Death in the Castle (6 page)

“How do you know she told him?”

“She couldn’t help it. Queen though she was, she fell in love like any woman. I daresay she fought her own heart, knowing she couldn’t—mustn’t—give herself into any man’s power. But her heart won. It makes me glad I’m nobody.”

“A beautiful little nobody!”

She laughed again. “I laid myself open, didn’t I—but you needn’t have taken notice!”

“I can’t help noticing.”

She pretended annoyance. “I shall have to stop talking altogether! There—it’s only a scratch, after all.” She walked away from him to the basin.

“No—no, please!” he said, following.

“If you keep teasing—” She was at the door now.

“Let’s get back to the subject of the castle,” he said. “Tell me more about it.”

She considered, lingering on the threshold. “The reason I went with you in the passages is because they’re quite dangerous, really—”

“Haunted, too?”

“No, but they lead to dungeons, I told you—and an underground river.”

“Oh, come now—that’s too perfect! It’s what castles dream of having—dungeons and underground rivers.”

“It’s quite true. I could show you—”

“I want to be shown, I warn you!”

“And there’s one window in the east tower that no one’s ever been able to find the room to—”

“How do you know there’s a room if no one’s been able to find it?”

He was teasing again, but she was serious. She forgot herself, she walked toward him and came close, half whispering, her eyes enormous. “There was a big party here once, in King John’s time, and they hung ribbons from every room, but there was one window with no ribbon to it—there’s always been that one window!”

“Oh, come now!”

“It’s true,” she insisted. “There was a book in the library about the castle that told everything.”

“I must see that book.”

“Ah, it’s been lost this long time—no one knows how. But my grandfather’s seen it.”

“If we take the castle apart, we’ll discover its secrets.”

“No—no, oh please, no! I don’t want to know its secrets.”

He was surprised to see her little face suddenly so troubled. “Tell me,” he was serious now, “are the
they
that Lady Mary talks about part of the secrets?”

Kate did not look troubled now so much as she looked frightened. “That’s not for me to say, Mr. Blayne.” Then she had command of herself. Lifting her head, she gave him a formal little smile as though determined not to allow friendship. “I must get back to Lady Mary,” she exclaimed. “She’ll be wondering what’s become of me.”

She left him, standing alone in the Duke’s room, and walked quickly along the winding stone-floored passage. In spite of her moment of panic, she felt inexplicably cheerful. She began singing under her breath. How wonderful life was, first frightening people to death and then making them feel that somehow things would be all right.

“Please do forgive me,” she said, as she all but ran into the small sitting room.

“You’ve been a long time,” Lady Mary remarked.

“It was the American, my lady. He asked ever so many questions about the castle.”

“Questions, Kate, are to be answered tomorrow in the presence of our solicitors,” Sir Richard reminded her gently.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Now, go with her ladyship to her room. She should have been in bed an hour ago. It’s been a wearying day.”

“Yes, Sir Richard.”

By ten o’clock the next morning they had gathered in the great hall, Sir Richard and Lady Mary, John Blayne and his lawyer David Holt, a smooth-shaven middle-aged man, slim and self-contained. Philip Webster was the last to arrive, but his presence was immediately felt. He was a short, stoutish man wearing no hat, a shaggy figure in wrinkled brown tweeds with a pipe in his mouth.

The moment he entered, Lady Mary turned to him and clasped her hands in piteous appeal. “Thank God, you’ve come, Philip.”

Sir Richard turned to John Blayne. “My solicitor, Mr. Philip Webster of London. Webster, this is the—the American gentleman with whom you have had correspondence, I believe,”

“And my lawyer, David Holt of Haynes, Holt, Bagley and Spence,” John Blayne supplied.

Philip Webster removed his pipe, shook hands with John Blayne, and bowed without speaking to David Holt. Then he exploded to Sir Richard. “I say, Richard, what the devil is that gang of young men doing out by the gate? They drove in in a sort of shooting brake kind of thing just after I arrived. I asked them what they were about and they said they’d come to take measurements of the castle preparatory to removing it—as if it were a hen house or something!” He paused, then aware of the silence around him, exclaimed, “I say, what’s wrong?”

