Death in the Castle (19 page)

… In her own room Kate sat down and wept. She was out of breath and tired and bewildered. It was a tower room, the western tower, a circle of narrow windows and a small fireplace set low in the gray rock walls. It had once belonged to a maid-of-honor, a very young one, whose home had been in Wales and who, because she was lonely, had hanged herself one night from the broad beam in the center of the ceiling. No one had missed her and it had been days before they thought to look for her. Megan was her name, and Kate had thought of her often, had wondered how she looked and whether there was another reason than loneliness to make her want to die. Perhaps her mistress had been cruel, perhaps she had been in love, perhaps—perhaps—but who knew?

It seemed to her now that she understood how it was that Megan had died in this little room. Perhaps she too had sat weeping on this very stool of oak set by the chimney piece. She was not herself quite ready to die but she wanted to weep and did weep now with long, satisfying sobs until she could no more. Then she got up and washed her face and tidied her hair and after that she opened her chest of drawers and made everything in them neat. This done she sewed on two buttons that had fallen from her wool jacket and mended a rent in her black silk slip. She could think of nothing more to do then, and she opened the door and listened to know how they were managing in the castle without her. Silence was all she heard, and after listening for a moment she tiptoed down the circular stairs and slipped across to the great hall where there was plenty of noise and bustle, John’s voice asking questions, demanding, arguing, contradicting; other voices replying.

“We must provide an incentive,” he was saying. “What, for example, could we do here after the castle is gone? How could the land be used most profitably?”

“You’re providing incentive in the cash sum you’re offering, aren’t you?”

The voice belonged to David Holt, the tall gray-haired man in a neat business suit. He sat at a long table beside John and they were studying figures from a big black book.

“I want a project,” John went on. “Cash is no good these days. Something to keep people at work and earning would be the thing.”

One of the young men stopped by. “Know what, Mr. Blayne? Under three feet of topsoil this whole hill is clay! Cement works is the answer. Rebuild all these old huts. Look at the way they did Park Avenue at home! Steel and glass and cement! Handsome.”

John laughed. “Another New York? Isn’t one enough?”

“You could make a park, Mr. Blayne,” another young man sang from the opposite side of the hall. “Disneyland, England! They need something to make ’em laugh, in my opinion. Public recreation.”

“Jot down the ideas, Holt,” John said to the lawyer. “I’ve been thinking myself of a model farm. That wouldn’t spoil the landscape. Milk parlors, silos, everything. It’s developed country you know, but jungles and castles can be equally unproductive.”

“Are you serious?”

“But certainly! I don’t want to leave a desert behind me. Let’s really go into it for the heck of it. Have the fellows make some drawings just in case—estimate the costs—the most up-to-date machinery, and Guernsey herds brought from U.S.A. There’s something romantic about that! Guernseys came from the Isle of Guernsey but like the rest of us they’ve been improved by their sojourn in America. So we return them in their modern shape. Meantime I’m not discarding any ideas. We have a week to—”

Kate on her way back to the kitchen caught the word. A week! Was he staying a week longer? She put her hands to her lips in an involuntary gesture. How could she bear it? Let him go now while she still had her heart in control! She went quickly down the passage to Lady Mary and Sir Richard in their private sitting room. It must be almost time for luncheon and she had been away wickedly long. They’d been calling her, doubtless. But no, they were sitting placidly by the window, he smoking his pipe and she at her crocheting again, as mild as though there had been no morning commotion. Philip Webster was pacing the floor, his hands in his pockets and his gray hair a tangle, as if he had thrust his hands through it too often.

Lady Mary signed to Kate that she was not needed, and Kate turned and went to her duties in pantry and kitchen.

“You could sell parts of the estate, you know, Richard.”

“I’ll not sell,” Sir Richard said. “I’ll fight to the end. … My dear”—he turned to Lady Mary—“you shall keep your realm whole. It is your realm, you know, this little kingdom—after all, there are such small realms—Monaco, Liechtenstein and now Starborough—it’s not unreasonable. You can depend upon me. I shan’t let the tenants get the upper hand. I’ve been too soft with them. What was it John Gomer said? ‘Three things, all of the same sort, are merciless when they get the upper hand: a waterflood, a wasting fire, and the common multitude of small folk.’ The year was 1385, but what he said is as true today.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Richard,” Lady Mary said absently. She was counting stitches. “Oh bother, I’ve done it wrong.” She began to unravel.

