Death in the Castle (17 page)

And then she saw Lady Mary, waiting where she had been left, in the stone corridor to the dungeon and she ran to her. Lady Mary did not move. She sat with her hands palms up on her lap, her eyes half closed.

“Wake up, my dear! … I’m back. Everything is quite all right. … And it’s nearly morning.”

She was rubbing Lady Mary’s cold hands as she spoke. She smoothed back Lady Mary’s silvery hair. There was no answer from the still figure, sitting on the damp stone ledge, her head drooping on her breast.

“God save us,” Kate whispered in sudden terror. “Have
they
killed her for wanting help from
them? …
Lady Mary, can you hear me, darling?”

Lady Mary did not answer, but Kate knew that she could bear.

“Help me,” Kate whispered, looking about her. “I’ll have to carry her somehow.”

She put her arm under Lady Mary’s shoulder and supported her as she walked.

“Ah, me,” she said under her breath. “She’s so light—no more than a ghost herself. Oh, this wicked old castle—oh dear, oh dear—I wish—indeed I wish—”

And sighing and fearful, she helped Lady Mary back to her room and laid her on the bed.

… At breakfast the next morning Wells was his usual imperturbable self as he presided over the serving dishes on the buffet. Sir Richard sat with remote but kingly mien at his end of the table. Philip Webster was chipper as ever. Lady Mary was not in her usual place as she was being served by Kate in her bedroom.

The sun was streaming brilliantly into the great hall, its bright beams falling on gray stone floors and tapestried walls. Windows were wide open and even the door that led out to the garden. Spring air sweet and fresh was flowing through the castle. John Blayne had begun to wonder if the previous night’s experiences had been dreams, after all. But no, he reminded himself, he had been given fragments of a story that had taken place within these very walls, a story that might be as meaningful to him as ancient events were to Sir Richard and Lady Mary.

“Mr. Blayne,” Sir Richard had said when they first met at the breakfast table, “I have been endeavoring to decide what will be the best thing for me to do for my realm—my tenants, that is. Until my decision is clear, you may call in your young men and proceed with the measurements you wish to have made.”

“I’m certainly glad to have something for them to do, Sir Richard. They’ve been fretting a bit down at the inn.”

“Better be busy, even if it comes to nothing, than drink ale all day and listen to gossip,” Sir Richard said.

A quick series of telephone calls was made and before an hour had passed, the rooms of the castle were alive with the four young men busily coming and going. With coats off, sleeves rolled up and collars loosened, they moved about their tasks efficiently and excitedly. Now they were men with a purpose, men with pencils and papers, huge sheets of paper, foot rules, tapes, and blueprint maps. A surveyor squinted through his telescope and checked against a measuring line. A draughtsman recorded his finding in a large notebook. Among them moved John Blayne with calm assurance and brisk commands. He was cheerful and resolute, his chin outthrust, his dark eyes alert. The absurdities of the night were past.

“The glass panes must be counted, numbered to each window, the window to each room, against the time when they’ll be packed in cotton. We’d never be able to duplicate that glass.”

“We’re going full steam ahead, whatever the decision is,” he said to his men. “If we have to stop, we’ll stop. If not, then we’ll be that much ahead. I’m paying you, don’t forget! Well, then, on with the job.”

He was enjoying himself, that was obvious. Nothing suited him better than carrying on some huge enterprise with a purpose, and the purpose now was enhanced by the mystery of Kate. He kept watch for her but she had not yet appeared. Five more minutes and he would go in search. He took off his coat and tie, and the morning wind rumpled his hair and sent stinging red blood to his cheeks. He had never felt better and he shouted his orders and interlarded them with jokes.

“If you find one of those ghosts they are always talking about, attach a note to him as to where he belongs. We’ll put him back in his hole again if he gets to Connecticut. Keep them all happy, that’s what I say, even the ghosts … If she’s a queen, let me have a look at her first! … Easy there, Johnston! These mullioned panes of glass aren’t meant to look through—they’re valued as diamonds.”

In the midst of the banter and the bustle he heard a small scream from the swinging doors into the great hall. He looked up and saw Kate, her hands pressed over her mouth.

“Come in,” he called. “Come in, Rose of the morning!”

She advanced on him slowly, looking very pretty, he noticed, in a blue linen dress and a little ruffled white apron.

“What on earth are you doing?” she demanded.

