Castle Barebane

by Joan Aiken

  Next morning Val rose early and slipped up to the attic, opening the door with such care that the sleeper inside did not stir. She moved over to the bed and studied him by the meagre light from the small circular window. Seen thus, asleep, unguarded, he shocked her profoundly. He could have aged ten years since she had seen him last in New York. His face was thin to emaciation, with deep grooves chiselled in the cheeks, and a half-healed scar on the side of his jaw. The skin was a yellow, unhealthy colour, as if he had been living underground, with outbreaks of red pimples among the unshaven blond stubble of beard. His hands were oiled and grimed with dirt of long-standing, and the clothes he wore were likewise soiled and caked. His shoes were worn thin, cracked and stubbed. Glancing round to see if he had any baggage—she had not observed, last night, whether he carried anything—she noticed a sailor’s canvas bag and thought, At least he will have a change of linen and we can wash those things. And he’ll want food by now. I had better bring up—

  She was moving toward the door when he woke and started up on one elbow with a hoarse exclamation. His eyes, blue and bloodshot, blazed at her like underwater lights.

  “What are you doing?—oh, it’s you! What were you doing with my bag?”

  “I didn’t touch it, Nils!”

  “Well, don’t!” He pulled himself up in the bed, propped against the end wall. Then, dragging the bag to him by its cord, he felt among its contents; a frown creased his brows. He pushed the bag aside, pulled the brandy flask from his pocket, and drank.

  “Shall I bring you up some breakfast? What would you like?”

  She longed to get her hands on him—to get him fed and tended and tidied up. He looked so terrible, sitting there, with all his handsomeness and charm turned to a sinister caricature. His lips, which had always been unusually red, were still so, but his mouth was turned down at the corners as if in a permanent grimace of disgust. The long yellow locks hung lank, like dirty string; the eyes seemed to have seen something so hideous that Val could not bear them; all she let herself think about was small practical measures of comfort or nourishment; she felt helpless in the presence of their dreadful awareness.

  “Porridge? Shall I bring you some hot water so that you can wash up here? Have you a razor? There is a bathroom down below—believe it or not! And when you feel rested, the children can come to see you—”

  “No!” The frantic intensity of his voice silenced her. He said, “Sit down. Now keep quiet. Listen. Does anybody know I’m here yet? Did you tell anyone?”

  “No, not yet, I—”

  “Be quiet! Are there neighbours—houses nearby—I forget?”

  “No nearer than Wolf’s Hope. Only the family at the lodge. And they hardly come near. They were offended because I said their daughter—”

  “Hush! That’s one blessing then,” he muttered. “Nobody else? No one’s been asking for me?”

  “No.” Then she recollected and said, “Some tinklers came selling stuff at the door.”

  “Who spoke to them?”

  “Elspie. And she said there were no grand folk here.”

  “Good. Well, no one’s to come—do you understand? Who else might come? What about that man who was here yesterday?”

  “Sir Marcus?” Val remembered. “He did say he might come today.”

  “Send a message and tell him not to.”

  “But, why, Nils?” Her heart sank at this irrational order.

  Among all the perplexities and disappointments of the reunion with Nils, the thought of seeing Sir Marcus later, of being able to ask his advice, had been the one point of light ahead.

  “You’re no actor.” Her brother’s voice held nothing but dislike. “Anyway no woman can keep a secret. You’d be sure to give away the fact that something was up. Tell him not to come.”

  “But Nils—what is up? Why all this secrecy?”

  He pulled the blankets around him and over his head. Propped against the wall with only his face visible, he looked like a ghastly monk, like a corpse wrapped in its shroud.

  “It’s no use telling you anything,” he said.

  The words came out of the shroud with such bitter venom that Val shivered, in the icy, dusty little room, which smelt of rotting wood. There was nothing physical to remind her, but suddenly she was back in childhood, in a wintry New York street. Nils, picking himself up after a snow battle with other boys, five against one, in which he had been ignominiously beaten, had turned with sudden fury on his small sister, who had come running just in time to witness his defeat.