“If I should sell off bits and patches,” Sir Richard said, “people would move in. They’d build houses. The castle would be standing alone in the midst of a village.”

“I suppose they would,” Lady Mary observed, crocheting again.

“We’d be besieged,” Sir Richard went on, “but it wouldn’t be the first time, you know, Webster, and the castle can be defended. The moat is dry, of course, but that’s because it was drained against the mosquitoes. It would be easy to debouch the brook again as it was and the moat would fill up quickly. Essential, too, for people would swarm over the battlements otherwise! I planned it all, long ago.”

Webster sat down suddenly and stared at him. “You’re talking rot, Richard.”

“Indeed I am not,” Sir Richard retorted. His ruddy face was alight and his eyes glittered under his heavy brows. “It certainly is not rot for an Englishman to defend his castle. It’s his duty, he’s the king. It wouldn’t be the first time a king has stood on the tower balcony of Starborough Castle and commanded his men until they forced a retreat!” Lady Mary looked up from the pink wool. “Who would retreat, Richard?” Her voice was quiet and suddenly her face was sad.

He stared at her blankly, “People, you know—their houses—”

“What houses?”

“The houses people would build.”

“Houses won’t walk away,” she said in the same sad and quiet voice. “And they aren’t the enemy.”

“They are,” he cried. “They stifle me! They stifle greatness! That’s why kings always build their castles far away in lonely places. The Commons! That’s the enemy. The common people—the fools—the serfs—the—the—I tell you, I’ll defend this castle as long as I live! I’ll never leave it—”

She interrupted. “Do you know what they’ll do then? They’ll pull down the castle. It can’t stand here alone. In the end they’ll tear it down—or make it into something useful for themselves. It’s been here too long. I am beginning to know that.”

“Perhaps you are right, Lady Mary,” Webster said. Sir Richard was on his feet again. His brain was suddenly a burning torture inside his skull. “You two,” he muttered, “you two—against me! Where’s Wells?” He stamped out of the room.

In the silence Lady Mary continued to crochet and Webster was silent.

“It was he,” Lady Mary said at last, “it was Richard who brought the Americans here, Philip—wasn’t it?”

“Certainly it was he who wanted me to advertise,” Webster said.

“Now he doesn’t want to leave. A moment ago he said he was doing it for me. I don’t really care anymore … It’s only for him … But there’s something else, it seems. … Perhaps we’re coming to the bottom of things at last.”

Webster breathed hard, as though he were choking. “I don’t understand, Lady Mary.”

“I don’t understand either, Philip, not even Richard, it seems, with whom I have lived all these years. We’ve been happy, or I thought we had. I’m not sure about that, either, now. And I’ve always believed—foolishly, I daresay—that somehow … somebody … would help us. Perhaps
they
can’t. Perhaps it’s too hard for
them,
too. I don’t think
they’ve
really gone anywhere, you know, in spite of being dead. Philip,
they’re
just in another state of consciousness. But that’s the same as being in another country, I suppose—it really is. I’m very sorry for
them,
consequently. But we can’t depend on
them.
We must look after ourselves.”

Webster stared at her with round and wondering eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about now, Lady Mary.”

“No, I suppose you don’t.” Lady Mary sighed and put her work away into a small wicker basket.

The door opened and Wells entered. He had brushed his hair and put on a white shirt under his worn uniform, but he looked drawn and ill and very old.

“If you please, my lady,” he said, “what about the American? Do we have him for meals all day?”

His voice quivered and Lady Mary looked at him. “What’s wrong with you, Wells? You look as though you’d—you’d seen something.”

Wells put his hand to his mouth to hide his trembling lips. “I heard Sir Richard talking to you, my lady. He’s upset with me, really—not with you—I know it. But indeed I can’t do everything he wants done. He needs better supporters than I can be at my age, my lady. I’m no longer a proper protector for him. …” Suddenly he began to mumble. “The King needs help. I can’t do it alone—I can’t—I can’t …”

“What king?” Lady Mary demanded.

Wells fumbled for his handkerchief and wiped his eyes before he answered. “I beg your pardon, my lady?”

