THE WESTERN WING

Chapter 7: Night Rounds

On October 10, Marsh began to draw a house of his own.

He moved the 1891 elevation drawing to the corner of the desk, spread out a fresh white sheet, and started in pencil. The first version was three stories, a pitched roof, French doors on the seaward face. Halfway through he stopped, studied it for three minutes, and crumpled the sheet.

In the second version he moved the staircase to the middle, to let the light come down from above. Halfway through, he stopped again.

The problem wasn't that the drawing was bad. The problem was that with every stroke, a voice in his head said: this corner—how did the man in the journal handle it?

Copying a man is easy. He didn't want to copy. What he wanted was that rightness — the kind that lets a wall carry its load and still makes you want to lean against it.

At three in the afternoon he came downstairs with a tape measure, to measure the wall in the garden.

The east wing's wall ran from behind the wisteria trellis to the greenhouse, seven-tenths of it swallowed by ivy, the last three-tenths showing brick. Marsh pressed the end of the tape into the corner and walked it out thirty feet, stopping right at the foot of the gable c***k. He stepped back a few paces and crouched to study the mortar joints.

"Don't measure it."

Old Lou came around from behind the greenhouse, carrying a bucket of mortar.

"Measuring won't fix it," Old Lou said. "In the last ten-odd years, three people have come to measure. An engineer. A man from an insurance company. And one Sutton sent."

"Sutton's people came to measure?"

"Last fall," Old Lou said. "He brought two men and an instrument and measured the whole afternoon. When they left, the man said to me: 'This is a fine building.'"

"What did you say back?"

"I said the building wasn't mine." Old Lou set down the bucket of mortar. "He said: 'Maybe not yet.'"

Marsh stood up and looked at the c***k. It wasn't long—a little over three feet, running down from the cornice, forking at the midpoint.

"Old Lou, do you think it can be repaired?"

"It can," Old Lou said. "Three hundred and fifty thousand."

"How do you know it's three hundred and fifty thousand?"

"Miss Yvonne had it calculated," Old Lou said. "She's been writing that plan for three years. I've copied out two of the bid sheets for her."

Marsh was quiet for a moment. Suddenly he understood that Ben's sentence had a second half: when there's money, no one wants to repair; when someone wants to repair, there's no money; and when there is the will, both the money and the men have to wait for someone else to nod.

That evening he ran into Ben in the lobby. The old man was wiping the lid of the piano with a very old piece of flannel.

"Ben. I'd like to see those four pages."

Ben's hand didn't stop.

"Old Lou sent you?"

"He told me to ask you."

"Old Lou has better manners than I do." Ben folded the flannel. "The four pages are locked in the safe, and the key hangs around Ms. Chase's neck. To see them, she has to nod."

"She won't nod."

"She will," Ben said. "On the right day."

"What kind of day is the right day?"

Ben raised his eyes and gave him a look. The look was long—so long that Marsh felt he was counting something.

"This building has one day a year on which everyone must lower their head," he said. "That is a good day for speaking of old things."

That night he drew nothing at all.

At ten he switched off the desk lamp and sat down by the window.

The garden was empty. The path lights had gone out until only two remained, laying two faint white strips across the gravel. At ten three, a figure walked into the garden.

Vivian Chase. Dark cardigan, white hair, the small flashlight in her hand switched off. She walked unhurried, her heels striking the gravel once to a step.

Marsh counted. First lap, sixty-three steps. Second lap, sixty-three. Third lap, sixty-one.

On the third lap she stopped in the northeast corner for three seconds. There was nothing there—only a wall, with dead ivy on it. She stood, tilted her head back, and looked at what was above the wall.

Above the wall was the east wing. The wing that had been sealed nine years, nailed shut with boards.

She stood three seconds, turned, finished the third lap, and went inside.

Marsh sat by the window a long while longer. Then he turned the lamp back on and drew a plan of the garden in his notebook, her three laps as three lines. The three lines nearly coincided; only the three seconds in the northeast corner he marked with a small circle.

He worked it out: sixty-one steps, roughly a hundred and sixty-five feet around by his stride. Three laps, five hundred feet. Five hundred feet a day, for twenty years.

He put down the pen, and it struck him that the heaviest thing in this building wasn't inside the wall of the east wing. It was in the five hundred feet this woman walked every day.

Then he thought of Ben's sentence again: when there's money, no one wants to repair; when someone wants to repair, there's no money. He was beginning to suspect it had only been half the sentence.

At eight thirty the next morning, someone knocked.

Scarlett stood in the doorway, holding a tuberose. Freshly cut, the stem cut on the bias, the blade line perfectly clean.

"It's for you," she said.

"Who from?"

"You tell me." Scarlett handed it over. "She didn't say it was for you. She didn't even say give. She only said: take this to 407. The water gets changed every three days."

Marsh took the flower. There was still dew on the stem. Beneath the bloom a small slip of paper had been tucked, one line on it, written small and upright:

The water gets changed every three days.

"That's all it says?"

"That's all," Scarlett said.

Marsh looked at the slip of paper. Scarlett watched him look at it.

"One more thing you'd probably want to know," she said. "Last night, on my rounds, the door of her room on three wasn't quite shut. On the desk was a glass with a tuberose in it, cut on the same bias as yours."

"..."

"She changes the water every three days," Scarlett said. "I brought her milk for four years. I know it's every three days. She even used to mark the glass, afraid she'd forget."

Marsh said nothing. He lifted the flower to the window and held it against the light. The cut was fresh; the sap hadn't dried.

"What is this supposed to be?" he asked at last. "She won't even speak to me."

Scarlett looked at him for a while. Her expression was hard to read, like someone weighing whether a sentence should be said at all.

"Mr. Marsh, you probably don't understand the rules of this building," she said. "Here, when someone lets you go on changing their water, they've already said everything."

She left. At the head of the stairs she turned back to add one line:

"Don't put this one in your drawing tube. She'll know."

Marsh closed the door and put the flower into the glass. The one already in it had wilted; he took it out—the cut had gone brown, the edges of the petals curled. He couldn't bring himself to throw it away, so he pressed it into his notebook.

Then he picked up the slip of paper and weighed it down on the bottom corner of the 1891 elevation.

The slip was small. Once it was in place, one ink line of the drawing showed just past its edge. That line was the corridor of the east wing.

He looked a long time. Then he picked up the pencil.

This time he drew no three stories and no pitched roof. He drew one long narrow room, windows facing east, one corridor running to a corner, and at the corner a single window, to make the light turn a bend on its way in.

When it was done he stepped back two paces, looked at the sheet, and discovered something.

The room he had drawn faced, squarely, the wing that had been sealed nine years.

In the bottom corner of the drawing he wrote the date, and beneath it one small line: For a room that does not yet know where it is.

When he finished he sat there, and heard a window on the third floor being pushed open, then shut. The sound was faint, like someone confirming that the light below was still burning.

Marsh turned his desk lamp down a little, sat, and waited for that light below to come on again.

(End of Chapter 7)

Next chapter — Chapter 8: The Stone at the South Door. October 17, the one day the Grace takes no new guests; and Ben comes to Marsh carrying a flat wooden box: four pages the family cannot read, and he can.