But this side of all that water, on the verge of unkept grass between trees and lake stood a building, a small lodge perhaps, though its weight of stone and its leaded dome spoke of higher ambition. Ivy-clad and strange, seemingly unwindowed and halfway at least to a folly, it must look splendid from the house, one last positive touch of man against the dark rise of the wood. And it would be a shame not to have set foot in any part of D’Espérance, all this way for no more than a glimpse; shame too to go on an impulse, on a sudden whim, seizing an unexpected opportunity. No, let it at least be a decision well thought through, weighed carefully and found correct. Nothing hasty, no abrupt leap into glory or oblivion. He needed to be sure of his own motives, to feel the balance of his mind undisturbed; there must be no question but that it was a rational deed, in response to an untenable situation.
So no, he didn’t take the chance to run. He walked carefully down the steep slope and turned to parallel the lake’s edge as soon as the ground was level, skirting the last of the trees, keeping as far from the water as he could. Looking across to the further shore, where the gardens’ gravel walks ended in a stone balustrade and a set of steps leading down into the lake, he saw a man he thought might have been his father. Blindfold and blundering in the bright dry light, the man teetered on the steps’ edge, on the rim of falling; and then there was dazzle burning on the water as a soft breeze rippled the sun, and when his eyes had cleared he could no longer see the man.
It is a truism that anything seems larger as you get closer, that you lose perspective; but here he thought it was the other way, that his eyes had made him think the lodge small because they couldn’t credit the house with being so very large. It must be so, although he wasn’t looking at the house now to make comparisons. This near, the lodge took everything. Squat and massive it sat below its dome and drew him, dragged him forward; he thought that it was so dense it made its own gravity, and that he was trapped now, no way out.
The lodge had double doors that faced the water, too close for his liking, only three low steps and half a dozen flagstones between them. In echo of the house, there was a small pediment above the high doors, with columns to support it in a classic portico. Still no proper windows. He could see a thin run of glass at the cupola’s foot, between lead and stone; but even with that, even at this season with the sun low enough to strike through the doorway at the height of the day, it was going to be dark in there.
No lock on the doors, though, no need to struggle with the keys. He climbed the steps, laid his backpack down, set his shoulder to one of the doors and pushed.
There was rust in the hinges, and it spoke to him: its voice was cold and harsh, it said “Guilty,” and then it squealed with laughter.
He jumped back, sweating, clutched at a column for support and looked out across the lake again. Saw nothing, no movement, no man.
Stood still, listened; heard the blood hiss and suck in his ears, heard his heart labour behind his ribs, eventually heard birdsong and the soft lapping of the lakewater, a more distant rushing which must be the underground flow to feed and freshen it.
The door stood ajar, silent now, its greeting spoken and its accusation or its judgement made. He stepped forward and pushed again, and it swung wide with no sound beyond the grating of rust in its hinges.
Not a lodge, then. Surely a folly after all.
He stood in the doorway, and the sun threw his long and slender shadow across an enamelled iron bath. One of eight, all set in a circle, radiating; and at the centre a square tiled pit, a plunge-bath large enough for a dozen men to share.
There was nothing else in the great circular chamber except for wooden slat benches around the sides, dark with mould and damp. The walls were adorned with intricate murals, figures from history painted in the Pre-Raphaelite style, though the light was too dim for him to identify the scenes portrayed.
A bath-house, he thought, a bathing-house. This vast construction, and it was only a place to bathe, ensemble or en famille; and that with the lake outside, just there, wide and deep and surely more attractive…
Perhaps there’d been a club, a bathing-club, the local gentlemen anxious to preserve their modesty or their ladies’ blushes. That or something like it: nothing else could explain so much labour, so much expense to such frivolous effect.
But frivolous or not it was here, and so was he. If D’Espérance could spawn a structure so large and strange at such a distance, then he thought his keys could stay where they were, safely in his pack. Something he lacked, to take him up to the house. He’d settle for this, at least for today. The child is father to the man; there were lessons here to be learned, aspects of the parent surely reflected in its idiot son.
He thrust the door as wide as it would go and then opened the other also, to let in as much light as he could, and to allow the breeze to freshen the musty air. Some few cracks in the domed roof added a little further light to what the door gave, and that high circle of glass below the dome, but this must be the most it ever saw by nature. He thought they would have needed lamps, those who used it. Whatever they used it for.
Still, there was enough to see by. Stepping inside, he could see a gallery now, circling just at the wall’s height, below that ring of glass and the dome’s first curving: all wrought iron, the gallery, and likewise the spiral stair that led up to it from behind the door. That must have been for strangers, he thought, for observers, non-participants.
Now he was concerned about the murals, he thought at the very least they must be lewd. Some provincial Medmenham set he imagined building this bath-house, ambitious to reproduce the Hell-Fire Club in their own gardens. But lowering his eyes tentatively to look, expecting grave disappointment, expecting a grand fancy rendered simply sordid, he found nothing like it.
King Arthur and Excalibur he found, Oberon and Puck he found, Wayland in his smithy and other men or fairies that he couldn’t identify, but all surely harmless even to his nervous sensibilities.
And all flaking, too, some cracking as the plaster bulged behind them or staining darkly from beneath. Seeing one crack too long, too straight for nature, he went closer and found the outline of a door within the picture, found a painted leather strap to tug it open.
And tugged, and first saw the mirror that backed the door, that showed him his own shape marvellously moving in this still place. Then saw the closet behind the door, with its hooks and bars for hanging clothes, its slatted shelves for towels and other necessaries.
Closed that door and looked for others, found them regularly spaced around the chamber; and none hid anything more than an empty closet, until the last.
On the other side of the double doors was the iron spiral leading up; here, as though in secret reflection behind its concealing door, was a stone spiral leading down, leading into darkness.
Bold he could be, curious he certainly was; but he needed a light in his hand before he ventured those narrow steps. And hot food in his belly, that too.