Death in the Castle Read online

  “Indeed, I have.”

  They were climbing a short flight of worn stone steps and now stopped before the familiar door. Wells twisted the brass knob. The door creaked but did not yield. The flame of the candle fluttered in a sudden gust of wind.

  “The windows must be open,” John said.

  “Indeed, no, sir,” Wells said. “There’s always a gust of wind when one comes to this room at night.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I can’t say, sir. It’s always been so—There, the candle’s gone out. Stand still, if you please, sir. I always carry matches.”

  John Blayne stopped in the darkness. He heard a howl of wind under the door and the scratch of the match. The candle flamed again. Wells was standing with his back to the door, shielding the candle.

  “Hold the candle for me, please, sir,” Wells said under his breath. “I’ll back in and then I’ll have to keep the door from slamming on us. Hold the candle close to me, sir, and don’t make a noise.”

  John Blayne laughed somewhat unsteadily as he took the candle. “Are you playing some sort of game, Wells?”

  They were in the room now. The door slammed and the candle went out again as though fingers had pinched it. In the darkness he heard Wells muttering. “Oh, you tiresome creatures! … Let’s have no more of this nonsense. … Here, sir, give me the candle, if you please. I’ll set it to the table.”

  He felt Wells’ fingers, cold and damp, fumbling at his own hands and he yielded the candle hastily and stood in the darkness waiting. The air was still and whatever the wind was, it had ceased. He heard the scratch of the match and once more the candle flared. This time it burned.

  “There,” Wells said in triumph. “You’ll have no more trouble now, sir. They know when I mean what I say. …”

  “They?”

  “Yes, sir. Them, you know. They won’t bother a stranger, sir. It’s only us whom they know that they tease—maybe it’s only the children, at that. A lot of children died young in the early days, I daresay—here in the castle, too.”

  Children? What was the old man saying?

  “If the candle gives you any trouble, sir, there is the electric light by your bed. There now,” he chatted amiably as he moved about the room, “I’ve turned down the bed, sir, and I put in a hot-water bottle against the sheets being damp—a stone pig, we call it. It’ll keep warm all night. There’s no bath here in the east wing, I’m sorry to say, sir, but I’ll fetch a portable tub in the morning and a tin of hot water, when Kate brings in your tea and toast … Good night, sir.”

  He was at the door and he paused to look back. There was no wind now and the candle burned steadily, its glow aided by that of the shaded lamp by the bed.

  “I hope the chapel bells won’t wake you, sir. They often sound at four o’clock.”

  “Chapel? Ah yes, she told me—your—” He broke off, not knowing how to speak of Kate, but Wells went on smoothly.

  “The big ballroom, sir, just under this room, was the chapel when the castle was a royal seat. Some people can hear the bells—I often do, myself. So does Lady Mary. Sir Richard does too, I think, but he’ll never say. Good night again, Mr. Blayne.”

  The heavy door swung shut with a screeching creak and silence fell, the deepest silence that John Blayne thought he had ever known—felt, rather, for he could imagine it almost solid about him. What was it Lady Mary had said? Feel, she had said, and then concentrate on the light at the end of the tunnel, the distant small light, and ask for what was needed. Nonsense, as if he needed anything that he did not have! And yet—and yet—he was beginning to feel that there was something he very much wanted, something that money could not purchase.

  He undressed and went to the old-fashioned stand. The huge silver jug standing in the big porcelain basin was full of hot water. He filled the basin, wrung out the steaming washcloth and washed himself all over before he put on his pajamas. It was the sort of thing, he supposed, half humorously, that even kings and queens had done once upon a time, not to mention dukes.

  “Not bad, Duke, old boy,” he said aloud and suddenly was in such good humor that he began to whistle softly. He blew out the candle but placed it carefully on the stand by his bed in case the electricity should fail.

  “For he’s a jolly good fellow—” He climbed into an enormous bed, raised under a canopy of crimson satin, and then remembered he had left the matches on the table. He’d better have the matches, just in case.

