The Key In the Lock by Beth Underdown

Author:Beth Underdown [Underdown, Beth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241991749
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2021-11-08T00:00:00+00:00

14.

I had to pretend to Jake, when I got home and he was still burning branches in the dark at the side of the house, that I had passed a merry and inconsequential afternoon. I could barely keep my smile for long enough to escape him, and indoors I had to deal with Mrs Fossett.

The doctor had been, because she hadn’t liked the sound of Richard’s chest. I didn’t think much about it: she had found a reason to send for the doctor fortnightly since the haemorrhage. This time there was some syrup, to help with congestion. But all I wanted was some solitude. I told her she and Fossett might take tomorrow mostly for themselves, and mentioned an errand at the Truro haberdashers, hoping to get them out of the house. Mrs Fossett looked rather doubtful, but agreed, said they might go and hear the carols at the cathedral.

The dream came that night, and the sense of Tim the next morning, just the same.

Poaching some eggs in the kitchen, with the Fossetts out of the way, I at last felt foolish. How could I have been so ungrateful towards Edward? At the Grand I had felt almost angry with him. Of course it had been difficult to hear what the sergeant had had to say, and of course he had been a rough fellow, but what did I expect? Did I think someone promoted from the ranks – promoted for his merit, no doubt – would have delicate manners, make little jokes about Shakespeare? The fellow had come all that way, and Edward had gone to the trouble of finding him, to give me some certainty. It was not the sergeant’s fault, nor Edward’s, that I was complicit in Tim’s sad end. I ought to have been grateful, to have the truth at last.

When Theo Stainforth had first said about Tim’s standing up, I had been possessed of an instinct, almost a superstitious one – that I had done a very particular wrong, long ago at Polneath, and therefore my son had killed himself. But I saw now that, though Polneath was at the heart of it, it was not by some supernatural mechanism, but simple cause and consequence.

Tim was the way he was, and I had made him that way.

I was the way I was, and what had made me that way was Polneath.

I had eaten my eggs, and was rinsing the plate of yolk, when there came the sound of a car in the lane, slowing, stopping, and then a tap at the front door. I went to answer it, wiping my hands.

It was Edward.

I felt twelve things at once. I stepped out, half closing the door behind me, though it wasn’t Jake’s day.

‘Edward,’ I said, whispered. ‘What are you –?’

‘Oh, forgive me,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think you’d … that is, I simply intended to leave a note. I supposed that Mr Boscawen would be upstairs, and … and your servants don’t know me, so. I wasn’t going to leave my name.

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