Sir Richard did not reply for an instant. Pain had begun stabbing at his temples and he waited for it to abate. When he spoke, it was with his usual calm, but his manner was remote, as though be were not a part of what was taking place around him. “We’re in a predicament, Philip, a sorry sort of business, and I don’t quite see—I’m sure you didn’t mean to deceive me, Philip, but the thing is very—” He looked at Lady Mary.

She was shaking her head.

“I’m afraid the sale can’t go through, Philip, but what we shall do—”

“It’s quite impossible,” Lady Mary said. She was trembling slightly as she clasped her hands together. “But then, everything’s impossible these days.”

“What
is impossible, Lady Mary?”

“They want to take the castle away and to a place I cannot even pronounce. Really, that’s the most impossible thing I’ve ever heard of, and I shall never understand how you could think it possible. Philip, I simply cannot—”

“By Jove,” Webster exclaimed, “the men were right then! But it’s incredible. And, of course, I agreed to no such thing. How could I imagine anyone’s taking the castle to America? What next! It’s mad, quite, quite mad—”

John Blayne came forward, his hand outstretched and holding the letter.

“It’s not mad, really. We’re quite accustomed to moving large buildings to where we want them.” With quiet precision he placed the letter flat on the table for anyone to read.

No one made a move to look at it. No one spoke.

“I’m very sorry for all this, Mr. Webster,” John Blayne went on. “It’s simply one of those misunderstandings that seem to arise between continents these days. Please read this. It’s my letter. You should have had a copy, but I supposed that of course Sir Richard would have shown it to you.”

Mr. Holt spoke. “I was afraid of this, Blayne. I distrust informality.”

“Very dangerous,” Webster added.

John Blayne gave him a quick glance, half impatient, half humorous. He was about to speak, but Mr. Holt prevented him by speaking first. “Mr. Webster is right, the situation calls for negotiation.”

“Very dangerous otherwise,” Philip Webster remarked, pleased that his point had been made.

John Blayne turned to Philip Webster and waited while the letter in question was carefully read.

“It’s really not the sort of thing that ordinary individuals should undertake, you know,” Webster said, pursing his lips and shaking his head. “Only lawyers should handle this sort of thing. Of course, my clients are quite right, too. It’s impossible. We English don’t export our castles, you know.” He turned to Sir Richard. “There’ll be litigation, I’m afraid. It may be very nasty. One never knows. But we’ll have to go through with it.”

Lady Mary, who had sat nervously twisting her fingers, rose with a sudden graceful movement from her chair. “I think at this moment, gentlemen, we could all do with a cup of tea.” She went to the bell pull on the wall and jerked it vigorously. Down through distant corridors the jangling could be heard.

When Wells appeared, she asked him to send Kate with tea for them all. “We are five, Wells,” she announced, as if she could not trust the old man’s eyesight.

“Very good, my lady.” He turned quickly and left the room. Aware of what the meeting was about, he was not willing to have them see the tears he could not control and that were already finding their way down his time-worn face.

During the interlude the two lawyers remained silent and watchful.

“There won’t be any litigation,” John Blayne said. “I certainly shan’t force Sir Richard against his will. However,—well, here’s the check for the agreed sum—one million dollars, just to prove that I came in good faith.”

There was a small gasp from Lady Mary. Kate, coming in with the tray of steaming teacups, looked up at John Blayne. Their eyes caught each other’s for an instant of time.

“The letter is a commitment, Mr. Blayne.” David Holt’s words were measured. “And I must remind you also that you have already spent fifty thousand dollars, that you have engaged two ships, that you—”

Webster interrupted bluntly. “The letter wouldn’t stand up in an English court of law, sir.”

“We are Americans and deal in American law, sir,” Holt retorted.

“My client is an Englishman, sir!” Webster rejoined.

“Being an Englishman doesn’t excuse him from what a letter says in plain English,” Mr. Holt declared, “especially since I have a letter in our files accepting our proposition.”

“And I maintain he can’t accept what he doesn’t understand,” Webster insisted.

The American lawyer persisted. “We have already brought over a group of architectural experts. Our technicians will soon follow. Vast plans have been made and contracts assigned. This was done following your letter of acceptance. The damages will be costly if everything must be canceled.”

