The People in the Castle: Selected Strange Stories (17 page)

When the telephone rang, I expected that it would be Patrick and picked up the receiver gloomily, but it was a French voice.

“Armand Chapdelaine here. Miss Bell?”

“Speaking.”

“We met, I think, once, a few years ago, in the company of young Patrick O’Shea. I am ringing from Paris about this odd incident of his mother’
s portrait.
”

“Oh, yes?”

“May I come and inspect the canvas, Miss Bell?”

“Of course,” I said, slightly startled. “Not that there’s anything to see.”

“That is so kind of you. Till tomorrow, then.”

Chapedelaine was a French Canadian: stocky, dark, and full of
loup-garou
charm.

After carefully scrutinising the canvas, he listened with intense interest to the tale about Patrick and his mother.

“Aha! This is a genuine piece of necromancy,” he said, rubbing his hands. “I always knew there was something unusually powerful about that woman’s character. She had a most profound dislike for me; I recall it well.”

“Because you were her son’s friend.”

“Of course.” He inspected the canvas again and said, “I shall be delighted to buy this from you for two thousand five hundred pounds, Miss Bell. It is the only one of my pictures that has been subjected to black magic, up to now.”

“
Are you quite sure?
”

“Entirely sure.” He gave me his engagingly wolfish smile. “Then we will see what shot Madame Mére fetches out of her locker.”

Mrs. O’Shea was plainly enjoying the combat over Patrick’s poems. It had given her a new interest. When she heard the news that two thousand five hundred pounds were lodged in a trust account, ready to pay for the publication of the poems, if necessary, her reaction was almost predictable.

“But that wouldn’t be honest!” she said. “I suppose Mr. Chapdelaine bought the canvas out of kindness, but it can’t be counted as a proper sale. The money must be returned to him.” Her face set like epoxy, and she rearranged her feet more firmly on the footstool.

“On no account will I have it back, madame,” Chapdelaine riposted. He had come down with me to help persuade her; he said he was dying to see her again.

“If you won’t, then it must be given to charity. I’m afraid it’s out of the question that I should allow money which was obtained by what amounts to false pretences to be used to promote that poor silly boy’
s scribblings.
”

“
Quite, quite,
” said the Major.

“But it may not be necessary—” I began in exasperation. An opaque blue gleam showed for an instant in Mrs. O’Shea’s eye. Chapdelaine raised a hand soothingly and I subsided. I’d known, of course, that I too was an object of her dislike, but I had not realised how very deep it went; the absolute hatred in her glance was a slight shock. It struck me that, unreasonably enough, this hate had been augmented by the fact that Chapdelaine and I were getting on rather well together.

“Since madame does not approve of our plan, I have another proposition,” said Chapdelaine, who seemed to be taking a pleasure in the duel almost equal to that of Mrs. O’Shea. I felt slightly excluded. “May I be allowed to do a second portrait, and two thousand five hundred shall be the sitter’s fee?”

“Humph,” said Mrs. O’Shea. “I’d no great opinion of the last one ye did.”

“Hideous thing. Hideous,” said the Major.

“Oh, but this one, madame, will be quite different!” Chapdelaine smiled, at his most persuasive. “In the course of seven years, after all, one’
s technique alters entirely.
”

She demurred for a long time, but in the end, I suppose, she could not resist this chance of further entertainment. Besides, he was extremely well known now.

“You’ll have to come down here though, Mr. Chapdelaine; at my age I can’t be gadding up to London for sittings.”

“Of course,” he agreed, shivering slightly; the sitting room was as cold as ever. “It will be a great pleasure.”

“I think the pub in the village occasionally puts up visitors,” Mrs. O’Shea added. “I’ll speak to them.” Chapdelaine shuddered again. “But they only have one bedroom, so I’m afraid there won’t be room for
you
, Miss Bell.” Her tone expressed volumes.

“Thank you, but I have my job in London,” I said coldly. “
Besides, I
’d like to be getting on with offering Patrick’s poems; may I take them now, Mrs. O’Shea?”

“The?—Oh, gracious,
no
—not till the picture’s finished! After all,” she said with a smile of pure, chill malice, “I may not like it when it’s done, may I?”

