“Have you seen any of the ghosts? How long have you been here?”
Ghosts inside the castle, as well as out? “We came on Thursday. Which ghosts are those?”
“I’ve never actually seen one, but I’ve heard them, and Gabi says—do you know Gabi?”
“Gabriela? The kitchen maid?”
“Right. I call her my almost-sister—she’s a year younger but she looks more like me than ’Lisabeta or Mignon do. Gabi tells me everything that’s going on here, and she says that Bran is haunted.”
“Has she seen them?”
“She hasn’t, no. But she says others have. When Mother and I were here in the spring, I kept poking around in hopes of seeing one, but I never did. I heard some peculiar noises, but that was all. Probably something falling apart. Bran is pretty old—it’s loads better now than when we first saw it, five years ago. In fact,” she confided, “the city had been trying to give it away for a while, to save them the expense of pulling it down. They’d actually given it to the Germans during the War, but when the Germans lost and Transylvania was returned to Roumania, they dusted off the documents and gave it to Mother instead.” She paused, thinking over what she’d told me. “She doesn’t like people to know, so probably you shouldn’t say anything.”
“I promise.”
The blue eyes twinkled, and she stepped forward to tuck her arm through mine. “Oh, Mrs Holmes, you and I are going to be great friends, I can tell.”
“Call me Mary,” I said.
“Aunt Mary it is. Let’s go liberate some biscuits from the kitchen and I’ll show you the best place in the castle to sit. When I was down here earlier, Cook was making my favourite walnut biscuits—they’re usually for Christmas, but we’re never here then and I love them so, Cook bakes some whenever I come. Can you smell them? Divine!”
The odour of biscuits was imperceptible beneath those of onions and roasting chicken, and the kitchen was intent on the coming dinner hour. As we entered the kitchen, I let the Princess and her fluffy little dog go ahead, both to be well clear of any explosion from the commander of the kitchen’s army—I knew cooks and their ways all too well—but also to watch her interactions with the servants.
Those born to the purple are brought up to assume that the world loves them. They expect bent necks and doffed caps, interpreting deference as respect and obedience as agreement. Ileana called Gabriela her sister, but it would never occur to her that while Cinderella’s half-sisters went off to the ball, that less favoured sibling had been scrubbing the fireplace.
On the other hand, Ileana’s youth appeared to have created a degree of actual, rather than symbolic affection. Instead of bristling at the invasion, Cook gave Ileana an indulgent smile, as she would a child—while the girl, on entering this servants’ realm, made it clear that she knew she had no rights here. There was respect on both sides.
In another year, I thought, the Princess would no longer be treated as a child of the castle. In two years, all those spines would go formal and the word Ma’am would enter the conversation. But for now, she would be permitted the same freedom underfoot as her dog.
And be provided with the same ungrudging treats: in the dog’s case a scrap of browned pastry dough, in Ileana’s a little basket of fat, round biscuits oozing a dark filling.
She gave a little squeal and kissed the cook’s cheek, took a bite of one of the rounds, made a sound of appreciation, waved to Gabriela, elbow-deep in potatoes, then gathered up the dog and led me out.
Within a few steps, her bouncing gait had slowed to a more adult pace and she’d fed the uneaten half of her treat to the dog.
She glanced at me. “I do adore them, but if I ate everything Cook gives me, I wouldn’t be able to waddle up the stairs.”
And stairs were clearly on the agenda. I wasn’t sure how many storeys we climbed, but we came out at the top of the tower, with a view that would have satisfied the most diligent of Saxon watch-men.
Even then, she was not finished, but climbed up onto a view-portal—a window that had never held glass—and settled down with her feet dangling over the side.
A long, very long way above the ground.
“Up here, one is the first to know when a visitor is coming. When Mama has been away, I watch for the sparkles of her motor to let me know she’s returning.” She realised that I was not pressed up against her shoulder, and scrunched aside on the stone ledge, patting the space beside her. “There’s plenty of room. Come on up. One can see forever.”
“Thank you, I’m fine here.” Where I have a chance to grab that nice sturdy sash you’re wearing, as you go flying down the roof-tiles.
She gave me an encouraging smile. “That’s all right, my sisters don’t like heights, either. Here, have a biscuit.” She held out the basket of treats. When I had taken one, she carefully made her own selection based on some quality I could not guess, then set the basket down beside her. She pulled hers apart, again dropping one half into the waiting mouth of the small dog.
This seemed to be a practised ritual, since once the morsel was swallowed, the dog did not continue to beg but instead trotted over to paw at a dust-coloured cloth against the wall, then curled up, nose to tail.
I leaned a shoulder gingerly against the stones, taking care to come nowhere near touching the precariously balanced royal princess.
“I have seen a ghost,” she declared. “Just not here.” She examined the crisp brown shape in her hand, and bit off a neat corner.
“Where was it?”
“At Windsor. After nine hundred years, I suppose it’s bound to have a few.”
“Do you know whose ghost it was?”
The question surprised her into craning around to look at me. “You don’t doubt that I saw it?”
