Castle Barebane

by Joan Aiken

  “Packing?” The grey-green eyes moved up. “You intend leaving town?”

  Why had she given him that handle?

  “Yes,” she said reluctantly.

  “Ah—you return to the States, Miss Montgomery?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Might one inquire, then—where you are bound?”

  Why can I never think of some plausible lie? Val demanded of herself furiously. It was her weakest social front—faced with this kind of situation she invariably lacked the presence of mind to invent a convincing story.

  “I hardly see that it concerns you, sir,” was the best that she could achieve. Which was useless, of course. His brows shot up.

  “Of course it does not, dear lady.” His tone expressed light surprise at her presumption. “But I daresay you would wish me to inform you, should I become acquainted as to your brother’s location—or let him know where you can be found? And I can hardly do that without some direction.”

  Although this seemed reasonable enough, she found herself highly reluctant to give him any information about her plans.

  “I am going to Scotland, sir,” she explained unwillingly.

  “Indeed? You have friends—relatives, there? May I be entrusted with an address which I can relay to your brother, should he return to town?”

  “I believe that will not be necessary, sir, thank you. I am not—”

  She came to a lame halt.

  “Your brother had the direction already, of course,” he filled in smoothly. “Ah—will you be going to Edinburgh? You have connections there?”

  Without having the least intention of doing so, she found herself mentioning her professional plans and saying that she could be reached through Selkirk’s Magazine.

  The brows flicked up again.

  “You—ah you, then, like your brother, occupy yourself with journalism, Miss Montgomery?”

  “Since you appear to be so well-informed about me, sir, I wonder that you did not know that also,” she could not resist commenting tartly.

  This annoyed him; she noticed the twitch in his cheek again; his nostrils flattened as he drew a quick breath.

  Used to his own way, Val thought; a spoilt man, possibly a dangerous man to displease. A vain man, too; in spite of his outrageous behaviour two days ago, he really hoped to charm me, and is angry that he has not succeeded. Could Nils have offended him in some way? Could that have been the reason for the flitting?

  “You do me an injustice, madam,” Lord Clanreydon said coolly. “I was, certainly, cognisant of the fact that Mr. Hansen had a half-sister in the United States, but that was the complete extent of my information—I was not honoured by any particulars as to your circumstances.”

  If he were angry with her, Val was equally so with herself. What folly, to provoke this man, one of her few possible links with Nils; and a man, too, of considerable power and position. His whole bearing demonstrated that, even if she had not known it already.

  Adopting a milder tone she therefore said, “Yes, I am in the same profession as my brother. But my kind of writing is quite different from his. While I am in Scotland I plan to do a series of impressions of domestic life there, for a London journal.”

  “Indeed? Very clever of you,” drawled Lord Clanreydon, evidently losing interest at once. He added as if on an afterthought, “Mrs. Hansen has some relatives up, there, I believe? Where do they live?”

  “Really?” Val parried. “Nils may have mentioned them, but I do not have their address.”

  For once she had achieved a neat, frosty half-truth and was pleased with herself until she noticed the slight sardonic smile, hardly more than a curl of the lip, with which it was received. “I have never met my sister-in-law,” she added. “Are you acquainted with her, Lord Clanreydon?”

  She glanced down at her watch, as she put the question, in a plain hint to him that her time was valuable; she badly wanted to terminate this queer, unprofitable, strained interview. Then, wondering at his silence, she glanced up again and surprised a very odd look indeed on her companion’s face.

  Occasionally during the past ten minutes—so completely at variance were his manner and bearing from his behaviour during their previous interview—wild irrational notions had come into her mind concerning impersonations—identical twins—doppelgangers—mysterious substitutions. But at this moment she was certain again that it was the same man. The dark restless light burned in his eye that she had noticed the other day after she slapped him, together with a mannerism that she had not consciously registered at the time but which now came back to her—a trick of staring at his hands which were outspread a foot apart, as if they held an invisible globe, a cushion of air between them.

