The People in the Castle: Selected Strange Stories

by Joan Aiken

  “But we shall have to have salaries too, mind,” said Uncle Umbert greedily. “We can’t be expected to uproot ourselves like this and move to Hollywood all for nothing.”

  Mr. Slockenheimer raised his eyebrows at this, but said agreeably:

  “Okay, I’ll sign you on as extras.” He pulled out a fistful of forms, scribbled his signature on them and handed them to Aunt Agatha. “There you are, Ma’am, twenty-year contracts for the whole bunch.”

  “Dirt cheap at the price, even so,” Wil heard him whisper to the secretary.

  “Now as we’re finished shooting I’ll have the masons in tomorrow and start chipping the old place to bits. Hangings and furniture will be crated separately. It’ll take quite a time, of course; shouldn’t think we’ll get it done in less than three weeks.” He looked with respect over his shoulders at a vista of dark corridor which stretched away for half a mile.

  Wil stole away with his heart thudding. Were they actually proposing to pull down the house, this house, and ship it to Hollywood for film sets? What about the tree? Would they hack it down, or dig it up and transport it, leaves and all?

  “What’s the matter, boy?” asked Em, her cheek bulging with the giant sucker he had brought her.

  “The film company’s moving away, and they’re going to take Troy with them for using as backgrounds for films.”

  “The whole house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh,” said Em, and became very thoughtful.

  “Em.”

  “Yes?”

  “What—I mean, what would happen to you if they found this room and cut the tree down, or dug it up?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said, pondering. “I shouldn’t go on after that—none of us would in here—but as to exactly what would happen—; I don’t expect it would be bad. Perhaps we should just go out like lamps.”

  “Well then it must be stopped,” said Wil so firmly that he surprised himself.

  “Can you forbid it? You’re the Heir, aren’t you?”

  “Not till old Uncle Winthrop dies. We’ll have to think of some other plan.”

  “I have an idea,” said Em, wrinkling her brow with effort. “In my days, producers would do much for a well-written play, one that had never been seen before. Is it still like that nowadays?”

  “Yes I think so, but we don’t know anyone who writes plays,” Wil pointed out.

  “I have a play laid by somewhere,” she explained. “The writer was a friend of my father—he asked my father to take it up to London to have it printed. My father bade me take care of it and I put it in my bundle of clothes. It was on the journey, as we were passing through Oxford, that I was seen and carried off by my respected grandmother, and I never saw my father or Mr. Shakespeere again, so the poor man lost his play.”

  “Mr. Shakespeare, did you say?” asked Wil, stuttering slightly. “What was the name of the play, do you remember?”

  “I forget. I have it here somewhere.” She began delving about in a cranny between two branches and presently drew out a dirty old manuscript. Wil stared at it with popping eyes.

  The Tragicall Historie of Robin Hoode

  A play by Wm. Shakespeere

  Act I, Scene I. Sherwood Forest. Enter John

  Lackland, De Bracy, Sheriff of Nottingham,

  Knights, Lackeys and attendants.

  john l. Good sirs, the occasion of our coming hither

  Is, since our worthy brother Coeur de Lion

  Far from our isle now wars on Paynim soil,

  The apprehension of that recreant knave

  Most caitiff outlaw who is known by some

  As Robin Locksley; by others Robin Hood;

  More, since our coffers gape with idle locks

  The forfeiture of his ill-gotten gains.

  Thus Locksley’s stocks will stock our locks enow

  While he treads air beneath the forest bough.

  “Golly,” said Wil. “Shakespeare’s Robin Hood. I wonder what Mr. Slockenheimer would say to this?”

  “Well don’t wait. Go and ask him. It’s yours—I’ll make you a present of it.”

  He wriggled back through the leaves with frantic speed, slammed the door, and raced down the passage towards the Great Hall. Mr. Slockenheimer was there superintending the packing of some expensive and elaborate apparatus.

