The Beasts of Clawstone Castle (10 page)

‘I don’t understand it,’ said Lord Trembellow angrily when the visitors had gone off, jeering and scoffing. ‘Why do the ghosts work at Clawstone and not here?’

Lady Trembellow was lying on the sofa with a hot water bottle on her stomach.

‘Perhaps the Clawstone ghosts are real?’ she suggested timidly.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Phyllis,’ snapped her husband.

It was time he sent her off for some more repair work, he thought. Maybe an implant on her lips to give her a bit of a pout. She still didn’t look the way his wife should look.

As for Olive, she looked at her mother with contempt, because she always found it difficult to understand that she herself, who was so clever, had been born to a woman who was completely foolish. A woman who thought that ghosts could possibly exist.

I
t began like all the summer days at Clawstone since the coming of the ghosts. The children went up to the nursery to say good morning and then all of them went to sit on the wall and look across the park and plan their day.

This particular day promised to be an exceptionally beautiful one, with mist in the valley and a clear pale sky.

‘I was a bit silly, buying wellington boots,’ said Madlyn.

The cattle had become so used to the children that they grazed right under the wall or dozed in the shade of the overhanging elm. The youngest calf, the one that Rollo had seen being born, would look up and twitch his ears when Rollo called down to him.

‘I’m sure I could tame him,’ said Rollo, but he kept to his great-uncle’s rule and did not go into the park alone. ‘In any case they shouldn’t be tamed,’ he said. ‘They have to be wild and free.’

Sunita, of course, could float down into the fields whenever she wanted to, and when she came the cattle just lifted their heads for a moment and went on grazing. Only the oldest cow, the one with the scars and the crumpled horn, limped after her and waited for a special word.

The whole village seemed to share in the happiness of the castle. More visitors to the castle meant more visitors to the hotels and the pubs and the shops, but it wasn’t just that. Ned had been right when he told Madlyn that the cattle who had been saved belonged to everyone.

But the ghosts never became smug. Before every Open Day they worked out new ways of scaring people, and now, though they would have liked to linger in the open air, the ghosts and the children made their way back to the castle for another run-through.

They were crossing the courtyard when a brown van drew up at the gate. Painted on the van were the words ‘Veterinary Enterprises’, and three men in white coats got out.

One was small, with a black, pointed beard, thick, black-rimmed glasses and a foxy face, and he wore a stethoscope round his neck.

The second one was tall and shambling with a sticking-out Adam’s apple, and he carried a black bag like a doctor’s.

The third man had been driving. He had slicked-down hair, full lips and highly polished shoes, and he was holding a clipboard.

Inside the van, as the doors opened, the children could see all sorts of instruments: syringes and coils of rubber tubing and thermometers and flasks.

The ghosts vanished. The children came closer.

‘Good morning. Can we help you?’ asked Madlyn politely.

‘We want to see Sir George Percival,’ said the foxy man, and he handed her a card which said ‘Veterinary Enterprises (Northern Branch)’.

‘I’ll tell him.’

She ran off and returned with Sir George.

‘I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place,’ he said. ‘We haven’t called out any vets.’

The foxy man looked offended. ‘My name is Dr Dale,’ he said. ‘And these are my assistants, Mr Blenkinsop and Mr French. We’re from the Special Branch of the Ministry of Animal Health and we’re doing a routine survey of farm animals in the area. It’s part of a government initiative. You should have received a pamphlet.’

‘Well, I haven’t,’ said Sir George shortly. He was not very fond of men from the ministry. ‘Perhaps you had better speak to my warden, Mr Grove. He lives in the village.’

‘We have already tried to contact Mr Grove. Apparently he’s been taken ill; they suspect a diseased appendix, I’m told.’

Ned made a noise of surprise. ‘I didn’t know my uncle was ill,’ he said.

The men in white coats ignored him.

‘But we can perform the tests perfectly well without help. Indeed, we prefer to work alone. So if you will unlock the gates of the pa…We shall only be here for a few hours.’

Sir George was not at all pleased. ‘It would be very unwise for you to go into the park. The cattle are not usually vicious but if they are disturbed by strangers...’

Dr Dale smiled – a smug and knowing smile. ‘We are quite familiar with animals of all sorts.’

He glanced at the pile of shiny instruments in the back of the van.

Rollo, standing next to his great-uncle, drew closer and Sir George took his hand.

‘I imagine you would like to see our authorization,’ said Dr Dale.

‘I certainly would.’

Dr Dale turned to the man with the slicked-down hair, who produced a whole sheaf of forms and papers, all stamped at the bottom with red letters and the initials ‘VE’ for ‘Veterinary Enterprises’.

‘Very well,’ said Sir George reluctantly. ‘But please understand that you go in at your own risk.’

‘There’s nothing to worry about, I assure you,’ said Dr Dale. ‘It’s just a matter of taking blood tests and saliva samples and skin scrapings and getting them analysed in the laboratory. We do it every day. It’s because of our work that the fine herds of this country are kept in perfect health.’

So Sir George, looking morose and angry, went ahead to unlock the gates, and the van disappeared up the track in search of the herd, who had moved on to the high ground by the waterfall.

The men were gone for a couple of hours. When they returned they were brief but reassuring. ‘We should have the results in a couple of days. Our laboratory is in the south so we’ll have to send the samples by special courier, but I’m sure we’ll be able to give your fine animals a clean bill of health.’

And they drove off in their brown van.

‘I’m sure it will be all right, dear,’ said Aunt Emily, putting her hand on her brother’s arm. ‘Don’t you remember when they tested the sheep at Greenwood for liver fluke and then they turned out to be perfectly all right?’

But Sir George only frowned.

‘Where’s the boy?’ he said.

