The largest of the wardrobes took up almost half a wall, its bronzed panels arranged into a diamond pattern. Samuel opened the heavy door and saw a single dress hanging there. Still, it caused his stomach to tingle and flutter. For it was a red dress made of silk, with a large pleated skirt that looked like the surface of a windswept pond.
The memory bloomed inside of him and it felt as if he were falling. The room suddenly darkened and the wardrobe melted away as if made of mud, leaving only the dress. It was moving now, drifting across the room, and as it did it began to take shape and fill out—and then she was there in front of him, fixing her hair in the mirror.
“Mother.” The word practically flew out of him. “Mother, I’m here.”
The light seemed to dance around her, hitting her pale shoulders and bouncing off. She touched her earrings, the ones his father had given her on their wedding day, and looked around, smiling. She said something, Samuel couldn’t hear what, and then his father walked over, dressed in tails and a bow tie, kissing her cheek.
“Mother,” said Samuel, “it’s me. I’m here.”
They were going out, he knew that. Going somewhere very important, and knowing that filled him with a dread so fierce he had to shut his eyes tight and swallow the shout that wanted to come up. When he opened them again he could see himself, younger than he was now. He was flying across the dressing room, rushing at her. When he reached his mother he threw his arms around her waist.
“Not now, darling.” He could hear the sweet music of her voice. She slipped her hands behind her back and unspooled his fingers. “Mummy’s running late. Ruth!”
“He just wants to say good night,” said his father.
The boy was crying. He put his arms around his mother again and buried his head in her stomach. “He’s already said good night,” said the beautiful creature. “It’s ridiculous that he does this every time we leave the house.” Then, “Ruth? Where can she be?”
“Don’t go,” the boy was saying, “it’s a stupid party. Please don’t go.”
His mother pulled his hands from around her again. “I can’t, darling, I can’t.”
Samuel thought she was talking to him but then his father came over and gently moved the boy away. But it wouldn’t do. The boy yanked free and ran back to her. There were no words to explain it; he just had to find a way to keep her in place, to fix her to the ground so that she would stay. So that she would stop going away.
“When will you be home?” The boy was holding his mother’s hand but it kept slipping from his grasp. “When will you come home? I will wait up for you.”
His mother didn’t say anything; she just shook her head crossly and turned away. “Ruth, you’re needed up here!”
The boy was young and stupid back then—he didn’t understand what was clear enough to Samuel now. These parties were important because a great many important people were there and they might be able to help with the steel mill. And there was so little time to set things right, his mother didn’t have time to play cards with him or hide-and-seek or take him to the park to feed the ducks. Ruth was better at that kind of thing, and besides, it would bore him to always be by her side, and truly, if she was always unthreading his arms or pulling away, it had nothing to do with Samuel. He was her little man, everyone knew that, but he had to know that being a grown-up was a complicated matter, and as his father told him over and over, his mother was doing the very best she could.
“Ruth,” called his mother again, “where are you?”
The bedroom door shut with great force. None of the windows were open in the dressing room but the door behind Samuel closed with an unholy bang. Just like that the dressing room emptied—his mother and father and his younger self crumbled to dust, swept away as if on the same strong wind that had blown the door. The boy had jumped rather pitifully and spun around. Doors that close themselves are troubling things. So Samuel rushed at it and threw it open. That was the plan, anyway. But the door would not yield. He twisted the handle and pulled hard, but the door refused to budge.
He heard his mother’s laugh then. But not her normal laugh, musical and light; this seemed to scratch its way across the empty room like a scornful snicker. Samuel looked back. The room was utterly still and silent, save for the odd snap and creek of its old bones. Only the mannequin, in the very shape and form of his mother, loomed over the chamber. It was probably a trick of the light, how it now seemed to be regarding him with great interest.
“Don’t go.” They were his words but the voice belonged to her. “Please don’t go.”
She was mocking him.
“Mother?” Samuel moved away, feeling the door at his back.
