Penelope stepped out of the way as Carruthers yanked himself through the French window and back into the bedroom.
"Miles?" she asked, rather nervously.
Carruthers smiled. "Tell me, my dear, might you be willing to place your utter trust in me?"
Miles landed on a pair of mattresses stacked in the corner of a colossal library. Still panicking, he rolled on to the floor – knocking away the handful of matches that had preceded him as he did so – stood up and backed away, keeping his eye on the ceiling.
"Well, bugger me…" he muttered, "'the daring young man on the flying trapeze'."
The ceiling erupted in a splash of paintwork and Penelope appeared, landing on the mattresses as the ceiling re-formed behind her.
"Well, that was an experience," she said, tugging her curtain around her and shuffling to the floor just in time to avoid Carruthers, who dropped down behind her.
"Aha!" he laughed, "I must say it's much easier when there's three of you."
"Speak for yourself," Miles said. "It was bloody terrifying!"
"But you so expertly led the way for the rest of us," said Carruthers "You're much easier to follow than a lit match."
"He threw me off the damned balcony!" Penelope cried.
"Proving my excellent aim in the process," Carruthers added, climbing off the mattresses and gesturing around the library. "Pray welcome to my most literary camp!"
The library was ludicrously large. The walls were filled with books accessed from a huge brass and iron scaffold, with gantries every ten feet or so. Five stand-alone stacks – loaded with volumes on both sides – stretched away into the distance.
"There must be billions of books here," Miles said, "more than you would have ever thought written."
"They are very special books," Carruthers explained, taking him by the shoulder and leading him among the stacks. "This library specialises in biography." He turned and beckoned Penelope to follow them. "Come on, my dear, it's a fair walk yet, I'm afraid."
"Why don't you camp close to the mattresses?" Penelope asked.
"Miss Simons, there are many mattresses here. In my time here I have plotted twenty points of access into this room alone. In fact I am of the opinion that this library is central to the whole house, a hub if you will to its disparate chambers and corridors." They came to a junction in the stacks and he turned left, cutting into the next row. He pointed in the opposite direction. "Half an hour's walk that way would see you in the gargantuan landscape of the 'S's and the route to the kitchens but we are heading to the rows set aside for 'C'."
"'C' for 'camp'?" asked Miles.
"Ah, no, 'C' for 'Carruthers'."
"At least you'll never forget where you left your bed," Penelope joked
"There's a little more to it than that," said Carruthers, grabbing a book at random from the shelf next to them. The cover was plain, with the title in a heavy sans-serif font.
"'Madeleine Fauston'," read Miles. "Never heard of her."
"No reason why you should. Like most of the people here Miss Fauston will have lived a perfectly normal life, far away from the gossip columns and society parties. Her story, one imagines, will not be unlike many other volumes here: childhood with all its hope and promise, then the dissatisfaction and impatience of adolescence followed by the begrudging acceptance of maturity. Finally the disappointment of one's twilight years."
"You make life sound so joyful," said Miles, flicking through the book.
"Well, there are always exceptions," Carruthers replied. "One could hardly class the three of us as having conventional biographies; simply being here has scotched that. Still this library contains all of it, every single human being who has ever lived or will ever live, their stories condensed into one of these slender volumes. It is the ultimate social history of the world."
"And predictably you wanted to stick close to your own particular part of it?" asked Penelope.
"Well, naturally, my dear, there is very little to be constructively achieved in my current situation by reading someone else's history."
"But…" Miles was in shock at the scale of it. "How is it possible? I mean, how many books would you need to chronicle everyone?"
Carruthers gestured around them. "Why, this many, obviously."
Miles flicked to the end of Madeleine's book.
"Let me guess," said Penelope, "she dies."
"Don't spoil it for me," Miles replied with a smile.
"I wonder what it's for?" asked Penelope as they carried on walking.
