The People in the Castle: Selected Strange Stories (5 page)

“There’ll be some shelter down below, I expect, Leon my duck,” said Hannah. “And somewhere under those trees we’ll meet Selim again. You’ll be glad to see him, eh?”

Noel crooned with pleasure at the name.

“You missed your bath today, boy,” Hannah said. “Better have a splash in the river before we take off.”

So while she ate her sandwich, Noel rinsed himself enjoyably in the water which looked dark as tar in the fading light. All the time the night grew darker and the wind blew harder; then Hannah hooked the kite line on to a strap made from word-webbing which she had buckled round Noel’s midriff. She passed the line under a similar belt around herself, and waited for a really strong gust. When that came, she pulled in hard on the line, and felt the force of the wind lift both Noel and herself clean off the ground. Noel hooted with alarm and startled delight as he found himself suddenly swaying three metres above ground level at the rope’s end.

“Just keep calm, Leon my lad,” said Hannah, clutching a fold of his ear with one hand while she paid out line with the other. “The way this wind is setting, it will lift us nicely over the wire.”

They were following the course of the river. Below them, they could see its dim gleam as they skimmed along, three or four metres above the surface.

“Just a little higher, to lift us over the wire,” muttered Hannah, hauling in on the line. Up above them in the sky, which was now almost totally dark, the kite could be seen giving out a faint glow, like a luminous light-switch, as it raced ahead of them.

Then suddenly Noel let out a strange cry—like that of a dog who sees his master being carried past him on a train.

“What is it, Leon, old love?” said Hannah. “Don’t be nervous. The ride won’t last much longer.”

But Noel was pointing with his trunk at a huddled figure on the river bank who sat and gazed into the soupy depths—Noel was pointing and crying and tooting all at the same time with the same trunk.

“Good gracious, that’s never
Selim
?” gasped Hannah. “Selim! Selim! Is that you? What the blazes are you doing there? Why aren’t you in the forest?”

And then, as they swept over him, she called, “Here, quick! Grab this!” and dropped the end of the kite line.

By pure good luck, Miles caught it, and, by pure good luck, the only athletic sport he had ever fancied was rope-climbing. Hand over hand he hauled himself up the dangling line, so that when they passed the barbed wire barricade, he was just a hair’s breadth above it and out of danger.

Then they were bumping and thrashing through the forest branches. The line broke with a shrill twang and the kite, set free, flew off and vanished in the night sky. Its passengers tumbled down, among bushes and boughs, scratched and bruised, but not seriously hurt. They huddled in a dark group, feeling and hugging one another.

“Just listen to the words,” said Hannah. “Just smell them!”

Sure enough, a wonderful fresh, aromatic, rainy, spicy smell floated all around them in the forest darkness, and a soft continuous murmuring rustling, chirping twittering nutritious warbling came from all directions; so that, weak, amazed, sore and battered as they were, still they seemed to be understanding more, in the space of a couple of minutes, than they had ever done before in the whole of their lives.

“What does—?” began Miles, but Hannah laid a finger on his lips, and a hand on Noel’s trunk.

“
Hush! Just listen!
”

Probably they are listening still.

A Room Full of Leaves

Once there was a poor little boy who lived with a lot of his relatives in an enormous house called Troy. The relatives were rich, but they were so nasty that they might just as well have been poor, for all of the good their money did them. The worst of them all was Aunt Agatha, who was thin and sharp, and the next worst was Uncle Umbert, who was stout and prosperous. We shall return to them later. There was also a fierce old nurse called Squab, and a tutor, Mr. Buckle, who helped to make the little boy’s life a burden. His name was Wilfred, which was a family name, but he was so tired of hearing them all say: “You must live up to your name, child,” that in his own mind he called himself Wil. It had to be in his mind, for he had no playmates—other children were declared to be common, and probably dangerous and infectious too.

