Summer Lightning

by Jill Tahourdin

  The searching, penetrating scrutiny was hard to bear, but Chloe forced herself to endure it smilingly.

  “Tell me, has she arrived?”

  “She?”

  “My nephew Richard’s wife. Or his widow, perhaps—who knows? I mean Louise Carlyon.”

  “Yes, she’s here. I left her downstairs in the hall, with Professor Vining. ”

  “Doing what?” Dominic’s mother snapped.

  “She wanted him to show her over the—the palace.”

  “Did she? The effrontery of her! Forcing herself on us—a telephone call this morning was all the warning we had—no doubt hoping to upset my poor Dominic again, as if she hadn’t done enough, spoiling his life, turning a normal young man against women, against marriage ... You’ve seen her—what do you think of her?”

  “I only met her this morning—it’s a little early to say, contessa. She’s very attractive.”

  “Attractive! A siren, no doubt. And as heartless. There should have been sons by now to carry on the Valmontez name. Instead it looks as if the family must die out. Louise has driven Richard away, he’s gone, lost, poor boy, probably dead...”

  She broke off, coughing violently between gasps. Chloe ran to fill a glass from a water jug and brought it to her. With an arm under the frail shoulders, she supported her while she took a few sips. The contessa rested for a moment against her, trying, it seemed, to regain her composure.

  “I think I can guess why she came here now,” she said at length. “That is one reason I am so glad you have come, too. Perhaps you and I, between us, can manage to spoil her plans, my dear.”

  Puzzled, Chloe said nothing.

  “You’ll help me? Promise. You must promise.”

  “Of course,” Chloe murmured, anxious to soothe the old lady, and not stopping to ask what she was promising. As she watched her apprehensively, the contessa fell back on her pillows.

  “So tired ... rest a little now ... keep her away,” she muttered, and was instantly asleep.

  Chloe stayed on for some time, watching her compassionately and thinking over what had been said.

  The contessa had confirmed her suspicion that there had been something in the past between Dominic and Louise.

  Surely a love affair that had gone wrong? And that Louise would like to resuscitate? All the signs pointed to that...

  When she slipped away at last from the contessa’s room, Chloe felt oddly dispirited; she was almost ready to wish she had never accepted this assignment in Malta.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lotta was waiting, with impassive patience, in the marble-paved corridor. Now she threw open the door of a room across the hall from the contessa’s, and a little farther along.

  Chloe got an instant impression of space and light. Investigating, she found that the windows of her room were flush with the ramparts; the palace must actually have been built into their massive thickness on this side. When she opened the sash, she found she was looking down a sheer drop to the terraced vines and fig trees below.

  It was as if, she thought delightedly, she were standing in a high tower, with all the island spread flatly around her. Overhead, a jet plane scraped chalk marks on the blue arch of the sky. The distant sea bordered the coastline in misty azure.

  “What a wonderful view,” she exclaimed. “And this room is quite lovely, Lotta.

  Lotta’s face remained impassive. “Yes, signorina. You would like the bags unpacked now?”

  “I’ll do them myself, thank you.”

  “As the signorina pleases.”

  She opened a door leading out of the bedroom.

  “The bathroom is here. It for the signorina and signora to share.”

  It looked sumptuous, with sea green tiles and modern chrome taps. Evidently Santa Clara had had its plumbing modernized, however medieval the rest of it might be.

  A glass door led from the bathroom to a tiny circular balcony, with a low, beautifully patterned wrought-iron balustrade.

  Mrs. Carlyon’s room, then, must be on the other side of the bathroom.

  I’ll have to ask her about times, Chloe thought. She looks like the type who would indulge in prolonged scented soaks, at all hours.

  Shutting out of her mind the disturbing speculations roused by her talk with the contessa, she deftly unpacked her light cases, disposed her new wardrobe of light, summery clothes in a closet like a mausoleum and laid out her toilet things, nightgown, robe and slippers. Now I’m installed, she thought with satisfaction.

  A glance in the antique gilt-framed mirror satisfied her that there was no need to fix her makeup. Nobody had told her where or when she was to report. Professor Vining had been headed off by Louise. But he had, she remembered, said, “Time to go back to Mdina, and work.”

