Death in the Castle

by Pearl S. Buck

  “Now that’s better, isn’t it?”

  She shook her head and bit her lip.

  He looked grave. “Kate, listen to me. You keep reminding me that you are only the maid. You don’t want me to forget it. You won’t let me. Why?”

  “Because”—she was very nearly crying again—“that’s what I—am!”

  He reached for her hand and held it on his open palm and looked at it, a small hand, plump like a child’s hand, but strong. “It doesn’t matter how many times you tell me,” he said slowly. “It doesn’t mean a thing to me, Kate. I’m an American. We don’t classify people. You can live anywhere, be anybody, if you want to—if you are not too stubborn. That’s a stubborn little thumb—it bends back too far.”

  He flexed her thumb. “I’m stubborn, too. See my thumb? I’m more stubborn than you—been at it longer so you may as well give up. You can’t change me. And I’m not going to take the castle away from you if you don’t want me to have it. I’ll go away and everything will be as it was before, as it always has been, always will be—and you’ll be happy again.”

  “No,” she said in a low voice. “I won’t be happy again.”

  He folded his hand over her hand. “Your hand’s trembling, trembling like a frightened bird. … Kate, tell me who you are. There’s some secret here in the castle—I feel it. It’s not about ghosts, either. It’s about someone who’s alive. … Let me help you.”

  “No secret.” She shook her head.

  “You don’t want to tell me?”

  “Only that I’ve been wrong—about you.”

  “But you don’t know me.”

  “I’ve been mistaken about you. I mean—I thought you were—”

  “What?”

  He was gazing deep into her eyes and she could not look away. She tried to smile and felt herself blush and her heart beat. His face was near, very near—his lips—

  “Kate!”

  It was Wells. He stood there before them, his jaw hanging, his eyes stern. She snatched her hand away.

  “Get back to the pantry at once,” Wells ordered her. “The breakfast things are waiting, not to mention that this afternoon the public will be here.”

  John Blayne rose. “It’s my fault. Wells. But I don’t think you need speak to her like that, in any case.”

  Wells was icy. “And there’s an overseas call for you, Mr. Blayne—it’s waiting in the library—from your father again.”

  “Thanks.” He paused to smile at Kate and sauntered toward the library.

  Wells waited until he was out of sight, then turned to Kate. She was still sitting there in the deep window and now was looking out into the yew walk. “Don’t get yourself mixed up with this American,” he muttered. “There’s enough wrong here in the castle without you confusing everything, too. Sir Richard would he very angry.”

  She did not turn her head. “It’s a confusing world. I know—I agree with you, Grandfather. And I don’t want to get—mixed up, as you call it. We’re working people—that’s all we are. They don’t really care for us. Whatever they do, it’s all above our heads. We’ll never understand them.”

  “And you,” he retorted heavily, “you don’t know what you are talking about.”

  He left her and she watched his gaunt old figure shuffling down the long passage until it was out of sight. He had never loved her. Who was he? Who was she? Why were they so different, and why, for that matter, did she not love him? She had never loved him even as a child. She was always quite alone … but never so alone as now … and felt herself impelled, in loneliness, to follow John Blayne to find him blindly, merely to be near him for the brief time that he would still be here in the castle.

  … He was in the library, sitting behind the great oak desk, his eyes shut, his face grimacing as he held the receiver as far as possible from him, as usual. From the receiver came his father’s voice, loud and rasping.

  “Do you hear me? … I want you back here in New York, next Monday. Why? For the merger, Johnny. Where have you been all this time?”

  He replied reasonably but firmly. “It’s not so simple, Dad. There are complications here—I don’t understand them altogether, but—”

  The voice cut across like a buzzsaw. “You won’t be here, then?”

  “I won’t he there.”

  “Do you know what you’re saying?” The voice took over again. “Louise’s father will be mad, and when he gets mad you know what he’s like! It makes me mad when he gets mad and between the two of us the merger will fall through again, like as not, the way it always does. What can I tell him now?”