“It’s a hopeless affair, hopeless!” I raged as soon as we were away from the house. “She’ll always find some way of slipping out of the bargain; she’s utterly unscrupulous. The woman’s a fiend! Really I can’t think how Patrick could ever have been fond of her. Why do you bother to go on with this?”

“Oh, but I am looking forward to painting this portrait immensely!” Chapdelaine wore a broad grin. “I feel convinced this will be the best piece of work I ever did. I shall have to get that house warmed up though, even if it means myself paying for a truckload of logs; one cannot work inside of a deep freeze.”

Somehow he achieved this; when I took down a photographer to get a story, with pictures, for the magazine on which I work, we found the sitting room transformed, littered with artists’ equipment and heated to conservatory temperature by a huge roaring fire. Mrs. O’Shea, evidently making the most of such unaccustomed sybaritism, was seated close by the fire, her feet, as ever, firmly planted on the blanket-wrapped bundle. She seemed in high spirits. The Major was nowhere to be seen; he had apparently been banished to some distant part of the house. Chapdelaine, I thought, did not look well; he coughed from time to time, complained of damp sheets at the pub, and constantly piled more logs on the fire. We took several shots of them both, but Mrs. O’Shea would not allow us to see the uncompleted portrait.

“Not till it’
s quite done!
” she said firmly. Meanwhile it stood on its easel in the corner, covered with a sheet, like some hesitant ghost.

During this time I had had numerous calls from Patrick, of course; he was wildly impatient about the slow progress of the painting.

“Do persuade Armand to go a bit faster, can’t you, Ellis? He used to be able to dash off a portrait in about four sittings.”

“
Well, I
’ll pass on your message, Patrick, but people’s methods change, you know.”

When I rang Clayhole the next day, however, I was unable to get through; the line was out of order apparently, and remained so; when I reported this to the local exchange, the girl said,” Double four six three . . . wait a minute; yes, I thought so. We had a nine-nine-nine call from them not long ago. Fire brigade. No, that’s all I can tell you, I’
m afraid.
”

With my heart in my suede boots I got out the car and drove down to Clayhole. The lane was blocked by police trucks, fire engines, and appliances; I had to leave my car at the bottom and walk up.

Clayhole was a smoking ruin; as I arrived they were just carrying the third blackened body out to the ambulance.

“What began it?” I asked the fire chief.

“That’ll be for the insurance assessors to decide, miss. But it’s plain it started in the lounge; spark from the fire, most likely. Wood fires are always a bit risky, in my opinion. You get that green applewood—”

A spark, of course; I thought of the jersey-wrapped pile of poems hardly a foot distant from the crackling logs.

“You didn’t find any papers in that room?”

“Not a scrap, miss; that being where the fire started, everything was reduced to powder.”

When Patrick got through to me that evening, he was pretty distraught.

“She planned the whole thing!” he said furiously. “I bet you, Ellis, she had it all thought out from the start. There’s absolutely nothing that woman won’t do to get her own way. Haven’t I always said she was utterly unscrupulous? But I shan’t be beaten by her, I’m just as determined as she is—
Do
pay attention, Ellis!
”

“Sorry, Patrick. What were you saying?” I was very low-spirited, and his next announcement did nothing to cheer me.

“I’ll dictate you the poems; it shouldn’t take more than a month or so if we keep at it. We can start right away. Have you a pen? And you’ll want quite a lot of paper. I’ve finished the volcano poem, so we may as well start with that—ready?”

“I suppose so.” I shut my eyes. The cold clutch on my wrist was like a fetter. But I felt that having gone so far, I owed this last service to Patrick.

“Right—here we go.” There followed a long pause. Then he said, with a great deal less certainty:

“
On each hand the flames

Driven backward slope their pointing spires—
”

“That’s from
Paradise Lost
, Patrick,” I told him gently.

“I know. . . .” His voice was petulant. “That isn’t what I meant to say. The thing is—it’s starting to get so cold here. Oh, God, Ellis—it’
s so
cold
. . . .”

His voice petered out and died. The grasp on my wrist became freezing, became numbing, and then, like a melted icicle, was gone.

“Patrick?” I said. “Are you there, Patrick?”

But there was no reply, and, indeed, I hardly expected one. Patrick never got through to me again. His mother had caught up with him at last.

The Dark Streets of Kimball’s Green

Em! You, Em! Where has that dratted child got to? Em! Wait till I lay hold of you, I won’t half tan you!”

