The Works of Clifford D. Simak Volume Two Page 27

The man took his feet off the desk, plopped them on the floor. Rummaging in a desk drawer, he came up with a key with a tag attached to it and threw it on the desk top.

  “Have a look at it and then come back,” he said. “This Ferguson business shouldn’t take more than an hour or two.”

  “Thank you,” said Latimer, picking up the key.

  He parked the car in front of the house and went up the steps. The key worked easily in the lock and the door swung open on well-oiled hinges. He came into a hall that ran from front to back, with a staircase ascending to the second floor and doors opening on either side into ground-floor rooms.

  The hall was dim and cool, a place of graciousness. When he moved along the hall, the floorboards did not creak beneath his feet as in a house this old he would have thought they might. There was no shut-up odor, no smell of damp or mildew, no sign of bats or mice.

  The door to his right was open, as were all the doors that ran along the hall. He glanced into the room—a large room, with light from the westering sun flooding through the windows that stood on either side of a marble fireplace. Across the hall was a smaller room, with a fireplace in one corner. A library or a study, he thought. The larger room, undoubtedly, had been thought of, when the house was built, as a drawing room. Beyond the larger room, on the right-hand side, he found what might have been a kitchen with a large brick fireplace that had a utilitarian look to it—used, perhaps, in the olden days for cooking, and across from it a much larger room, with another marble fireplace, windows on either side of it and oblong mirrors set into the wall, an ornate chandelier hanging from the ceiling. This, he knew, had to be the dining room, the proper setting for leisurely formal dinners.

  He shook his head at what he saw. It was much too grand for him, much larger, much more elegant than he had thought. If someone wanted to live as a place like this should be lived in, it would cost a fortune in furniture alone. He had told himself that during a summer’s residence he could camp out in a couple of rooms, but to camp out in a place like this would be sacrilege; the house deserved a better occupant than that.

  Yet, it still held its attraction. There was about it a sense of openness, of airiness, of ease. Here a man would not be cramped; he’d have room to move about. It conveyed a feeling of well-being. It was, in essence, not a living place, but a place for living.

  The man had said that it had been hard to move, that to most people it had slight appeal—too large, too old—and that he could make an attractive deal on it. But, with a sinking feeling, Latimer knew that what the man had said was true. Despite its attractiveness, it was far too large. It would take too much furniture even for a summer of camping out. And yet, despite all this, the pull—almost a physical pull—toward it still hung on.

  He went out the back door of the hall, emerging on a wide veranda that ran the full length of the house. Below him lay the slope of ancient birch, running down a smooth green lawn to the seashore studded by tumbled boulders that flung up white clouds of spume as the racing waves broke against them. Flocks of mewling birds hung above the surging surf like white phantoms, and beyond this, the gray-blue stretch of ocean ran to the far horizon.

  This was the place, he knew, that he had hunted for—a place of freedom that would free his brush from the conventions that any painter, at times, felt crowding in upon him. Here lay that remoteness from all other things, a barrier set up against a crowding world. Not objects to paint, but a place in which to put upon his canvases that desperate crying for expression he felt within himself.

  He walked down across the long stretch of lawn, among the age-striped birch, and came upon the shore. He found a boulder and sat upon it, feeling the wild exhilaration of wind and water, sky and loneliness.

  The sun had set and quiet shadows crept across the land. It was time to go, he told himself, but he kept on sitting, fascinated by the delicate deepening of the dusk, the subtle color changes that came upon the water.

  When he finally roused himself and started walking up the lawn, the great birch trees had assumed a ghostliness that glimmered in the twilight. He did not go back into the house, but walked around it to come out on the front.

  He reached the brick driveway and started walking, remembering that he’d have to go back into the house to lock the back door off the hall.

  It was not until he had almost reached the front entrance that he realized his car was gone. Confused, he stopped dead in his tracks. He had parked it there; he was sure he had. Was it possible he had parked it off the road and walked up the drive, now forgetting that he had?

  He turned and started down the driveway, his shoes clicking on the bricks. No, dammit, he told himself, I did drive up the driveway—I remember doing it. He looked back and there wasn’t any car, either in front of the house or along the curve of driveway. He broke into a run, racing down the driveway toward the road. Some kids had come along and pushed it to the road—that must be the answer. A juvenile prank, the pranksters hiding somewhere, tittering to themselves as they watched him run to find it. Although that was wrong, he thought—he had left it set on ‘Park’ and locked. Unless they broke a window, there was no way they could have pushed it.

  The brick driveway came to an end and there wasn’t any road. The lawn and driveway came down to where they ended, and at that point a forest rose up to block the way. A wild and tangled forest that was very dark and dense, great trees standing up where the road had been. To his nostrils came the damp scent of forest mold, and somewhere in the darkness of the trees, an owl began to hoot.

  He swung around, to face back toward the house, and saw the lighted windows. It couldn’t be, he told himself quite reasonably. There was no one in the house, no one to turn on the lights. In all likelihood, the electricity was shut off.