I made a gesture with my hand to indicate that there were more things in heaven and earth than were dreamt of in my philosophy. She turned away, satisfied with my response—and, apparently, with my question.
“I think ghosts are those who died dissatisfied. I think people who are happy when they die, or at least fulfilled, simply pass on. But people who are not finished with life—because they died too soon, or there was something on their minds—they linger on in hopes of finding an answer.” She glanced back again, to see how I was taking this.
I was less troubled by her imagination than by her balance, so I nodded. She turned back to her meditations.
“The ghost I saw in Windsor was a little boy. I think he died in one of the chimneys. Did you know that when Great-granny came to the throne, they used to send children up to clean the chimneys? Inside them? And they would sometimes get stuck?”
“I have heard that, yes.”
“I think the boy I saw was one of those. Mother said I was dreaming it, but I’m sure I was there in the room, walking around at night.”
“How awful,” was all I could think of to say.
“Isn’t it? When I become a Queen, I will never allow that kind of thing to happen.”
I choked a little on my sugary mouthful—and on the girl’s flat assumption that “Her Majesty” lay in her future. But then, royalty was the family business: Both sisters and grandmothers were Queens, along with various aunts. Her mother’s first cousins had occupied the thrones of six different European countries. Why not this tomboyish figure?
“Did you ever read Charles Kingsley’s book?” she asked.
“The Water-Babies? A long time ago, yes.”
“Mother says the story helped change things. They’d had a law against it for years, but everyone ignored it until The Water-Babies. People were so upset at the idea of a boy forced to climb up chimneys, how he could never get clean, that the practice was banned. Mother and I read a lot of stories. She writes them, too, did you know? She gives them to me to read first, to see if I like them. Fiction can make people think. Not always, of course—sometimes the
y’re just for fun. I like those, too.”
“Your mother says you like detective stories.”
“I do. They’re so clever, people like Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown. However, I have to tell you, my heart belongs to Bulldog Drummond,” said the future Queen.
“Good choice.”
“Though one does wish there were some girls in those stories. I tell Mother she ought to write tales where girls get into adventures, rather than fairy stories and romances, but she just says that nobody would believe them. Girls never get to have any adventures, do they?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. But tell me about the ghosts in Bran Castle. The ones you’ve heard.”
“I don’t know that one can hear a ghost, there’s another name for that.”
“Poltergeist?”
“That’s it—a spirit that knocks things about.” Which, though I would not tell her, generally appear in the vicinity of an adolescent girl who feels that not enough attention is being paid her. “Not that I’ve seen things moving, just heard things. Mother says it’s timbers settling, but once or twice things have gone missing. And I thought once I heard a voice speaking.”
“Saying what?”
“I couldn’t hear the words, and it was just for a few seconds. And,” she admitted, “it was at night, so it could have been rats. But the ghost the kitchen girl saw, that was during the day. And Gabi says it was someone she knew—someone Vera knew, that is.”
“Vera Dumitru?”
“Is that her last name? The new girl in the kitchen.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” She looked surprised, and I hastily felt around for an explanation. “My husband is an ardent folklorist. He will be thrilled to hear that Castle Bran has a ghost.”
“You can tell him, but it’s best not to talk about it too openly. Vera didn’t tell anyone but Gabi and me—and Florescu, of course, he knows everything. But if Cook finds out, she’ll want to fire Vera for drinking, or being mental.”
“Whose ghost was it?”
“I don’t know his name, just that he was a soldier who died in the War.”
I stared at the back of her head. The girl who’d heard the voice from the cemetery was the girl who had seen the very same ghost back in the winter? Why hadn’t Florescu told us this? Vera Dumitru moved to the top of my list of people to see.
Ileana had not noticed my preoccupation. “There she is,” she said now. I followed her gaze, wondering which distant shape might possibly be recognisable as a young woman she’d known briefly four months earlier—and then I saw the approaching figure on the horse. “She” was not the girl servant visited by ghosts, but the Queen.
People came from their houses to greet her. They ran along the road, held up their babies, clustered around her horse. Progress slowed, then halted, amidst a crowd of men and women who pushed forward to kiss the royal hand and receive the royal blessing.
“They love her so.” Ileana seemed to be speaking to herself.
“One can see why,” I replied.
“She is worthy of them, isn’t she? Do you know, I’m nearly the same age that Mother was at her engagement.”
Thinking of this girl’s position—and particularly, how near she came to having been wed to the Tsar’s haemophiliac son—I could think of no response beyond a noncommittal noise. She glanced over her shoulder at me. “Florescu says your husband is considerably older than you.”
“That is true.”
“Was it arranged?”
“The marriage? Good Lord, no! I mean, no, Your Highness, we chose each other.”
The solemn eyes studied me. “Do you love him?”
“I…” That bluntness had to be from the Roumanian part of her heritage. Or perhaps it was the prerogative of royalty. Still, the child deserved honesty. “I do, yes. I also like him, and learn from him, and am challenged by him. All those things are important.”
