His Name Was Walter Page 12

  What if the two were brothers? What if the Beast had spent his life shut up in the palace, to stop him harming others and to keep the family from disgrace? After his parents died, Lord Vane would have felt he had no choice but to continue what they had begun.

  And perhaps this explained Lord Vane’s neglect of his daughter and his determination to keep her hidden away. He had not known that his wife was a shape-changer. He probably assumed that Sparrow was another misfit like his brother, another shameful proof of his own family’s tainted blood.

  On Sunday morning, Walter went back to the river, once again nearing the palace just in time to see Lord Vane driving away. He was sure he saw a face at the tower-room window, but though he stayed on the riverbank all day, whistling Magda’s tune again and again, Sparrow did not come. She did not come the following Sunday, either. But Walter would not give up, and in the afternoon of the next Sunday, half dozing against the willow, he felt the green shade stir around him, heard the flutter of wings, and opened his eyes to see Sparrow standing beside him.

  He began to jump to his feet, but the girl held up her hand to stop him. ‘You have won, Walter,’ she said, without a smile. ‘I tried to be strong, but I could not stay away any longer.’

  ‘All will be well, Sparrow, I promise!’ Walter said fervently. ‘I understand everything now, and I—’

  ‘Wait!’ With a quick, nervous movement the girl pushed back the hood of her cloak. Smooth brown feathers gleamed against the waxy paleness of her face. The deep mauve shadows under her eyes spoke of many sleepless nights. ‘Walter, please listen! I have given in to my weakness today, but I will not do it again, I swear it, unless you make me a promise.’

  ‘Anything!’ Walter exclaimed rashly.

  Sparrow clasped her hands tightly and looked down at them. ‘You must promise to keep our meetings secret and never speak of me to anyone else as long as you live,’ she said steadily. ‘You must not ask me about the palace or anyone in it, for I swore to my dying mother that for my own safety I would tie my tongue, and that oath, at least, I must keep. And when you grow tired of a love that has no future, you must go at once, without a word. By then it will be even harder for me to say goodbye.’

  She had obviously prepared the speech. She had recited the words as if she had learned them by heart. When she had finished, she looked up at Walter, and waited.

  He looked back at her, not knowing what to say. It would be dreadful not to be able to question her about the Beast, and find out if his theory was true. The mystery would make a barrier between them. Yet he could see that it would be useless to argue with Sparrow, and the thought of not seeing her again was intolerable.

  ‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘I promise.’

  ‘You think that time will make a difference,’ Sparrow murmured, with the faint, sad smile he had grown to know so well. ‘I see it in your eyes. But nothing will change, Walter.’

  ‘We will see,’ Walter said stoutly. ‘Well, you have your promise, Sparrow. Will you come and sit with me now?’ And as the girl moved towards him, still smiling, he smiled back, and held out his hand.

  And so the months drifted by, the seasons changed, one year passed, and then another. Walter worked at the treasure house from Monday to Saturday and escaped to the riverbank every Sunday. He fell more deeply in love with Sparrow every time they met, but tried to keep his promise and to enjoy the present without thinking of the future.

  Every night he made notes of what he had seen, heard and thought during the day, so that he would remember to tell Sparrow about them. Starved of knowledge about the world beyond the palace and the riverbank, Sparrow listened in fascination to everything he had to say. In return she told him of her thoughts, her imaginings, the paintings she had done, the small things that had happened on the river since she saw him last. She said nothing of the palace or the other people in it, but that had been the agreement, and Walter never questioned it.

  Gradually he got to know the town and started to feel at home there. The shopkeepers he passed on his way to work greeted him by name. Humble customers of the treasure house, quickly learning that Walter was always courteous and willing to help on the smallest matter, began to smile at him when they passed his desk, and chose to deal with him whenever they could.

  ‘There was no need whatever to waste so much time on that woman,’ Master Podge grunted to Walter one day, the moment Walter’s latest customer was out of earshot. ‘She is only a small grape-grower. She keeps no gold in the treasure house — she only comes in to pay off the loan Lord Vane so kindly gave her.’

