Houses Without Doors

by Peter Straub

  As soon as Standish stepped forward he saw that table was too wide for them to shake hands across it.

  “Lost a bet with myself,” Wall said. “You stick there, and I’ll make the trek round.”

  Wall smiled at him with a touch of ruefulness and began to walk around the bottom of the table to greet him. He wore a beautifully cut gray tweed suit, a dark blue shirt, and a pink tie of raw silk. Wall was not quite what Standish had expected—he looked like a college president, not the administrator of an obscure literary foundation. His handsomeness struck Standish as an irrelevance, almost a hindrance. Wall marched up to him with his hand outstretched, and Standish realized how Jean would respond to the sight of this man.

  “Allow me to welcome you properly,” Wall said. He gave Standish a dry brisk handshake. “You have had a day of it, haven’t you? Care for a drink before we have the opportunity of feeding you? Splash of whiskey? Single malt? Something special, I promise you.”

  Standish never drank whiskey, but heard himself agreeing. Up close, Robert Wall’s face looked dusty with fatigue. Tiny wrinkles like razor cuts nicked the corners of his eyes and mouth. Wall grinned at Standish and turned away toward a pantry located behind a door at the bottom end of the table. Standish trailed after him. The size and splendor of the dining room both stimulated and oppressed him. Portraits of dead Seneschals frowned down from the walls, and wherever Standish looked he saw some unexpected ornamental detail: dental molding around the ceiling, the pattern of the parquet floor around the edges of the Oriental carpet, plaster rosettes around the light fixtures on the wall. The flatware set around his plate, and the plate itself as well as the rim of the wineglass beside it, were of gold. A golden plate! A golden fork, a golden spoon, a golden knife! The casualness of this opulence unsettled him, as if he had inadvertently stepped outside ordinary reality into the world of fairy tales.

  Behind the glass-fronted cupboard doors in the pantry stood ranks of the golden plates, and in the cupboard at the far end was an array of bottles. A narrow staircase like the one Standish had taken from his room led downstairs, presumably to the kitchen. Robert Wall took a bottle from the shelf and two glasses from another cabinet.

  “You said you lost a bet with yourself?”

  “Yes, I did,” Wall said, smiling at him as he passed back into the dining room. His obvious exhaustion and the tiny cuts around his eyes and mouth utterly negated his good looks when you were this close to him—he looked as though he were still recovering from a skin graft.

  Then for an instant Standish thought that Robert Wall did not look exhausted or ill but simply hungry, like a man who has never ceased to long for the great prizes that he has seen hovering, all his life, just out of reach; like a man who has never given up wanting more than he has decided to settle for.

  Wall eased past him in the narrow space of the pantry, and as both men emerged back into the dining room, Standish realized that it was he, not Wall, who was hungry—he was famished, ravenous as a starving wolf.

  Carrying the bottle and the short glasses, Wall went up one side of the table, Standish the other. Wall gestured toward the place that had been set, and Standish sat.

  “The bet was that you’d have taken the main staircase back downstairs, and come in here from the West Hall. You’re very intrepid, finding your way by the back stairs.”

  Wall poured whiskey as he spoke. He leaned far over to pass Standish his glass, and then sank gracefully down into his own chair. For a moment filled with dismay, Standish found himself wondering if Wall were married to the woman who had shown him to his rooms.

  Are you teasing me? For a moment he saw the woman’s hawk-like face looking up at him.

  “A woman showed me to my room,” he said.

  Wall nodded and raised his glass, giving Standish a look of vague disinterest. Standish took an experimental sip. The whiskey tasted like a rich smooth food. It was ambrosial. Wall was waiting for whatever he would say next. “The woman knew about the back staircase—that’s how I knew about it. Who is she, by the way? She didn’t tell me her name.”

  “Couldn’t say. You’re settled in all right?”

  “Dark hair, very long and sort of loose? Extremely good-looking? About my age?”

