Page 87 of The Secret Christmas Library
‘Well, people write tiny clues under stamps and things. This is just . . . these are just letters.’
Mirren screwed up her face. ‘Oh, God,’ she said. ‘Oh, no.’
‘If we’ve literally burned the last clue. After all this.’
‘Everyone nearly dying of exposure,’ said Mirren.
‘God,’ said Jamie, staring at them. ‘No. Surely not. Come on.’
‘What’s that spooky thing people use? Like lemons or invisible ink?’
Jamie held the paper up to the Aga and shone a torch behind it. ‘Anything?’
‘Nope.’
‘Oh, lord,’ said Jamie, scratching his head. ‘Maybe that’s it. Maybe we’ve torn it.’
Oddly, Mirren didn’t feel as bad as she thought she might, not finding it. She wouldn’t have changed what they’d done for anything.
‘Does it matter?’ she said. ‘You’ve got the point.’
‘I’ve got thepoint,’ said Jamie. ‘I haven’t got the book.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ she said.
She set all the sheets out on the kitchen table, and they moved them around, rearranged them. Jamie put on a pair of reading glasses that were so incredibly old-fashioned they could only have come with the house; small rimmed round frames that made him look like he was appearing in a film about Bletchley code breakers. He saw her looking and took them off again.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I like them.’
And he didn’t make a joke or brush off her remark; he put them back on, and stood over her shoulder, so close she could feel him breathe.
It was odd. It was while she was thinking about him – about the proximity of him, his soft, tweedy scent that sheliked very much, the brush of his jumper against her hair that made her want to lean back, very much, into him, made her feel almost faint with desire for him simply to put his arms around her from behind, wrap her up in his coat, keep her warm, keep her safe, let the rest of the world fall even further away for them . . . it was then, when her mind wasn’t focusing at all on the task at hand, that she saw it. It was almost as if it was something you could only spot when you weren’t paying attention; where you had to rely on looking out of the corner of your eye.
‘Look!’ she said. ‘Why does your great-grandfather sometimes put dashes at the start of his new paragraphs and sometimes not?’
It was true. He had a black, thick hand, slanting forward, the fountain pen occasionally blotting as he constantly made heavily underlined points to James about not neglecting the estate, not getting caught up with unsuitable people, not complaining about school, not choosing a life of his own. But sometimes these paragraphs started with a dash, as if he were saying, ‘—and another thing,’ like a drunk unable to give up an argument. Others, simply, did not.
‘Probably no reason,’ said Jamie, but she already knew him well enough to tell when there was mild excitement in his voice.
Mirren pointed out one.
‘Here you are:—Really this is unacceptablehas got one, butThis is quite appallinghasn’t.’
Jamie picked up the paper carefully, squishing his glasses up his nose and studying it.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I think . . . what do you think?’
Mirren had picked up another sheet, where the paragraph—Wait untilyou have managed the estate successfully, then you’ll find you know everything you need to know and won’t waste your time with those ridiculous bookshad a dash, butYou need to live in the real worlddid not.
‘I think . . . ’ said Jamie slowly. ‘I don’t think those dashes are from my great-grandfather. I think they’re written in a different hand. Look. It’s not even a fountain pen.’
‘Hopes will not be dashed,’whispered Mirren. ‘Like in the poem!’ She felt a twinge of excitement. She was so out of practice reading handwriting at all, but now that he mentioned it she thought he was right. The ink wasn’t thick and fresh-looking; it wasn’t a ballpoint, but it did look more like a marker.
‘Jamie,’ she whispered, fingering the poem and repeating, ‘Hopes will not be dashed.’
‘Hopes will not be dashed!’ he repeated joyfully. ‘Dashes! It is! You’re right!’
‘Really?’ she said. ‘Or are we imagining it? Is this lettergraffitied?’
