The Key in the Attic(7)
Mary Beth huffed in exasperation. Annie glanced at her and then gave the key a tug.
The whole side of the pedestal came loose.
Mary Beth had both hands over her mouth, her eyes even rounder than before. “I don’t believe it!”
“It’s hollow like you said, but it’s not empty.” Annie handed her a little paper packet tied up with string. “Protected from light and air like that, it looks like it’s in pretty good shape, but it must be very old.”
Mary Beth turned it over. “I’m almost afraid to touch it, but I’m dying to know what it says.”
Annie bit her lip. “It’s just tied in a bow. If you give it the tiniest little pull …”
Mary Beth did. The string came off easily, and she gently lifted one corner of the packet and then a second.
Annie reached inside. “There’s another key. What does the paper say?”
Mary Beth sat down on the couch and laid the pages on the coffee table so she could examine them more closely. Annie sat beside her.
“Look at that copperplate handwriting. It must be very old.”
Mary Beth shook her head. “I really can’t believe this.”
“What does it say?”
Mary Beth passed the pages to Annie so she could read them for herself.
Beloved Angeline,
A letter brought you here, and now you must find more:
England’s 45 inches
Twice indebted
Katherine at home
Blue and twinkling
Roadside refuge
Turn to the right
Twice beholden
Scotland’s river
Busy sweets maker
Twice obliged
Katherine to her friends
50~2~4~1
1~1~1~1
2~32~16~11
19~23~5~4
62~1~5~21
19~27~1~1
18~11~8~11
5~29~29~2
19~119~114~5
Yours always,
Geoffrey
“A real puzzle,” Annie said. “And I bet it’s at least a hundred years old—maybe a hundred and fifty. How fun is that?”
Mary Beth shook her head again. “I really can’t believe this. My great-great-grandmother’s name was Angeline. It has to have been meant for her.”
“Oh, how sweet. Your great-great-grandfather must have left this puzzle for her. I wonder what it leads to and where he hid the other letters and what this new key goes to.”
“No, it couldn’t have been him. Yes, my great-great-grandmother was Angeline, but my great-great-grandfather’s name was James.”
“Then who was Geoffrey?”
3
Annie still stared at the note. Beloved Angeline. There was a sweet tenderness in the way he had written the name. Yet somehow he and his beloved had not ended up spending their lives together. Why?
Mary Beth wrinkled her forehead. “I’ve never heard the mention of a Geoffrey in the family—not that I remember.” She paused for a moment. “Wait a second.”
“If you don’t mind, I’m going to make a copy of this clue so we won’t mess up the original,” Annie said, digging in her purse for her notepad as her friend disappeared down the hallway.
“OK,” Mary Beth called back. “Thanks for thinking of it.”
Annie was writing down the last string of numbers and trying to make some sense of them when Mary Beth came back into the room looking a little disheveled. She had a metal file box in her hands.
“Sorry that took so long. I had to move some things around to get to the right box.” She smiled. “Mother had all this just stuffed in a drawer when we cleaned out her house before she moved to Seaside. I’m glad I could rescue all of it. She never was very sentimental; I’m surprised she didn’t throw this out years ago.”
She sat beside Annie on the couch, clicked the latch on the box, and swung its lid back on its hinges.
Annie looked inside, feeling that little quickening of her pulse that came any time she got a chance to see bits of what people had left behind them, things they had found dear enough to keep and then pass to their loved ones.
Mary Beth started removing items, carefully, one by one, mindful of a delicate bit of writing or an already-cracked daguerreotype. There were letters and deeds and a pair of old miniatures—portraits, Annie imagined—of an aunt and uncle many times removed. A small book of prayer was nestled in between a little rag doll and a well-used account book. There was nothing of any monetary value, but everything in this box had some special meaning, Annie was sure. The interesting part was figuring out each item’s significance.
“Here it is.”
Mary Beth pulled out a little booklet, no bigger than her hand, decorated with a pinkish gray tassel that must have once been a vivid red. Inside was a program for a cotillion held on the third day of March in 1861. The lines beside each of the dances had been penciled in with the names of a variety of gentlemen. Most of the writing was smudged and faded now, but only one name was repeated more than once: G. Whyte. At the bottom in flowing script was written “Miss Angeline Morrow.”