But Rollo had disappeared, and no one saw him for the rest of the day.

They tried to carry on as though nothing had happened. The ghosts worked harder than ever and came up with more and more ideas. Brenda had decided to swoop out of a picture in the banqueting hall. It was a painting of a lady with fair ringlets wearing a crinoline and she thought that when her face changed and she turned into a Bloodstained Bride it would give a very good effect. Mr Smith practised something he called ‘The Somersault of Death’ and The Feet had learned to dance a tango inside Sir George’s riding boots.

But no one could quite hide their anxiety. Ned and his mother went to see his uncle in the cottage hospital. The warden had had bad stomach cramps and the doctors wouldn’t let him go home till they found out what had caused them.

‘I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with the cattle,’ he said, turning restlessly in his bed.

Everyone talked and worried about the men in white coats – everyone except Rollo. Rollo said nothing, and whenever anyone else mentioned them, he left the room. He hardly touched his food, and Madlyn spent her nights running to and from his bedroom because he cried out in his sleep.

And so two days passed, and then three days, and four – and on the fifth, the men returned.

‘It’s no good beating about the bush, sir,’ said Dr Dale as soon as he got out of the van. ‘The news is bad. We thought you’d like to see the results of the tests yourself. Here are the sputum figures. As you see, there’s nine milligrams of pollutant per cc in all the animals tested. That’s very indicative.’ He pulled out another file. ‘And these are the urine tests.’ He paused while Sir George stared at the columns of figures. ‘I’m afraid they don’t leave any room for doubt. And the blood samples – well, you can see. With figures in the high forties we’re in an area of serious infection.’

‘And we noticed other symptoms. Lip smacking,’ said the tall, gangling vet with the Adam’s apple, ‘and foot blistering.’

‘No.’ The cry came from Rollo. ‘It isn’t true.’

The vets turned their back on him and addressed Sir George.

‘But what … what does it mean? What is the disease they have?’

The vets looked at him with sympathy. ‘I’m afraid the figures can mean one thing and one thing only. Klappert’s Disease.’

‘Klappert’s Disease?’ Sir George was bewildered. ‘I’ve never heard of it.’

‘That’s not surprising. The disease was first described by Klaus Klappert about ten years ago. We’ve been investigating it in secret ever since – there’s a research station not far from here and I’m afraid –’ he lowered his voice – ‘a strain of the virus may have escaped. I can’t tell you how dangerous it would be if the disease were to spread. The herds of Britain could be totally wiped out.’

‘I don’t believe it. Why my cattle?’

Dr Dale shrugged. ‘These things happen. Perhaps it’s the purity of the herd which has prevented resistance. I can see that it’s a shock, but with swift and determined action we can restrict the damage in the area.’

‘What kind of swift and determined action?’

But he knew even before Dr Dale had spoken.

‘The whole herd will have to be culled, sir. It’s the law with this particular disease.’

‘Culled’ is a word which scientists use when they mean killed. Seal pups are culled when they are clubbed to death in their breeding grounds. Badgers are culled when they are gassed inside their setts.

Sir George was remembering the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease some years ago. The government had ordered all the infected cattle to be killed and their bodies burned or buried. The animals were stunned with bolt guns and driven in lorries to the killing fields, or else shot where they stood. When the stench of burning flesh became too much for people to bear, the carcasses were buried in pits and covered in lime. The farms of England became a ghastly battlefield filled with smoke and the cries of people whose animals were doomed.

‘It was like being in hell,’ said Sir George.

Meanwhile, the vets said, there had to be the strictest quarantine. They took notices out of the van saying ‘No Admittance’ in red letters, and ‘Quarantine’ in yellow letters, and they gave instructions for ditches to be dug in front of every gate and troughs of disinfectant to be put there for people to dip their feet.

‘Once the herd is culled and the fields have been fumigated you can allow people back again, but not till then. The whole area must be out of bounds.’

‘You mean we can’t have our Open Days?’ asked Aunt Emily.

‘Definitely not. That would be a sure way of spreading infection.’

But at the end, as they got back into the van, they were reassuring. ‘Your beasts won’t feel a moment of pain. From the moment they’re stunned and fall to their knees it’ll all be over for them. There’s many a human being who would wish for such a painless death,’ they said.

And then they drove away.

S
ir George did not like picnics, and he particularly did not like picnics by the sea. He did not like sitting bolt upright in the sand, or paddling in icy water or trudging across sand dunes carrying hampers and rugs.

But three days after the men in white coats had been, Sir George sat staring out to sea with his legs sticking out in front of him and his tweed hat jammed down on his head – and beside him sat his sister Emily. She too was not fond of picnics: her back hurt when she sat without a support and both the Percivals thought that folding chairs and beach umbrellas and those sorts of things were vulgar. Sir George wore his tweed suit and Emily wore her fifteen-year-old knitted skirt, and both of them wanted only one thing: that the picnic, and the day, should be over.

The bay where they sat was very beautiful: a golden curve of sand with a view of two islands in the distance, and just enough of a breeze to crown the waves with little crests of white. The tide was out; the hard-packed sand rippled near the waterline, the rocks sparkled in the sun. Madlyn and Ned had taken their nets and were fishing the pools, calling out to Rollo when they found a starfish or a scuttling crab or a cluster of anemones.

But Rollo, who could have named all the creatures that they found, sat beside his Great-Uncle George, silent and still, as though he too was old, and had a back that hurt, and wished that the day was over.

The ghosts had stayed behind in the castle. They were going to keep Cousin Howard company.

‘It’s the salt spray from the sea, you know,’ Ranulf had explained. ‘A ghost’s ectoplasm can stand most things, but salt makes it curdle.’