“Thought so.” Ruth’s smile was smug and that made Samuel want to throw the cake right in her face. “Can you guess who I met in the village this morning?”
How was Samuel supposed to know such a thing? But then he thought it might have to do with his mother, news of some sort, and once that thought had shown up there was no other choice than to say, “Who?”
“Mrs. Collins.” Ruth went to the cupboard, pulling out a plate. “We had a lovely chat outside the post office.”
Something about the way Ruth was talking, the lightness in her voice and the breezy smile on her face, began to unsettle him. “What did you talk about?”
“Lots of things.” Ruth put the plate on the table and got a knife from the drawer. “She told me that Joseph spends a great deal of time prattling on about you.”
Samuel watched as Ruth cut a generous slice of chocolate cake and set it down on the plate. He said, “Oh.”
“Oh, indeed.” Ruth passed the cake to Samuel. “Mrs. Collins told me that her Joseph is convinced I’ve got dead bodies piled up in the cellar.” She looked only at Samuel. “Can you imagine that?”
The boy stayed quiet.
“Joseph’s mother thought the whole thing was hilarious and, naturally, I enjoyed the joke along with her.” Ruth retrieved a fork from the drawer, handing it to Samuel. “Though it’s hard to find the funny side of an ugly, wicked lie.” She smiled. “Eat up, I know it’s your favorite.”
Although his appetite had left him, Samuel took a bite, occupying himself wholly with the cake and not watching Ruth as she moved about the kitchen.
“Can you think where your friend Joseph might get a story like that, Samuel?”
Samuel’s mouth was mercifully full so it made not answering an easier matter.
Ruth was at the sink now, running the knife under the water. “Cat got your tongue? I asked you where Joseph got such an idea?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“Yes. I mean, no.”
“Because I’ve been thinking about it all day and I came to the conclusion that perhaps someone from this house told Joseph that ridiculous story.”
Which wasn’t true at all. The story had come from Joseph, but as Samuel didn’t have the self-preserving instincts of a traitor, he refused to say so.
“Look at me, Samuel.” Ruth’s voice was hard as flint.
The cake was delicious but he was not enjoying it one little bit. Samuel lifted his head.
“It is bad enough that I have to hear the foolishness that comes out of your mouth night and day.” She was pointing at him with the knife; water dripped from it onto the floor. “But I will not have you spreading this nonsense all over the village so that I have to suffer it there, as well. What do you suppose would happen if someone other than Mrs. Collins heard such a story?”
The boy didn’t have an answer for that.
“They would call the police, who would come here and see that there’s not an ounce of truth to the story and then...well, then they would want to see you and do you know why?”
Samuel shook his head.
“Because they would think you had an illness of the mind, Samuel. They would think you were a very sick boy, because a healthy mind wouldn’t harbor such dark thoughts, and I fear you would be taken from this house and put in a hospital and you might never come back. Is that what you want?”
The room was suddenly a cold chamber and Samuel felt the bumps rising on his flesh. He didn’t want to believe Ruth, but she sounded so sure, and so worried for him, and wouldn’t she know such things? “I don’t want that,” he said.
“Don’t you? Well, then, you better hope it goes no further than it already has.” Ruth dropped the knife into the sink. “Though gossip is like a honey pot to a swarm of bees in this village.” She was scowling now. “Have you told this awful story to anyone else?”
“No, Ruth.”
“You swear it?”
“Yes, Ruth.”
“That’s something, I suppose.” The tight lines around her mouth softened. “Let’s say no more about it, then.”
Samuel found himself nodding.
“Why don’t you finish your cake, then get on with your homework.” Ruth was busy at the sink and her indignation seemed to have stalled. “You’ll note that it’s chocolate—your favorite, no less.”