Mrs. Bella Vaughan looked furiously up and down the short street. She was a stocky woman, with short, thick, straight grey hair, parted on one side and clamped back by a grip; a cigarette always dangled from one corner of her mouth and, as soon as it dwindled down, another grew there. “Em! Where have you got to?” she yelled again.

“Here I am, Mrs. Vaughan!” Emmeline dashed anxiously round the corner.

“Took long enough about it! The Welfare Lady’s here, wants to know how you’re getting on. Here, let’s tidy you up.”

Mrs. Vaughan pulled a comb and handkerchief out of her tight-stretched apron pocket, dragged her comb sharply through Emmeline’s hair, damped the handkerchief with spit and scrubbed it over Emmeline’s flinching face.

“Hullo, Emmeline. Been out playing?” said the Welfare Lady, indoors. “That’s right. Fresh air’s the best thing for them, isn’t it, Mrs. Vaughan?”

“She’s always out,” grunted Mrs. Vaughan. “Morning, noon and night. I don’t hold with kids frowsting about indoors. Not much traffic round here.”

“Well, Emmeline, how are you getting on? Settling down with Mrs. Vaughan, quite happy, are you?”

Emmeline looked at her feet and muttered something. She was thin and small for her age, dark-haired and pale-cheeked.

“She’s a mopey kid,” Mrs. Vaughan pronounced. “Always want to be reading, if I didn’t tell her to run out of doors.”

“Fond of reading, are you?” the Welfare Lady said kindly. “And what do you read, then?”

“
Books,
” muttered Emmeline. The Welfare Lady’s glance strayed to the huge, untidy pile of magazines on the telly.

“Kid’ll read anything she could lay hands on, if I let her,” Mrs. Vaughan said. “
I don
’t though. What good does reading do you? None that I know of.”

“
Well, I
’m glad you’re getting on all right, Emmeline. Be a good girl and do what Mrs. Vaughan tells you. And I’ll see you next month again.” She got into her tiny car and drove off to the next of her endless list of calls.

“Right,” said Mrs. Vaughan. “I’m off too, down to the town hall to play bingo. So you hop it, and mind you’re here on the doorstep at eleven sharp or I’ll skin you.”

Emmeline murmured something.

“Stay indoors? Not on your nelly! And have them saying if the house burnt down, that I oughtn’t to have left you on your own?”

“It’s so cold out.” A chilly September wind scuffled the bits of paper in the street. Emmeline shivered in her thin coat.

“Well, run about then, and keep warm! Fresh air’s good for you, like that interfering old busybody said. Anyway she’s come and gone for the month, that’s something. Go on, hop it now.”

So Emmeline hopped it.

Kimball’s Green, where Mrs. Vaughan had her home, was a curious, desolate little corner of London. It lay round the top of a hill, which was crowned with a crumbling, blackened church, St. Chad’s. The four or five streets of tiny, aged houses were also crumbling and blackened, all due for demolition, and most of them empty. The houses were so old that they seemed shrunk and wrinkled, like old apples or old faces, and they were immeasurably, unbelievably dirty, with the dirt of hundreds of years. Around the little hill was a flat, desolate tract of land, Wansea Marshes, which nobody had even tried to use until the nineteenth century; then it became covered with railway goods yards and brick-works and gas-works and an electric power station, all of which belched their black smoke over the little island of Kimball’s Green on the hilltop.

You could hardly think anybody would
choose
to live in such a cut-off part; but Mrs. Vaughan had been born in Sylvan Street, near the top of the hill, and she declared she wasn’t going to shift until they came after her with a bulldozer. She took in foster children when they grew too old for the Wansea Orphanage, and, though it wasn’t a very healthy neighbourhood, what with the smoke and the damp from the marshes, there were so many orphans, and so few homes for them to go to, that Emmeline was the latest of a large number who had stayed with Mrs. Vaughan. But there were very few other children in the district now; very few inhabitants at all, except old and queer ones who camped secretly in the condemned houses. Most people found it too far to go to the shops: an eightpenny bus-ride, all the way past the goods yards and the gas-works, to Wansea High Street.

