LITMIR.BIZ

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above them suddenly, the windows shuttered, no sign of life. Around the high turret a dark shape fluttered; a bat, registered Clare. There was a colony of pipistrelle bats living in the roof; she wondered if Denzil Black had noticed and whether or not the presence of bats might put him off. Some people hated bats, were terrified of them. She couldn’t think why, as pipistrelle were quite tiny creatures only interested in devouring insects and no threat whatever to people. Clare would have loved to have some in her own cottage. She decided not to mention them to Denzil Black.

      ‘There’s no caretaker?’ he asked at that moment, and Clare shook her head.

      ‘The owner didn’t want to pay for one. He’s living in Australia, and has no intention of ever coming back here; he just wants to sell the house. It is still furnished, but, if you’re seriously interested, we can deal with that. The furniture will all go up for auction, and you’ll have vacant possession.’

      ‘We’ll see,’ he said vaguely, staring up at the sky.

      Helen looked up too, gave a high-pitched scream. ‘Ughh...what’s that?’

      ‘A pipistrelle,’ Denzil Black said softly. ‘They’re delightful little brown bats...hardly bigger than a large moth. I wonder if there’s a colony in the roof? There must be a lot of space under the rafters. It’s exactly the habitat they love.’

      He knew a lot about bats; well, it was a point in his favour. Clare smiled and in the mirror saw a brief reflection of his dark, glowing eyes.

      ‘Do you like bats, Miss Summer?’

      ‘Love them—I’d like some in my own place.’

      ‘You have your own house?’

      ‘I’m renovating an old farm labourer’s cottage not far from here; I work on it every weekend,’ she admitted. ‘But for the moment I live with my family, during the week, in town.’

      ‘I’m interested in interior decoration,’ Helen said with her first sign of enthusiasm. ‘Are you doing all the décor yourself, Clare?’

      ‘Well, at the moment I’m mending the roof,’ Clare said drily. ‘And then I have to replaster the ceilings and walls. It’ll be a long time before I get around to any décor.’

      Helen looked horrified. ‘It sounds as if the place is a total wreck!’

      Clare laughed. ‘It is.’

      ‘What on earth made you buy it?’

      ‘It was very cheap, and it was a challenge,’ Clare told her as they pulled up outside the house.

      ‘You’re braver than I am, then!’ Helen said, making a face.

      Clare felt Denzil Black’s dark gaze in the driving mirror, but didn’t meet it. She sorted out the large front-door key, slid out of the car, and climbed the steps to the door. This lock turned easily enough, the door swung open with a prolonged creak, and Clare fumbled for the light switch just inside on the panelled walls of the hall.

      Light blazed from a chandelier hung high above their heads. Ahead of them stretched the arched vault of the roof, and the panelled walls, hung with an extraordinary mixture of objects—paintings, sketches, prints, armour, photographs in silver frames, weapons, the heads of dead animals mounted on wooden plaques.

      The wind blew through the long hallway; a door crashed shut somewhere up above; stained-glass windows further down the hall rattled.

      ‘It’s monstrous!’ Helen wailed, huddling into her coat, her pale face only just visible above the collar. ‘You can’t be serious about being interested in this place, Denzil! It’s a tomb, not a house.’

      It was cold, Clare had to admit, and not simply because it was empty and this was autumn. The house had a deep coldness which was in the very bricks and stones of the building. She had a feeling it would never be warm, even if you lit a fire in every room.

      ‘Central heating will soon warm it up,’ Denzil Black said, opening the first door leading off the hall. ‘That shouldn’t be difficult to install.’

      Clare could see his face now, clearly, for the first time; an austere bone-structure, a wide, passionate mouth, strong nose, those pale eyes with the glittering centres, his black hair growing from a widow’s peak on his high temples. Each feature contradicted all the others; it was not an easy face to read or assess.

      ‘I like big rooms,’ he said, looking around the main reception room.

      ‘This is certainly big,’ agreed Clare.

      ‘Big! It’s enormous!’ groaned Helen.

      On two sides of the room windows ran from ceiling to floor, those in the turret bay having deep, cushioned window-seats. All the rooms in the house had high ceilings; from this one another chandelier hung, giving the room a party glitter. There was a wooden fireplace like the prow of a ship, the hearth dressed with Victorian Minton tiles which bore black-line medieval style pictures on their ochre background.

      The furniture was old and shabby, the stuffing leaking out of Victorian chairs, the curtains threadbare, the carpets showing signs of wear and tear.

      On every possible surface stood silver-framed photographs and ornaments; the walls in here were as lined with paintings and drawings as the hall had been. There were so many objects, in fact, that the effect was mind-numbing; you looked and looked until you could take in no more.

      ‘Wonderful,’ Denzil Black said.

      ‘It’s only fit for the garbage truck!’ Helen complained.

      Denzil Black asked, ‘Are the entire contents for sale, did you say? If I buy, I’d want first pick of everything in the place.’

      ‘I’m sure that could be arranged.’ Clare would be relieved if they managed to sell a tenth of the stuff. There were a few antiques of value, but most of the furnishings were in bad repair and would sell for peanuts at auction. Clare often acted as auctioneer at sales; her father mostly did them, but when they were dealing with a large number of objects it took hours, and Dad found it tiring after a while, so Clare usually took over to finish the auction. She had learnt to price objects at sight, and had a very good idea how much money would be raised by the sale of the contents of Dark Tarn.

      ‘Oh, Denzil, surely you can’t be serious?’ Helen moaned, following him as he strode on down the hall to the next room, a few curled brown leaves blowing along with him from the open front door.

      Clare paused to close it, before following the other two. She found them in the gloomy servants’ hall; a long, narrow room with tiny windows, a lot of dull brown paint, and walls which had once been cream-coloured, on one of which hung a row of bells labelled with the names of other rooms. From the ceiling hung ancient hooks, from which hams and herbs had once hung, and a broken laundry pulley, which had been used to suspend washing high above the heads of the servants as they sat around the long, well-scrubbed deal table.

      ‘It’s so dreary!’ Helen said, staring around the room with unhidden distaste.

      ‘All it needs is a coat of varnish, a pretty wallpaper, some white paint—it will look wonderful! This dresser must be the same age as the house,’ Denzil said, running a finger along the dust piled up on the shelves which held rows of plates and bowls and jugs.

      ‘It is,’ agreed Clare. ‘Some of the china is quite good, too. A lot of it’s Victorian, and it will fetch excellent prices at auction.’

      ‘I may well want to keep it all,’ he said.

      ‘Oh, my God!’ Helen groaned. ‘It would be like living in a museum!’

      Eerily, on the flat top of the dresser, stood a bowl of long-dead flowers, their skeletal shape dusty and dry, wreathed in cobwebs, among which was the mummified body of a spider.

      Helen stared at it, dramatically shuddered, wrapped her coat around herself, and gave Denzil Black a reproachful stare. ‘It’s like the Mary Celeste in here! I keep

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