Page 23 of The Secret Christmas Library
‘What’s going to happen to it?’ she said.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘The factor says we’ve got until January to settle the death duties – then . . . ’ He shrugged.
‘Thenwhat?’
‘The council will faff about what has to be done with it, it’ll go on the market, but because of the roads issue . . . nobodycould buy it or make it a going concern, and there’s money owing on it, so that won’t help . . . ’
‘If you had the book – if you had the money,’ said Mirren, ‘then what would you do? Say it was alotof money . . . ’
Jamie turned, the sea at his back, and gazed back over to where they’d just come from.
‘I’d love to open up the gardens,’ he said finally. ‘At least. Restore them to what they were. Grow the original plants that were brought here.’
‘Pineapples?’
‘Maybe. But that’s what I’d love. The house, the stuff, the money . . . it isn’t as much fun as you’d imagine. But you could get kids up here . . . maybe run a small farm again . . . ’
Mirren nodded.
‘That sounds,’ she said, seeing his solemn face, ‘quite a lot like you’d end up running a cult.’
He laughed, despite himself, and his worried-looking face softened considerably. ‘Ha. Oh, God. The only people who do actually approach me have, yes, “alternative lifestyles”.’
‘You need us to save you from that,’ said Mirren.
‘I do.’
‘Better get to it, then,’ she said, setting her face back to the castle.
15
They snuck in through a side door Mirren hadn’t noticed before. It was barely warmer inside than out. They were in an older side of the castle, the corridors here rough-hewn and painted in a strange shiny industrial paint, in a dirty cream. Jamie caught her looking at it.
‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘From when it was requisitioned in the war. They painted the walls for us. We haven’t quite got round to the touch-up.’
Mirren blinked. ‘And I thought I was late getting my boiler serviced.’ She frowned as she looked at the pipes. ‘Where do they discharge to?’
‘I was only kidding about hiring a surveyor,’ said Jamie, and Mirren smiled. ‘Also, never mention the B-word in this house. I think the boiler works by prayer.’
Back in the kitchen, Mirren instantly went in and tried to get some warmth back into her fingers from the stove.
‘Don’t do that,’ said Jamie. ‘You just have to let your body adjust.’
‘You’re telling me I have to activate Penguin Mode?’ said Mirren. ‘I don’t think so. We’re only here for three days.’
The size of the job suddenly struck her. This house was a town. It went on forever. Every surface of it was covered in books, and none of them in any kind of order.
Theo was no longer in the kitchen; his phone lay abandoned on the table.
They found him slumped in the laundry room on the other side of the corridor from the vast kitchen. This was equally vast; there was a mangle, a twin tub that looked older than Mirren’s mother, and, in the high ceiling, a great long drying rack that was worked by some kind of odd pulley system, as well as various sinks, cupboards and ominous-looking pipes. The door at the far end led to something which must, once upon a time, have been a store room for sheets – there were shelves covered in very faded paper, with neat labels in copperplate on each one – East Wing Blue, East Wing Red, and so on, shelf after shelf.
Except, unsurprisingly, only the bottom of one far shelf sported fresh linen sheets. The rest were filled instead with books, pushed all the way back, piled four lanes deep in every conceivable nook and cranny. Theo was sitting on the hard stone floor already among a discarded pile, his handsome face looking distraught.
‘What?’ said Mirren.
‘There’s . . . ’ He held up his hands in a gesture of futility. ‘Who buys three hundred books aboutfrogs?’
Jamie picked up the nearest one. It was an ancient hardback by a reverend, entitledFrogs and Amphibians of the Norfolk Broads, with many various illustrations therein. ‘I didn’t think the Norfolk Broads had so many different amphibians,’ he said, leafing through it. He glanced up. ‘I doubt this is the one we’re looking for,’ he said, showing them a rather crudely drawn sketch of an unusually large and badly proportioned toad.