  “You’re no good. What use are you?” And he knocked her down and savagely rubbed her face in the dirty snow, meting out to her the treatment he had just received himself. “But why do they fight you, Nils? Why aren’t they friends with you?” she wept, picking herself up, stumbling along behind him. He kicked the piled snow. “Because I’m cleverer than they are. And I’m cleverer than you, too, and always shall be.”

  For a moment Val was back in that bitter windswept street; for a moment she became again the forlorn child who trailed unhappily after her brother, hoping in vain that he would ever turn and say something kind.

  But I’m not that child any longer, she suddenly realised. No, and I haven’t been for fifteen years. It’s of no importance to me now, what Nils thinks of me. I’m grown up. I’m free. And I own the world.

  She said, equably, “Now, look, Nils, I want to help you. I’m sure you need rest, and medicine, and a doctor. But I can’t keep you here like—like a stowaway. The house belongs to Lady Stroma, after all; she only allows me to stay here because I’m looking after the children—she doesn’t like my being here—and she will like your presence even less.”

  “She hates me like poison,” he said indifferently.

  “Still, however badly she hates you, she’d hardly want you turned out while you are ill. But it is not fair to Elspie to keep your presence here secret. Elspie’s responsible for the place.”

  “Oh, rats!” Nils broke out. “Must you stand there, so smug and righteous, lecturing me like a schoolmarm? Like your precious Miss Chumley!”

  That pierced her armour. But she said quietly, “You can’t expect me to keep your secrets when you give me no reason why I should.”

  “I have enemies,” he said sullenly. “That’s reason enough—ain’t it? Enemies who’d have been glad to see me drowned, like Kirstie. Maybe they think I am drowned. But if they knew I was here, they would come and get me—just as you’d go to market to pick up a cabbage.”

  His eyes jumped nervously past her.

  A cold tremor slid down Val’s spine, between her shoulder blades. And all at once it did seem the height of unfair stupidity, to stand here arguing with Nils, when he was in such a wretched state of fear and sickness and extremity.

  Could he be speaking the truth about his enemies? Or were these imaginary fears—his fever talking?

  “What’s your plan, then? What do you want me to do?” she asked more gently.

  “Hide me here a few days—till I’m rested. I had a bang on the head, back—back there.” His eyes moved, seemed to look inward as at some nightmare; he paused a moment. “I get headaches—it’s hard to think, sometimes. Then—when I’m better—you’ll have to give me some money. Enough for a ticket to America.”

  “America? But what about the children? You couldn’t take them, surely—”

  “Who said I was going to? They can stay here, can’t they?”

  Val opened her mouth to speak, to explain, to argue—then shut it again. Time enough to discuss Lady Stroma and her conditions when he was well again, and amenable to reason. Surely a few days at Ardnacarrig would make him well. All that was needed was patience, to wait, to humour him a little.

  “All right, Nils.” She made her voice gentle and reasonable. “I won’t tell anyone outside the house that you are here. But I must tell old Elspie
. I don’t think I could keep it from her, anyway. She’d find out by instinct.”

  And that means Mungo and the children will necessarily have to know as well, she thought, but did not say.

  “Oh—very well,” he grumbled fretfully. “But mind—that man—Cusack—is not to come. You must tell him that the children have scarlatina or some such thing. That’ll keep him away.”

  Very probably it will, Val thought, with a wry internal smile and a sigh. She said, “All right,” again, quietly, and turned to leave the room.

  “I say—Val!” he called after her.

  “What?”

  “Be a sport and bring a fellow up some brandy, will you? I’ve finished what’s in my flask. I don’t care so much about eating just now but I could do with another nip to warm me. Do, now—will you?”

  She nodded, went downstairs, and helped the children with their dressing and breakfast. Then, seizing the first opportunity afterward, she drew Elspie into the pantry.

  “Elspie, there’s something I have to tell you privately. I need your help. My—the children’s father has come here. Last night.”