So far as anyone knew, Emmeline belonged in the neighbourhood; she had been found on the step of St. Chad’s one windy March night; but in spite of this, or because of it, she was rather frightened by the nest of little dark empty streets. She was frightened by many things, among which were Mrs. Vaughan and her son Colin. And she particularly hated the nights, five out of seven, when Mrs. Vaughan went off to play bingo, leaving Emmeline outside in the street. Indeed, if it hadn’t been for two friends, Emmeline really didn’t know how she could have borne those evenings.

As Mrs. Vaughan’s clumping steps died away down the hill, one of the friends appeared: his thin form twined out from between some old black railings and he rubbed encouragingly against Emmeline’s ankles, sticking up his tail in welcome.

“Oh, Scrawny! There you are,” she said with relief. “Here, I’ve saved you a piece of cheese-rind from tea.”

Old Scrawny was a tattered, battered tabby, with ragged whiskers, crumpled ears, and much fur missing from his tail; he had no owner and lived on what he could find; he ate the cheese-rind with a lot of loud, vulgar, guzzling noise, and hardly washed at all afterwards; but Emmeline loved him dearly, and he loved her back. Every night she left her window open, and old Scrawny climbed in, by various gutters, drainpipes, and the wash-house roof. Mrs. Vaughan wouldn’t have allowed such a thing for a minute if she had known, but Emmeline always took care that old Scrawny had left long before she was called in the morning.

When the rind was finished Scrawny jumped into Emmeline’s arms and she tucked her hands for warmth under his scanty fur; they went up to the end of the street by the old church, where there was a telephone booth. Like the houses around it was old and dirty, and it had been out of order for so many years that now nobody even bothered to thump its box for coins. The only person who used it was Emmeline, and she used it almost every night, unless gangs were roaming the streets and throwing stones, in which case she hid behind a dustbin or under a flight of area steps. But when the gangs had gone elsewhere the call-box made a very convenient shelter; best of all, it was even light enough to read there, because although the bulb in the call-box had been broken long ago, a street lamp shone right overhead.

“No book tonight, Scrawny, unless Mr. Yakkymo comes and brings me another,” said Emmeline, “so what shall we do? Shall we phone somebody, or shall I tell you a story?”

Scrawny purred, dangling round her neck like a striped scarf.

“We’ll ring somebody up, shall we? All right.”

She let the heavy door close behind her. Inside it was not exactly warm, but at least they were out of the wind. Scrawny climbed from Emmeline’s shoulder into the compartment where the telephone books would have been if somebody hadn’t made off with them; Emmeline picked up the broken receiver and dialled.

“Hullo, can I speak to King Cunobel? Hullo, King Cunobel, I am calling to warn you. A great army is approaching your fort—the Tribe of the Children of Darkness. Under their wicked queen Belavaun they are coming to attack your stronghold with spears and chariots. You must tell your men to be extra brave; each man must arm himself with his bow and a sheaf of arrows, two spears and a sword. Each man must have his faithful wolfhound by his side.” She stroked old Scrawny, who seemed to be listening intently. “Your men are far outnumbered by the Children of the Dark, King Cunobel, so you must tell your Chief Druid to prepare a magic drink, made from vetch and mallow and succory, to give them courage. The leaves must be steeped in mead and left to gather dew for two nights, until you have enough to wet each man’s tongue. Then they will be brave enough to beat off the Children of the Dark and save your camp.”

She listened for a moment or two with her ear pressed against the silent receiver, and then said to old Scrawny,

“King Cunobel wants to know what will happen if the Children of Dark get to the fort before the magic drink is prepared?”

“Morow,” said Scrawny. He jumped down from the bookshelf and settled himself on Emmeline’s feet, where there was more room to stretch out.

“My faithful wolfhound says you must order your men to make high barricades of brambles and thorns,” Emmeline told King Cunobel. “Build them in three rings round the encampment, and place one-third of your men inside each ring. King Cunobel and the Druids will be in the middle ring. Each party must fight to the death in order to delay the Children of Dark until the magic drink is ready. Do you understand? Then good-bye and good luck.”

She listened again.

“He wants to know who I am,” she told Scrawny, and she said into the telephone, “I am a friend, the Lady Emmeline, advised by her faithful enchanted wolfhound Catuscraun. I wish you well.”

Then she rang off and said to Scrawny, “Do you think I had better call the Chief Druid and tell him to hurry up with that magic drink?”

Old Scrawny shut his eyes.

