The Chestertons and the Golden Key

by Nancy Carpentier Brown

  “Does it matter?” Clare asked as they walked.

  “Well, only that if it were plain cheap metal, it mightn’t be worth anything. Of course, it could still have sentimental value; if, say, his parents gave that chalice to a priest at his ordination. But if it were, let’s say, a silver chalice, with a blue background of precious stone, and the twelve apostles ringing it ‘round, and each of them had a halo of diamonds—well,” here he beamed with excitement, “that might make all the difference in the world as to what Sister Smith is going to do about it; and the day was probably about to be far from ordinary, I’d say!” Unclet threw his hands open wide, accidentally tossing his walking stick to the side. It almost hit a little boy building a sand castle. Unclet hurried to pick up the stick, and apologized to the boy several times.

  “I wish I could come up with ideas like that,” said Clare, dejected. She had hoped that when she talked to Mr. Chesterton, she might feel better about her writing. Instead, she was feeling worse. She thought her story seemed too much like the story of Father Brown and the Blue Cross. “Well, thank you for your help,” she sighed.

  “Shall I tell you about a play we saw in London?” asked Unclet, who seemed to know she wanted to change the subject. “A friend of mine wrote it. It was about a professor named Henry Higgins who thought most Englishmen didn’t speak properly. And then he decided to teach a flower-seller named Eliza Doolittle how to talk like a lady, and…”

  So they walked along, Unclet telling Clare one funny story after another about his friend George Bernard Shaw and his play, until they lost track of the time.

  As for Joan and Cece, they had decided to have races on the beach. Auntlet was the timekeeper and Pepper was the cheering—or the barking—section. “Ready, set, go!” Auntlet would call, and Cece and Joan would race down the wet sand as fast as they could. Cece beat her older sister a few times, and was very pleased.

  After they got tired, they walked again hand-in-hand with Auntlet and talked about races and swimming. Auntlet told them about a famous woman swimmer named Phyllis Harding. “Two years ago in Paris, she won the silver medal for backstroke. She’s the second cousin of a friend of mine, and what an inspiration she is!”

  “Spiffing!” said Cece, “That’s what I’ll do someday, after I swim the Channel. Mother said that girls weren’t allowed to swim when she was growing up, but now they are, and I’m glad.”

  “What does your mother like to do?” asked Auntlet.

  “Well, she likes to sew, and bake, and…” said Joan, “but she’s been awfully sad since Father died,” she finished, turning her head away, sniffing.

  “I’m so sorry, Joan. You girls must miss him terribly,” Auntlet said, squeezing Joan’s shoulders. “Let’s talk about something else—what about music? Which of you plays that piano I saw in your living room?”

  “Joan wants t—ouch!” said Cece, suddenly hopping on one foot and rubbing her shin. A seagull called overhead.

  “Come on!” said Joan, blushing, “Let’s go up and walk on the pavement! My feet ache from the sand!” And she pulled the other two by the hands.

  They climbed up onto the wooden walk that stretched towards town. It was growing late, and most people were headed home from the beach. As the trio wandered along, they heard a loud rumbling noise coming closer. Joan looked around, and started in dismay.

  “Those Hampton boys!” she cried. “Thunder turtles! And—oh! They’ve got our skates!”

  “No!” yelled Cece, clenching her fists. Pepper barked fiercely. Auntlet looked startled as the two girls glowered at the boys who were racing towards them.

  Ted Hampton was expertly skating on the new silver skates. Will raced beside him. Seeing Joan ahead, Ted winked at her and waved cheerily.

  That was too much for Joan. “Stop!” she shouted. Without thinking, she jumped in front of Ted just as he was about to speed past them.

  Too late, Joan realized her mistake. Ted tried with all his might to avoid her, but he and Joan crashed together and collapsed like a tangled pile of ships’ ropes. Somehow Ted ended up on his back with the wheels of his left roller skate spinning wildly up in the air, while his right foot had disappeared underneath him. Joan had landed on her hands and knees, and stumbled to her feet, scraped and bleeding.

  “Oh Joanie,” Ted called out, seeing the blood on her palms, “Oh gosh golly, I’m so sorry!” Then his head fell back with a thunk! on the boardwalk.