  “He has so?” Elspie put her hands on her hips with deliberation and looked thoughtfully at Val, who went on, “And—and I think he’s in some kind of trouble. He wants to hide here for a few days—from his enemies, he says—and no one to know about it.”

  “Och, ay?” Elspie’s tone was still the same: dry, noncommittal; she stood waiting, and her angular face expressed nothing; her mouth was compressed into a straight, sceptical line.

  “And Nils has given me a piece of dreadful news: Kirstie is dead, drowned.”

  Val had expected an outcry of grief, or shock, but Elspie’s reaction was characteristically controlled: she crossed her hands over her breast, as if to hold in pain, then nodded her head slowly, twice.

  “Ay,” she said presently. “I felt sairtain that must be so.”

  “You did, Elspie? Why?”

  “Why? I reared that lass from when she was twa years old. We were as nigh as that.” She cupped one hand inside the other. “When you’ve cared for a bairn, ye have a feeling of them with ye always, a’ the lave of your life—ye know when they are in trouble, ye can sense it. Ach, I canna express what I mean! But I had thon feeling, lately, for wee Kirstie, that she was in sore trouble—and syne—all of a sudden—it was gone. I thocht: her pain’s over, whate’er it was; she’s no frighted ony mair, my puir Kirstie.”

  Elspie’s gaze moved back from the distance and fixed on Val. She said, “Ye’ll know what I mean, some day, maybe, when ye’ve bairns of your own—or gin some orra, unchancy thing were to come to Pieter or wee Jannie. Ye’d feel it, here.”

  Val did feel a sudden piercing pang, as she saw two tears form slowly in Elspie’s faded blue eyes and run down her wrinkled cheeks, though her mouth still kept its straight, stoic line.

  “I’m very sorry, Elspie,” she said quietly. “I know Kirstie was like your own child.”

  The old woman—for a moment she truly seemed one—gave a short, loud sigh.

  “Aweel, aweel! Where is your brither—is he inbye?”

  “Yes,” Val said. “I’ve put him in one of the attics—out of the way.”

  Elspie nodded, as if this were just what she would have expected.

  “Weel—I’ll tell ye this, Mistress Val. I never liked your brither, an’ I never trusted him. I was sairtain he married Kirstie for her siller, though she was fair infatuated an’ couldna see it. An’ I’m sairtain he treated her hard as man ever treated wumman. Ye’re a decent enough body, Mistress Val, for all your camsteery ways an’ yer pigheadedness—but yon man is clean bad, richt through.”

  Val stood silent, accepting the stinging truth of Elspie’s words.

  “I know,” she said, after a while. “And I know Lady Stroma would not approve of his being here, and that she feels the same way about him. I think you are right, Elspie. But he is the children’s father, and he’s starved and exhausted and ill.” For a moment she thought of pointing out that Mungo had arrived in a similar manner, but felt this would not be fair. So she merely ended, “May he stay—just for a few days, just till he’s better?”

  “Och, ay. Who am I to say nay? He can bide. Juist for a few days. I’ll come an’ see him mysel’, by an’ by.”

  Val felt nervous at the thought of this visit, but it was postponed for the time by the arrival at this moment, unusually late, of Tom the Postman, who brought a note from David Ramsay addressed to Val.

  “My dear Val: I know you will be sorry to hear that my mother passed away during the night. Her end was peaceful: she sank into a state of unconsciousness from which she could not be roused. Marcus, Tibbie, and I were at her bedside.” There followed details about the funeral arrangements for the following day, and he ended, “I know you will understand why I do not come over to give Jannie her lesson for a few days. There is much to be done. But Marcus says that, unless it is inconvenient to you, he would like to call on you this afternoon. Affectionately, D.R.”

  There was no time to reflect, or evolve subtleties of language. Tom Postie was drinking a cup of tea and had told her he would be back in Wolf’s Hope by noon; Val scribbled down two notes, one of heartfelt condolence to David, one to Marcus which simply said, “Dear Sir Marcus, I am sorry to have to deny you, but, for reasons which I am unable to go into, I am afraid you had better not come to Ardnacarrig for the present. Yours, V.M.”

