What Alice didn't see

The squeaking wipers cleared the rain without improving the view, mainly due to my breath fogging the glass. Sighing I got out into the drearily dismal day, where the rain, more of a mist, settled on my hair and shoulders in tiny beads.

The house wasn’t new, nor was it ancient, or a gothic pile of masonry and tile, boasting turrets, towers and leering gargoyles. It was a well proportioned, rectangular Victorian, tacked onto a smaller late Georgian with a large bay windowed room on its first floor. Grey stone-work, streaked by grime and water stains. Surprisingly unbroken windows stared blankly at the world. Slipped or missing tiles would be allowing water to access its uppermost level. It was a depressing sight in the mizzle which dripped from leaf and debris filled gutters.

Unkempt, overgrown grounds, with fallen leaves mounded in corners and against statuary, troughs and urns. A vigorously blooming climbing rose, strangling a pillar of the portico, covered in red flowers despite the lateness of the season, lent the only colour to the scene. In the leaf strewn gravel of the drive weeds sprouted healthily. Dark windows were watchful as I approached the front door. The scent of the deep red blooms, filling the air under the porch with a heady, cloying fragrance, made me uneasy for some reason.

Turning the key in the stiff lock, I fully expected the door to be equally stubborn and to creak and groan as I pushed on it, but to my surprise it swung open with ease and in silence. The gloom of the day continued within the marble floored foyer and yet…. It should have been darker, much darker on such a day. Only daylight from the doorway lit the centre of the foyer, the corners deeply shadowed, but on each side a wide floor to ceiling mirror took what little light there was and in some manner reflected it so that the centre was brightened.

My searching hand found an old fashioned round light switch and to my wonder when I flicked it up bulbs in the sconces around the foyer shed a wan light which the mirrors augmented. A central staircase dividing Georgian to the right, Victorian to the left led to landings cast in a gloom the lights did not reach. A huge oval mirror in a dark oak frame above the central landing gathered in a little of the light but seemed to swallow and not reflect it. Closing the door, shutting out the damp day, I took stock.

The house belonged to my grandmother’s great-aunt. No, that’s not true. It belonged to me now. It seemed I was, according to the solicitor who spent eighteen months tracking me down, her last living relative. After death duties the house was the only asset left to the estate. Personally I would have preferred money but that along with any easily convertible assets had gone to His Majesty’s Collector of Taxes. All attempts to sell the property had failed and on first inspection I could understand why. Its air of neglect did not stem just from the death of my grandmother’s great-aunt. It had preceded it by some years judging from the outside.

The estate agent’s particulars described the house in some, if flowery detail. To my right, the Georgian part on the ground floor comprised a kitchen, pantry, dining room, boot room and entrance to the cellar. Two bedrooms, one in the bay front, a dressing room and bathroom on the first floor front, smaller bedrooms at the rear. Small attic rooms on the second floor. In the Victorian half, a drawing room and library to the front, another, larger dining room and a more modern kitchen to the rear.

Here too stairs led down to what had been the original kitchens, butler’s pantry, and other small rooms including a wine cellar, coal store and a boiler room. The first floor had four bedrooms, two bathrooms and two sets of stairs leading to a number of rooms which had once housed staff. It was those rooms where I found the worst ingress of water.

It took me over an hour to do a quick walk through of every room. Although the electricity worked throughout, old, grime covered, low wattage bulbs did little to illuminate the rooms and hallways. The bulbs in the cellar and rooms below ground, bestrewn with thick cobwebs were even worse and I needed the torch app to move from room to room. There was little in the way of furniture, most of it having gone to feed the grasping hands of the Treasury.

On my return to the foyer, I was dusty, thirsty and hungry. I was also full of despair. It seemed clear the house needed a complete renovation from top to bottom. From the windows at the rear of the house I had seen a venerable swimming pool which was a green swamp quite capable of housing a crocodile in its murky depths, while the tennis court boasted a small forest of saplings.

It had once been a fine house and no doubt could be again. All it needed was the drive and courage to undertake the task, which I supposed I could supply. It would also require large amounts of money which… I could not supply. As I locked the door, the roses again filled my nostrils with their cloying fragrance and the earlier sense of unease returned. That scent seemed to cling to me as I drove away and I opened the window to flush it from me with cold air.

When I pulled up at the pub in the village, my hands were stiff from the cold but the fragrance no longer filled my head. As often the case with English villages, the pub stood on one side of the green and the church on the other. The focal points for the residents faced each other across the green space as they had for centuries. Each sure their philosophy of life was the one which protected the flock.