  “You don’t need to give him any explanations for what I’m doing. What’s all the opera about anyway?”

  Kate tiptoed into the room. He did not see her and she stood waiting and silent.

  “The opera,” the voice emphasized each word, “is that Louise is running around with another man while you’re running around a castle. If you’re not here on Monday, you’ll lose her, sure as my name is John Preston Blayne, Senior. Son, why do you throw everything away on a pile of rock?” The voice softened slightly. “You don’t know what love is until you’ve lost it, the way I have. I remember everything I ever said to your mother that hurt her feelings. It’s not just what I said or did, either. It’s the times I could have been with her and wasn’t, the things I wish now I’d done …”

  The grating voice faltered and recovered. “To hell with you,” it said distinctly, and there was the bang of the receiver.

  Kate tried to escape unseen, but he strode between her and the door. “That was my father.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re not going before I explain?”

  “About mergers?”

  “No, something much more important.”

  She looked at him bravely. Then she went to the desk, took up the receiver and held it out to him. “Here,” she said, “take it.”

  He took it stupidly. “What for?”

  “Isn’t there a cable you should send first?”

  She walked out of the room, her head held high, and left him staring after her. He took a few steps in her direction, then stopped and walked slowly back to the desk. He sat down and held his head in his hands. Ten minutes passed. He reached again for the receiver, dialed, and waited. Then he sent his message, not to his father but to Louise.

  He sat a moment longer, then smiled suddenly and slapped the desk with both hands. To the tune of a waltz whistled under his breath, he all but danced out of the room.

  … In her own room Kate sat down and wept. She was out of breath and tired and bewildered. It was a tower room, the western tower, a circle of narrow windows and a small fireplace set low in the gray rock walls. It had once belonged to a maid-of-honor, a very young one, whose home had been in Wales and who, because she was lonely, had hanged herself one night from the broad beam in the center of the ceiling. No one had missed her and it had been days before they thought to look for her. Megan was her name, and Kate had thought of her often, had wondered how she looked and whether there was another reason than loneliness to make her want to die. Perhaps her mistress had been cruel, perhaps she had been in love, perhaps—perhaps—but who knew?

  It seemed to her now that she understood how it was that Megan had died in this little room. Perhaps she too had sat weeping on this very stool of oak set by the chimney piece. She was not herself quite ready to die but she wanted to weep and did weep now with long, satisfying sobs until she could no more. Then she got up and washed her face and tidied her hair and after that she opened her chest of drawers and made everything in them neat. This done she sewed on two buttons that had fallen from her wool jacket and mended a rent in her black silk slip. She could think of nothing more to do then, and she opened the door and listened to know how they were managing in the castle without her. Silence was all she heard, and after listening for a moment she tiptoed down the circular stairs and slipped across to the great hall where there was plenty of noise and bustle, Joh
n’s voice asking questions, demanding, arguing, contradicting; other voices replying.

  “We must provide an incentive,” he was saying. “What, for example, could we do here after the castle is gone? How could the land be used most profitably?”

  “You’re providing incentive in the cash sum you’re offering, aren’t you?”

  The voice belonged to David Holt, the tall gray-haired man in a neat business suit. He sat at a long table beside John and they were studying figures from a big black book.

  “I want a project,” John went on. “Cash is no good these days. Something to keep people at work and earning would be the thing.”

  One of the young men stopped by. “Know what, Mr. Blayne? Under three feet of topsoil this whole hill is clay! Cement works is the answer. Rebuild all these old huts. Look at the way they did Park Avenue at home! Steel and glass and cement! Handsome.”

  John laughed. “Another New York? Isn’t one enough?”

  “You could make a park, Mr. Blayne,” another young man sang from the opposite side of the hall. “Disneyland, England! They need something to make ’em laugh, in my opinion. Public recreation.”

