Whistle for the Crows Read online

  She switched on the flashlight which she carried in her pocket, and looked more closely.

  “Oh, here it is. Now isn’t that funny. I always put it back in exactly the same place, but it’s right at the other end of the table. I must have been absent-minded.”

  “Or someone else moved it,” Cathleen suggested, watching Peggy shake out a pink tablet.

  “Maybe,” said Peggy. “Though I don’t know why. You take that, Mrs. Lamb, and you’ll be asleep in five minutes.”

  There was no sound of crying any more. Cathleen went softly back to her room convinced now that she had imagined the whole thing. She swallowed the tablet Peggy had given her, and got back into bed. It was bliss to relax, to push every thought out of her mind, and let drowsiness overtake her. She would probably sleep in the morning and miss the ride she had planned with Liam. She had wanted to watch him schooling Red in the lower field where he had set up hurdles. But there would be plenty more opportunities. She would be here until the end of the summer at least, when the leaves began to fall, and the smoky mists rolled up, and fires were lit in the enormous fireplaces, and Miss O’Riordan wore her sable cape during the day as well as the night, and Rory could no longer spend sixteen hours a day outdoors…

  And the baby would be three months older… She was almost asleep and dreaming. It was the nursery rhyme ringing in her head that brought that odd thought. It had been one of Debby’s favourites.

  Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle…

  The words were not in her head at all. They were being sung by someone in a clear far-away voice.

  Cathleen shot up on the pillows, her ears strained to listen. But how her head was woolly with sleep. Why ever had she taken that pill? She had known she must be on the alert day and night. Day and night…

  She couldn’t hear a thing except the intermittent rustle of ivy leaves against the wall. There were little flurries of wind. It was the wind that, for a few paralysed moments, sounded like soft footsteps.

  A door closed somewhere. Or did it? Cathleen opened her eyes to find she had fallen sound asleep sitting half upright, her head fallen sideways on the pillow. Sunlight was streaming in the window, and there were horses’ hooves crunching on the gravel beneath her window.

  “Cathleen! You lazy hound! Why didn’t you get up and come for a ride?”

  The night, with its half-dreams and alarms, was over. She grabbed her wrap and ran to the window.

  “I’m sorry, Liam. I overslept.”

  “And it’s a wonderful morning. Red’s been jumping like a dream.”

  Pleasure at his horse’s performance made Liam look excited and vigorous and alert.

  “Come on down, Rapunzel.”

  Cathleen realized that her hair was streaming on her shoulders.

  “I must look like a witch.”

  “A witch it is,” agreed Liam, grinning. But in one of her irritating switches of thought, it was Rory’s voice in her head. “I like you with your hair down.” The brothers had similar tastes. They both flirted, and then went their secret ways…

  Cathleen drew back, the day suddenly pressing on her. Had the postman been? What sort of a mood would Miss O’Riordan be in? Was Kitty’s head better? Above all, what would this day hold in the way of alarms and mysteries?

  Although she was late for breakfast, she paused to knock at Kitty’s door to see if she were up and feeling better. When there was no answer she pushed the door gently and looked into the room.

  It was very tidy. Although it was so early in the day the bed was made. It almost looked as if it hadn’t been slept in.

  Instantly, the obscure alarm was beating in Cathleen’s throat again. She hurried downstairs and was inordinately relieved to see Kitty sitting at the breakfast table. She had, for one moment, been thinking of that sharp-eyed secretive woman, Eileen Burke, and her silent departure. That sleeping pill must have left her in a daze where she was unable to distinguish reality from imagination.

  She apologized for being late, and added, “I hope your head is better, Kitty. I looked in to see if you were up.”

  Kitty’s eyes flicked up and down.

  “I got up early and made my bed and went into the garden. It’s the best time of day.”

  Aunt Tilly looked at her keenly.

  “It’s not often you’ve realized that. You must be feeling spry this morning.”

  “I went to bed so early,” Kitty murmured. She flushed, self-conscious with everyone’s eyes on her. “Anyway, I feel fine today.”