“Whatever you see,” he replied with an easy smile.

“What I see,” she said distinctly, “whatever it is, all of it, has got to stop—this instant!”

He squinted an eye along a ruler he held up to a window. “Now why,” he said pleasantly, “why do you shout at me when you know that I hear the slightest sound, the creeping footsteps of a mouse, the rustle of a bird’s wing, the whisper of a girl’s voice, the whimper of a ghost—”

She stopped his nonsense by stamping her foot. “Tell your men to clear out of the castle!”

“When I’m paying them handsome dollars to work here? Come now—” He scribbled some figures on a sheet of paper on the table.

“If you don’t, I will,” she declared.

He smiled and went on writing and she clapped her hands. The men stopped what they were doing to look at her.

“Men!” Her clear flutelike voice rang through the spaces. “Will you kindly leave at once?”

“Do we go?” One of them turned to John Blayne.

He did not look up. He was adding the figures down a long column and waited until he had the total. “Certainly not,” he said then. “I have given orders, haven’t I?”

The men went on with their work.

Out of the corner of his eye John Blayne saw Kate approach him. She came to his side and spoke into his right ear. “I shall go to Sir Richard this instant.”

He replied in pretended absence of mind, his mind on figures, it appeared, and his every sense aware of her, the fragrance, the beauty. “Why didn’t you go to him in the first place?” he said calmly. “Always go to the top, is what I advise. No use jumping on me—I don’t own the castle, you know.”

She tapped his shoulder with her forefinger. “You’ll come with me, please!”

He straightened and looked at her, innocence in his eyes. “Why should I? I’m not stealing the castle, either. I’m not even behaving as though I meant to—I’m just keeping my men busy. Whatever I’m doing, it’s all cleared with Webster. I’m within my rights.”

His look, so gay, so impudent, was unbearable. She opened her mouth and closed it, unable for the instant to say a word and then began to stammer, “You—you—I’ll—I’ll have you know—I’ll show you—I’ll—”

“Take it easy, little Kate,” he said.

She gave up, stifled by fury, and while he laughed at her, she ran like a child across the room and into a great hall in the direction of Sir Richard’s library and knocked on the door. There was no answer. She laid her ear against the oak panel and listened, then opened the door. He was not there.

She ran down the passageway to his bedroom. He might still be asleep—it had been such an odd night, with everyone awake at some time or other. She threw open the door of his bedroom. He was not there. Where was Wells? He would know—and now she ran to the kitchens and the pantry to find him. The two of them must be gone somewhere. Sometimes they did go wandering about like two old hounds—No one knew where. But Wells was not to be found, either. There was nothing then to do but to go to Lady Mary.

She tiptoed to the door and opened it. Lady Mary was still resting in her bed. Under the canopy of faded rose silk she lay upon her piled pillows, her delicate profile clear, the white hair flowing back from her pale face, a film of lace upon her head and her hands folded on her breast. At the sound of the door opening on its heavy hinges she opened her eyes and sat up.

Kate ran to the bedside. “Lady Mary, dear! Whatever is it? You’re pale as a ghost. What have you seen now?”

“Why did you wake me?”

Her voice was strangely sad, and Kate was put to confusion. “I was looking for Sir Richard, my lady. These Americans are taking over the castle. They’re everywhere at once. I told him—”

“He?”

Kate took her listless hand. “Your hand’s like ice, my lady. The American, John Blayne … I said, ‘You must all leave at once.’ He paid not the slightest heed, my lady, and so I told the men myself to leave but of course they didn’t obey me and I was trying to find Sir Richard, but he’s not to be found, and I ran here to tell you. You must speak to them, my lady—really you should—the way they’re behaving as though—did you hear me, my lady?”

A strange gray glaze had come over Lady Mary’s eyes. She sank back on her pillows and stared into the tattered canopy above her head.

“It would be best, perhaps,” she muttered. “I’m not sure, after what I—It’s not possible except that I did hear—quite clearly, you know, Kate, while you were so long gone, last night—I’m not imagining—or—or—dreaming or any of those things—two voices—no voice I’d ever heard—mumbling like an old old man, ‘They will kill Richard the Fourth … well hidden here’—and the other voice—oh, such an old trembling voice trying to be brave—‘never betray you, Sire.’ Sire! That’s only for a king. What king, Kate?”

“I don’t know, my lady,” Kate faltered.

