Wildfire at Midnight

by Mary Stewart

  She showed a spark of interest. ‘Really? Yes, now you mention it, he does sit every night poring over maps and things, or glued to the radio listening to this Everest climb they’re making.’

  ‘That’s who it is, then. He wrote a book once on Nanga Parbat.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Marcia without interest. ‘Well, he goes round with another man, a queer little type called Hubert Hay. I don’t think they came together, but I gather Hay’s a writer as well. He’s little and round and quite, quite sorbo.’

  ‘Sorbo?’

  ‘Yes. Unsquashable.’

  ‘I see. But what an odd word. Sorbo . . . is it Italian?’

  She gave a charming little choke of laughter. ‘My God, but that dates me, doesn’t it? I’ll have to watch myself. No, darling, it’s not Italian. Some way back, in the thirties, when you were in your pram, they sold unsquashable rubber balls for children. Sorbo Bouncers, they were called.’

  ‘And you used to play with them?’

  ‘Darling,’ said Marcia again. ‘But how sweet of you.. . . Anyway, the little man’s definitely sorbo in nature and appearance, and wears fancy waistcoats. There’s another man whose name I don’t know, who got here last night. I’ve a feeling he writes, too.’

  ‘Good heavens.’

  ‘I know. Just a galaxy of talent, haven’t we? Though probably none of them are any good; Sorbo is definitely not. But this chap looks as though he might be – all dark and damn-your-eyes,’ said Marcia poetically, then gloomed at her gin. ‘Only – he fishes, too.’

  ‘It sounds a very intriguing collection of people,’ I said.

  ‘Doesn’t it?’ she said without conviction. ‘Oh, and there’s an aged, aged lady who I think is Cowdray-Simpson’s mother and who knits all the time, my dear, in the most ghastly colours. And three youths with bare knees who camp near the river and come in for meals and go about with hammers and sickles and things—’

  ‘Geology students, I’ll bet,’ I said. ‘And I rather doubt the sickles. There’s only one thing for it, you know; you’ll have to take up fishing yourself. I’m going to. I’m told it’s soothing to the nerves.’

  She shot me a look of horror mingled with respect. ‘My God! How marvellous of you! But’ – then her gaze fell on my left hand, and she nodded. ‘I might have known. You’re married. I suppose he makes you. Now, if that wretched Mrs. Corrigan—’

  ‘I’m not married,’ I said.

  She caught herself. ‘Oh, sorry, I—’

  ‘Divorced.’

  ‘O – oh!’ She relaxed and sent me a vivid smile. ‘You too? My dear, so’m I.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Three times, honey. Too utterly exhausting, I may tell you. Aren’t they stinkers?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Men, darling. Stinkers.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘Don’t tell me yours wasn’t a stinker too?’

  ‘He was,’ I said. ‘Definitely.’

  ‘I knew it,’ said Marcia. I thought I had never seen two pink gins go further. ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Nicholas.’

  ‘The beast,’ she said generously. The old crusading instinct was rising again, I could see. ‘Have another drink, Jeanette darling, and tell me all about it.’

  ‘This one’s on me,’ I said firmly, and pressed the bell. ‘And my name is Gianetta. Gee-ann-etta. Of Italian origin, like sorbo.’

  ‘It’s pretty,’ said she, diverted. ‘How come you’ve an Italian name?’

  ‘Oh, it’s old history . . .’ I ordered the drinks, glad to steer the conversation in a new direction . . . ‘My great-grandmother was called Gianetta. She’s the kind of ancestress one wants to keep in the family cupboard, tightly locked away, only my great-grandmamma never let herself be locked away anywhere, for a moment.’

  ‘What did she do?’ asked Marcia, intrigued.

  ‘Oh, she took the usual road to ruin. Artists’ model, artists’ mistress, then married a baronet, and—’

  ‘So did I once,’ said Marcia cheerfully. ‘I left him, though. Did she?’

  ‘Of course. She bolted with a very advanced young artist to Paris, where she made a handsome fortune – don’t ask me how – then died in a nunnery at the happy old age of eighty-seven.’

  ‘Those were the days.’ Marcia’s voice was more than a little wistful. ‘Not the nunnery bit, but the rest.. . . What a thoroughly worthy great-grandmother to have – especially the bit about the fortune and the title.’

