Death in the Castle (12 page)

“There must he treasure in the castle,” Lady Mary was saying. “In all these centuries someone must have hidden jewels or silver and gold. Those kings and queens!
They
know where it is.
They
will guide us to it, if we only believe
they
will.”

What could she say? She rose and stood looking at Lady Mary and smiled half sadly. Then she put out her hand. “Come, dear,” she said tenderly, “it must be nearly time for your dinner. The gentlemen will be waiting, and I must change my clothes. My grandfather does not like me to be late.”

They walked arm in arm to the door. There Lady Mary paused and turned to look back. “Put out the candles, Kate. They cost two shillings apiece—those great wax candles!”

She went on her way while Kate, obeying, took up the heavy silver snuffer and snuffed out the candles, one by one. The great hall sank into darkness and she stood lost in its shadows, listening, feeling. The wind had risen after sunset, the wind that had rain in it, and now it moaned as it circled the towers and swept through the keep. There was no sound of human voice or footstep. Believe, Lady Mary had said, believe and help will come. But how does one compel belief and if compelled, is it true? She bent her head and clasped her hands together tightly under her chin and stared into the darkness.

“Help us,” she whispered. “Please, all of
you,
any of
you,
someone!”

She waited a full minute and longer until she could not bear the sound of the lonely wind. There was no answer. Her hands dropped and she walked through the darkness toward the door that led upstairs to her room.

… In the small dining hall the three then waited for Lady Mary. It was a pleasant room at night, the crimson curtains drawn, a fire in the chimney piece, and the table lit for dinner. A silver bowl of rose-red tulips stood between tall silver candlesticks, and the tablecloth of Irish damask gleamed. Wells was serving sherry, and the men sipped their wine as they stood about the fire.

John Blayne held his glass to the light. “Liquid gold! How long have you had this, Sir Richard?”

“I haven’t replenished the cellars since the war,” Sir Richard replied.

“If the cellars are full of this sort of thing, you needn’t sell the castle,” Philip Webster said, and smacked his lips.

“Ah, but they’re not full,” Sir Richard retorted. “They’re all but empty, like everything else.”

“I suppose you haven’t thought of selling the other treasures,” Webster went on.

“No,” Sir Richard said shortly. “I haven’t the right.”

“Who but you has the right?” Webster countered.

“There are other inhabitants,” Sir Richard replied.

John Blayne lifted his handsome brows. “You mean—”

“I mean the figures of history,” Sir Richard said.

“Not ghosts?” Webster asked, half teasing.

“The great dead,” Sir Richard said gravely.

Lady Mary stood at the door, a graceful slender figure in her silver-gray gown. “Have I kept you waiting?”

“No, my dear,” Sir Richard went forward and took her hand with old-fashioned grace. “We’re having a drop of sherry and making idle talk.”

He pulled out her chair for her and took his own place at the head of the table.

“You’re at Lady Mary’s right, Mr. Blayne—Philip at her left.”

They sat down and Wells served the soup from a tureen on the buffet. John Blayne looked about the room.

“Where’s Kate?”

The silence was broken by Wells saying apologetically, “She will be here presently. Something made her late this evening. I am sorry, my lady.”

Webster tasted the soup, then tucked his large linen napkin into his collar and said briskly, “Excellent soup, Lady Mary.”

“Yes, Wells does nicely with his soups. I believe he uses bones,” Lady Mary said. She supped her soup daintily, barely touching the old silver spoon to her lips. In the glow of the candlelight her pale face was faintly pink and her eyes were mystic.

John Blayne pursued the subject of Kate with dogged determination. “Kate is a sort of secretary, isn’t she?”

“Quite indispensable whatever she is,” Lady Mary said gently.

“Also quite beautiful,” John Blayne suggested.

Wells turned to face the table. Without looking at any of them, as remotely as though he were introducing a stranger, he spoke.

“My granddaughter is the maid, sir.” And with the announcement, he left the room.

“I am glad you two gentlemen are to stay the night,” Sir Richard remarked as though he had not been listening. “I never like to discuss business after dinner. It will be much better in the morning—especially as the day has been somewhat exhausting.”

“Always a pleasure,” Philip Webster said.

