Read Online The People in the Castle: Selected Strange Stories by Joan Aiken - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Joan Aiken
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a moment he turned back to the picture.
“Thy currish spirit
Govern’d a wolf, who, hang’d for human slaughter
Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet. . . .”
He paused, with a hand pressed to his forehead, and then leaned forward and hissed,
“Thy desires
Are wolvish, bloody, starv’d, and ravenous!”
His head sank on his chest. His voice ceased. He brooded for a moment, and then resumed his pacing and soon passed out of sight. They heard the steps go lightly down the stairs, and presently the whine of the revolving door.
After a prudent interval the two others emerged from their hiding place, left the gallery, and went out to a car that was waiting for them in Great Smith Street.
“I wanted you to see that, Peachtree,” said the elder man, “to give you some idea of what you are taking on. Candidly, as far as experience goes, I hardly feel you are qualified for the job, but you are young and tough and have presence of mind; most important of all, Sir Murdoch seems to have taken a fancy to you. You will have to keep an unobtrusive eye on him every minute of the day; your job is a combination of secretary, companion, and resident psychiatrist. I have written to Dr. Defoe, the local GP at Polgrue. He is old, but you will find him full of practical sense. Take his advice . . . I think you said you were brought up in Australia?”
“Yes,” Ian Peachtree said. “I only came to this country six months ago.”
“Ah, so you missed seeing Sir Murdoch act.”
“Was he so very wonderful?”
“He made the comedies too macabre,” said Lord Hawick, considering, “but in the tragedies there was no one to touch him. His Macbeth was something to make you shudder. When he said,
‘Alarum’d by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost,’
He used to take two or three stealthy steps across the stage, and you could literally see the grey fur rise on his hackles, the lips draw back from the fangs, the yellow eyes begin to gleam. It made a cold chill run down your spine. As Shylock and Caesar and Timon he was unrivalled. Othello and Antony he never touched, but his Iago was a masterpiece of villainy.”
“Why did he give it up? He can’t be much over fifty.”
“As with other sufferers from lycanthropy,” said Lord Hawick, “Sir Murdoch has an ungovernable temper. Whenever he flew into a rage it brought on an attack. They grew more and more frequent. A clumsy stagehand, a missed cue might set him off; he’d begin to shake with rage and the terrifying change would take place.
“On stage it wasn’t so bad; he had his audiences completely hypnotized and they easily accepted a grey-furred Iago padding across the stage with the handkerchief in his mouth. But off stage it was less easy; the claims for mauling and worrying were beginning to mount up; Equity objected. So he retired, and, for some time, founding the museum absorbed him. But now it’s finished; his temper is becoming uncertain again. This afternoon, as you know, he pounced on the Bishop for innocently remarking that Garrick’s Hamlet was the world’s greatest piece of acting.”
“How do you deal with the attacks? What’s the treatment?”
“Wolfsbane. Two or three drops given in a powerful sedative will restore him for the time. Of course, administering it is the problem, as you can imagine. I only hope the surroundings in Cornwall will be sufficiently peaceful so that he is not provoked. It’s a pity he never married; a woman’s influence would be beneficial.”
“Why didn’ t he? ”
“Jilted when he was thirty. Never looked at another woman. Some girl down at Polgrue, near his home. It was a real slap in the face; she wrote two days before the wedding saying she couldn’t stand his temper. That began it all. This will be the first time he’s been back there. Well, here we are,” said
“Thy currish spirit
Govern’d a wolf, who, hang’d for human slaughter
Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet. . . .”
He paused, with a hand pressed to his forehead, and then leaned forward and hissed,
“Thy desires
Are wolvish, bloody, starv’d, and ravenous!”
His head sank on his chest. His voice ceased. He brooded for a moment, and then resumed his pacing and soon passed out of sight. They heard the steps go lightly down the stairs, and presently the whine of the revolving door.
After a prudent interval the two others emerged from their hiding place, left the gallery, and went out to a car that was waiting for them in Great Smith Street.
“I wanted you to see that, Peachtree,” said the elder man, “to give you some idea of what you are taking on. Candidly, as far as experience goes, I hardly feel you are qualified for the job, but you are young and tough and have presence of mind; most important of all, Sir Murdoch seems to have taken a fancy to you. You will have to keep an unobtrusive eye on him every minute of the day; your job is a combination of secretary, companion, and resident psychiatrist. I have written to Dr. Defoe, the local GP at Polgrue. He is old, but you will find him full of practical sense. Take his advice . . . I think you said you were brought up in Australia?”
“Yes,” Ian Peachtree said. “I only came to this country six months ago.”
“Ah, so you missed seeing Sir Murdoch act.”
“Was he so very wonderful?”
“He made the comedies too macabre,” said Lord Hawick, considering, “but in the tragedies there was no one to touch him. His Macbeth was something to make you shudder. When he said,
‘Alarum’d by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost,’
He used to take two or three stealthy steps across the stage, and you could literally see the grey fur rise on his hackles, the lips draw back from the fangs, the yellow eyes begin to gleam. It made a cold chill run down your spine. As Shylock and Caesar and Timon he was unrivalled. Othello and Antony he never touched, but his Iago was a masterpiece of villainy.”
“Why did he give it up? He can’t be much over fifty.”
“As with other sufferers from lycanthropy,” said Lord Hawick, “Sir Murdoch has an ungovernable temper. Whenever he flew into a rage it brought on an attack. They grew more and more frequent. A clumsy stagehand, a missed cue might set him off; he’d begin to shake with rage and the terrifying change would take place.
“On stage it wasn’t so bad; he had his audiences completely hypnotized and they easily accepted a grey-furred Iago padding across the stage with the handkerchief in his mouth. But off stage it was less easy; the claims for mauling and worrying were beginning to mount up; Equity objected. So he retired, and, for some time, founding the museum absorbed him. But now it’s finished; his temper is becoming uncertain again. This afternoon, as you know, he pounced on the Bishop for innocently remarking that Garrick’s Hamlet was the world’s greatest piece of acting.”
“How do you deal with the attacks? What’s the treatment?”
“Wolfsbane. Two or three drops given in a powerful sedative will restore him for the time. Of course, administering it is the problem, as you can imagine. I only hope the surroundings in Cornwall will be sufficiently peaceful so that he is not provoked. It’s a pity he never married; a woman’s influence would be beneficial.”
“Why didn’ t he? ”
“Jilted when he was thirty. Never looked at another woman. Some girl down at Polgrue, near his home. It was a real slap in the face; she wrote two days before the wedding saying she couldn’t stand his temper. That began it all. This will be the first time he’s been back there. Well, here we are,” said
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