  I laughed. ‘They didn’t survive. Mother was the only grandchild, and Gianetta left all her money to the convent – as fire-insurance, I suppose.’ I put down my empty glass ‘So – unlike my great-grandmamma – I wear clothes for a living.’

  Through the glass door I could see the Cowdray-Simpsons coming down the stairs. A maid bustled across the hall towards the dining-room. Outside, behind the steep crest of Sgurr na Stri, the red of the sky was deepening to copper, its brightness throwing the jagged rock into towering relief. I saw three young men – the campers, no doubt – coming along from the river; they skirted the windows of the lounge, and a moment later I heard the porch door swing open and shut.

  Somewhere a clock struck seven.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ I said. ‘Thank heaven it’s dinner-time.’

  I got out of my chair, and moved to the window that faced east. Away in front of the hotel stretched the breadth of the valley-floor, almost a mile of flat sheep-bitten turf, unbroken save by little peaty streams that here and there meandered seawards. The road, narrow and rutted, curved away across it, following the shoreline, then lifted its grey length up through the heather and out of sight. To the right the sea murmured, pewter-dark now and unillumined in the shadow of the mountains. Far to the left, at Blaven’s foot, a glimmer of water recalled the copper sky.

  A late grouse shouted ‘Comeback!’ and fell silent. A gull on the shore stretched its wings once, then settled them again upon its back. The sea seemed still. It was a prospect wild and dreary enough; no sound but a bird’s call and a sheep’s lament, no movement but the shake of a gull’s wing, and the stride of a late-comer walking unhurriedly across the grass.

  Then the walker trod on the gravel of the road. The scrunch of his boot on the rough surface startled the stillness. A feeding snipe flashed up beside him, and fled up the glen in a zigzag of lightning flight. I saw the silver gleam of his underwings once, twice, against the towering menace of Blaven, then I lost him.

  ‘Blaven . . .’ I said thoughtfully. ‘I wonder—’

  Behind me, Marcia’s voice was sharp and brittle. ‘Not any more of that, please. D’you mind?’

  I looked back at her in surprise. She was gulping the last of her third gin, and across it she met my eyes queerly. Disconcerted, and a little shaken, as one always is by rudeness, I stared back at her. I had shifted the talk rather arbitrarily, I knew, to Gianetta and her misdeeds, but then I hadn’t wanted to talk about Nicholas. And she had seemed interested enough. If I had been boring her – but she had not appeared to be bored. On the contrary.

  She gave an apologetic little grin. ‘I can’t help it,’ she said. ‘But don’t let’s. Please.’

  ‘As you wish,’ I said, a little stiffly. ‘I’m sorry.’ I turned back to the window.

  The mountain met me, huge and menacing. And I looked at it in sudden enlightenment. Blaven. It had been my mention of Blaven, not of Gianetta, that had made Marcia retreat into her gin-glass like a snail into its shell. Roderick Grant, and Murdo, and now Marcia Maling . . . or was I being over-imaginative? I stared out at the gathering dusk, where the late-comer was just covering the last twenty yards to the hotel door. Then my look narrowed on him. I stiffened, and looked again . . .

  ‘Oh my God,’ I said sharply, and went back into the room like a pea from a catapult.

  I stopped on the hearthrug, just in front of a goggle-eyed Marcia Maling, and drew a long, long breath.

  ‘Oh my dear God,’ I said again.


  ‘What’s up? Is it because I—?’

  ‘It’s not you at all,’ I said wearily. ‘It’s the man who’s just arriving at the front door of this hotel.’

  ‘Man?’ She was bewildered.

  ‘Yes. I presume he is your nameless, dark, damn-your-eyes writer . . . except that he doesn’t happen to be nameless to me. His name is Nicholas Drury.’

  Her mouth opened. ‘No! You mean—?’

  I nodded. ‘Just that. My husband.’

  ‘The – the stinker?’

  I smiled mirthlessly. ‘Quite so. As you say. This holiday,’ I added without any conviction whatsoever, ‘is going to be fun.’