  “Mystery woman,” Wall said. “You really are intrepid.” He looked at his watch. “Your dinner should be ready in a moment. Just a question of warming it up. Do you like the malt?”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Excellent—intrepid and blessed with good taste as well. It is rather special—seventy years old.”

  “You mean you don’t know who she is?”

  “I tend not to have much to do with that sort of thing. You had a peaceful journey?”

  Standish described getting lost on the roundabout and miraculously finding his way to Huckstall, and the scene in the pub there.

  “I was thinking afterward that the whole thing was like an Isobel Standish poem—an Isobel Standish kind of experience, if you see what I mean.”

  “A pity you should have chosen Huckstall for your first excursion into English life, but it can’t be helped, can it?”

  “Are they famous for waylaying visitors?”

  “Not exactly. During dinner I’ll spin you a tale.” He glanced at his watch. “Where is your dinner? They should have brought it up by now. I expect they’re waiting for us to finish our whiskey even as we wait for them to bring your meal.” He stood up and went down the table and slipped through the pantry door. Standish heard him speaking to someone on the other side of the pantry door, then a low female laugh. Wall backed through the door with a tray in his hands. “Good job I didn’t startle her into dropping this. They’ve given you a meal with a bit of a history. Loin of veal with morel sauce, some green beans too, I see. I’ll open a nice bordeaux to go with that, shall I?”

  Standish nodded. The smell of the food on the tray made him salivate. Wall set the plate down before him, and it fit perfectly into the larger golden plate. Wall carried the tray to the pantry, and reappeared instantly with a bottle of red wine and a corkscrew.

  “I’ll join you, if I may. We could continue our conversation until you want to go to bed. I must be off tomorrow afternoon, so I won’t be here for a little time. Though I could have breakfast with you, if you like?”

  “Please,” Standish said, happy not to be abandoned to the dining room. He tried a small section of the veal, and a variety of tastes so subtle and powerful spilled into his mouth that he groaned out loud. He had never tasted anything even faintly like it. The cork came out of the bottle with a solid pop, and Wall poured deep red wine into his gold-rimmed glass. Standish swallowed, and the food continued to ring and chime in his mouth.

  “You know why you’re given veal with morels, of course?” Wall sat down on the other side of the table.

  Standish shook his head. He continued to eat as Wall spoke, now and then pausing to sip the wine, which was as extraordinary as the food.

  “Isobel Standish’s favorite meal.” Wall smiled at him. “When they heard that in the kitchen, there was no restraining them. We use fresh mushrooms, of course, and good veal can be had in the village. I’m happy you approve.” He paused, and the benign expression on his face altered. “So you knew nothing of Huckstall before you stopped there? Its fame has not crossed the Atlantic?”

  Standish shook his head. A circle of warmth in the center of his being was spreading outward millimeter by millimeter, bringing peace and contentment to every cell it touched.

  “Little bit of trouble there, earlier this summer,” Wall said. “Man killed his wife and her lover, then was killed himself. A publican.”

  Standish saw the stony, immobile face of The Duelists’ proprietor vividly before him, and the wonderful food congealed on his tongue.

  “Not much of a scandal by American standards, of course,” Wall went on. “But it made quite a splash here. The woman was pregnant. The husband chained them up in the cellar of the pub and tortured them for several d
ays. Finished up by decapitating both of them. The boyfriend was a prominent fellow locally, local poet, something of the sort. I didn’t mean to spoil your meal, Mr. Standish.”

  “No, it’s fascinating,” Standish said. “It reminds me so much of the people I saw there.”

  Wall looked pleasantly bemused.

  “In that pub, The Duelists.”

  “Ah.” Wall smiled indulgently. “See what you mean. Can’t remember the name of this fellow’s pub at the moment. Lord Some-body-Or-Other’s, I think. Couldn’t have been your place anyhow.”

  “Why not?”

