My Friend Walter Read online

  ‘What’s the matter with that dog?’ said Father, putting the torch down on the kitchen table. ‘Didn’t seem to want his walk and that’s not like him at all.’ You could hear Humph shuffling along the passage upstairs. ‘What the dickens is he after?’ said Father, looking up at the ceiling.

  ‘Dunno,’ I said, but I knew all right. Will was looking at me and then up at the ceiling and then back at me. He was frowning. I knew for sure where my friend Walter was. There was no need for me to cough. The clock on the mantelpiece struck twelve.

  ‘Weather forecast,’ said Father. ‘Always listen to the weather forecast last thing at night. Always have done. Not that it matters to me, now that I’m not a farmer any more.’

  ‘You’ll always be a farmer, dear,’ Mother said going over to him and putting an arm round him. ‘It’s in your blood. Something will turn up, you’ll see. We had a good sale, didn’t we? Better than we could have hoped for. We’ll be all right.’

  The radio whistled and hissed until Father found the station he was looking for. ‘. . . And here are the main headlines again tonight.’ I could hear Humph whining outside my room and scratching at the door. The voice on the radio faded in and out, but you could hear most of what was said: ‘Police have confirmed tonight that one of the Crown Jewels is missing. One of the golden orbs, known as Queen Mary’s Orb, has been stolen from the Tower of London. It is the first time that any of the Crown Jewels has been stolen. Police say that there is no evidence of a break-in and that no alarm was set off. Streets around the Tower are still sealed off tonight. A police spokesman said it was clearly the work of experts. The Crown Jewels, seen by millions of visitors each year, are kept under the tightest possible electronic security. The orb is said to be worth well over ten million pounds. And now here is the weather forecast . . .’

  I did not hear the weather forecast, for my head was swimming and the pounding of my heart was so loud in my ears that I thought everyone must hear it. The ‘honeycomb’! So that was the ‘honeycomb’ Walter was talking about in his riddle. It all fell into place in a few sickening seconds. Who else but a ghost, who else but my friend Walter, could steal the Crown Jewels without setting off alarms, without breaking anything? And who had disappeared for a few minutes and left me alone in the Bloody Tower? Who had talked of taking the ‘honeycomb’ and how angry the bees would be if it was discovered? My friend Walter had done it, and he was upstairs in my bedroom now; and six to one he had the golden orb from the Crown Jewels with him.

  Mother put a mug of tea in front of me and stirred in the sugar. I felt as if I was being drawn down into it and would drown in the whirlpool of tea in front of my eyes. ‘You all right, dear?’ said Mother, pushing the hair back from my forehead to feel it. ‘You’re very pale all of a sudden and there’s a cold sweat on you. Don’t suppose you’ve had anything to eat all day, have you, dear?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Tired out I shouldn’t wonder,’ said Father switching off the radio. ‘Well I’m blowed, did you hear that? How the devil did they manage it? We went up there once years ago. Coach trip, remember? You were there only a couple of months ago, weren’t you, Bess? Went there with Aunty Ellie after that family gathering, didn’t you?’ I managed to nod. ‘Don’t know what they think they can do with it, though. Can hardly sell it, can they? I mean, someone would recognise it – most famous jewels in the world, they are. Still, ten million quid!’ he whistled. ‘What I couldn’t do with a little of that just at the moment, and they say it pays to be honest. Ah well.’ I dared not look across at Will for fear of catching his eye.

  ‘Well, Bess went up to London today,’ Will said, ‘p’raps she’s brought it back with her.’ And they all laughed at that. I tried to laugh with them but I think it came out more like a groan. We all went up to bed at the same time that night. At the top of the stairs Father kissed me on the forehead – just like my friend Walter – and I don’t think he’d ever done that before. It was almost worth running away. ‘Tomorrow can only be better,’ he said.

  Humph came lolloping out of my bedroom. ‘Find what you were looking for, Humph?’ said Father. ‘Now get downstairs.’ Humph looked up at him and went soulfully downstairs, stopping to look back over his shoulder every few steps as if there might be a reprieve. There wasn’t. ‘Tomorrow night we’ll be at Aunty Ellie’s and she won’t let you sleep upstairs, that’s for sure.’ Humph sighed and went.