  3

  Camasunary I

  Yes, there it was, as large as life, the arrogant black signature in the visitors’ book: Nicholas Drury, London. May 29th, 1953. I looked down at it for a moment, biting my lip, then my eye was caught by another entry in the same hand, high up on the preceding page: Nicholas Drury, London. April 28th, 1953. He had been here already this summer, then. I frowned down at the book, wondering what on earth he could be doing in Skye. He must, of course, be collecting material for some book; he would hardly have chosen a place like this for a holiday. This Highland fastness, all trout and misty heather and men in shabby tweeds, accorded ill with what I remembered of Nicholas. I picked up the pen, conscious that my hands were not quite steady. All the carefully acquired poise in the world was not going to make it any more possible for me to meet Nicholas Drury again with the casual camaraderie which was, no doubt, fashionable among the divorcés of his London circle.

  I dipped the pen in the inkstand, hesitated, and finally wrote: Gianetta Brooke, Tench Abbas Rectory, Warwickshire. Then I tugged my wedding ring rather painfully off my finger and dropped it into my bag. I would have to tell Major Persimmon, the hotel proprietor, why Mrs. Drury had suddenly become Miss Brooke: there were, it seemed to me, altogether too many embarrassments contingent on there being a Mr. and Mrs. Drury in the same hotel. Marcia Maling had already promised to say nothing. And Nicholas was not to know that I had not become Miss Brooke again four years ago. He would probably be as annoyed and uncomfortable as I, when we met, and would surely try and pass off the awkward encounter as easily as possible. So, at any rate, I assured myself, as I blotted and shut the book, though, remembering my handsome and incalculable husband as I did, I felt that there was very little dependence to be placed on the good behaviour of Nicholas Drury.

  Then I jumped like a nervous cat as a man’s voice said behind me: ‘Janet Drury, as I live!’

  I turned quickly, to see a man coming down the stairs towards me.

  ‘Alastair! How nice to see you again! Where’ve you been all these years?’

  Alastair Braine took both my hands and beamed down at me. He was a big, rugged-looking man, with powerful shoulders, perpetually untidy brown hair, and a disarming grin that hid an exceptionally shrewd mind. He looked anything but what he was – one of the coming men in the ruthless world of advertising.

  ‘America mostly, with a dash of Brazil and Pakistan. You knew I was working for the Pergamon people?’

  ‘Yes, I remember. Have you been back long?’

  ‘About six weeks. They gave me a couple of months’ leave, so I’ve come up here with some friends for a spot of fishing.’

  ‘It’s lovely seeing you again,’ I said, ‘and I must say your tan does you credit, Alastair!’

  He grinned down at me. ‘It’s a pity I can’t return the compliment, Janet, my pet. Not’ – he caught himself up hastily – ‘that it’s not lovely to see you, too, but you look a bit Londonish, if I may say so. What’s happened to the schoolgirl complexion? Nick been beating you?’

  I stared at him, but he appeared to notice nothing odd in my expression. He said, cheerfully: ‘He never told me you were joining him here, the scurvy devil.’

  ‘Oh Lord,’ I said. ‘Alastair, don’t tell me you didn’t know? We got a divorce.’

  He looked startled, even shocked. ‘Divorce? When?’

  ‘Over four years ago now. D’you mean to tell me you hadn’t heard?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not a word. Of course, I’ve been abroad all the time, and I’m the world’s lousiest letter-writer, and Nick’s the next worst, so you can see—’ He broke off and whistled a little phrase between his teeth. ‘Ah, well. Sorry, Janet. I – well, perhaps I’m not so very surprised, after all . . . you don’t mind my saying that?’

  ‘Don’t give it a thought.’ My voice was light and brittle, and would do credit, I thought, to any of Nicholas’ casual London lovelies. ‘It was just one of those things that couldn’t ever have worked. It was nobody’s fault; he just thought I was another kind of person altogether. You see, in my job you tend to look – well, tough and sort of well-varnished, even when you’re not.’

  ‘And you’re not.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t then,’ I said. ‘I’ve a better veneer now.’

  ‘Three years of my great friend Nicholas,’ said Alastair, ‘would sophisticate a Vestal Virgin. Bad luck, Janet. But, if I may ask, what are you doing here?’

  ‘Having a holiday like you, and dodging the Coronation crowds. I need hardly say I had no idea Nicholas was going to be here. I was a bit run down, and wanted somewhere restful, and I heard of the hotel through some friends of the family.’

  ‘Somewhere restful.’ He gave a little bark of laughter. ‘Oh my ears and whiskers! And you have to run slap into Nick!’

  ‘Not yet,’ I told him grimly. ‘That’s a pleasure in store for us both.’

