The Book of Hours (14 page)

He finished reading the brief letter, let his hand drop to his side, and took a long breath before sighing, “Poor Heather.” Another shaky breath, then, “Life can be such a dreadful bother.”

Brian let the silence of accord rest between them.

“I must thank you for sharing this with me. It is like she has returned to grace these old walls once more.” Arthur lifted the letter and mused over the final sentences aloud, “‘Yet it was in this place of supposed darkness that she found not only a turning, but a healing. Seek where the darkness gathers, and find wings for your own renewal.'”

“It doesn't make sense,” Brian confessed.

“That's because you're not English.” Arthur rattled the letter in the space between them. “We Brits are positively mad about mazes and mysteries and puzzles and enigmas. That's why you see us playing all these silly parlor games. Because life's puzzles don't hold enough promise of answers.” He reread the letter, then concluded, “My advice to you is, march straight over to Trevor's and ask him to join the merry band. You don't have anything against men of the cloth, I hope.”

“No, not at all.”

“Excellent. Let's be off then. Sharp as a tack, our Trevor, and he loves a good riddle as much as I do.” He led Brian back down the hall and out the manor's front door. “Mind you, the things these religious fellows ask of a chap, well, it's all a bit much. Take that old adage, ‘Bless those who curse you.' I say, on my off days I can't even find it in myself to bless those who buy me lunch.”

They were brought up short by the sight of two men standing at the corner where the drive branched and led back to the stable yard. Joe Eaves stood beside Hardy Seade, their backs to Brian and Arthur. The Realtor was pointing to a boxy vintage Citroën cabriolet, which Joe was in the process of polishing. Seade gestured angrily at the grillwork, while Joe nodded agreement.

Arthur asked quietly, “Any desire to go over and greet the lads?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Right you are.” As they started down the drive, Arthur said, “I find myself deeply saddened by the thought of that man taking over Heather's beloved home. Gladys keeps telling me that it's only a house, but I find the old place has a character all its own.”

“I'm beginning to agree with you.”

“Are you now?” Arthur cast him an approving glance. “How interesting.”

Brian found himself tasting words he had only begun to fashion in his mind. “Ever since I've arrived, I've had the impression that I'm healing. More than that. I'm taking a major turn, and somehow this old house is tied up in it. Every day the idea of letting this place go troubles me more and more.” When Arthur did not respond, Brian finished, “I guess that must sound pretty crazy.”

“My dear boy, not at all. I was just thinking how tragic it is that you've arrived only to be handed the wrong end of the stick.”

The drive bent to skirt in front of Rose Cottage, and they looked over to discover that Hardy Seade and Joe Eaves were following their progress with blank expressions. Arthur snorted and turned toward the front gates. “Dear Alex would be rolling in his grave to know Castle Keep is going to be acquired by the likes of Hardy Seade.”

“And Heather?”

Arthur smiled. “I find myself amazed at times that even the blessed Saint Peter has managed to hold Heather back.”

They did not even have time to cross the vicar's threshold, for as soon as Arthur told him of the puzzle,Trevor demanded to see the letter. It took the vicar all of thirty seconds to come up with, “Have you checked the cellar?”

“The heart of darkness.” Arthur snapped his fingers. “Of course. How silly of me not to think of it before.” In an aside to Brian,Arthur added, “Didn't I tell you Trevor was a wizard with puzzles?”

“Puzzles?” His wife's head popped through the doorway. “Who has a puzzle?”

“Brian,” Trevor replied.

“Several of them, from the sound of things,” Arthur added. “Heather set him up a gift of unraveling mysteries.”

“Oooh, I do so love a good poser.” She reached out and said, “Be a dear and let me have a look.”

Before Brian could think of a reason to object, Molly had taken the letter from her husband's hands, read the contents, and instantly said, “Dear, sweet Heather. Have you checked the cellar?”

Arthur said, “Perhaps we asked the wrong person.”

Trevor objected, “She heard me.”