  “Jot down the ideas, Holt,” John said to the lawyer. “I’ve been thinking myself of a model farm. That wouldn’t spoil the landscape. Milk parlors, silos, everything. It’s developed country you know, but jungles and castles can be equally unproductive.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “But certainly! I don’t want to leave a desert behind me. Let’s really go into it for the heck of it. Have the fellows make some drawings just in case—estimate the costs—the most up-to-date machinery, and Guernsey herds brought from U.S.A. There’s something romantic about that! Guernseys came from the Isle of Guernsey but like the rest of us they’ve been improved by their sojourn in America. So we return them in their modern shape. Meantime I’m not discarding any ideas. We have a week to—”

  Kate on her way back to the kitchen caught the word. A week! Was he staying a week longer? She put her hands to her lips in an involuntary gesture. How could she bear it? Let him go now while she still had her heart in control! She went quickly down the passage to Lady Mary and Sir Richard in their private sitting room. It must be almost time for luncheon and she had been away wickedly long. They’d been calling her, doubtless. But no, they were sitting placidly by the window, he smoking his pipe and she at her crocheting again, as mild as though there had been no morning commotion. Philip Webster was pacing the floor, his hands in his pockets and his gray hair a tangle, as if he had thrust his hands through it too often.

  Lady Mary signed to Kate that she was not needed, and Kate turned and went to her duties in pantry and kitchen.

  “You could sell parts of the estate, you know, Richard.”

  “I’ll not sell,” Sir Richard said. “I’ll fight to the end. … My dear”—he turned to Lady Mary—“you shall keep your realm whole. It is your realm, you know, this little kingdom—after all, there are such small realms—Monaco, Liechtenstein and now Starborough—it’s not unreasonable. You can depend upon me. I shan’t let the tenants get the upper hand. I’ve been too soft with them. What was it John Gomer said? ‘Three things, all of the same sort, are merciless when they get the upper hand: a waterflood, a wasting fire, and the common multitude of small folk.’ The year was 1385, but what he said is as true today.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Richard,” Lady Mary said absently. She was counting stitches. “Oh bother, I’ve done it wrong.” She began to unravel.

  “If I should sell off bits and patches,” Sir Richard said, “people would move in. They’d build houses. The castle would be standing alone in the midst of a village.”

  “I suppose they would,” Lady Mary observed, crocheting again.

  “We’d be besieged,” Sir Richard went on, “but it wouldn’t be the first time, you know, Webster, and the castle can be defended. The moat is dry, of course, but that’s because it was drained against the mosquitoes. It would be easy to debouch the brook again as it was and the moat would fill up quickly. Essential, too, for people would swarm over the battlements otherwise! I planned it all, long ago.”

  Webster sat down suddenly and stared at him. “You’re talking rot, Richard.”

  “Indeed I am not,” Sir Richard retorted. His ruddy face was alight and his eyes glittered under his heavy brows. “It certainly is not rot for an Englishman to defend his castle. It’s his duty, he’s the king. It wouldn’t be the first time a king has stood on the tower balcony of Starborough Castle and commanded his men until they forced a retreat!” Lady Mary looked up from the pink wool. “Who would retreat, Richard?” Her voice was quiet and suddenly her face was sad.

  He stared at her blankly, “People, you know—their houses—”

  “What houses?”

  “The houses people would build.”

  “Houses won’t walk away,” she said in the same sad and quiet voice. “And they aren’t the enemy.”

  “They are,” he cried. “They stifle me! They stifle greatness! That’s why kings always build their castles far away in lonely places. The Commons! That’s the enemy. The common people—the fools—the serfs—the—the—I tell you, I’ll defend this castle as long as I live! I’ll never leave it—”

  She interrupted. “Do you know what they’ll do then? They’ll pull down the castle. It can’t stand here alone. In the end they’ll tear it down—or make it into something useful for themselves. It’s been here too long. I am beginning to know that.”

