I watched as Violet and Theo explored the room that had once accommodated over three thousand books from my personal collection. When I was alive, this room had been asumptuous oasis for me, with its red velvet upholstered walls, Persian carpets, and deep-seated sofas for reading.
Wanting to pull our family from the depths of mourning following my death, my uncle Peter suggested the library be remade into a ballroom. Without me to occupy its walls and with all the books there now promised to a new space hundreds of miles away, he hoped that reinventing the room might push the family toward the future, forcing them to imagine nights of dancing and mirth again after the pain of so much tragedy. It was a practical suggestion, and my grief-stricken mother did not disagree.
But Theo and Violet would not uncover any secret keyhole in the existing mahogany and gilt-trimmed panels. And the barrel key would not fit into the French doors at its entrance, either.
“It doesn’t seem to fit anything in here,” Violet concluded, giving the room one last glance over.
“Very well,” Ms. Elderkin said as she led Violet and Theo toward my office and bedroom.
I knew they were getting closer. I continued to exercise the patience I’d cultivated for an eternity. I forced myself to wait.
CHAPTER EIGHTY
ICANNOT TELL YOU IF WHENAMALIE PACKED THAT KEYalong with all of my other personal artifacts going off to Harvard, she did it on purpose or not. The ribbon that held the winding key to my desk clock also happened to have the key to my armoire drawer attached to it. I always kept the two of them together in the front drawer so I could access them with ease.
The “starling” armoire that stood in my bedroom had been part of a set my mother bought on a shopping trip in France just before I moved my living quarters from the one that was next to my grandfather’s upstairs, to a more private ensuite on the ground floor after I returned from college. The tall cabinet and headboard each featured two carved birds and their crests. While my study was designed with a classical air in mind, with its oak panels, bookshelves, and carved moldings all imported from London and my writing desk and chair also acquired from British dealers, my mother had decided on a more whimsical tone for my bedroom.
“The place where you dream, Harry, should feel different from where you study,” she reminded me as the furnishings she had handpicked for me were uncrated. “And what better way to send you off on your reveries each night, if not with the evocation of birds.”
It suited me to have these two rooms in contrast to themselves. One place where I could be focused on my books, mycorrespondence, and my collecting, and through a connecting doorway, a few steps away, a second one where I could rest my head at night and restore.
I easily could have stored Ada’s letters in the secret compartment in the desk in my study. The one that contained my prized second copy ofTreasure Island. But I wanted them close to me when I slept. When the birds cast me off at night, it was Ada whom I wanted to take along with me in my dreams.
On that afternoon when my mother threw Ada’s letter in the trash pail, Amalie had later gone back to the room and retrieved it.
Instead of allowing it to be burned with the estate’s garbage, she put it in her pocket, went to my study and grabbed the ribbon with the two keys from my desk, and then walked directly to my bedchamber.
The place had been kept exactly as I’d left it the day we departed for London. A chandelier dangled from the white plaster ceiling. My suits hung in a tidy row in the armoire. My bed had been made by one of the servants, the down pillows fluffed and the brocade coverlet pulled smooth.
Now clasping the key with its starling birds between her two fingers, Amalie knelt down and unlocked the bottom drawer of the armoire. There next to my folded white shirts, just as the maid who’d seen me reading Ada’s letters one morning had informed Amalie, was a lacquered box. Amalie opened the lid and saw the same scrolling handwriting on all the other letters inside that matched the one she now held in her hand.
Amalie never unsealed Ada’s last letter. She simply dropped it into the box and closed the drawer, locking it away like a stonein the bottom of the ocean. Why did she do this? you may ask. I actually have no idea. Perhaps she didn’t have the heart to discard a piece of my story. Or maybe she thought one day my mother might regret that she’d thrown out a letter from a young woman she suspected had captured my heart. That said, after she had locked the drawer, she went to my study and returned the keys to the desk drawer.
And when my mother later told Amalie to pack up the contents of my study, she did so obediently.
My desk was emptied of my papers. My ledgers were packed and sent to the archives at Harvard. The ribbon with the two keys was taken out from my front drawer and wrapped along with the crystal inkwell and watch.
When it was unpacked, the first curator of my memorial room would suggest the winding key to the watch be placed in the front drawer of my desk so it would not get lost. But no one spent too much time or effort pondering the significance of the other key on that ribbon. It would take over a century before dear Violet would finally suspect it was the one most connected to my heart.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
Violet and Theo followed Ms. Elderkin downstairs through a long, narrow corridor that was lined with bookshelves. While these wood and glass cases had once been crowded with the overflow of my library, they were now filled with bibles and religious textbooks for the seminary. I watched as Violet touched one of the brass handles, sensing she wanted to touch something that my hand had gripped an infinite number of times.
“I’ll take you to his office first,” she said as they passed my bedroom and entered the room just beyond it. As they stepped into my study and as they moved around the room, my spirit began to swell with anticipation. This had always been my sanctuary, the place I’d spent so much of my time. Finally, Violet had come to the place where I was truly the most at home.
“We offer residence to our visiting priests and students,” Ms. Elderkin explained. “We try to utilize every room in the house, at least those that are not damaged by water leaks. So while this was his study, we’ve obviously used it as another bedroom at the seminary.”
Violet’s hand skimmed the surface of the walls. Above, the plaster ceiling was cracked and peeling. Next to one of the walls sat a metal cot with a thin mattress. Beside it was a small table with a cheap reading lamp.
“I’m trying to imagine him here,” she said to Theo. “The room at Harvard is so meticulously maintained. Looking at this now just makes me sad.”
Theo took the key from his pocket to see if it might fit into one of the glass doors of my other additional bookcases.
“It doesn’t fit,” he said. Frustrated, he continued to look around the room for a keyhole, but found nothing.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Ms. Elderkin said. “But I did think it was going to be near impossible to find what that key belongs to at this point.”
Violet sighed. “Can we see his bedroom at least?”
