‘I don’t doubt it. I’ll have a tenancy agreement drawn up.’
As we ascended the narrow wooden staircase shining with a high varnish, I noticed that there was a word painted on the riser of each step.
found
are
things
strange
lost
called
place
a
In
‘He built it himself, so you’ll have to forgive the slightly eccentric nature of the building,’ Matthew said, placing his hand on the newel post with a tender look of pride on his face. ‘Had the wood shipped over from an old library in Italy. A strange story actually – he took my mother on their honeymoon to a little village in the mountains and they found this abandoned library. It was going to be demolished and my father was the kind of man who couldn’t let something that held so much history go to waste. So he bought the building, had it dismantled and put it back together here.’
‘Didn’t any of the locals wish to keep it?’
‘Ah well, that was the thing; many of the villagers believed the library to be inhabited by spirits.’
‘Good grief!’
‘But of course, that was just superstition,’ he assured me.
‘I wish I could have met your father. He must have been such an interesting man,’ I said, looking with new eyes at the interiors that resembled a puzzle pieced together.
Matthew smiled to himself.
‘Eccentric, that’s how most people would have described him.’ His features failed to conceal the bittersweet memories of his father.
‘Some people have no imagination, that’s all.’
He seemed pleased with this assessment and presumably felt safe to open up a little more. ‘He used to say that he would like people to open this door in the way they would open a book, entering a world beyond their imaginings.’ He gave a wry smile, an expression formed by grief and loss.
‘He sounds a little like my own father.’
‘Is he a book dealer also?’
I shook my head and continued shaking it until I had to shut my eyes tight to prevent the tears from falling. Why had I mentioned Father? It brought reality crashing down around me. Everything that had happened: Lyndon, Armand, escaping on that horrid boat. Truly, I still felt at sea myself. Who was I now? I felt ashamed of my night with Armand and how my father would be so disappointed in his little girl. I must have been in shock. Try as I might, I could not contain it and my shoulders began to shake until I let out a desperate gasp.
‘Miss Carlisle, Opaline, whatever did I say?’
Words failed to form. He took me by the shoulders as if to keep me steady, but I fell into his arms and sobbed for what seemed like a very long time. He held me fast and absorbed all of the grief and pain without saying a word. When I finally felt wrung out and my ears throbbed with the sound of nothing but my own ragged breathing, I hastened to pull back from his embrace.
‘Please forgive me, Mr Fitzpatrick. I have embarrassed us both with this unbecoming outburst.’
He made no reply but handed me a handkerchief from his pocket. I wiped my eyes and blew my nose before attempting to hand it back. Our eyes met and we both smiled.
‘Perhaps I shall have it laundered first,’ I said and released an unfortunate snort of laughter. The giddiness after such an impromptu intimacy.
There didn’t seem to be much else to say and I was too worn out to think. He saved me the trouble by acting as though nothing problematic had happened at all.
‘I will stop by in a few days to arrange the particulars, if that’s agreeable to you?’
I nodded and walked him back to the door.
‘Thank you, Mr Fitzpatrick, and again, I apologise for—’
‘No need. Grief is a constant companion, is it not?’
He placed his hat on his head and turned to leave.
‘Given the history of the place, you’ll have to excuse its little eccentricities,’ he said, as though it were a mischievous child.
‘I think we are well matched,’ I said, determined to prove that I was not easily put off.
I brought my old carpet bag downstairs to the basement and hung the only other skirt and blouse I owned in the armoire. I lit the stove and boiled some water in a little pot for tea. Except I hadn’t bought any tea. I realised I would have to go out and buy some provisions. Suddenly, the weight of everything that had happened and the effort needed to carry on seemed too much to bear. I let myself collapse on to the bed and regretted it, as the springs made a very uncomfortable dig into my ribs. Whether it was luck or courage that I had possessed in Paris, it felt like they had both abandoned me. Perhaps Lyndon was right; I was indulging in childhood fantasies. This was not how the world worked. At best, I would be looked upon as an anomaly. I turned on to my side. The mattress was bare. I didn’t even have a coverlet. I would have to buy that too.
‘No tears,’ I warned myself, but it was no good. I could already feel them running down my cheeks. No matter how much I let myself believe that I could be just like Sylvia and her partner Adrienne, it wasn’t true. They were outliers; they no longer cared for the kind of society that would not accept them. Instead, they inhabited a world of artists and free spirits who chose the vicissitudes of a nonconforming life over the comforts and security of the status quo. And the truth was that they had each other. I had never felt more alone, so far from the only home I knew. I cried myself to sleep that night, with an empty stomach and only my overcoat for warmth.
I woke in the middle of the night to the sound of scratching, like a branch against the window. I couldn’t figure it out, as there certainly weren’t any trees on the street outside. I sat up for a moment and realised it was coming from the shop overhead.
I flicked the switch on the wall, but no light came on. Mr Fitzpatrick the younger had warned me that the building could be ‘temperamental’。 Luckily, I had spotted a candle on the kitchen table where I had left my purse and so I carefully felt my way across the room to it. My hand searched and found a small box of matches beside it and soon the room emerged out of the shadows. I climbed the stairs, reading the words that Mr Fitzpatrick painted there, In a place called lost, strange things are found. I certainly felt strange and out of place. I paused for a moment, wondering what on earth I would do when I found the source of the noise. What if it were an intruder? Then I heard it again, a soft tapping, like brambles in the wind. I took a deep breath and carried on to the top of the stairs.
The shop itself had an air of stillness and anticipation, as though it were waiting for me. The light from the candle reflected softly on the curiosities adorning the shelves. I felt like an intruder myself amongst these things and hesitated to touch anything. Intricately designed music boxes sat atop a glass case full of pocket watches and engraved pendants. A wooden cabinet of long, narrow drawers, the type for keeping botanical drawings, was actually full of old buttons and stamps. I jumped when a cuckoo clock announced the hour from the opposite wall. Three cuckoos. It reminded me of one of my favourite books I had read repeatedly as a child, by Mrs Molesworth, in which a young girl called Griselda and a cuckoo from a clock became unlikely friends. I spoke the opening line aloud: ‘Once upon a time in an old town, in an old street, there stood a very old house.’