  “Perhaps you are right, Lady Mary,” Webster said. Sir Richard was on his feet again. His brain was suddenly a burning torture inside his skull. “You two,” he muttered, “you two—against me! Where’s Wells?” He stamped out of the room.

  In the silence Lady Mary continued to crochet and Webster was silent.

  “It was he,” Lady Mary said at last, “it was Richard who brought the Americans here, Philip—wasn’t it?”

  “Certainly it was he who wanted me to advertise,” Webster said.

  “Now he doesn’t want to leave. A moment ago he said he was doing it for me. I don’t really care anymore … It’s only for him … But there’s something else, it seems. … Perhaps we’re coming to the bottom of things at last.”

  Webster breathed hard, as though he were choking. “I don’t understand, Lady Mary.”

  “I don’t understand either, Philip, not even Richard, it seems, with whom I have lived all these years. We’ve been happy, or I thought we had. I’m not sure about that, either, now. And I’ve always believed—foolishly, I daresay—that somehow … somebody … would help us. Perhaps they can’t. Perhaps it’s too hard for them, too. I don’t think they’ve really gone anywhere, you know, in spite of being dead. Philip, they’re just in another state of consciousness. But that’s the same as being in another country, I suppose—it really is. I’m very sorry for them, consequently. But we can’t depend on them. We must look after ourselves.”

  Webster stared at her with round and wondering eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about now, Lady Mary.”

  “No, I suppose you don’t.” Lady Mary sighed and put her work away into a small wicker basket.

  The door opened and Wells entered. He had brushed his hair and put on a white shirt under his worn uniform, but he looked drawn and ill and very old.

  “If you please, my lady,” he said, “what about the American? Do we have him for meals all day?”

  His voice quivered and Lady Mary looked at him. “What’s wrong with you, Wells? You look as though you’d—you’d seen something.”

  Wells put his hand to his mouth to hide his trembling lips. “I heard Sir Richard talking to you, my lady. He’s upset with me, really—not with you—I know it. But indeed I can’t do everything he wants done. He needs better supporters than I can be at my age, my lady. I’m no longer a proper protector for him. …” Suddenly he began to mumble. “The King needs help. I can’t do it alone—I can’t
—I can’t …”

  “What king?” Lady Mary demanded.

  Wells fumbled for his handkerchief and wiped his eyes before he answered. “I beg your pardon, my lady?”

  “I asked what king,” Lady Mary repeated distinctly.

  “I don’t know what you mean, my lady. I was talking of Sir Richard.”

  Webster turned to Wells. “You mean you can’t run this place any longer alone, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Wells said. “Thank you, sir. But if I could just speak with you, my lady—alone, for a minute.”

  Lady Mary sat with her hands folded in her lap and her head sunk on her breast. She looked up now and spoke with sharp irritation. “No, no, Wells. I don’t want to talk now. Of course we must have the American. We shall all sit down to luncheon together.”

  “There are six Americans, my lady.”

  “And three of us. That will be nine, Wells.”

  She dismissed him with a nod and with another nod to Webster she rose and walked down the passage to Sir Richard’s room. He was not there but if he had been, she thought, she would have entered just the same. The time had come for her to discover for herself what had happened in his mind and memory. She walked across the empty room to the paneled wall and tried to open it. It could move, that she knew, although this only by hearsay. She pressed each panel, each point in the carving, each possible indentation, but it remained as it was.

  “Come now,” she murmured. “You do open, you know—don’t pretend with me, please! I’ve lived here too long.”

  Still it resisted and she was about to give up when suddenly at her touch, she did not know where, the wall slid back noiselessly—and she was face to face with Sir Richard. He stood there looking at her as though she were a stranger, an interloper. His face was proud and cold and he held himself tensely erect, his hands at his sides. She stared at him. The blood drained away from her head and heart and she felt faint. She tried to cry out and could not. With a great effort she summoned her strength.

  “I am glad I have found you at last, Richard. I’ve been looking for you such a long time—all my life, I think!”