  Ted actually fainted?” asked Joan.

  Joan’s foot was up on a pillow, wrapped in bandages. Despite the morning sunlight streaming through the open window and the sound of gulls on the warm breeze, she was feeling rather wretched. Her sisters were trying to make her feel better by keeping her company. Cece was sitting on the end of the bed, polishing Joan’s toenails. Clare had just come with a report from the neighbors.

  “The doctor said he blacked out. His ankle’s broken. It could take all summer to heal.” Clare said. “Lucky you only got a sprain.”

  “But now he can’t skate,” Cece said, frowning. “I suppose Will Hampton will be the only one who’ll be skating around here.”

  “Well, Ted shouldn’t have bought our skates,” Joan said angrily. “I’m sorry he broke his ankle, but it serves him right!”

  “But he wouldn’t have got hurt if you hadn’t tried to stop him,” Cece pointed out.

  “True,” Joan wilted. “Oh, I’m so miserable! And it does hurt!”

  They heard a knock at the front door downstairs, the sound of footsteps, and voices. Mother came upstairs. “You have a visitor, Joan,” she said.

  Auntlet peeked in, holding a bunch of gaily-colored flowers and carrying a large book. “May I come for a visit? Oh, hello Clare, Cece! And Joan, your poor leg!” She kissed Joan and gave her the flowers.

  “Thank you, Auntlet!” Joan said, taking a deep breath of the silky petals. “Oh, how sweet! They’re all the way open.”

  “ ‘Life and love—and flowers!—are precious when they are in full bloom,’ ” quoted Auntlet, showing them the book she had brought.

  “Little Women!” said Joan in recognition, “Oh, I love that book!”

  “I wondered if you did when I heard you say ‘Thunder Turtles!’ yesterday! So I brought over my copy. Do you like being read to? Because if you do, perhaps I could read you some, if you’d like?” Auntlet offered.

  “Oh! That would be lovely!” Joan said.

  Auntlet sat down on the chair next to the bed that Clare offered her. The girls scrambled to sit on the bed so that they were all comfortable. “What part shall I read?”

  “Read your favorite part,” Joan said. “If you have a favorite part?”

  “I do, actually.” Auntlet smiled. She turned the pages to a folded-over corner, and read, “ ‘I want to do something splendid before I go into my castle, something heroic or wonderful that won’t be forgotten after I’m dead. I don’t know what, but I’m on the watch for it and mean to astonish you all someday. I think I shall write books, and get rich and famous. That would suit me, so that is my favorite dream.’ ” Auntlet paused to sigh. “I’ve always loved Jo best.”

  “Me, too!” said Joan. “I love how she says whatever she thinks, and has big dreams. But my big dream is different from Jo’s. I’ve never dreamed of being a writer.”

  “I wonder if anyone starts out wanting to be a writer,” said Auntlet, thoughtfully. “Even Unclet didn’t know he was going to write books at first.”

  “Really?” asked Clare.

  “Really,” said Auntlet, “he thought he was going to be an artist. But it didn’t work out.”

  “Well, I’m glad it didn’t. He writes as well as Shakespeare,” said Clare, thinking of her letter to Mr. Chesterton.

  “So what’s your favorite part of Little Women?” Auntlet asked Joan.

  “Where they’re putting on the Christmas play,” Joan said eagerly. “Can you read that part?”

  And so Auntlet read the part where Jo, Meg, Beth and
Amy perform an exciting drama for their friends. By the time she had finished, everyone in the room was full of theatrical thoughts.

  “Wouldn’t it be ripping fun to put on a play?” Cece was the first to say, “Couldn’t we do one?”

  “Oh, I wish we could! It would be so grand—making the costumes, the sets, and the props, too!” said Joan.

  “Whenever we’ve done plays at our house, it’s always so jolly,” said Auntlet. “Unclet and I could help you with it, even if we don’t get to see it.”

  “But we’d want you here to see it,” said Joan. “What if we put the play on the night before you have to leave?”

  “Only two weeks! That doesn’t give us much time,” said Auntlet, putting her fingers to her lips, “but if we all worked together, I think we could do it.”