  But the lighted windows persisted. There could be no question there were lights. Behind him, he could hear the strange rustlings of the trees and now there were two owls, answering one another.

  Reluctantly, unbelievingly, he started up the driveway. There must be some sort of explanation. Perhaps, once he had the explanation, it would all seem quite simple. He might have gotten turned around somehow, as he had somehow gotten turned around earlier in the day, taking the wrong road. He might have suffered a lapse of memory, for some unknown and frightening reason have experienced a blackout. This might not be the house he had gone to look at, although, he insisted to himself, it certainly looked the same.

  He came up the brick driveway and mounted the steps that ran up to the door, and while he was still on the steps, the door came open and a man in livery stepped aside to let him in.

  “You are a little late, sir,” said the man. “We had expected you some time ago. The others waited for you, but just now went in to dinner, thinking you had been unavoidably detained. Your place is waiting for you.”

  Latimer hesitated.

  “It is quite all right, sir,” said the man. “Except on special occasions, we do not dress for dinner. You’re all right as you are.”

  The hall was lit by short candles set in sconces on the wall. Paintings also hung there, and small sofas and a few chairs were lined along the wall. From the dining room came the sound of conversation.

  The butler closed the door and started down the hall. “If you would follow me, sir.”

  It was all insane, of course. It could not be happening. It was something he imagined. He was standing out there, on the bricks of the driveway, with the forest and the hooting owls behind him, imagining that he was here, in this dimly lighted hallway with the talk and laughter coming from the dining room.

  “Sir,” said the butler, “if you please.”

  “But, I don’t understand. This place, an hour ago …”

  “The others are all waiting for you. They have been looking forward to you. You must not keep them waiting.”

  “All right, then,” said Latimer. “I shall not keep th
em waiting.”

  At the entrance to the dining room, the butler stood aside so that he could enter.

  The others were seated at a long, elegantly appointed table. The chandelier blazed with burning tapers. Uniformed serving maids stood against one wall. A sideboard gleamed with china and cut glass. There were bouquets of flowers upon the table.

  A man dressed in a green sports shirt and a corduroy jacket rose from the table and motioned to him.

  “Latimer, over here,” he said. “You are Latimer, are you not?”

  “Yes, I’m Latimer.”

  “Your place is over here, between Enid and myself. We’ll not bother with introductions now. We can do that later on.”

  Scarcely feeling his feet making contact with the floor, moving in a mental haze, Latimer went down the table. The man who stood had remained standing, thrusting out a beefy hand. Latimer took it and the other’s handshake was warm and solid.

  “I’m Underwood,” he said. “Here, sit down. Don’t stand on formality. We’ve just started on the soup. If yours is cold, we can have another brought to you.”

  “Thank you,” said Latimer. “I’m sure it’s all right.”

  On the other side of him, Enid said, “We waited for you. We knew that you were coming, but you took so long.”

  “Some,” said Underwood, “take longer than others. It’s just the way it goes.”

  “But I don’t understand,” said Latimer. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “You will,” said Underwood. “There’s really nothing to it.”

  “Eat your soup,” Enid urged. “It is really good. We get such splendid chowder here.”

  She was small and dark of hair and eyes, a strange intensity in her.

  Latimer lifted the spoon and dipped it in the soup. Enid was right; it was a splendid chowder.

  The man across the table said, “I’m Charlie. We’ll talk later on. We’ll answer any questions.”

  The woman sitting beside Charlie said, “You see, we don’t understand it, either. But it’s all right. I’m Alice.”

  The maids were removing some of the soup bowls and bringing on the salads. On the sideboard the china and cut glass sparkled in the candlelight. The flowers on the table were peonies. There were, with himself, eight people seated at the table.

  “You see,” said Latimer, “I only came to look at the house.”

  “That’s the way,” said Underwood, “that it happened to the rest of us. Not just recently. Years apart. Although I don’t know how many years. Jonathon, down there at the table’s end, that old fellow with a beard, was the first of us. The others straggled in.”

  “The house,” said Enid, “is a trap, very neatly baited. We are mice caught in a trap.”

  From across the table, Alice said, “She makes it sound so dreadful. It’s not that way at all. We are taken care of meticulously. There is a staff that cooks our food and serves it, that makes our beds, that keeps all clean and neat …”

  “But who would want to trap us?”

  “That,” said Underwood, “is the question we all try to solve—except for one or two of us, who have become resigned. But, although there are several theories, there is no solution. I sometimes ask myself what difference it makes. Would we feel any better if we knew our trappers?”

  A trap neatly baited, Latimer thought, and indeed it had been. There had been that instantaneous, instinctive attraction that the house had held for him—even only driving past it, the attraction had reached out for him.

  The salad was excellent, and so were the steak and baked potato. The rice pudding was the best Latimer had ever eaten. In spite of himself, he found that he was enjoying the meal, the bright and witty chatter that flowed all around the table.

  In the drawing room, once dinner was done, they sat in front of a fire in the great marble fireplace.

  “Even in the summer,” said Enid, “when night come on, it gets chilly here. I’m glad it does, because I love a fire. We have a fire almost every night.”

