Leading off the crescent was a gravelled drive circling a raised lawn with flower beds in quadrants. The tightly pruned skeletons of roses were stark against the mulch and straw spread around them. In the summer, with the blooms full and heavy, it would be impressive but in the winter sunlight it looked stark and bare. The house behind them had a terraced garden stepping up to a bold frontage which overlooked the meadows and the woods beyond.
“Not bad for the price of a single white rose,” said Angela.
Dave pulled up at a large front door which was sheltered by a stone porch supported by grey stone columns wound around with tendrils of ivy that spread out like questing fingers across the stone and brick frontage of the house. Everyone got out and stood by the car, looking up at the house as if any moment we expected some crusty old gent to storm out of the house waving a shotgun and demand we left the premises immediately.
Stone mullioned windows looked out over the meadows below three matching gable ends, each with a small square window. Red bricks formed horizontal stripes in the walls, a style characteristic of Tudor buildings, while tall brick chimneys topped each end of the building. It was clear that at some stage someone had decided to add additional features in pale Cotswold stone, which neither matched nor enhanced the original building. In my experience, few structures survived as long as this one had without someone “improving” them. I just hoped it hadn’t been internally modernised by the Victorians.
Blackbird looked around our little group and then said, “Shall we go inside?”
I was first to reach the door, earning a disapproving look from Blackbird. Testing the brass door handle, I found it was locked. Blackbird held up a large bronze key and I stood aside while she inserted it into the keyhole slotted into the heavy oak door. The lock gave a heavy clunk as she turned the key, and the door swung ajar.
There was no sound from within. I stepped forward and said, “Shall we see if there’s anyone home?” She nodded her assent and I pushed the great door back.
Within was an entrance hallway with stairs rising from one side to a gallery above. The floor was stone flags, and the stairway was dark wood, heavily grained and black at the edges. The odour of old stone and wax polish permeated the atmosphere. In the light filtering down from above, I could see there was a door set immediately to the left and double doors to the right under a gallery walkway. Around the doors, the wood had been carved into an elaborate pattern of heart-shaped ivy leaves, echoing the columns at the front.
I pushed the double doors open and entered a great hall with a massive stone fireplace which would not have looked out of place in one of my dreams, the grate dressed with dried flowers in red and gold.
“Hello?” I called. “Anyone here?” My words were swallowed as I walked slowly around the edge of the room. Light flooded in from the front windows, setting the edge of the fireplace, carved with flowers and vines under a stone lintel, into shadowed relief. In the centre of the room was a huge dark wood table set with benches along either side. The inner walls were decorated with rectangular wood panels to shoulder height, and then white plaster to the ceiling cornices. I drew the curtains back from the wall beside the fireplace, allowing daylight from a bay to flood into the room. The stone of the annex was yellower than the grey stone of the windows and the light was warmer as a result. I found myself approving of the change, the warm light lifting the rest of the room.
There were further double doors at the back which led into a large semi-circular space with a glass dome skylight — a garden room. Facing south, it captured the best of the winter sun but the room itself was bare. Through the windows I could see a formal rear garden laid out in ordered rows of carefully cultivated order, like a maze but more symmetrical, with a stone fountain at the centre. I went back past Angela and Blackbird and across the hallway to the other side.
“Hello? Is anyone home?” I called. The words sounded flat and dull in the space. There was a furnished sitting room around another stone fireplace, but again there was no sign of occupation. The cushions were plumped and showed no indication that anyone ever sat in the chairs or on the sofa. The tables were empty, the bookcases complete, with no empty spaces where books had been borrowed to browse and read.
I went through another door, finding a short corridor, and then doors to a kitchen and a storeroom. Everything looked ordered. Even the brooms looked as if they’d never swept the floors. The range cooker was cold, no food in the cupboards, no water in the pots. It looked like a home, but it was only a facsimile. No one actually lived here.
I banged open doors, calling for someone to answer, finding a boot room, complete with clean and completely unworn boots, a washroom with a dry jug and washbowl with a locked rear door.
Retracing my steps, I went quickly up the staircase and around the gallery. There were bedrooms large and small, the biggest with a great bed, curtains drawn back around a mound of covers. The pillows were all neatly placed, the beds carefully made. I found a bathroom, relatively modern compared to the washroom downstairs, and an ancient but serviceable toilet. I couldn’t imagine that the house had been built with indoor plumbing, so I assumed that this, like the additions downstairs, had been added later.
I met Blackbird and Lesley coming upstairs.
“Is there sign of anyone?” Blackbird asked me.
“Nothing,” I said. “No one lives here. There are no personal effects, no shampoo or soap in the bathrooms, no clothes in the wardrobes. It’s empty.”
“That could be to our advantage,” said Lesley, “though it’s a bit spooky. It makes you wonder what happened to everyone.”
I left them exploring the upstairs and went back down, thinking there must be somewhere that people actually spent time, and wondering whether there was a potting shed somewhere with people hiding in it.
I went back past the kitchen, through a maze of passages, into the store and found another door to the back. The door opened onto a different scene. I stood in the doorway, held back by instinct, and surveyed the room. Then I carefully closed the door and went back for the others.
I stood in the hallway and called. “Blackbird? Lesley? You better come and see this.”
Angela appeared from the great hall, Dave behind her. Blackbird and Lesley came downstairs, and I led them though to the room at the back of the house. I opened the door and went inside, standing away from the desks, careful not to disturb anything.
There were two offices, modern in style, built into what must have been an outbuilding. It was warmer than the rest of the house, probably due to better insulation. There were modern desks and office chairs, a couple of desktop computers, a small kitchen area, a notice board with leaflets and notices pinned to it — but no people.
More than that, the area showed signs of recent human presence. There were two coffee mugs on a desk, both part-full with coffee. I touched them and they were stone cold. Under a desk I pointed out a pair of men’s brown shoes that had been placed carefully and left with no sign of the owner. I jogged the mouse on a computer and the screen flashed into life, showing a spreadsheet program that had been left open. On the counter in the kitchen area there was a mug with a dry teabag in it, as if someone had been making tea, and then been called away. There was even milk in the fridge — I sniffed it, finding it on the edge of going sour.
“I thought it was spooky before,” said Lesley.
“Where are they?” I asked Blackbird. “It’s like they just vanished.”
“Maybe there was an emergency,” said Blackbird.