"Indeed, my dear," said Carruthers, "that is rather the question, isn't it? This room provides an indubitable link with the world we have left behind. This house knows all our stories. I wonder what it might wish to do with them?"
"How far did you say the 'S' section was?" Penelope asked.
"A considerable trek, I am afraid to say. However, Miss Simons, there is more to this phenomenon than you yet know, as I shall illustrate once we reach camp. The answers one might expect to find in a book of one's life are not so easily found."
"You mean I can't read my book and find out the future?"
"Indeed not. But, please, allow me my theatrical whims and let us say no more about it until I can demonstrate with my own ghost-written memoir."
"If this room contains all of human history," said Miles, a new thought occurring to him, "then the house exists outside of time."
"Oh, indeed, surely that was already clear? I could tell from your vestments that you hail from an era alien to my own. What year was it when you left your natural world?"
"2009."
"Aha! Nigh on a century away from my own slice of the human clock!"
"It hadn't occurred to me," Penelope said, looking at Miles in a new light. "I was so distracted by everything else."
"And the outfit you were wearing at our first encounter was positively timeless," joked Miles. "What year are you from?"
"1933, a positive antique by your standards."
"I've always been rather at home with antiques."
"Charmer."
"It's true!" Miles laughed. "It was my business. That's how I got my hands on the box – it was part of my stock."
"For me it was a trek to a Himalayan temple," Carruthers said, "a journey of such arduous length I could scarcely conceive it would be the initial step in a far lengthier journey. A journey beyond imagining!"
"Well," said Penelope, "without wanting to rain on your parade, we've all made the same journey."
"Aye, you have a singular point," Carruthers sighed, "and neither are we three the only ones to have travelled this path."
"I meant to ask about that," said Miles. "How many other people are here?"
"Oh, do not be misled – as far as I can tell they are few and far between. I have met a handful of other individuals. In all cases the appointments were brief and not altogether pleasant. There is a terrifying young lady whose path I once crossed. Her mind was not the measure of her experience; she is quite, quite mad. I have heard her more often than seen her, howling great insanities in the night when the gas lamps grow dim."
"There's a nighttime?" asked Penelope.
"Oh, most certainly, the lighting is beholden to its own temporal whims. The entire house becomes black as pitch for several hours a day. It is during those hours that it is at its most deadly. You would scarcely countenance the beasts I have heard awaken at twilight."
"Oh, I think I could hazard a guess," replied Miles, thinking of the hostile taxidermy he had witnessed when first arriving. "Who else?"
"Hmm? Oh, there are two that weigh particularly heavy, though I am at a loss to say whether they are more or less fortunate than our shrieking banshee. I came across them in one of the dark spaces. A pair of young men, little more than boys… frightened out of their wits, running with no purpose in our direction through the darkness. The first, a blonde-haired lad with a Scandinavian look to his features, was obliterated swiftly by one of the wraiths. It descended upon him like the very hammer of God. One minute he was running, the next he compressed upon himself in a terrifying spectacle of splintered bone and distended muscle… Oh, my dear." He touched Penelope lightly on the shoulder. "You must forgive me, this is not a discussion for a lady's ears."
"My dear Carruthers," Penelope replied, "as I hoped I had made clear earlier, I have no desire to be treated with kid gloves. I have already experienced more than I would care to but have no doubt there will be worse to come. Let us hear the facts of it and to hell with misplaced sensitivity."
Carruthers nodded. "You are right, of course, but there is no need to dwell on detail. Suffice it to say the young lad must have perished instantly, for there was no recognisable body for him to inhabit after the creature had struck. As for his companion, he was not so lucky. The wraith dragged him high and low, swinging him in its imperceptible jaw like a terrier with a rat. I hazard to guess he took some time to die. It is to my certain shame that I did not loiter to find out."
"I don't blame you," said Miles.
"A kind sentiment but I feel sure the young lad may not have shared it. I should have, at the very least, attempted to aid him. As it was I was struck so fearfully by the sight of it that I ran – without the slightest glance over my shoulder – returning here to a coward's sanctuary."
