The Key

Ida Mottram thought it all sounded too grim for words. She sat down on the hearth in front of the languishing fire and began to poke at it with a bit of stick.

‘No wonder you’re cold,’ she said. ‘I’ll have this up in no time. I may be a fool about some things, but I’m the world’s smash hit with fires. You just wait and see!’

‘Lucy Ellen doesn’t like anyone to touch the fire but herself.’

‘Well, she can’t do it when she’s out, can she? Look, it’s coming along like anything!’ She pulled one log forward, tilted another, blew upon a brightening ember, and with a rush the flame came up.

Sitting there with the firelight on her face, she began to tell Miss Mary A

‘And she brought it in sitting on her hand and wanted me to stroke it.’

‘How very foolish! I suppose she got stung?’

Ida giggled.

‘Oh, no, she didn’t – it loved her! But I made her put it back on one of the roses. She was so disappointed. She wanted to take it to bed with her., Don’t you think it was rather sweet?’

Miss Mary A

She began to ask questions which circled the subject, drawing in gradually, getting nearer and nearer. It was an art in which she excelled, and Ida was no match for her. Having, in fact, nothing to conceal, she was as open as the day. Oh, yes, she thought they liked each other – why shouldn’t they? It would be very nice. Didn’t Miss Mary A

‘If his intentions are serious,’ said Miss Mary A

Ida giggled.

‘People don’t have intentions now – it’s not done. They just go off and get married.’

She began to look round for something to screen her face from the fire. It was fairly blazing now, and her skin scorched so easily. She could feel her left cheek burning. She reached out to the small table by Miss Mary A

The moment passed. Ida with the catalogue spread out to shield her face, listened to the scandalous account of how the late Mrs Albany had actually kissed Garth’s father under the mistletoe at a Christmas party at the Rectory – ‘And they were not even engaged then, so it shows you what she was like.’

Sitting back on her heels, Ida turned the pages of the catalogue. She was listening as you listen to something which you have heard before, and which doesn’t matter at all. She flicked the pages over – redcurrants as big as sixpences – beans a foot long – a page with a nick in the edge and a list of apple trees – apple trees…

She stopped hearing Miss Mary A

She stared at the writing, and quite unaccountably her heart began to thump. She didn’t know why. She hadn’t really begun to think what the words might mean, but they frightened her, coming up like that out of the blank spaces on the page of Miss Doncaster’s catalogue.

They frightened her because they came up so suddenly out of nothing, and because they were German words. A secret message written in German – that was enough to frighten anyone. All at once the crowded room with its dead air was like something you dreamed about and woke up shaking. Almost without thinking what she did she doubled the catalogue over and pushed it up under her jumper. She had her back to the couch. The littered table screened her. Her hands were quick and deft – much quicker than her thoughts, which were confused and lagging.

Miss Mary A

Ida Mottram got up. Her legs had a fu

‘Because Bunty is having tea with Mary Giles and Mrs Giles will be bringing her back. She sees her through the hedge on their side of the Cut and in at our garden door. There’s a gap in the hedge that Bunty can get through. So convenient.’

Miss Mary A

Outside in the road she stood still and wondered what she ought to do. It was all very frightening and very horrid, and she didn’t know what to do. She must tell someone who would know. Miss Silver would know. She must tell Miss Silver.

She ran all the way to the Rectory, to be told by Mabel that Miss Silver had gone to Marbury and she didn’t know when she would be back, and Miss Sophy and Mr Garth were gone up to Prior’s End to have tea with Miss Madoc, but they would be coming back soon, and Miss Janice would be coming back with them.

When Mabel was telling Janice and Garth about it she said Mrs Mottram seemed as if she was upset about something – ‘Not at all in her usual, Mr Garth – looked for all the world as if she was going to cry. I hope she hasn’t had bad news or anything like that, poor thing.’

It was then that Janice said, ‘Oh, I’d better go round and see.’

Ida Mottram went away very much discouraged. She went back to her own house, which was next door to Pe

‘You’re sure I’m not interrupting?’

She was feeling better already. Men were such a comfort – they always knew what to do. Mr Everton would know. He was being most polite in his kind, old-fashioned way. ‘If all interruptions were as pleasant as this one-’ He would be coming round at once. This was in answer to her ‘I’m so terribly worried about something.’

She hung up the receiver. Then she pulled the catalogue out from under her jumper and unfolded it. The faint brown lettering was just legible and no more. She began to think about what it might mean. Two years in a Swiss finishing school had left her with a fair knowledge of French and German. She slanted the shiny page and stared at the words on it, ‘Am Widder’. Widder – the word puzzled her for a moment. And then, like a picture on the screen, there popped into her mind Polly Pain wriggling, and twisting from one foot to another as she recited a list of animals under

Fraülein Lessner’s sardonic eye: – ‘Der Schaf, the sheep. Die Kuh, the cow. Der Widder, the ram.’