Page 36 of Strangers in Time

T HE S ANCTUM OF S ANCTUMS

M OLLY HURRIED DOWN THE hall and entered her father’s study. She closed the door and gazed around the book-lined space. Crossing the room, she drew aside the curtain, and gave a searching look up and down the street. There were no passing motorcars and no people out walking. Over the tops of the opposite houses Molly could see the night coming as the sky burned gold and red before the sink of the sun snuffed it out.

Molly sat at the desk. The green leather high-back chair swiveled. As a little girl, she had sometimes spun around in it till she became dizzy. Once she had nearly become ill, but fortunately had made it to the toilet before desecrating her father’s sacred place with her sick. Ignoring the electric switch on the wall, she lit a candle, drawing a match from the same box her father had used to light his myriad pipes that perched in a wooden rack on the desktop.

On one side of the desk was the fat black telephone that no doubt Herbert Wakefield had made important calls on. As a child she had lifted the receiver and pretended to call the King and ask him over for tea. Her father had showed her how to make a trunk phone call to her now-dead grandmother in Shrewsbury on the occasion of her birthday.

She took up the Conway Stewart pen, which Molly was certain had lain in perfect parallel to the letter opener since the very day her father had walked out the front door. She held the pen over a sheet of crisp paper monogrammed with her father’s initials. The pen now felt small and rather insignificant in her grip, but then again, her hand was much bigger than the last time she had held it. Yet nothing came to her that was exceptional enough to mar the page, so she set the instrument aside.

What if he left here and was killed somehow?

She closed her eyes and lay her throbbing head on the desk until, about ten minutes later, she heard bustling out in the hall and the door opened. She lifted her head in time to see that it was Mrs. Pride with a meal tray.

“Shall I put it on the table over here, dear?”

“But I told you that—”

“A bit of cheese and bread is no proper meal for you,” her nanny said quite firmly. “Now here’s a nice plump sausage, some chips, mustard, bread and cheese, and a carrot. And a quite nice parsnip, which I literally had to fight a so-called lady over. And a fresh cup of tea with real milk, and I got our sugar rations.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Pride, so very much.”

“Oh, Molly, you shouldn’t be sitting in the dark like that with just the one candle.” She moved to turn on the light after setting down the tray, but Molly said, “Please don’t. I actually prefer it darker right now, Mrs. Pride. I have a bit of a migraine.”

“Well, if you’re sure.”

As Molly watched, her nanny set out her silverware and a cloth napkin. This made Molly think back to her childhood. Mrs. Pride would come to her room every morning and make sure her charge was suitably clean. Then, after Molly’s hair was thoroughly brushed, she would help her dress and then bring Molly downstairs in a presentable state.

Molly’s mother and father would usually be seated at the small breakfast table in the sunny, windowed nook just off the kitchen: her father quietly absorbed in the Times over a cup of coffee, porridge, brown toast, and two poached eggs, her mother doing a bit of embroidery while awaiting the sounds of her daughter’s approach. Then Eloise Wakefield would instantly toss aside whatever she was doing, and she would be Molly’s faithful companion for as long as the little girl so desired. Sometimes Mrs. Pride would literally have to snatch Molly away in order to get on with her tasks having to do with the child.

Molly remembered that her mother never looked happier than when her gaze was on her daughter. And Molly had always loved to be the center of attention. But now, looking back on it with a more mature perspective, she could see the difficulties such a prolonged separation might have caused a mother so devoted to her only child. That must have been what Mrs. Pride was referring to before. And after what had happened to her mother at that shelter? That would have devastated anyone, whether they had any previous mental issues or not.

She took her locket from around her neck and opened it to reveal her mother’s picture once more. That kind, sweet visage. What would she look like now? More important, what would her mother be like?

“Do you need anything else?” Mrs. Pride asked.

Molly came back to the present with a bit of a start. “What? I’m sorry, no. That’s fine, thank you.”

“Are you sure you’re all right, dear?” said Mrs. Pride in a voice that made clear she did not believe Molly to be in any way “all right.” She glanced anxiously at the locket.

“I’m perfectly fine, thank you. Oh, Mrs. Pride, have you… um, I know this will sound strange. But have you noticed anyone watching the house?”

Her nanny’s eyebrows lifted. “Watching the house?”

“Yes. Some men. Perhaps in a car?”

“Well, come to think, a few times it did seem that I saw the same man standing across the street and smoking a cigarette. I thought he was just loitering. But he wasn’t dressed as such. He seemed, well, like a gentleman, not one of them rascals on the street. Have you seen him, too?”

“I think I have.”

“Do you think we should tell the constable?” asked Mrs. Pride.

“I think we should, yes. It might be nothing but… well, one never knows, particularly nowadays.”

“All right, Molly. I’ll tell the bobby next time I see him. He’s a young lad, quite conscientious. Now, nothing else you need?”

“Oh, I would like the other letters from the doctor in Cornwall.”

“Yes, of course, thank you for reminding me,” she replied with her gaze averted. It seemed clear to Molly that her nanny would rather not face this family dilemma.

Mrs. Pride took her leave and Molly sat down at the table to eat. She slipped her napkin over her lap, readied her silverware, gave everything a pinch of salt, and tucked in. The simple fare was wonderful, but then really anything would have been, so ravenous was her hunger.

The door opened as she was finishing her dinner, and Mrs. Pride came in carrying a stack of letters.

“They were in your parents’ room. It took a bit of searching.”

“Thank you.”

Mrs. Pride deposited the letters on the desk, took the tray, and shuffled out, closing the door behind her.

Arranging them in chronological order, Molly picked up the first letter. It was on the same stiff notepaper. The contents were brief but to the point. Her mother was undergoing treatment and handling it well.

The next letter and the next said the same thing.

Then, in subsequent communications from Dr. Stephens, the wording changed slightly, but Molly was still able to grasp the meaning behind the fancy medical terms.

There were certain challenges in her mother’s diagnosis, proclaimed Dr. Stephens. Another letter cautioned that extreme “mood swings” were to be expected. Then in another letter dated fourteen months ago came an ominous warning that her condition had deteriorated , only to be revived in the next letter to a better state of prognosis. Still more letters carried this theme through, with more ups and downs. The last missive simply said that Mrs. Wakefield was responding to certain treatments and that Dr. Stephens was cautiously optimistic that they had hit upon the correct course this time.

As she laid aside the last letter, Molly was well aware that the correspondence from Dr. Stephens had ended just about the time that her father had walked out the door. She wasn’t sure if the two events were connected, but they certainly could have been.

She had an idea and lifted the fat telephone receiver. She dialed for the operator, and a voice came on and asked what she needed. Molly gave her the phone number for the Beneficial Institute that was imprinted on the letterhead. “It’s in Cornwall,” she added.

“Hold, please, you’ll need the trunk operator to ring that.”

There was silence for the longest time. Then another operator came on the line. “I’m sorry, the number is not answering. The lines may be down. Please try again later.”

Molly sighed, returned the phone to its cradle, and watched the candle on the desk burn down to a mass of wax. It was quite dark outside now, what with the gas streetlamps no longer being lit. She obviously could not travel to Cornwall tonight. And she had no idea where her father had gone, or if he was even alive.

Molly needed someone to talk to. And perhaps she knew just the person.