  “Oh fun! We must have music and dancing,” said Joan, but added, looking at her bandaged leg, “although I won’t be able to do any dancing.”

  “What about a puppet show? That way, it won’t matter if you can’t dance!” Clare was inspired. “The puppets could dance, and we could sing, and maybe someone could play music…”

  “What about that piano?” asked Auntlet. “The one in your living room? Couldn’t someone play that?”

  There was silence in the room, as the girls all looked at each other. At last Joan felt she really had to tell Auntlet.

  “I wish someone could,” said Joan, “I’d love to…but Mummy locked the piano after Father died. We’re not sure why, and she won’t tell us.”

  “I see,” said Auntlet, slowly. “Did your father play piano?”

  “Yes. Daddy and Mummy both played,” said Clare. “Sometimes, they would even play duets. We’d all sing together, and it was all so lovely.”

  “I think I understand,” said Auntlet.

  “But what puppet play shall we do?” Cece asked. “Cinderella, or Peter Pan, or…?”

  “Let’s make one up ourselves!” said Clare. “That way, we can have it just as we want.”

  Auntlet smiled. “One of the best plays Unclet ever saw was a puppet play when he was a boy, about a Prince with a Golden Key.”

  “Who was the Prince?” asked Joan.

  “What was the Golden Key?” asked Cece.

  “What did it open?” asked Clare.

  “Well, that’s a mystery,” said Auntlet, “Unclet doesn’t remember what the key was for. He was a small boy when he saw the play.”

  “I bet it opened the castle!” said Clare.

  “Perhaps it opened the dungeon, where some innocent was being held prisoner,” said Joan.

  “Maybe it opened a treasure chest!” said Cece.

  “Well, that’s settled!” said Clare. “Our play shall be the ‘Mystery of the Golden Key,’ and it will have a prince, and a castle, and all sorts of fun adventures.” She took out her notebook, and all began to give their ideas. Soon they were writing a play.

  “You could be the Queen, Joan, and Cece could be a Princess,” Clare said. “I suppose I shall have to play the Prince, but I’m not like Jo: I hate to have to play a boy.”

  “If our brother wasn’t married and moved away, he could play the prince,” Joan sighed.

  “Why not ask some of your friends?” Auntlet asked. “What about Ted or Will?”

  “Those awful Hampton boys?” asked Cece.

  “Ugh, no,” said Joan. “They don’t like us, especially now, and would only make fun.”

  Clare closed her notebook. “Will plays the violin, though,” she said. “I’d better go help Mother with lunch.”

  “Hmm,” said Auntlet thoughtfully. “Suppose we make some brownies for tea?”

  “Do you mean little fairy men, like in the book The Brownie?” asked Cece.

  Auntlet laughed. “No, but that would be fun too! In America, they have a sort of chocolate cake treat they call ‘brownies.’ When we were over there, we had some at a hotel, and I obtained the recipe from an American friend.”

  Clare slipped out as the conversation turned from plays to baking.

  There was a delivery boy with a cap on his head waiting in their front hallway. “What are you here for?” asked Clare as she came downstairs.

  “Not sure entirely,” said the boy. “There’s a gentl’mun who asked me to deliver something for him when ’e’s done writing it, but ’e’s taking an awful long time. I haven’t got all day.”

  The mystery was solved when Clare discovered Unclet sitting at their dining room table, writing frantically on sheets of paper. “Please pardon me, Clare,” he said, “for trespassing upon your table… but I have a deadline for this weekly column, and I’ve only just worked out an idea for what it’s meant to be about.”

  “Do you have trouble writing sometimes too?” Clare asked in wonder.

  “All writers do,” Unclet said. “It is a mighty struggle!”

  “Oh,” Clare said. Watching Unclet writing, she had an inspiration.

  “Can I dip my pen in your inkwell, Unclet?” asked Clare, sitting down and opening her writing notebook.

  “Of course, Clare, my dear,” said Unclet, dipping his own pen and then pushing the inkwell towards her.

  Clare looked at her Sister Smith story, which was just one sentence long. She wondered if just by sitting near the great man, she’d be inspired to write the next bit. Who, what and where, she told herself. Carefully, she reached her pen over to the inkwell, and dipped it in his ink. Surely, the right words would come out now.