“I did not,” Molly objected. “Heard what?”

“Never mind.” Trevor recaptured the letter. “Come along, lads.”

The first things to greet them as they descended the cellar stairs were two giant hippopotamuses.

Arthur followed Brian down the stairs, stepped onto the basement floor, and said, “Great heavens above.”

The heads were mounted upon stone pillars and stood as high as a man. The snouts were a full four feet across and opened to reveal stubby fangs the thickness of Brian's wrist. Not even the blanketing of dust could conceal their savage fury. Brian stepped around them to discover a pair of crocodiles twenty feet long, stuffed and mounted with equally ferocious snarls. Beyond that stood a full-grown tiger, a python coiled around a tree trunk, three open-fanged cobras, two vultures, an ibex, a condor, a very dusty zebra, and what appeared to be a full-grown water buffalo. The beasts dominated one side of a chamber that seemed to run the entire length of the manor.

Trevor descended the stairs, took a single look about, and declared, “My old foes.”

Arthur rounded on him. “I beg your pardon?”

“These poor animals,” Trevor replied, casting a sardonic gaze over the gathering. The beasts silently roared back at him. “What waste. What folly.” To Brian he explained, “What you see here is a display reaching back to the Age of Enlightenment. The desire to throw aside the rule of God through human knowledge began here in the reign of George the Third, around the time your nation was formed. The scientists and philosophers of that era decided that if they were to look hard enough at the world around them, they could come to know everything. It may sound silly, I know, but at the beginning of this century a gathering of scientists in London declared that man had almost reached the point of having discovered everything there was to know.”

Brian asked, “So they killed animals?”

“Killed, named, dissected, studied, stuffed, mounted. It was the measure of a so-called Renaissance man to go out and name a river and kill a few beasts, bring them back, and display them over his dining table.” Trevor dismissed them with an angry wave. “Man's absurd desire to replace God is matched only by his inability to learn from his own past.”

“Never mind all that,” Arthur said. “I can't imagine Heather meant these ghastly beasts to be Brian's reward.”

Brian did not need to look at the letter again to respond, “She said I was to find wings for my own renewal.”

“Well, if I know Heather, those dead buzzards certainly don't fit the bill,” Trevor agreed. “But the cellar appears otherwise to be empty.”

“Let's have a look about, shall we?”

But Brian halted Arthur's forward progress with a hand on his arm. “Have you been down here recently?”

“Me? My good fellow, I'd totally forgotten this chamber even existed.”

Brian pointed. “Then whose footprints are those?”

“The light down here is terrible,” Arthur complained. “Wait while I go fetch a torch.”

The old gentleman made swift progress up and down the stairs. Under the more brilliant beam it was possible for Arthur to declare, “These are recent tracks. Look how the dust hasn't resettled in them.”

“Follow them around,” Trevor said.

The trio proceeded about the vaulted chamber. Brick and stone pillars dotted the otherwise empty reaches. They found nothing except more dust and footprints leading in a wide circle. By the back wall Arthur sneezed and declared, “If it wasn't stuffed African vultures that Heather meant to surprise you with, it appears someone else made off with your prize.”

“I'm not so sure,” Trevor countered thoughtfully.

“Well, it's certainly not down here, and all this dust is playing havoc with my sinuses.” Arthur sneezed again and started back across the chamber. “Come up and let me make us a pot of tea.”

Brian remained standing beside Trevor, staring at the blank wall and wondering what held the vicar's attention. Then he realized, “This wall is newer.”

“Not only that. As far as I can tell, nothing has disturbed the dust other than those footprints, and there are no marks to suggest anything has been removed.” The vicar turned to Brian. “Shall we see if there is another access underground?”

But the day's search proved fruitless and exhausting. Trevor came and went several times, stopping by on his way to and from various appointments, offering advice and disappearing again. Brian finally insisted they stop because Arthur began to flag. There was little reason to continue, as they had scoured the ground floor twice, toured all the empty rooms opposite Arthur's apartment, and circled the house's exterior more times than Brian cared to count. It was not altogether bad, as he had come to know the old home better than ever. He had also found a loose grounding wire that when taped back together increased the wattage of every downstairs light. Gladys had been so thrilled that she had raced from her apartment to wrap his sweaty form in a joyous embrace.

