Death in the Castle Page 7

  “I feel responsible for the castle,” Sir Richard said slowly, gazing at the stone face, an arrogant face, even in death. “I am responsible,” he went on resolutely, “for the castle and for the land that belongs to it and for the people upon the land. They look to me as their ancestors looked to mine. Yet I fear I can no longer hold my realm.”

  The vicar had followed and now stood with his hands folded under his robe. “I’ve heard a bit about that, Sir Richard. I’d hoped it was gossip.”

  “I wish it were. Unfortunately it is not. I shall have to sell the castle in order to save the land. There’s no way out of it. An American is thinking of buying it, but …”

  He paused and the vicar shook his head. “Oh dear, an American? Can’t government—”

  “Government’s offered me a prison or an atomic plant—equally impossible! The castle is a treasure, committed to me. I can’t save it. If I had an heir—but I don’t. I’m a failure, I fear, as a ruler over my hereditary kingdom, if I may express it so. My people put their faith in me but I’ve not been able to—It’s a strange story in its way, as strange as any of the tales of the castle in the old days.”

  “Tell it to me, Sir Richard. It will do you good.”

  “There was a king who took refuge in my castle—Charles the First. He’d lost London, he’d lost Sussex and he faced the loss of the throne,” Sir Richard began. It was a story known to them both but always worth telling. “His people turned against him because he had failed them. People don’t forgive a king. I lost London, too, you know—my own fault! My wife’s often told me, ‘You should have taken your rightful place in London’—that’s what she’s said how many times—and now it seems I’ve lost my Sussex, as well—and my own people. …” He kept staring down at the stone face as he talked. “I don’t think it’s ever been proved how Sir William died—some say he took poison. It doesn’t matter. Let us say he took poison when it was discovered that he—’ He put out his hand and touched the folded stone hands. “Damp,” he muttered, “always damp. I remember when I was a boy. They were cold and wet.”

  “The church gets no sun,” the vicar said.

  Sir Richard seemed not to hear. He was muttering, half to himself. “He was betrayed by his own followers—betrayed to the King by someone who knew the story—his prime minister, I believe, a man whom he trusted. The prime minister knew about the child—a son, secret, of course.”

  The vicar looked at Sir Richard and put a hand on his arm. “Are you sure you’re quite all right?”

  Sir Richard shook the hand away impatiently. “Of course I am—why, shouldn’t I be? … It’s all true. His wife never had a child. She blamed him. She insisted it was not her fault that they were childless. But he knew he could have a child—”

  “I’m afraid I don’t follow you, Sir Richard,” the Vicar said, bewildered. “How did he know he could have a child—whoever he is?”

  Sir Richard turned to the vicar. His eyes were narrowed, his voice a whisper. “Because he’d had a child—by the queen! That’s proof, isn’t it?”

  He gave a sudden shout of laughter, and then was as suddenly grave again. He moved abruptly away from the tomb and to the altar. He stood before it, staring up at the rose window, his back to the vicar.

  “Tell me one thing—is there such a place as a home for souls?”

  “I don’t know, I’m sure,” the vicar said gently. “Will you explain what you mean?”

  “Well, you know—what if they really live there in the castle?”

  “They?”

  “My wife swears she hears them. And if they do, you know, what will they do if we take the castle down? Won’t there be retribution—or some such thing—a disaster perhaps—for which again I’d be responsible, wouldn’t I?”

  The vicar stared at him. “Really, Sir Richard, you’d better have a cup of tea, and a bit of rest. Come to the vicarage and—”

  Sir Richard did not hear him. “What would you do, for example, if this church were destroyed—through some failure of your own, say, which you did not intend, of course?”

  “I would pray to be forgiven,” the vicar said quietly, “and then I would continue my work under the open sky.”

  Sir Richard said no more. He left the vicar staring after him, and strode from the church, mounted his impatient horse and galloped away. Suddenly he felt the stab of fluttering pains inside his skull, now at his crown, then settling to throb dully behind his eye-balls. He would stop at the village inn and have a glass of ale.