  ‘Lord, Lord,’ said Alastair ruefully, then began to grin again. ‘Don’t look so scared, my child. Nick won’t eat you. It’s he should be nervous, not you. Look, Janet, will you let me dine at your table tonight? I’m with a couple who could probably do with having to have a little of one another’s society.’

  ‘I’d love you to,’ I said gratefully. ‘But how on earth is it that Nicholas didn’t tell you about us?’

  ‘I’ve really seen very little of him. He’s apparently in Skye collecting stuff on folklore and such-like for a book, and he’s been moving from one place to another, with this as a main base. He’s out most of the time. I did ask after you, of course, and he just said: “She’s fine. She’s still with Hugo, you know. They’ve a show due soon.” I thought nothing of it.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Oh, when I first got here and found he was staying. May the tenth, or thereabouts.’

  ‘We were getting a show ready then, as it happens. But how on earth did he know?’

  ‘Search me,’ said Alastair cheerily, and then turned to greet the couple who were crossing the hall towards us. The woman was slight, dark, and almost nondescript save for a pair of really beautiful brown eyes, long-lidded and flecked with gold. Her dress was indifferently cut, and was a depressing shade of green. Her hair had no lustre, and her mouth drooped petulantly. The man with her was a startling contrast. He, too, was dark, but his thinness gave the impression of a great wiry strength and vitality. His eyes were blue, dark Irish blue, and he was extraordinarily handsome, though there were lines round the sensitive mouth that spoke of a temper too often given rein.

  I said quickly: ‘The name’s Brooke, Alastair, not Drury. Do remember. I thought it might be awkward—’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more. Ah’ – as they came up – ‘Hart, Alma, this is Gianetta Brooke, Janet, Mr. and Mrs. Corrigan.’

  We murmured politely. I saw Mrs. Corrigan eyeing my frock; her husband’s blue eyes flicked over me once, with a kind of casual interest, then they sought the lounge door, as if he were waiting for someone else.

  ‘I’m going to desert you at dinner, Alma, if you’ll forgive me.’ Alastair made his excuses. ‘Miss Brooke and I are old friends, and we’ve a lot to talk about.’

  Mrs. Corrigan looked vaguely resentful, and I wondered for a moment if she were going to invite me to join their table, until I realized that she was hesitating between two evils, the
hazard of having another woman near her husband, and the loss of the society of her husband’s friend. She had, in fact, the air of one for whom life has for a long time been an affair of perpetual small calculations such as this. I felt sorry for her. Through Alastair’s pleasant flow of conversational nothings, I shot a glance at Hartley Corrigan, just in time to see the look on his face as the lounge door opened behind me, and Marcia Maling drifted towards us on a cloud of Chanel No. 5. My pity for Alma Corrigan became, suddenly, acute. She seemed to have no defences. She simply stood there, dowdy, dumb, and patently resentful, while Marcia, including us all in her gay, ‘How were the fish, my dears?’ enveloped the whole group in the warm exuberance of her personality. The whole group, yes – but somehow, I thought, as I watched her, and listened to some absurd fish-story she was parodying – somehow she had cut out Hartley Corrigan from the herd, and penned him as neatly as if she were champion bitch at the sheep-trials, and he was a marked wether. And as for the tall Irishman, it was plain that, for all he was conscious of the rest of us, the two of them might as well have been alone.

  I found I did not want to meet Alma Corrigan’s eyes, and looked away. I was wishing the gong would go. The hall was full of people now; all the members of Marcia’s list seemed to be assembled. There were the Cowdray-Simpsons, being attentive to an ancient white-haired lady with a hearing-aid; there, in a corner, were the two oddly assorted teachers, silent and a little glum; my friend of the boat, Roderick Grant, was consulting a barometer in earnest confabulation with a stocky individual who must be Ronald Beagle; and, deep in a newspaper, sat the unmistakable Hubert Hay, dapper and rotund in the yellowest of Regency waistcoats.

  Then Nicholas came quickly round the corner of the stairs, and started down the last flight into the hall.

  He saw me straight away. He paused almost imperceptibly, then descended the last few stairs, and came straight across the hall.

  ‘Alastair,’ I said, under my breath, furious to find that my throat felt tight and dry.

  Alastair turned, saw Nicholas, and took the plunge as smoothly as an Olympic swimmer.