Webster dashed his pipe on the floor and ran his stubby hands through his reddish-gray hair until it stood in a curly tangle. “Try it, sir, just you try it! It’ll be Agincourt again, I daresay, but remember who won! The castle’s on English soil.”

“Stop this!” The imperious voice was John Blayne’s.

They stopped. Before their eyes he tore the check into small pieces and let the pieces flutter to the floor. Then he took the letter from the table, folded it into its envelope and handed it to Sir Richard.

“This is yours, Sir Richard. Do with it as you will. I didn’t come here to bargain. I came with one simple purpose—to find a beautiful way to show great paintings by great artists. I wanted them to hang where people could see them—yes, my people—Americans—I wanted to share the paintings with them instead of having them locked away in a vault like so much gold bullion. I suppose you wonder why—”

“Please, gentlemen,” interrupted Kate, “your tea!”

“Yes, yes,” Lady Mary exclaimed, her voice shrill with excitement. “Draw your chairs up to the table and let us partake of—of—”

“One of the most civilized of all pursuits,” David Holt said gallantly, raising his cup toward her as he would have raised a glass of champagne in toast.

They drew their chairs up to the table. Kate moved around, offering them milk and sugar.

“Yes,” Sir Richard said, stirring the sugar in his cup but looking at John Blayne, “I think you have made us wonder why.”

John looked around the great hall—first at the tapestried walls, then at the faces of the people drawn up to the table. “Perhaps it’s because I feel some sort of guilt, though I do not expect you to understand what I mean. My father is a wealthy man. His fortune was made in ways that—well, that seemed best to him. My mother was a different sort of person altogether …” He hesitated.

“A charming woman,” David Holt said reminiscently.

“I think,” John Blayne went on, “that I want to make a return of some sort for all that he …”

“Does your father know about this idea of yours?” Sir Richard asked.

“Of course, Sir Richard, and he thinks it sheer folly. But, to be quite honest with you, my father and I have rarely agreed on anything. We quarrel at least every other day.”

“There!” Philip Webster spluttered.

“But, when I reminded him that since I was administering the Foundation—and he had asked me to, mind you—I must do things my own way.”

“But why this way, pray?” Sir Richard demanded. “To spite your father, perhaps—because he wants to build something of his own?”

John Blayne got up from the table, walked away restlessly and as restlessly back again. “I don’t want to spite my father—I’m fond of him, and we both loved my mother in our different ways. No, I want the castle because it’s the right idea. Great paintings can only live in an harmonious atmosphere. Our museums are crowded. I want my museum—well, harmonious. There’s an old Chinese saying—Lao-tse, I think. Someone asked him if a certain task was being done properly and he said, ‘The way is a way, but it is not the eternal way.’ This castle—it’s stood in England for a thousand years. It’ll stand there in Connecticut for thousands more when we are all dead—the paintings safe forever and living for the joy of the generations we’ll never see. Can you understand how deeply I feel about buying something as beautiful as this castle, this bit of England? I’m English myself, by ancestry.”

Lady Mary nodded as if, against her will, she understood. Kate, too, nodded but the men remained grim-faced.

“I remember how my mother bought the paintings. She didn’t know about art at first—she could only feel it. Then as she grew to love it, she began to understand and to know. One day she bought a Fra Angelico from an old Italian in Venice—he was using it as a board to display his fish. She didn’t know it was valuable—only that it was beautiful. She never did care about the money value—that was one of those things my father couldn’t possibly understand. She told me—it was one of the last things she ever said—‘John, take care of my treasures.’ And I
will
take care of them, I want them to
be
—not only for the sake of my mother, but for the sake of the artists who created them. My mother understood those artists—she knew what they wanted to say. She’d sit hours before a painting, drinking it in. There’s little enough left of that sort of pure love in the world today—or of any sort, maybe. I shan’t give up my idea, Sir Richard! If I can’t have this castle I’ll find one somewhere in England!”

He turned to Philip Webster. “Sorry, sir, the deal is off.”

“I can’t approve, John,” Mr. Holt said.

John Blayne smiled. “I’ll meet you at the inn before we go back to London.”