Death in the Castle by Pearl S. Buck Read Free Book Online Page A

aren’t you?”
    “Depends on the girl I’m standing beside.”
    For the first time he heard her laughter, a lovely sound, free and warm.
    “The inside of your mouth is pretty, too,” he added.
    She put her hand over her mouth. “I daresay you’re looking straight down my throat—I forgot I was so close.”
    “I didn’t.”
    She stepped back at that. “Now, really, Mr. Blayne—”
    “Couldn’t you call me John, as long as I’m in the castle?”
    “I only know King John,” she said, trying not to laugh.
    “Ah, but he’s dead!”
    “I’ve started the bleeding, I’m afraid!” She came close again to wipe the blood away. “And King John isn’t dead—altogether. He still has his room here—the one we didn’t put you in. An old castle like this is always alive. At least it’s—inhabited.”
    “Do you mean haunted?”
    The lovely mouth was very near now, and he held himself taut. In the absorption in her task he saw her lips parted, the tip of her tongue between white teeth.
    “No,” she said, “not haunted. How can you be haunted by people you love? They are people—in different forms and shapes, perhaps, but alive.”
    She stepped back with a gesture encircling the room. “To this room, you may be waked in the morning by bells from the royal chapel below. It’s the ballroom now, but it was once the place where Queen Elizabeth knelt at dawn to pray. She prayed often—did you know that? People don’t think of it, but she was religious. I daresay she was lonely and couldn’t trust anyone—not even Essex whom she loved—perhaps especially Essex, because she’d told him she loved him, and so he had advantage.”
    “How do you know she told him?”
    “She couldn’t help it. Queen though she was, she fell in love like any woman. I daresay she fought her own heart, knowing she couldn’t—mustn’t—give herself into any man’s power. But her heart won. It makes me glad I’m nobody.”
    “A beautiful little nobody!”
    She laughed again. “I laid myself open, didn’t I—but you needn’t have taken notice!”
    “I can’t help noticing.”
    She pretended annoyance. “I shall have to stop talking altogether! There—it’s only a scratch, after all.” She walked away from him to the basin.
    “No—no, please!” he said, following.
    “If you keep teasing—” She was at the door now.
    “Let’s get back to the subject of the castle,” he said. “Tell me more about it.”
    She considered, lingering on the threshold. “The reason I went with you in the passages is because they’re quite dangerous, really—”
    “Haunted, too?”
    “No, but they lead to dungeons, I told you—and an underground river.”
    “Oh, come now—that’s too perfect! It’s what castles dream of having—dungeons and underground rivers.”
    “It’s quite true. I could show you—”
    “I want to be shown, I warn you!”
    “And there’s one window in the east tower that no one’s ever been able to find the room to—”
    “How do you know there’s a room if no one’s been able to find it?”
    He was teasing again, but she was serious. She forgot herself, she walked toward him and came close, half whispering, her eyes enormous. “There was a big party here once, in King John’s time, and they hung ribbons from every room, but there was one window with no ribbon to it—there’s always been that one window!”
    “Oh, come now!”
    “It’s true,” she insisted. “There was a book in the library about the castle that told everything.”
    “I must see that book.”
    “Ah, it’s been lost this long time—no one knows how. But my grandfather’s seen it.”
    “If we take the castle apart, we’ll discover its secrets.”
    “No—no, oh please, no! I don’t want to know its secrets.”
    He was surprised to see her little face suddenly so troubled. “Tell me,” he was serious now, “are the they that Lady Mary talks about part of the secrets?”
    Kate did not look troubled now so