“I asked what king,” Lady Mary repeated distinctly.

“I don’t know what you mean, my lady. I was talking of Sir Richard.”

Webster turned to Wells. “You mean you can’t run this place any longer alone, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” Wells said. “Thank you, sir. But if I could just speak with you, my lady—alone, for a minute.”

Lady Mary sat with her hands folded in her lap and her head sunk on her breast. She looked up now and spoke with sharp irritation. “No, no, Wells. I don’t want to talk now. Of course we must have the American. We shall all sit down to luncheon together.”

“There are six Americans, my lady.”

“And three of us. That will be nine, Wells.”

She dismissed him with a nod and with another nod to Webster she rose and walked down the passage to Sir Richard’s room. He was not there but if he had been, she thought, she would have entered just the same. The time had come for her to discover for herself what had happened in his mind and memory. She walked across the empty room to the paneled wall and tried to open it. It could move, that she knew, although this only by hearsay. She pressed each panel, each point in the carving, each possible indentation, but it remained as it was.

“Come now,” she murmured. “You do open, you know—don’t pretend with me, please! I’ve lived here too long.”

Still it resisted and she was about to give up when suddenly at her touch, she did not know where, the wall slid back noiselessly—and she was face to face with Sir Richard. He stood there looking at her as though she were a stranger, an interloper. His face was proud and cold and he held himself tensely erect, his hands at his sides. She stared at him. The blood drained away from her head and heart and she felt faint. She tried to cry out and could not. With a great effort she summoned her strength.

“I am glad I have found you at last, Richard. I’ve been looking for you such a long time—all my life, I think!”

She spoke the words as though she had expected to find him there and she waited for him to reply. Instead he put out his hand and touched the panel. It slid between them without noise, swiftly and smoothly, and she was left standing alone.

For a moment she was shocked, then galvanized by anger. This was not to be endured! How dared he shut her out as though she were a stranger? What was wrong with him? She felt a horrible panic of fear. She pounded on the panel with her fists and screamed.

“Richard, let me in! Richard—Richard—”

There was no answer. She laid her ear to the panel. No sound—nothing! In the ivy outside the open window the birds fluttered their wings and flew away.

“I must find him,” she muttered, frantic, and tried again to find the knob in the carving, the secret spot, which would open the wall, but however she pressed and pushed and felt the paneled surface she could not find it. There was no other way in which to get behind the panel—or was there? She tried to remember, her eyes closed, her hands pressed to her temples. Long ago, when she came to the castle a bride, Richard had taken her one day to a tower room, the throne room, he had called it, because when he was a little boy he had played at being king with his father, his crippled father. But there had been no throne in that room—only a heavy old chair.

How had they got there that day, she and Richard? And why had she never gone there again? Ah, but she hadn’t wanted to! She had not forgotten, though she had never allowed herself to think of it, the change that had come over him, Richard suddenly brooding, resentful, sad. She saw his beautiful young face even now and heard his voice across the years.

“I’m glad you never saw my father. He was hideously wounded in the war. Lucky I was born before he left or I’d never been born at all!”

She had been too young, then, too much a child, to understand or to reply. She had stood staring at him and he had rushed on.

“He was proud of me—sickeningly proud of my—my looks—and everything. He kept wanting me to marry young—to have sons. I wouldn’t marry just to provide heirs, I told him—not until I met you. And now it’s too late—he’s dead and he’ll never see our children.”

She remembered how frightened she had been when he gave a great sob. She had never seen a man weep and she had put her arms about him and comforted him. “Richard, darling, we’ll have lots of beautiful children—I promise!”

She wept now, silently, forcing back her own sobs. She had not been able to keep the promise—there had been no children. It was intolerable, this pain of remembrance. She hastened blindly from the room, down the passage in what direction she did not think. She saw Kate in a doorway with a tray of dishes in her hands; at the sight of her startled face Lady Mary broke into a run. It was years since she had really run as fast as she could. Her heart beat against her ribs but she ran on and on by instinct, like a homing pigeon, down the stairs that led to the dungeon—and found herself stopped by the same great door, closed and blocking her way. It was the door behind which she had heard voices. She listened now, both hands clenched on her breast, and heard nothing. She beat on the door and shouted as loudly as she could.