Small crown and heart on the side ribs

Mother says I should stop fretting over it. I told her the bow of the key has a little crown stamped into the metal, the same shape as the one above the Corn Exchange door, and that someone must have made it on purpose. Mr Ashby only shrugged and said half the old houses on Chapel Row had a crown worked into something or other, and it didn't mean a thing.

Yesterday I climbed up to the attic over the bakehouse, where Father kept the things he never got round to finishing. Under a roll of oilcloth was a tin box no bigger than a hymn book, with a heart pressed into the lid and a curl of wire inside the heart, like a fern just beginning to unroll. The key turned as if it had been waiting for me. Inside there was no money and no jewellery, only a pressed violet and a single folded page in Father's square hand, which I will not copy out for you because it was meant for Mother and she has already read it twice this morning.

I have put the key on my own chain now, where it knocks against my side when I walk to the bakehouse in the dark. Mother doesn't know which box I opened, and I am not going to tell her yet. Write soon, and tell me whether the sea is as grey as you said.