Another twenty metres beyond the court a walled garden of red brick was intact. Whatever had been planted inside had rioted and thrust itself untidily at the sky. Faint engravings of narrow footpaths, marked by overgrown earthen banks, disappeared into more parkland which obscured the far boundary of the estate.
Hunter’s Tor seemed endless, a wild infinity. A place for a mind to stretch unto its furthest reach.
Seb briefly imagined figures dressed in white, sat at patio tables outside the front and rear doors. How they must have surveyed the landscaped gardens and the distant hills. How they must have discussed journeys to places still further afield, invisible to the naked eye, while their bodies had remained inert inside this great white edifice.
Mark removed his rucksack. ‘No one here, Seb.’ The back of his shirt was dark with sweat. ‘Place is abandoned. Hasn’t seen any attention in years. All locked up and forgotten.’
Alone, Seb continued further down the path beside the walled garden, seeking outbuildings. On his left, a wooden door with flaking green paint appeared inside an arch in a wall. The gateway was sealed with a corroded padlock, though the bottom of the door had rotted through.
He ducked under a cascade of white blossom, as the path rounded a slope, and then stopped, startled by the sudden, vibrant intensity of an unruly rose garden. Even from twenty feet the vanilla-peachy fragrance of the flowers was overpowering, the air above transformed into a dogfight of butterflies and bees, circling, fluttering, alighting and diving into the pink, red and white flowers. A backdrop of trees with winter-green foliage made the tangle even more fervent.
But how did Seb account for a fresh onset of unease here, so near these flowers? The longer he stared at the roses, the more the ecstatic activity of the fauna suggested agitation, rather than rapture, before such a fragrant bounty.
Overwrought, Seb crouched and uncapped a bottle of water. The exertion of the trek to the Hall, following weeks of disrupted sleep, had taken a toll. His nerves had peaked and crashed like surf all morning. That’s all this was. And now he’d stopped moving, the pungent scents and the warmth of the midday sun against his head made him drowsy. He yawned. His eyes watered.
Yet, at the sight of this neglected but thriving rose garden, his feelings continued to oscillate between suffusions of romantic delight and agitation from being so close to it. He imagined he might have walked into a place already occupied, albeit thinly, though with an intelligence, or approximation of such, and that he was now under its scrutiny. He suspected the flowers were aware of him. This was a place he’d never want to be alone.
Seb moved away from the roses and returned to the house to find Mark.
‘Seb! Seb!’
Can’t he keep his bloody voice down? ‘Ssh.’ Seb held a finger to his lips.
Mark was stood to the side of the house, his eyes wide with excitement. ‘What you said about being expected . . . Look. The patio doors at the back are locked, but this side door isn’t. So maybe they wanted you to go through the tradesman’s entrance.’ Mark chuckled.
Seb’s legs weakened as Mark pushed the side entrance open. ‘Let us go inside. Let us enlarge,’ Mark said, quietly, as if with reverence, which made Seb feel even worse.
Ewan had been here. They had wanted him to come. ‘We drop off the files, then hit the road.’ Seb wasn’t sure if Mark heard him.
His weight depressing the floorboards inside, Mark clicked his torch on.
‘Amazing. There’s still stuff here.’
And there truly was in the first room they entered, the kitchen. Above cupboards, a dozen shelves laddered to a peeling ceiling. Oddments of crockery and an incomplete dinner set remained in place. A dark blue Aga in a tiled hearth stood at the opposite end of the kitchen. A clutter of pans covered the rusting hotplates. Mismatching bowls and glasses were dotted about an open cabinet beside the stove. Three dozen ancient cookbooks mouldered upon two wooden tables that sat side-by-side in the middle of the floor.
Seb stroked the kitchen surfaces with his index finger to confirm the room was filmed with dust. ‘Hasn’t been used in years.’
Apart from some soft matches and a few items of tarnished cutlery, the drawers were empty. The room seemed to have been improperly cleared many years before.
No daylight penetrated the shutters on the windows of the ground floor. The hallway beyond the kitchen and empty scullery were panelled in dark wood, creating dour tones that effected a deeper sense of darkness.
They moved beyond the daylight falling through the side door. Their torches created a sepia fog, comprising a myriad of dust particles falling like an endless rain.
The pictures were gone from the walls. Only an empty umbrella stand and a stool with scuffed, wooden legs remained in the hall. Upon the seat was an alpine hat. It had been placed upon a folded scarf of yellow silk. A pair of hand-stitched leather gloves completed the ensemble.