The People in the Castle: Selected Strange Stories (23 page)

“Now what are we to do?” said Jones presently. “We cannot pass each other on this ledge and if one of us tries to turn round he will probably be dashed to destruction.”

“Let us play my sonata for two flutes and continuo,” said the traveller, who had been looking at the leather portfolio for some minutes past.

Jones cautiously drew out some sheets of manuscript music and passed them over. The traveller turned through them until he came to the piece he wanted, which was inscribed:

“Sonata in C major for two flutes and continuo by A. Smith.”

The two men took out their flutes and Smith propped his manuscript on a ledge in the cliff face so that they could see it by looking sideways. They stood facing each other and played the sonata through, but when they came to the end nothing happened.

“It wants the continuo part,” said Smith sadly. “Let us play it again and I will try to put it in.”

They began again, though Jones looked doubtful.

This time the canary suddenly popped its head from Smith’s pocket, where it had been sleeping, and began to sing with its eyes fixed on the distant peaks and its throat filling and emptying like the bellows of an organ. The two players gazed at each other over their flutes in astonishment but nothing would have made them stop playing, for the music produced by the two flutes and the bird was of more than mortal beauty. As they played the mountains trembled about them; great slabs of snow dislodged from their niches and slipped into the gulf, spires of rock trembled and tottered, and as the travellers came to the end of the sonata, the Mysterious Barricades opened to receive them.

Down below the villages felt the ground quiver as they trudged homewards with the sugar beet harvest, and their tractors snorted and belched blue smoke. But the men never lifted their eyes from the ground, and the woman turned their backs to the windows, so none of them saw the strange things that were happening in the mountains.

The People in
the Castle

The castle stood on a steep hill above the town. Round the bottom of the hill ran the outer castle wall with a massive gateway, and inside this gate was the doctor’s house. People could approach the castle only by going in through his surgery door, out through his garden door, and up a hundred steps; but nobody bothered to do this, because the castle was supposed to be haunted, and in any case who wants to go and see an empty old place falling into ruins? Let the doctor prowl around it himself if he wanted to.

The doctor was thought to be rather odd by the townspeople. He was very young to be so well established, he was always at work writing something, and he was often quite rude to his patients if they took too long about describing their symptoms, and would abruptly tell them to get on and not beat about the bush.

He had arranged his surgery hours in a very businesslike way. The patients sat in rows in the large waiting room amusing themselves with the illustrated papers or with the view of the castle, which filled up the whole of one window in a quite oppressive manner. Each patient picked up a little numbered card from a box as he arrived and then waited until the doctor rang the bell and flashed his number on the indicator. Then the patient hurried to the office, breathlessly recited his symptoms before the doctor grew impatient, received his medicine, dropped his card into another little box, paid for his treatment (or not, after the National Health Service arrived), and hurried out by another door which led straight back to the main castle gateway.

By this means the incoming and outgoing patients were not allowed to become entangled in halls and passageways, creating confusion and holding up proceedings. The doctor was not very fond of people, and the sooner he could clear them all out of his house and get back to his writing, the better he was pleased.

One evening there were fewer patients than usual. It was late in October. The wind had been blowing in from the sea all day, but it dropped before sunset, and what leaves remained on the trees were hanging motionless in the clear dusk.

“Is there anyone after you?” the doctor asked old Mrs. Daggs, as he gave her some sardine ointment.

“Just one young lady, a stranger I reckon. Never seen her in the town.”

“All right—good night,” said the doctor quickly, and opened the door for the old woman, at the same time pressing the buzzer for the next number. Then he thought of a phrase for the paper he was writing on speech impediments and twiddled around in his revolving chair to put it down in the notebook on his desk. He was automatically listening for the sound of the waiting-room door, but as he heard nothing he impatiently pressed the buzzer again, and turning around, shouted:

“Come along there.”

Then he stopped short, for his last patient had already arrived and was sitting in the upright chair with her hands composedly folded in her lap.

“Oh—sorry,” he said. “You must have come in very quietly. I didn’t know you were in here.”

She inclined her head a little, as if acknowledging his apology. She was very white-faced, with the palest gold hair he had ever seen, hanging in a mass to her shoulders. Even in that dusky room it seemed to shine. Her dress was white, and over it she wore a gray plaid-like cloak, flung round her and fastening on her shoulder.

“What’
s your trouble?
” asked the doctor, reaching for his prescription block.

She was silent.

