Death in the Castle (7 page)

David Holt nodded around the table, picked up his briefcase and quietly left the room. John made as if to follow, then paused, bit his lip and put out his hand to Webster. “Good-bye! You’d have put up a good fight—but there won’t be a fight. You’ve won without it.”

“I’m very happy if it is so, Mr. Blayne. You’re a rarely generous opponent—rare, indeed.”

“Not at all—not a fighter, perhaps. My father’s the fighter. One’s enough in a family, I daresay. But I won’t have a beautiful plan spoiled by quarreling. Good-bye, Sir Richard—Lady Mary! You belong here, both of you. You’re part of the castle and all it means to England—and to the rest of us in the world. … Miss Wells—”

He did not put out his hand for Kate and she noticed. Not for anything would she put out hers to him, then. She lifted her head and met his eyes straight. A glint of a smile came into his frank eyes. “Your frog will be safe, now. He can sit on his lily pad for the rest of his life.”

He was loath to go, and he lingered, smiling at them with unconscious wistfulness. He liked them. They were people whom he could trust, people secure enough in themselves, even though they belonged to another age, not to fear wealth and its power. He was drawn to Sir Richard and Lady Mary with an affection which surprised him and warmed him. And Kate—he called her that to himself—she somehow belonged to these two in a way he did not yet understand, and he wanted to understand. She had a sturdy grace, a healthy beauty of her own. He could not explain her. Nor, for that matter, could he explain his own curiosity. There was something appealing in her smallness, perhaps, a delicacy that made her air of self-reliance and competence amusing. She was an unselfish little creature, her hair a tumble of natural curls, and her face without makeup, a refreshing contrast to the young women who populated his environment somewhat too thickly. He felt that even his father might agree with him about Kate if he could ever meet her; agree with him, for once, and be willing to put Louise aside.

Lady Mary rose from the table. “Surely we have not finished talking?” She looked from one to the other questioningly. “There must be a great deal more to be said. We can do it over luncheon. Mr. Blade must be starving.”

Sir Richard rose to stand beside her. It was sweet, John Blayne thought, watching them, how when one took a stand the other came to the same spot. He would always remember them, side by side in ancient splendor. It was an achievement to grow old with splendor.

“If you will excuse me, Lady Mary, I think that I must join my men and Mr. Holt at the inn. The shift of events may have made them a little uncertain.”

“But you will return for dinner? And surely you will spend the night again?”

“Yes, indeed,” Sir Richard added, “you must stay the night, Mr. Blayne.” Then he bent toward Lady Mary. “Not
Blade,
my dear.”

John Blayne hesitated and in the hesitation Wells entered.

“Your car, Mr. Blayne, shall I bring it around?”

“Yes, if you will, Wells, but—” He looked from one to the other while avoiding even so much as a glance at Kate. How far did he dare to allow himself the luxury of enjoying this English warmth? It occurred to him, as he stood in the vast old hall with the sunlight shining through the high mullioned windows set deep in the thick stone walls, that it had been a long time; not since his mother died had he been aware of simple human warmth. “I will return,” he said, smiling at them all.

Philip Webster enjoyed his luncheon as only a victor can. “Well, we won,” he exclaimed for the third time, “and no one can say that it wasn’t a dangerous situation. They could have sued us for breach of promise, Richard, though I’d have fought to the end for your sake.”

Sir Richard turned on him, his heavy eyebrows bristling. “Are you telling me that I broke my word? I never break my word.”

“No, no,” Webster said hastily. “Good God, it’ll never do to get you into a point of honor, Richard! There’d be no end to that. I’m only thinking of the future. What shall we do next? We’re exactly where we were before all this began.”

Lady Mary sighed. “A prison or an atomic plant—that’s the choice, isn’t it? It does seem a castle that’s been the very root of England could be used for something in between, don’t you think? But there’s not to be any betweens nowadays, somehow. I can’t think why. Isn’t there someone you could telephone to in London, Philip? The Prime Minister or Chancellor of the Exchequer or someone—”

“I might try the National Trust again. One never knows when there’ll be a change of heart,” Webster suggested.

“By all means,” Sir Richard said. “You should call them every day, twice, at least. Those fine arts chaps are always tea-drinking and forgetting what’s practical.”