  She hesitated for a moment, standing at the window, gazing at the wide, shimmering prospect. Should she go downstairs now? Her mind made up, she walked sedately along the chessboard corridor and down the marble staircase. The palazzo seemed enormous. She had no idea which way she should turn at the bottom of the stairs.

  She chose left for luck. As she walked tentatively past a line of closed doors, one of them opened and Mark Tenby came out. She heard Mrs. Carlyon’s deep contralto before he closed the door on it.

  “Whew!” she heard him exclaim to himself. Then, seeing Chloe, he said, “Ah, Miss L. Doing all right?”

  Behind the owlish glasses his blunt face broke into an engaging grin. Plain or not, he had oodles of charm, she thought.

  “I rather think I’m lost,” she confessed.

  “And no wonder. These big Maltese houses are like the Minotaur’s maze. The thing is to use a pocket compass till you’ve got your bearings. Library south by east, dining room due north, saloon sou’west and so forth. Very helpful. I’ll have to lend you mine.”

  “Thanks. Or I might unwind a ball of string as I go, like Ariadne.”

  “You’d make a fine cat’s cradle of it if you did.” He laughed.

  “I don’t even know where I’m supposed to report.”

  “Oh, the library, I should think. That’s where we work. When Dominic manages to shake off Louise, that’s where he’ll want us. I’ll take you there now, if you like.”

  “Please.”

  They turned and walked side by side. On a sudden impulse she said, “I don’t want you to think I’m unduly inquisitive, Mr. Tenby, but...”

  “Better call me Mark, everybody does,” he suggested.

  “All right. Look, Mark, I do wish you’d brief me a bit about things here at Santa Clara. I’m all at sea. I’ve just had the oddest conversation with the contessa.”

  “Contessa? Oh, you mean Mrs. Vining.”

  “Lotta addressed her as contessa.”

  “Yes, of course, all the servants do. Her father had the Maltese title of count—very old, these titles are. Dominic doesn’t use his. His mother uses hers when she mixes in Maltese society.”

  “I see. So I can call her either contessa or Mrs. Vining?”

  “Yes. I suppose she wasted no time in bringing up her pet topic?”

  “You mean...?”

  “The carrying on of the Valmontez line. Her nephew’s wife’s failure to produce an heir. Her son’s failure to marry and ditto. It’s an obsession with her, poor dear. Although she married an Englishman—as did also her sister, Dick’s mother—she’s passionately Maltese, devotedly Valmontez.”

  Chloe was remembering her promise, so rashly and unthinkingly given, to help the contessa. Help her to do what? Heaven’s above, what had she let herself in for?

  “Anything wrong, Miss L.?”

  “No, no ... it’s all right. Go on, please.”

  “I expect you noticed that Dominic wasn’t exactly overjoyed at Louise’s unsolicited arrival?”

  “It did occur to me.”

  “You wouldn’t know about him and Louise?”

  “Only guesswork, from observation and what the contessa said. I had never heard of her till we met this mornin
g. Ought I to know about it? Shouldn’t you tell me, Mark?”

  He opened a massive, carved door and waved her into a book-lined room of impressive size.

  “This is the library. And yes, I do think I’d better put you wise. I know the story because the Vinings and my family come from the same bit of Sussex. Near Midhurst— know it?”

  “Very well. I was born in Amberley.”

  “Good lord! And I never met you.”

  At the candid regret in his voice and expression she burst out laughing.

  “Please—go on about the Vinings.”

  “Of course Dominic’s a lot older than me. Old enough to have been in the last years of the war, actually. He went through some special sort of training, mixed Commando and cloak-and-dagger stuff, you know, and then was parachuted two or three times into enemy-occupied territory. Sooner him than me,” concluded Mark with a laugh.

  “Did he know Mrs. Carlyon then?”

  “No. Met her after the war. His family—the Vining side—wanted him to go into the diplomatic service. But he wasn’t having any. He wanted no part in post-war politics. Archaeology was his great love. When he proposed to Louise he told her the sort of life he meant to live—off to the Middle East on digs a lot, tents, discomfort, what have you.”

