“I only know King John,” she said, trying not to laugh.
“Ah, but he’s dead!”
“I’ve started the bleeding, I’m afraid!” She came close again to wipe the blood away. “And King John isn’t dead — altogether. He still has his room here — the one we didn’t put you in. An old castle like this is always alive. At least it’s — inhabited.”
“Do you mean haunted?”
The lovely mouth was very near now, and he held himself taut. In the absorption in her task he saw her lips parted, the tip of her tongue between white teeth.
“No,” she said, “not haunted. How can you be haunted by people you love? They are people — in different forms and shapes, perhaps, but alive.”
She stepped back with a gesture encircling the room. “To this room, you may be waked in the morning by bells from the royal chapel below. It’s the ballroom now, but it was once the place where Queen Elizabeth knelt at dawn to pray. She prayed often — did you know that? People don’t think of it, but she was religious. I daresay she was lonely and couldn’t trust anyone — not even Essex whom she loved — perhaps especially Essex, because she’d told him she loved him, and so he had advantage.”
“How do you know she told him?”
“She couldn’t help it. Queen though she was, she fell in love like any woman. I daresay she fought her own heart, knowing she couldn’t — mustn’t — give herself into any man’s power. But her heart won. It makes me glad I’m nobody.”
“A beautiful little nobody!”
She laughed again. “I laid myself open, didn’t I — but you needn’t have taken notice!”
“I can’t help noticing.”
She pretended annoyance. “I shall have to stop talking altogether! There — it’s only a scratch, after all.” She walked away from him to the basin.
“No — no, please!” he said, following.
“If you keep teasing—” She was at the door now.
“Let’s get back to the subject of the castle,” he said. “Tell me more about it.”
She considered, lingering on the threshold. “The reason I went with you in the passages is because they’re quite dangerous, really—”
“Haunted, too?”
“No, but they lead to dungeons, I told you — and an underground river.”
“Oh, come now — that’s too perfect! It’s what castles dream of having — dungeons and underground rivers.”
“It’s quite true. I could show you—”
“I want to be shown, I warn you!”
“And there’s one window in the east tower that no one’s ever been able to find the room to—”
“How do you know there’s a room if no one’s been able to find it?”
He was teasing again, but she was serious. She forgot herself, she walked toward him and came close, half whispering, her eyes enormous. “There was a big party here once, in King John’s time, and they hung ribbons from every room, but there was one window with no ribbon to it — there’s always been that one window!”
“Oh, come now!”
“It’s true,” she insisted. “There was a book in the library about the castle that told everything.”
“I must see that book.”
“Ah, it’s been lost this long time — no one knows how. But my grandfather’s seen it.”
“If we take the castle apart, we’ll discover its secrets.”
“No — no, oh please, no! I don’t want to know its secrets.”
He was surprised to see her little face suddenly so troubled. “Tell me,” he was serious now, “are the they that Lady Mary talks about part of the secrets?”
Kate did not look troubled now so much as she looked frightened. “That’s not for me to say, Mr. Blayne.” Then she had command of herself. Lifting her head, she gave him a formal little smile as though determined not to allow friendship. “I must get back to Lady Mary,” she exclaimed. “She’ll be wondering what’s become of me.”
She left him, standing alone in the Duke’s room, and walked quickly along the winding stone-floored passage. In spite of her moment of panic, she felt inexplicably cheerful. She began singing under her breath. How wonderful life was, first frightening people to death and then making them feel that somehow things would be all right.
“Please do forgive me,” she said, as she all but ran into the small sitting room.
“You’ve been a long time,” Lady Mary remarked.
“It was the American, my lady. He asked ever so many questions about the castle.”
“Questions, Kate, are to be answered tomorrow in the presence of our solicitors,” Sir Richard reminded her gently.
“Yes, my lord.”
“Now, go with her ladyship to her room. She should have been in bed an hour ago. It’s been a wearying day.”
“Yes, Sir Richard.”
By ten o’clock the next morning they had gathered in the great hall, Sir Richard and Lady Mary, John Blayne and his lawyer David Holt, a smooth-shaven middle-aged man, slim and self-contained. Philip Webster was the last to arrive, but his presence was immediately felt. He was a short, stoutish man wearing no hat, a shaggy figure in wrinkled brown tweeds with a pipe in his mouth.
The moment he entered, Lady Mary turned to him and clasped her hands in piteous appeal. “Thank God, you’ve come, Philip.”
Sir Richard turned to John Blayne. “My solicitor, Mr. Philip Webster of London. Webster, this is the — the American gentleman with whom you have had correspondence, I believe,”
“And my lawyer, David Holt of Haynes, Holt, Bagley and Spence,” John Blayne supplied.
Philip Webster removed his pipe, shook hands with John Blayne, and bowed without speaking to David Holt. Then he exploded to Sir Richard. “I say, Richard, what the devil is that gang of young men doing out by the gate? They drove in in a sort of shooting brake kind of thing just after I arrived. I asked them what they were about and they said they’d come to take measurements of the castle preparatory to removing it — as if it were a hen house or something!” He paused, then aware of the silence around him, exclaimed, “I say, what’s wrong?”
Sir Richard did not reply for an instant. Pain had begun stabbing at his temples and he waited for it to abate. When he spoke, it was with his usual calm, but his manner was remote, as though be were not a part of what was taking place around him. “We’re in a predicament, Philip, a sorry sort of business, and I don’t quite see — I’m sure you didn’t mean to deceive me, Philip, but the thing is very—” He looked at Lady Mary.
She was shaking her head.
“I’m afraid the sale can’t go through, Philip, but what we shall do—”
“It’s quite impossible,” Lady Mary said. She was trembling slightly as she clasped her hands together. “But then, everything’s impossible these days.”
“What is impossible, Lady Mary?”
“They want to take the castle away and to a place I cannot even pronounce. Really, that’s the most impossible thing I’ve ever heard of, and I shall never understand how you could think it possible. Philip, I simply cannot—”
“By Jove,” Webster exclaimed, “the men were right then! But it’s incredible. And, of course, I agreed to no such thing. How could I imagine anyone’s taking the castle to America? What next! It’s mad, quite, quite mad—”
John Blayne came forward, his hand outstretched and holding the letter.
“It’s not mad, really. We’re quite accustomed to moving large buildings to where we want them.” With quiet precision he placed the letter flat on the table for anyone to read.
No one made a move to look at it. No one spoke.
“I’m very sorry for all this, Mr. Webster,” John Blayne went on. “It’s simply one of those misunderstandings that seem to arise between continents these days. Please read this. It’s my letter. You should have had a copy, but I supposed that of course Sir Richard would have shown it to you.”