Читать книгу In the Night Wood - Dale Bailey - Страница 16

They got out of the car and stood there in silence, transfixed.

About a hundred yards away, Hollow House — three stories of gray, castellated stone — stood at a slight elevation, moated by sculpted grounds, meadow, and walls. Like a stone cast into a pool, Charles thought. Axis mundi, still center of the wheeling world.

“Something else, isn’t it?” Merrow said.

Something else indeed. The photographs had not done justice to the house’s implacable aspect — its grim solidity, its tower and turrets, its dormers and crow-stepped gables.

Merrow said, “The original structure burned in —”

“Eighteen forty-three,” Charles said. “Everything but the library.”

Merrow gave him a perfunctory smile. “You’ve done your research.”

“Charles is all about research,” Erin said, adjusting her bag. “It must be hell to heat.”

Merrow laughed. “It’s been decades since the entire house was in active use. Mr. Hollow — Edward, that is, your immediate predecessor — lived in a thoroughly updated suite of rooms, though ‘suite’ hardly does it justice. It has good proximity to the library — handy for your research, Mr. Hayden. In any case, you’ll find Hollow House quite livable, I should think.” Merrow led them along the perimeter of the wall. “Shall we?”

“Where’s the gate?” Charles asked.

Merrow uttered something that might have been a laugh. “There’s a gate for deliveries at the back. Otherwise the wall is unbroken, one of the house’s eccentricities. I thought you’d prefer the front view — a formal introduction, if you will. Here we go.” She waved at a set of stone risers built into the wall — a stile, Charles thought, summoning the word out of dusty memories of some obscure Victorian novelist — Surtees maybe.

“Let me give you a hand,” Charles said, but Merrow ignored him, flitting up the stairs on her own, so that he found himself gazing at the curve of her rear end, sleek beneath her clinging skirt.

She looked down at him from the crest of the wall. Charles averted his gaze, heat rising in his cheeks. “You’ll want to be careful,” she said. “It’s a bit steep.” Before he could reply, she started down the other side.

Charles followed, the steps slick beneath his feet. He paused atop the wall to reach for Erin’s hand.

“I’ve got it, Charles,” Erin said.

The steps on the other side were broader and overgrown with moss. He’d just reached the bottom and turned back to look at her when Erin’s foot slipped. Charles lunged for her too late. She slid helter-skelter down the stairs, spilling her satchel, and smashed to the earth on one shoulder, breath bursting from her lungs with a plosive grunt.

“Are you all right?” he asked, but she waved him away.

“I’m fine.” She pushed herself to her feet, wincing, and reached for her ankle. “Just get my stuff.”

But Merrow was already collecting it: makeup and lipstick, her passport, an assortment of pens and pill bottles. A sketchbook. A framed photo. Merrow stood, looking at it. “Your daughter?” she asked, scraping mud off the edge of the frame. “She is very beautiful. The glass has cracked, but that can be mended easily enough, can’t it? Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I just twisted my ankle. I’ll be fine.”

She didn’t look fine. Mud streaked her jeans. She was flushed. When she took a step, she favored the bad ankle.

“Here, let me help you,” Charles said.

“Really, Charles, I’m fine.” And then, relenting, with a small smile, “Walk it off, right?”

“I guess so,” he said.

“Well, let me get your bag, at least,” Merrow said. “Come on.”

Together — with Charles and Merrow hovering to either side of Erin — they made their halting way toward the house. By the time they’d reached the stairs, six of them, climbing to a square portico, the door had been opened from within. A stout, fifty-something woman in full Mrs. Danvers livery — black skirts, white apron, even a black cap with her gray hair pinned up underneath — descended to meet them. It was like seeing a nurse in whites, complete with cap, in your local emergency room.

“Ah, Mrs. Ramsden,” Merrow said.

Mrs. Ramsden smiled. “Here, let me help you, now,” she said, reaching for Erin’s arm, and together they hobbled up the stairs into Hollow House.