“Come along, for goodness’ sake—speak up,” he said testily. “
We haven
’t got all night.” Then he saw, with surprise and some embarrassment, that she was holding out a slate to him. On it was written:

“
I am dumb.
”

He gazed at her, momentarily as speechless as she, and she gently took the slate back again and wrote on it:

“Please cure me.”

It seemed impolite to answer her in speech, almost like taking an unfair advantage. He felt inclined to write his message on the slate too, but he cleared his throat and said:

“
I don
’t know if I can cure you, but come over to the light and I’ll examine you.” He switched on a cluster of bright lights by his desk, and she obediently opened her mouth and stood trustfully while he peered and probed with his instruments.

He gave an exclamation of astonishment, for at the back of her mouth he could see something white sticking up. He cautiously pulled it further forward with his forceps and discovered that it was the end of a long piece of cotton wool. He pulled again, and about a foot of it came out of her mouth, but that seemed to be nowhere near the end. He glanced at the girl in astonishment, but as she appeared quite calm he went on pulling, and the stuff kept reeling out of her throat until there was a tangle of it all over the floor.

At last the end came out.

“Can you speak now?” he asked, rather anxiously.

She seemed to be clearing her throat, and presently said with some difficulty:

“A little. My throat is sore.”

“Here’s something to suck. I’ll give you a prescription for that condition—it’s a result of pulling out the wool, I’m afraid. This will soon put it right. Get it made up as soon as you can.”

He scribbled on a form and handed it to her. She looked at it in a puzzled manner.

“I do not understand.”

“It’s a prescription,” he said impatiently.

“What is that?”

“Good heavens—where
do
you come from?”

She turned and pointed through the window to the castle, outlined on its hill against the green sky.

“From
there
? Who are you?”

“My name is Helen,” she said, still speaking in the same husky, hesitant manner. “My father is King up there on the hill.” For the first time the doctor noticed that round her pale, shining hair she wore a circlet of gold, hardly brighter than the hair beneath. She was then a princess?

“I had a curse laid on me at birth—I expect you know the sort of thing?” He nodded.

“A good fairy who was there said that I would be cured of my dumbness on my eighteenth birthday by a human doctor.”

“Is it your birthday today?”

“Yes. Of course we all knew about you, so I thought I would come to you first.” She coughed, and he jumped up and gave her a drink of a soothing syrup, which she took gratefully.

“Don’t try to talk too much at first. There’s plenty of time. Most people talk too much anyway. I’ll have the prescription made up”—“and bring it round,” he was going to say, but hesitated. Could one go and call at the castle with a bottle of medicine as if it was Mrs. Daggs?

“Will you bring it?” she said, solving his problem. “My father will be glad to see you.”

“Of course, I’ll bring it tomorrow evening.”

Again she gravely inclined her head, and turning, was gone, though whether by the door or window he could not be sure.

He crossed to the window and stood for some time staring up at the black bulk of the castle on the thorn-covered hill, before returning to his desk and the unfinished sentence. He left the curtains open.

Next morning, if it had not been for the prescription lying on his desk, he would have thought that the incident had been a dream. Even as he took the slip along to the pharmacist to have the medicine made up, he wondered if the white-coated woman there would suddenly tell him that he was mad.

That evening dusk was falling as the last of his patients departed. He went down and locked the large gates and then, with a beating heart, started the long climb up the steps to the castle. It was lighter up on the side of the knoll. The thorns and brambles grew so high that he could see nothing but the narrow stairway in front of him. When he reached the top he looked down and saw his own house below, and the town with its crooked roofs running to the foot of the hill, and the river wriggling away to the sea. Then he turned and walked under the arch into the great hall of the castle.

The first thing he noticed was the scent of lime. There was a big lime tree which, in the daytime, grew in the middle of the grass carpeting the great hall. He could not see the tree, but why was a lime tree blossoming in October?

It was dark inside, and he stood hesitating, afraid to step forward into the gloom, when he felt a hand slipped into his. It was a thin hand, very cool; it gave him a gentle tug and he moved forward, straining his eyes to try to make out who was leading him. Then, as if the pattern in a kaleidoscope had cleared, his eyes flickered and he began to see.

There were lights grouped around the walls in pale clusters, and below them, down the length of the hall, sat a large and shadowy assembly; he could see the glint of light here and there on armor, or on a gold buckle or the jewel in a headdress as somebody moved.

