Now I thought how I could maybe find out more if I wrote my uncle and simply asked him straight out to tell me who I was and all about my parents, but then of course it was not so simple. My uncle had given strict orders to illiterate me; he wouldn’t be best pleased to find my penmanship turning up in his morning mail.
It obvioused me it was no use putting the thing to Mrs Grouse again. She was a simple soul who transparented her feelings; she was like George Washington, she couldn’t tell a lie. If she’d been hiding anything, I would have guessed straightway. She told me nothing, not because she would not, but simply because she didn’t know. Asking her again about my mother and father would bring no information but simply alert her to my curiosity and any other action I might take.
Quite what that action would be conundrummed me quite. I spent a whole afternoon in the tower not reading but thinking about it, and dozing, of course, having sleeplessed the night. Every time I felt my head nodding and jerked back to waking, I had to make the mad dash down to the front door in case I’d missed Theo, even though in my heart of hearts I knew he wouldn’t be coming that day; I couldn’t take the risk. I wished he were there and, back in the tower after fruitlessing yet another front-dooring, I pretended he was and imagined us face-to-facing, me on the chaise, he on the captain’s chair, discussing my problem.
‘So that’s it,’ I told him, having nutshelled the whole thing for him. ‘What can I do?’
He stroked his chin and got up and paced about in a most businesslike way, purposefulling long strides, hands behind his back. Finally he stopped and looked down at me, cracking open a smile. ‘Documents,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
He came over to me and bent down on one knee, seizing my upper arms in his big bony hands. ‘Don’t you see, there must be documents relating to you. Everyone has documents. And likely they’re somewhere in Blithe House.’ He released me and stood looking at me, awaiting a reaction.
I eagered forward in my chair and then slumped back. ‘Unless my uncle took them with him to New York when he cleared out.’
My imaginary Theo shrugged, which had the look of a praying mantis trying to slough its skin. ‘Perhaps. But maybe he didn’t. It’s worth a try.’
I could have hugged him, except of course he wasn’t there, and because even if he had have been, it might have brought on another poem. Instead, I windowed the empty drive, void of his gangling figure, and in that way thanked him by missing him more.
Theo was right. Although my upbringing had unworldlied me, I knew from my reading that nobody goes through this life or even a part of it without something of them being somewhere written down. I must be documented like anybody else; all I had to do was a paper chase. Blithe was a big house, but there were not many places where papers would be kept.
I started next morning in the library since there was plenty of paper there. I was looking for anything that wasn’t an out-and-out book, a ledger perhaps, or some kind of file. You would think that in four years’ free run of the place I would have happened across such if it were there, but you have to remember that not only was this room immense (it rhymes with Florence), but also that until now it had been only books that interested me.
Well, I fruitlessed a whole week of library mornings. I upsidedowned the place, deshelving what seemed like every book, opening them and giving them a good shake to release any hidden document they might contain; there was none. I up-and-downed the ladders until I made myself dizzy; my nose stung and my head ached from an overdose of dust, but nothing did I find.
The afternoons I glummed away in my tower, too distracted to read, blinding myself by gazing out at the snow, as if hoping to see some clue writ there as to where the papers I sought might lie. At last it began to obvious me that although my uncle might not have had any use for books when he quit Blithe, he had certainly taken all his documents with him. I hopelessed finding any here.
Then, that afternoon, when I had all but given up on my quest and did not even think of it, chance threw a possible answer my way. I had torn my stocking on a nail on one of the library ladders and as it was my last pair, thought it might be a good excuse for a trip into town; we children hardly ever went there, perhaps only three or four times a year, but I thought Mrs Grouse might let John drive me. It would distraction me from the desperation of my lonely days.
So I knocked upon the door of her sitting room and, gaining no reply, and seeing the door not fastened but slightly ajar, pushed it open. The room was empty. She must be in the kitchen on some errand, or perhaps outside, in the barn, giving John some instruction or other. I idled about the room, glancing at the ornaments upon her mantel and the half-done embroidery basking upon her armchair. Eventually I came to her desk and, for want of anything better to do, found myself straightening her blotter, which was lying any which way on the desk top, and lining it up neatly with the inkwell and her pen. And then, feeling impish, I plumped myself down in her desk chair, thinking to experience what it might be like to be her. ‘Florence, where have you been?’ I sterned aloud to my imaginary self, contriting the other side of the desk, hands behind back, head hung low. ‘I have told you a hundred ti—’ but then I was interrupted, for before me I saw what I should have thought of when I first began my search.
The desk had two drawers, side by side. I upglanced the door to certain Mrs Grouse wasn’t about to return, and having coast-cleared, grabbed the brass handle of the right-hand drawer and slid it open. Inside lay Mrs Grouse’s fat account book, which I had seen upon her desk a thousand times. Having upglanced again, I lifted it out to see what other treasure the drawer might contain. It was full of pieces of paper, separated into little piles, all neatly clipped together with hairgrips. I picked them up one after another and disappointed straightway. They were nothing but bills, this pile from the grocer, that from the livery stable, that from the draper. There was nothing more. I replaced them and the account book and closed the drawer.
At that moment I heard voices outside in the passage. Mrs Grouse and Meg. She would be in the room any moment. There was no time to examine the second drawer without being red-handed, I had to get out of her chair fast and distance myself from the desk or face the consequences, but…well, I could not help myself, I had to see what that drawer contained. I heart-in-mouthed as I reached for the handle, for I could hear the approach of footsteps outside, Mrs Grouse about to enter. Nevertheless, I grasped the handle and tugged and…nothing happened. The drawer stuck fast, it was locked.
At that moment the door of the room began to open and I near cried out in alarm at being so caught when I heard again Meg’s voice from afar, the other end of the corridor, and Mrs Grouse – for it was she at the door – pause to answer. I upped the chair and skiptoed fast to the other side of the room and stood innocenting out the window when behind me the housekeeper entered the room.
‘Oh, there you are, Florence. Was there something you wanted?’
I told her about the stocking, which led to a discussion that I was growing fast and needed new clothes. ‘Let me have a look at the account book and see what we can manage,’ she said and I heart-in-mouthed again as she slid open the drawer, terrified she might notice some disarrangement of its contents. She did not, and, satisfied that Blithe could afford it, sanctioned a trip for the morrow, herself and I, into town.
The trip to our little town distracted me, though not in the welcome way of one who is bored, but rather by diverting me from my urgent task. The next few days I mooned around the house, unlibrarying in the morning, untowering the afternoons, for I could think of nothing but that locked drawer and how I might obtain the key.
I almost salivated every time Mrs Grouse passed me by, the jingle-jangle of her household keys upon the great iron ring she wore on her belt sounding