  ‘I am sorry, sir,’ said Walter, though he was not sorry at all. ‘Widow Bonnet was telling me about a letter she has just had from her son. He is away at the war, you know, which is why she needed the loan, to pay for a farm hand to help her tend the vines.’

  For in spring the King had at last declared war on the tyrant across the sea, and once again troops were flooding out of the country to fight.

  At first the war had meant little to Walter. His mind was fixed on Sparrow, and he was determined to delay answering the King’s call to arms for as long as he could. Little by little, however, the more he talked to people like Widow Bonnet, the more ominous the news of the enemy’s advances seemed. And the more the number of places around the boarding-house dinner table shrank as one by one the guests enlisted and went away, the more uneasy he felt.

  ‘Don’t you even think about it, dear boy,’ advised the red hen, who by this time had begun to cluck over Walter in a quite motherly fashion. ‘You’re not built to be a soldier, for all the tramping about you do on Sundays. And what would Lord Vane do without you? I hear he’s so short-handed that soon he may be forced to employ women in the treasure house! Imagine that!’

  And it was true that so many of the treasure-house clerks had gone away to fight that those who were left had to work twice as hard as before, and little by little Lord Vane had given Walter far more responsibility than was usual for someone so young. Podge the Pig resented this, of course, but he had always made a practice of agreeing with everything Lord Vane said, and he did not have the courage to change his tune now. He relieved his feelings by moaning in an undertone to anyone who would listen about the sad drop in standards that resulted when ‘ambitious young pups’ were given more power than they deserved.

  ‘It makes a lot of work for me, supervising untrained staff,’ he would always finish with a sigh. ‘But then, we must all make sacrifices for the war effort.’

  Walter laughed ruefully as he told Sparrow about this one rainy Sunday, when through a gap in the sagging, dripping willow boughs they saw Master Podge’s carriage splashing slowly across the bridge. Sparrow smiled in reply, but she shivered, and her smile was not real.

  ‘I feel shadows gathering around us, Walter,’ she said, and he remembered how grave she always became when he told her about the treasure house.

  ‘There is no need to worry, Sparrow,’ he had often assured her in the past. ‘I see very little of your father. Master Podge always deals with him.’

  He could not say that this time, however, because the morning before, Lord Vane had come directly to Walter and asked him to take over Master Podge’s usual task of checking the half-yearly accounts. Master Podge had spluttered and gaped like a fish. Walter had silently rejoiced. While he was valued by Lord Vane, his job was safe. While his job was safe, he could stay close to Sparrow. And deep in his heart a tiny hope that Magda’s prophecy had been wrong, that he and Sparrow might have some sort of future together, flickered into life.

  He ached to tell Sparrow, but knew she would take fright if he did. So he quickly changed the subject and began talking about a furniture-maker’s workshop he had discovered while wandering the town on Saturday afternoon.

  He did not count on the fact that Sparrow knew him very well by now, and could see that there was something he was keeping to himself. She said nothing, however, and with relief he saw her smile become more real as he descri
bed the old furniture-maker’s beautiful creations, one in particular, and told her of the wonderful smell of the workshop, the curls of freshly shaved wood lying on the floor.

  ‘Oh, I wish I could see such things for myself,’ she said with a sigh when he had finished.

  ‘You could, you know,’ Walter told her. ‘It is a long walk to town because the road is so winding, but the distance is nothing as the sparrow flies.’

  He had said such things before, and the girl had always shaken her head. This time she did not. Gazing at him, she nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘You would have to take great care, though,’ Walter added quickly. ‘Watch for hawks. Keep close to the trees along the way. Watch out for speeding carriages, and cats and dogs in town …’

  Sparrow laughed. ‘For years you have been trying to coax me to hop out of my cage, Walter! Now is a fine time to think of all the reasons why I should not!’