  But when her flush died she didn’t look fine at all. There were shadows of tiredness round her eyes. She looked washed out.

  It was the beginning of an uneasy day. Immediately after breakfast Rory got in his car and went off somewhere, speeding down the drive as if he were in a great hurry. Cathleen saw Liam watching him go, with speculation in his eyes. Aunt Tilly disappeared upstairs, and didn’t come down to the library where Cathleen was working until just before lunch.

  “Sorry,” she said briefly. “I have distractions today.”

  “Are you worried about something, Miss O’Riordan?”

  “Use your head, Mrs. Lamb! I’m always worried. Wouldn’t you be, running a castle. Such as it is, with dry rot, and carpets falling to pieces, and no servants, and my sister-in-law taking forever to die, and nurses costing money, and this wanted, that wanted, everything wanted. There’s never an end to it. There’s never going to be.” She paused a moment, as if her own words frightened her.

  “It would be better if Rory or Liam married,” Cathleen took the opportunity of saying. “Then his wife could take a great deal of burden off your shoulders.”

  Miss O’Riordan stopped in her stride. She gave Cathleen a narrowed, indescribably leering look.

  “Now bigamy would be the last thing this family needs!”

  The blood beat in Cathleen’s temples.

  “I don’t know what you’re suggesting, Miss O’Riordan.”

  “No? Well, leave it alone. It’s not part of your work!”

  “I thought I heard a baby crying in the night,” Cathleen said in a rush.

  She was given a long, keen suspicious stare. Then, “Impossible!” said Miss O’Riordan, and walked out, leaving Cathleen in a state of deep confusion and worry. Bigamy? That was a new thought

  Later Cathleen found Miss O’Riordan standing staring speculatively at the painting of the gypsy.

  “What a pity it’s not a Romney,” she was saying to herself. She was obviously taking stock of her assets. She would have no qualms about selling something that was a family heirloom, whether the money was meant for the purchase of new carpets, or—what else?

  She gave her shoulders a shake. She looked old and tired, a thin dried-up tree that might break in the next gale. And what was the use of her realizing sums of money if Rory took them away from her…

  In the late dusk Cathleen strolled in the garden. Again, neither Liam nor Rory had been in to dinner. No remark was made about their absence, but Miss O’Riordan was more testy than ever, crumbling her bread, and eating little. Kitty had the feverish colour back in her cheeks. She seemed to be listening all the time. For Liam’s return, probably. She was always happier when he was there.

  There had been no telephone calls and no strange letters. That was the only relief there had been all the long difficult day.

  But now it was pleasant to walk across Patsy’s well-mowed lawns and smell the stocks and tobacco plants and feel the damp air, soft with incipient rain, on her face. For a very brief time Cathleen had a sense of well-being and content, almost an anticipation of happiness. Then abruptly it was lost.

  She had happened to glance up to see whose lights were on. Mrs. O’Riordan’s, Kitty’s, Aunt Tilly’s? And saw instead the flicker of light in the west wing.

  Cathleen flew to the kitchen.

  “Come out here,” she said breathlessly to Mary Kate, who was clattering dishes at the sink. “I want you to look.”

  Mary
Kate dropped the dish cloth in a hurry. Her rosy face was full of alarm.

  “What is it now?” she cried, as if alarms were things to be expected at Loughneath Castle.

  “There’s a light in the west wing. Oh no, it’s gone now. I saw it just a moment ago.”

  “A light? But the place is empty.”

  Patsy had come to join them. He screwed up his eyes and looked up at the long dark windows.

  “I’m thinking you must have been seeing a ghost.”

  “But it was a light,” Cathleen insisted. “I thought I saw one in the night, too.”

  “Ah, now, you must have been dreaming, miss. Or it could be the moon. Look, there you are now. The moon’s just rising. You see how it shines in the windows.”

  It was true that the moon, an enormous saffron-coloured one, had just floated clear of the trees, and now there was a frail nebulous shine to all the windows of the west wing. But five minutes ago the moon hadn’t been clear. And the light had been in only one window, flitting by, a ghost-light as Patsy had said.