One rainy Saturday afternoon Wil sat in his schoolroom finishing some Latin parsing for Mr. Buckle before being taken for his walk, which was always in one of two directions. If Squabb took him they went downtown “to look at the shops” in a suburb of London which was sprawling out its claws towards the big house; but the shops were never the ones Wil would have chosen to look at. If he went with Mr. Buckle they crossed the Common diagonally (avoiding the pond where rude little boys sailed their boats) and came back along the white-railed bridle path while Mr. Buckle talked about plant life.

So Wil was not looking forward with great enthusiasm to his walk, and when Squabb came in and told him that it was too wet to go out and he must amuse himself quietly with his jigsaw puzzles, he was delighted. He sat gazing dreamily at the jigsaw puzzles for a while, not getting on with them, while Squabb did some ironing. It was nearly dark, although the time was only three. Squabb switched on the light and picked a fresh heap of ironing off the fender.

All of a sudden there was a blue flash and a report from the iron; a strong smell of burnt rubber filled the room and the lights went out.

“Now I suppose the perishing thing’s blown the fuse for this whole floor,” exclaimed Squabb and she hurried out of the room, muttering something under her breath about newfangled gadgets.

Wil did not waste a second. Before the door had closed after her he was tiptoeing across the room and out of the other door. In the darkness and confusion no one would miss him for quite a considerable time, and he would have a rare opportunity to be on his own for a bit.

The house in which he lived was very huge. Nobody knew exactly how many rooms there were—but there was one for each day of the year and plenty left over. Innumerable little courtyards, each with its own patch of green velvet grass, had passages leading away in all directions to different blocks and wings. Towards the back of the house there were fewer courtyards; it drew itself together into a solid mass which touched the forest behind. The most important rooms were open to the public on four days a week; Mr. Buckle and a skinny lady from the town showed visitors around, and all the relics and heirlooms were carefully locked up inside glass cases where they could be gazed at—the silver washbasin used by James II, a dirty old exercise book belonging to the poet Pope, the little pot of neat’s foot ointment left by Henry VIII, and all the other tiny bits of history. Even in those days visitors were careless about leaving things behind.

Wil was indifferent to the public rooms, though his relatives were not. They spent their lives polishing and furbishing and when everything was polished they went on endless grubbing searches through the unused rooms looking for more relics which could be cleaned up and sold to the British Museum.

Wil stood outside the schoolroom door listening. Down below he could hear the murmur of voices. Saturday was cheap visiting day—only two and six instead of five schillings—so there were twice as many people, and both Mr. Buckle and the skinny lady were at work escorting their little groups. Wil nodded to himself and slipped away, softly as a mouse, towards the back of the house where the tourists were never taken. Here it became darker and dustier, the windows were small, heavily leaded, and never cleaned. Little passages, unexpected stairways and landings wound about past innumerable doors, many of which had not been opened since Anne Boleyn popped her head around to say good-bye to some bedridden old retainer before taking horse to London. Tapestries hung thick with velvet dust—had Wil touched them they would have crumbled to pieces, but he slid past them like a shadow.

He was already lost, but he meant to be; he stood listening to the old house creaking and rustling around him like a forest. He had a fancy that if he penetrated far enough he would find himself in the forest without having noticed the transition. He was following a particularly crooked and winding passage, leading to a kind of crossroads or cross-passages from which other alleys led away, mostly dark, some with a faint gleam from a rain-streaked window far away down their length, and all lined with doors.

He paused, wondering which to choose, and then heard something which might have been the faintest of whispers—but it was enough to decide him on taking the passage directly fronting him. He went slowly to a door some twelve feet along it, rather a low, small door on his right.