“Thank you, Sir Richard,” John Blayne said. “You know, I haven’t had a look at the castle yet. I’d like to have a real tour—not for any business reasons but simply because it’s the most enchanting place I’ve ever seen—enchanting and enchanted, I’m sure that anything could happen here.”

Lady Mary leaned forward, her face alight. “Do you really think so? Then it can. It’s all a matter of belief—what the good book calls faith. I assure you, I have myself seen—”

“Please, Sir Richard.”

Kate was at the door. She had changed into her black dress, with trim little apron and cap. She had brushed her hair freshly and washed her face in cold water. John Blayne saw her standing in the dark doorway and could not take his eyes from her. Last night he had accepted her attire as that of someone playing a part; tonight it annoyed him. He found himself in rebellion against the indulgence of class distinction. In America, Kate would have made her own way whatever her family connections might have been.

“There’s a call from New York,” she was saying. “I think it’s Mr. Blayne’s father again, sir.”

He got to his feet and dropped his napkin on the table. “My father? I can’t imagine what more he has to say to me—he said everything an hour ago. Do excuse me, Lady Mary.”

Lady Mary looked startled. “Oh, of course—but fancy hearing someone speak across the sea!” She watched the two young people disappear into the dark passage, then continued. “Richard, I can’t think why you feel it’s strange I hear
them
speak, from beyond, especially when someone far away can speak to us here in the castle, no wires or anything connecting—and he a perfect stranger and an American, at that!”

“I don’t think anything is strange, these days,” Sir Richard said absently.

Wells entered with roasted grouse on a silver platter.

“Delicious!” Webster exclaimed. “My favorite game. But it’s not in season.”

“If you please, sir,” Wells said firmly. He served the small birds and dipped bread sauce on each.

Webster laughed. “Very well—I won’t ask. A man has a right to his own grouse.”

“I won’t have poaching, Wells!” Sir Richard exclaimed.

“No, sir,” Wells said. “That’s what I told the poacher when I took the birds away from him.”

“You should have given them over to the game warden, Wells,” Lady Mary said reproachfully.

“We may as well eat them as the game warden, I daresay,” Webster said cheerfully. “At least now that they’re here.”

“Yes, sir,” Wells said and left the room again. They ate in silence for a moment. Webster took a delicate bone in his fingers and nibbled the meat with relish and put the bone down again and wiped his fingers on his napkin. “I must tell you, while our guest is out of the room,” he said, “that I have made one more desperate effort for the castle as a national treasure. Castles are aplenty—did you see the advertisement last week in the
Times?
A castle with two hundred and fifty rooms and ten baths to let for a shilling a year—and upkeep, of course, which is twenty thousand pounds. True, there aren’t many castles a thousand years old. I haven’t much hope, yet there’s a straw of a chance, I’m glad you asked Blayne to stay over, Richard.”

“I feel sure something will happen,” Lady Mary said. Webster picked the tiny bird clean and now sat back to wait for the joint. “What, Lady Mary, can possibly happen?”

“Something will happen,” Lady Mary repeated. Her gentle blue eyes were remote, a faint smile moved her lips. She had only toyed with the bird on her plate and now she gave up pretense of eating. The diamond rings on her restless hands glittered in the candlelight as she put knife and fork together on the plate. “I have faith that it will,” she said.

“It may, indeed,” Sir Richard said absently. “It is quite possible—the divine right of kings.”

Webster looked from one old face to the other in amazement. “Is there something here that I don’t understand?”

Neither of them replied and Wells entered with the joint, set the tray on the buffet and began delicately to carve large, thin slices.

“Mr. Webster likes his beef rare, Wells,” Lady Mary said.

“Yes, my lady,” Wells replied. “I know, my lady.”

“Oh, you always know everything, Wells,” Lady Mary complained.

… In the library, John Blayne held the receiver as far as possible from his ear and Kate stood in the doorway, laughing softly to herself.

“Listen to him,” he muttered catching her eye.

“I can’t help hearing him,” Kate replied. “You should have said nothing to him about putting the museum here. He’ll have an apoplexy. It was naughty of you when you don’t really want it here yourself.”

