"It's not what I expected," he said as she came alongside him. "It seems a lot grander from the river. And bigger. A real fortress of a place."
She took his arm. "I don't know, Ben. I think it is rather grand. Or was, anyway."
He turned his head and looked at her. "Did you bring the lamp?"
She nodded and patted her pocket.
"Good. Though I doubt there'll be much to see. The house has been boarded up more than eighty years now."
She was silent a moment, thoughtful, and knew he was thinking the same thing. Augustus. The mystery of this house had something to do with their great-grandfather, Augustus.
"Well?" she prompted after a moment. "Shall we go inside?"
"Yes. But not this way. There's another door around the side. We'll get in there, through the kitchens."
She stared at him a moment, then understood. He had already studied plans of the old house. Which meant he had planned this visit for some while. But why this morning? Was it something to do with the soldiers' deaths? Or was it something else? She knew they had had a visitor last night, but no one had told her who it was or why they'd come. Whatever, Ben had seemed disturbed first thing when she had gone to wake him. He had been up already. She had found him sitting there, hunched up on his bed, his arms wrapped about his knees, staring out through the open window at the bay. That same mood was on him even now as he stood there looking up at the house.
"What exactly are we looking for?"
"Clues____"
She studied his face a moment longer, but it gave nothing away. His answer was unlike him. He was always so specific, so certain. But today he was different. It was as if he was looking for something so ill defined, so vaguely comprehended, that even he could not say what it was.
"Come on, then," he said suddenly. "Let's see what ghosts we'll find."
She laughed quietly, that same feeling she had had staring down at the cove through the trees—that sense of being not quite herself—returning to her. It was not fear, for she was never afraid when she was with Ben, but something else. Something to do with this side of the water. With the wildness here. As if it reflected something in herself. Some deeper, hidden thing.
"What do you think we'll find?" she called out to him as she followed him, pushing through the dense tangle of bushes and branches. "Have you any idea at all?"
"None," he yelled back. "Maybe there's nothing at all. Maybe it's an empty shell. But then why would they board it up? Why bother if it's empty? Why not just leave it to rot?"
She caught up with him. "From the look of it, it's rotted anyway."
Ben glanced at her. "It'll be different inside."
A BROAD SHAFT of daylight breached the darkness. She watched Ben fold the shutter into its recess, then move along to release and fold back another, then another, until all four were open. Now the room was filled with light. A big room. Much bigger than she'd imagined it in the dark. A long wooden work-surface filled most of the left-hand wall, its broad top cleared. Above it, on the wall itself, were great tea-chest-sized oak cupboards. At the far end four big ovens occupied the space, huge pipes leading up from them into the ceiling overhead. Against the right-hand wall, beneath the windows, was a row of old machines and, beside the door, a big enamel sink.
She watched Ben bend down and examine the pipes beneath the sink. They were green with moss, red with rust. He nibbed his finger against the surface of one of them, then put the finger gingerly to his lips. She saw him frown, then sniff the finger, his eyes intense, taking it all in.
He turned. Then, surprisingly, he laughed. "Look."
There, in the middle of the white-tiled floor, was a beetle. A rounded, black-shelled thing the size of a brooch.
"Is it alive?" she asked, expecting it to move at any moment.
He shrugged, then went across and picked it up. But it was only a husk, the shell of a beetle. "It's been dead for years," he said.
Yes, she thought; maybe since the house was sealed.
There was another door behind them, next to an old, faded print that was rotten with damp beneath its mold-spattered glass. Beyond the door was a narrow corridor that led off to the right. They went through, moving slowly, cautiously, side by side, using their lamps to light the way ahead of them.
They explored, throwing open the shutters in each of the big rooms, but there was nothing. The rooms were empty, their dusty floorboards bare, only the dark outlines of long-absent pictures interrupting the blankness of the walls.
No sign of life. Only the husk, the empty shell, of what they'd come for.
Augustus. No one talked of Augustus. Yet it was that very absence which made him so large in their imaginations. Ever since Ben had first found that single mention of him in the journals. But what had he been? What had he done that he could not be talked of?
She shivered and looked at Ben. He was watching her, as if he knew what she was thinking.
"Shall we go up?"
She nodded.
Upstairs it was different. There the rooms were filled with ancient furniture, preserved under white sheets, as if the house had been closed up for the summer only, while its occupant was absent.
In one of the big rooms at the front of the house, Meg stood beside one of the huge, open shutters, staring out through the trees at the river. Light glimmered on the water through gaps in the heavy foliage. Behind her she could hear Ben, pulling covers off chairs and tables, searching, restlessly searching for something.
"What happened here?"
Ben stopped and looked up from what he was doing. "I'm not sure. But it's the key to things. I know it is."
She turned and met his eyes. "How? How do you know?"
He smiled. "Because it's the one thing they won't talk about. Gaps. Look for the gaps, Meg. That's where the truth is. That's where they hide all the important stuff."
"Like what?"
His face hardened momentarily, then he looked away.
She looked down, realizing just how keyed up he was; how close" he had come to snapping at her.
"There's nothing here," he said, after a moment. "Let's go up again."
She nodded, then followed him up, knowing there would be nothing: The house was empty. Or as good as. But she was wrong.
Ben laughed, delighted, then stepped inside the room, shining his lamp about the walls. It was a library. Or a study maybe. Whichever, the walls were filled with shelves, and the shelves with books. Old books, of paper and card and leather. Ben hurried to the shutters and threw them open, then turned and stared back into the room. There was a door, two windows, and a full-length mirror on the wall to his left. Apart from that there were only shelves. Books and more books, filling every inch of the wallspace.
"Whose were they?" she asked, coming alongside him; sharing his delight at their find.
He pulled a book down at random, then another and another. The bookplates were all the same. He showed her one.
She read the words aloud. "This book is the property of Amos William Shepherd." She laughed, then looked up into Ben's face. "Then he lived here. But I thought. . ."
Ben shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe he used this house to work in."
She turned, looking about her. There were books scattered all about their cottage, but not a tenth as many as were here. There must have been five, maybe ten thousand of them here. She laughed, astonished by their find. There were probably more books here—reed books—than there were in the rest of Chung Kuo.
Ben was walking slowly up and down the room, looking about him curiously. "It's close," he said softly. "It's very close now. I know it is."