They got in through a window at the back, in the shade of the first rank of lowering pines. Otto gently pried a rotting shutter from its hinges and climbed through a glassless window and leaned out and lifted Clare in his arms and swung her over the sill to stand beside him. Her body was rigid, with every muscle tense.
He pulled the shutter back into position and wedged it. The porch in which they stood grew dark again, with criss-cross bars of sunlight stabbing through the holes and crevices of the gaping woodwork of the shutter and even the walls. There was a sweet, sick, musty smell of decay which pressed around them. She did not say anything. She was not leading now. She had brought him here, and she was waiting. She stood motionless beside him.
He was going to speak to her, but he changed his mind. He started for the door to the inner body of the house: it had a great splash of yellow sunlight right across its lock. He tried the handle and it came away in his fingers. But the haft stuck out from the wood and he twisted it and the door opened and a bloated spider struck against his cheek and clung there a moment and then scuttled across his neck before he brushed it to the ground and set a heavy foot upon it.
Clare was at his shoulder. They went through the door and into what had been a kitchen and through that again into the rest of the house. It was darker here, with fewer fingers of sunlight creeping in.
Under the dust and rot of years, the place was furnished; completely furnished. Otto stood in the centre hallway and peered about him. Clare was beside him, straight and stiff and silent. He could not speak to her. He was afraid of her.
And then, without warning, she swayed. Her whole body swayed as she stood. Her weight fell against him, and he put quick arms about her. But she straightened her body and thrust the arms violently away. She said:
“I’m all right! I’m all right!” But then she swayed again and this time he picked her up like a child and set her down in a high-backed oaken chair. He said:
“Wait. Wait there. Do not move until I come back! You understand?”
She did not speak, but she closed her eyes and let her arms fall along the arms of the chair and rested her head against its carven back.
He left her. He knew she would not move—and he must find somewhere for her to rest. He went into one of the rooms which must be a bedroom. Cobwebs burst stickily across his face and he brushed them off and strode to the bed in the far corner. Beneath the dust it was completely made, with covers and pillows and what must have been a quilt. He touched it—and a great flaky mass broke away under his hand and a sudden waft of musty throat-catching odour set him coughing.
He went out of the room quickly, a new thought spurring him. He had remembered the cellar door which they had passed—a half-door in the wall, coming no higher than his waist.
He ran to it and pulled it open. It was of oak and unrotted and lay like a flap upon the floor. Through the dark square which gaped at him he could see nothing, but he felt steps and groped his way down them.
The cellar smelt dank and earthy, but nothing worse. It smelt like any cellar anywhere. He lit a match and held it high and saw brick-lined walls and a bare earthen floor and nothing else.
He ran back up the steps again and quickly closed the door-flap to keep out the sick miasma of the house. He remembered the doors of a closet he had noticed in the hallway. He went to them and pulled them open—and was faced by shelves of mouldering wool and linen.
But on the lowest shelf were packed tier upon tier of canvas in its virgin original flat packing. He pulled out three of the bundles—and although their outer folds were mildewed and flaking, the better part of each was strong and sound.
He tumbled them out upon the floor and ripped off the bad parts and took it all in one great armful and carried it, feeling his way carefully, down the cellar steps. He dropped it then and began to fold it piece by piece and threefold. The pieces thus treated were over six feet long and some three feet wide and he set them down, one atop the other, in the farthest corner from the steps. The result was thick and reasonably soft, and he spared the last piece to roll into a sort of bolster which he laid at the head.
He went back to Clare. She was sitting just as he had left her, but her eyes were widely open.
He did not speak to her yet. He picked her out of the chair in one quick movement and carried her along to the cellar doorway and set her on her feet. He said then:
“Go down the steps. I will hold you. Be careful—it is dark!”
She went without a word—and he steered her over to the bed of canvas and made her lie down upon it. He knelt beside her and said:
“You must rest now. I am going to find food for us. Do you know where there is any store nearer than the town—any store which would be open now?”