  Will made as if to follow me into my room but Mother wouldn’t let him. ‘You can talk in the morning,’ she said. ‘Bess is tired out, and anyway the removal lorry will be here by seven o’clock. We’ve all got to be up early. Off to bed now.’ And Will obeyed, a bit too easily I thought.

  My room was not my room any more. All my owls had been packed away. There were no curtains at the windows, no pictures on the walls. ‘Elephant’ was nowhere to be seen. There was a packing case where my chair had been, and screwed-up newspaper was scattered around all over the floor. I shut the door and coughed. My friend Walter was sitting propped up against the pillows on my bed, his legs crossed at the ankles. He was smiling triumphantly. ‘He knew I was here,’ he said. ‘That cur of yours sniffed me from head to toe and I had nothing to offer him, except this.’ And he threw back his cloak. The golden orb lay on his lap shining and glittering in the light of my bedside lamp. I had guessed right, so it was no real surprise to me, but all the same I could not take my eyes off it. He held it out to me. ‘It is yours, chick. Come, take it. It will not bite you.’

  It was a perfect globe of gold encircled with bands of pearls and diamonds and rubies and sapphires and emeralds and many more stones that I could not recognise. At the top of it was a small, jewel-encrusted cross. I was about to touch it when I pulled back. ‘You stole it, didn’t you?’ I said. ‘You stole it from the Tower. It was on the radio. They’re looking for it everywhere. You shouldn’t have.’

  ‘I am no thief, cousin,’ Walter protested, his voice rising with indignation. ‘Is it stealing to take what is mine? Did I not tell you how I was robbed of everything that was rightly mine, my lands, my castles, my jewels?’ He held up the golden orb in one hand. ‘This bauble is but a trifle of what I am owed, what is due to my family, to you. You are of my blood and therefore it is yours by right. Take it. I have only taken back what is ours, and ours it shall remain. I tell you, cousin I had more jewels on one of my shoes than there are in this trinket. Take it, for with it you can restore your family’s fortune.’

  ‘But it belongs to the Queen.’

  ‘It belongs to you, Bess,’ he said smiling, ‘and if you will not take it then you must catch it.’ And with that he tossed it to me. I had not time to think about dropping it, which was just as well because otherwise I would most certainly have done so. I can’t catch to save my life. It was heavier than I expected, a lot heavier.

  Suddenly the door behind me opened. I swung round, the golden orb in my hands. My brother Will was standing there, his mouth gaping.

  ‘Cripes!’ he said.

  CHAPTER 8

  ‘YOU!’ WILL SAID. ‘IT WAS YOU! YOU STOLE IT. You really stole it.’

  ‘No I didn’t,’ I said. He ignored me.

  ‘But how? How did you do it?’

  ‘I told you, I didn’t do it. How could I? Close the door, Will, or they’ll hear us.’

  ‘I don’t mind if they hear us.’ He could not take his eyes off the orb. ‘What did you do it for?’

  ‘I never did it,’ I whispered. ‘Honest I didn’t.’

  ‘Then how come you’re standing there holding it if you never took it?’ He reached out and touched it. ‘Is that really it?’ he asked. ‘Is that really the one?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I said.

  ‘Well, somebody stole it, didn’t they?’ I had nothing to say. ‘I mean it didn’t get here on its own, did it, Bess? So if you didn’t steal it, who did?’

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ I said, ‘not yet. And even if I could you wouldn’t believe me. You’d jus
t say I was making it all up.’ Will looked at me for a moment and then suddenly he leaned forward and grabbed the orb out of my hands. ‘If you won’t tell me right now what’s going on,’ he said, ‘I’ll take this next door and show them. I will, Bess, honest I will. There’s been things going on around here that I don’t understand and you’re going to tell me. For instance, I don’t know how that letter and that bottle I found just disappeared. You said you’d tell me one day and you still haven’t. One minute they were there and the next minute they weren’t, and that’s not natural. Then you go running off to London for no good reason, and now this. Something’s going on, and I want to know what it is. Now are you going to tell me or not?’

  ‘I would if I could,’ I said, ‘but I promised.’

  ‘Promised who?’

  ‘Friend of mine.’

  ‘What friend?’ I shook my head.

  ‘Right then,’ and he turned away from me. Suddenly the door shut in front of him and Sir Walter Raleigh was standing there, his cane levelled at Will’s chest. There was no doubt that Will could see him. You only had to see the look on Will’s face. ‘Prithee Master Will, no further.’ Will backed away towards me.

