The Silver Castle Read online

  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 comi
ng 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.

  A silver castle, insubstantial as a dream.

  Despite my urgent need to learn more about my father, I felt curiously reluctant to make contact with this unknown woman who summoned me. While I hesitated, the enveloping silence was broken by a curious whirring, creaking sound which grew swiftly louder until two huge white birds came into sight, flying low over the fir trees.

  “Die Schwane,” the chauffeur explained, watching me.

  “Oh, swans.”

  I recalled having seen swans flying once before, in London, between two of the royal parks. The birds passed directly overhead and flew straight for the castle, almost as if pointing the way. As they descended to land upon the water, I gave myself a little shake.

  “Right, let’s go then,” I said briskly.

  We proceeded down the narrow track, the big Citroen gliding smoothly ahead, my Fiat lurching behind. After we’d crossed the main highway, I could see that the Schloss stood upon a spur of land which thrust out into the lake. High stone walls bordered the grounds but the crested gates, a tracery of wrought iron, stood invitingly open as if they were never closed.

  The driveway curved between beds of rosebushes, pruned and only just bursting into leaf, carpeted now with dark pansies and brightly flowering polyantha. The smooth lawns were starred with clusters of tiny daffodils, already lifting their yellow heads again after the battering from the rain. A line of blue-green Norway spruce threw long, pointed shadows.

  The Citroen passed through an archway into a cobbled courtyard and I followed, drawing up beside it. The chauffeur politely came forward to hold my door, then led me into the castle through a dark, medieval portal.

  The hall was large and lofty, panelled in a Gothic leaf design with fluted columns rising to the vaulted ceiling. A wide stairway, balustraded with carved dark wood, turned twice before disappearing out of sight. Tall spikes of yellow iris in a porcelain vase stood upon a circular marble table, and spread across the floor was a glorious Persian carpet in soft shades of red. The tallest grandfather clock I had ever seen ticked with ponderous gravity.

  “Please to wait here, Fraulein.”

  We had paused before a pair of panelled doors and the chauffeur knocked before entering, his cap under his arm. A moment later he was ushering me inside.

  Evening shadows were already advancing in the hall, but now I stepped into a lovely green and amber room, brushed with the gilt of sunlight slanting through a western window. A middle-aged woman in a wheelchair was propelling herself forward to greet me.

  She was arrestingly beautiful, only the gaunt outline of her cheekbones and the pallor of her ivory skin revealing the cost of a continuing battle against disablement. Her hair was a rich coppery brown, and she wore it twisted into a coil on the crown of her head. A gown of iridescent kingfisher blue had been draped in softly falling folds to conceal the crippled legs. Her face was alight with a charming smile of welcome, and I wondered if I only imagined a hint of wariness behind the smile.

  “So Karl has persuaded you to come. I am so glad.” She extended a hand to me, and the grip of her slender fingers was surprisingly strong.

  “You are Frau Kreuder, I take it?”

  “Ja, that is so.” A small, apologetic gesture indicated her chair-bound condition. “You will understand why I was obliged to send Karl to find you, rather than come myself.”

  “I’m curious to know why you wanted to see me,” I said. “Have you something to tell me about my father?”

  “I will explain, but do sit down ... over by the fire where it’s warm. Would a glass of amontillado suit your English taste?”

  “Thank you.” I waited for her to pour my sherry, then carried it to a sofa drawn up to the wide stone hearth where pine logs burned. Frau Kreuder brought her wheelchair close and raised her own glass of wine.

  “Prost.”

  I replied to the toast, and we sipped our drinks. Then she said, “When Ernst telephoned to tell me he had met you at the ‘Wilhelm Tell,’ I decided to send Karl to the chalet at once.”

  “Ernst?”

  “Yes, he was the man who directed you. Ernst Schiller is my son-in-law, and he knew how interested I would be to meet Benedict Sherbrooke’s daughter.” She glanced across at my hands. “You are not yet married, I see, but was I right in assuming that you call yourself Sherbrooke? I could not be sure.”

