His Name Was Walter Page 9

  Walter looked down shyly as the other boarders ranged around the long table murmured and stared at him curiously. He was not used to praise or attention.

  ‘He’s a quiet one,’ he heard someone remark, and the tips of his ears began to burn.

  ‘And none the worse for that, Master Fry!’ the red hen clucked. ‘There’s no room for loudmouths in the treasure house. Would you want treasure-house clerks who wagged their tongues about how much gold you’ve got stored in the vault? Or, on the other hand, how much Lord Vane’s let you borrow and how long he’s given you to pay the debt back?’

  There was a confused mumble of agreement and an awkward clearing of throats. Then someone changed the subject by mentioning the shadow of war, which was creeping closer by the day, and as everyone at the table had an opinion on that, Walter was left in peace.

  The treasure house was open on Saturday mornings, so it was not till the afternoon that Walter was free to leave the town and retrace his steps to the palace with Magda’s sketchbook in his knapsack and the locket safe in his pocket. Hopes and fears walked with him, raising and dashing his spirits by turns. One moment he would imagine a small, hooded figure gliding through the willow veil into his arms. The next moment he would think that after almost forty-eight hours with no sign from him, the girl must have given up waiting for his signal. Then he would remember the waving hand at the tower window and tell himself she was sure to keep faith. And then he would remember that with the treasure house closed for the day Lord Vane would almost certainly be at home, so a secret meeting by the river would be even more difficult and dangerous than it had been before.

  By the time the bridge, the river and the palace came into view, Walter was in a fine state. What would he do if Lord Vane was in the palace grounds and saw him? What would he say if Lord Vane recognised him and asked him his business?

  Then he came to his senses. I have come out of town to breathe the fresh air, to stretch my legs, to sit by the river, he told himself. I have as much right to be here as any man alive.

  And holding on to that thought he swung on, whistling as he went. The griffins glared as he passed them, the palace looked as forbidding as ever, and there was no sign of a face watching from the tower room. But still Walter whistled just as if he did not have a care in the world, and when he reached the bridge he slithered casually down to the riverbank just as if his heart were not almost bursting in his chest.

  He sat in the shade of the old willow tree, whistled Magda’s tune and waited for the answering chirrup that would tell him the sparrow was near. No chirrup came. He went through the tune a second time, but still there was no reply.

  Slowly the afternoon wore away until every minute that passed made it more unlikely that either the sparrow or the girl would come, but Walter sat on, stubbornly whistling the same tune over and over again. The shade beneath the tree became denser, the shadows on the river lengthened, and at last the water shone with a pinkish glow that told him the sun was going down.

  Still Walter stayed where he was, hoping against hope, fearing that the moment he left the sparrow would come and find him gone. But when it became so dark under the willow that he could barely see his hand in front of his face he knew that he had to give up. Only owls and bats would fly in this gloom.

  As he had once before, he crept out of the riverbank hollow and peered up at the palace. The moon had not yet risen, and it was quite dark. At the top of the hill the palace hulked against the sky, looking more forbidding than ever. Several of its ground-floor rooms glowed with yellow light behind closed curtains — and there was a light in the tower! A lonely, hooded figure was at the window there, her pale face pressed against the bars.

  All the frustrated longing of the afternoon boiled up inside Walter and overflowed, sweeping away his caution. The next moment, with no thought in his mind at all, he was climbing the wall that separated the palace grounds from the river and dropping heavily to the ground on the other side.

  He had no plan as he walked up the hill, any more than he had had a plan when he turned left instead of right the night he fled the city. His heart was guiding him, just as it had then. His eyes were fixed on the light in the tower room. Only his instinctive caution made him keep to the grass and stay clear of the sweeping gravel drive where his boots would make a betraying sound.

  He had almost reached the palace when the girl at the window caught sight of him, a moving shadow in the darkness. Her face lit up as she recognised him, but only for an instant. Then, her eyes wide with fright, she shook her head violently and urgently pushed the palms of her hands against the window bars as if warning him off. When Walter did not turn back, but actually took a step forward, she abruptly backed away from the window and vanished from sight.