  “Hello, Junior. Haven’t seen you in days. Well, how d’you like the thought of moving to Hollywood, eh?”

  “Not very much,” Wil said frankly. “You see, I’m used to it here, and—and the house is too; I don’t think the move would be good for it.”

  “Think the dry air would crumble it, mebbe? Well, there’s something to what you say. I’ll put in air-conditioning apparatus at the other end. I’m sorry you don’t take to the idea, though. Hollywood’s a swell place.”

  “Mr. Slockenheimer,” said Wil, “I’ve got something here which is rather valuable. It’s mine—somebody gave it to me. And it’s genuine. I was wondering if I could do a sort of swap—exchange it for the house, you know.”

  “It would have to be mighty valuable,” replied Mr. Slockenheimer cautiously. “Think it’s worth a million, son? What is it?”

  “It’s a play by Mr. Shakespeare—a new play that no one’s seen before.”

  “Eh?”

  “I’ll show you,” said Wil confidently, pulling out the MS.

  “The Tragicall Historie of Robin Hoode,” read Mr. Slockenheimer slowly. “By Wm. Shakespeere. Well I’ll be goshdarned. Just when I’d finished the indoor scenes. Isn’t that just my luck? Hey, Junior—are you sure this is genuine?—Well, Jakes will know, he knows everything. Hey,” he called to his secretary, “come and take a look at this.”

  The dry Mr. Jakes let out a whistle when he saw the signature.

  “That’s genuine, all right,” he said. “It’s quite something you’ve got there. First production of the original Shakespeare play by W. P. Slockenheimer.”

  “Well, will you swap?” asked Wil once more.

  “I’ll say I will,” exclaimed Mr. Slockenheimer, slapping him thunderously on the back. “You can keep your mouldering old barracks. I’ll send you twenty seats for the premiere. Robin Hoode by Wm. Shakespeere. Well, what do you know?”

  “There’s just one thing,” said Wil, pausing.

  “Yes, Bud?”

  “These contracts you gave my uncle and aunt and the others. Are they still binding?”

  “Not if you don’t want.”

  “Oh, but I do—I’d much rather they went to Hollywood.”

  Mr. Slockenheimer burst out laughing. “Oh, I get the drift. Okay, Junior, I daresay they won’t bother me as much as they do you. I’ll hold them to those contracts as tight as glue. Twenty years, eh? You’ll be of age by then, I guess? Your Uncle Umbert can be the Sheriff of Nottingham, he’s about the build for the part. And we’ll fit your Aunt Aggie in somewhere.”

  “And Buckle and Squab?”

  “Yes, yes,” said Mr. Slockenheimer, much tickled. “Though what you’ll do here all on your own—however, that’s your affair. Right, boys, pack up those cameras next.”

  Three days later the whole outfit was gone, and with them, swept away among the flash bulbs, cameras, extras, crates, props and costumes, went Squabb, Buckle, Aunt Agatha, Uncle Umbert, Cousin Cedric, and all the rest.

  Empty and peaceful the old house dreamed, with sunlight shifting from room to room and no sound to break the silence, save in one place, where the voices of children could be heard faintly above the rustling of a tree.

  Furry Night

  The deserted aisles of the National Museum of Dramatic Art lay very, very still in the blue autumn twilight. Not a whisper of wind stirred the folds of Irving’s purple cloak; Ellen
Terry’s ostrich fan was smooth and unruffled; the blue-black gleaming breastplate that Sir Murdoch Meredith, founder of the museum, had worn as Macbeth held its reflection as quietly as a cottage kettle.

  And yet, despite this hush, there was an air of strain, of expectancy, along the narrow coconut-matted galleries between the glass cases: a tension suggesting that some crisis had taken or was about to take place.

  In the total stillness a listener might have imagined that he heard, ever so faintly, the patter of stealthy feet far away among the exhibits.

  Two men, standing in the shadow of the Garrick showcase, were talking in low voices.

  “This is where it happened,” said the elder, white-haired man.