  “Chap burned it down after he committed the murders, didn’t he? Completely off his head, of course. Excuse the pun, if that’s what that was. Anyhow, he put the heads in grips of some sort and tossed them onto a slag heap. Probably thought that no one would

  ever find them. Or didn’t care. His own life was useless to him anyway, wasn’t it? He jumped in front of a speeding car just outside the village. Have some more of that wine, won’t you?”

  Standish saw with astonishment that his glass was empty. He lifted the bottle and poured. Wall pushed his own glass forward and Standish stood up to pour for him too.

  “The impact killed him, but nobody discovered the body until the next morning—all busy fighting the fire, do you see? The pub went up like tinder. Danger the entire street might go up with it. And then of course after they’d put out the blaze they found the bodies, which had escaped most of the effects of the fire. Being in the cellar, you know. Oh!” His eyes flashed at Standish.

  “I’d forgotten—the chap, the boyfriend fellow, wasn’t the local poet. All part of the scandal. He had been important—not anymore. Fellow had been the librarian, something like that, headmaster perhaps, but had gone seriously downhill years before. Became a drunk. No job. Lived rough. Pub fellow couldn’t take the humiliation of being cuckolded by a virtual tramp.”

  Standish ate steadily while Wall spoke, in reality now only half-tasting the wonderful food.

  “This is a terrible tale for dinnertime, isn’t it?”

  “Not really,” Standish said. “When I was in The Duelists—”

  “I must tell you the rest. The next day, as I say, the body of the publican was found on the road. Man had been crushed by the car that struck him. Car was still there^ you see—driver’s door open, engine still running. No driver in sight. He had panicked and scarpered across the moor. Never knew he was innocent—never knew the whole tale.”

  “Didn’t they track him through his car?”

  “Rented. Fellow may have used a false name, as far as I know. He’s still running, I suppose.”

  “The man in The Duelists told me that someone had been murdered here.”

  “At Esswood?”

  “Yeah! An American, he said.”

  “That’s very odd.” Wall seemed entirely unperturbed. “I’m sure I should have heard of it. After all, I’m generally somewhere about the place.” He was frowning-smiling, the frown being a disguise for a smile. It was perhaps that most ironic expression Standish had ever seen.

  “I thought it sounded funny,” Standish said.

  “Can’t really think when we last had a murder.” Wall was nearly smiling outright. “And I’ve been around here most of my life. Your fellow had the name confused with Exmoor or something of the sort. You weren’t worried about it, I hope?”

  “Of course not. Not at all. Nope.”

  “You were clearly a good selection for an Esswood Fellowship, Mr. Standish.”

  “Thanks.” Unsettled by the flattery, Standish wondered if he should ask Wall to call him William. Would Wall ask to be called Robert?

  “Did you happen to peek into the library on your way through the back hallway? If I were in your shoes, don’t think I could have resisted.”

  “Well, not really,” Standish said, and Wall raised his eyebrows. “That is, to tell you the truth, I did try the door, but it was locked.”

  “I’m afraid that isn’t possible. The library doors are never locked. Could it have been another door?”

  “Near the bottom of the stairs?”

  “Hmm. No matter. Sounds as if it didn’t want to let you in. We may have to reconsider your application, Mr. Standish.”

  Now he knew he was being teased. He sipped his wine, and then met Wall’s continuing silence with a question. “You said you’ve been at Esswood most of your life. Were you born here?”

  “I was, in fact. My father was the gamekeeper before the first war, and we lived in a cottage beyond the far field.” Wall poured for himself and Standish. “In those days, what drew guests here to Esswood was Edith Seneschal’s hospitality and the fame of her kitchen, which as you see continues to be pretty good, but the pleasure they had in one another’s company and whatever they found to enjoy in Esswood itself kept them coming back. Their gratitude for that pleasure led them to contribute to our library—which is of course why it is unique. Every literary guest we had donated manuscripts, papers, diaries, notebooks, drafts, material they knew to be significant as well as things they must have considered nearly worthless. Of course, some of the latter have turned out to be among our most important possessions.”

  “Manuscripts and diaries? T. S. Eliot and Lawrence and everybody else? Even Theodore Corn—even Isobel?”