This made Samuel think of the last chocolate cake Ruth had made—or tried to, anyway—and how it had shattered on the floor after she had grabbed his arm and thrust him against the table, and the rage on her face because she had told him to stop running and enough was enough. Samuel felt the tension in his belly and his hunger deserted him. Still, he knew that Ruth would like to see him eat the cake; she was watching and it was his favorite. So he picked up the fork and took another large bite.
“How is it?” she asked before he’d even had a chance to swallow.
“Good.”
Ruth went to the larder and came out with a handful of onions. “I’m cooking pie with the leftover pork tonight—there’s plenty left and I can throw in a few bits and pieces to liven it up.”
Samuel watched Ruth as she went to the chopping block and began peeling the onions. She had her back to him but her head lifted every now and then as she spoke. “I had planned on roasting a pheasant with fresh greens but...” She sighed. “Pheasant costs more than I can spare right now, and there’s the outstanding bill at Mr. Oldfield’s to consider, so leftovers it is.”
“Are we poor?” Samuel took another bite of cake.
“Things are tight. But we’re not destitute. Not quite, at any rate.”
The good cheer suddenly washing about the kitchen didn’t do a great deal for Samuel’s spirits. Everything Ruth had said about the police coming and locking him away in some revolting hospital had bruised and he had to force himself to take another bite of cake.
“Now, I don’t want you saying anything about leftovers to Joseph Collins, either,” instructed Ruth. “I’m sure the whole village has heard about my public shaming at the butcher’s, so we don’t want to add fuel to the fire. Is that clear, Samuel?”
Samuel swallowed the cake quickly so that he could answer Ruth and immediately he felt a strange sensation in his throat. Something odd, something foreign, had passed down and then got stuck. It lodged there and would not move, no matter how hard Samuel swallowed. He was so busy trying to force it down that he didn’t notice how the air no longer moved freely. His face felt hot and now he was trying desperately to force a breath up from his lungs.
Ruth lifted her head but did not turn around. “I said, is that clear, Samuel?”
He was making a gurgling sound—at least, he was trying—but it quickly died without the breath to carry it.
“What on earth is that noise?” Ruth said.
The boy’s chest was clenched like a fist, his eyes watering, the lack of air making his head whirl. Samuel stood, knocking the chair over, and banged down on the table.
Ruth twisted around. She saw the boy’s face, bright red, and the terror in his eyes. She hesitated, just for a moment, as if she were not sure what to do. Then she shouted, “Samuel!”
The housekeeper ran across the kitchen, pushing the boy forward, and then pounded on his back. Samuel’s eyes had fogged up and his head was a vault of pressure and pain. Ruth struck his back again, causing his body to flatten out on the table. She hit him again and then again.
He was going to vomit. That’s what it felt like. Then something shot up and a river of blood and sick spilled across the kitchen table. Samuel took a greedy breath and began to cough.
“Thank God for that.” Ruth kept her hand at his back. “Mercy.”
Samuel took another breath and then another, wiping his mouth and then his eyes, which were foggy with tears.
“Are you all right
?” Ruth picked up the chair and eased him down.
“I couldn’t breathe. I was choking.”
Ruth fetched him a glass of water. “The cake must have gone down the wrong way.”
Samuel could taste the bitterness of blood in his mouth. He pointed to the pool of vomit on the table. “It wasn’t the cake.”
Ruth looked down and saw in among the bile an object roughly the size of a raisin, slick with blood. She picked it up and held it to the window.
“What is it?” said Samuel.
“Glass.” Ruth said this faintly. “It’s a piece of glass.”
Before Samuel could ask how a piece of glass had found its way into the chocolate cake, Ruth went over and washed it under the tap, then placed it down on the table. She said, “I dropped the jug of cream when I was making the cake—it hit the edge of the table and shattered. I thought all of the pieces went on the floor but...”
The water trembled in Samuel’s hand as he took a drink and the cool liquid felt like fire rushing down his throat.
“Butter fingers, that’s what I’ve got.” Ruth’s face was a web of frowns. She stood over him, had him open his mouth. “Does it hurt?”