  He picked up a splinter of broken glass, frowned at it, and dropped it into a litter bin. The glass had been removed from the front of the case, and some black tights and gilt medals hung exposed to the evening air.

  “We managed to hush it up. The hospital and ambulance men will be discreet, of course. Nobody else was there, luckily. Only the Bishop was worried.”

  “I should think so,” the younger man said. “It’s enough to make anybody anxious.”

  “No, I mean he was worried. Hush,” the white-haired man whispered, “here comes Sir Murdoch.”

  The distant susurration had intensified into soft, pacing footsteps. The two men, without a word, stepped farther back in the shadow until they were out of sight. A figure appeared at the end of the aisle and moved forward until it stood beneath the portrait of Edmund Keane as Shylock. The picture, in its deep frame, was nothing but a square of dark against the wall.

  Although they were expecting it, both men jumped when the haunted voice began to speak.

  “You may as well use question with the wolf

  Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb. . . .”

  A sleeve of one of the watchers brushed against the wall, the lightest possible touch, but Sir Murdoch swung round sharply, his head outthrust, teeth bared. They held their breath, and after a moment he turned back to the picture.

  “Thy currish spirit

  Govern’d a wolf, who, hang’d for human slaughter

  Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet. . . .”

  He paused, with a hand pressed to his forehead, and then leaned forward and hissed,

  “Thy desires

  Are wolvish, bloody, starv’d, and ravenous!”

  His head sank on his chest. His voice ceased. He brooded for a moment, and then resumed his pacing and soon passed out of sight. They heard the steps go lightly down the stairs, and presently the whine of the revolving door.

  After a prudent interval the two others emerged from their hiding place, left the gallery, and went out to a car that was waiting for them in Great Smith Street.

  “I wanted you to see that, Peachtree,” said the elder man, “to give you some idea of what you are taking on. Candidly, as far as experience goes, I hardly feel you are qualified for the job, but you are young and tough and have presence of mind; most important of all, Sir Murdoch seems to have taken a fancy to you. You will have to keep an unobtrusive eye on him every minute of the day; your job is a combination of secretary, companion, and resident psychiatrist. I have written to Dr. Defoe, the local GP at Polgrue. He is old, but you will find him full of practical sense. Take his advice . . . I think you said you were brought up in Australia?”

  “Yes,” Ian Peachtree said. “I only came to this country six months ago.”

  “Ah, so you missed seeing Sir Murdoch act.”

  “Was he so very wonderful?”

  “He made the comedies too macabre,” said Lord Hawick, considering, “but in the tragedies there was no one to touch him. His Macbeth was something to make you shudder. When he said,

  ‘Alarum’d by his sentinel, the wolf,

  Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,

  With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design

  Moves like a ghost,’

  He used to take two or three stealthy steps across the stage, and you could literally see the grey fur rise on his hackles, the lips draw back from the fangs, the yellow eyes begin to gleam. It made a cold chill run down your spine. As Shylock and Caesar and Timon he was unrivalled. Othello and Antony he never touched, but his Iago was a masterpiece of villainy.”

  “Why did he give it up? He can’t be much over fifty.”

  “As with other sufferers from lycanthropy,” said Lord Hawick, “Sir Murdoch has an ungovernable temper. Whenever he flew into a rage it brought on an attack. They grew more and more frequent. A clumsy stagehand, a missed cue might set him off; he’d begin to shake with rage and the terrifying change would take place.

  “On stage it wasn’t so bad; he had his audiences completely hypnotized and they easily accepted a grey-furred Iago padding across the stage with the handkerchief in his mouth. But off stage it was less easy; the claims for mauling and worrying were beginning to mount up; Equity objected. So he retired, and, for some time, founding the museum absorbed him. But now it’s finished; his temper is becoming uncertain again. This afternoon, as you know, he pounced on the Bishop for innocently remarking that Garrick’s Hamlet was the world’s greatest piece of acting.”