After pushing he discovered that it opened outwards towards him. He pulled it back, stepped around, and gazed in bewilderment at what he saw. It was like a curtain, of a silvery, faded brown, which hung across the doorway. Then looking closer he saw that it was really
leaves
—piled high and drifted one on another, lying so heaped up that the entrance was filled with them, and if the door had swung inwards he could never have pushed it open. Wil felt them with his hand; they were not brittle like dead beech leaves, but soft and supple, making only the faintest rustle when he touched them. He took one and looked at it in the palm of his hand. It was almost a skeleton, covered with faint silvery marks like letters. As he stood looking at it he heard a little voice whisper from inside the room:

“Well, boy, aren’t you coming in?”

Much excited, he stared once more at the apparently impenetrable wall of leaves in front of him, and said softly:

“How do I get through?”

“Burrow, of course,” whispered the voice impatiently.

He obeyed and, stooping a little, plunged his head and arms among the leaves and began working his way inside them like a mole. When he was entirely inside the doorway he wriggled around and pulled the door shut behind him. The leaves made hardly any noise as he inched through them. There was just enough air to breathe, and a dryish, aromatic scent. His progress was slow, and it seemed to take about ten minutes before the leaves began to thin out, and striking upwards like a diver he finally came to the surface.

He was in a room, or so he supposed, having come into it through an ordinary door in a corridor, but the walls could not be seen at all on account of the rampart of leaves piled up all around him. Towards the center there was a clear space on the ground, and in this grew a mighty trunk, as large around as a table, covered with roughish silver bark, all protrusions and knobs. The branches began above his head, thrusting out laterally like those of an oak or beech, but very little could be seen of them on account of the leaves which grew everywhere in thick clusters, and the upper reaches of the tree were not visible at all. The growing leaves were yellow—not the faded yellow of autumn but a brilliant gold which illuminated the room. At least there was no other source of light, and it was not dark.

There appeared to be no one else under the tree and Wil wondered who had spoken to him and where they could be.

As if in answer to his thoughts the voice spoke again:

“Can’t you climb up?”

“Yes, of course I can,” he said, annoyed with himself for not thinking of this, and he began setting his feet on the rough ledges of bark and pulling himself up. Soon he could not see the floor below, and was in a cage of leaves which fluttered all around him, dazzling his eyes. The scent in the tree was like thyme on the Downs on a hot summer’s day.

“Where are you?” he asked in bewilderment.

He heard a giggle.

“I’m here,” said the voice, and he saw an agitation among the leaves at the end of a branch, and worked his way out to it. He found a little girl with freckles and reddish hair hidden under some kind of cap. She wore a long green velvet dress and a ruff, and she was seated comfortably swinging herself up and down in a natural hammock of small branches.

“Really I thought you’d
never
find your way here,” she said, giving him a derisive welcoming grin.

“I’m not used to climbing trees,” he excused himself.

“I know, poor wretch. Never mind, this one’s easy enough. What’s your name? Mine’s Em.”

“Mine’s Wil. Do you live here?”

“Of course. This isn’t really my branch—some of them are very severe about staying on their own branches—look at
him
.” She indicated a very Puritanical-looking gentleman in black knee-breeches who appeared for a moment and then vanished again as a cluster of leaves swayed. “
I
go where I like, though. My branch isn’
t respectable
—we were on the wrong side in every war from Matilda and Stephen on. As soon as the colonies were invented they shipped a lot of us out there, but it was no use, they left a lot behind. They always hope that we’ll die out, but of course we don’t. Shall I show you some of the tree?”

“Yes, please.”

“Come along then. Don’t be frightened, you can hold my hand a lot of the time. It’s almost as easy as stairs.”

When she began leading him about he realized that the tree was much more enormous than he had supposed; in fact he did not understand how it could be growing in a room inside a house. The branches curved about making platforms, caves, spiral staircases, seats, cupboards, and cages. Em led him through the maze, which she seemed to know by heart, pushing past the clusters of yellow leaves. She showed him how to swing from one branch to another, how to slide down the slopes and wriggle through the crevices and how to lie back in a network of boughs and rest his head on a thick pillow of leaves.