  “In case you show up, Duke,” he said conversationally, “and try your tricks again.”

  Once more in bed he settled himself deep into the soft mattress and the, enormous down-filled pillows. A faint smell of mildew reminded him of an ancient odor he had smelled elsewhere. He sniffed, trying to remember. Ah yes, Cambodia and the ruins of Angkor! The hotel bed there had had the same faint reek of time and decay. And he had imagined those ruins haunted, too, not by anything as preposterous as ghosts, yet by something as vague, a presence accumulated through centuries of compressed human life. Was it not possible, even inevitable, that the material of the human body, the mass, must leave behind a transmigrating energy?

  He felt now as he mused, an uncomfortable awareness, a pressure almost physical, which chilled him, and with something like panic he laughed aloud at himself and ceased his imagining. Let him think of something pleasant at the end of this second curious day! Too much had happened to him in too few hours and what was the most pleasant sight he had seen? Unbidden, he saw Kate smiling at him out of the darkness—a pretty face, sweet and unspoiled, the blue eyes honest and warm. A talisman, proof against dead kings and queens and whimsical dukes, he told himself, and fell asleep upon the comforting thought.

  Part Two

  … LADY MARY STIRRED IN her wide canopied bed. She opened her eyes and gazed into the darkness and lay motionless. Something had wakened her, a noise, a voice, perhaps. Had Richard called her? She sat up, yawned delicately behind her hand and switched on the lamp on her bedside table. The white curtains at the windows were billowing gently into the room and the air was damp. The expected rain had come and now there must be fog rising from the river. She turned back the blankets and felt for her satin slippers on the floor. She must go at once and see if Richard wanted something. Slipping into her white negligee, she lit the candle to guide her through the passage between her room and Sir Richard’s, the passage that had no light otherwise, and pattered softly through it. Both doors swung open easily, she entered his room and going to the bed, she stood looking down at him, shielding the flickering light of the candle from his face with her hand, lest he awake.

  “Richard,” she whispered.

  He did not answer. He was asleep, his breathing deep and steady. It was not he, then, who had called. Who could have waked her? She tiptoed out of the room and into her own again, closing the doors. Should she go back to bed? She hesitated, shivering in the damp air. Then as always when she was undecided she gave herself up to concentration, standing with her eyes closed, until at the far end of the long tunnel she saw the shining light of awareness of what she should do. …

  The familiar sense of ease, of relief, warmed her body. No, she was not to go back to bed. Put on something warm, her flannel robe, and what then? Just walk about, perhaps, feeling everything, feeling it to be the right moment, perhaps waiting until they told her? She might not hear a voice, but sometimes she was moved by feeling, as though unseen hands, lighter than the mist, were touching her cheeks, her hands, her shoulders, guiding her somewhere. Yes, now she could feel them, leading her down the passage and the corridor to the great hall. She yielded herself until at last she stood under the chandelier, and felt herself stopped. Wait, she felt, wait to hear a voice, King John’s voice, if it were his, poor King John. He had always been one of her favorites, nevertheless. She had come across a description of him once in an old book in the library.

  Tall and fair of body, with fierce blue eyes and ruddy fair hair; voracious, always hungered, a young man
coming late to love, and having no shame in drinking all day and all night—

  It had made her think of Richard when they fell in love—“coming late to love,” so late that she had wondered if there had been a woman before her. She had not dared to ask, and for awhile had been eaten up with unspoken jealousy because he told her nothing of an earlier love. She looked up expectantly into the chandelier and saw the crystals twinkling and shining faintly in the candlelight, like a face with a thousand eyes.

  “Very well,” she said softly, “if it’s the moment then say something—please, King John, tell me where the treasure is!”

  She gazed upward, head thrown back, her long silvery hair streaming down her back and listened, her face intent.

  “Or what is it?” she whispered into the light.