  For a single, terrible moment Walter feared she had run to call her father. As he stared up at the barred square of light, the mists that clouded his mind burned away and suddenly he was facing cold reality. He was a trespasser here. He was an intruder, a stalker, a prowler! He had meant no harm, but why should anyone believe that? If Lord Vane caught him, everything was lost — the job in the treasure house, the room in the boarding house, and any hope that he would ever see Abby’s daughter again.

  Then the face at the window was back, a hand was thrust between the bars, and something was thrown out. With a tiny thud, the object landed in the garden that hugged the palace walls. Walter ran to pick it up.

  It was a small, round package wrapped in flimsy paper and tied up with a scrap of ribbon. Inside there was nothing but a wizened apple. Walter’s mind must still have been working slowly at this point, because he stared stupidly at the apple for a long, disappointed moment before realising that it had only been used for weight. The wrapping paper itself was the important thing.

  Pushing the apple and the ribbon into his pocket, he flattened out the paper and squinted at it, but the darkness defeated him. Frustrated, he edged further along the garden until he reached one of the glowing ground-floor windows. There he bent over the paper again, and by the light streaming through a narrow chink in the curtains he saw a picture — a delicate painting of the river, seen from above.

  So Magda’s granddaughter was an artist, as Magda herself had been! The thought filled Walter with warmth. He turned the painting over. The other side was blank except for one hastily written word.

  TOMORROW

  Dizzy with joy, Walter straightened, clutching the paper to his chest. As he did so, he found himself looking straight through the gap in the curtains into the lighted room beyond the window. A man was sitting at a table there, a strong lamp beside him. Lord Vane, Walter thought, taking a hurried step back. Then he looked again, saw slobbering lips, bloated cheeks and sly, pouched eyes, and the hair rose on the back of his neck.

  The man was hunched jealously over an iron box heaped with gold. To Walter’s horrified eyes he looked more like a beast than a human being. The lamp on the tabletop lit up the treasure box but threw deep shadows onto the man’s avid face, making it a nightmare mask of puffy flesh and deep furrows. His hands were in the box, and he was drooling, grinning and muttering as coins slid, glinting, through his sausage-like fingers. The filthy undershirt that strained over his massive chest and sagging belly was blotched with patches of sweat. Hair like greasy grey straw stuck up in tufts all over his head and straggled across his brow. Evil greed seemed to cloud the room like smoke.

  As Walter gaped, unable to look away, the beast-man pulled one hand free and grabbed a great silver goblet that stood beside him. Smacking his lips, he threw back his head and drank. Dark wine dribbled from the corners of his mouth, ran down his bristly chin and dripped onto his undershirt, while all the time the fingers of his other hand were still busy in the box, stroking and caressing the gold.

  Did Walter, in his shock, make some tiny sound or movement? He never knew. All he knew was that the beast-man suddenly stiffened, then lowered his terrible head and squinted suspiciously at the window.

&nbs
p; Walter took to his heels. Never had he run so fast. He glanced back once and saw the girl in the tower room watching, her face a pale blur, her hands gripping the window bars. Then he had reached the barrier wall and was tumbling over it and rolling down into the deep shadows of the riverbank.

  He lay there in the warm, soft darkness, panting and shaking, his mind racing, his ears strained for the sound of angry pursuit. But all was silence, and after a while he picked himself up, made his way back to the bridge, and began the long walk back to town.

  The moon was rising, but still he could hardly see the griffins as he hurried past the tall iron gates. He wondered uneasily if the griffins could see him, then told himself it did not matter. He knew now why Lord Vane kept such ferocious guards. It was not to keep danger out of the palace, but to keep it in.

  The palace’s evil atmosphere was explained now, too. Walter had seen the source of the evil for himself. The beast-man plainly had some sort of hold over Lord Vane. He squatted like a poisonous toad in the grand building, hidden away, a loathsome secret. Perhaps he had done so for a long time. Perhaps he had already been in the palace when Lord Vane brought Abby home as a bride!