  What did he see in that globe of air?

  “Eh?” he said, as if bringing his mind back from an immense distance. “Oh—your sister-in-law, Hansen’s wife? No, I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure—May have met her at some big crush, possibly—I’m afraid I don’t recall.”

  Val thought this unlikely, remembering Nils on the subject of Kirstie’s antipathy to big parties.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Lord Clanreydon, I have a great deal to do,” she said, making a move to rise. His hand was instantly beneath her elbow, assisting her. It was startlingly cold; she felt the chill through her grey poplin sleeve. Partly because of that, partly from an almost physical repugnance, she flinched away from his touch, moving clumsily backward. He noticed this—as he did every nuance of behaviour, it seemed. The greenish eyes glanced ironically sideways; his lips curled. Awkward in her embarrassment, stumbling against the chair she had just quitted, Val dropped her knitted purse. A twist of paper in it came undone and a dozen marbles—blue, green, blood colour—rolled out on to the dusty Turkey carpet.

  With little Pieter in mind she had impulsively bought them from a street vendor in Ludgate Hill.

  “Ah—fond of marbles, Miss Montgomery?” inquired Lord Clanreydon, inspecting the rolling baubles with an air of mild surprise. He raised a pale finger and summoned a page. “Boy! The lady has dropped something.”

  “Hardly, sir,” Val answered with equal calm. “I bought them—for a child of my acquaintance.”

  “Just so. Are you fond of children, then?”

  That question at least Val could answer truthfully.

  “No, sir. Not at all.” She accepted the marbles back from the grinning page boy and poured them once more into her purse. “Good evening, Lord Clanreydon. It was kind of you to call.”

  “Au revoir, Miss Montgomery. So sorry you could not dine. Another time, I hope.”

  “Thank you, but it is unlikely. My plans are uncertain.”

  She flushed at the irony of his tone. Odious man! Why, at the outset, had she not made some round allusion to the previous meeting?

  As she walked across the room and mounted the stairs, she could feel his measuring, calculating stare, sharp as a dart between her shoulderblades.

  Regaining her room, she found that a cablegram had been laid on her table. It was from Benet, to whom she had telegraphed her address on arrival.

  “I find your behaviour extraordinarily hasty, ill-timed, and thoughtless,” he had wired, regardless of expense. “Please make arrangements to return without delay. Yours, Benet Allerton.”

  It was a chilling message to receive, particularly after such an uncomfortable meeting. It made her both depressed and angry.

  She had intended to write Benet this evening, a long, lively, and loving letter about her adventure in London (well, perhaps omitting the Beargarden and Miss Letty Pettigrew); instead, sitting down, she dashed off a short note regretting that it was not in her power to accede to his request at present and explaining that she was on the point of departure to Scotland, where she could be contacted through Selkirk’s Magazine.

  Then, having given her visitor suffici
ent time to get away, she went down to dine.

  “Warn’t that Lord Clanreydon, that gentleman as I seed you with in the card room?” her elderly waiter inquired as she ate her roast mutton.

  “Yes it was. Does he come here often?” asked Val.

  “Lor’ bless you, miss, never! The Jersey ain’t his line—much too old-fashioned for a gent like him. That’s why I were so surprised.” The waiter’s expression also suggested that a staid young lady such as Miss Montgomery was decidedly less scintillating than Lord Clanreydon’s usual companions.

  “Is he very well known?” Val inquired, helping herself to greens.

  “Oh, very much, very much so indeed, miss. Quite a public figure, you could say. Friend of the P. of W., and half the cabinet, and a big sporting man—has his own runners in all the top races, and a yacht at Cowes; very popular, he is. You can’t hardly pick up a picture paper without you find a sketch of him at the play or some nob’s party.”

  The waiter wrapped his napkin round his arm and ambled away.

  Val munched her tough mutton, wondering even more why this ornament of fashion and the sporting world should be so anxious to discover the whereabouts of Nils.

