My Friend Walter (15 page)

Then one Saturday morning Mother came back from the shops pushing Little Jim and running up the front path; going like a train she was. Now that was
very unusual, because Mother would never run if she could possibly avoid it, and anyway she'd often told us never to run while we were pushing Little Jim in his pram. It was too dangerous, she'd said. She was all excited and couldn't get her coat off before she told us. ‘I think I may have found the perfect place, dear,' she said to Father who was still opening the pile of post in the kitchen. She sat down at the table and pushed the letters aside and went on, ‘You've got to listen. He said it's only just come on to the market. Thatched house, couple of hundred good acres just like you wanted.'

‘Wait a minute, wait a minute,' said Father. ‘How d'you find out about it? Who told you?'

‘This man, this old man I met. He was sitting on the bench outside the church feeding the birds, and he said he recognised me from my picture in the newspapers. Strange-looking old man he was, kind of old-fashioned in a long black coat and a stick, but most polite. Anyway, he said he knew of a farm a few miles away which was up for sale. Good land, he said.'

‘Walter Raleigh!' said Will. Mother looked at him somewhat bewildered. Father assured her that it was just a new-fangled expletive. ‘Instead of “Cripes”,' he said.

Mother seemed satisfied with that and went on, ‘Well, this old man, he told me he was born and brought up there. Best farm in the world, he said. Said we should go and look at it right away, soon as we could, before someone else snaps it up. He was such a sweet old man, dear. He said how we were such a fine-looking family, and he talked all about you two children.' She turned to Will and me. ‘Y'know it was almost as if he knew you, the way he spoke about you. Uncanny it was. He said he'd like to think of you growing up on the same farm he'd grown up on. And then your children could stay there and then their children and then their children. He'd like that, he said. And then he just upped and went off. He had a terrible limp, poor old man.'

‘Did you get a name?' asked Father.

‘He never said his name,' said Mother. ‘I never asked.'

‘Not him. The farm, dear. What's the farm called?'

‘Ooh, I've got that somewhere, I wrote it down. He made me write it down.' And she fished in her shopping basket and pulled out an envelope. ‘I put it on the bottom of my shopping list. Where is it? Where is it? Ah, here it is. It's called, let me see, I can't read my own writing these days. It's called Hayes Barton,
near East Budleigh. Not far from the sea, he said.'

I knew it. I knew it. I didn't have to search the back of my brain. The moment Mother said the old man had been born there I knew the rest. So that was his plan. That had been his plan all along, to buy back his own birthplace, to keep it in the family.

I thought it all out in the car on the way to Hayes Barton that afternoon. I thought back to the great family gathering Aunty Ellie had taken me to in that hotel by the Tower, how no one knew who had invited everyone. It was him, my friend Walter. It must have been. And hadn't he said again and again how he would have his revenge, how he would take back what was rightly his? Hadn't he promised me he would put his family back where they belong? But why me I wondered? There were lots of other relations at that party. Why had he chosen me?

I knew before we ever saw Hayes Barton that Father and Mother would love the place on sight. And they did. I knew there would be room enough for Will and me, for Little Jim and Gran, and for Aunty Ellie when she came to stay; and there was. The fields and hills around were lush and green, even after a dry October.
It was a fine farm, the best farm in the world, just like he'd told Mother.

The owners weren't there (they'd already left, it seemed); but we were shown round by a neighbouring farmer who said the house needed a lot doing to it. It looked wonderful to me, though I did see a lot of spiders in the bedrooms and one whopper in the bath that scurried down the plughole when Humph jumped up to look; but spiders apart it was as Mother had said, perfect. We walked the farm from end to end and Father seemed to like what he saw better and better with every stop.

We were getting back into the car when the farmer led Father away by the elbow to speak to him confidentially. He didn't take him far enough because I could hear every word he said, and so could Will – but then, of course we
were
listening rather hard. ‘Course I don't want to put you off Mr Throckmorton, but there's been talk, you know.'

‘Talk?'