  Clare wrote. She showed it to Unclet. He beamed.

  “But it’s ‘t-h-i-e-f,’ ” said Unclet, looking over at her paper. “ ‘I before e’—in a backwards alphabet, naturally! That’s how I remember it. Then comes something about the letter c—or was it v?”

  “I before e, except after c, or when sounded as ‘ay’ as in neighbor or weigh,” she corrected him.

  He chuckled. “Right. ‘C’ makes more sense.”

  Clare fixed the word, then sat and wondered what came next. Unclet had returned to his writing. She wondered where all his words came from, and how he could make it look so easy.

  While he was intently working, she re-read her new sentences, decided they weren’t very good, and crossed them out. Then she silently closed her notebook, and left the room.

  Using his ink hadn’t helped at all. Alone in her room, she threw her book in the trash bin and sat on the bed, folding her arms tightly over her chest.

  Unclet had wanted to be an artist when he was young, but he wasn’t meant to be. Maybe she wasn’t meant to be a writer.

  “But I really do want to write, I do!” Clare whispered. And so she took her notebook out of the bin, smoothed the pages out, and laid it back on her desk. She’d think about it later.

  Joan was sitting on a chair in the kitchen with her foot up watching Auntlet and Cece take the brownies out of the oven.

  “Oh, those smell simply divine!” she gasped. “Better than chocolate cake!”

  “They are better than chocolate cake, I think!” said Auntlet. “We should let them cool before cutting them.”

  There was a knock at the front door, and Mother left her sewing machine to get it. “Someone to see you, Joan,” Mother called.

  Joan looked up and there was Ted Hampton in the kitchen doorway. “Hello Joan.”

  He was balancing unsteadily on crutches, holding something behind his back. Mother quickly offered him a chair. Ted was introduced to Auntlet, and then the rest went back to their various tasks.

  Joan felt she should make conversation, and she didn’t know what to say, but Ted spoke first.

  “Joan,” he said, clearing his throat, “I’m awfully sorry about the accident, and I hope your hands and ankle are all right, and I hope… well, here,” he said. He handed her something on a string.

  “Your skate key?” Joan said, surprised. Although she wanted to remain angry with him for buying the skates, she suddenly knew she couldn’t. “It was my fault for getting in your way, and I’m sorry, too, that yo
u were hurt,” she said. “But why are you giving me your key?”

  “Well, I’ll be laid up for a while, and you’ll be better sooner, I hope, so I thought…” Ted coughed. “I thought you or Cece might like to skate, I mean, take turns with Will, till my leg is better. If you’d like,” he ended awkwardly.

  Joan was amazed to hear this speech from a boy who in the past had spent most of his time trying to pull her hair. She glanced at Auntlet, who seemed very pleased.

  “That’s awfully kind of you, Ted,” said Auntlet. “How is your ankle? What did the doctor say?”

  “He said it’ll mend just fine, Mrs. Chesterton,” he replied.

  “Thank you, Ted,” Joan said, putting the key in her pocket, and now feeling shy. “And I’m truly sorry I got in your way. I was awfully upset about your buying the skates when you knew Cece and I really wanted them. But that’s all past. Would you like a brownie?” she asked. “They’re a kind of cake. We’re waiting for them to cool.”

  Cece was thrilled to get the skate key from Joan. She thanked Ted, and ran out of the kitchen to find Will.

  On her way out the door, she nearly tripped over the delivery boy on the front porch.

  “Is ‘e done?” the young man asked, throwing his arms in the air.

  “Is who? Done doing what?” Cece asked.

  The youth made a sound of impatience. “Well, look! Tell ’im I can’t wait any more!” And he ran off the steps towards town, mystifying Cece.

  “Do you know who that was?” she asked Will, who was sitting on the garden wall, the skates dangling from his feet.

  Will shrugged and held up his marble-pouch for Pepper to jump at.

  “Be careful! He’ll snatch it and run off to bury it someplace,” she warned. “We’ve lost tons of things that way.”

  Will replaced the pouch in his pocket, much to Pepper’s annoyance, and said, “Do you want to try the skates?”

  “Sure thing!” said Cece. “Let me try the skate key!”