“What on earth were you doing up there in the dark?” he demanded when I reached him.
“I tried the light, but it doesn’t seem to be working.”
He snapped the switch on and off. “It’s gone kaput again. This whole wing needs rewiring. But you still haven’t told me what you were doing up there.”
“Nosing around, I’m afraid. Actually, I just wanted to see what the view would be like from the turret windows.”
“And what,” he said slowly, “did you think of it?”
“Oh, I couldn’t get in. The door at the top was locked.”
“Really? I wonder why.” He smiled, and I had a feeling that he was relieved. It was none of my business to question why doors in the Schloss should be left locked or unlocked, but Raimund seemed to think I was entitled to some sort of explanation.
“I suppose Karl keeps it bolted because he’s got some of the old family treasures up there. He and Ursula have been with us for many years, and they value the old things more than we do. Karl would consider it a crime to allow my rocking horse to get damaged, or Anton’s train set. Still, never mind. If you want a fine view there is an even better one from the bell tower. Come, I will show you.”
Raimund began to lead me through a maze of corridors, and but for glimpses through the windows, sometimes of the courtyard, sometimes of the lake, I’d have lost all sense of direction.
“How do you ever remember your way around?” I asked him.
“Yes, it is a weird old place, nicht? The oldest parts go back eight centuries and I should think that every family that has ever owned it must have added and altered bits. The Schloss Rietswil has had quite a chequered history, from all accounts. In the fourteenth century it was a hotbed of plotting against the Hapsburg oppressors. In those days the peasant soldiery was mobilised for action by tolling the bell.”
I laughed. “I thought you Swiss were supposed to be a peace-loving lot.”
“Just lately, maybe. But in olden times there wasn’t much the rest of mankind could teach us about blood and butchery.”
Raimund halted at an arched door, and when he opened it the rusty hinges screeched a protest. The way to the belfry lay up an ancient creaking stairway, with narrow slit windows at alternate landings and a door that led into a bare, cell-like chamber. At the top of the stairs we passed through a trap door, and were caught at once by an icy wind whipping through the unglazed embrasures. The heavy bronze bell, about the size of a small wine cask, was suspended mouth up and restrained by a chain.
“We still ring it once a year, early in March,” Raimund told me. “It’s an ancient custom—to drive away the winter and welcome in the spring. The magic works, too ... the first signs of spring always arrive soon afterwards.”
“That’s comforting to know.”
“I wish I could give you a demonstration, but people round about would wonder what was going on if they heard the bell.”
“Do you think they might come running out with axes and knives?”
“One never knows.”
Cradling my arms against the cold wind, I stood and looked down at the garden sloping gently to the lake, its waters a dull grey now under the sombre sky. It was in my mind to say to Raimund, Tell me all the things I want to know, the things you’re so anxious to spare me. But he’d only deny it, and I’d have gained nothing. Better to wait for a natural opportunity than try to force the issue. Instead, I said, “Shouldn’t you be at the mill at this time of day?”
He made a face at me as he perched himself comfortably on a large wooden crate.
“Don’t you start. Mama has been dropping heavy hints.”
“Anton won’t like you playing hookey,” I said maliciously.
He muttered a rude comment in German about Anton, then said, “After that cheeky remark you do not really deserve it, Gail, but I was wondering whether you would like to come over to St. Gallen with me. I have to call on someone there. Business, believe it or not.”
“Today, you mean?”
“Now, I mean. We could have lunch there and drive back a long way around. How about it?”
Why not? It might provide me with the very opportunity I was seeking.
“Great,” I said. “I’ll enjoy that.”
I went back down the stairs with too much enthusiasm, and missed the doorway through to the house. Raimund grabbed my arm.
“Hey, come back. There’s no way out down there, the door at the bottom was blocked up years ago.”
“These little rooms on each level—what are they for?” I asked. “Were they dungeons or something in the old days?”
