‘It wouldn’t be fair to stay if we can’t do our work,’ said Sunita.
Strangely, it was Rollo, who was usually so dreamy, who now took charge.
‘If you come with me I’ll show you why you have to help us,’ he said, ‘why you have to stay.’
The phantoms looked at him listlessly. The Feet stayed where they were, half buried in the sofa cushions, but the others followed him out of the nursery, down three flights of stairs and out of the castle.
He led them across the gardens, past the gate to the park and to the place where the elm tree leaned over the high stone wall. Rollo climbed up to his watching place; Madlyn and Ned followed — and the ghosts glided up and settled down beside them.
They were staring down on the soft green fields of the park; the hazel and birch trees of the copse; the silver ribbon of the stream. A thrush was singing. Wild roses glowed in the hedgerows.
‘There,’ said Rollo. ‘That’s the king in front.’
The ruler of the herd came slowly out of the trees: huge and vigorous and as white as milk. Close behind him came the oldest of the cows, with her scars and her crumpled horn, followed by the others with their skittering calves. The young bull, skinny and bad-tempered, who had challenged the king so often and so unsuccessfully, came last.
‘They’ve been safe here for a thousand years,’ said Rollo, ‘but if we can’t get more visitors to come to the castle they’ll have to be sent away — or even slaughtered. That’s why you have to stay and help us.’
Sitting beside her brother, her legs dangling over the ivy-clad wall, Madlyn held her breath. Could the phantoms be expected to see what Rollo saw: beasts so special that they had to be cared for whatever the cost?
No one spoke. The park was silent; even the thrush no longer sang.
It wasn’t going to work, thought Madlyn. Whatever Rollo hoped for wasn’t going to happen.
But now one of the ghosts had stirred. Sunita. She rose to her feet and tossed her hair back and for a moment she stood balanced on the wall. And then she floated down, down into the field. Not the top half of her and not the bottom. All of her.
No one knows whether animals can see ghosts but they can certainly sense them. The king bull pawed the ground once with his powerful hooves. The cows lifted their heads and stared. The smallest of the calves gave a sudden cry.
Sunita stood still and the cattle came forward to form a circle round her. Not crowding her, just gazing with their dark and gentle eyes. The calves stopped butting and playing and came to rest by their mothers’ side. The king’s great hooves were still. Every one of the beasts had its head turned to the place where she stood. Even the young and angry bull was still.
When she saw that all the animals were calm, Sunita walked up to the oldest cow, with her scars and her crumpled horn. She put her hands together and bowed down so that her hair touched the grass.
‘I salute you in the name of Surabhi, the Heavenly Cow who gave birth to the sky and was the mother and muse of all created things,’ she said.
Then she moved on to stand before the king bull, and on the wall the children held their breath for they knew how fierce he could be, and Sunita, down in the field, did not look like a ghost: she looked like a vulnerable girl.
‘And I salute you in the name of Nandi, the bull-mount who carried the Lord God Shiva safely through the universe.’
She bowed low again and it seemed as though the bull returned her salute, bending his head so that the muscles bunched and tightened on his neck.
But Sunita had not finished. She went round the herd and to each and every beast, even the smallest of the calves, she made the same bow and spoke a greeting.
Up on the wall, the children had remembered.
‘Of course,’ said Ned. ‘Cows are sacred in India. They wander all over the streets, and no one’s allowed to harm them.’
‘And when they’re old they don’t get slaughtered, they get sent to a place where they can live in peace. Sort of like an old people’s home for cows,’ said Madlyn. ‘Rani told me, at school.’
Sunita, when she had returned to her place on the wall, told them more about what these beasts meant to her people.
‘I was born in January,’ she said. ‘There’s a feast then called Pongal to celebrate the harvest and the end of the rains. It goes on for days and on the third day is the Festival of Cattle. The bulls get silver caps on their horns and the cows get bead necklaces and bells and sheaves of corn. And garlands of flowers — wonderful flowers: marigolds and pinks and hibiscus blossom.’
For a moment, as they looked down on the park, the children imagined the cattle of Clawstone decorated and garlanded, with jewellery on their horns. What would Sir George say if that was to happen? Something rude, that was certain!
But Sunita had shown the ghosts something bigger than themselves. A world where animals mattered, where living things were worshipped. A world where there was work to be done and one’s own troubles set aside.
‘We have been selfish,’ said Ranulf. ‘We have not been brave. We will help you and we will stay.’
And the other ghosts nodded, and said, ‘Yes, we will stay.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The first Open-Day-with-Ghosts began quietly — but it did not go on quietly. It did not go on quietly at all.
It had been decided that visitors should be shown round in a group rather than wander about all over the place, and Mrs Grove was appointed as the guide. She had worked in the castle so long that she knew it like the back of her hand.
As for the children, they were going to keep out of the way but watch from a hiding place in the upstairs gallery in case anything went wrong.
Because of the posters and the notice in the paper, rather more people than usual were waiting to buy tickets. There was a couple with three little girls: Lettice and Lucy and Lavinia, who chewed toffee bars and giggled as though the idea of ghosts was the funniest thing they had ever heard of.
There were two hikers: a tall thin one called Joe and a small fat one called Pete. They were on their way to a climbing trip in Scotland and had seen the notice about the ghosts and called in.
There was a sulky youth called Ham, who was on holiday with his parents and hated the country, where there was nothing to do except sit on windy beaches or walk up dripping hills, and a lady professor of architecture with her assistant, a pale girl called Angela. The professor had not come to see ghosts but to look at groynes and buttresses and mouldings.
Then there was someone who worried the children badly as they looked down from their hiding place: a delicate elderly lady called Mrs Field, who walked with two sticks and was in the charge of a muscular and bossy nurse.
‘Suppose she has a heart attack?’ whispered Madlyn.
‘Well, we did warn people,’ said Ned. ‘It wouldn’t be our fault.’
But the most important person in that first batch of visitors was Major Henry Hardbottock, who was a famous explorer and gave lectures and talked on the telly. Major Hardbottock had walked to the North Pole and lost two fingers from frostbite and bitten off a third when it went gangrenous; and he had walked across the Sahara without a single camel and with a raging fever. He was on his way to Edinburgh to give a lecture on ‘Survival and Hardship’ when he saw the notice and turned in at Clawstone just for a joke.
There was not a single person in that first group of visitors who believed in ghosts.
Mrs Grove led the party across the Inner Courtyard and into the building.
‘We are now in the oldest part of the castle,’ she began. ‘It dates from 1423 and’…