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

much as she looked frightened. “That’s not for me to say, Mr. Blayne.” Then she had command of herself. Lifting her head, she gave him a formal little smile as though determined not to allow friendship. “I must get back to Lady Mary,” she exclaimed. “She’ll be wondering what’s become of me.”
    She left him, standing alone in the Duke’s room, and walked quickly along the winding stone-floored passage. In spite of her moment of panic, she felt inexplicably cheerful. She began singing under her breath. How wonderful life was, first frightening people to death and then making them feel that somehow things would be all right.
    “Please do forgive me,” she said, as she all but ran into the small sitting room.
    “You’ve been a long time,” Lady Mary remarked.
    “It was the American, my lady. He asked ever so many questions about the castle.”
    “Questions, Kate, are to be answered tomorrow in the presence of our solicitors,” Sir Richard reminded her gently.
    “Yes, my lord.”
    “Now, go with her ladyship to her room. She should have been in bed an hour ago. It’s been a wearying day.”
    “Yes, Sir Richard.”
    By ten o’clock the next morning they had gathered in the great hall, Sir Richard and Lady Mary, John Blayne and his lawyer David Holt, a smooth-shaven middle-aged man, slim and self-contained. Philip Webster was the last to arrive, but his presence was immediately felt. He was a short, stoutish man wearing no hat, a shaggy figure in wrinkled brown tweeds with a pipe in his mouth.
    The moment he entered, Lady Mary turned to him and clasped her hands in piteous appeal. “Thank God, you’ve come, Philip.”
    Sir Richard turned to John Blayne. “My solicitor, Mr. Philip Webster of London. Webster, this is the—the American gentleman with whom you have had correspondence, I believe,”
    “And my lawyer, David Holt of Haynes, Holt, Bagley and Spence,” John Blayne supplied.
    Philip Webster removed his pipe, shook hands with John Blayne, and bowed without speaking to David Holt. Then he exploded to Sir Richard. “I say, Richard, what the devil is that gang of young men doing out by the gate? They drove in in a sort of shooting brake kind of thing just after I arrived. I asked them what they were about and they said they’d come to take measurements of the castle preparatory to removing it—as if it were a hen house or something!” He paused, then aware of the silence around him, exclaimed, “I say, what’s wrong?”
    Sir Richard did not reply for an instant. Pain had begun stabbing at his temples and he waited for it to abate. When he spoke, it was with his usual calm, but his manner was remote, as though be were not a part of what was taking place around him. “We’re in a predicament, Philip, a sorry sort of business, and I don’t quite see—I’m sure you didn’t mean to deceive me, Philip, but the thing is very—” He looked at Lady Mary.
    She was shaking her head.
    “I’m afraid the sale can’t go through, Philip, but what we shall do—”
    “It’s quite impossible,” Lady Mary said. She was trembling slightly as she clasped her hands together. “But then, everything’s impossible these days.”
    “What is impossible, Lady Mary?”
    “They want to take the castle away and to a place I cannot even pronounce. Really, that’s the most impossible thing I’ve ever heard of, and I shall never understand how you could think it possible. Philip, I simply cannot—”
    “By Jove,” Webster exclaimed, “the men were right then! But it’s incredible. And, of course, I agreed to no such thing. How could I imagine anyone’s taking the castle to America? What next! It’s mad, quite, quite mad—”
    John Blayne came forward, his hand outstretched and holding the letter.
    “It’s not mad, really. We’re quite accustomed to moving large buildings to where we want them.” With quiet precision he placed the letter flat on the table for anyone to read.
    No one made a