“When will you come home?” His mother was laughing again. “I will wait up for you.”
“Stop,” Samuel whispered.
It wasn’t her. It couldn’t be. She loved him best of all.
“Mother, it’s me,” she hissed. “I’m here.”
“Stop!” The boy was pounding the door now. “Go away!”
The door swung open, pushing him back. He stumbled and fell to the floor and Ruth was looking down at him, frowning. “What on earth?”
Samuel got to his feet and looked behind him. The mannequin seemed rooted to the floor once again, lifeless and not the least bit menacing.
“I suppose you’d have me believe you were looking for your pencils in here, then?” said Ruth. “Why were you making such a racket?”
“The door was locked.” He turned back to regard the housekeeper. “Did you lock it?”
“What a thing to ask.”
“I couldn’t open the door.”
“Perhaps it was stuck.”
The boy said, “It wasn’t stuck.”
“Who were you talking to?” Ruth’s voice was tight.
“You heard her?” he asked.
“What?” Ruth entered the room and walked around it with a scowl, opening and closing cupboards. “Heard who? Who were you talking to? And this time I want the truth.”
Samuel pointed silently to the open wardrobe and the silk dress hanging there.
Ruth looked in at the gown and then down at the boy, her eyes drifting about his face. “What fresh nonsense is this, Samuel?”
It was as if the boy couldn’t hear her.
“Samuel, who were you talking to?”
When no answer was given, the uncertainty in Ruth’s voice was washed away, replaced by the safer waters of her censure.
“You know the rules—this room is out of bounds. I’ve had all I can take of you wandering where you don’t belong. Must I barricade every room in this blessed house?”
The boy gazed only at the dress, for that was the best of her. His mother would never make fun of him; her laugh would never be cruel. Ruth looked at the red dress, too, a good deal longer than she might have liked, and then she said, “Utter nonsense,” shutting the wardrobe with some force.
29
It was all her fault. The whole reason Samuel was bent forward, climbing up the hill in the heat of the afternoon with a pound of flour in his hand. It was because of her. Ruth had to make six dozen lemon tarts and four tea cakes—wouldn’t she know how much flour she was going to need before she got started? No, due to the fact that she spent half her time chasing after Samuel, she had miscalculated. So now he’d been sent into the village to fetch a pound. Ruth had instructed him to run the whole way, as if she were sending him on a mission to save England. He hated her.
The whole walk, there and back, had been spent wondering about how to get hold of the diary. The postcards and atlas were powerful weapons but he needed more. And in order to reach the diary, Samuel knew he had to get hold of the key to her bedroom. He didn’t know for certain, but he guessed that Ruth might have it in the pocket of her apron. Hadn’t he seen her put the key to his mother’s bedroom in there? But ge
tting hold of it wouldn’t be easy. Perhaps he could spill something on Ruth, something sure to leave a stain like hot chocolate or strawberry jelly, and then she’d need to take it off and he could offer to carry it to the laundry for her? No, that wouldn’t work. Ruth was wicked but she wasn’t stupid. There had to be another way in; he just didn’t know what.
Samuel was still panting as he came up the drive, feeling hot and puffed and, as such, entirely justified in stopping off to see Robin Hood in the kitchen garden. But the rabbit was nowhere to be found. The boy’s mood was now grimmer than ever, as he came around the front of the house, kicking the gravel and cursing Ruth. So at first he didn’t notice the car parked under the portico. When he did, he hadn’t a clue whom it belonged to. It was a glossy red with a fold-down top and white leather seats.
As soon as the front door opened, the echo of voices carried out into the great hall. He heard Ruth’s hideous laugh, which sounded just like a cackle, and another besides. It was deep and rich, and because he had heard it before, the boy started to run toward the kitchen.
“None of that galloping about, thank you,” Ruth said as he plunged through the door. As admonishments went, this one sounded positively jovial.
“Sammy!” His uncle stood up and shook his hand like they were old chums. “Been down to the shops, have you, ducky? Ruth working you hard, is she?”
