The Beasts of Clawstone Castle (8 page)

For a moment, as they looked down on the park, the children imagined the cattle of Clawstone decorated and garlanded, with jewellery on their horns. What would Sir George say if that was to happen? Something rude, that was certain!

But Sunita had shown the ghosts something bigger than themselves. A world where animals mattered, where living things were worshipped. A world where there was work to be done and one’s own troubles set aside.

‘We have been selfish,’ said Ranulf. ‘We have not been brave. We will help you and we will stay.’

And the other ghosts nodded, and said, ‘Yes, we will stay.’

T
he first Open-Day-with-Ghosts began quietly – but it did not go on quietly. It did not go on quietly at all.

It had been decided that visitors should be shown round in a group rather than wander about all over the place, and Mrs Grove was appointed as the guide. She had worked in the castle so long that she knew it like the back of her hand.

As for the children, they were going to keep out of the way but watch from a hiding place in the upstairs gallery in case anything went wrong.

Because of the posters and the notice in the paper, rather more people than usual were waiting to buy tickets. There was a couple with three little girls: Lettice and Lucy and Lavinia, who chewed toffee bars and giggled as though the idea of ghosts was the funniest thing they had ever heard of.

There were two hikers: a tall thin one called Joe and a small fat one called Pete. They were on their way to a climbing trip in Scotland and had seen the notice about the ghosts and called in.

There was a sulky youth called Ham, who was on holiday with his parents and hated the country, where there was nothing to do except sit on windy beaches or walk up dripping hills, and a lady professor of architecture with her assistant, a pale girl called Angela. The professor had not come to see ghosts but to look at groynes and buttresses and mouldings.

Then there was someone who worried the children badly as they looked down from their hiding place: a delicate elderly lady called Mrs Field, who walked with two sticks and was in the charge of a muscular and bossy nurse.

‘Suppose she has a heart attack?’ whispered Madlyn.

‘Well, we did warn people,’ said Ned. ‘It wouldn’t be our fault.’

But the most important person in that first batch of visitors was Major Henry Hardbottock, who was a famous explorer and gave lectures and talked on the telly. Major Hardbottock had walked to the North Pole and lost two fingers from frostbite and bitten off a third when it went gangrenous; and he had walked across the Sahara without a single camel and with a raging fever. He was on his way to Edinburgh to give a lecture on ‘Survival and Hardship’ when he saw the notice and turned in at Clawstone just for a joke.

There was not a single person in that first group of visitors who believed in ghosts.

Mrs Grove led the party across the Inner Courtyard and into the building.

‘We are now in the oldest part of the castle,’ she began. ‘It dates from 1423 and’ . . .

She went off into her patter while Ham yawned, the little girls chewed their toffee bars and Henry Hardbottock sat on his shooting stick and looked superior.

Then: ‘Eeh, look!’ said Lavinia, and her mouth fell open, letting out a stream of treacly goo which ran down her chin. ‘Look there at that chest!’

The lid of an old oak chest had opened slowly . . . very slowly. A hand came out. An unusual hand . . .

It was the hand of a skeleton – but it was not completely bony. Small pieces of muscle still clung to it. A blob here, a strip of tissue there . . .

Not only Lavinia but Lucy and Lettice began to shriek.

‘It’s a skeleton!’

‘It’s a trick,’ said Ham, sneering.

‘This isn’t good for you,’ said the bossy nurse to little Mrs Field. ‘I’ll take you home.’

‘No, no, it’s interesting,’ said the old lady, clutching her sticks. ‘I don’t want to go home.’

‘What you are seeing is the famous Clawstone Skeleton,’ said Mrs Grove. ‘It is one of the oldest skeletons in England and may appear anywhere in the castle.’

Hearing himself talked about like that made Mr Smith feel brave. He was not some clapped out, overweight taxi driver; he was the Clawstone Skeleton. He pushed the lid up altogether. He sat up. He rolled his single eye. He leered.

