The Room Beyond (32 page)

‘Are you, are you quite sure?’ Her hand squeezed his arm tighter.

‘Yes, I am.’

She peered deeply into his honest watery eyes and suddenly it felt
as if the bright beams of light from the roof above were filtering right
through her, filling her with warmth to the tips of her fingers, the ends of
her toes.

‘Words cannot express my thanks. If I can ever repay you for your
kindness...’ she faltered.

‘You can indeed. You can repay me with immediate effect.’

He hobbled on towards the doors, her hand still wedged tightly in
the crook of his arm.

‘Anything!’

‘Well introduce me to my grandson then. He is the only thing I now
have that’s worth leaving this library for.’

‘Of course. Nothing would make me prouder.’

The glow of sunset had set the fields on fire. The air was at its
loveliest at this time: still full of the day’s warmth but cool enough to
breathe and so clean and golden. Two silhouettes appeared against the skyline,
rather like a tall grasshopper and a squat little ant with a walking stick.

It would perhaps be better not to tell Mrs Hubbard that they were
already on their way. She was panicking enough as it was about the garlic and
the raspberry flan and the flour on the floor. She’d greet them out here first,
talk things over in the fresh air before taking them inside.

Then later, if she could get him on his own, she’d tell Walter about
her swims in the secret lake. It was surely the closest thing to heaven to
glide through that pure, silky water each morning when the rest of the world
was still sleeping apart from her and the dragonflies. And if he knew about it
then maybe he’d join her one day...

The silhouettes had doubled, tripled in size, Lord Hartreve moving
almost like a sprightly young man now that he had the comfort of his new stick
by his side. They paused to circle around something lying in their pathway: a
small furry mound as orange as the sky.

‘Minerva! Oh you lazy cat,’ she murmured. ‘Always sprawled out
somewhere as if the estate were you own.’

Walter was clutching the folds of his crimson coat about his legs with
one hand. In the other he clasped, what was it, a bouquet of flowers?

She pressed her eyelids closed. It wasn’t enough just to breathe
this air, she had to feel its fingers on her skin as well. Skin that felt
softer and plumper than ever before.

‘Good evening! I trust you’re well!’ Lord Hartreve cried out,
saluting her with his stick.

‘So well. And our boy has a new tooth on his bottom gum. I found it
this morning; he hasn’t complained one bit about it. Ah peonies, my favourite
flowers. Thank you so much Walter!’

She pressed the fluffy blooms to her face. ‘Heavenly.’

‘He’s a very brave boy my grandson. Never complains. I still haven’t
seen him cry properly, did you know that?’ he asked, turning to Walter.

‘You have mentioned it, several times.’

‘Mrs Hubbard’s been making all manner of things for us with some of
the new ingredients Walter’s been showing her. I think she’s rather flustered
about it all so I’ve left her to it for a few minutes.’

‘Ah excellent!’ Lord Hartreve patted his stomach. He was refilling
that portly figure of his again and looking more like his old portrait in the
library with each passing day. ‘Is it to be that exquisite mousse again with,
what were those things in it?’

‘Cardamoms.’

‘That’s it!’

‘No, it’s a raspberry flan. And she’s put some of the wild garlic
into a hotpot. I don’t know how Walter managed to persuade her to do that. We’ve
had the windows open all day with it.’

Walter bowed his head with a smile. ‘It’ll keep the chills away. Strengthen
you all for the winter.’

‘Tell me, how was your visit to London?’ she asked, her lip
trembling a little beneath the question.

A dark cloud passed across Walter’s face. ‘It was... illuminating. Perhaps
we three should sit down for a few minutes before we bother Mrs Hubbard?’

A small dry cough rose up in her throat. It was still there in her
lungs, that grey cloud. The golden country air hadn’t quite killed it off yet. Sometimes,
when she closed her eyes, that smile, that... grimace, flashed back at her
against her lids.

‘You visited the Whitestone property?’ Lord Hartreve’s voice was low
and hushed.

‘Yes.’

‘And what state did you find it in?’

‘Desperate.’

‘My nephew Charles and his family have settled into Lucinda’s
place?’

‘Yes.’

‘And how do they regard the house beside them?’

‘They do not appear to notice it, very few do now.’ Walter’s brow
wrinkled and he solemnly drew his bony fingers through his hair. ‘My Lord... as
Miranda knows well, that house positively groans with the pungent aroma of
wasted life. I’ve never encountered such a sorrowful place before!’

‘Is that so? Is that so?’

‘I have brought many experts there now, some have refused even to go
in. It seems to be the loneliness in the air that horrifies them the most. Several
leading occultists have already failed to notice the building at all.’

‘Your power is immense; I knew you could make it all go away!’ cried
Lord Hartreve.

‘Oh it isn’t me. No. It is revulsion that seems to blind them. Even
I have walked straight past the place without realizing on several occasions.’

‘Have you seen... him... there?’ The words scratched drily against
her throat.

‘Yes.’

Walter bit deeply down into his lip, turning it white. ‘I have
witnessed the wretch several times now. He stalks the corridors, lunges
unsuspectingly through mirrors and weeps like a child in the darkest corners. He
has begun to speak to me as well: muttering constantly about his loneliness and
yet grinning through his tears in a most disconcerting way. He even attacked me
on one occasion.

I was quite fascinated by him at first but now I’ve reached a stage
where I no longer want to see. Yesterday I found myself collapsing out of the
front door in a bid to escape the vileness. It has a peculiar way of latching
onto you, drawing you in, sapping you of strength.

I’m afraid that for the sake of my own health there is little more I
can do. Misery is consuming that house and before long no unsuspecting
individual will even be aware of its presence at all.’

