The Silver Castle (2 page)

I twisted my head and shuddered at the prospect of reversing the full length of that awkward street. I slid out of my little car and tried appealing to the man’s better nature. He, after all, would only have a few yards to reverse.

“Bitte,” I
said,
“bitte
... oh dear, do you happen to speak English?”

“Englisch!”
He almost spat the word.
“Nein!”
And then a torrent of German I didn’t understand at all. But its import was painfully clear. Furthermore, he was going to sit back and enjoy seeing me get out of the mess I was in. As were, it seemed, the passers-by who had paused on the pavement to watch.

Wretchedly, I climbed back into the car and wiggled the lever into reverse. Within a couple of yards one of my rear tyres screeched protestingly against the kerb. I edged forward to try again.

“Do you need any help?”

I swung around with a warm rush of gratitude. The man was stooping to the level of my window, one hand resting on the roof of the car, but I could see that he was tall and lean. He had an attractive, rather angular face and his hair, crisp and peaty black, was teased a little by the wind. Already, since he’d been obliged to hold his umbrella aside, his expensive-looking light grey suit was spotted with rain, but he seemed unbothered.

“Oh, could you?” I wound the window right down. “I know it’s entirely my own fault, but I don’t see how I’ll ever reverse all that way without getting hopelessly stuck. I’m not yet used to this car, you see. I’ve only just hired it.”

The smile he gave me seemed to start from way back behind his grave grey eyes, only slowly reaching his lips. As if he didn’t smile often, I thought, as if he didn’t have a lot to smile about. But then neither did I just then.

“There is a courtyard entrance a little way along,” he pointed out. “Why not reverse into that and then go out forward? Come on, keep it nice and straight.”

He guided me backwards and told me the exact moment to lock the steering hard over. The manoeuvre went like a dream. When I was ready to move off, I said gratefully, “I can’t begin to thank you. I feel an awful fool.”

“Don’t worry, it happens to all of us sometimes. Do you think you’ll be okay now? Where are you heading?”

There was an impatient horn blast. The truck had edged up closer and when I glanced around I saw the driver glaring at me through the windscreen.

“I’d better get going,” I said ruefully.

“There’s no hurry, let him wait. We will sort out your route to make sure you don’t go wrong again.”

“I want to go in the direction of Wadenswil,” I told him.

“That’s easy. Take the left turn at the end of this road, then second right. After that, just keep going. You’re on holiday, I suppose?”

“Well ... sort of.”

His mouth twitched with amusement. “
Sort of
—that all-purpose English phrase. I hope you enjoy your “
sort of
” holiday. Not that April is the best time of year in this part of the world. Today’s rain is typical, I’m afraid.”

“Being English,” I said, “I’m used to rain.”

“That is true.” There was another, longer blare from the truck. “I must apologise for our friend’s rudeness. I think I must have a word with him about Swiss courtesy. Good luck to you.”

As I drove away I had a feeling that I’d hate to be the truck driver, at the receiving end of a reprimand from that quiet-voiced man. He possessed all the composure and assurance that goes with authority.

I had no more traffic problems, but by the time I was on the lakeside road the rain was slashing down in torrents, reducing visibility to just a few yards. Curiously, though, I didn’t mind too much. Before I became caught up in that special fascination of visiting a country for the very first time, I was impatient to discover where Benedict Sherbrooke had lived, to see for myself the view he had seen from his window. Starting from there, I hoped I would be able to get to know the man my father had been.

A sign beside the road informed me that I had reached Rietswil. I drove on until I came to a square in the centre of the little village; a pretty place, I guessed, when the sun shone down on the terra cotta roofs and pastel-painted walls. At the moment, though, it was grey and wind-swept and empty.

I trickled to a halt before a cafe called “Wilhelm Tell,” with tables set out under a red and white striped awning, all deserted now. Inside, there was a warm smell and it felt cosily welcoming. The furniture was pinewood in a simple rustic style, with chequered cotton cloths and swinging lanterns. The place was fairly full, buzzing with conversation, but I found an empty table.

Checking first with my phrasebook I ordered coffee and a wedge of cheesecake, which tasted as good as it looked. When I’d finished the last crumb, I signalled for my bill, and asked the waitress if she spoke English.

