Free The Honours by Tim Clare Page A

shelves’ glass doors. They were locked too. She peered at the tomes inside – tobacco- and scab-coloured spines, with crumbling gold-leaf titles in French and Latin and languages she didn’t know.
    A clatter made her spin round. She held her breath, listening.
    There. A scuffling, like a rat.
    The sound had come from behind the green armchair. The armchair squealed and growled as she heaved it aside.
    She had revealed a large object covered with dust sheets. She knelt. She felt dizzy. The sound had stopped.
    The dust sheets were grey and slightly clammy beneath her fingers. She bit her lip. She lifted a corner. She squinted. Wires? Her head was blocking the light from the room’s single bulb. She leant to the right.
    Voices.
    She dropped the sheet and leapt up. The words were muffled but the easy, baritone lilt was unmistakable.
    Propp was coming.
    She felt the walls closing in. What was he doing back so soon?
    Delphine threw her hands up, clutched at her hair. She caught her panicked reflection in the bookshelves’ glass doors and stopped.
    Mother had taught her to plant her feet firmly on the floor and take a deep breath whenever she felt overwhelmed. Delphine forced herself to hold still for a single inhalation. She breathed out.
    She could lock herself in.
    She ran to the door. The keyhole was empty. She must have left the key in the other side of the door.
    Propp’s voice was getting nearer. She heard him chuckle.
    There were no windows, no exits except back the way she came.She ran to the wardrobe. The doors creaked as she eased them open. She gritted her teeth. Propp’s voice in the corridor continued.
    The wardrobe was full. The bottom was heaped with packing cases. The hangers were thick with clothes – one side full of Mr Propp’s usual pinstripe suits and neatly pressed trousers, the other packed with plus-fours and little jackets and lots of male garments many, many sizes too small for him. She shut the doors.
    Propp was just outside the room.
    The fireplace! The hearth was spacious (Delphine had heard Dr Lansley loudly complain that the Hall’s ancient flues were too wide and lacked suction), the iron grate replenished with fresh kindling and logs. She could hide herself inside until he had gone. She was about to scramble in when she remembered she had moved the armchair. She grabbed it and began dragging it back into position.
    She heard Propp’s voice rise in surprise. He turned the key. The door locked. He rattled the door knob.
    Delphine ran to the fireplace and ducked under the lintel. She heard the bolt unlock. The chimney was broad and cool. Hidden behind the lintel, a raised brick platform curved out at chin height to form the base of the flue. She threw an arm up onto it. Her palm skidded in hard, crumbly dust. Ash rushed about her ears as the study door swung open. With a hop, she dragged herself up onto the smoke shelf.
    Pulling her legs up behind her, she remembered the tea trolley, shoved into a corner so she could reach the desk.
    She remembered she had left the light on.
    â€˜Come,’ said Propp. If he was shocked to find his room lit up, it did not show in his voice. ‘Please excuse mess. I write book. I stay very, very late. Ho – so cold! You like calvados?’ She heard the clank of the empty bottle. ‘Good for writing, good for dreams. Hmm.’ He made a noise in the back of his throat. ‘When we live, it is best to be awake. But when we must sleep, it is best to dream.’
    Delphine looked up. The flue was a black pillarbox, rising, rising towards a distant smudgy slit of light. It smelt like paint and liquorice. She could not see her hands, but when she smeared her thumb across her palm she felt a greasy layer of creosote.
    Hugging her knees to her chest, she listened to Propp’s heavy footsteps as he moved from rug to floorboards. What were all those wires connected to under the dust sheet? Why did he have a wardrobe