  No wonder Abby’s daughter was so easily frightened and so well guarded! No wonder she was kept isolated in her tower room and forbidden to wander! And no wonder the palace housekeeper was an ogress. Only an ogress would tolerate such a foul guest and be sullen enough not to talk to outsiders of anything she had seen.

  Walter shuddered and trudged on through the darkness. Nightmare visions of greedy madness danced in his head, and for once he did not feel like whistling.

  Colin felt very uneasy as he finished reading. He realised now that the painting at the beginning of the chapter must have been a picture of the beast-man, but he didn’t turn back to look at it. The description in words had been bad enough. If the painting was as real-looking as the others in the book, it would be a nightmare.

  Tara was rigidly still beside him. When Colin looked at her, he saw that her face was tight with tension. She was gripping the torch hard with both hands, as if she was having trouble holding the beam steady.

  I don’t know this girl, Colin thought suddenly. Maybe I’m doing the wrong thing here. She doesn’t look very strong. Maybe it’s bad for her to be staying awake so late, reading scary stuff and getting all worked up. She’s obviously very — what would Mum say? — ‘highly strung’. She’s got these crazy ideas. And she had that nosebleed on the bus for no reason.

  He glanced elaborately at his watch. ‘Maybe we should stop here and get some sleep, Tara,’ he whispered. ‘It’s nearly midnight.’

  It would have been a relief if Tara had agreed so he could sneakily read on without having to worry about her, but Colin wasn’t surprised when the girl shook her head violently. Not knowing what else to do, he turned the page.

  The picture was of a group of animals in human clothes about to have dinner. A wombat, several possums, a pig, a shaggy dog, a goat and an elderly ram with a blue table napkin tucked under his chin sat at a long table covered by a blue-and-white-checked cloth. The table was set with cutlery, glasses, jugs of water, a silver pepper and salt set, plates of bread, little glass dishes of butter and a vase of daisies. It was crowded, but right at the end on one side there was an empty place. The boarding-house hen, wearing a bright green shawl and a fetching string of orange beads, was at the head of the table, ladling out helpings of stew. The pendulum clock on the wall behind her showed that it was exactly seven o’clock.

  Well, there’s nothing scary about that, at least, Colin thought, and found himself breathing out as he began to read.

  CHAPTER

  13

  Walter would have missed the boarding-house dinner hour and gone hungry that night if Master Podge’s carriage had not overtaken him on the road. As it was, the carriage stopped, and Master Podge graciously offered to give him a ride.

  Walter soon began to suspect that this was a matter of curiosity rather than kindness, for all the way to town Master Podge asked probing questions about where he had been and what he was doing out so late.

  ‘I like walking in the countryside,’ Walter said feebly, very aware that he smelled of the river, and that his muddy boots were soiling the carriage floor. ‘I went too far before turning back, that is all. I will know better next time.’

  ‘Well, see that you do, young man!’ Master Podge squeaked, wagging a trotter at Walter roguishly. ‘Dirty tramps and worse haunt country roads after dark, even in this peaceful spot. It would be a pity if you came to any harm, when Lord Vane has begun to think so much of you!’

  He laughed jovially as he said this, but it seemed to Walter that a curiously dry, spiteful note had entered his voice — almost as if he would be quite pleased if Walter was one day to be found dead in a ditch.

  ‘You went all the way to the river, by the look of you,’ Master Podge went on, glancing down at Walter’s boots. ‘Wanted to see the palace again, I daresay. It is a fine building, is it not?’

  ‘Very fine,’ Walter replied uneasily.

  ‘Lord Vane would live nowhere else, of course. It has been in his family, passed from father to son, for generations. It is very large, though, and too far from town for my liking. Lord Vane values his privacy, I know, but it must be lonely for him living out there with only a housekeeper and his poor afflicted daughter.’

  ‘Afflicted?’ Walter echoed, before he could stop himself.