The sun was sinking low now. Two hares sprinted and played at
bullying each other at the far end of the meadow.

‘Your world is too complex for me,’ murmured Lord Hartreve at last. His
cheeks had drained to white.

‘I’m afraid that we are all forced to share this world you speak
of,’ he replied. ‘But most human beings are simple and optimistic beasts; they
don’t want to interrupt the mechanics of their day-to-day lives, or sully the
innocence of their outlook with visions of pain and lunacy.’

Lord Hartreve laughed gently to himself. ‘And I think that I’m
beginning to understand why. Why should I strain my already old and fading eyes
with the stuff of nightmares, when I can so easily gaze at beauty such as this
in my own back garden?’

‘Is that you, Mr Balanchine?’

The shrill voice cut through their reverie like a welcoming firework
– it was Mrs Hubbard, calling from the cottage behind them. And then her face
suddenly popped up in one of the windows, framed between two potted orchids. Miranda
smiled gratefully at her. The cook’s usually tidy hair had come quite loose
with all her flustering and her cheeks had turned scarlet in the heat.

‘I need your expertise! The rest of you can wait a few minutes.’

‘At your service.’

But Lord Hartreve clutched onto Walter’s arm before he could leave. ‘One
more thing. Did you take care of the other business?’

Walter nodded, his eyes soft and reassuring.

‘I’ve eliminated every document I can find sir: death certificates,
birth certificates. Everything that might possibly link the boy to his father.’

‘Well done. Well done.’

Miranda watched Walter lope off towards the cottage with a lighter
spring in his step than before. Perhaps he’d needed to unburden himself of his
dark story, make space for the golden light to fill him.

The countryside seemed to suit him just as much as it did her: his
figure cut against the landscape like a reminder of a bygone era. He’d have
fitted in well with the Druids who’d once populated this place. She could just
imagine him, gathered up with such a company around a blazing night fire, his
face lit up by the glow and his eyes as tender and searching as ever across the
flames.

She turned to Lord Hartreve. ‘May I ask, how on earth did a man like
you fall into the company of Walter Balanchine?’

A low laugh escaped from between the old man’s lips and then he
shook his head heavily.

‘My family had all more or less abandoned me,’ he began. ‘My wife
died, my son went overseas and my daughter, well, you know that ending. I have
strived all my life to be good, to serve my family and my tenants well. In
return however I’ve received nothing but derision and strife. I turned to the
church and was greeted by empty words, fawning priests and the undeniable
absence of God. So, rejecting the ghastliness of the world about me, I turned
in upon myself and commissioned the building of what I have often described as
my cocoon, my library.

‘I had heard tales of Walter’s brilliance for some time
: The
Conjurer of the East End
as he was known. After some difficulty I
eventually tracked him down in a London opium den, where he lay glassy-eyed and
inebriated on a filthy divan. I walked away, thinking that I’d never see him
again, and returned straight to my club where, as I was told on entering, I had
a visitor. And there he was, waiting for me, freshly shaven and with his wits
about him.

‘Walter’s ways have never failed to astonish and confound me, but he
gave me my library, as well as his friendship and love. He is a faithful and
true servant and has done more to convince me of the innate spirituality
governing our world than any man of the cloth. He is my family, just as the two
of you are now.’

‘And you are mine,’ she said. ‘I would never have believed that
happiness had a place left for me until I came here.’

‘Come on in, dinner is served!’ Mrs Hubbard’s face rose up from
between the orchids again. ‘And the young Master’s awake and gurgling for his
tooth inspection.’

‘Then we cannot possibly leave him waiting, or your good self!’ Lord
Hartreve laughed heartily. ‘Now help an old man up, take me to my boy.’

Walter was balancing the baby in the crook of an unnaturally angled
arm as they squeezed into the cottage.

‘Don’t breathe!’ exclaimed Mrs Hubbard. ‘In case the garlic
suffocates you. I never thought I’d find myself cooking with such a thing.’

‘It smells marvellous. Hello my little man, shall I take you now?’

Miranda squeezed the child’s soft body against her, burying her lips
into his cheek. Walter rolled back his shoulders; he seemed relieved to have
his arm free again although he still watched the child intently. And when those
round blue eyes met his he clutched onto them so heavily with his gaze that the
poor little thing suddenly stuck out a quivering bottom lip.

‘You’re scaring him!’

‘My apologies,’ he murmured. ‘I just find the child a little
puzzling, that’s all.’

‘Puzzling!’ chimed in Lord Hartreve. ‘I’ll tell you what puzzles me:
the fact that all the inner doors of this cottage seem to have unhinged
themselves and run off.’

Miranda felt herself go pink. ‘Ah, let me explain. You see, I just
don’t like the things – doors that is. I’ve always said that one day I’d live
in a house without any doors in it at all, and well, here I am.’

‘Extraordinary! And what in heaven’s name is this?’

‘Oh, you’ve spotted my new carving, the one I was telling you about.
The carpenter in the next village finally finished it.’

Lord Hartreve’s eyes bulged up at the thing. ‘Rather crude, isn’t
it?’

He was right. It was far larger than she’d expected and it did swell
out rather lumpily above the small mantelpiece.

‘And I thought you’d wanted kingfishers?’

‘No, I changed my mind; the turtle doves are so much more peaceful. I
know it’s crude, but I like it anyway. The last few months have taught me that
I am a simple person at heart, that I desire nothing more in life than a small
corner of peace. Being here has brought me untold happiness and we all know
what a rare and precious thing that is.’

By the time the two men had left the sky was deep blue velvet and
glimmering with stars.

‘Like one of Walter’s cloaks, don’t you think?’ she murmured to Mrs
Hubbard.

‘Hmm, never thought a man would teach me how to cook.’