  “How do you deal with the attacks? What’s the treatment?”

  “Wolfsbane. Two or three drops given in a powerful sedative will restore him for the time. Of course, administering it is the problem, as you can imagine. I only hope the surroundings in Cornwall will be sufficiently peaceful so that he is not provoked. It’s a pity he never married; a woman’s influence would be beneficial.”

  “Why didn’t he?”

  “Jilted when he was thirty. Never looked at another woman. Some girl down at Polgrue, near his home. It was a real slap in the face; she wrote two days before the wedding saying she couldn’t stand his temper. That began it all. This will be the first time he’s been back there. Well, here we are,” said Lord Hawick, glancing out at his Harley Street doorstep. “Come in and I’ll give you the wolfsbane prescription.”

  The eminent consultant courteously held the door for his young colleague.

  The journey to Cornwall was uneventful. Dr. Peachtree drove his distinguished patient, glancing at him from time to time with mingled awe and affection. Would the harassing crawl down the A30, the jam in Exeter, the flat tyre on Dartmoor, bring on an attack? Would he be able to cope if they did? But the handsome profile remained unchanged, the golden eyes in their deep sockets stayed the eyes of a man, not those of a wolf, and Sir Murdoch talked entertainingly, not at all discomposed by the delays. Ian was fascinated by his tales of the theatre.

  There was only one anxious moment, when they reached the borders of Polgrue Chase. Sir Murdoch glanced angrily at his neglected coverts, where the brambles grew long and wild.

  “Wait till I see that agent,” he muttered, and then, half to himself, “‘Oh, thou wilt be a wilderness again,/Peopled with wolves.’”

  Ian devoutly hoped that the agent would have a good excuse.

  But the Hall, hideous Victorian-Gothic barrack though it was, they found gay with lights and warm with welcome. The old housekeeper wept over Sir Murdoch, bottles were uncorked, the table shone with ancestral silver. Ian began to feel less apprehensive.

  After dinner they moved outside with their nuts and wine to sit in the light that streamed over the terrace from the dining-room French windows. A great walnut tree hung shadowy above them; its golden, aromatic leaves littered the flagstones at their feet.

  “This place has a healing air,” Sir Murdoch said. “I should have come here sooner.” Suddenly he stiffened. “Hudson! Who are those?”

  Far across the park, almost out of sight in the dusk, figures were flitting among the trees.

  “Eh,” said the housekeeper
comfortably, “they’re none but the lads, Sir Murdoch, practicing for the Furry Race. Don’t you worrit about them. They won’t do no harm.”

  “On my land?” Sir Murdoch said. “Running across my land?”

  Ian saw with a sinking heart that his eyes were turning to gleaming yellow slits, his hands were stiffening and curling. Would the housekeeper mind? Did she know her master was subject to these attacks? He felt in his pocket for the little ampoules of wolfsbane, the hypodermic syringe.

  There came an interruption. A girl’s clear voice was heard singing:

  “Now the hungry lion roars,

  And the wolf behowls the moon—”

  “It’s Miss Clarissa,” said the housekeeper with relief.

  A slender figure swung round the corner of the terrace and came towards them.

  “Sir Murdoch? How do you do? I’m Clarissa Defoe. My father sent me up to pay his respects. He would have come himself, but he was called out on a case. Isn’t it a gorgeous night?”

  Sitting down beside them, she chatted amusingly and easily, while Ian observed with astonished delight that his employer’s hands were unclenching and his eyes were becoming their normal shape again. If this girl was able to soothe Sir Murdoch without recourse to wolfsbane, they must see a lot of her.

  But when Sir Murdoch remarked that the evening was becoming chilly and proposed that they go indoors, Ian’s embryonic plan received a jolt. He was a tough and friendly young man who had never taken a great deal of interest in girls; the first sight, in lamplight, of Clarissa Defoe’s wild beauty came on him with a shattering impact. Could he expose her to danger without warning her?