  … Kate was asleep, too, but lightly. She had left a candle burning on her dressing table, a small candle set into a deep bowl against possible fire. She kept a candle always burning lest Lady Mary call her at night. She lay quietly now as she slept, her dark hair loosely curling on the pillow, and her bare arm flung upward about her head. The other hand lay open, palm upward, on her breast. She was beautiful asleep, though no one was there to see her, half smiling, dreaming perhaps of recent adventures, the lily pond and the sunshine, the firelight in the great ball and John’s tall figure at the window.

  A door creaked and her eyes opened. She waked at the slightest sound, aware even in her sleep of the two for whom she felt responsible because she loved them.

  “Yes?” she called.

  No one answered. She raised herself on her elbow and saw a dark silhouette, a shadow at the door. She caught her breath, stopping with her hand to her mouth the sound that might have come involuntarily. Lady Mary came into the room.

  “It’s only I, Kate. My candle went out and I’d forgotten to put the box of matches in my pocket.”

  She walked to the bed and looked down into Kate’s wide eyes. “What’s the matter, child? Have you seen something, too?”

  “No, my lady—only I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

  “I wasn’t expecting to be here,” Lady Mary said, “but I was called. I got up and waited for instructions and now it’s quite clear to me, Kate, that this is the right moment for us to act.”

  Kate, gazing up at Lady Mary, felt suddenly afraid—of what? Not of this gentle aging figure, surely, whom she knew better than she knew her own impulsive self, she sometimes thought, except that Lady Mary looked at this moment so transparent, so fragile, so unearthly, that she—

  “Have you heard a voice, my lady?”

  “I don’t know,” Lady Mary replied. “I think I did hear someone, but I can’t be sure I really heard anything—or anyone. I was simply pervaded, if you know what I mean—”

  “I don’t, quite,” Kate said, wondering.

  Lady Mary was a trifle impatient. “I can’t stand here explaining, Kate. It’s simply that I feel them. I know they are moving about. There’s excitement. Get up at once, Kate. They can be very difficult if they are wanting to tell us something and don’t find us waiting. They will go off in a huff. It’s quite difficult for them to reach us, you know. I daresay they try as hard as we do.”

  Kate reached for her rose-colored dressing gown. She smoothed back her tumbled hair and tried not to shiver. Lady Mary did look strange—resolute, grave, but remote, especially her eyes—

  “Shouldn’t we take someone with us, my lady?” Kate asked. “I’ll call Grandfather, shan’t I?”

  “Certainly not,” Lady Mary said. “He’s much too old. We don’t know where we’ll be led—perhaps into the dungeons. He might slip on those wet stones and then we’d have to try to carry him.”

  “I could call Sir Richard—or even Mr. Webster or—or the American—”

  “Unbelievers,” Lady Mary declared. “They’d only send out negative impulses and then we couldn’t make contact at all. No—no—just you and I, Kate—and hurry, there’s a good girl. Carry the candle—bring your matches—”

  She could only obey and she put on her little white fur slippers and followed Lady Mary into the passage, through the great hall and down then into the cellars. There Lady Mary paused to open a high old wooden cabinet in which hung hundreds of keys. She chose a huge key of bronze, green with age, and with it opened a narrow door that led into a winding corridor.

  “My lady,” Kate, silent until now, spoke anxiously. “Are you sure you won’t catch cold? It’s been ages since anybody was down here—the air is like death itself.”

  “There’s no such thing as death, not really,” Lady Mary said. “It’s just a change to something—I’ve told you—another level of whatever it is that we call life. It’s only a transfer of energy. Can you understand? Please try, Kate! It would mean so much to me if someone did.”

  Lady Mary paused in the dim corridor. Her face was beautifully alive now, her eyes tender, her voice warm. Kate felt a deep longing to believe in her, and at the same time an impulse to run away, to fly back to the great hall, to find someone young and untouched by strangeness, someone like herself. Yet who was young in the castle except John Blayne? And he was still a stranger, someone from a new world.

  “It’s like the wireless, I tell you,” Lady Mary was saying. “There’s an instrument of transmission in us, but not everyone understands how to use it. Some day we’ll know quite easily and then nobody will think it strange or talk about ghosts. It’s only because we don’t quite know yet—or so few of us do—”

  The dreadful thought crossed Kate’s mind now that Lady Mary might be going mad. She lifted the candle involuntarily so that the light fell on her face. Lady Mary stepped back. “Don’t do that,” she cried. “It hurts me.”

