The Muniment Room and a Discovery
I followed Percy Blythe along corridors and down sets of stairs into the increasingly dim depths of the castle.
Never chatty, that morning she was resolutely stony.
Stony and coated with stale cigarette smoke; the smell was so strong I had to leave a pace between us as we walked.
The silence suited me, at any rate; after my conversation with Saffy, I was in no mood for awkward chatter.
Something in her story, or perhaps not in the story itself so much as the fact that she’d told it to me, was disquieting.
She’d said it was an attempt to explain Percy’s manner, and I could well believe that both the twins had been shattered by Juniper’s abandonment and subsequent collapse, but why had Saffy been so adamant that it was harder for Percy?
Especially when Saffy herself had taken on the maternal role with her wounded little sister.
She’d been embarrassed by Percy’s discourtesy the day before, I knew, and she’d sought to show her twin’s human face; yet it was almost as if she protested too much, was too determined that I should see Percy Blythe in a saintly light.
Percy stopped at a juncture of corridors and took a packet of cigarettes from her pocket.
Gristly knuckles balled as she fidgeted with a match, finally bringing it to life; in the flame’s light I glimpsed her face and I saw there proof that she was shaken by the morning’s events.
As the sweet, smoky smell of fresh tobacco mushroomed around us, and the silence deepened, I said, “I’m really sorry about Bruno.
I’m sure Mrs. Bird’s nephew will find him. ”
“Are you?” Percy exhaled and her eyes scanned mine without kindness.
A twitch on one side of her lip. “Animals know when their end is coming, Miss Burchill. They do not wish to be a burden. They are not like human beings, seeking always to be comforted.” She inclined her head, indicating that I should follow her around the corner, and I felt foolish and small and resolved to offer no further words of sympathy.
We stopped again at the first door we came to.
One of the many we’d passed during the tour all those months ago.
Cigarette resting on her lip, she pulled from her pocket a large key and rattled it in the lock.
After a moment’s difficulty, the old mechanism turned and the door creaked open.
It was dark inside, there were no windows, and from what I could make out the walls were lined with heavy wooden filing cabinets, the sort you might find in very, very old legal firms in the City.
A single lightbulb hung from a fine, frail wire, drifting a little back and forth in the new breath of air from the open door.
I waited for Percy to lead the way, and when she didn’t I looked at her, uncertain. She drew on her cigarette and said only, “I don’t go in there.”
Perhaps my surprise showed, for she added, with a tremor so slight I almost missed it, “I don’t enjoy small spaces. There’s a paraffin lamp around that corner. Pull it out and I’ll light it for you.”
I glanced back into the room’s dark depths. “Does the lightbulb not work?”
She regarded me a moment, then pulled a string and the bulb flared then dulled, settling at a low level, so that the shadows shifted. The light penetrated only far enough to illuminate a patch three feet in diameter. “I’d suggest you take the lamp too.”
I smiled grimly and found it easily enough, tucked around the corner just as she’d said it would be.
There was a sloshing sound as I retrieved it, at which Percy Blythe said, “That’s promising.
Not much good without paraffin inside.” As I held the base, she removed the glass flue, fiddled with a coin-sized dial to lengthen the fabric wick before lighting it.
“I’ve never enjoyed the smell,” she said, restoring the flue.
“It signals bomb shelters to me; ghastly places. Filled with fear and helplessness.”
“And safety, I’d have thought. Comfort?”
“Perhaps for some, Miss Burchill.”
She said no more, and I found occupation familiarizing myself with the thin metal handle at the top, testing it to make sure it would hold the lamp’s weight.
“No one’s been inside for an age,” said Percy Blythe.
“There’s a desk at the back. You’ll find the notebooks in boxes beneath.
I wouldn’t imagine that they’re in good order: Daddy died during the war, there were other things to contend with.
No one had much time for filing.” She said it defensively, as if I might be about to take her to task for slovenly housekeeping.
“Of course.”
A flicker of doubt crossed her face but dissolved when she coughed heavily into her hand. “Well then,” she said, once recovered. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
I nodded, keen suddenly that she might stick around just a little longer. “Thank you,” I said, “I’m really very grateful for the opportunity—”
“Be careful with the door. Don’t let it close behind you.”
“Okay.”
“It’s self-locking. We lost a dog that way.” Her lips distorted, a grimace that didn’t quite become a smile. “I’m an old lady, you know. I can’t be relied upon to remember where I left you.”
THE ROOM was long and thin, and low brick arches spanned the width, holding up the ceiling.
I clutched the lamp tightly, lifting it out ahead of me so that light flickered against the walls as I took slow, cautious steps deeper inside.
Percy had told the truth when she said that no one had been inside for a long time.
The room bore an unmistakable signature of stillness.
There was silence, too, church silence; and I had the uncanny sense that something greater than me was watching.
You’re being fanciful, I told myself sternly.
There is no one here but you and the walls.
But that was half my problem. These weren’t just any walls, these were the stones of Milderhurst Castle, beneath whose skin the distant hours were whispering, watching.
The further into the room I went, the more aware I was of a strange, heavy feeling.
A depth of aloneness—loneliness, almost—cloaking me.
It was the dark, of course, my recent interaction with Saffy, Juniper’s melancholy story.
But this was my one and only opportunity to see Raymond Blythe’s notebooks.
I had only a single hour, and then Percy Blythe would be back to collect me.
Chances were, I wouldn’t be permitted a second visit to the muniment room, so it was as well to pay close attention now.
I made a mental checklist as I walked: wooden filing cabinets lining both walls; above them—I lifted the lamp to see—maps and architectural plans of all vintages.
A little further along was hung a collection of tiny framed daguerreotypes.
It was a series of portraits, the same woman in each: in one she was reclined along a chaise longue in a state of some deshabille, in the others she was facing the camera directly, Edgar Allan Poe–style, dressed in a high-necked Victorian collar.
I leaned closer, brought my lamp high to observe the face within the bronze, blowing once to scatter some of the layered dust. I felt an odd coldness creep up my spine as the face was revealed.
She was beautiful, but in a vaguely nightmarish way.
Smooth lips; perfect, poreless skin stretched taut along high cheekbones; teeth large and polished.
I held the lamp near enough to read the name engraved in cursive writing at the bottom of the picture: Muriel Blythe.
Raymond’s first wife, the twins’ mother.
How strange that all her portraits had been relegated to the muniment room.
Had it been the result of Raymond Blythe’s grief, I wondered, or the jealous decree of his second wife?
Whatever the case, and although I can’t say what made me so pleased to do it, I shifted the lamp then, casting her back into darkness.
There wasn’t time to explore each and every hollow of the room.
I resolved to find Raymond Blythe’s notebooks, absorb as much from them as I could in the hour allotted, then leave behind this strange, stale place.
I held the lamp before me and kept on walking.
But then the pictures on the walls gave way to shelves, stretching from floor to ceiling, and despite myself I slowed.
It was like being inside a treasure trove; all manner of items had been stacked along them: books—lots of books—vases and Chinese porcelain, and even crystal jugs.
Precious things, from what I could tell, not junk or detritus.
What they were doing, languishing on shelves in the muniment room, I could not begin to guess.