The smoke from the open fire which warmed the room coiled lazily among the rafters of the low ceiling. I received the usual scrutiny of a stranger by those few in the bar which I ignored as I approached the burly man behind the bar. Assuming he was the landlord I asked if he had any food available.

“Spect wife can do a ham sandwich, unless you’re one of them vegans?” he said eyeing me.

“If you’ve got mustard, then it will be just the thing,” I said. “Along with a pint of your best please.”

This got me a smile and after drawing a pint from the pumps he disappeared for a minute or two. On his return he told me to get comfortable, my sandwich would be ready in a few minutes. I thanked him and settled myself on a stool at the end of the bar. The beer was excellent and so too the ham when it arrived between thick slices of homemade bread with hot mustard coating it. As I sipped from my second pint, the landlord came to collect the plate.

“Passing through?” he inquired.

“I wish! No I’ve just been to look around Oswald House,” this brought conversations in the bar to a stop and the landlord to take a step back.

“You’re not thinking of buying that place are you?” his voice held concern.

“I should be so lucky! No, I just inherited the damned place,” the landlord’s eyes widened and he looked grim, but just nodded and went to serve a customer, leaving me to wonder why the mention of the house should seem to cause such consternation.

I sat sipping on my beer considering despondently what I’d seen during my wander around the house.  The little furniture that remained might garner a few pounds but more likely I’d have to pay for it to be taken away or put in a skip. The only items of any worth would require salvaging during demolition. Apart from the mirrors that was. I’d lost count of the mirrors in the house going round. There seemed to be at least one in each room. Mirrors of all shapes, sizes, quality and clarity had adorned the walls of the house. I’d half expected to find them on the ceilings of the bedrooms but that was perhaps unlikely given those who had lived there. My musings were interrupted by the return of the landlord to my end of the bar.

“Would you like anything else?” he asked.

“No thanks, the food and the beer were great. Is there a hotel or motel around here?”

“You’re not staying at the house?” From the corner of my eye I could see a number of heads turned my way watching, probably listening; waiting for my response.

“Too cold, damp and no furniture,” I said with a smile. He nodded, waiting to see if I would say anything more, then said.

 “We’ve a room upstairs we sometimes let out if you’re interested. Missus can do a bit of hot supper as well.”

I smiled again and gratefully told him I would be happy to take him up on the offer. I finished my pint, arranging with him to eat around seven and told him I needed to go back to Oswald House.

“You be careful in that house young man,” he said gravely. “If you can wait five minutes we can make up a flask of coffee.”

“That would be great, thank you.”

Twenty minutes later with a large thermos flask of hot coffee on the passenger seat, I was once again parked on the driveway of the house I, with growing reluctance and disquiet, owned. The morning’s light rain had dispersed with a wan sun showing through thinner clouds but the day was grey overall. I sat staring at the house wondering why the landlord had shown such concern for my safety before leaving the car. 

The scent of the roses was stronger this time, almost a stench, which seemed to hang around me like a cloud. It irritated my nose enough to make me sneeze before I finished unlocking the door. Inside it was still gloomy, just not as much as earlier. I closed the door to keep out the smell as much as the cold. I had a reporter’s pad with me and began noting what was needed to renovate the house and what might be of worth to a salvage company.

Electrics… the whole place needed to be rewired with new fittings. Probably all the plumbing too. I thought and added roof repairs to the list. Double glazing? More than likely. Okay, might as well add new kitchen, bathrooms, decorating…. Shit I hadn’t stepped more than four foot inside and I was already looking at what? 100k? 120k? I looked up at the ceiling and groaned. No way did I have that sort of money and was never going to be able to borrow it.

So… on the plus side, what was still here of any value? I looked around the foyer. The doors, the wainscoting, the stairs, were mahogany by the looks of it. Old mahogany would fetch a good price as would the marble floor. Huge old fashioned cast iron radiators should fetch a bob or two. I began to feel a little better. Turning on the torch app I looked more closely at the large mirror to my right. Its ornate gilt covered frame looked painted but maybe…. The mirror itself was spotless. There was no crazing or marks where the silver backing had worn away over time. Unusual for mirrors of its probable antiquity.