  She walked upstairs, vaguely registering the presence of a shabby man conferring with the clerk at the desk. He wore something blue round his neck and looked like a messenger. His face seemed familiar; she wondered where she had seen him before.

  Her mood of satisfaction had completely evaporated.

  Chapter 8

  The journey north was a nightmare. Wholly unused to the company of children, Val had been prepared for it to prove difficult and tiresome, but her imagination had not supplied her with any details; her fears fell far short of the reality. She was not ready for the insatiable, voracious questions of Pieter, who behaved as if no adult had ever given him rational answers in his life before. “What makes the train go?” “How many people are there on it?” “Where does the driver live?” “When does he get his tea?” “Why are they driving those cows out of that field?” “Why are there sheep in that field?” “What will happen when we get to Edinburgh?” “And then?” “And then?” “And then?” If, stumped for an answer, she honestly said, “I don’t know, Pieter,” he instantly accepted the fact, but that did not stop him; he merely branched to another line of inquiry. “Why is it raining here and not over there?” “What makes the rainbow?” “I don’t know everything in the world, Pieter.” “Why not?” He was like a small relentless machine, frantic for knowledge.

  But Pieter was easy, was child’s play, compared with Jannie. Val had been utterly unprepared for the problems of dealing with Jannie’s physical needs. To begin with, trains, it seemed, made her vomit. “Has she never been in one before?” asked Val, desperately mopping and dabbing. “I don’t think so,” said Pieter, “but going in a horse bus or a carriage always makes her sick, too.” “I wish you’d told me before.” “Why? What difference would it have made? She’d have been sick just the same,” said Pieter reasonably. “Yes, but I wouldn’t have let her drink all that lemonade.”

  Also, as Val had already discovered, Jannie’s bladder was at present completely out of control, and her bowel functions in not much better shape.

  “Did that happen since you were at Mrs. Pipkin’s, too?” “Yes,” said Pieter. “You see Mrs. Pipkin used to leave us alone in the dark, and that frightened Jannie, so she couldn’t help going, and then Mrs. Pipkin used to hit her with a wet cloth, and that made her worse.” Val had a pleasurable vision of herself pushing Mrs. Pipkin under a train. “She was a horrible woman, Pieter.” “Yes. Shall we ever go back to her house?” he asked nervously, his knuckles clenched together with strain. “No. Not ever, ever, Pieter, I promise.” “But are there other people like her?” How could one answer that? The world was full of cruel people, harsh, unjust, thoughtless, insensitive, brutal people. “Perhaps. But there are lots of kind people too. Let’s think about them. Who’s the nicest person you know?” “Look,” he said, “we’re coming to a station. You’d better get Jannie out, quick; she wants to go again.”

  From hard practice at Peterborough, Grantham, Doncaster, and York, Val had become adept at combing through the Colman’s Mustard, London News, Tickets, Refreshments, or Parcels Office signs, as they slowed into a station, and finding Ladies; she was off the train like a fifty yards’ sprinter, with Jannie, leaving Pieter to guard their places. Jannie was totally unused to public lavatories and let out ear-piercing screams at the first two, but her need was too great for even her acute degree of fear to hold her back.

  In the train she was continually restless; not from naughtiness but, it seemed, from a congenital incapacity to remain in the same position for more than about thirty consecutive seconds; then she would squirm and wriggle into a new attitude. By the end of the journey Val’s arms ached as if she had hauled a team of climbers up a mountain, due to the effort of trying to prevent Jannie from precipitating herself on to the filthy carriage floor.

  Lady Stroma’s providence, or McPherson’s, had provided them with a tea basket, and Val was grateful for it not only because of the distraction it provided on the monotonous journey, but also because its napkins, towels, and receptacles were invaluable equipment in the desperate struggle to meet Jannie’s physical contingencies. Val was not hungry herself. However she welcomed Pieter’s suggestion that they should get off the train and go to the refreshment room at York, where the train stopped for half an hour. Val tipped the guard to watch over their seats—though it seemed unlikely that anyone would voluntarily choose to occupy their crumb-strewn, bedraggled, bepuddled corner.