  … The long shadows of late afternoon fell across the stones when he approached the inn. The door was open and as he dismounted he heard loud voices, interrupted by derisive laughter. Some sort of argument was going on. He heard his name. He stopped by the hitching post and listened. The innkeeper—ah, yes, that was George Bowen’s hoarse voice.

  “I don’t care what Sir Richard says! Get the hell out of here is what I say. Take it or leave it! Go home, you American chaps—we’ve had enough of you here—you and your kind! Fed up, that’s wot we are! It’s a sin and a shame to have to hear such talk—takin’ the castle away from us! The Queen will never allow it, trust her!”

  A friendly American voice made careless retort. “Don’t get all steamed up, man! It’s not up to us. We’re hired to do the work, that’s all. Anyway, the whole deal is off. Your precious Sir Richard threw us out.”

  “Thank God for Sir Richard, says I!” George bawled back at them. “He won’t let us down, he won’t! We’ll have no tourists comin’—English kiddies wouldn’t have no place to learn their own history if it wasn’t for him and the castle. They come by the ’undreds—those London brats—”

  The American voice broke in. “That’s right—and you couldn’t keep your inn open if they didn’t.”

  Sir Richard could bear no more. He pulled the ring from his pocket, put it on his forefinger, and strode into the inn.

  The innkeeper gave a shout of welcome. “Here he is, hisself, in the nick of time! Wot’ll you ’ave, Sir Richard?”

  “A glass of ale, thanks,” he said coldly. He let his eyes move slowly from face to face. A few of his farmers were here, too, and they looked properly down when his eyes fell on them. Not so the Americans! They met his gaze with such smiling familiarity that he turned his back on them as he stood at the bar.

  “Brazen and brass,” George mattered. “I’d throw them out if they wasn’t such good drinkers. I would that, Sir Richard, with all their talk of buyin’ the castle and takin’ it off to their own country! Invaders, I calls ’em—”

  He was immensely fat and each year the space behind the counter grew more narrow for his spreading frame. He reached now to take a bottle from a special cupboard and gave a great gasp. “It’s me or the counter—I can see that I’ll have to move it out or shrink myself down somehow.”

  “Hey, George,” one of the young Americans shouted brashly, “what’s that you’re bringing out of hiding?”

  George turned with difficulty but maintained his dignity. He opened the bottle and poured a glass of pale golden ale into a tall glass and set it before Sir Richard before replying.

  “I’ll thank Americans not to bandy my private name about,” he said in a lofty voice. “Please to remember this is England and the gentleman sittin’ here is Sir Richard Sedgeley, who owns the village and the land it stands on. In a manner of speakin’, he owns us all. We look to him to defend us, like he always has and his ancestors before him. My family has lived here hundreds of years under the Sedgeleys and will live for hundreds more as I tells young George. … We thank you, Sir Richard.”

  Sir Richard inclined his head but did not speak. He lifted the glass of ale with his left hand, and the great ring shone upon his forefinger.

  “Go to hell, Georgie,” the American said, with a crass good humor. “I was here in the war but we weren’t fighting you then and we aren’t now. I even went with an English girl once—not steady, of course—too long in the tooth she was.” He paused and inq
uired of his fellow Americans, “J’ever think she’d do anything about those teeth of hers? Have ’em out, I said, and I’ll pay for the convenience. Get some store teeth that’ll set back in your mouth, honey, out of my way. Do you think she would? No! And I bet she hasn’t yet, though she could have ’em out now for free. Damned stubborn English—I sure was glad to go home.”

  “You couldn’t be gladder than we were,” George retorted. “And I’ll thank you to be on your way home again—and the sooner the better. I want to get my place cleaned up, which I can’t do until you’re gone.”

  The American lifted his glass and downed its content. “Come on, fellows—there’s nothing doing here. The loser is you, Georgie, when we’re gone. Mr. John P. Blayne will simply put his money someplace else. … Good-bye, Mr. Sir Richard Sedgeley! Sorry we couldn’t do business.”