Samuel found that he couldn’t stop looking at his uncle Felix—as if he didn’t quite believe that he was there. “Yes.”
“Don’t believe a word of it.” Ruth’s voice bubbled to life. “He’s the one running me off my feet.”
His uncle tapped him playfully on the cheek. “That right, Sammy?”
The boy shrugged. “I thought you were going to London?”
“I’m on my way, as it happens. A few things came up that needed my attention and I thought, wouldn’t it be just the thing, to call in and see Sammy before I go?”
Samuel wanted to hug his uncle but thought it might seem unexpected.
“I’ve been telling your uncle how well you’re doing at school.” Ruth had set her baking trays to one side and was sitting in front of a pot of tea and two cups.
“I was useless at school.” Samuel’s uncle sat down and crossed his legs. “Your father was the one with all the brains, Sammy.” He threw a crooked grin at Ruth. “Mind if I smoke?”
Ruth said she didn’t mind at all. Samuel watched as his uncle took out a silver cigarette case and matching lighter and lit up, the smoke coiling from the end of the cigarette like a serpent. His uncle had come to see him. He must have understood that something terrible had happened and now he was here to help him.
“Would you like another shortbread, Mr. Clay?” Ruth pushed the plate toward him.
“Don’t mind if I do.”
Only one thing stood in Samuel’s way.
“Mother’s been sending me postcards,” Samuel said, setting the flour down on the counter. “Would you like to see?”
“I’m sure your uncle wouldn’t be interested in those postcards,” Ruth said.
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” His uncle took a drag on his cigarette, throwing his head back and blowing the smoke up toward the ceiling. He winked at Samuel. “Show me.”
“They’re up in my bedroom.” Samuel said this pointing toward the door. “If you’d like to come up, I’ll show you my planes, as well.”
“Mr. Clay is only here for a short time,” said Ruth, pouring the tea. “If you must show him the cards, you go up and get them. I’m sure your uncle doesn’t want to be climbing up and down the stairs all afternoon.”
With a heavy heart, Samuel went and fetched the postcards. Ruth wasn’t going to leave him alone with his uncle. Not without a fight. Luckily, a new plan hatched while he was walking down the back stairs.
As his uncle looked over the postcards, finally selecting the one from Dallas, Samuel watched him carefully. Looking for any sign, the faintest flicker in his eyes, any recognition that something about this whole thing wasn’t right.
Then he put the last postcard down and said, “Your mother’s in Boston now?”
Samuel nodded. He wanted desperately to say something else but didn’t dare.
“Mrs. Clay has been all over America, it seems, meeting with the bankers and such,” said Ruth. “Samuel would love to hear from her more frequently, but as I’ve tried to explain to him, time runs away on you when you’re abroad.”
“Well, yes, I suppose it does,” said his uncle.
“I have an atlas,” declared Samuel. “Father bought it for Mother, but now it’s mine, I suppose. I have pins showing where mother has been and yarn connecting all the places...and I could show you if you like?”
“Samuel...” Ruth started to say.
“I’d bring it in here but it’s very big and the pins might fall out.” Samuel spoke rapidly, not wanting to let Ruth interrupt. “Won’t you come and see it, Uncle Felix?”
His uncle stubbed out his cigarette. “Lead the way, ducky.”
Ruth stood up at the same time as Samuel’s uncle. But the boy had already thought of that.
“Ruth, you should go on with your baking.” He turned to his uncle, snatching up the postcards. “Ruth has a big order and they have to be ready by Monday. We need the money, you see.”
This caused his uncle to laugh and put a hand on Samuel’s shoulder. But Ruth was beaten and she knew it. “Mind you don’t keep your uncle long,” she said. “He has a train to catch.”
