
Ruth gazed at him for a very long time. She sniffed and said, “Didn’t I tell you to make your bed?”
“It’s done.” He looked up at her. “I’m sorry I didn’t come when you were calling, I didn’t hear you up in the attic, that’s all.”
Ruth sniffed again. She always seemed on the brink of a cold. “Yes, well, I need you to fetch some wood for the stove. William left it outside the kitchen. I’m in the middle of making a mince pie and there’s hardly a twig left to burn.”
“Yes, Ruth.” Samuel closed the book and managed to look bored. “Anything’s better than reading the Bible.”
“What a thi
ng to say.” Ruth was walking about the study now. “I confess, I’m more than a little surprised that you’re in here actually doing as you were told. A minor miracle, surely?”
“I’ve nothing else to do.” Samuel looked out the window for good effect. “Could I play outside once I bring in the wood?”
“You’ve got a cold, remember?” Ruth was playing with the clover pin on her collar. “Are you feeling better, then?”
Samuel nodded.
“Good.”
Sometimes Samuel would wonder about Ruth—where she was from and such. He didn’t know much about her, only what he’d heard from his parents or Olive. There had been some talk of a sweetheart, that’s what Olive said, but the war had taken him. Or he had come back but wasn’t the same. Either way, nobody believed that Ruth had ever married. When Samuel’s parents talked about Ruth they seemed to find it funny that there hadn’t been any admirers calling at the house, no letters from distant shores, that perhaps something in her manner—the stiffness of her posture, the relentless buckle of her brow—suggested a certain exasperation. That was his father’s word. Or was it disappointment? his mother had asked.
Ruth was from up north. At least, Samuel thought she was. One day as lunch was being served, Samuel’s mother had asked about her family. Ruth said her sister was all she had left and the rest of her kin were long buried. His mother had frowned then, put down her napkin and inquired about Ruth’s hopes. She couldn’t imagine a life without the possibility of brighter days. Surely Ruth had dreams? Something she was counting on or hoping for? Did she want to open a teashop or write a novel or visit the pyramids? Ruth just blushed and said she had all she needed right there with them. When she left the room to fetch more coffee, Samuel’s mother said that Ruth wasn’t being honest. She cared about something enough to keep it to herself. That blush was as good as saying it aloud.
The Boy at the Keyhole Page 4