He grinned. “Let us have a look and see if we can find any skeletons. If you don’t mind the cobwebs, that is.”
“Thanks, I’d rather remain in blissful ignorance.”
Ten minutes later, having fetched my coat from my room and explained to Sigrid, I joined Raimund in the courtyard where he had his white Mercedes waiting. He drove to the silk mill first, pulling up in one of the marked-out parking bays.
“I have to fetch some samples,” he told me, “but I will only be a few minutes. Will you come in with me, or wait in the car?”
“I’ll stroll around, I think. That curious little building over there looks interesting.”
“It houses the old water wheel that used to power the mill in the days before electricity,” he explained, and walked off in the direction of the showroom.
Out here the roar of the mill’s machinery was no more than a steady hum and from the row of pollarded lime trees that marked the boundary I could hear birds singing. The yard was attractively laid out. Three fan-trained blossom trees spread their laden pink boughs against a pristine white wall, and beneath the windows of the mill were beds of tulips, strictly segregated according to colour—flame red, bright yellow, and maroon. I sighed. Everything connected with the Kreuders was so neat and tidy and in proper order ... except for the memories that my father had left behind. It was as if my unexpected arrival had inflamed the wound inflicted by his death.
I walked across to the old wheelhouse and peered inside. Its derelict state was almost welcome after so much meticulousness. The great cast-iron axle was eaten away with the rust of decades and the radial arms were green with watery slime.
Another car had drawn into the yard and parked on the far side. Behind me I heard footsteps, which stopped abruptly. Then a voice, an instantly remembered voice, called out, “It is you, isn’t it?”
I spun around in confusion and found myself facing the man I’d met in Zurich. Anton Kreuder, as I knew now.
“Well hello,” he said, “what an astonishing coincidence.”
He was smiling as he came towards me, and I felt a quick bubble of excitement. But I also felt absurdly nervous, very much on the defensive.
“You’re rather off the usual tourist track here,” he went on. “Or does your ‘sort of’ holiday include a special interest in the textile trade?”
“Not really. I’m just waiting for Raimund.”
“My brother?” His smile faded at once. “Does that mean you knew Raimund before you came here? Or have you just met?”
“We’ve just met—the day I arrived. Isn’t it quite extraordinary, after you helped me like that in Zurich?”
“Incredible,” he said.
“I was amazed when I saw your photograph,” I rushed on, “because of course I recognised you at once.”
“My photograph? Are you saying that Raimund carries a photograph of me around with him?”
“I meant at the Schloss. Your stepmother showed it to me. Or rather, I happened to see one lying about.”
He was looking even more puzzled. “You know my stepmother, also?”
“Yes, I’m staying at the Schloss. Frau Kreuder kindly invited me to stay there, rather than find a guesthouse.” I hesitated a moment. “From what she said, I gathered that you weren’t expected home so soon.”
The grey eyes flickered. “Something arose and I had to change m
y plans. I have driven straight here from the airport.” His manner became terse as he continued, “I’m afraid I shall be keeping Raimund for some time, so perhaps you would prefer to return to the Schloss. I could arrange for someone to drive you.”
“Thanks, but it’s not very far. I’ll enjoy the walk.”
“As you please. Well ... we will be meeting again later. By the way, you did not tell me your name.”
“It’s Gail,” I said. Then, wondering how he was going to take it, I added, “Gail Sherbrooke.”
“Sherbrooke?”
“Yes. I’m Benedict Sherbrooke’s daughter.”
His face was suddenly like rock, cold and hard and impervious. “Did you say my stepmother invited you to stay at the Schloss?”
“That’s right. It was very good of her, I thought.”
He said, in a chilling voice, “Perhaps, Miss Sherbrooke, you will tell me precisely what it is you are doing here.”
“It’s a long story,” I faltered. “To cut it short ... I’d always believed that my father had died when I was very young, and only recently did I learn that he was alive until February of this year. I discovered it when The Times reported that one of his paintings had changed hands at a London saleroom. I was able to find out that he’d been living all these years in this part of Switzerland, and ...”