  Feeling as if she had severed a cord that moored her to land and sanity she handed the notes to Tom.

  After he had left, Val looked for Elspie, but she had vanished, perhaps to seek comfort with Mungo, who was working down at the boathouse. The children were peacefully engaged in the card room, playing a game of house under card tables draped with old curtains which even Elspie had condemned as being beyond repair.

  Val put food, and a bowl of hot water with washing equipment on a tray and bore it upstairs. She negotiated the wide shallow flight that circled the main hall without difficulty, but the narrow stair to the attic would not take the tray; she had to put it down and carry the things up separately.

  The temperature in this whole region of the house was arctic; many of the windows were ill-fitting, and the wind whistled through the cracks and past the crow-stepped gables. Val, glancing out through a small window on to the leads, noticed a few flakes of snow drift by. Sir Marcus will want to get back to Edinburgh fast, if there is going to be snow here, she thought, shivering; it’s as well that I told him not to come. This thought was no consolation, and neither was the behaviour of Nils when she took him in porridge, tea, hot water, and soap.

  “What the devil d’you bring all that trash for?” he snarled. “Take it away! I asked for brandy, not slops!”

  “You’ll have to ask Elspie for brandy—if there’s any in the house. It’s not mine to dispense. She is coming up to see you presently.”

  “You told her?” His rage was frightening, but Val stood her ground.

  “I’m not going to tell lies on your account, Nils. I won’t do it. Now come on, you stink worse than a polecat. If you won’t wash yourself, I shall have to wash you; you have to clean up before she comes.”

  Despite his furious protests she managed to get him at least partially cleaned up. He was really weak and she had to do most of the work. He was also so thin that his bones stood out like driftwood. He muttered, “So would you stink if you’d been where I’ve been.”

  “Well, where have you been, Nils? You haven’t told me anything yet.”

  “I had no money so I worked my way here on freighters—from London to Hull, from Hull here.”

  “Was Kirstie on the freighter too? Was that how she came to drown?”

  His eyes slid away nervously and his mouth twitched. Val said, “It can’t—surely—have taken you all the time since I reached England, just making your way from
London to Scotland? What happened to you?”

  He ignored her question and asked one of his own. “When you were in London, did you—who did you see? You brought the children here?”

  “Yes,” she answered absently. She was horrified to discover that the upper part of his body was a mass of bruises and half-healed cuts. “Nils—what has been happening to you?”

  “I fell overboard,” he muttered. “In the Thames estuary. Had to swim for it. Got washed against some underwater piles. That’s enough, now, Val, for God’s sake—do leave a fellow in peace!”

  “Have you any clean clothes in that bag?”

  “Yes—no! Don’t touch it! Hand it here, there might be a shirt—” He found one, and Val took away the rest of his clothes to wash. By the time that Elspie arrived, he was moderately clean, but the exertion of washing had tired him and he looked even more ghastly than he had before. By now he was accepting Val as matter-of-factly as if they had fallen back into their old childhood relationship—but the sight of Elspie, tall and gaunt in her black dress, white apron, and black mutch, seemed to discompose him terribly. He cowered back against the wall, and his eyes fled from side to side.

  “Who’s that?” he whispered to Val. “Don’t let her near me! Has she come to curse me?”

  “It’s only Elspie!” said Val. “You’ve met her before.”

  Nils began to whimper. “I can’t stand it when she looks at me so! Tell her not to. Her eyes go through me like red-hot needles. Go away—go away!” he shrieked at Elspie. “It wasn’t my fault—none of it was. It wasn’t my fault she died!”

  Ignoring this, Elspie walked up to him and felt his head. He moaned and writhed away from her touch and hid his face in the pillow.

  “Nay, he has no fever, his head’s cool enow,” Elspie said calmly to Val. “I doubt he’s a wee thing shocked in his wits, the noo. We’ll juist have tae keep him warm and quiet for two-three days an’ see how he gaes. When Doctor Ramsay comes again, aiblins he can tell what’s wrang. Has he eaten?”