The Golden Key
AN EXTRAORDINARY, PAGE-TURNING GOTHIC MYSTERY SET IN THE WILDS OF THE NORFOLK FENS, FROM A BSFA-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR
In this extract, Helena gathers the facts surrounding the disappearance of three sisters and meets their stepmother, who has asked her to investigate what might have happened…
The story ran as follows: In 1881 the three Matthews sisters, Maud, Alice and Flora, mysteriously vanished during a hunting weekend at their father’s newly built manor house in East Norfolk. The search that followed the disappearance centred on this new building, with its peculiarities of construction (the eccentric architect had later jumped from a tower), and also took in the members of the hunting party, the Broads’ quicksands and marshy beaches. Downham Market Horse Fair had just taken place – true, it was on the other side of the county, but nonetheless it had brought in gypsies from all over the land, crisscrossing the fens, raising fears that the girls had been kidnapped.
Helena had flinched when she had read this, wondered what her great-grandmother, a proud and beautiful Andalusian Roma who married an aristocratic landowner, would have made of reading something so daringly expressed by a reckless newspaper.
Whatever had happened to Maud, Alice and Flora, the truth of the matter was that nothing was ever found. The girls were never seen again. Lord Matthews died shortly after. Their stepmother, the new Lady Matthews, became a recluse. A distant cousin from an impoverished line of the family, much younger than Lord Matthews, and going from being the children’s governess to being their stepmother, some malicious minds had seen foul play at work, and Lady Matthews had been a suspect for some time. In the end they could not charge her with anything, so the matter was dropped. But it did not surprise Helena to find out that her line of the family, although as poor as a church mouse, in fact used to own the estate before losing it to an entail.
That was the tale.
During her brief encounter with Lady Matthews in Charles Bale’s house, Helena had made sure that the old lady understood everything about her, and which kind of answers she would bring to the table.
“May I ask a question, Miss Walton? How did you come to do what you do?” the old lady had asked.
“A child disappeared.”
Lady Matthews frowned.
“May I ask what happened, exactly?”
“A child lost in the Fens.”
“I see; that disorientating, flat place. Easier to get lost there than in the labyrinth of this wretched city, I’m sure.”
“Then I’m sure that you understand exactly what the problem was, Lady Matthews. But he hadn’t just got lost, mind you. I can assure you the fairies didn’t spirit him away.”
The older woman did not reply, although she sat upright with a jolt. “I have to be honest: the reason why
I found him before the police did utterly escapes me,” Helena continued. “His father’s rage was all too obvious, as was the jealousy with which the man hovered around his wife, as were the little, mean, creative ways in which he punished her. To me, it was painfully obvious that he would use the most defenceless creature to get back at her.”
“Did you find the boy? Was he alive?”
“Yes, I found the child alive. Quite nearby, in fact, on the outskirts of Newmarket, hidden in a derelict hut where horses had been stabled, badly. That little building had seen a lot of suffering.”
“And the mediumship?”
She looked at Lady Matthews intently. She did not usually share this kind of information with her clients. But something told her that Lady Matthews was not just any client, and that she would not be placated by a rebuff. Eventually, she said:
“You must understand that this is strictly confidential. The situation complicated itself. The county papers got involved, and I was forced to pretend that I possessed occult mediumistic powers. It seemed easier for people to believe that I had found the child with some hocus-pocus or other, rather than imagining that a woman was capable of using her brains. It was entirely unavoidable, and if there is a God somewhere, he can attest that it wasn’t my intention to mislead anyone. It all happened in the most natural manner: the mother of the missing child presented the solution of the case to the police as the result of some young lady having a ‘dream’, or a ‘vision’, that led her to the hut where the poor child had been hidden by his own father. And I saw it then: the policemen’s glances at one another. Where previously there had been suspicion, disbelief, demands for an explanation, now everything fitted into its place in their poor little overworked brains. Let it be so, I thought; I would have them believe anything they wanted to believe, if only the child could be found, the mystery solved, the father sent to jail, the mother and her son reunited before something more dreadful happened.” “I see.” “It did cost me my studies. I was summarily expelled.”
Silence hung in the air. “Psychology, Lady Matthews, the study of the mind. I constantly deal with the same human traits – deceit, fabrication, duplicitousness – and their obvious result: the suffering of the most innocent of creatures for other people’s selfish purposes.”
“That is a very sad way of looking at the world,” the older woman ventured.
“It is also frighteningly accurate.”
Lady Matthews didn’t reply. She simply allowed Helena to carry on talking.
“Afterwards, I could not deny the usefulness of what had happened. And now, tell me: do you despise me for pretending to have supernatural powers? I assure you I hardly ever request that people come to see me and have their palm read, and I absolutely refuse to ‘do’ séances. In fact, I cannot help you, Lady Matthews, in the way that Mrs
Ashby, and perhaps even Mr Bale, assume I would. No, I cannot communicate with ghosts; I don’t have a ‘spirit guide’ at my command. However, I can assure you people get results from my efforts, albeit through methods different from those they are expecting. They get to know the truth.”
“So you don’t believe in ghosts?”
“I believe in physical proof, and as far as the supernatural is concerned, no one has been able to provide me with that, at least not yet.”
“We were fully aware of the situation, Miss Walton. And you may know that we have tried many… unusual means to get to the bottom of this over the years. However, your particular… double sensibility on the affair is precisely what we are looking for. This sad business requires more open-mindedness than usual…”
“I understand.”
“Correct me if I am wrong,’ the old lady continued, “but the main purpose of what you do is to demonstrate that our daily interactions are more determined by what people hide and don’t say, or even what they don’t know about themselves, than by what gently simmers on the surface – as if every one of us was in possession of a parallel existence that has somehow to be unmasked.”
“Yes… I believe so. I would have never put it in those words, but I guess that is right. Finding the truth beneath the surface.”
“But then, it is not that simple, is it? What is the truth?”
“What do you mean? The truth is the truth.”
“Really? What we count as reality might simply not be there in the first place. Different people tell stories in different ways; family stories are usually reshaped to conform to the rules of society – and the stories we tell our children.” Lady Matthews laughed sadly. “How can we feed them all that rubbish, fairyland and all that?”
“You think there is more to the children’s disappearance than foul play?”
“I know that there is more to the children’s disappearance than foul play, yes.”
For a fleeting moment, alone in the Round Reading Room days after their conversation, Helena had believed her. But there was something else, she thought. It happened to her often, as soon as she immersed herself in a story; some instinct flourished, a missing piece she could almost see hanging in mid-air, a part of the puzzle that she knew would shed light over some dark corner. She was sure there was something else and, whatever it was, it was letting Lady Matthews’s guilt show.
Different people tell stories in different ways; family stories are usually reshaped to conform to the rules of society