Eve kept the thought to herself: this place was not just grim—it was ugly.
A little way off to the right, with bushes and tree branches on the gorge wall louring over its flat roof, stood a small garden shed whose weather-worn planking was turned dark by the rain.
'Come on, Mummy!' Cally and Gabe were almost at the front door to the house and Cally had called over her shoulder. The two of them waited for Eve and Loren to catch up.
Chester, who was still poised by the gently swaying swing, lingered until they drew level, then trotted alongside.
'Have you got the key ready?' Eve called out to Gabe, a drop of rain spatting against her cheek.
'The key will be in the door. The estate manager had cleaners in this morning to make sure the place is bright and sparkling.'
As they stood together on the two long but low steps, Eve realized that the broad, nail-studded, worn oak door seemed to be from a different era than that of the plain building and she wondered if the wider than usual portal had been designed to accommodate it; the door might well have been reclaimed from some ancient demolished manor house or monastery, with its almost gothic leopard-head iron door knocker. She watched as Gabe made great ceremony of pressing the big china-white doorbell that was surrounded by a ring of discoloured brass between the wall and right-hand pilaster. They all heard a rusty electric brurrr from inside.
'What are you doing?' she asked.
'Just letting the ghosts know we're here, hon.'
'Dad, there's no such thing,' chided Loren, indignant again.
'Sure of that?'
Eve was impatient. 'Come on, Gabe, open up.' She wondered if the inside was as austere as the exterior.
Gabe pushed at the huge central doorknob with his right hand and, without a single creak, the heavy door swung open.
2: CRICKLEY HALL
'Cooool.'
It was a drawn-out sound of awe from Loren.
Gabe smiled at Eve. 'Not too shabby, huh?' he asked, giving her a moment or so to be impressed.
'I never expected…' she began. 'It's…' She faltered again.
'Something, right?' Gabe said.
'From the outside I thought it'd be a mean interior. Roomy, but, you know… kind of skimpy.'
'Yeah, doesn't figure at all, does it?'
No, it didn't figure at all, thought Eve. The entrance had opened onto a vast galleried hall that rose beyond the first floor, which itself was marked by a balustraded landing running round two sides of the room.
'It must take up half the house,' she said, eyes raised to the beamed ceiling high above and the cast-iron chandelier that hung from its centre. The chandelier resembled a black upturned claw.
'The rest of the place isn't as fancy,' Gabe told her. 'To your left there's the kitchen and sitting room; those double doors directly ahead lead to a long drawing room.' He gestured upwards with his chin. 'Bedrooms are off the balcony, left and centre. There's plenty to choose from.'
She pointed to a ground-floor door he had missed. It stood near the kitchen door, an old-fashioned chiffonier between them, and it was slightly ajar. She could see only a thick blackness beyond. 'You didn't say what's through there.'
For some reason—for safety probably, because there was a steep descending staircase just inside—this door opened into the hall, unlike the other doors, and Gabe strode over to it and firmly pushed it shut. 'Leads to the cellar,' he said over his shoulder. 'Cally, you keep away from this door, okay?'
Their daughter stopped swirling round for a moment, her eyes fixed on the chandelier. 'Okay, Daddy,' she said distractedly.
'I mean it. You don't go down there without one of us with you, y'hear?'
'Yes, Daddy.' She swirled on, trying to make herself dizzy, and Eve wondered why Gabe's instruction was so stern.
She ventured further into the hall, Loren following, leaving Cally behind by the open entrance door, now swaying unsteadily. To the right a broad wooden staircase led up to the gallery landing, its lower section turning at right angles towards the hall's centre. From the turn that formed a small square lower landing, there towered an almost ceiling-high drapeless window through which poor daylight entered. Dull though the light was, it nevertheless brightened much of the hall's oak-panelled walls and flagstone floor. Eve allowed her gaze to wander.
A few uninteresting and time-grimed landscape paintings were hung round the room and two carved oak chairs with burgundy upholstery stood on either side of the double doors to the drawing room. Apart from these, though, there was precious little other furniture in evidence—a narrow console table against the wall between the doors to the cellar and the sitting room, a dark-wood sideboard beneath the stairs, a circular torchère with an empty vase on top in the corner of the carpetless lower landing, and that appeared to be it. Oh, and an umbrella stand by the front door.
There was, however, a wide and deep open fireplace, its iron grate filled with dry logs, set into the wall beside the staircase and Eve hoped it would bring some much needed cheer—not to mention warmth—to the huge room when lit. She gave an involuntary shiver and folded her arms across her midriff, hands hugging in her elbows.
Because of the building's unambiguously plain exterior, the hall seemed almost incongruous. It was as if Crickley Hall had had two architects, one for exterior, the other for interior: the architectural dichotomy was puzzling.
Gabe joined her at the centre of the hall. 'I don't want to disappoint you, but it's like I said: the rest isn't so fancy. The drawing room's pretty bleak—it takes up the whole rear part of the ground floor—and it's empty, no furniture at all. The kitchen's no more'n functional, and everything else is just okay. Oh, the sitting room's not too bad.'
'Good. I was worried I'd be overwhelmed by it all. So long as the other rooms are comfortable.' She peered up at the galleried landing. 'You mentioned the bedrooms…'
'We can take our pick. I figure the one directly opposite the stairway will suit us—it's a fair size and there's a big four-poster bed that goes with it. No canopy, but it's kinda quaint—you'll love it. The room next door'll be fine for the girls. Close to us and with their own beds from home. But there's other rooms to choose from.' He indicated more doors that were visible through the balustrade on the left-hand side of the landing. 'We can jostle beds around, see what suits.' He raised his eyebrows at her. 'So what d'you think? It'll do?'
She settled his apprehension with a smile; Gabe was trying too hard these days. 'I'm sure it's going to be okay for a short while, Gabe. Thank you for finding the place.'
He took her in his arms and brushed her cheek with his lips. 'It'll give us a chance, Eve. Y'know?'
A chance to forget? No, nothing will ever do that. She remained silent and held on to him. Then she shivered again and pulled away.
He looked at her questioningly. 'You all right?'
It wasn't the chill in the air, she told herself. It was the pressure of all these past months. Too much trying to live a normal life, not for her own sake, but for the girls, for Gabe. Relentless grief and… and guilt. It was those spiteful shards that caused her to shiver, spiking her whenever she forgot for a moment.
'I just felt a draught,' she lied.
Unconvinced—it was plain in his expression—Gabe left her to go to the open front door.
'Hey,' she heard him say behind her. 'What's up, fella?' Eve turned to see him squatting down in front of a shivering Chester. The dog stood in the open doorway, his rear legs still on the outside step.
'Come on, Chester, get in here,' Gabe coaxed easily. 'Your butt is gonna get soaked.' It had begun to rain in earnest again.