‘Well,' said the farmer whose flat tweed hat was so thick with age and sweat and dirt that it sat stiff as a board on his head. ‘I don't like to say this, doesn't seem fair to them that's just left, but I got to be fair to
you. You're a farmer like myself. After all I've got no axe to grind, have I?' His voice dropped even lower and he looked over his shoulder before he spoke again. ‘Well, you may not believe this, but it was the ghost that drove them off. They told me as much themselves.'

‘The ghost?'

‘It's true, honest it is. It drove their tractors off. It left gates open. It started up the milking parlour in the middle of the night.' Father laughed. ‘You can laugh, but they saw it.'

‘Saw it?' said Father.

The farmer nodded. ‘Headless, they said. It walked headless up and down the passage every night, moaning and groaning like goodness knows what. They couldn't sleep, not a wink. Every night, it was. And it was him they said.'

‘Him?'

‘That Walter Raleigh. He was born here you see. Lived here, he did. And in the end they chopped off his head. They said he'd come back to haunt the place.'

Father roared with laughter and clapped the farmer on the shoulder. ‘I've heard some stories in my time,' he said, ‘but that takes the biscuit.'

The farmer looked a bit put out. ‘All right, but don't say I didn't warn you, that's all.' Father turned away still laughing and got into the car.

‘What was all that about?' Mother asked.

‘He was rabbiting on about some ghost haunting the place – lot of old nonsense. Don't believe in ghosts myself. Never have done. He probably wants the place for himself – good block of land next to his own, with a good house on it. He wants it for himself, the cunning old codger.'

‘Still,' said Mother, ‘we'd better not say anything to Gran about it, had we? We don't want her having one of her turns again, do we. Which room do you think she ought to have?'

‘Oh we're taking it are we, then?' said Father smiling. ‘We're moving in, are we?'

‘Yes, we are, dear,' said Mother. ‘You know we are. We all know we are, don't we, children?'

Father nodded slowly. ‘Do you think she's right?' he asked us.

‘Course,' said Will.

‘And what do you say, Bess?'

‘I think . . .' I said, ‘I think somehow we were meant to come here.' And Little Jim seemed happy
with the idea. He waved his soggy biscuit in the air and kicked his legs in delight.

‘Well, who am I to argue, then?' said Father. ‘Of course there'll be things I've got to look into first. So I'm not making any promises, but all being well I don't see why we shouldn't be moved in by Christmas.'

A few miles later, after we'd all been quiet with our own thoughts, Father said suddenly, ‘You know the nicest thing about it all?'

‘What dear?' said Mother.

‘Do you know who lived in that place years ago?' Mother shook her head. ‘Sir Walter Raleigh,' said Father.

‘Walter Raleigh?' said Mother. ‘Isn't he an ancestor of yours? I remember Gran said something about it once.'

‘Think so,' said Father. ‘Strange how his name keeps cropping up.' I could see him thinking about it, but he said no more.

‘Then we'll be buying a place that belonged to your family hundreds of years ago, won't we?' said Mother. ‘I think that's wonderful. It's like Bess said, perhaps it was meant. Good thing I bumped into that old man outside the church. I wonder who on earth he was. Tell you one thing, I hope I bump into him again. We've got a lot to thank him for.'

More than you know, I thought. More than you'll ever know.

When we got back to Aunty Ellie's we found a black car parked outside and a tall, grey-suited man waiting for us in the sitting room. Aunty Ellie introduced him and said he was the Lord Lieutenant of the county, whatever that meant. From the way he stood and from the shine on his shoes he looked extremely important, you could tell that much. And what he had to say made even Humph sit up and listen.

‘I am commanded by Her Majesty the Queen to accompany you all tomorrow to London, to Buckingham Palace, for a private audience with Her Majesty. Her Majesty wishes to convey to you personally her thanks for your help in recovering the golden orb, and she will, I believe, personally present you with your reward.'

‘What, me as well?' said Gran, sitting down before she fell down.

‘Everyone, including the dog I believe,' said the Lord Lieutenant looking at Humph with great respect. ‘Particularly the dog.'

Well, of course, we couldn't sleep much that night. Will and I were sharing a room at Aunty Ellie's and we
lay in the dark and talked and talked about Hayes Barton, about the Queen, about our friend Walter and his amazing master plan. ‘I just wish I could see him again,' I said. ‘Just once.'