  “And she didn’t mind?”

  “I imagine she was furious—she probably fancied herself as an ambassadress.”

  “Then why...?” It was a form of torture, hearing about Dominic’s early love, but she had to know.

  “She probably got engaged to him with her mind made up to give him no peace till he fell into line. He was due to go off to Cyprus right away—a party going there had invited him to join up, and I don’t suppose it occurred to him not to accept.”

  “And then...?”

  “Imagine his embarrassment when Louise turned up there, uninvited. A chap who was there told me she created havoc in the team.”

  Chloe felt she was beginning to understand. She had thought Dominic utterly unfair, prejudiced, unreasonable. Perhaps he had had some reason to be, after all.

  “She caused unholy chaos in the team. There was a young couple, newly married, and she started on the husband. When the wife heard what was going on she threatened to start divorce proceedings. Finally Dominic told Louise plainly to get out, take herself off to Nicosia or Kyrenia, out of harm’s way.”

  “And she went?”

  “And how! She went with his cousin Dick, who was in the diplomatic service and had flown out for a holiday and to look at the dig. Within a week they were married.”

  “Oh.” So that was how it was.

  “Dominic took it badly. I suppose he simply hadn’t believed she could resent his absorption in his work—especially as he’d warned her. And he was thoroughly disillusioned, too.”

  So now he prejudges all women because of Louise, Chloe thought flatly.

  “His mother has never stopped trying, since then, to get him to marry. He’s very eligible—plenty of money on both English and Maltese sides. And women seem attracted in spite of his indifference. I expect it acts as a sort of challenge,” Mark explained sagely.

  “You don’t think he’s still in love with Louise?”

  Mark shrugged. “Could be, I suppose.”

  “Where is her husband?”

  “In the Antarctic. He chucked the diplomatic service to go exploring, too. Must be in the blood. He hasn’t been lucky. His expedition’s been out of touch for about two years. You heard her say they’ve more or less been given up for lost.”

  “Oh, how terrible. Poor Mrs. Carlyon!”

  Mark looked skeptical.

  “Some of their friends say he went to the Antarctic to get as far from her as he could. She’s madly extravagant—and a bit promiscuous, too. I can’t help thinking she doesn’t mourn much for his absence. And her turning up here is mighty odd, don’t you think?”

  “Mrs. Vining seems very displeased about it.”

  “She is. She resents Louise on account of Dominic. I’m afraid there’ll be trouble sooner or later. All the same, I can’t help rather relishing the piquancy of the situation.” Mark spoke with the cheerful gusto that seemed to underlie his attitude to life. Behind the thick lenses his eyes gleamed amusedly. “Anyway, not to worry. And it’s had the good effect of making Dominic change his mind about keeping you here. Perhaps he felt he needed a chaperone.”

  Chloe nodded ruefully. Mark was probably right. If not a chaperone, a sort of buffer. There was nothing in that for her comfort...

  Mark began showing her the library.

  “Behind there—” pointing to a massive screen placed across an alcove “—are my desk, telephone, typewriter and so on, all for your use if you should need them. And behind that, in the paneling, is quite an efficient little darkroom for you.”

  He was showing her how the paneling swung open if a certain knot in the carving was pressed when Dominic Vining came in.

  Chloe felt her heart swerve. She told herself she’d better get over him. There was no future in loving him...

  “I see Mark is showing you the ropes. Is your room all right, Miss Linden?”

  “It’s quite delightful, thank you. Such a view!”

  “Good!” She thought he wore a look of strain she hadn’t noticed before. Perhaps he hadn’t quite recovered from the shock Louise’s arrival must have been to him.

  “We’ll talk over plans here, this evening. Then tomorrow we’ll take you around the dig. Will the darkroom do for you?”

  “Perfectly, thanks.”

  He smiled at her.

  “That’s good. We’ll have tea up on the terrace today—it’s warm enough. In a quarter of an hour, Mark will bring you up there.” He was thinking, as he talked, what a nice sensible girl Miss Linden seemed to be. She hadn’t made a fuss over his high-handed treatment of her. She was quiet, controlled and unprovocative.