John Blayne bit his lip and winced as the relentless voice roared on.

“What do you mean by hanging up on me, damn you? I haven’t been able to get you back to tell you. You’re out of your mind. You oughtn’t to be allowed to go around alone, Johnny! I wouldn’t let those paintings out of the country—not for nothing! I shan’t give them to anybody, either, not even to the Metropolitan—I paid good money for them! I’ll cancel the Foundation first.”

John Blayne glanced at Kate again and swung his arm round and round, windmill fashion, pretending to wind up his courage. Then he bellowed into the telephone.

“My turn, Dad! Hear this—I’m talking! I agree with you! … How’s that? Yes, I said I agree with you. Ah—”

He gave a gust of a sigh as silence fell and went on again. “Yes, I know you don’t know what to make of it … I agree with you, but for different reasons. Not because you paid good money for them, though money is always good. Not because it’s wicked to give anything away because it isn’t … Yes, I’m saying I agree with you! … Yes, and I agree with you because I want people to see the pictures every day and all day long, including Sundays and holidays, and that’s why I want them kept in Connecticut, as near as possible to several great cities, and with good roads coming and going, and comfortable chairs to sit on where people can rest and look at the same time. And people can’t come here, so we won’t bring the paintings here—What’s that? Are you having a thunderstorm there in New York? … Oh, you’re just telling me to shut up! … All right, sir. Good-bye—but with love. … Hear that, Dad? I’m signing off—with love, Johnny!”

He hung up and burst into loud laughter. “Oh God, what a parent—what an irrepressible, inextinguishable, lovable old devil of a parent!”

His eye caught the picture of her again standing there in her incredible costume. He put his hands in his pockets to keep them safe and sauntered toward her. “I have an idea.
You
can help me!”

She looked up at him, her face shining with laughter.
“Can
I isn’t the question. It’s
will
I—”

“Ah, but you will—you must!”

“If I must, I must, I suppose—but still only if I wish!”

“Then persuade Sir Richard to let me have the castle, Kate—and you with it!”

“Me—like a piece of furniture?” She had stopped laughing.

“I could never get the castle together again without you,” he said. He saw the look on her face, doubting, puzzled—wounded?—and went on hastily. “You can be a special consultant or something—anything you like.” She drew back a step.

“I’ll pay you,” he said, following her. “I’ll pay you anything you want.”

“Pay me?” she repeated. “You couldn’t pay me … I’m not for sale … any more than the castle is. Oh no, you don’t know me at all… I’m not in the least… what you think I am.”

She walked away from him across the dim room to the window and he stood staring after her and saw for the first time the smooth white nape of her neck, under the feathery dark curls. But what had he said to make her angry? The moon had risen, an early moon, doing its best to show through the low scudding clouds; its pale light fell upon her in the huge dimly lit room. She turned to face him.

“You have no conception of the castle and what it means,” she said earnestly. “This is a world, this castle! It’s not stones and furniture—it’s history, lived by people. You can’t buy history or move it to a new country. You can’t buy the people who have lived in it nor can you move them. … You’re a merchant after all, Mr. Blayne. You have no feelings. Lady Mary is right. One has to feel before one can know. You only know what you can count and see, but she knows much, much more. She has an influence here. And there must be another way.”

He kept his distance, watching her. How strange she was! Who was she? Not the English girl he had been with an hour ago, not the girl laughing at him even a few minutes ago! How had he lost her?

She turned away again to the window and looked at the moon. He came to her side and saw her face pale and beautiful and remote. Whoever she was, he could never forget her now. He was half afraid of her, drawn to her, yearning to touch her, to have her back again, and yet he knew he could not unless and except by her own wish. Did she herself know who she was? A foundling perhaps, a child of royal blood left here somehow, not belonging to Wells—oh, certainly never belonging to Wells. There was not the slightest resemblance to him in this pure profile, this slender grace of her small head held so proudly.

“Please go away,” she was saying. “Go away and leave us to our castle and to our times. Leave us above all to ourselves! We have lived here a long time in peace and loneliness. Go to your own new country where you belong and let us stay here in our old country where we belong.”

“Kate,” he said, “Kate, are you dreaming too?”