“Ja.
Not good, but a little.” She was a plump girl with rosy-red cheeks, looking buxom in her braided peasant costume.

“I wonder ... can you tell me where a man named Benedict Sherbrooke lived? I know it was somewhere around here.”

She looked distinctly uneasy and threw an anxious glance at the elderly proprietress behind the counter, who had paused in the act of slicing a chocolate gateau. I became aware, too, of a sudden hush in the room. People had stopped talking and were eyeing me covertly.

“Do you understand?” I asked, feeling embarrassed.

“Ja, ich verstehe.”

“Benedict Sherbrooke,” I said again, clearly. “An artist ... a painter. He lived in this village, or nearby. Somewhere on a hillside.”

No, I certainly hadn’t been mistaken about the
frisson
of surprise that rippled through the little cafe. Plainly now, everyone was listening with avid interest.

A bearded man, who’d been sitting at one of the window tables smoking a cigar and studying a file of papers, rose to his feet and came over to me. About forty, he was well-dressed, almost fastidiously so, in a dark grey suit with gold links at the cuffs of his white silk shirt. He gave me a correct little bow, as if gallantry was every woman’s due, but he didn’t smile, and his eyes were watchful and wary.

“Fraulein, entschuldigen Sie bitte ...
were you asking about Benedict Sherbrooke? I regret that he is dead.”

“Yes, I knew that. I’m his daughter, and I just wanted to see where he used to live.”

The man’s composure was shaken. “His daughter? But I did not know ... nobody knew that he had a daughter. He did not speak of you, I think.”

A tiny pain pricked my heart, but I said steadily, “My father and I were not in touch with one another. But when I heard that he had died, I thought I would come and see his home.”

“There is nothing of interest for you there, Fraulein. It is just a hut such as a peasant might occupy. No one lives there now.”

“All the same, I’d like to see it. Will you kindly tell me where it is, please?”

He fingered his beard, his tawny eyes never leaving my face.

“Very well. If you really wish it,” he said, “I will direct you. Come, if you please.”

He held open the glass entrance door for me to pass through, and before it swished shut behind us I caught a sudden outburst of talking. Speculation about my arrival here in Rietswil, I guessed.

It was still raining, but less heavily now. Standing under the canvas awning, my guide pointed across the square.

“That is the direction you want. You need to take the third-no, the fourth—turning to the right, just past a stone bridge that crosses a small stream. The way is narrow and steep. You must have care.” As though still hoping to dissuade me, he added, “But there is really nothing to see, only a small hut. It is unoccupied and nobody goes there now.”

I didn’t waste words arguing, but just thanked him and turned away. He stood watching me thoughtfully as I got into the car. He was still watching, I noted in the rear mirror, as I rounded a corner and headed out of the village.

Unhappily, I brooded on the startled reaction to Benedict Sherbrooke’s name. Had he been disliked here? Or was it that his suicide had shocked the local people? But I couldn’t hope to understand until I knew more about my father’s way of life, and the manner of his death.

I found the lane easily enough, an unmade, stony track with thornbushes on either side which screened the view. It petered out at a clearing of scrubby grass, and there stood a small building of rough-hewn logs with a steep-pitched roof. It was just a simple box shape like a
child’s drawing of a house, a porch along the front, and a square window on either side of the door.

I brought the car to a lurching halt, and got out. It was very quiet except for the whisper of falling rain and the steady dribble from gutterless eaves. Then, faintly, I heard a sound from inside the chalet. Wondering, a little scared, I watched the door slowly open. A figure emerged onto the shadowed porch, then suddenly broke free and darted off around a corner of the chalet, running over the rough, tussocky ground with the sure-footed agility of a wild animal. It was a slim boy of about thirteen, dressed in a thick woollen sweater and faded blue jeans.

“Hi, come here.” I scratched the back of my mind for a phrase of school German.
“Kommen Sie hier, bitt”

The boy took no notice, and in another moment he’d vanished into the shelter of a plantation of young fir trees. I shrugged, guessing that he’d probably been scrounging for whatever he could find. Judging from the chalet’s appearance, that couldn’t be much. Had this primitive-looking place really been my father’s home?

I pushed the door open wider and stepped inside.