  Sir Richard had stood by the counter all the while, drinking his ale slowly, giving no sign that he heard what was going on. Now he looked at the young American.

  “It is not I who am dismissing you,” he said coldly. “You work for Mr. Blayne, I believe. Did we not meet yesterday morning at the castle? I am not aware of—”

  “There’s a lot you aren’t aware of,” the man interrupted cheerfully as he sauntered toward the door. “So long, Georgie—good-bye, England!”

  “Gangsters—that’s what they are,” the innkeeper declared when they were gone. “Good riddance, I say. Take your time, Sir Richard.”

  “I must be getting back to the castle,” he said but he did not move.

  The farmers lingering about the inn, some of them throwing darts now and again in a desultory fashion, began to wander toward the door. They had taken no part in the argument and as they passed Sir Richard they said nothing beyond muttered words.

  “Evenin’, Sir Richard—”

  “We’ll be on our way, sir—”

  “My old woman will be hot to know what’s become of me—”

  “Our bit of supper will he waitin’—”

  To each he gave a nod of recognition. Yes, he knew these, too, he knew their families, and had known them from his earliest memory when as a small boy he had ridden about the land with his father. He had his first horse, a black mare, he remembered, and it had given him a flash of pleasure when grown men stood as he passed and pulled their forelocks. The older ones still did so and he felt the same pleasure, deepened by the years of his responsibility—his reign, as he liked to think of it.

  “Fill your glass again, Sir Richard?” George inquired.

  “No, thanks, it is getting late.” He paid for his ale and at the door looked back. “The Americans are right, you know, George,” he said. “We are the losers nowadays, however we look at it. If the castle goes, would you rather have a prison or an atomic plant?”

  George stared. “What’s that, sir?”

  Sir Richard tried to smile. “Tourists keep your inn going, but a castle—that’s another matter. It takes more than tourists. … Mind how you behave with the Americans, George, when they come back. I fear that the deal, as they call it, is far from over.”

  He left then and George stood staring after him, his round eyes looking rounder than ever. His wife, a small thin woman with a long nose and scanty gray hair, came to the inner door.

  “Supper’s ready, George! What was all that rowin’? George, do you hear me? You look daft, standin’ there!”

  “It’s him that’s daft, I’m thinkin’,” George said. “Sir Richard has gone clean out of his mind, ravin’ about prisons and atomics.”

  “You’ve been drinkin’ all day,” his wife said acidly. “Give over, do, and come and get something besides ale into that big belly of yours, where all the profit goes, I’m thinking!”

  She disappeared and after a dazed moment, he followed. And beyond the village Sir Richard rode slowly homeward. He let the reins lie slack as he went and his eyes roved over the mellow landscape of field and forest. The afternoon light lengthened the shadows and deepened the gold of the willows and the green of growing wheat. In the distance the castle stood against the sunset in all its stately beauty. It was his home, his inheritance, and how could he give it up?

  He tried to imagine the castle gone and over the low hills and broad valleys a magnificent modern farm with new machinery and farmhouses, his land tilled and productive, his barns rebuilt, a dream of a farm. In the distance he heard voices singing. The farmers were walking home by a nearby road. They had seen him riding along the road to the castle and too distant for greeting, they were singing, “For he’s a jolly good fellow …”

  He felt tears come into his eyes. They loved him. He raised his hand in acknowledgement as they went their way and echoes fell into silence. Yes, he could see the farm, the new beautiful farm made upon his ancient land, forests kempt and rich fields stretching into the horizon, and all his people happy again. But he—where would he be? How could he be happy, his castle gone? A king without a castle was no longer king.

  His head throbbed in waves of piercing agony and he gave his horse a command. All that mattered now was to get back to his castle. The sun had dropped beneath the horizon and in the twilight the castle stood lonely and forlorn against the evening sky.

  … “I’m sorry, Mr. Blayne,” Kate said. “I shouldn’t have called you to the telephone, but it was your father—from New York. At least it sounded like him.”

