The Bog by Michael Talbot

actually live.
    She bit her lip, withholding her final assessment until she had seen more. “It looks like it could use some work,” she snipped.
    David was unabashed. “Wait until you see the inside.”
    They got out of the car, Ben, Tuck, and Katy piling out like spilled marbles.
    “Wow!” yelled Katy as she stood and gazed with amazement at the cottage. Both Tuck and Ben, being less receptive to such aesthetic considerations, took advantage of the moment to run off some extraneous energy and bounded off in opposite directions.
    David opened the gate in the old stone fence that surrounded the house, which creaked loudly. “Got to take care of that,” he commented.
    They went into the cottage. Melanie then realized that because of its simple design the cottage had seemed deceptively small from the outside. It was really quite vast. Before them was a cavernous entrance hall, lofty and heavily raftered with huge balks of age-blackened oak. To the left was a large living room with a huge, old-fashioned fireplace dominating most of one wall, and at the end of the entrance hall a beautifully balustraded staircase led upstairs. As she surveyed the place she took in more of its details, the high, thin windows of old stained glass, the oak paneling, the stags’ heads on the walls. She also noticed that everything, the heavy and lugubrious furniture and the long-disused torcheres, was covered with a thick layer of dust.
    “Does it have indoor plumbing?” she asked.
    “It’s old, but it works,” David replied. He flicked a switch and an ancient chandelier clicked on overhead. “It also has electricity.”
    She looked at him truculently. “It better have.”
    “Come on. I want to show you the rest of the place.” They proceeded through the remainder of the house, the huge kitchen and full pantry, the gun room and den, and the five large bedrooms upstairs and servant’s bedroom downstairs. And everywhere it was the same. The cottage had once been magnificent, a story-book dream. It was conceivable that it could be so again. But it was in a staggering state of neglect. Everywhere Melanie looked there were things to be done, wallpaper to be rehung, carpets to be washed, grass and weeds to be cut, door hinges to be tightened, and runner boards to be renailed. And every place one looked in the old and rambling edifice there was an almost endless amount of dusting and scrubbing to be attended to.
    They ended up in the kitchen, gazing out the back door of the house at an overgrown vegetable garden and still more unkempt lawn.
    “Well, what do you think?” David asked.
    She didn’t know what to say. She knew he wanted her to be happy, but she also knew on whose shoulders the brunt of the housework would fall. Instead of taking the bull by the horns she chose to be evasive. “How much did you say the Marquis whatever his name was, was willing to rent the place for?”
    “That doesn’t matter. A pittance.”
    “Have you given him the money yet?”
    “Not to him directly. I gave it to the vicar, Mr. Venables. He functions as the Marquis’s agent.” Melanie felt a sinking feeling. She thought to herself, so there’s no backing out then. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the house. A part of it tugged at her romantic soul. She was about to turn to her husband and force a smile when she noticed that the windows in the kitchen were composed of an almost uncountable number of little leaded glass squares, each one a grimy nightmare of a cleaning job.
    Suddenly Tuck and Ben charged into the kitchen, a bit of yellow fluff from the catkins of the willows caught in Tuck’s brown hair. “Mom, I’m thirsty.”
    “Then go get your cup out of the car and I’ll give you a drink.”
    Tuck reappeared moments later with the requested cup. Melanie turned the tap on and was pleased at least to see that the water that came out of the ancient spigot was cold and crystal clear.
    She gave the glass of water to her son and then turned