My Friend Walter (11 page)

‘I would if I could,' I said, ‘but I promised.'

‘Promised who?'

‘Friend of mine.'

‘What friend?' I shook my head.

‘Right then,' and he turned away from me. Suddenly the door shut in front of him and Sir Walter
Raleigh was standing there, his cane levelled at Will's chest. There was no doubt that Will could see him. You only had to see the look on Will's face. ‘Prithee Master Will, no further.' Will backed away towards me.

‘Who is it?' His voice was barely audible. ‘Who's that man?'

‘Cousin Bess, will you not present me to your brother? And make haste to take the bauble from him for I fear he may drop it.' I took the orb from Will's trembling hands.

‘This is Sir Walter Raleigh,' I said. ‘He's the friend I was telling you about. He's one of our ancestors, remember?' Will was swallowing hard. ‘It's all right,' I said. ‘He won't hurt. Honest he won't.'

‘But he's dead,' said Will pushing me forward and holding me like a shield between himself and my friend Walter. ‘He's in the history books,' he whispered. ‘He's dead. He's been dead for ages.'

‘Three hundred and seventy years this very year,' said Walter, lowering his cane and smiling broadly. ‘Be not afeared of me, Master Will. I bear you no ill will. I come to help you, not to harm you.'

‘Then he's a ghost?' said Will. ‘He's a real live ghost?'

‘Real, but unfortunately not live, cousin,' said
Walter. ‘I am as you say a spirit being, visible only to those I wish to see me. Until now only your sister has seen me and I had promised never to show myself to anyone else.' Walter looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. ‘I had no choice, chick. You understand that, do you not? I had to stop your impetuous brother. I could not allow my plan to be discovered. It would have been the end of it. Shall I tell him all, dear cousin?' I nodded. ‘Your sister Bess brought me here from the Tower many long weeks ago, and I lived amongst you all that time though you did not know it. I know you all better than you can imagine, Master Will. You are indeed my family and I have come to love you as such.'

‘The letter,' Will whispered, his hands gripping my shoulder so hard it hurt. ‘It was him that wrote it then, wasn't it? He's “W.R.” He's Walter Raleigh.'

‘Aye, that I did, cousin,' Walter sighed, ‘and most carelessly left it lying on the table for you to find it. You did not dream it, Master Will. It was I that took away the letter and hid it whilst you were outside the door.'

‘And the bottle?' Will asked.

‘That was the elixir,' I said.

‘The what?' said Will.

‘The medicine,' I explained. ‘Walter made it down in your chemistry lab – in the cellar. I told you it wasn't me messing about down there, didn't I? It was Walter. He saved her life, Will. He gave me the elixir in the bottle and I gave to Gran in her tea.'

‘Then you were the old man she saw in her dreams,' said Will. ‘But it wasn't in her dreams at all, was it? And it was you that stole the Crown Jewel. You brought it down with you.'

‘Hidden under his cloak,' I said. ‘Anything he hides under his cloak you can't see. He hid me twice, didn't you, Walter?' I felt Will's grip on my shoulder loosen somewhat. ‘He brought it back with him on the train, but I didn't know anything about it, not then.'

‘But why?' said Will. ‘What for?'

‘For us,' I said. ‘Walter did it for us. See, he knows all about the farm, all about us being kicked out and having nowhere to go.'

‘I would not have you suffer as I once did,' said Walter. ‘I would not allow history to repeat itself. I see I must explain more. They took all that was mine, Master Will, when they called me traitor and condemned me. God, it breaks my brain when I think on it, even now. I was betrayed by my own king; and
worse, I was betrayed by those I thought were my friends. I would be avenged for the wrong they did me and the wrong that has been done to you. I was no traitor, Master Will. So you see, I have restored to my family only a small part of what is owed to us. They have baubles and trinkets a-plenty in the Tower – they will not miss it. Faith, it is ours by right Master Will. Why, the very gold and jewels you see before you might have come from a Spanish treasure ship I myself captured. It was mine, I tell you, before it was ever the Crown's, and 'twas most wickedly taken from me. You have but to sell it, and my honour and our family's fortune is restored for ever.'