  He had been outside alone, watching the sun move slowly down the sky behind the towers, when he saw her standing in the open door of the great hall, her small figure distinct in a light dress the color of daffodils.

  “How did it sound?” he asked, smiling.

  “If I must speak the truth—like the bull of Bashan, roaring across the ocean!”

  He shouted laughter as he followed her into the library. “That’s my father.” He took the receiver, “Hello! Hello?” No one answered. “He’s hung up—probably sulking now because I wasn’t here waiting for his call.”

  “Ah no, perhaps it’s only a storm at sea.” She took the receiver from his hand. “Operator, will you please get New York again? I have my party here waiting. … Very well, I’ll keep him waiting.”

  She hung up and turned to him, her eyes dancing blue light. “She said she’d connect us again as soon as possible, but she has orders not to do so unless his blasted son was on. … Is your father always like this?”

  “Always has been, always will be, bless him!”

  “However did your mother—” She broke off and bit her lip. Impudence—what right had she to inquire?

  “Stand it?” he finished for her. “She adored him and laughed at him and wasn’t in the least afraid of him. Consequently he was utterly mad about her. When she died I thought he’d go insane. Everything she had owned became sacred. Nobody was to touch anything she’d touched. The paintings, for example, he wanted to lock them up.”

  “I like to hear about two people loving each other like that,” she said quietly when he paused.

  She stood leaning against the heavy mahogany desk, watching him. He took a small ivory elephant from the desk and when he did not speak she went on in the same quiet dreaming voice, her eyes on his hands—good hands, thin and strong and clean.

  “Not that I know anything about such things, except what I’ve heard of my parents. My mother loved my father, or she’d never have married him. He was beneath her station.” She hesitated, and then said shyly, “She was a lady, but I don’t know why I keep telling you things.”

  He looked at her quickly. “Why shouldn’t you tell me? I knew you weren’t—what you’ve tried to make me believe you are.”

  “Oh, but I am,” she insisted. “My father was the son of the butler here in the castle, remember?”

  “Wells?” His voice was incredulous.

  She nodded. “He is my grandfather.”

  They exchanged a long look and John Blayne turned away. “What does it matter?” he asked impatiently.

  “I think it matters here in the castle,
” she said softly, “but not to me.”

  John Blayne began to pace the floor, acutely aware for the first time of why he was allowing himself to stay on in the castle. He wished she had not told him about her parents, and then he found himself wishing she would tell him more.

  “What were they like, really?”

  “From what I’ve been told,” she began slowly, “my father was tall and handsome and very proud. I’ve seen ever so many pictures of him—as a boy—then after he grew up—then in his Air Force uniform. He never wanted to be a servant, so he ran away to London when he was twenty. He wanted to be an artist, and he even had an exhibition once in London. Most of his pictures were of the castle.”

  “Have you seen them?”

  “No, they were destroyed in the blitz. Then he married and …” Her voice suddenly halted.

  “And?”

  “That’s almost all there is to the story, except me.”

  “What was your mother like?”

  “Her name was Diana Knowles. She was a lady, my grandfather always said, but I’ve never seen a picture of her and I gave up asking about her as my grandfather would tell me nothing. I think she was small and dark and slender and—distant-like.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, for one thing, my grandfather told me her people were offish and that they didn’t approve her connection with Colin Wells.”

  She had been looking anywhere but at him while she spoke, now she lifted her gaze and sought his. He smiled, then moved across the room to glance out of the window. Kate followed him with thoughtful eyes.

  He was almost too handsome, she decided, as she watched him. One must be careful when one was a woman, especially a woman such as she, in a strange and anomalous position such as hers in the castle—at times almost a daughter, yet always the maid and grandchild of the butler.

  Ah well, she thought wistfully, she had told him the truth. He had asked for it. Now that he knew it he could think what he liked. While she drove the sword thus into her heart she kept looking at him as he stood by the window against the background of the castle and the green lawns, a tall slender figure, elegant even in his casual gray slacks and jacket and his shirt open at the throat.