"Surely you must know there was little you could do?" asked Penelope.
"Perhaps, but there is no nobility in logic. I left a man to die and that is that. But let us talk no more about it!" he shouted, returning to his jubilant self, "for we are arrived at my little home from home."
Turning around the corner of the stacks they were faced with a selection of tents that brought to mind a sheik's desert camp. They were constructed from bed-linen and curtains held aloft by a cat's cradle of ropes strung between the stacks. There was a large central area littered with cushions, a small camping stove and a pile of books. Behind that was another section that they guessed from the sheeted mattress that poked out of one corner to be a sleeping area. Behind another sheet, bunched and slung to one side like a curtain, was a stack of canned foods, Carruther's makeshift larder.
"You have been industrious!" said Penelope.
"Even in the most adverse circumstances there is no excuse for a gentleman not bringing order and civility to his environs. I even had the foresight – or, more honestly,
hope
– to construct guest quarters!" He pointed to beyond his own bed where a long strip of eiderdowns concealed further mattresses.
"I don't suppose," asked Penelope, "that amongst your home comforts you might possess something so welcome as a change of clothes?"
Carruthers smiled. "My dear lady, while I cannot offer anything approaching
Parisenne
fashion I am certain that I might be able to improve on your current sartorial misfortunes. The house is filled with supplies and I confess to having hoarded considerably. Avail yourself of whatsoever you desire from the third tent on the left while Miles and I transfer our attentions to dinner."
"I can't believe you've managed to gather so much stuff," said Miles as hacked his way into a tin of beef.
Carruthers lit the small gas stove and set the flame low. "The supply of provisions seems limitless. The kitchen is more modest in size than the library but its larder has the most peculiar habit of replenishing itself. Though I must warn you it's all rather tasteless, like an idea of food rather than the real thing. I suppose that is not surprising considering its unconventional and supernatural provenance. It fills the belly but there is little pleasure in it."
"That describes most meals I cook anyway so I'm not sure I'll notice. I don't suppose you might have found any cigarettes on your travels?"
"There is a case of cigars that I will gladly share after we have dined. Again, the tobacco satisfies not one jot but there is something wonderfully civilised about smoking after one's meal."
"Or before it?" Miles asked hopefully.
"Patience, my dear chap, it will take but a few moments to warm this unappetising fare."
"Fair enough," Miles replied, scraping the beef into a saucepan, wanting a cigarette more than ever.
"How do I look, gentlemen?" Penelope asked, stepping from Carruthers' wardrobe tent. She was wearing a gentleman's evening shirt and trousers a good two sizes too large for her. A decorative sash cinched around her midriff attempted to hide the voluminous folds.
"A vision, my dear!" Carruthers announced gallantly.
"It's an improvement, certainly," Miles added, stirring some peas into the beef to make a lazy stew.
"You damn me with your faint praise," she replied before holding up her feet, which were bound in pillowcases. "The footwear leaves a lot to be desired but there simply wasn't a thing that would fit."
"We are hardly trekking the Asias, my good lady," Carruthers reassured her. "Footwear is not the necessity it was on my previous expeditions. Now, while our supper warms, allow me to show you my biography." He strolled over to the pile of books and selected a large volume which he offered to Penelope.
"It's certainly better presented than the saga of Madeleine Fauston," she commented, opening it up and flicking through the pages.
"Perhaps," Carruthers replied, "but nowhere near as definitive. Peruse the last page and tell us what it says."
Penelope flicked to the back and began to read: "
'Carruthers lit the small gas stove and set the flame low.
"The supply of provisions seems limitless. The kitchen is
more modest in size than the library but its larder has the
most peculiar habit of replenishing itself. Though I must
warn you it's all rather tasteless, like an idea of food rather
than the real thing. I suppose that is not surprising consid
ering its unconventional and supernatural provenance. It
fills the belly but there is little pleasure in it.'"