  ‘Who is it?’ His voice was barely audible. ‘Who’s that man?’

  ‘Cousin Bess, will you not present me to your brother? And make haste to take the bauble from him for I fear he may drop it.’ I took the orb from Will’s trembling hands.

  ‘This is Sir Walter Raleigh,’ I said. ‘He’s the friend I was telling you about. He’s one of our ancestors, remember?’ Will was swallowing hard. ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘He won’t hurt. Honest he won’t.’

  ‘But he’s dead,’ said Will pushing me forward and holding me like a shield between himself and my friend Walter. ‘He’s in the history books,’ he whispered. ‘He’s dead. He’s been dead for ages.’

  ‘Three hundred and seventy years this very year,’ said Walter, lowering his cane and smiling broadly. ‘Be not afeared of me, Master Will. I bear you no ill will. I come to help you, not to harm you.’

  ‘Then he’s a ghost?’ said Will. ‘He’s a real live ghost?’

  ‘Real, but unfortunately not live, cousin,’ said Walter. ‘I am as you say a spirit being, visible only to those I wish to see me. Until now only your sister has seen me and I had promised never to show myself to anyone else.’ Walter looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. ‘I had no choice, chick. You understand that, do you not? I had to stop your impetuous brother. I could not allow my plan to be discovered. It would have been the end of it. Shall I tell him all, dear cousin?’ I nodded. ‘Your sister Bess brought me here from the Tower many long weeks ago, and I lived amongst you all that time though you did not know it. I know you all better than you can imagine, Master Will. You are indeed my family and I have come to love you as such.’

  ‘The letter,’ Will whispered, his hands gripping my shoulder so hard it hurt. ‘It was him that wrote it then, wasn’t it? He’s “W.R.” He’s Walter Raleigh.’

  ‘Aye, that I did, cousin,’ Walter sighed, ‘and most carelessly left it lying on the table for you to find it. You did not dream it, Master Will. It was I that took away the letter and hid it whilst you were outside the door.’

  ‘And the bottle?’ Will asked.

  ‘That was the elixir,’ I said.

  ‘The what?’ said Will.

  ‘The medicine,’ I explained. ‘Walter made it down in your chemistry lab – in the cellar. I told you it wasn’t me messing about down there, didn’t I? It was Walter. He saved her life, Will. He gave me the elixir in the bottle and I gave to Gran in her tea.’

  ‘Then you were the old man she saw in her dreams,’ said Will. ‘But it wasn’t in her dreams at all, was it? And it was you that stole the Crown Jewel. You brought it down with you.’

  ‘Hidden under his cloak,’ I said. ‘Anything he hides under his cloak you can’t see. He hid me twice, didn’t you, Walter?’ I felt Will’s grip on my shoulder loosen somewhat. ‘He brought it back with him on the train, but I didn’t know anything about it, not then.’

  ‘But why?’ said Will. ‘What for?’

  ‘For us,’ I said. ‘Walter did it for us. See, he knows all about the farm, all about us being kicked out and having nowhere to go.’

  ‘I would not have you suffer as I once did,’ said Walter. ‘I would not allow history to repeat itself. I see I must explain more. They took all that was mine, Master Will, when they called me traitor and condemned me. God, it breaks my brain when I think on it, even now. I was betrayed by my own king; and worse, I was betrayed by those I thought were my friends. I would be avenged for the wrong they did me and the wrong that has been done to you. I was no traitor, Master Will. So you see, I have restored to my family only a small part of what is owed to us. They have baubles and trinkets a-plenty in the Tower – they will not miss it. Faith, it is ours by right Master Will. Why, the very gold and jewels you see before you might have come from a Spanish treasure ship I myself captured. It was mine, I tell you, before it was ever the Crown’s, and ’twas most wickedly taken from me. You have but to sell it, and my honour and our family’s fortune is restored for ever.’

  ‘I told him already it was too late,’ I said, ‘that we’ve got to leave tomorrow.’

  ‘There are other farms,’ said Walter, ‘and perchance we may yet find a better one –’

  ‘But you can’t sell it,’ said Will, coming out from behind me at last.

  ‘That’s what I told him,’ I said. ‘It’s not right. It belongs to the Queen.’