As they walked to the study, there was a lot of talk about his uncle’s travels—it seemed he had been everywhere, including Boston. Samuel never could work out what his uncle did for a living but his mother once said that all Felix did well was spend money. Part of the reason Samuel was sent to the local school and not somewhere more distinguished, like his father and uncle had, was because his mother didn’t want him turning out like his uncle Felix, who she said was a pompous buffoon wrapped in tweed, dipped in gin and rolled in horsehair. She said it was a miracle Samuel’s father had been so well-adjusted and not even slightly an ass.
“Do you like it?” said Samuel.
His uncle was crouched down, gazing at the atlas and all the pins, which looked like tiny flags. When he pushed the tugboat toward England, the yarn stretching out behind it like a scarlet current, Samuel couldn’t help but feel a certain amount of pride. “Damn fine job, Sammy.” Uncle Felix looked at his nephew. “Must help, seeing that she isn’t so very far away.”
No, it didn’t help at all. Samuel looked to the door to make sure Ruth wasn’t there. “You noticed, didn’t you, Uncle Felix, about the postcards?”
“Noticed? Of course, ducky. They’re terrific. You’ve got quite a collection.”
“No.” Samuel pushed the postcard from Dallas at his uncle. “Mother didn’t plan on going back to California. She says so right there—‘without a backward glance.’ But in the next postcard...” Now the boy pushed that one into Uncle Felix’s hand. “See? It’s from Los Angeles. She went back even though she said she wouldn’t.” Samuel pointed at the atlas. “Look, you can see that Mother left the West Coast and was moving east, then all of a sudden she turned back. Why would she do that?”
Uncle Felix read over both postcards carefully and spent some time looking at the atlas, following the path of pins and yarn. His uncle gave every indication of taking the boy seriously and Samuel felt a lump swelling in his throat that without urgent intervention would give rise to a loud and undignified sob. When Uncle Felix was done, he clicked his tongue as if to indicate a degree of bafflement that could only help the boy’s cause.
“You have a point, ducky,” Uncle Felix said, “but I’m not sure it proves anything.”
“‘Without a backward glance,’ that’s what she said.” Samuel spoke with complete authority. “So why turn around and head back to California?”
“Well, let’s see.” As a general rule, Uncle Felix was wary of serious contemplation, so it was not altogether surprising when his frown smoothed out in mere seconds. He even slapped his knee. “Doesn’t your mother have an aunt who lives in Los Angeles?”
Samuel didn’t know.
Uncle Felix was nodding now. “I think your parents visited her on their honeymoon. Yes, that’s it. I recall something about a rather enchanting estate high up in the hills. If memory serves, the old girl’s a dried-up spinster with more money than Augustus Caesar.”
“So?” said Samuel, and the word was delivered with unvarnished contempt.
“Well, we all know your grandfather is a tightfisted humbug, so perhaps your mother wanted to rattle another branch of the family tree, hoping to loosen a few banknotes? She’d be a fool not to try, seems to me.” His smile was horribly self-satisfied. “So you see, Sammy, no great mystery.”
“Mother wouldn’t do it, Uncle Felix.” Samuel stole another look at the door and spoke in a whisper. “She wouldn’t go so far away and for so long. I think...”
His uncle’s smile wasn’t unkind. “You think what, Sammy?”
Samuel bent his head. “I think Ruth knows where she is.”
“Ruth?”
Samuel nodded.
“Well, of course she does. Ruth’s the one who first told me your mother had taken off for America.”
“No.” Samuel looked at the door again. “I think she did something.”
“To your mother?”
Samuel nodded.
“Come and sit with me.” His uncle pulled up a chair and had Samuel sit down on his knee, which made the boy feel like a toddler. “Now, Ruth told me you haven’t been yourself lately and that you miss your mother very much and it’s making you...it’s upsetting you. Which is perfectly natural, Sammy, don’t you think it isn’t. Look here, I’m the first person to think badly of someone—I have a gift for it, you could say—but this thing about Ruth, I don’t think it’s very likely. Why would she do anything unpleasant to your mother?”
The Boy at the Keyhole Page 15