I stared around me in surprise. After the warning from the man in the cafe, I hadn’t expected to find any signs of habitation. The walls were colour-washed in what seemed eggshell blue … difficult to be sure with the sky so overcast … and the plain wooden floor was brightened with three Spanish rugs. Against the wall was a kitchen table with two stools tucked beneath it, and beside the stone hearth stood a sagging wing chair. There was a neatness that astonished me in a place of such simplicity. As if, I thought, it had been cared for lovingly. The books on a shelf were arranged in descending order of height, the folded blankets on the narrow iron bedstead had been set in place with fussy exactness. As also, I found later, had the garments in a hanging cupboard and a whitewood chest of drawers.

Any doubt I might have had that I’d come to the wrong place was removed by the sight of a big easel standing near one of the windows with a small table beside it, on which were spread some artists’ materials. I went over to have a closer look. Tubes of oil colour were laid out in sentinel-straight rows. The labels were in German but I could recognise the colours from the slight smears around the caps. Burnt umber, viridian green, deep rose madder and crimson lake. In a glass jar the brushes were spread like the fingers of an imploring hand, and the mahogany palette had been painstakingly scraped clean of every vestige of paint. I picked it up, my thumb looped comfortably through the hole, and lifted it to my nostrils, sniffing the pungent, evocative smell of pure turpentine. With my eyes closed I tried to catch some emanation of my father’s presence. What had he felt and thought and dreamed while he stood where I was standing, here before his easel? I wanted so much to reach through into his mind, to begin to know him, to try to understand the compulsion which years ago had driven him to abandon his wife and child. And the compulsion which had driven him to suicide.

Yet I sensed ... nothing. An utter emptiness. The cold of the bare floor struck through the thin soles of my shoes. Outside, the rain dripped relentlessly.

With a heavy feeling of disappointment, I replaced the palette on the table. As I turned away I noticed some slivers of wood scattered at my feet, looking as if they’d been shredded off with a sharp knife. I stooped and picked one up, uncurling it in my fingers. Here was the only flaw in the otherwise strict orderliness of the room, and I was puzzled.

There was a cupboard in the corner, containing various odds and ends, an artist's lay figure, bottles of linseed oil and turps, a couple of unused canvases. On the bottom shelf were some curious wood carvings, and I drew one out. It was about two feet long, gnarled and twisted, and it looked like driftwood, perhaps a broken branch from the lake. The bark at one end had been stripped away and a face was gouged out, grotesque, crude, yet somehow compellingly alive. Undoubtedly an artist’s hand lay behind the primitive workmanship. But somehow the carving looked too new to be my father’s, the cut surface of the wood too recently exposed. And the shreds on the floor, I decided, must have come from here. I put it back, but before I had a chance to examine any of the other carvings I heard the sound of a car coming up the lane. I went to the door and saw an immaculate black Citroen drawing up beside my little Fiat. A uniformed chauffeur got out and walked towards me, removing his shiny peaked cap.

“Excuse me, please. Are you Fraulein Sherbrooke?”

“Yes, my name is Sherbrooke. What is it you want?”

His English was spoken with a heavy accent, but it was adequate. “My mistress sends me. Please, Frau Kreuder invites you to call upon her, if you will come with me. I will drive ahead, perhaps, and you will follow?”

“Frau Kreuder? Who is she?”

From his look of astonishment, I gathered she must be someone of importance in these parts. I changed my question to one I hoped he would find easier to answer.

“Why does your mistress wish to see me?”

“I cannot tell you, Fraulein. She does not inform me of that.”

“I suppose someone in the cafe told her I was here?”

He shrugged impassively, and I knew there was no information to be gained from him. If I wanted to learn more, I’d have to accept this mysterious invitation.

“Is it far?” I asked.§

“Nein,
a kilometre, no more. The Schloss Rietswil can be seen from here. Down there by the lakeside,
sehen Sie?”

The rain had ceased and a pale sun was fast dispersing what mistiness still lingered, though the distant shore was little more than a hazy blur. Following his pointing finger, I saw the Schloss some hundred feet below us at the lake’s edge. Against the water’s leaden surface the ancient building gleamed with pearly light, the hewn-stone walls and slated roofs seemed to float with no more solidity than a vapour’s breath. At one point rose a tall, square bell tower which was balanced on the diagonal corner by a circular turret, and other, miniature, turrets crowned the walls at capricious intervals.