  ‘I don’t mean that,’ said Will. ‘What I mean is no one would buy it, would they? I mean it’s like Father said, everyone knows what it looks like, don’t they? Everyone’ll be on the lookout for it. You can’t hardly just walk into a jeweller in Exeter and say “What’ll you give me for this?” and then plonk it down on the counter.’ And then he thought for a moment. ‘But come to think of it, I suppose you could pick out the jewels and melt down the gold.’

  ‘You can’t!’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t!’ I was horrified at the thought of destroying something so beautiful.

  ‘They’d soon make another one. Just think, Bess, only got to sell it and we could have any farm we wanted.’ Then he shook his head. ‘But it’s no good. We still couldn’t sell the gold even if it was just a lump, nor the jewels. I mean just supposing I tried, they’d still wonder where I got it from wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t work.’

  ‘He’s right, Walter,’ I said and I held out the orb for Walter. He folded his arms resolutely. ‘You’ve got to take it. You must,’ I said, a sudden panic rising inside me. ‘How are we going to explain it if they find it here? We’ll all go to prison, Mother, Father, everyone. You shouldn’t have done it, Walter. It’s not right to steal things. Just because someone else stole from you first doesn’t make it right to steal it back.’ Walter looked down at me and his face darkened with anger.

  ‘I had thought better of you, cousin. Do you dare to teach me right from wrong, I who have lived through a lifetime and had hundreds of years to ponder on it, I who have shaped the history of the world? Have you so little faith in me? All I have done I have done for you and you pay me thus with insults. My honour is all I have left and now you would steal even that from me and call me thief. I see you love me not, cousin.’

  Will hid behind me again as the onslaught continued. But the anger turned suddenly to hurt. ‘In your service, cousin Bess, I have endeavoured much and accomplished little – it is true. But to spurn me so is not generous.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ I said.

  ‘You have no longer any need of your friend Walter,’ he went on. ‘I see I have disappointed you, and I would not stay where I am not wanted, so I bid you both goodnight and farewell.’ And he was gone, vanishing through the door, leaving us both gaping after him, and me still holding the orb.

  ‘Come back Walter, please come back,’ I cried. But I knew he would not. I turned to Will. ‘Now wh
at are we going to do?’ I said.

  At that moment I heard a door open along the passage, and there were steps coming along towards my door, Father’s footsteps. I leaped into bed quickly, clutching the orb to my stomach. Will switched off the light and hid behind the door – there was nowhere else to hide. The door opened. I squeezed my eyes closed and breathed deeply and regularly. ‘Bess, you awake?’ said Father. He waited for a moment and then shut the door behind him and went out. ‘It’s all right, dear,’ I heard him say as he went back into their room. ‘I told you so. She’s fast asleep. Don’t you go worrying yourself any more.’

  ‘Thought I heard voices, that’s all,’ said Mother.

  ‘Well, if you did she’s been talking in her sleep again.’

  I sat up and Will tiptoed over and sat on my bed. ‘Close one,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to get that thing out of the house, and quick Bess, before someone finds it. We’ve got to hide it.’

  ‘What if Walter doesn’t come back?’ I said.

  ‘Then we’ll be stuck with it, won’t we? Either way we’ve got to hide it.’

  ‘In the morning,’ I whispered, suddenly feeling very tired.

  ‘Now,’ Will insisted. ‘There’ll be people all over the place in the morning. The removal men are coming at breakfast time, remember? We’ve got to get it out of the house, and now.’

  ‘If only he hadn’t gone off,’ I said. ‘He could have hidden it under his cloak. I shouldn’t have said all those things. He was only doing his best, and when you think about it I suppose he was right – I mean he was only taking back what was his in the first place. And after all, he was only trying to help us, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Will, ‘but all he’s done is drop us right in the muck.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I’ve got it!’ he said and he tried to stifle a chuckle. ‘I’ve got it. I’ve got the perfect place. Come on Bess, quick, and don’t drop the orb.’

  The floorboards creaked horribly as we crept along the passage and down the stairs but we made it to the front door. (Humph slept in the kitchen too close to the back door so we couldn’t go that way.) The bolt was stiff and grated loudly as Will drew it back. The moon was so bright it was like daylight outside. I followed Will who ran on ahead in striped pyjamas, crouching like a commando. My bare feet kept finding all the sharpest stones, so that it was difficult not to cry out with the pain of it. The night was strangely silent, no bleating of sheep, no cows browsing in Front Meadow.