As I moved in front of the mirror I suddenly realised that it was reflecting the mirror opposite which in turn was reflecting this mirror and so on. I’d not noticed this earlier and I stared fascinated at my reflection repeated over and over, like looking down a tunnel. I was turning away when from the corner of my eye I saw a movement in the reflection of the mirror across the foyer, yet when I faced the mirror; I saw nothing other than the reflections of myself. Looking around the foyer I saw nothing which might have caused me to see movement. I could smell the roses again despite the door being firmly closed.

I shrugged, putting it down to tiredness, despondency and imagination, headed into the Georgian side of the house. Now that I was making notes of the house’s fittings and fixtures, I realised just how many antique mirrors of all shapes and sizes hung on its walls. My notes on what might interest a salvage firm grew apace.

Most of the rooms had valuable timber, doors and jambs, panelling. Then there were light fittings, sinks, baths, taps and radiators. The pipe-work was more likely to be lead than copper, but all had value to someone. Ornate plaster might be recoverable. Then there were the mirrors, not all were of the quality or condition of the pair in the foyer but the sheer number made them worthwhile removing if only for the frames. I was on the first floor in a windowless rear corridor when I came across another pair of matched mirrors. Oval with a gilt frame in the same style as those in the foyer, hung to reflect each other.

As before it was like looking into a tunnel of mirrors with my image getting smaller in each reflection. Turning away, I once again saw movement, only now it seemed somehow to be closer to the front and I noticed a faint scent of roses. I peered into both mirrors but saw only myself and I felt my earlier unease return.

I’d had enough of this gloomy old house which was getting darker by the minute. I’d finish looking at the rest of this floor then head back to the pub. Following the corridor leading from the Victorian to the Georgian part of the house I made notes of the rooms at the rear. It was in the bay windowed front room where I came across the next paired mirrors. They were, like the others, in excellent condition, framed in the same style. I paused before entering the room and looking closer at the mirrors. I wasn’t quite sure why I hesitated to pass between the mirrors which I would need to do to reach the stairs, and yet….

With growing unease I entered the room with the briefest of glances at the mirror nearest me. Out of the corner of my eye I again saw fleeting movement within the mirror as if someone behind me had passed out of the mirrors view. I swung round, my heart beginning to beat faster. There was no one there.

Of course no one was there, how could there be. I was alone in the house. Alone, one word, two possibilities, just my imagination and I was truly alone or… I wasn’t… and had no one to help. I turned and in the other mirror, once more caught a movement, nearer somehow, more defined, more… there.

A frisson of true fear ran up my spine, the hairs on my neck rising and I shivered, not from cold. Enough! Time to go, time to leave this empty, dusty, cold tomb of a house. I’d get an agent or a firm to come in, catalogue what could fetch a fair price in salvage. Find a building company and sell it to them. They could pull it down and build on the land. The village would probably protest but if I got a fair price… not my problem as they say.

I hurried from the room headed for the stairs and the front door. I hesitated briefly before descending to the landing at the top of the stairs down to the front door. The foyer was full of shadow, any light from the half windows beside the door diminished as if they were obscured by something outside the house. The scent from the rose winding around the portico had somehow invaded the foyer, filling the air with its cloying perfume. I switched on the torch app but it struggled to pierce the gloom.

I became conscious of the mirror behind me, its oval shape like a great eye, watching, observing, brooding, waiting. I knew without looking in the mirror there was something there, watching, considering, evaluating.  Darkness flowed down either side of the stairs adding to the shadows in the foyer. I wanted to move, to scream, to do… something, but I was frozen, immobile, unable to even turn my head. Heart pounding, waiting, fearing… something.

“He didn’t come back then? After all my trouble, to get the room ready?” the landlord’s wife demanded as her husband came into the kitchen after locking up the pub.

“I’m sorry love; I didn’t expect him to do that. Didn’t strike me as the type,” the landlord said.

“What’s worrying you?” she asked.

He was quiet, thoughtful for a moment before replying. “He was going back to Oswald House,” he said quietly.

“Lord bless us! Surely not! Whatever for?”

“She’d left it to him in her will.”

“The wicked old bitch! Whatever for?”

“I’ve no idea love. He just said he was her last living relative.”

“Do you think he’s staying the night there?”

“I don’t know he didn’t seem that keen on the place. I don’t think he’d have done so from choice. Maybe he had problems with his car or he just went home. Where ever that is. Hadn’t paid us anything, no reason not to just go home.”

“Gone off with our flask though! Oh well love, never mind. Ready for a hot drink and bed?”

“Aye lass, sounds grand!”