  York’s refreshment room offered soup, fish, meat, pudding, cheese for two shillings and sixpence a head, all served in half an hour. “That’s a penny’s worth a minute,” said Pieter, working it out. “Goodness, Pieter, you’re quick at arithmetic.” None of them wanted that. Val bought the children ices, and herself a brandy and soda, which cost a shilling; it was dear, but she needed it. Gulping it down, waiting for its restorative warmth, she remembered Nils, taking the brandy decanter up to his bedroom. Extraordinary to think that these were his children; they seemed in no way part of him.

  Back in the train, Jannie suddenly fell into a deep and mercifully prolonged sleep, sucking her finger and clutching Pig against her flushed cheek. While she slept, Val was able to read aloud to Pieter in a low voice. She had cursed herself earlier because, though she had bought the children a swift and random selection of toys and games the previous day, these were all packed away in the luggage van among their baggage, inaccessible until they reached Edinburgh. However she had acquired two books of fairy tales at the York bookstall. It was no use reading while Jannie was awake; she paid not the slightest attention to the sound of the words, merely tried pertinaciously to turn over the pages, faster and faster, without waiting for the story.

  Val was troubled about her.

  All the other occupants of the carriage had got off at York. Perhaps York was their destination; or perhaps they had had enough of youthful company and had found places elsewhere on the train. At all events Val was able, thankfully, to stretch out Jannie’s little warm, inert body along one seat, covered with a shawl, while she and Pieter sat softly reading aloud and conversing on the other side.

  “Tell me, Pieter, why does Jannie talk so little?”

  “I suppose she doesn’t want to,” he said, after thinking about it.

  “I can’t understand what she says very well.”

  In fact the child’s communications, what few there were, consisted of curious gibberish words and incomprehensible grunts.

  “Oh, you’ll soon get to understand her,” said Pieter confidently. “I can, and Mama can very well.”

  “What’s the matter with her?” Val wanted to ask, but you cannot ask such a question of a child Pieter’s age. It was plain though, even to Val, ignorant of children as she was, that all was n
ot well with Jannie. Nils had started to say something about her and then stopped himself, Val now remembered, as if there were some defect, something unsatisfactory about her. Well, perhaps there would be an expert in Edinburgh whom it would be possible to consult. Medical opinion should certainly be sought, Val decided.

  Meanwhile she read aloud to Pieter and was rewarded by his flushed, breathless, utterly concentrated, almost mesmerised attention. Never had she had such an audience. They raced through the Three Bears, Rumpelstiltskin, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, the Juniper Tree. At one point she thought Pieter had fallen asleep, but he was merely rereading the last page of Rumpelstiltskin very carefully over to himself, his lips moving softly as he mouthed the unfamiliar words.

  “Was Rumpelstiltskin a wicked person?” he looked up to ask.

  “I’m not sure, Pieter. What do you think?”

  He thought about it carefully, and then said, “The queen shouldn’t have done what he said.”

  “Agreed to his bargain, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “But then the king would have cut off her head.”

  “Well, she shouldn’t have married him if he said he was going to do that. Really,” said Pieter, thinking it out, “it was all the fault of the mother, who said that lie about her in the first place,” and Val marvelled again at the cool intelligence and logic of this pale, thin little boy who hardly came up to her elbow.

  Jannie woke with a sudden clench and struggle, as if she were fighting her way out of a bad dream. Thinking it would help and distract the child, Val hoisted her up to look out of the window, but this was a disastrous blunder; they were just crossing the Tyne Bridge at Newcastle, Jannie looked out and, seeing nothing but water, burst into a convulsive series of high-pitched screams, arching her body back as if she were about to have a fit; it took the combined efforts of Pieter and Val to soothe her down. Pieter was touchingly good with his small sister, Val had already discovered: intuitively quick to grasp her needs, ingenious at amusing her, gentle and infinitely patient.