Yet after dinner, when he was upstairs and alone with his thoughts, he still could not halt his restless wandering. Brian toured through all the northern rooms, so long abandoned he had to punch the warped and swollen doors open with his shoulder. The main floor had another two grand salons, the furniture draped in yellowed covers and thick layers of dust. The carpets were moth-eaten, the walls faded and mottled. Upstairs he found another two bedrooms and four smaller alcoves, as well as a sewing room and a study filled with moldy books and time-wrecked furniture. Apparently no one had disturbed their quiet slumber for twenty years and more. For the first time, however, instead of seeing ruin and neglect, Brian surveyed the chambers and began to see possibility. The realization did not bring joy, however. As he returned downstairs and prepared for bed, all he felt was pain over the coming loss.

To his utter astonishment, he slept beyond dawn for the first time in what seemed like years. Brian rose and found the sun already up and mocking him from high in a cloudless sky. He made his breakfast and pondered what it might mean, and could only come up with the fact that he was growing ever more comfortable with the place. Dangerously so.

He had just finished dressing when he heard excited voices in the outside stairwell, then a rapid pounding on his door. He opened it to find the vicar standing beside Arthur, who said, “Hope we're not disturbing.”

“Of course not.”

“Trevor here has come up with a modest brainstorm, if I do say so myself.”

“You mean about the riddle?” Brian stepped back. “Come in.”

“No time, no time,” Arthur cried.

“I only have a moment,” Trevor added. “Tonight is the town meeting, and there are a thousand things to take care of.”

“Out with it, man,” Arthur pressed.

“This morning it occurred to me,” Trevor said, “that that dollhouse of yours might not be a dollhouse at all. The Victorians would often build scale models of these grand houses and used them to map out what they called mystery chambers. They loved their mazes and their mysteries, the Victorians did. They built secret passages and hidden chambers, and concealed cubicles behind closets and under staircases.”

“Most builders and all the laborers were illiterate,” Arthur added. “They wouldn't know a scale drawing from a pentagram.”

“Exactly. But work on such passages and additions demanded great precision and a careful understanding of what was required, so they used miniature renditions for the planning and building.”

“It sounds to me,” Brian said, “like we need to take another look at the dollhouse.”

Fourteen

C
ECILIA GREETED
S
ATURDAY MORNING WITH GREAT ANXIETY
. It was one thing to volunteer to help with something comfortably distant. But that morning her first thought was one of standing in front of the entire town, and the resulting fear was so strong it catapulted her from bed.

Coffee only added to her nerves. She tried to study the books the vicar had given her, yet every word shouted at her of how that very evening she would be addressing the village.

And to top things off, she could not escape to have coffee with Brian because he never appeared. She set her chair by the kitchen window so as to watch the manor's front doorway. But the morning strengthened into day, and still Brian did not emerge. She found herself unwilling to go to the river's edge by herself, and though the decision made no sense whatsoever, she stubbornly held to it.

Her chair's position granted her a perfect view of Joe Eaves and his battered pickup as he drove through the gates and parked up by the stables. Mug in hand, Cecilia rose and stood by the window, watching as he began dumping tools on the unkempt lawn. She had never been able to see beyond his ready smile, and the man continued to unsettle her mightily.

Which was why she was almost eager to latch onto outrage when she saw what he was intending, and why she raced from the cottage in her robe and shrilled at him, “What on earth do you think you're doing?”

Brian exited the house, and even before he consciously recognized the voice, he was running. He rounded the far side of the stables to find Cecilia clutching her robe and waving her free hand. Joe Eaves leaned on his shovel and responded with his languid smile.

Cecilia spotted Brian and rounded on him. “Did you know about this?”

“Know what?”