  “Oh, even Isobel, I assure you,” Wall said, smiling. “Especially Isobel, I might say. I don’t quite know how it began, but before long it had become a custom to give something of that sort to the house, as a token repayment for Edith’s hospitality, as an indication of one’s gratitude for Esswood’s beauty and seclusion. … It was part of coming here at all, to leave something like that behind when you left.”

  “That’s extraordinary,” Standish said. “You mean that all these famous people donated original manuscripts and diaries every time they came?”

  “Every year. Year after year. Isobel Standish came to Esswood twice, and I believe she left some very significant items for the library.”

  “And were these, um, donations, copies of more widely known works? It doesn’t sound—”

  “Nor should it. I think I’m right in saying that everything of that sort we have is unique to us. None of it can be published or reproduced elsewhere, except by arrangement. Those were the conditions that evolved, you see.”

  Standish felt as though he had licked his finger and pushed it into a socket. The place was a treasure house. Manuscripts of unknown works by some of the century’s greatest writers, early handwritten drafts of famous poems and novels! It was like coming on a warehouse full of unknown paintings by Matisse, Cezanne, and Picasso.

  Robert Wall must have seen some of his excitement in his face, for he said, “I know. Rather takes the breath away, doesn’t it. If you’re the sort of person who can appreciate it properly. Of course, you can see why we are very careful each year in selecting the Esswood Fellows—they have a great deal to live up to.”

  “Wow,” Standish said. “Absolutely.”

  “And that was its attraction for me too, I imagine. Apart from its being the only home I’ve ever really known. I went to school and then university, the Seneschals were always very generous when they felt generosity was called for, but I’m afraid I always felt a deep connection to Esswood. So after university I did my best to make myself indispensable, and I’ve been here ever since. Called up in the second war, of course, but I couldn’t wait to get back here. Still the gamekeeper’s boy at heart, I fear. And I do like to think I’ve helped Esswood move into the modern world without losing anything of its past.”

  Wall smiled at Standish. “That’s the thing, you see. The past of Esswood is really still quite alive. I can remember walking out past the long pond with my father one morning, and seeing Edith Seneschal, who seemed to me the loveliest woman in the world, wander toward me with a tall woman, also beautiful, and a stout, distinguished elderly gentleman, and introducing me to Virginia Woolf and Henry James. James was very old then, of course, and
it was his last visit to Esswood. He bent down to shake my hand, and he admired my coat. ‘What a lot of buttons you have, young man,’ he said to me. ‘Is your name Buttons?’ I was tongue-tied, hadn’t a clue what to say to him, just gawped up like a gormless fool, which he took awfully well. Later on in life, I read everything I could about them, James and Woolf, as well as all their work—I tried to learn everything possible about all our guests. Scholars included, of course. I see that as one of the essential tasks of running Esswood properly. We screen everybody pretty thoroughly beforehand, and try to get to know them even better while they’re with us. We want to be well matched with our guests. It won’t work as well as it should if it isn’t a proper mating. The people who come here must love Esswood.”

  Standish nodded.

  “But you see, I’m an advanced case. I love it so much I’ve never left.”

  “You’re a lucky man.”

  “I agree. It’s better never to leave Esswood.”

  Never to leave Esswood, Standish heard some unspoken message, a kind of silent resonance, in Wall’s last words. Even Wall’s posture, his head tipped back and his fingers wrapped around his glass, seemed to communicate the aura of an unspoken meaning. Then Standish realized at least one of the things Wall must have meant: he had been something like ten in 1914, and therefore must now be over eighty years old. The man looked to be somewhere in his fifties.

  “Esswood has been good to you,” he said.

  Wall smiled slowly, and nodded in agreement. “Esswood and I try to be good to each other. I think it will be good to you too, Mr. Standish. We were all very happy when we received your application. Until then it looked as though there might not be an Esswood Fellow this year.”

  “I couldn’t have been the only applicant!”

  “No, we had about the usual number of applicants.”