‘I told him already it was too late,' I said, ‘that we've got to leave tomorrow.'

‘There are other farms,' said Walter, ‘and perchance we may yet find a better one –'

‘But you
can't
sell it,' said Will, coming out from behind me at last.

‘That's what I told him,' I said. ‘It's not right. It belongs to the Queen.'

‘I don't mean that,' said Will. ‘What I mean is no one would buy it, would they? I mean it's like Father said, everyone knows what it looks like, don't they?
Everyone'll be on the lookout for it. You can't hardly just walk into a jeweller in Exeter and say “What'll you give me for this?” and then plonk it down on the counter.' And then he thought for a moment. ‘But come to think of it, I suppose you could pick out the jewels and melt down the gold.'

‘You can't!' I said. ‘You wouldn't!' I was horrified at the thought of destroying something so beautiful.

‘They'd soon make another one. Just think, Bess, only got to sell it and we could have any farm we wanted.' Then he shook his head. ‘But it's no good. We still couldn't sell the gold even if it was just a lump, nor the jewels. I mean just supposing I tried, they'd still wonder where I got it from wouldn't they? Wouldn't work.'

‘He's right, Walter,' I said and I held out the orb for Walter. He folded his arms resolutely. ‘You've got to take it. You
must
,' I said, a sudden panic rising inside me. ‘How are we going to explain it if they find it here? We'll all go to prison, Mother, Father, everyone. You shouldn't have done it, Walter. It's not right to steal things. Just because someone else stole from you first doesn't make it right to steal it back.' Walter looked down at me and his face darkened with anger.

‘I had thought better of you, cousin. Do you dare to teach me right from wrong, I who have lived through a lifetime and had hundreds of years to ponder on it, I who have shaped the history of the world? Have you so little faith in me? All I have done I have done for you and you pay me thus with insults. My honour is all I have left and now you would steal even that from me and call me thief. I see you love me not, cousin.'

Will hid behind me again as the onslaught continued. But the anger turned suddenly to hurt. ‘In your service, cousin Bess, I have endeavoured much and accomplished little – it is true. But to spurn me so is not generous.'

‘I didn't mean it like that,' I said.

‘You have no longer any need of your friend Walter,' he went on. ‘I see I have disappointed you, and I would not stay where I am not wanted, so I bid you both goodnight and farewell.' And he was gone, vanishing through the door, leaving us both gaping after him, and me still holding the orb.

‘Come back Walter, please come back,' I cried. But I knew he would not. I turned to Will. ‘Now what are we going to do?' I said.

At that moment I heard a door open along the passage, and there were steps coming along towards my door, Father's footsteps. I leaped into bed quickly, clutching the orb to my stomach. Will switched off the light and hid behind the door – there was nowhere else to hide. The door opened. I squeezed my eyes closed and breathed deeply and regularly. ‘Bess, you awake?' said Father. He waited for a moment and then shut the door behind him and went out. ‘It's all right, dear,' I heard him say as he went back into their room. ‘I told you so. She's fast asleep. Don't you go worrying yourself any more.'

‘Thought I heard voices, that's all,' said Mother.

‘Well, if you did she's been talking in her sleep again.'

I sat up and Will tiptoed over and sat on my bed. ‘Close one,' he said. ‘We've got to get that thing out of the house, and quick Bess, before someone finds it. We've got to hide it.'

‘What if Walter doesn't come back?' I said.

‘Then we'll be stuck with it, won't we? Either way we've got to hide it.'

‘In the morning,' I whispered, suddenly feeling very tired.

‘Now,' Will insisted. ‘There'll be people all over the
place in the morning. The removal men are coming at breakfast time, remember? We've got to get it out of the house, and now.'

‘If only he hadn't gone off,' I said. ‘He could have hidden it under his cloak. I shouldn't have said all those things. He was only doing his best, and when you think about it I suppose he was right – I mean he was only taking back what was his in the first place. And after all, he was only trying to help us, wasn't he?'

‘Maybe,' said Will, ‘but all he's done is drop us right in the muck.' He paused for a moment. ‘I've got it!' he said and he tried to stifle a chuckle. ‘I've got it. I've got the perfect place. Come on Bess, quick, and don't drop the orb.'