  Cathleen clasped her arms round herself. The night was so warm and soft, but she was shivering.

  “The door to the west wing is locked,” Mary Kate was saying. “The rooms up there haven’t been used since the master died, God rest him. I go up once in twelve months, maybe, and take a look about. There’s nothing there but old furniture. Even all the best carpets were taken up to use in this part of the castle. That’s all. Sure, and you’re seeing things, miss. And no wonder, all that book work you’re doing. You’re living with ghosts, you might say.”

  “I heard a baby crying,” Cathleen said under her breath.

  Mary Kate shot her a sharp glance.

  “Sure, and I do, too, sometimes. The little one Patsy and I never had.”

  Patsy made an impatient sound and turned and stumped off, a bandy-legged little fellow more than ever like a leprechaun in this haunted dusk.

  “He can’t stand sentimental women,” Mary Kate said. “It’s never the pain to a man ’tis to a woman not to have a child. Then come on in, my dear. The dusk isn’t good for fancies.”

  Cathleen went in willingly enough, but she wasn’t satisfied. As soon as Mary Kate was busy with the dishes again she intended to do a little exploring. She should have done it earlier today. Now it was just light enough to manage without candles or an electric torch. She would try to go quietly. She imagined she would only find Miss O’Riordan, perhaps dressed in one of her gowns from the nostalgic past, wandering about rooms haunted only with her particular ghosts. But at least she must find something. For she knew there had been that fleeting and furtive light that did not come from any moon.

  Mary Kate had said the door leading to the west wing was locked. That was the first thing that set Cathleen’s heart beating madly. For it was unlocked, and slid open easily at her touch. She found herself in a hall with a cavernous fireplace, coal-black in the dusk. At the opposite end was a staircase leading up into darkness almost as black as that in which the fireplace was swallowed. She had to grope her way, the faint gritty feel of dust on the uncovered boards beneath her feet.

  She was beginning to think that it was too dark and that she should have brought a light. But at the top of the staircase the last daylight fell through a long window (the window that had momentarily encased that other flickering light?) and it was possible to see the long passage and the closed doors on either side. The floor and the walls were bare.

  No, not quite. A small object lay near the top of the stairs. It looked like a mouse. Cathleen touched it tentatively with her foot. Then she gasped, and picked it up. It surely couldn’t be—She turned to what little light there was from the staircase window, holding up the object.

  She was so startled and absorbed with her discovery that she didn’t hear a sound until the heavy object was flung against her. There wasn’t a chance to preserve her balance. In the instant of falling she knew that some person had hurtled out of one of the rooms immediately behind her. With her last conscious instinct, she clutched in her hand the baby’s shoe.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CATHLEEN COULD SEE NOTHING but the tall shape, rigid as a post, beside her.

  What was it—a scarecrow dressed in a shabby tweed suit, its hair slightly awry in the wind. A poker-backed scarecrow towering over her as she lay in the field. No, not a field. A bed. She could feel the bedclothes over her legs which seemed to be aching badly. Or was it her head that ached?

  Beyond the scarecrow seemed to be fields of flowers, fading in the hot sun. Cathleen blinked her eyes, trying desperately to focus, to come out of this nightmare that was holding her so painfully.

  The flowers were on the wall. They were the chrysanthemums and lanterns painted on the faded Chinese wallpaper. She had admired them once, thinking it a pity they were now shabby and colourless. It must have been an expensive wallpaper a long time ago, she had thought, when these people were rich.

  What people?

  She made a tremendous effort and raised her head. The pain made her gasp. The scarecrow turned, and the long white, menacing familiar face hung over hers.

  “Well,” said Aunt Tilly, without emotion. “How are you feeling now?”

  “Terrible,” said Cathleen. “I must be ill.”

  She was full of despair that she should be ill and a trouble to Miss O’Riordan. How could it have happened? She didn’t remember going to bed…

  “The doctor said you would have a bad headache for a time. It’s nothing to worry about. You’re very lucky.”

