Death in the Castle (13 page)

“No,” she said quietly. “I never dream.”

She would not turn to look at him. He waited and still she refused herself to him and he left her, after a moment, there by the window in the moonlight.

… He was glad, somehow, to return to the warm fire-lit room, where Sir Richard and Lady Mary and Webster were eating roast beef and potatoes and boiled cabbage.

Philip Webster was reading a telegram. He looked up as John Blayne took his seat.

“I’m afraid there’s no hope, Sir Richard,” he was saying. “It seems they can’t consider adding the expense of another castle just now. Three million unemployed, et cetera—some eight thousand more elementary schools needed and so on—” He broke off.

“Am I interrupting something?” John Blayne inquired.

“Not at all,” Sir Richard said. “We’ve no secrets at this late stage… Go on, Webster! Government considers everything more important these days than castles a thousand years old.”

Lady Mary gave up eating roast beef and put her knife and fork neatly together on her plate. “There is another way, Philip.”

“Surely you don’t mean ghosts again, Lady Mary,” John Blayne said cheerfully.

Wells put hot roast beef before him, served potatoes and cabbage and went out again.

“Never,” Lady Mary said. Her delicate face went pink. “I hate that word!
They’re
spirits, more real than we are here. Don’t call
them
ghosts—not in my presence, if you please!
They’re
alive. This is
their
home and it can’t be taken away from
them. They
do exist. Richard, speak up for once!
They
exist … you know
they
do, don’t you? Don’t
they?
Answer yes or no!”

Sir Richard sipped his red wine and wiped his lips carefully. “Well, my dear, I can only say that in any case I am not responsible for
them.
I’m only responsible for you and me and the land and my tenants. I must make my decisions on tangible things.”

“Very well!” Lady Mary retorted. “Give me a few days, all of you. There are a hundred and fifty rooms in this castle, places we’ve never seen—hidden treasures, perhaps!”

John Blayne laughed, relieved at the vigor in the air. He’d bait her a bit more, just to enliven the meal. “Oh, come now, Lady Mary! You can’t be serious. Every castle has these treasure stories.”

Lady Mary looked at him with her calm gaze. “I’m not sure it’s worthwhile, but I will explain. Whether you can understand is another matter. One has to be—I don’t know how to put it except to say ‘pure in heart,’ if one is to see
them
—the good ones, I mean, the ones who will help. Otherwise the bad ones can take one over completely—use one, you know.”

“Lady Mary,” John Blayne said, “you mystify me. In everyday words, I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about.”

“Ah, you aren’t trying,” she said. “You must be willing to learn how to feel beyond yourself. You must give yourself up. Then you will hear sounds you have not heard before—perhaps just one sound, a clear high note of unchanging music. You will see—I don’t know how to put it, but it’s like looking through a long tunnel and seeing at the far end a small shining light. Concentrate on the light with all your being—and then ask for what you need. You may see someone—or not see—but you will get an answer—or perhaps just a feeling of peace and relief. But if you don’t see or hear, then wait. In a few days, perhaps—”

She met his unbelieving eyes and she smiled faintly. “You don’t understand, poor man, do you? But it’s true for all that. In countries older than ours, in Asia, it’s well known. It’s called
prana
and there’ve been many books written about it. It’s not ghosts or any of that nonsense, it’s simply learning how to enter another level of being. You must want to learn how, of course—and for that, one must long for something—have a need before one can ask that it be fulfilled. And then—Ah well, we each have to do our own asking.”

She spoke with such simplicity, such conviction, that he was unwillingly moved and reminded, to his surprise, of a conversation he had had with the aged minister who had officiated at his mother’s funeral.

“She was a good woman,” the old man had said, that quiet autumn evening beside the newly made grave, when all others save himself and the minister were gone. “But what interested me was her delicately perceptive mind. She was universal in life and she will be eternal in death.”

“What do you mean?” he had begged, longing at that moment of fresh bereavement to believe that his mother was not beyond his reach. Did the dead still live? At that moment in the silent churchyard he could almost believe.

The minister had hesitated, his thin face flushing. “I can only say that by faith I arrive at possibilities that I believe scientists will one day confirm. In short, my dear boy, I have faith that death concerns only the body. Your mother pursues her way with her usual gaiety, but on a wave length of her own, if I may pretend to scientific knowledge I don’t actually possess.”

John Blayne turned now to Sir Richard, who had sat listening, sipping his wine, his expression remote.

“Sir Richard, do you believe as your wife does?”

Sir Richard put down his glass and touched his moustache with his napkin. “Well, there’ve been twenty generations of kings in the castle and a couple of queens, not to mention five centuries of my own family. Who am I to say that my wife is wrong? Only last year I found a ruby in the tennis court. I certainly didn’t put it there. I’d never seen it before. We’ve never looked for treasure.”

“Or asked for it,” Lady Mary put in.

“Or asked for it,” Sir Richard agreed. “But stay a few days, and you’ll see for yourself.”

“Thank you,” John Blayne said. He felt suddenly confused, yet unwilling to yield to a vague but mounting uneasiness. He had long ago given up his secret half-shamed attempts at communication with his mother. He had accepted, as he would have put it, the fact of death, perhaps total. Here the line between life and death was not so clear, but he did not propose to be drawn into that morass again. “I will stay,” he said briskly, “if you’ll let me proceed with the survey. … I don’t believe you’ll find the treasure—not in the way you’re looking for it, although it’s quite possible that if we take the castle apart, stone by stone—”

Lady Mary rose abruptly. “Pray excuse me,” she said and left the room.

The three men sat in silence for a long moment. It became unendurable and John Blayne broke it.

“Lady Mary is charming in her earnestness. Sir Richard—but these old fancies—”

He paused and Sir Richard did not look up. He had taken his wineglass again and was twisting it slowly in his fingers, gazing into its deep color, blood-red against the candlelight.

“You don’t believe in
them,”
he said at last.

“Do you?” John Blayne countered.

Sir Richard shrugged slightly and lifted the decanter. “A little more port? No? … Webster?”

“No, thanks,” Webster said. “And if you’ll excuse me I’ll go to bed. It’s been a long day.”

“For all of us,” John Blayne agreed. He felt stopped, as though suddenly a door had closed against him.

They rose and Sir Richard pulled the bell rope for Wells.

“Take the gentlemen to their rooms,” he ordered.

“Not me,” Webster said. “I know my own way about. Good night, Richard.”

“I’ll say good night, too, Sir Richard,” John Blayne added.

He was not sure that Sir Richard heard. Webster was gone and he stood by the dying fire, abstracted, his head bent.

“This way, please, Mr. Blayne,” Wells said.

He could only follow. The passages were no longer quite new to him now, particularly those that led away from the great hall and the front of the castle toward the east wing; but he felt that he could easily become lost. The floors were of gray stone, uncarpeted, and the windows were narrow and deep-set. The walls, he reflected, must be three feet thick. He caught up with Wells.

“Do you believe in these ghost stories. Wells?”

Wells did not turn his head or slacken his pace. “I never listen to what’s said at table, sir.”

“Even though you’re in the room?”

“No, Mr. Blayne.”

“And how long have you lived here?”

“All my life, sir.” He paused at an oaken table at the foot of a stairway and lit a candle which was standing there.

“We go up two flights, if you please, sir, to reach the Duke’s room from this side of the castle.”

“The Duke of what, by the way?”

“The Duke of Starborough, sir. He was a protégé of Richard the Second, I believe. His room is not so damp as some on the lower floors. And I expect you have enjoyed the view of the river and the village when you look out in the morning.”

“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.