  “We?” said Latimer. “You speak as if you were a tribe.”

  “A band,” she said. “A gang, perhaps. Fellow conspirators, although there’s no conspiracy. We get along together. That’s one thing that is so nice about it. We get along so well.”

  The man with the beard came over to Latimer. “My name is Jonathon,” he said. “We were too far apart at dinner to become acquainted.”

  “I am told,” said Latimer, “that you are the one who has been here the longest.”

  “I am now,” said Jonathon. “Up until a couple of years ago, it was Peter. Old Pete, we used to call him.”

  “Used to?”

  “He died,” said Enid. “That’s how come there was room for you. There is only so much room in this house, you see.”

  “You mean it took two years to find someone to replace him.”

  “I have a feeling,” said Jonathon, “that we belong to a select company. I would think that you might have to possess rather rigid qualifications before you were considered.”

  “That’s what puzzles me,” said Latimer. “There must be some common factor in the group. The kind of work we’re in, perhaps.”

  “I am sure of it,” said Jonathon. “You are a painter, are you not?”

  Latimer nodded. “Enid is a poet,” said Jonathon, “and a very good one. I aspire to philosophy, although I’m not too good at it. Dorothy is a novelist and Alice a musician—a pianist. Not only does she play, but she can compose as well. You haven’t met Dorothy or Jane as yet.”

  “No. I think I know who they are, but I haven’t met them.”

  “You will,” said Enid, “before the evening’s over. Our group is so small we get to know one another well.”

  “Could I get a drink for you?” asked Jonathon.

  “I would appreciate it. Could it be Scotch, by any chance?”

  “It could be,” said Jonathon, “anything you want. Ice or water?”

  “Ice, if you would. But I feel I am imposing.”

  “No one imposes here,” said Jonathon. “We take care of one another.”

  “And if you don’t mind,” said Enid, “one for me as well. You know what I want.”

  As Jonathon walked away to get the drinks, Latimer said to Enid, “I must say that you’ve all been kind to me. You took me in, a stranger …”

  “Oh, not a stranger really. You’ll never be a stranger. Don’t you understand? You are one of us. There was an empty place and you’ve filled it. And you’ll be here forever. You’ll never go away.”

  “You mean that no one ever leaves?”

  “We try. All of us have tried. More than once for some of us. But we’ve never made it. Where is there to go?”

  “Surely there must be someplace else. Some way to get back.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “There is no place but here. All the rest is wilderness. You could get lost if you weren’t careful. There have been times when we’ve had to go out and hunt down the lost ones.”

  Underwood came across the room and sat down on the sofa on the other side of Enid.

  “How are you two getting on?” he said.

  “Very well,” said Enid. “I was just telling David there’s no way to get away from here.”

  “That is fine,” said Underwood, “but it will make no difference. There’ll come a day he’ll try.”

  “I suppose he will,” said Enid, “but if he understands beforehand, it will be easier.”

  “The thing that rankles me,” said Latimer, “is why. You said at the dinner table everyone tries for a solution, but no one ever finds one.”

  “Not exactly that,” said Underwood. “I said there are some theories. But the point is that there is no way for us to know which one of them is right. We may have already guessed the reason for it all, but
the chances are we’ll never know. Enid has the most romantic notion. She thinks we are being held by some super-race from some far point in the galaxy who want to study us. We are specimens, you understand. They cage us in what amounts to a laboratory, but do not intrude upon us. They want to observe us under natural conditions and see what makes us tick. And under these conditions, she thinks we should act as civilized as we can manage.”

  “I don’t know if I really think that,” said Enid, “but it’s a nice idea. It’s no crazier than some of the other explanations. Some of us have theorized that we are being given a chance to do the best work we can. Someone is taking all economic pressure off us, placing us in a pleasant environment, and giving us all the time we need to develop whatever talents we may have. We’re being subsidized.”

  “But what good would that do?” asked Latimer. “I gather we are out of touch with the world we knew. No matter what we did, who is there to know?”

  “Not necessarily,” said Underwood. “Things disappear. One of Alice’s compositions and one of Dorothy’s novels and a few of Enid’s poems.”

  “You think someone is reaching in and taking them? Being quite selective?”

  “It’s just a thought,” said Underwood. “Some of the things we create do disappear. We hunt for them and we never find them.”

  Jonathon came back with the drinks. “We’ll have to settle down now,” he said, “and quiet all this chatter. Alice is about to play. Chopin, I believe she said.”

  It was late when Latimer was shown to his room by Underwood, up on the third floor. “We shifted around a bit to give this one to you,” said Underwood. “It’s the only one that has a skylight. You haven’t got a straight ceiling—it’s broken by the roofline—but I think you’ll find it comfortable.”

  “You knew that I was coming, then, apparently some time before I arrived.”

  “Oh, yes, several days ago. Rumors from the staff; the staff seems to know everything. But not until late yesterday did we definitely know when you would arrive.”

  After Underwood said good night, Latimer stood for a time in the center of the room. There was a skylight, as Underwood had said, positioned to supply a north light.