At the top of the hall, on a dais, sat a royal figure, cloaked and stately, but the shadows lay so thick in between that he could see no more. But his guide plucked him forward; he now saw that it was Helen, in her white dress with a gold belt and bracelets. She smiled at him gravely and indicated that he was to go up and salute the King.

With some vague recollection of taking his degree he made his way up to the dais and bowed.

“I have brought the Princess’
s cordial, Sire,
” he said, stammering a little.

“We are pleased to receive you and to welcome you to our court. Henceforth come and go freely in this castle whenever you wish.”

The doctor reflected that he always
had
come and gone very freely in the castle; however, it hardly seemed the same place tonight, for the drifting smoke from the candles made the hall look far larger.

He lifted up his eyes and took a good look at the King, who had a long white beard and a pair of piercing eyes. Helen had seated herself on a stool at his feet.

“I see you are a seeker after knowledge,” said the King suddenly. “You will find a rich treasure-house to explore here—only beware that your knowledge does not bring you grief.”

The doctor jumped slightly. He had indeed been thinking that the King looked like some Eastern sage and might have information which the doctor could use in his study on occult medicine.

“I suppose all doctors are seekers after knowledge,” he said cautiously, and handed Helen her bottle of medicine. “Take a teaspoon after meals—or—or three times a day.” He was not sure if the people in the castle had meals in the ordinary way, though some kind of feast seemed to be in progress at the moment.

From that time on the doctor often made his way up to the castle after evening had fallen, and sat talking to the King, or to some of the wise and reverend knights who formed his court, or to Helen. During the daytime the castle brooded, solitary and crumbling as always, save for some occasional archaeologist taking pictures for a learned monthly.

On Christmas Eve the doctor climbed up with a box of throat tablets for Helen, who still had to be careful of her voice, and a jar of ointment for the King who had unfortunately developed chilblains as a result of sitting in the chill and draughty hall.

“You really should get him away from here, though I’d miss him,” he told Helen. “
I don
’t know how old he is—”

“A thousand—”she interjected.

“—Oh,” he said, momentarily taken aback. “Well in any case it really is too damp and cold for him here. And you should take care of your throat too; it’s important not to strain it these first months. The castle really is no place for either of you.”

She obediently flung a fold of her gray cloak around her neck.

“But we are going away tomorrow,” she said. “Didn’t you know? From Christmas to Midsummer Day my father holds his court at Avignon.”

The doctor felt as if the ground had been cut from under his feet.

“You’re going away? You mean you’ll none of you be here?”

“No,” she answered, looking at him gravely.

“Helen! Marry me and stay with me here. My house is very warm—I’ll take care of you, I swear it—” He caught hold of her thin, cold hand.

“Of course I’ll marry you,” she said at once. “You earned the right to my hand and heart when you cured me—didn’t you know that either?”

She led him to her father and he formally asked for her hand in marriage.

“She’s yours,” said the King, “I can’t prevent it though I don’t say I approve of these mixed marriages. But mind you cherish her—the first unkind word, and she’ll vanish like a puff of smoke. That’s one thing we
don’t
have to put up with from mortal man.”

As soon as Helen married the doctor and settled in his house she became a changed creature. The people in the town were surprised and charmed to find what a cheerful, pretty wife their hermit-like doctor had found himself. She left off her magic robes and put on checked aprons; she learned to cook and flitted around dusting and tidying; moreover as her newly won voice gathered strength she chattered like a bird and hummed the whole day long over her work.

She abolished the buzzer in the office because she said it frightened people. She used to look through the door herself and say:

“The doctor will see you now, Mrs. Jones, and will you try not to keep him waiting please—though I know it’s hard for you with your leg. It is any better, do you think? And how’s your husband’s chest?”

“She’s like a ray of sunshine, bless her,” people said.

The doctor was not sure about all this. What he had chiefly loved in her was the sense of magic and mystery; she had been so silent and moved with such stately grace. Still it was very pleasant to have this happy creature in his house attending to his comfort—only she did talk so. In the daytime it was not so bad, but in the evenings when he wanted to get on with his writing it
was
trying.

By and by he suggested that she might like to go to the cinema, and took her to a Disney. She was enchanted, and after that he was ensured peace and quiet on at least two evenings a week, for she was quite happy to go off by herself and leave him, only begging him not to work too hard.

One night he had nearly finished the chapter on Magic and Its Relation to Homeopathic Medicine, and was wishing that he could go up and discuss it with the King. He heard her come in and go to the kitchen to heat the soup for their late supper.