She gave a little sigh, and turned back to watch her mother’s progress through the village. “I hope I get some say in who I marry. People seem to, these days. I met some of the girls at the school I shall be going to in England next month, and they talked about nothing but marriage. I don’t think they liked me much. Gabi said she should go in my place, since nobody there could tell the difference. I told her that her English isn’t good enough, but she just said she’d keep her mouth shut and look down her nose at them all, and nobody would know.”
I laughed, glad enough to move away from the topic of marital relations. Not that school rivalries were much easier. “School is easier for those whose lives are small,” I told her. “Most often, happy and successful adults went through miserable times when they were younger.”
“Then I ought to be the happiest adult imaginable.”
I was not quite sure how to address this statement—but the search for mild reassurance vanished with what she did next.
She leaned forward. My hand shot out, finger-tips poised to dig into her sash, not quite making contact. She was looking at something, far below. I craned around to see past her, but all I saw was the little green park at the base of the castle, where the stream had been encouraged to form a small lake.
“There’s only one thing Bran is missing,” she said in a dreamy voice. “Sailing. Mother is building a house down on the Black Sea. Entirely different from Bran—open and new and filled with sunlight. She’s going to leave it to me in her will. And the very best thing is the sailing. One can step off the land and into a boat, and put up the sail and fly, just fly. When I am older, I shall sail to Istanbul and through the Straits and out into the Mediterranean, and only stop when I have friends to visit or want my dinner on the land.”
The girl gave a small sigh at the inadequate little puddle below, then reached for the basket and upended the contents over the abyss. She looked over her shoulder again, her face transformed by a look of mischief. “You won’t tell Cook, will you? That I fed the birds with her special nut biscuits?”
“Not a word.”
She grinned, and handed me the basket, swinging her legs into the room. Her feet hit the floor, and I took my first full breath since we’d arrived in the room. She brushed off her skirt.
“I should get down to the stables before someone tells Mama I’m here. Do you want to come?”
“I was heading for the village, so I’ll go with you as far as the road.”
“Wise of you to be headed the other way,” she said with a grin as mischievous as anything Gabriela could produce. “Mother’s going to be so irritated that I didn’t stay in Sinaia. As if I can do anything for Father other than read aloud to him while he snores.”
As we wound our way through the castle and out of the door, servants and guards snapping to attention at every turn, I asked her about the “responsibilities” that had brought her to Bran.
“Oh, the girls,” she said in surprise. “I promised them I’d be back, to see if they need anything. You see, without me—without someone like me—the girls here are a little trapped. For some girls, Bran is fine, they want nothing but to marry and have children. But for others, that’s not enough. They need school and training and someone who can give them a hand. Girls can be doctors and teachers and innkeepers and, well, everything boys can, really. It’s just that the first steps are harder for them, without help.”
“That is very generous of you.” And perhaps she wasn’t as oblivious to the lives of the Cinderellas around her as I’d thought.
“I have more than any of them can imagine. Befriending them and helping them out is the least I can do.”
“Is that—I noticed the little cross you wear.” It was heavier and more intricately decorated than those I’d seen on Gabi and the other young maid, but similar from a distance.
“Oh, yes,” she said, brushing it with a finger. “One of them admired it last summer, so I had some made to g
ive to them. Each is a little different—only Gabi’s has dogwood flowers like mine—but they’re also the same. Like a membership token. Or promise, I suppose.”
Noblesse oblige, in its purest form.
The guard held the door for us to exit, clicking his soft-soled heels and coming to attention. As we walked down the outer stairs, I thought of another question.
“You said you’d heard noises, inside. Your poltergeist. Where was it?”
She gestured at the wall beside us. “In the music room once. It sounded like someone dropped a cup, but there was no one there. The other time was the dining room. I was looking for a book I’d left somewhere, and heard a kind of a scraping noise. It stopped before I had got far enough into the room to see.”
“Was this recently, or last summer?”
“I only really noticed it in the spring when we came. Though as Mother says, there are always creaking sounds in a house this old.”
“So, in April.”
“That’s right. Why? Does it matter?”
“Just curiosity. I haven’t heard anything yet.”
“I insist that you tell me if you do. I should like nothing better than to go hunting ghosts with you.”
I might need to enlist the help of Bulldog Drummond, I reflected. If for no other reason than to keep this vigorous and sharp-minded young lady from getting into trouble.
Chapter Twenty-one
Holmes found Bucharest even more sweltering than it had been on his previous visit. The taxi from the station panted and stank through the streets. The people on the pavements sought out any available scrap of shade. The Athenee Palace, little more than a decade old, was a blunt block of a building separated from a busy street by an equally crowded pavement. Around the streetcars and motorcars dodged pedestrians and horse-drawn carts, a reminder that busy cities had creatures other than pigs, chickens, and naked infants in their roads.
Inside the hotel, all was dignity and welcome and cool. The doormen and inside staff greeted him with a promise of calm and comfort. One young man took his bag, a slightly older one welcomed him—in English, recognising some faint hotelier’s clues—and the most dignified yet murmured his own welcome and proffered the book and a pen.
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