“I’ll try again,” Webster said, “and I’ll do it now.”

He ambled out of the room.

Sir Richard looked after him gloomily. “I must tell you, my dear, that I question whether Philip can handle the matter. I believe he quite regrets there being no lawsuit. It would have given him a chance to write endless papers no one could understand and brief barristers in front of everybody in the court, you know, and spout the stuff that lawyers can spew out on a moment’s notice. They’re all actors, in my opinion, and no more reliable when it comes to facts. They’re always harking back to precedents that other lawyers have made for centuries past.”

“I’m sure he could never find a precedent for selling a castle to—What’s that place, Richard?”

“I can’t pronounce it.”

Lady Mary sighed. “ ‘Connect-i-cut,’ I think? Fancy having one’s castle moved to a place one can’t pronounce!”

“Well, but Webster’s right on one count, you know, my dear. Our difficulties are profound. You know the only private offers we’ve had in spite of all the advertising—a boys’ school and an insane asylum. I simply won’t mention the prison, or the atomic plant. They wouldn’t use the castle for those, they’d raze it to the ground. All those scientist chaps want is empty space—a bit of a desert, as I told you. Our English scientists dream of equaling the Americans—those splendid deserts! Fancy a thousand acres of desert here in England!”

She heard this with horror, her fascinated eyes, still childishly blue, upon his face. “You could put in the bill of sale that they musn’t,” she suggested. “You know you’ve always said that the castle wasn’t to be changed. That’s why that American millionaire from Hollywood wouldn’t buy it. He said he’d put in central heating and American plumbing and you said—”

“Never mind, my dear. Americans always want to change things. At least there’s this to be said for this Blayne chap—”

“John—”

“Ah, yes, yes—John, you know—he wants to put the castle up exactly as it is. Has he said anything about central heating?”

“No, he hasn’t. Nor plumbing.”

“As to plumbing, one wouldn’t want baths in a museum though Americans seem to want them everywhere. But the idea of moving the castle? I agree with his father, it would be sheer folly—Why doesn’t he move Connecticut here?”

Kate entered the room with a bowl of tulips which she placed on the table. “Lovely, aren’t they, my lady? And they’ve come so fast on the daffodils, as if everything about the castle wanted to look its best this spring.”

“You sound quite pleased,” Sir Richard said.

“And why not? You did manage well, Sir Richard dear! When the American saw how you felt about the castle, he knew he was honor bound to yield. He is honorable, don’t you think?”

Only when she saw that her gaiety did not serve to cheer them did she realize their state of mind. They were sitting quietly, Lady Mary with her hands folded in her lap, and Sir Richard with his knees crossed. Their faces were grave, their eyes far away, looking as though they were not even listening to her.

“Whatever is the matter, my own dears?” she inquired tenderly.

She knelt impulsively before Lady Mary and chafed her narrow old hands, thin little hands, Kate always thought, like small plucked birds.

“We are very badly off, Kate,” Sir Richard said. “Nothing is any better, really.”

“How would you like to see the castle made into a prison?” Lady Mary asked mournfully.

“Ah, but it can’t be that bad,” Kate said. “You’re just tired, the two of you, and I can’t blame you. I’m exhausted myself.”

“I shall have to keep my word to this American,” Sir Richard went on. “Even if I broke it—which I am not willing to do, mind you—I’d have to be talking to someone else in a week from now, and about something else.”

She rose to go to him, but he would not be comforted.

“No, no, Kate,” he groaned, pushing her away. “You don’t understand. No one does. I must be by myself for a bit.”

And he lifted himself out of the deep armchair and went from the room.

She returned then to Lady Mary, and drawing up a footstool, she sat down at her side. A dying fire burned under the chimney piece but in spite of it the room seemed chill.

“Is it really so desperate, my lady?” she asked.

“It is,” Lady Mary said and sighed. “And what worries me most, Kate, is what
they
will say.”

“I’ve thought of that, too.”

Sometimes when they were alone, Kate leaned her head against Lady Mary’s knee, as though she were a child again. She did so now and felt Lady Mary’s hand smoothing her hair. She took the gentle hand and laid her cheek against it. “We’ve always respected
them,”
Lady Mary went on. “We let
them
move about at night, even when it keeps us awake. And nothing can stop those bells! If we worry about
them
so much, one would think
they
could do a little worrying about us, now wouldn’t one?”