  Unlike Louise. Louise aimed herself shamelessly at the male in a man. In his own case she seemed set on waking up desires long since forgotten.

  At the thought of her installed at Santa Clara for heaven knew how long, the dark shadow crossed his face again. He turned away and walked quickly out of the library. Chloe watched him go, with love and longing.

  Mark took her up to the terrace a few minutes later. “Here’s my pocket compass,” he said. “Now steer a course north-fifty-nine east and up four flights. Hope your wind’s good.”

  Chloe’s laughter—a sound as spontaneous and pretty as the splash of the fountain in the courtyard—reached Dominic as he followed with Louise.

  “Your Miss Linden is a fast worker, Dominic, my dear,” Louise commented, acid sweet. “First Robert— now Mark. Better be on your guard, my lamb.”

  “You never did care much for your own sex, did you?” Dominic observed mildly, and she laughed and shrugged.

  She was too shrewd to insist. But she meant to have this girl out of Santa Clara, by hook or by crook, by fair means or foul, before many days had passed. It didn’t suit her at all to have her there; though the girl was no fool, it should be easy enough to drive her away. Meantime, better make some sort of a show of amiability; no point in letting Dominic realize what she wanted—yet.

  On the terrace, now flooded with hot afternoon sunlight, Lotta had set the tea table beneath a pergola curtained in purple red bougainvillea. Massive silver, delicate china, a rich fruit cake and piles of melting pastries, filled with a creamy cheese mixture.

  “They’re a Maltese specialty, and really scrumptious,” Mark said greedily.

  “Please pour out for us, Louise,” Dominic said.

  “Of course, my pet. Sugar and lots of milk—you didn’t suppose I’d forgotten?”

  Chloe wondered how she dared. You don’t look very happy, my love, she thought, looking at Dominic. She suppressed with something like panic the idea that he was fool enough to love Louise still, and might feel it was worth being unhappy to have her there.

  Conversation during tea was pa
tchy. Dominic seemed preoccupied. Chloe was struggling with the strange tongue-tied state her electric awareness of him induced in her. Mark was frankly gorging, like a schoolboy at a party. Only Louise, poised and very much at home, chatted with undiminished vivacity.

  “My first evening here—what shall we do, darling?” she asked. “Shall we go out somewhere?” Her eyes danced at him over the flame of the lighter he was holding to her cigarette.

  He gave her a cool, level look. “Sorry, Louise. For me—and Miss Linden and Mark—the program this evening is work. Miss Linden will only be here for three months. There’s a mass of detail to discuss and arrange if she’s to get through all I want her to do in that time.”

  Louise’s eyes narrowed. “But it can’t be all that important, can it? If it’s only to do with this old temple or graveyard or whatever that you’ve found? I mean, surely your hobby can wait?”

  He threw her a look of exasperation.

  “I’m afraid it can’t.”

  “Oh, but I insist,” Louise said easily. “Actually, I promised the Hallorans we’d join them for dinner. They traveled out with me, perfect pets they are. I simply won’t take no for an answer. They’ll want to go dancing afterward, And Monty knows of a naughty nightclub in Floriana.”

  Dominic’s eyes were cold. “I should have thought, under the circumstances, Louise...”

  She flared up at once.

  “You mean Dick, I suppose?”

  “I do mean Dick.”

  “Then let me tell you once and for all that I refuse, absolutely refuse, to behave like a mourning widow. Dick chose to leave me and join this idiotic expedition—if he’s dead he’s only got himself to thank. He was determined to enjoy himself in his own way—he didn’t consider me. So now I intend to go on enjoying myself in mine.”

  “Even so, I’m afraid I must ask you to excuse me this evening.” There was ice in both look and voice now.

  Louise sprang to her feet. Her eyes flashed dangerously. “Then you won’t mind if I make my own plans?”

  “No. By all means, go ahead.”

  His blandness infuriated her. She rose and made as sweeping an exit as her sheath dress and spindle heels allowed.