I broke off, checked by the scorn in his eyes. I had remembered them as being a soft, warm grey, like wood smoke, but now they were like splintered slate.
“So you came hurrying out to find what pickings there might be for you,” he said viciously. “How gratified you must have been to find there was a whole roomful of paintings. If buyers can be found for those, too, your journey will have paid handsome dividends.”
Shaken, and furiously angry, I started to protest that he’d got it all wrong. But already he was striding away from me across the yard and in another moment he had vanished through the doorway to the offices. It was all I could do not to rush after him, to force him to listen to me, but I could hardly provoke a scene right here at the silk mill.
I was reaching into the car for my handbag when Raimund reappeared, hurrying out of the showroom with a swatch of fabric under his arm. Obviously he was still unaware that Anton had arrived and I felt tempted to say nothing, but just get in the car and let him drive to St. Gallen. But I was interested to see how he would react.
“I think I ought to mention that your half-brother has just turned up.”
He froze, the car door half open. “Anton is here?’
“That’s right, he arrived a few minutes ago,” I said, nodding towards his blue Mercedes that was parked across the yard. “I gathered that he wants to talk to you.”
“You spoke to him?”
“Yes, briefly.”
“But ... but he couldn’t have known who you were. I mean, not unless you told him just now.”
“I did tell him. I saw no reason why I shouldn’t,” I added challengingly.
Raimund cursed under his breath in German. Then in a subdued voice, he asked, “How did he take it?”
“He was astonished, to say the least. He suggested rather unpleasantly that I was here looking for pickings.”
Raimund’s tone dismissed this as irrelevant. “What else did he have to say?”
“Nothing much. I just told him I was waiting for you, and he suggested that it would be best for me not to wait as he’d need you for some time. That was all.”
Raimund’s fingers drummed a nervous tattoo on the side of the car.
“The best thing is to leave him to Mama. She will talk him around. We might just as well enjoy ourselves today while we have the chance.” He glanced at me and managed a smile. “In you get, Gail.”
I made no move. “Wouldn’t it be better to see your brother now, and get it over with—whatever it is? I mean, if there’s trouble, it’ll catch up with you in the end.”
“But we’ve made plans, Gail. I can’t stand you up.”
“Yes, you can. I won’t mind.”
“I would, though.” He tossed the swatch of samples onto the rear seat. “So jump in and let us get started.”
Raimund was hustling me. Having decided to cut and run, he couldn’t do it fast enough. Perhaps, like me, he had noticed the tall figure watching us from an upper window of the office block. In another moment, I guessed, the window would be thrust open and Anton Kreuder would be calling his half-brother over, a direct summons which Raimund wouldn’t dare ignore. Damn the man, I thought—damn his ill temper and his foul manners.
I jerked open the car door and laughed across at Raimund. “Okay, what are we waiting for?”
Now he was the one who hesitated. Then he slid in beside me, and we did a fancy fast turn out of the yard. I felt the rear wheels slide as we swung onto the road. He corrected the skid and we stormed away. Glancing at his profile, I saw that he was grinning defiantly.
“You don’t let anything worry you for long, do you?” I observed.
“Since when did worrying put anything right?”
I shrugged, not really caring. I was too involved with my own disturbing thoughts.
“When I was talking to your brother just now,” I said, “he was perfectly friendly at first, but as soon as I told him my name his manner changed completely. He was furious. I don’t understand. Why should he be so much against me because I’m Benedict Sherbrooke’s daughter?”
“Anton’s mind is a law unto itself,” he said.
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” I said irritably, “do you have to try and make a stupid joke out of everything?”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s completely pointless to make such a mystery out of it. Anton must have hated my father, and now he’s taking it out on me. It was very sweet of your mother to invite me to stay, but you can’t deny that both of you have been hinting that I’m not expected to hang around for too long. I didn’t need second sight to work out that it was Anton you were scared of. You didn’t want him to arrive home and find me there.”