  Abashed, Walter laughed with her. He did not notice that Sparrow stopped laughing first — or if he did, he thought nothing of it. He might well have guessed that she had something on her mind that she was not sharing with him, but he was used to that, and had schooled himself never to mention it.

  Walter left the riverbank that Sunday whistling with pure happiness. He had no idea that a chapter of his life had ended, and that never again would he and Sparrow meet in the green shade of the willow.

  CHAPTER

  17

  Colin looked up from the book with a heavy heart, though of course he’d known that Walter’s happiness couldn’t last. When he met Tara’s feverish eyes, however, his sad mood was spiked by a prickle of anxiety. Clearly Tara had something she was bursting to say.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked uneasily.

  ‘I wasn’t sure before, but now I am,’ Tara said breathlessly. ‘This is Sparrow’s book, Colin. Sparrow wrote it, and painted the pictures. She hid it in the desk.’

  ‘Sparrow?’ Colin felt a stab of panic. ‘Sparrow’s just a character in the story, Tara! She’s made up! Listen, just because we saw — thought we saw — something in that room Lucas opened—’

  ‘It’s not just that!’ Tara flashed back. ‘It’s the way the story goes. The first bits, about Walter’s early life, go fast, and they’re really, really like a fairytale. Sparrow wrote those from what Walter told her the day they met. When they’re meeting every Sunday, everything’s more detailed — and much more like real life. And think about that picture of Walter going back to town, seen from high up. That’s how Sparrow would have seen him!’

  It was true. Thinking back, Colin could see it was true, but he didn’t know what to make of it.

  ‘Sparrow was a real person,’ Tara hurried on in a hissing whisper. ‘Walter was real. They were as real as this house, Colin! And whatever happened here was real, too! I know it!’

  When Colin didn’t respond, she shook her head impatiently. ‘There are no pictures that show Walter clearly, are there, even when a picture of him would have made sense?’ she demanded. ‘There are no pictures of Sparrow, either, or the palace, or the treasure house, or Lord Vane. And all the people in the town are pictured as animals. Why? Because they might be recognised, that’s why! Because if anyone found the book, and guessed what it was really about, they would have got rid of it! Burned it, or something!’

  Colin licked his lips. He felt totally at a loss. On the one hand, he could see the story through Tara’s eyes. On the other, he could see it through the eyes of someone with sense — someone like Lucas, say, or Mrs Fiori. Torn, he didn’t know what he believed.

  Tara sighed. ‘Let’s just go on,’ she said flatly. ‘Maybe you’ll get it in the end.’

  She turned the page. Colin found himself blinking at a painting of a pompous-looking pig in a dark suit, a high, starched collar and gold-rimmed glasses gesturing towards a desk stacked with large red books. There was a spiteful twist to the pig’s mouth and a nasty glint in his eye.

  Master Podge, Colin thought. And when he began to read the text opposite the illustration, he saw he was right.

  On Monday morning, Master Podge unlocked a small, windowless cubbyhole in a corner of the treasure house and showed Walter the thick red account books stacked on the desk inside.

  ‘The books are confidential, so must not be taken out of this room,’ Podge said. ‘And by the way, Lord Vane has agreed that you should do the work after hours — as I told him, we are far too short-handed to spare you from your usual duties.’

  He paused, but if he expected Walter to protest, he was disappointed.

  ‘You will, of course, be paid for the extra time,’ he went on fussily, ‘but do not be tempted to make the job seem more than it is. I have done most of the work already by passing the individual figures as correct, so all you have to do is check the totals on each page. I have told Lord Vane that even you should be finished by the end of the week.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ was all Walter said to this, though there was a sly smugness about Master Podge’s expression that made him wary. He suspected that Podge was setting a trap for him by leaving him short of time, and resolved to do the job as well as he possibly could, even if it meant working himself into the ground.