“If
they
know,” Kate said. “Yet how can
they
help us even if
they
do know?
They
may be far more helpless than we think, poor things! It’s all a matter of waves, I sometimes fancy!”

“Waves?” Lady Mary repeated vaguely.

“Like the wireless, you know, my lady. No wires, nothing one can see, but the voices come in. Only we don’t have something in ourselves that we can turn on. Perhaps
they
try all sorts of ways to break through to us and can’t.”

Lady Mary seemed not to be listening. “If only
they
could help us to find a treasure hidden somewhere,” she mused. “Of course Richard says it’s nonsense because all castles are supposed to have treasures hidden in them by ancestors, but if it’s always supposed to be so, perhaps sometimes it is so.”

“Maybe King John would tell us, if I got up early when the bell rings.”

She spoke half playfully and Lady Mary did not answer for a moment. When she did her voice was grave.

“Kate, are we mad, do you think?”

Kate kissed the hand she held. “Certainly not. Did you ever make anything up out of your head, my lady?”

“Never,” Lady Mary said fervently. “Never, never! One of
them
always told me.”

“Then
they
do get through sometimes and we must simply try our best to get help from
them,”
Kate said.

She rose to mend the fire and put on a log. When she spoke again her voice was carefully indifferent. “Too bad the American came here with such a stupid idea! He’s rather nice—and not at all stupid, really.”

She broke off with a laugh. “That frog—so amusing!”

Lady Mary stared at her open-mouthed. She was about to inquire why the laughter and what about the frog, pray tell, but the look on Kate’s face silenced her. What was happening? There was more than amusement in that look. There was tenderness.

… Sir Richard reined in his horse and gazed over his fields. A faint mist had all but obscured the sun since noon, but as the afternoon hours lengthened, the mist had burned away, and the sun shone full upon the enlivened landscape. It was a fair sight, the fields green with early corn and his good Guernsey cows grazing the rolling meadows. In the distance a cluster of roofs showed the village, and here and there a few trees sheltered a cottage for a farm family.

How eternal the landscape! Fields, meadows and forests were his by the divine right of ancient kings long dead, but who before they died had bequeathed this part of their realm to William Sedgeley, his ancestor. He was proud of the fact that he looked like William. Even as a boy his mother had said, “Richard looks so much like Sir William. I wish we’d named him William.” The portrait of William hung over the chimney piece in the ballroom, a tall slim man on horseback, his head held high. There was royal blood somewhere in the Sedgeleys—hidden, of course. A rumor, spoken only between the generations, hinted that William had been the lover of a queen and had taken their son secretly at birth to be reared among his own children, an eagle among pigeons. The story must be true, else why would the castle, a royal seat, have been given to the Sedgeleys?

And above all, how explain himself? He had known long ago that he was no common man even among his peers. Proud he had been called, even arrogant, “that haughty young chap,” they had said of him at Oxford, and the phrase had stung until he had told his father.

“And quite right,” his father had said complacently. “You’ve every right to hold up your head. You’re Sedgeley of Starborough Castle, and the rest of them are upstarts by comparison.”

And yet, with all his pride, he was not free. He had the tenants—they had him! They were like their kind everywhere in the world, asserting not their independence but their dependence. The power of the weak! They were children, who demanded without thought of giving. Kings were their slaves as all rulers were slaves of the ruled. The people were the tyrants, the discontented, dissatisfied, greedy, stupid people. If he had been an ordinary man, earning his living, even someone like Webster, would he be harried and oppressed as he was now, his conscience a burning coal in his breast because he felt responsible for his tenants as a king for his subjects? He groaned aloud. Intolerable burden laid upon him because he was born in a castle, the son of his father, heir to all the responsibilities of a kingdom! Well, it was a sort of kingdom—bigger than Monaco!

Musing thus as he did so often, Sir Richard now heard shouts. At the end of the winding road ahead he saw a ragged cluster of farmers waiting for him. There they were, wanting something again, he thought with deepening gloom, without the sense to know that the world as they knew it, and as their fathers before them had known it, was about to come to an end.