The floorboards creaked horribly as we crept along the passage and down the stairs but we made it to the front door. (Humph slept in the kitchen too close to the back door so we couldn't go that way.) The bolt was stiff and grated loudly as Will drew it back. The moon was so bright it was like daylight outside. I followed Will who ran on ahead in striped pyjamas, crouching like a commando. My bare feet kept finding all the sharpest stones, so that it was difficult not to cry out with the pain of it. The night was
strangely silent, no bleating of sheep, no cows browsing in Front Meadow.

‘Here we are,' Will whispered as we reached the orchard.

‘Where?' I said.

‘There,' he said, pointing at the heap of horse-dung against the hedgerow. ‘We'll hide it in there.'

‘We can't!' I said.

‘Why not? No one would ever think of looking in there would they?' And you couldn't argue with that. ‘We'll dig it up in the morning when we've decided what to do with it. Maybe by that time your friend will come back anyway and then he can take it back to London where it belongs.'

He climbed up on to the dungheap with a fencing stake in his hand and plunged it into the heap again and again until he had made a deep hole. ‘That'll do,' he said. ‘Give it here.' And he took the orb out of my hand and lowered it gently down into the hole.

‘Come and give me a hand,' he said. ‘We've got to fill it in.'

‘I've got nothing on my feet,' I said.

‘Nor've I,' said Will. ‘It'll wash off.'

And so it did. When we'd finished burying the
orb we dunked our feet and hands in the water trough in the cow yard and dabbled them till they were clean again.

‘I've been thinking,' said Will. ‘I've been thinking about the robbery. It said on the radio that nothing was broken, no glass, nothing. No alarm set off. When you think about it, it's got to be a ghost. I mean he just walked right through your bedroom door, didn't open it or anything, did he? It's what he must have done up there, walked right through the glass and took it. Brilliant. Magic. If I knew how to melt down gold and if we could sell it . . .'

‘Will,' I said firmly. ‘It's going back.'

‘I know,' Will said. ‘It's a pity though. You could buy a fair-sized farm with ten million pounds, couldn't you; and have a little left over for a graphite rod. They're the best. I've always wanted a graphite rod.'

‘It's cold,' I said, ‘and I'm going to bed.'

Back in my room I coughed several times just in case Walter had come back, but he hadn't and he didn't. I wanted to say sorry. I had to find him again to make him understand, to explain what I'd meant.

‘Two wrongs don't make a right' – Gran had said it often enough – and now I understood what she meant
for the first time. And she was right. But I hadn't meant to upset him like that.

I slept in fits and starts, each time waking up and coughing to see if he was back, but dawn came and I was still alone. As I watched the sun come up over the trees beyond Front Meadow, I knew it was for the last time. Tomorrow morning I'd be waking up at Aunty Ellie's, and all you could see from her windows were houses and lamp-posts and streets. I wasn't really sad though, not any more. I knew we were going and that there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. I suppose I had just become used to the idea. Anyway I had more urgent things on my mind, like what the dickens we were going to do with the golden orb, and about how I was going to get my friend Walter back.

Downstairs I heard Mother talking to Humph and putting him out – you could hear his tail banging against the back door. A little later I heard the sound of the removal van arriving. I didn't much want to be downstairs and watch everything being carried out so I stayed where I was as long as I could. Besides, it was warm in bed and I hated getting up anyway.

Will and I didn't get a chance to talk before breakfast. He came down after me like he always did.
He gave me a long confidential look and winked at me. My brother Will loved a conspiracy. In spite of the packing cases everywhere it was an ordinary enough breakfast, except that Humph wasn't sitting expectantly under Little Jim's highchair. I fed Little Jim his cereal (a kind of puree of porridge), scooping it off his chin and his cheek and shovelling it in again. Mother said Humph was outside begging the removal-men's breakfast.

Father was hitting the top of his boiled egg viciously. ‘Vultures, that's what they are, always have been.'

‘Who, dear?' Mother said.

‘Those Barrowbill twins. It's just like they've been waiting all these years for us to go down the shoot. Did you see what they bought yesterday? Did you? Almost all the pigs, couple of the cows and my favourite tractor, the little Massey 125.'