  And so it was that when he sat down with the first of the account books after closing time that evening, he did far more checking than Master Podge had told him to do. So it was that by comparing the figures in the red books against other records, he discovered small errors in some of the figures that Master Podge had passed as correct. And so it was that when at last he left the treasure house just before midnight, he had begun to see a pattern in these errors, and to suspect that they were not accidental.

  If Walter had been the ambitious young pup that Master Podge claimed he was, he would have been rubbing his hands with glee as he walked back to the boarding house. As it was, he felt sick with dismay. The last thing he wanted was trouble. Yet now it seemed that Podge had had very good reason to splutter at the idea that Walter was going to check the accounts in his place. And very good reason to arrange matters so that Walter had to do the work in the evenings, when he was tired. And very good reason to insist that the work could be done in just a few days.

  Walter had never thought much of Podge the Pig. He had always thought him pompous, vain and lazy. But it had never crossed his mind that Podge could be a thief.

  Yet the proof was there, in those thick red account books. It was hard to see, but when you looked carefully there was no doubt about it. Small sums were disappearing from customers’ accounts on a regular basis, and there was no sign of where the money had gone.

  It has gone into Podge’s pocket, thought Walter, remembering Master Podge’s shining carriage and his fine, spacious house. None of the other treasure-house clerks could steal for so long without being caught.

  So what was to be done? Well, clearly Lord Vane would have to be informed. And Lord Vane, if he did not actually prosecute Master Podge, for fear of scandal, would certainly dismiss him.

  Walter groaned softly at the thought. Modest as he was, he still knew full well that he was the only person still working at the treasure house who could possibly take Master Podge’s place. Podge’s ruin would be the making of Walter. And, strangely enough, this made the idea of exposing him more distasteful to Walter than if the man had been his dearest friend.

  Perhaps I am wrong, Walter told himself as he bolted the meatloaf sandwich the red hen had left for him in the boarding-house kitchen. Perhaps because I was tired I was missing some vital point that would explain everything.

  So the next night, and for two nights after that, he ploughed on through the red account books, making a long list of the entries that seemed wrong and trying to prove himself mistaken.

  Yawning treasure-house guards let him out of the building in the darkness of midnight. Alone in the kitchen of the boarding house, he picked at the cold food the red hen put out for him. He wrote down the details of his day just as always before falling into bed, though he dreade
d telling Sparrow what he had discovered, and indeed wondered if he could bring himself to do it. He grew haggard with worry and lack of sleep. The list of errors grew longer. And page by page, volume by volume, the account books revealed the unpleasant truth.

  Walter had made no mistake. The pattern he had discovered on that first night persisted. It was mostly the small customers who were being swindled — the customers who were in awe of the treasure house, who were unlikely to complain or question and who could be bullied and baffled easily if they did. Customers like Widow Bonnet, whose debt had hardly shrunk at all, according to the red books, though Walter knew for a fact that she had been paying off her loan faithfully each week.

  So Walter wrote a short report to go with the list of errors, and went to the treasure house on Friday morning knowing that he would have to find a way of passing the papers to Lord Vane in private. I do not have to accuse anyone, he reminded himself, trying to subdue a rising feeling of nausea. All I have to do is ask Lord Vane to read my report and to use the list to check the books for himself.

  He knew very well, however, that the mere fact that he had gone to the ruler of the treasure house directly, rather than simply telling Master Podge about the thefts, would make his suspicions obvious. So his queasiness increased as he saw Podge come trotting out of Lord Vane’s chamber looking even more sleek and self-satisfied than usual.

  ‘So, have you finished the books, my clever young friend?’ Podge asked with a particularly nasty smile as he reached Walter’s desk.

  ‘N-not quite,’ stammered Walter, feeling absurdly like a sneak.

  ‘Lord Vane wishes to see you,’ said Podge, his smile broadening. ‘Off you go! Chop, chop!’

  Astonished and alarmed at having his wish granted in such an abrupt and ominous way, Walter hurried to the huge polished door that protected Lord Vane’s privacy, checked that his report and the list of errors were still safely in his pocket, and knocked.