“No,” she agreed, “you’re right, it would only distract him. I know, I’ll ring up the wicked Queen of Dark.”

She dialled again and said,

“Hullo, is that the wicked Queen Belavaun? This is your greatest enemy, ringing up to tell you that you will never, never capture the stronghold of King Cunobel. Not if you besiege it for three thousand years! King Cunobel has a strong magic that will defeat you. All your tribes, the Trinovans and the Votadins and the Damnons and the Bingonii will be eaten by wolves and wild boars. Not a man will remain! And you will lose your wealth and power and your purple robes and fur cloaks, you will have nothing left but a miserable old mud cabin outside King Cunobel’s stronghold, and every day his men will look over the walls and laugh at you. Good-bye, and bad luck to you forever!”

She rang off and said to Scrawny, “That frightened her.”

Scrawny was nine-tenths asleep, but at this moment footsteps coming along the street made him open his eyes warily. Emmeline was alert too. The call-box made a good look-out point, but it would be a dangerous place in which to be trapped.

“It’s all right,” she said to Scrawny, then. “It’s only Mr. Yakkymo.”

She opened the door and they went to meet their other friend.

Mr. Yakkymo (he spelt his name Iachimo, but Yakkymo was the way it sounded) came limping slightly up the street until he reached them; then he rubbed the head of old Scrawny (who stuck his tail up) and handed Emmeline a book. It was old and small, with a mottled binding and gilt-edged leaves; it was called
The Ancient History of Kimball’s Green and Wansea Marshes
, and it came from Wansea Borough Library.

Emmeline’s eyes opened wide with delight. She began reading the book at once, skipping from page to page.

“Why, this tells all about King Cunobel! It’s even better than the one you brought about ancient London. Have you read this, Mr. Yakkymo?”

He nodded, smiling. He was a thin, bent old man with rather long white hair; as well as the book he carried a leather case, which contained a flute, and when he was not speaking he would often open this case and run his fingers absently up and down the instrument.

“I thought you would find it of interest,” he said. “It’s a pity Mrs. Vaughan won’t let you go to the public library yourself.”

“She says reading only puts useless stuck-up notions in people’s heads,” Emmeline said dreamily, her eyes darting up and down the pages of the book. “Listen! It tells what King Cunobel wore—a short kilt with a gold belt. His chest was painted blue with woad, and he had a gold collar round his neck and a white cloak with gold embroidery. He carried a shield of beaten brass and a short sword. On his head he wore a fillet of gold, and on his arm gold armlets. His house was built of mud and stone, with a thatched roof; the walls were hung with skins and the floor strewn with rushes.”

They had turned and were walking slowly along the street; old Scrawny, after the manner of cats, sometimes loitered behind investigating doorsteps and dark crannies, sometimes darted ahead and then waited for them to come up with him.

“Do you think any of King Cunobel’s descendants still live here?” Emmeline said.

“It is just possible.”

“Tell me some more about what it was like to live here then.”

“All the marshes—the part where the brick-works and the goods yards are now—would have been covered by forest and threaded by slow-flowing streams.”

“Threaded by slow-flowing streams,” Emmeline murmured to herself.

“All this part would be Cunobel’s village. Little mud huts, each with a door and a chimney hole, thatched with reeds.”

Emmeline looked at the pavements and rows of houses, trying to imagine them away, trying to imagine forest trees and little thatched huts.

“There would be a stockade of logs and thorns all round. A bigger hall for the King, and one for Druids near the sacred grove.”

“Where was that?”

“Up at the top of the hill, probably. With a specially sacred oak in the middle. There is an oak tree, still, in St. Chad’s churchyard; maybe it’s sprung from an acorn of the Druid’s oak.”

“Maybe it’s the same one? Oaks live a long time, don’t they?”

“Hark!” he said checking. “What’s that?”

The three of them were by the churchyard wall; they kept still and listened. Next moment they all acted independently, with the speed of long practice: Mr. Iachimo, murmuring, “Good night, my child,” slipped away round a corner; Emmeline wrapped her precious book in a polythene bag and poked it into a hole in the wall behind a loose stone; then she and old Scrawny raced downhill, back to Mrs. Vaughan’s house. She crouched, panting on the doorstep, old Scrawny leapt up on to a shed roof and out of reach, just as a group of half a dozen people came swaggering and singing along the street.