They made quite a lot of noise and several disapproving old faces peered at them from the ends of branches, though one crusader smiled faintly and his dog wagged its tail.

“Have you anything to eat?” asked Em presently, mopping her brow with her kerchief.

“Yes, I’ve got some cookies I didn’t eat for my mid-morning snack. I’m not allowed to keep them of course; they’d be cross if they knew.”

“Of course,” nodded Em, taking a cookie. “Thanks. Dryish, aren’t they—but welcome. Wait a minute and I’ll bring you a drink.” She disappeared among the boughs and came back in a few moments with two little greenish crystal cups full of a golden liquid.

“It’s sap,” she said, passing one over. “It has a sort of forest taste, hasn’t it; it makes you think of horns. Now I’ll give you a present.”

She took the cups away and he heard her rummaging somewhere down by the trunk of the tree.

“There’s all sorts of odds and ends down there. This is the first thing I could find. Do you like it?”

She looked at it critically. “I think it’s the shoehorn that Queen Elizabeth used (she always had trouble with wearing too tight shoes). She must have left it behind here some time. You can have it anyway—you might find a use for it. You’d better be going now or you’ll be in trouble and then it won’t be so easy for you to come here another time.”

“How shall I ever find my way back here?”

“You must stand quite still and listen. You’ll hear me whisper, and the leaves rustling. Good-bye.” She suddenly put a skinny little arm around his neck and gave him a hug. “It’s nice having someone to play with; I’ve been a bit bored sometimes.”

Wil squirmed out through the leaves again and shut the door, turning to look at it as he did so. There was nothing in the least unusual about its appearance.

When he arrived back in the schoolroom (after some false turnings) he found his Aunt Agatha waiting for him. Squabb and Buckle were hovering on the threshold, but she dismissed them with a wave of her hand. The occasion was too serious for underlings.

“
Wilfred,
” she said in a very awful tone.

“Yes, Aunt Agatha.”

“Where have you been?”

“Playing in the back part of the house.”

“
Playing!
A child of your standing and responsibilities playing? Instead of getting on with your puzzle? What is that?” She pounced on him and dragged out the shoehorn which was protruding from his pocket.

“Concealment! I suppose you found this and intended to creep out and sell it to some museum. You are an exceedingly wicked, disobedient boy, and as punishment for running away and hiding in this manner you will go to bed as soon as I have finished with you, you will have nothing to eat but toast-gruel, and you will have to take off your clothes
yourself
, and feed
yourself
, like a common child.”

“Yes, Aunt.”

“You know that you are the Heir to this noble house (when your great-uncle Winthrop dies)?”

“Yes, Aunt.”

“Do you know anything about your parents?”

“No”

“It is as well. Look at this.” She pulled out a little case, containing two miniatures of perfectly ordinary people. Wil studied them.

“That is your father—our brother. He disgraced the family—he sullied the scutcheon—by becoming—
a writer
—
and worse
—he married a
female writer
, your mother. Mercifully for the family reputation they were both drowned in the
Oranjeboot
disaster, before anything worse could happen. You were rescued, floating in a pickle barrel.
Now
do you see why we all take such pains with your education? It is to save you from the taint of your unfortunate heritage.”

Wil was still digesting this when there came a knock at the door and Mr. Buckle put his head around.

“There is a Mr. Slockenheimer demanding to see you, Lady Agatha,” he said. “Apparently he will not take No for an answer. Shall I continue with the reprimand?”

“
No, Buckle
—you presume,” said Aunt Agatha coldly. “I have finished.”

Wil put himself to bed, watched minutely by Buckle to see that he did not omit to brush his teeth with the silver brush or comb his eyebrows with King Alfred’s comb in the manner befitting an heir of Troy. The toast and water was brought in a gold porringer. Wil ate it absently; it was very nasty, but he was so overcome by the luck of not having been found out, and wondering how he could get back to see Em another time, that he hardly noticed it.