  “As a matter of fact,” I said, “all through my childhood I was known as Gail Wade, my stepfather’s name. But after he died— my mother had been dead for some years—I decided to revert to Gail Sherbrooke.”

  I allowed it to sound a mere whim of mine whereas it had cost me a questioning of my conscience, since I’d felt somehow that I was being disloyal to the man who had brought me up. I’d finally convinced myself that Gail Sherbrooke had a nicer rhythm to it than Gail Wade for someone in my profession, and besides it was the name on my birth certificate. But I’d been left with the lingering belief that it was an altogether deeper urge, a reaching for my roots, my identity, that had prompted me to make the change.

  “I’m glad you did.” She smiled. “Tell me about yourself. What is it you do for a living? Looking at your hands, at those long sensitive fingers, can I guess that it is something artistic?”

  “Well yes ... I’m an illustrator. I’ve done quite a lot of advertising work, but my latest job was a series of drawings for a children’s book.”

  “How nice.” She said it with formal politeness, while she fingered the silver filigree bracelet around her wrist. “Your father, of course, would never commercialise his art in any way. But then he possessed such talent it would have been a sin for him to make any compromise. Not, alas, that the art world gave Benedict Sherbrooke the recognition he deserved. His work was shamefully ignored.”

  I couldn’t decide whether to be pleased about her praise of my father, or annoyed by her implied criticism of me. But I didn’t stop to examine my ambiguous feelings. I was on the threshold of hearing what I had come to Switzerland to learn.

  “As far as I know, Frau Kreuder, nobody in Britain had ever heard of my father’s work until last week.”

  “Last week?” Her eyes flew wide with eager interest. “What is this?
What has happened?”

  When I explained about it being reported in The Times that a painting of my father’s had changed hands at Waterman’s for £2050, she clapped her hands with joy.

  “But this is wonderful news. I always knew that his work would one day be recognised. This is the beginning, and soon the world will acknowledge him for the genius he was.” She broke off abruptly. The charming hostess smile remained intact, but a hint of scorn came through in her voice as she went on, “So that explains what brought you to Switzerland. And doubtless you are wondering why you found no paintings of your father’s at the chalet. Well, I can put your mind at rest. There are a great many of them, all safely put away in one of the attics here. I offered to store Benedict’s canvases for him because the chalet wasn’t suitable—it was too damp for one thing, and there was no room. After his death, I had the few remaining paintings brought here too, for safe keeping.”

  “How good of you,” I said. “I’m greatly looking forward to seeing them.”

  “Whenever you please, of course. They are your property, my dear Miss Sherbrooke, to do with as you will. They may now, as you have clearly realised, prove to be worth a considerable sum of money.”

  I wanted to defend myself hotly, but I guessed that heated words would get me nowhere with this poised, sophisticated woman. Instead, I said patiently, “Please believe me, Frau Kreuder, it wasn’t the thought of claiming whatever paintings my father may have left that brought me out to Switzerland. I had always believed he died long ago, you see, before my mother married again. It was a great shock to learn that he had been alive all the while, and it made me long to discover more about him.”

  “Why should you have imagined he had died?” she demanded. “Is that what your mother told you?”

  “No, to be honest I don’t believe she ever did. I just took it for granted. I know it probably sounds strange to you, but my stepfather was very good to me, and I suppose that is why I never felt any curiosity about my real father. He was never mentioned at home, as far as I can remember, and it was as if he didn’t exist. To a child, that was the same as believing he was dead. The idea of a divorce never once occurred to me, but the other day I applied for a copy of her second marriage certificate, and when I collected this yesterday it stated that her first marriage had been dissolved. So she must have known all the time that my father was probably still alive. I felt... well, sad that I’d never had the chance to meet him. The best I could do was to find out more about him, what he’d been doing all these years. And I want to know, too, the reason why he took his own life. A friend of mind—my agent, actually—managed to discover that Benedict Sherbrooke had lived near Rietswil, and that’s why I’m here.”