  She is going mad, Kate thought desperately, and tears came welling into her eyes. Through their shimmering she saw, or thought she saw, a nimbus about Lady Mary’s head, like that of madonnas in old paintings.

  She set the candle on a deep windowsill and put her arms about Lady Mary. “You aren’t well, dear,” she said. “You look so strangely at me. Perhaps you’re only tired with all the anxiety—it would be natural.”

  Lady Mary drew back gently but firmly. “Stop shivering, child. I am not going mad and I feel quite clearly what you’re thinking. There’s nothing strange—it’s all quite common sense, but I won’t go into it now. Remember what we’re here for—it’s to ask them to show us treasure, if there is any.”

  She turned away from Kate and walked ahead of her down a long winding passage that descended almost imperceptibly as they went. She walked as if she were asleep, purposefully, familiarly, her step sure, her bearing confident. She was talking, not to herself exactly, Kate thought, and certainly not to her, but as if to someone who was walking just ahead. “We need a million dollars. That’s what the American offers us. How much is that in pounds? Yes, it’s a great many pounds—at any rate, more than we could possibly get together, and Government won’t do anything. And not just rubies in the tennis court, please—this is serious. It’s the castle now, the whole castle, and where are we to go if it’s taken from us? Where are you to go?”

  Kate was melted into pity and fresh alarm. “Ah now, Lady Mary dear, let’s go back and find somebody!”

  “Nonsense,” Lady Mary said firmly. “We’re going straight ahead. They’ll speak when they can.”

  And she led the way down to the dungeons.

  … Sir Richard opened his eyes and stared about the room. It was still dark, the intense darkness before dawn. A voice echoed in his ears, a woman’s voice.

  “Who’s there?” he shouted.

  No one answered. He thought nevertheless that he heard breathing, a fluttering sort of breath, a rustle somewhere near the northern window. He fumbled on the table for his matches and knocked the box to the floor.

  “Damn,” he said in a loud voice. He switched on the bedside lamp, knowing he must find the matches in case he had need of the candle. He got out of bed and knelt on the stone floor i
n his old-fashioned nightshirt, his bare knees chilled, and felt as far as he could reach. No matchbox!

  “Damn, damn,” he muttered between clenched teeth. He got to his feet stiffly and kicked about until he found his slippers, then shuffled over to the window, knocking his leg on a corner of his desk. The shuttered window was open and the light of a sinking moon shone palely over the yew walk and the lawn. The elephants loomed monstrously large, their shadows black. He could see nothing else and he leaned out and called.

  “You there—speak up!”

  No one spoke, but a flock of birds sleeping in the ivy flew out in alarm. He chuckled.

  “It was you then, you rascals!” For a moment he stood by the window breathing in the good air that had been so recently washed with rain, then he yawned and shuffled back to the bed, stumbling over the elusive matchbox on the way. He got in, pulled the covers about him, and tried to sleep again. It was impossible. The events of the past two days came alive in his mind and he lived over each detail. This American! He envied the youth, the gaiety, the confident power of the man. A foreboding fell upon him. Again and again England had been revived by youth of other lands. Here in his own castle, built upon Roman foundations, young Danes, coming from France as conquerors, had created a strong new life. He switched on the lamp by his bed and reached for a book he had been reading.

  “Oh France,” the ancient chronicler declared, “Thou layest stricken and low upon the ground … But, behold, from Denmark came forth a new race … Compact was made, between her and thee. This race will lift up thy name and dominion to the skies.”

  “And how great the blend had been,” the book said, “old Roman order with youthful human energy!”

  He sighed, and knew he could not sleep. Was he not now of the old order? And did John Blayne indeed bring in the new? He laid the book away and put out the light. Shivering, he drew up the covers and fell into a troubled sleep, distressed by clouded dreams.