‘Come in,’ I said. I took the box and carried it into the living room to put it down on the table. On the side it had my name, address and the date in neat, white-painted lettering. The script was curling, ornate. Nineteenth century. I felt the breath begin to catch in my throat.
‘We are dying to know what’s in it,’ Prendergast told me. ‘Only we realise it might be confidential. It has been there since 1807 and all anyone knows is that it has to be delivered today and no-one must open it except for you.’
The lid lifted with a creak and I looked in. A small package wrapped in tarnished silver foil lay on top of a larger, flatter one. Keeping the lifted lid between me and the three Ps I opened the top parcel. My neat blue cross-body bag. I pushed the bigger parcel with a fingertip. It was soft. My cashmere yoga pants and top, at a guess.
‘The story in the firm is that this aristocratic gentleman came in 1807 and paid an indecent amount of money and left the instructions,’ Polworth explained.
‘And no-one opened the box in more than two hundred years?’
They looked shocked. ‘Those were the Client’s Instructions,’ they chorused in tones suggesting that those were holy writ.
‘It is Great Great – I forget how many greats – Aunt Cassandra’s diaries,’ I explained, desperately scrabbling for something that would satisfy them. ‘They were so shocking that they could not be read in her day so she left them to her descendant, trusting that her name would be handed down.’
‘Wow,’ said Ponsonby. ‘Cool.’ I made a mental note not to engage him if I ever had a court case requiring complex verbal reasoning. ‘But how did she know you would be here?’ Ah, not so dim after all.
‘Old family property,’ I said, thanking my stars that the flats were in a converted Georgian house. ‘And the name Cassandra has been handed down, generation to generation, just like the story of the diaries. I am really sorry, but I can’t ask you to stay for coffee. I was just about to go out.’
‘Of course,’ Prendergast gushed as they made for the door. ‘Perhaps we can talk when we bring the other boxes. It is very exciting, waiting for when the dates come due – Ouch!’
‘We’re not supposed to
say about those,’ scolded Polworth in a whisper as they piled out onto the landing. ‘Good bye, Miss Lawrence.’
It took me a moment after the door closed behind them for that to sink in. There were other boxes with different dates at the solicitor’s office. Which meant that I would leave other things behind me in the past. I was going back.
I was going back.