“Just my throat.”
“There’s some bleeding but I don’t see any serious damage.” She leaned closer still, her stale breath hitting his face like a warm breeze. “I’ll ring for Dr. Wolfe if you like.” Then she put her hand under the boy’s chin. “It’s up to you, of course, but he’s such a nosy one and I’m just concerned that he might find other things needing his attention besides your throat.”
Samuel swallowed and the pain buckled his face. “Like what?”
“Well, as I was saying, you’ve been so troubled of late, one look at you and he’ll see that, and then he might ask questions and, well, I just don’t want him hearing all the ghastly things you’ve been thinking about—murder and wickedness. He’s sure to think your mind is disordered and he’d want to do all kinds of tests, probably at one of those hospitals in London, and after that, I don’t want to think about what would become of you. I’d do my best to tell him it’s just that you miss your mother and that all these shocking thoughts are the result of a wild imagination, but doctors rarely listen to people like me.” She smiled but her heart wasn’t in it. “I’m sure your throat will mend itself just fine, but if you want me to call Dr. Wolfe, I’ll do it right now. It’s up to you, Samuel.”
Samuel shook his head. “Don’t call him.”
Ruth let her hand drop from his chin. “As you wish.”
“I need to change my clothes.” Samuel was looking down at the blood and sick on his shirt and trousers.
“You stink to high heaven.” Ruth got a cloth and ran it under the tap. “Why don’t you take a bath while I clean this mess up?”
“All right.”
“I’ll make you some tea with honey—that’ll do wonders for your throat.”
Samuel stood up. He tasted the blood rising up in his mouth and forced himself to swallow. “Thank you, Ruth.”
23
The atlas glowed under the lamplight. Samuel was seated at the small table, his arms crossed, his head resting on his hands, his eyes traveling between Boston and West Cornwall. The lamp sprayed soft orange light over the white pages, causing them to flare and shimmer like sand dunes in the desert. The pages were curved just a little at the spine and the blue of the water between England and America seemed to swell with dark promise. Was his mother on a ship right now sailing that ocean back home to him? He’d had such hopes before and been left feeling foolish—wasn’t the tiny wooden tugboat sitting statically in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean proof of his stupidity? He looked at the red yarn tethered to the boat and followed its tail, snaking back to the web of pins marking all the places his mother had visited. Wanting a thing had no power to summon it.
The boy’s throat hurt a great deal but the bleeding had nearly stopped. His mouth still tasted bitter and sickly but the worst of the headache had passed. He’d taken a bath just like Ruth told him to. She came in with the tea and took up a sponge, scrubbing the bile from his face and neck. She talked the whole time, which wasn’t usually her way, about every little thing—how much shortbread and cake she hoped to sell at the market on Saturday, about the exorbitant cost of good cheese and what William should do in the garden next (the hedge along the front fence). Every now and then she would stop and ask Samuel if he was all right and he would always tell her that he was.
“You’re not saying much of anything,” Ruth had said.
Samuel would just shrug. “I’m tired.”
“Well, that’s to be expected.”
After the bath, Samuel had gone down to the kitchen to get himself a glass of milk. Ruth claimed that, second only to her honey tea, it was just the thing for his throat. So the boy had taken her advice. Well, that was his story, anyway. Really, he wanted to make sure Ruth was occupied cooking the pork pie for dinner so he could steal away. By then the sun had all but fallen, and when he’d walked into his mother’s study, the bay window practically sang to him. So that’s where he went, standing there, watching the dusk light up behind the trees in the back garden, a mottled wound of red and purple. It was hard not to miss her the most then.
They would think you were a very sick boy, because a healthy mind wouldn’t harbor such dark thoughts. Ruth’s words nested inside of him. You would be taken from this house and put in a hospital and you might never come back. Was his mind troubled? He’d never considered the possibility. He didn’t always think terrible thoughts, but lately, Samuel couldn’t pretend he hadn’t imagined the very worst things.
