watched him until he disappeared between the forest trees—watched after him almost as if I knew that, through no fault of his own, I would not converse with him again for a long time.
Back at the hall, I went looking for the item Lane had called a “dress improver,” finding it where I had left it, most inappropriately, in the front parlour. I wondered why Mum had put the featherweight cushion upon her dresser, yet had not worn it inside her bustle. Pondering, I took it and walked upstairs to replace it in her bedroom in case she wanted it when she—
Returned?
But there was no reason to think she would ever return.
She had, after all, chosen to leave. Of her own free will.
Sinking into the hard wooden arms of a hallway chair, I slumped like a comma over the prickly pouf of horsehair I held. I stayed that way for a long time.
Finally I lifted my head, vengeful thoughts hardening my jaw. If Mum had left me behind, I was very well going to help myself to the contents of her rooms.
This was a decision prompted partly by spleen, partly by necessity. Having ruined my frock, I needed to change it. The few others I owned, formerly white, now yellow-green with dirt and grass stains, only looked worse. I would choose something out of Mum’s wardrobe.
Rising, I strode across the upstairs hallway to my mother’s door and turned the knob.
To no good effect. The door was locked.
It had been a most annoying day. Stalking to the stairs, leaning over the banister, I allowed my voice to rise to a naughty pitch. “Lane!”
“Shhh!” Amazingly—for he could have been anywhere from the chimney to the cellar—the butler appeared below me within a moment. One white-gloved finger to his lips, he informed me, “Miss Enola, Mr. Mycroft is napping.”
Rolling my eyes, I beckoned Lane to come upstairs. When he had done so, I told him more quietly, “I need the key to Mother’s rooms.”
“Mr. Mycroft has given orders that those rooms are to be kept locked.”
Astonishment trumped my annoyance. “What ever for?”
“It’s not my place to ask, Miss Enola.”
“Very well. I don’t need the key if you’ll just unlock the door for me.”
“I should have to ask Mr. Mycroft’s permission, Miss Enola, and if I awaken him, he will be put out. Mr. Mycroft has given orders—”
Mr. Mycroft this, Mr. Mycroft that, Mr. Mycroft could go soak his head in a rain-barrel. Tight-lipped, I thrust the dress improver at Lane. “I need to put this back where it belongs.”
The butler actually blushed, which gratified me, as I had not seen him do so ever before.
“Moreover,” I continued quite softly between my clenched teeth, “I need to search my mother’s wardrobe for something to wear. If I go down to dinner in this frock, Mr. Mycroft will be more than put out. He will froth at the mouth. Unlock the door.”
Without another word, Lane did so. But he himself kept the key and stood outside the door, waiting for me.
Therefore, filled with the spirit of perversity, I took my time. But as I scanned my mother’s dresses, I thought also about this new development. Locked door to Mum’s rooms, entry with Mycroft’s permission only—this would never do.
I wondered whether Mum might possibly have left her own key behind.
The thought frightened me, for if—dressing to go out for the day—if she had intended to return, she would have taken the key with her.
Therefore, if she had left it behind—the meaning was all too plain.
It took me a moment and several deep breaths to make myself reach for her walking suit, which still hung over the standing mirror.
I found the key at once, in a jacket pocket.
It felt heavy in my hand. I stood looking at it as if I had never seen it before. Oval handle on one end of the shank, toothed rectangle on the other. Strange, cold iron thing.
She really wasn’t planning to come back, then.
Yet this hateful skeleton of metal had suddenly become my most precious possession. Clutching it,
Lawrence Anthony, Graham Spence