The shrieks of the little girls grew louder.

‘It’s done by wires,’ said Ham.

But now there stole into the noses of the visitors . . . a smell. It was a familiar smell and yet it was unexpected in this place. It was the smell of something unwashed and sweaty. At the same time the sound of music burst through the hall, and then there appeared in the doorway . . . a pair of feet.

The Feet waited for a moment as performers do before they go on stage. Then they took two steps forward and began to dance; and as they danced, the smell of sweat grew stronger as the muscles strained, and the tendons pulled, and the uncut nails clacked on the flagstones – but with the most amazing rhythm, with a feeling for the music that was quite extraordinary.

‘They’re puppets,’ sneered Ham.

The Feet danced on. As they came up to the group of people watching spellbound, they neither slowed down nor stopped. It was as though the music had bewitched them.

The lady professor gave a gulp. ‘I have been
danced through
by feet,’ she said in a surprised voice.

In the cloakroom, Ned changed the tape and now it was the famous reel of the 51st Highlanders which sounded out. And The Feet danced this incredibly difficult reel
up the stairs
without a single mistake – and vanished through the brocade hangings on the landing.

‘We will now make our way to the dungeons,’ said Mrs Grove.

The party of visitors followed her. Major Henry Hardbottock walked ahead, making it clear that he was different and important.

‘It was here that prisoners were thrown,’ said Mrs Grove. ‘Often they fell on the bodies of men who were already dead.’

Upstairs the children, leaning over the wooden rails, looked anxiously at Mrs Field tottering gallantly after the others with her two sticks.

‘I’m going to take you home,’ said the bossy nurse. ‘This is no place for you.’

‘No, please. I want to see what comes next,’ said the old lady.

What came next, as they left the dungeon, was a great cloud of steam, followed by a high-pitched and eerie wailing. Then through the steam they saw the figure of a laundry maid bending over a cauldron of water. She seemed to be wearing a white cap and a white trailing apron and through the writhing vapour they heard her curses and her moans.

‘It won’t come OUT,’ she screamed. ‘I can’t get it out.’

She bent over the tub and lifted out a white cloth covered in red splashes. As soon as she scrubbed out one stain, another one appeared.

‘It’s blood,’ whispered Lucy, clutching her sisters. ‘You can see it, all gooey and red.’

But now the washing girl straightened herself and they saw that she was not wearing a cap but a bridal wreath. And her glittering eyes searched the party of visitors.

‘Men!’ she spat. ‘It’s men I want. Men have betrayed me and now I shall get my revenge.’

Dripping water, dripping blood, she swooped on to the small fat hiker and fastened her fingers round his throat.

‘Stop! Ugh! Guggle!’ gulped the small fat hiker.

‘I know who you are,’ she screeched. ‘You’re Henry.’

‘No, I’m not,’ he spluttered. ‘I’m not Henry. I’m Pete.’

Ham had stopped sneering, and backed away.

The demented bride passed straight through the hiker called Pete and swooped down on the other one. ‘Then
you’re
Henry,’ she screamed.

‘No, I’m not, I’m not,’ stammered the tall thin hiker, trying to beat her off. ‘I’m Joe.’

Major Hardbottock now stepped forward. You could say a lot about him but not that he was a coward.

‘Henry is
my
name,’ he said.

The effect on the mad bride was electric. She flew at Major Hardbottock, she kicked out at him, her fingernails reached for his eyes.

‘It was Henry who shot me,’ she yelled. ‘And you’ll pay for it!’

Major Hardbottock was a strong man but he had no chance against the demented spectre.

‘I didn’t, it wasn’t me! I’m a different Henry,’ he gasped, thrashing about wildly with his shooting stick.