“Everything would have been fine if he’d not taken it into his head to come back sooner than planned,” Raimund said. “It is very puzzling, too. Anton is not the type to cut short a business trip.”
I sighed on a long, impatient breath. ‘If you were expecting your brother to be difficult, you must also know why he feels this way. So tell me.”
“Don’t keep on about it, Gail. Mama and I do not have to ask Anton’s permission before inviting someone to stay. The Schloss is as much our home as his.”
With that, Raimund put his foot down hard and swerved out to pass a heavy truck on a long, sweeping bend. I closed my eyes, terrified of meeting something in a head-on collision. And when, after a minute or two, he dropped to a more sensible speed, I felt afraid to press him any more in this edgy, unpredictable mood.
Ahead of us, a pale thread of sunlight silvered the clouds and threw a spotlight onto some ancient ruin perched dramatically on a mountain crag. I sighed, wishing I could enjoy the beauty all around. Raimund could, if I let him. His philosophy was to put unpleasantness behind him, to face a problem when he had to, and not before. Perhaps, for a few hours, I would try to do the same.
* * * *
I visited the cathedral while Raimund attended to the business which had brought him to St. Gallen. It didn’t take him long. When he came back to join me again, I was gazing up at the tall twin towers, wishing we had more of this fabulous baroque architecture in England. The hands of the matching clocks indicated five past one.
“Time for lunch,” said Raimund. “And then we will move on somewhere else.”
“But there’s lots more to see here in St. Gallen,” I pointed out, holding the pamphlets I’d acquired.
“Very well, but I want to show you further afield than this, Gail.”
After a few miles we took a zigzag track which led up into a valley of secret Alpine pastures, guarded by a mountain peak that rose sheer and stark and awesome. When we stopped to get out
there was only the soft sighing of wind through the pine trees to break the silence, and the hollow sound of a cowbell from somewhere far off. Raimund leant against the wall of a deserted cowherd’s hut, watching as I trod carefully among the wild spring flowers that were already blooming in sheltered hollows, stooping to cup each new find in my hand.
“I feel so ignorant,” I said. “I only recognise crocuses and gentians. What’s the name of this one?”
“Eine Primel?” he suggested. “In English you say primrose.”
It’s nothing like a primrose.”
He shrugged. “All the yellow ones are primroses to me.”
I plucked a single flower of the creamy gold balls and slipped it into my pocket to identify later.
“You are so serious sometimes,” Raimund remarked, coming over to join me.
“And you’re not serious enough.”
“Better take care—to be serious is only a step away from being dull.”
“Who said that?” I asked. ‘It sounds like a quotation.”
“I expect it is. I am not clever enough to have made it up.” As I rose to my feet he caught my hand and said lightheartedly, “I think I’m going to kiss you, Gail.”
“No, Raimund, I don’t want you to.”
“Please.”
I shook my head and turned away. He grasped me by the shoulders and pulled me around to face him again. I thought he was still fooling, then realised suddenly that he wasn’t. Raimund, unsmiling, was even more like his half-brother, and I felt a wave of bitterness against Anton for intruding even here. If I had allowed Raimund to kiss me then, it would only have been from a feeling of defiance.
But I didn’t let it happen.
“Look, I mean nothing to you,” I protested. “I expect you’ve got at least a dozen girlfriends.”
He gave a wry, reluctant smile, not really amused. “That’s a gross exaggeration. And you are more beautiful than any of them.”
“Oh, come on,” I said tiredly. “Let’s drop the subject.”
Raimund took me to a hotel for dinner at a place called The Golden Hind. We ate in a plushy room adorned with stags’ heads, and I found it depressing to be surrounded by these gruesome trophies staring down at me from the walls with sad eyes.
The Silver Castle Page 6