‘In truth,' said a voice from the direction of the chest of drawers, ‘you have been patient long enough, dear cousins both.' His voice, no doubt of it. I sat up and switched on the bedside light. Walter was standing in between the beds looking down on us. ‘So,' he said, sitting down on my bed. ‘All is well that ends well, and it has ended well for all of us. You have your farm and I will have my family back in Hayes Barton where they belong. We have taken back what was mine, what was rightly ours.'

‘It was you all along wasn't it?' I said. ‘You sent out the invitations for that party to everyone, didn't you?'

He smiled and took my hand. ‘To begin with chick, it was mere curiosity. I wished to see my descendants, to see what had become of them all. You can understand that, can you not?'

‘But why me?' I asked. ‘At the party, why did you come and talk to me?'

‘Ah, sweet cousin,' he said, patting my hand. ‘There fate indeed took a hand as she does in all things. It was
you that found me, for I was sitting surveying my descendants when you came and sat beside me. And then it was that I saw your name – you had it writ upon you if you remember – Bess Throckmorton – as you know, the very name of my dear, dear wife whom I saw at once that you resembled in more than name. 'Twas fate, cousin Bess, that brought us together and led us into this merry dance. I asked you to free me from my prison and take me home to Devon with you, and you did. So I learned of your father's misfortune and began to conceive my plan. But alas, my schemes all miscarried when your grandmother became ill.'

‘But one thing I've never understood,' I said. ‘Why did you take Sally away like that and where did you go?'

‘How else was I to get to Hayes Barton and play the ghost? I had to make the farm available, did I not? I knew of only one certain way to do it.'

‘You became headless, didn't you?' said Will. ‘And you frightened them off, like you did with the horrible Barrowbills. Brilliant! Wicked!'

‘Wicked it may be but it never fails, it seems,' said Sir Walter. ‘Let us say that I persuaded them they would be happier somewhere else.'

‘That was a bit cruel,' I said.

‘Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind, cousin,' said Walter.

‘You're beginning to sound like Gran,' I said.

‘What about the reward, though?' Will asked – he was asking all the questions I wanted to ask. ‘How did you know there would be a reward?'

‘I confess,' said Walter, ‘I confess that fortune favoured us in this, but fortune once stirred can act most powerfully in our endeavours. If truth be told it was on impulse that I took the bauble and I was at my wit's end to know what to do with it. I saw you that night secreting it in the muck heap. So I dug it up myself, for I needed time to consider what might be done with it.'

‘And the search up at the horrible Barrowbills' was just a game, wasn't it?' I said.

‘Indeed,' said Walter smiling, ‘but one I think we all enjoyed.'

‘We're going to see the Queen tomorrow,' I said.

‘I know it, cousin,' said Walter.

‘You didn't arrange that as well, did you?' Will said.

‘Faith, no,' Walter laughed.

‘Why don't you come with us?' I asked.

He shook his head. ‘I have had my fill of kings and
queens,' he said. ‘I will wait for you at Hayes Barton.'

‘You'll be there?' I asked. He nodded.

‘If you do not mind, cousin,' he said.

‘That's what you really wanted all along, wasn't it?' said Will. ‘You wanted to come back and live at Hayes Barton.'

‘I perceive you are as sharp as I am, Master Will, a chip off the old block some might say, though that's not a phrase I care for overmuch.' And he rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Yes indeed, look for me at Hayes. I shall be there.' And he was gone.

Buckingham Palace was all crunchy gravel and long corridors and pictures as big as houses. Father looked a bit stiff, I thought – he always looked uncomfortable in a suit – and when it came to it he got his bow all wrong. But Mother looked as if she belonged there. She had her best dress on – the kingfisher blue one with the gold braid. She curtsied beautifully and was soon chatting away to the Queen as if they were old friends. Little Jim was wide-eyed throughout. He sucked his hand all the time and dribbled. And Will and me? Well, we were so terrified that we could hardly say a word. Gran and Aunty Ellie smiled perpetually and kept licking their lips frantically in case they cracked. Humph was just
himself. We had him on a lead, (a brand new one, of course), just in case the corgies were around. There's not a lot of difference in size between a big rabbit and a corgi and I didn't want him disgracing himself.