Chapter Five
Jane reaches the top of the creaky staircase and fiercely wipes at her damp eyes. How could her uncle speak to her mother so? That dinner was painstakingly prepared utilising whatever they had available and, due to the healthy appetites of her cousins, Jane and her brother would likely be on meagre servings of whatever food was leftover in the pantry for the rest of the week. Horrid human beings the lot of them, she thinks angrily, pacing the pin neat floor of the nursery. I don't care if he has got a cane, he has no right to treat my mother so appallingly.
As for Aunt Audrey, how could she not berate her rude twin daughters to hold their tongue to their host and youngest cousin? To tease him thus always dreadfully upsets him. I guess I sometimes do that, Jane admits guiltily. But I always apologise or feel some remorse. That pair just don't think of anything but themselves.
Jane furiously collapses onto her bed and rubs her face into her pillow. The sweet smells of lavender and rosemary fill her nostrils. Her mother keeps the herbs in all of her linen drawers to give off sweet, soothing aromas in the bedrooms. I must remember to appreciate her more.
These thoughts suddenly come to an abrupt halt. What is that noise? A faint tinkling sound seemed to be coming from down the hall. Jane shakes her head. She must be tired or simply hungry. But there it goes again, louder this time, clearer. A definite tinkling of some sort of… bells? Jane wonders how much time she has left before she is missed at the table. Five or so minutes? Plenty of time to check it out.
Jane creeps down the hallway, avoiding the spots that she knows let out distinctive creaks. She must keep up her pretence of being in the bathroom. The tinkling sound gets louder and Jane realises that the noise is coming from her mother's room. She pushes the door ajar and slips into the tidy bedroom. Neatness passes down from daughter to daughter in number 27 it seems. The pastel blue curtains swing from side to side in the warm May breeze and Jane quickly notices her mother's window is open. Night or day, that window never closes. Even in the winter it is still open, if only a crack. The nursery being on the other side of the wall, Jane remembers overhearing the countless hushed disagreements about the freezing winds in the wintery months. But still, the window would remain partly open. Mother must have had a very good reason, ponders Jane. And a very good husband!
The tinkling sound is louder now and it pulls her back into the bedroom. It seems more insistent, more desperate to be heard somehow. Jane goes over to the window and looks behind the curtains, remembering this was her father's favourite hiding place in their many games of hide and seek on rainy afternoons. Nothing. She checks the drawers to her mother's bedside table; one, two, three. But there wasn't anything out of the ordinary hidden underneath the undergarments, nightdresses and cardigans.
The bells persist, demanding Jane to succeed in her search and find the source. They seem to be ringing in her ears, and way up into her brain."Okay, okay! My goodness what are you?" Jane cries out in frustration, her hands rising to cover her ears. "I don't know where to look!" Her eyes fall on her mother's dressing table. She runs to it and her hands hover by the drawers. Looking through someone's dressing table seems so personal, an invasion of a private space. Remembering the lack of time, Jane pulls open drawer after drawer. Nothing. Just perfumes and her mother's special jewellery boxes.
She tries the wardrobe now, a last attempt before her time runs out. Flinging the heavy oak doors open, Jane rifles through pockets of coats and shirts, handbags on the floor and boxes filled with shoes. Still no luck. The bells get louder and louder. Jane grabs her mother's stool that sits in front of her dressing table and drags it to the open doors of the wardrobe. She steps up, careful not to fall and cause a noisy commotion. Her hands skim over her and Danny's baby books, pots with their first curl and tooth, Jane's old Peter Pan hat. Jane feels suddenly ashamed, remembering the argument a few days previous when she screamed at her mother that Peter Pan was childish and she no longer wanted her hat. The hat that Wendy had sewn when Jane was only a few years old now lies forlorn on her mother's dusty self. Jane sniffles and pulls the hat down, inhaling her mother's comforting scent. The bells are squealing now, forcing Jane to hurry along in her search. She checks behinds her. Surely someone will hear this racket? Jane quickly tucks her hat under her arm. I must be getting close, she thinks. Her tummy is twisted into a nervous knot; unsure now whether she wants to unearth the source of this incessant noise.
Jane's hand weaves between hat boxes and a suitcase, brushing over he father's old winter hat. She moves Wendy's old ragdoll out of the way so she can reach the very back of the shelf. Such a pretty old thing with blonde pigtails and a little lilac dress with white daises decorating her skirts. Jane knows how special this doll is to her mother since her mother had made Lizzy Doll when she was a little girl.
Something suddenly catches her eye, tucked away at the very back of the shelf. It is an old shoe box, vibrating and shaking as if something is desperate to escape from its prison. Jane tentatively pulls it into the light to find it is covered in a thick layer of dust. Swallowing back a sneeze, she carefully brushes aside the dust and slowly lifts up the lid. She peeks inside and inhales sharply.