“You don’t know,” Lady Mary repeated slowly. “Nobody knows. But I heard those voices—sad, sad old voices—coming from far off somewhere in the walls, Kate. …
They
can hide in the walls, you know.
They
don’t have bodies, poor things—Oh, do let’s go away from this castle, Kate—or let the castle go away from us!”

She gazed at Kate in pleading, and Kate saw tears welling into the kind and piteous eyes. “Ah now, my lady,” she said, coaxing. “You’ve been nightmaring, dear—it’s all because of the old silly tales you’ve heard for so long. You don’t feel well, that’s what. I shall call the doctor—your head’s hot and your hands are cold.”

She took Lady Mary’s thin wrist between her thumb and finger. “And your pulse, it’s racing, my lady. Have you a chill?”

Lady Mary turned her face away on the pillow.
“They
can’t help us, Kate,
they’re
thinking only of
themselves
—remembering—that’s all—remembering—remembering—Perhaps it’s the only way
they
live now. There’s only the past for
them
—no future. Of course there’s no future—”

She’s raving, Kate thought, or she’s really seen something—Ah no, and nonsense! The room was oppressive and it seemed dark for such a fine day. She put down the slender hand she was still holding and went to the windows to draw the curtains farther back. The morning sun streamed through the ancient glass in broken prisms of color.

“It’s such a day, my lady,” she said cheerfully. “See the lovely sunshine! I do think the way it comes in colors through the glass is so pretty, don’t you? I shall fetch some tea for you, and buttered toast. You’ll feel better when you’ve had a little more to eat. It was a night, wasn’t it! And today not much better—those Americans!”

She busied herself about the room as she talked, straightening the silver brushes on the toilet table, folding the silk dressing gown Lady Mary had dropped on the chaise longue, picking a leaf from the worn Aubusson carpet—the wind, doubtless, in the night—

“If you could see them, my lady,” she went on, “climbing about the castle like—like mountain goats! I’ve never seen mountain goats, of course, but you’d laugh—really you would. Two of them are walking the battlements, measuring. I’d like to see them fall in the moat! They do take over, don’t they? Americans are so beastly healthy—full of eggs and bacon, I daresay, and beefsteak, and those alphabetic vitamins they’re always talking about! You shall have an egg for your breakfast this morning, my lamb. I left an order in the hen house yesterday. There’s such a wise old hen there. An egg, if you please, I said, and she looked at me with one eye and then the other—and went to the nest at once, the darling.”

She glanced at the bed as she talked. There was no sign that she was heard. Lady Mary lay staring into the canopy, motionless, her hand lying where it had dropped. Suddenly she gave a convulsive start. She sat up and looked at the east wall. Her hands flew to her cheeks and she moaned.

Kate ran to her side and poured water from the silver decanter into a tumbler. “Here, my lady—drink this! Yes, indeed, you must. Stop looking at the wall, my lady. … What do you see there? Tell me—tell me—”

She tried to pull her hands away, but Lady Mary was rigid. Kate put down the glass.

“I’ll have to—I’ll find Sir Richard, I’ll be back in a minute, my lady, I promise.”

Lady Mary neither spoke nor moved and Kate ran out of the room into the passage that led to Sir Richard’s room. No use looking for him there—but she glanced into the open door nevertheless, and to her astonishment she saw him sitting now at the table by the open window. He was dressed in his usual tweeds, his hair neatly brushed, his face calm.

“Sir Richard!” she gasped. “Where did you come from? It was only a few minutes ago I was here.”

He did not reply.

She came toward him. “Did you hear me call? You didn’t answer—”

“You forget yourself, woman,” he said sternly. “How dare you come into my room without permission?”

These were his words, spoken in cold, even hostile tones, and Kate could not believe what she heard. He looked so usual, so much himself, and yet this was certainly not he.

“I wanted to tell you—I thought you should know—they’re taking the castle and Lady Mary is ill—very ill—and—and—”

He got to his feet. “Where is Lord Dunsten?”

“Lord Dunsten?”

He pushed her aside. “Get out of my way, stupid woman!”

He strode to the door and shouted. “Dunsten, come here!”

As if he had risen from the floor, Wells was suddenly there. And an instant later Lady Mary had slipped from her bed and Kate saw her standing in the door as Wells entered from the door opposite. She stared from one to the other, these three people, the ones she knew so well and scarcely recognized now.