He wanted to have a healthy mind; he wanted to be like any other boy. What would his mother think if she came home and he was in a hospital for children who had gone mad? He knew she would find that a great burden. She would think he was disordered, afflicted in the worst way, and she might never want him near her again. The risk was very real and he couldn’t pretend otherwise.
Samuel felt the pull of the atlas and what was hidden there. He had sat down at the desk, his eyes level with the map, and gazed longingly at the pins marking his mother’s travels. Had he gone mad? And if he had, how could a madman know for certain?
Ruth said he had horrible thoughts about ghastly things. True enough. When he caught her going through his mother’s drawer, he hadn’t wanted to believe that she was really looking for her lost clover pin. He’d thought it was proof she had done something awful. His mind wanted him to think that. And, just that afternoon, hadn’t he had dark thoughts about that piece of glass? Didn’t it occur to him, right after Ruth said the jug had broken, that perhaps she’d put the piece of glass in the cake on purpose? His mind wanted him to doubt her, to recall how angry she was when he mentioned her pa and after what Mrs. Collins had said about the dead bodies piled up in the cellar. To wonder if this was her way of punishing him. Or even killing him. And to remember that moment when Ruth had hesitated, just for a second, after she saw him choking.
These were all terrible thoughts, hinting at something tangled and rotten. Dr. Wolfe would know there was something wrong with him just by looking at him, that’s what Ruth said. Samuel knew he had to stop thinking bad things. His mother was in America, but just like Ruth said, she would soon be home. Nothing was wrong. He had her postcards, the ones where she said how much she was missing him. Wasn’t that proof enough?
Though she might be hundreds of miles away, Samuel warmed to the idea that in a way she was closer than that. For a part of her was hidden in the pages of the atlas. He hadn’t wanted to finish her letter because she had written that she didn’t want Samuel to visit her while she was resting up in Bath. Samuel’s sickly mind wanted him to think that this meant something awful, that it meant she didn’t want him near her. But if he could summon the courage to revisit the letter he was sure it would show that his mother loved him
very much, and if she hadn’t wanted him to visit her, well, there must have been a very good reason. So the boy peeled back the pages of the atlas, careful not to disturb the pins and yarn, and pulled out the envelope wedged between a map of the Antarctic.
He held the envelope and listened for any sound of footsteps. All was silent. Samuel pulled out the letter and went straight to the second page, his eyes swimming across the opulent scrawl until he found what he was looking for.
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 clinging to me and calling for me over and over. I feel as if I cannot breathe, my darling. I feel as if I am being pulled under the waves and that I am so far down not even you can reach me.
Samuel stopped and his eyes flew back to where he had started. He read the sentences again, trying his best to understand them. He wasn’t sure what the waves had to do with anything but he felt confident the rest of it was well within his grasp. His mother wanted so much to be there for him that sometimes it took the breath right from out of her. Yes, that’s what it was. Her love for him was so great it sometimes made her feel as if she were sinking.
That was why she did not want Samuel to visit her. Because she knew that seeing him would excite her so and wear her out, which is not smart when you are supposed to be resting. With a faint smile, Samuel turned the page and read on.
There are days when it is all I can do not to run away. Please don’t think me a monster but sometimes I actually plan it out in my head—where I would go and what my life would be like. It’s not that I don’t love our life together; it is just that all around us are problems.
Married life is not all bliss. Please don’t think that I expect it to be.
All I ask is that you allow me to be a part of things. I know you wish to keep our financial strife to yourself—you are trying to protect me from our troubles—but have you ever thought that I might be able to help?
It seems that the only role you have in mind for me is the one I am not suited for. You have a better way with him than I ever could—it seems so natural and so easy between the two of you that I sometimes resent you both for it. Can you understand, my darling? I do so want to love
The Boy at the Keyhole Page 11