‘You have just seen another of Clawstone’s famous ghosts,’ said Mrs Grove, as the party stumbled away from the steam and the mingled smell of washing powder and blood. ‘The Bloodstained Bride who was shot by her lover on her wedding day’ . . . She told them Brenda’s tragic story. ‘It is most unfortunate,’ she went on, ‘that Major Hardbottock has the same name as the man who killed her.’

Actually, the name of the man who had shot Brenda had not been Henry, it had been Roderick, but as the visitors waited to buy tickets, Ned had recognized Henry Hardbottock from the telly. He had told the ghosts about him and Brenda had seen at once how she could make her haunt more interesting.

‘I want to get out,’ said Ham. ‘Where’s the exit?’

But Mrs Grove did not seem to have heard him. She had opened a door labelled ‘Museum’, and the cowed visitors shuffled in after her.

Inside the room, everything was quiet. The stuffed duck that had choked on a stickleback, the rocking horse with a missing leg, the cardboard gas-mask case were all in place.

‘I will leave you to look at the exhibits on your own,’ said Mrs Grove. ‘If you want any help, just ask the curator.’

She pointed to a man sitting in a chair by the window with his back to them.

The visitors did their best to be interested in the exhibits. They were pale and shaken – the hikers kept feeling their throats – but it looked as though the worst might be over. The professor made a note of the medieval moulding over the fireplace. Then she bent over the Clawstone Hoggart.

‘I’ve never seen anything like this,’ she said to her assistant. ‘Go and ask the curator what it is.’

Angela went over to the window and cleared her throat.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I wonder if you could help me . . .’

The man swivelled round in his chair.

‘No,’ he said in a throbbing voice, ‘I cannot help you. But
you
must help
me
.’

And he stood up and slowly, button by button, he opened his shirt.

For a moment everyone in the room was silent as they took in the ghastly sight which met them. Then the screaming began – and the stampede to try to reach the door.

But the apparition with the unspeakable creature gnawing at his chest was quicker than they were.

‘You must take my burden,’ he cried, barring the door. ‘You must take my rat. Take it, take it!’ He lunged out at Major Hardbottock. ‘You! You are strong. Pluck it from me. Take it by the tail and pull.’

‘Get away from me,’ shouted the Major. ‘You’re unclean!’

‘Yes, I’m unclean but you must save me. Or you.’ He turned to the professor. ‘Snatch it from me. Free me from the rat!’

Ham retched and bent over a fire bucket. Everyone was backing away now but there was no escaping the phantom with the rat. He swooped through the cage of Interesting Stones and past the sewing machine which had belonged to Sir George’s grandmother. He beseeched and implored and pleaded – he went down on his knees and threw his arms round the visitors’ legs – and all the time the loathsome animal on his chest gnawed and crunched and chewed and clung.

Even when they found another door and stumbled down a flight of steps the visitors could still hear the maniacal voice. The little girls were clutching their parents, the hikers were deathly pale, the professor’s assistant was crying. All they thought of was getting out of the castle: out . . . out . . .out . . .

In the hall, The Feet were still dancing. The visitors stumbled through them. The nurse had run off, leaving the old lady to manage on her own.

‘Look, there’s an attendant!’ cried the professor. ‘Perhaps she’ll show us the way out.’

The visitors looked uncertainly at each other, but after a moment Major Hardbottock resolutely made his way towards the girl sitting quietly on a chair at the far side of the room.

‘How do we get out?’ he asked.

‘Yes, out, out quickly. Show us the way out,’ begged the rest of the party.

The girl on the chair smiled. It was a sweet smile and the terrified visitors were calmed for a moment.

‘This way,’ she said.

She lifted an arm and pointed. Then she gave a little sigh, her lovely midriff separated into two bloodied and jagged halves, and the top part of her floated softly, gently, up and up towards the ceiling, while her lower half, in beautiful embroidered trousers, still sat peacefully on the chair.

Upstairs in their hiding place, the children waited eagerly. As soon as Sunita had joined herself up again they were going to signal to Mrs Grove to lead the visitors out.