  Master Podge pursed his lips and shook his head. His pink, flabby jowls wobbled over his high, stiff collar. ‘Feeble-minded,’ he confided, lowering his voice. ‘Born wrong in the head, and cannot speak. Has to be kept locked up for her own safety. Now and again she gets out, and then there is a great to-do till she is found. It must have happened just this Thursday past, as a matter of fact — the very day you arrived in Long Rest. My wife was passing by the palace on her way to visit her sister, and saw the housekeeper out calling and hunting around the palace grounds in a great state.’

  He sighed deeply, his eyes sliding sharply in Walter’s direction. ‘Ah yes, a hopeless case. It was a cruel blow to Lord Vane, who was already disappointed enough to have been presented with a daughter instead of the son and heir he had hoped for. And of course there were no more children. By the time the girl was five years old, her mother had died of a broken heart. Tragic, is it not?’

  Walter nodded, his mind racing. Podge plainly did not know about the beast-man living in the palace. And did he really believe what he was saying about Abby’s daughter? Certainly she might not be able to speak, but if there was anything wrong with her mind, Walter would eat his own muddy boots.

  ‘Sometimes you see the poor creature standing at the tower-room window,’ Master Podge continued blandly. ‘Even from that distance you can tell she is not normal. Perhaps you noticed her there today as you walked by?’

  ‘No,’ said Walter, with perfect truth.

  Master Podge yawned widely, patting his mouth with a well-trimmed trotter. ‘Oh, pardon me! I have had a tiring afternoon. Yes, well, a cunning young scoundrel passing by the palace might well think it would be a clever thing to take advantage of the poor girl and try to marry her for the sake of her father’s wealth and position. But Lord Vane is wise enough to see through any wicked plan like that, believe me!’

  So then Walter understood that Master Podge disliked and suspected him, and had been warning him to take care. He also understood that Master Podge was a jealous enemy, and would do him a bad turn if he could.

  There were more questions at dinner. The red hen seemed amazed that Walter had chosen to leave Long Rest on his free afternoon instead of sitting in one of the town’s parks listening to a brass band and eating ice cream.

  ‘I would think you had had enough of walking about,’ she said, ladling a generous second helping of stew onto Walter’s plate. ‘Tomorrow you had better stay in town and have a good rest so you will be fresh for work on Monday.’

  Walter had no intent
ion of doing any such thing, but he smiled as if in agreement. He had a restless night, plagued by dreams of leering faces, and the next morning, immediately after breakfast, he set out for the river again.

  He walked fast, his head down, one minute thrilled at the thought of the meeting to come, the next appalled by the memory of the beast-man. Time passed without his noting it, and when he heard the sound of wheels ahead and looked up he was startled to see that he had nearly reached the palace. The iron gates were open, and a fine black carriage driven by Lord Vane himself was just turning out of the driveway. Hurriedly Walter crouched by the side of the road and pretended to be tying a shoelace as Lord Vane, dressed for a great occasion, alighted from the carriage and shut the gates.

  Walter stayed where he was, fumbling with his boot, as his employer climbed back into the carriage and drove away across the bridge. Only when the carriage was a cloud of dust in the distance did he stand up and slink on, feeling guilty and ashamed.

  The red hen’s voice was ringing in his ears. It would be a wicked shame to let Lord Vane down. He has had enough sad trouble as it is!

  Did the hen know about the beast-man? Walter doubted it. She had mentioned ‘family troubles’, but she had probably been referring to the death of Lord Vane’s wife and the tale of his ‘afflicted’ daughter.

  It seemed that Lord Vane would do and say anything to hide the dark secret that was blighting his daughter’s life as well as his own. It could only be because he felt he had no choice.

  Walter reached the bridge and slid down to the riverbank, feeling so wretched that he had no heart to whistle. But as he entered the shade of the willow tree, his mood abruptly changed.

  Just as he had the first time, he felt peaceful happiness lapping around him like warm, soft river water. He heard a chirrup, and as his eyes became accustomed to the dimness he saw that the sparrow was waiting for him, perched on the same low branch as before.