  The severe, emotionless voice made the pain in her head stab violently. How could she possibly be lucky, lying here suffering?

  “I’m sorry.” She was beginning to remember. “It will hold up our work.”

  She wasn’t being paid to lie in bed gazing at expensive wallpaper, or looking at the view, misty blue and green as a dream, through the long window. Neither did she want overworked Mary Kate or Kitty grudgingly waiting on her, and least of all Miss O’Riordan, like a wardress, sitting at her bedside.

  “You should have thought of that before you indulged your impertinent curiosity and went snooping all over the house without asking anyone’s permission.”

  “Snooping!” echoed Cathleen, with weak indignation.

  “How else were you found unconscious at the foot of the stairs in an unused part of the house? It was only by chance I saw the door open.”

  The dark staircase, the empty rooms, the will-o’-the-wisp light, the violently colliding body…

  “The baby’s shoe!” gasped Cathleen and the pain stabbed unbearably through her head, sending the long intent face above her into welcome mist…

  She didn’t know how long Miss O’Riordan had been saying in that harsh rasping voice,

  “What shoe? What are you talking about?”

  Cathleen’s fingers curved over the empty palm.

  “There was one on the stairs. I picked it up.”

  “Nonsense! I’m afraid your fall has affected your head. There was nothing whatever in your hands when I found you. I’d have noticed it immediately.”

  Miss O’Riordan’s face came nearer. Cathleen narrowed her eyes, trying to see more clearly. There was a faint shine of perspiration on the bony brow. Why? Was it such a hot day? What day was it?

  “You poor child, you’ve been thinking of your own baby. You’ve allowed that tragedy to affect your mind. You must rest.”

  “How can I?”

  She had thought it was a mouse. She had only just picked it up, before she fell, noticing that it was pale blue and with a lace hanging out, the kind of shoe meant to be tied firmly on to a toddler who would be tempted to scuff it off. It was exactly the kind of shoe and the size that Debby had been wearing…

  Had she imagined it?

  But she remembered so clearly picking it up before she fell.

  Someone must have taken it out of her hand before calling for help.

  Miss O’Riordan had found her…

&n
bsp; Cathleen sank deeper into the pillow, trying to inch away from the face bending hypnotically over her.

  “What time is it?”

  “It’s almost lunch-time. You’ve slept for nearly eighteen hours. The doctor said you would. He also said you might be a little confused for some time. You’ve had slight concussion, and I dare say plenty of bruises.” She straightened herself. She looked eight feet tall, a gangling scarecrow made out of an outsize broomstick. “Now don’t be alarmed. I’m not going to leave you. I’m merely going to call Kitty to bring you some hot soup.”

  “I’d like to be alone,” Cathleen said as strongly as she could manage. But Miss O’Riordan was at the door, and didn’t hear, or affected not to. After speaking to Kitty who must have been somewhere very close at hand, she came back and took her place at the bedside once more.

  She wasn’t a scarecrow after all, she was one of the fighting harsh-voiced crows all insistent on getting their place on the overloaded branch of that poor crooked tree. She was the strongest, the tallest, the bossiest of them all. It would be no use to try to push her away, to disagree with her. What she said and did must be right.

  “Come along. Open your mouth, Mrs. Lamb.”

  Somehow the soup was there, steaming and savoury. It was simplest to obey and swallow a few mouthfuls. It was also wise, for the nourishment cleared her vision a little, and presently she saw that Kitty stood beyond Miss O’Riordan watching. Kitty’s face was paper white, her eyes as enormous and empty as her mother’s.

  “There,” said Miss O’Riordan. “Now you must sleep again. I’ll stay beside you. Kitty, take the tray away.”

  “If you want to rest, Aunt Tilly—”

  “I don’t want to rest.”

  “But you’ve been up all night.”

  “I dozed in my chair. I may do so again.”

  “Very well, Aunt Tilly.”

  But she never let sleep overcome her, Cathleen thought. She sat upright, her eyes unblinking, her long nose pointed at the ceiling forever.