A Christmas Escape (5 page)

She understood immediately. “All right. Let's go on up.”

They climbed in silence for quite a distance, Candace always a few steps ahead of him. He appreciated that. It allowed him to see her all the time and know that while she was pushing herself, she was well within her strength. It also meant that if he was weary and had to grit his teeth to force himself on now and then, she did not know it. He realized now that he had been far too sedentary, not getting nearly enough exercise. It was not good for him. He was soft, weak where he should be strong. If this break over Christmas did nothing else for him, it would at least make him take more care of his health.

The next time they stopped, his legs were aching, and he was glad to see that Candace also seemed a little out of breath. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was drawing in lungsful of the thin, slightly acrid air, but she was smiling broadly, not just with victory but with the pure joy of adventure.

He looked around. They were standing on rock and cinder now and there was no vegetation at all. Underfoot was all dust and solidified lava, and it was warm to the touch.

Was that a slight tremor, or did he imagine it?

“This is far enough,” he said firmly.

“It's all right,” she said with a meekness he had not expected. “I can feel it.”

“A shake?” he asked with surprise. “I wasn't certain if I had imagined it.”

“Not really a shake.” She shook her head. “But it's uneasy, isn't it—as if it's asleep but having bad dreams?”

He could not have put it better. “You speak as if it were alive.” He said it lightly, as if it amused him, but her word “uneasy” was exactly the one he would have used. Ridiculous, really. It was rock!

“Can't you feel it?” She turned to look at him. “Through your feet! It is alive. It's the earth, the heart of it. We see only the skin on the very outside—like a fungus!”

“Delightful,” he said sarcastically. “I hadn't thought of myself as a skin disease.”

“Of course
you
hadn't…you're not a volcano.” She smiled at him as if that were a perfectly reasonable point of view.

He took a step toward her, just in case she defied him and decided to go closer to the edge, perhaps even to look down into the burning heart of the mountain. Was it red? he wondered. Was it molten rock down far below them, seething and boiling where they could actually see it?

He was seized with a desire to know. How amazing to have stood this close to such a thing and never to know for certain. Perhaps he could see the naked heart of the earth, not covered over with a mantle of rock.

Candace was staring at him. Was she imagining the same thing?

“We should go back,” Charles said, although he realized he was saying it more to himself than to her.

The fine dust at her feet slithered a little and she almost lost her balance. She regained it quickly, holding out one arm to adjust her weight. Then she looked across at him. In that moment each knew that the other had thought of creeping over to the edge and looking down, wondering what they might see.

There was a puff of sharp-smelling wind. Another patch of lava dust slithered out of position and trickled down the mountain.

Candace swallowed hard.

A plume of either smoke or steam belched out of the caldera and drifted up into the sky, losing shape only as the wind slowly dispersed it.

“We're going down again,” Charles announced. “Come on!”

Candace faced the crater. “You are having nightmares, old man,” she said loudly and clearly. “Think of something nice, and go back to sleep.” Then she turned back to Charles and began to walk down toward the vestiges of a path countless feet had made.

Charles kept up with her. The view ahead spread out as far as the sea, which was now shining like a polished jewel in the far distance. There was no one else in sight, no birds circling, no small creatures on the rock, which was gray-red in color but of the texture of a motionless sea. It was like a riptide stayed in a single instant.

Neither of them spoke until they reached the first grass. Charles was amazed how beautiful he found it. No cultured plant in a garden had ever looked more passionately alive than these rough greenish-brown grasses springing out of the earth, finding roots and nourishment in what looked like a lifeless waste. What absurd courage!

He found himself smiling for no sensible reason. He was tired, his back ached, and his feet hurt. They were still miles from home. On the other hand, the weather was fine and dry, and the route was gently downhill the rest of the way. And no doubt Stefano would have made something delicious for dinner.

“Wasn't Mr. Walker-Bailey a beast at lunch?” Candace said suddenly, as if they had been discussing it only a few moments before.

“About Quinn's work? Yes,” Charles agreed. “I admit, it had the effect of making me want to read it.”

She laughed. “I'm glad. That's the last thing he would want. Although I don't know whether you would like it or not. You might be scandalized.” She glanced sideways at him to see his reaction.

“Were you?” he returned.

“Oh, no.” She sounded very grown-up, and looked so terribly young.

He thought immediately that she had been just a little upset by it, but she would never admit it. She was on the brink of adulthood; it lay ahead of her, whether she was ready for it or not. And from the tiny bit he knew of her, he was quite sure she would embrace it. She would never retreat from life, even when it might be wiser to do so.

“Then I think I might manage it,” he said conversationally. “If I can't, then it will do me good to be scandalized.”

She considered that in silence for several steps.

“Why do you think it would upset me?” He was too curious to let it go.

She weighed her answer while they walked another fifty yards or so. The track through the grasses was quite clear now, but there were still a few steep bits that required concentration.

“It's the way men think about women,” she said at last. “I mean, if men fall in love with women, they sort of…” She very deliberately did not look at him. She seemed to be watching her step in the grasses, but he knew she was avoiding his eyes.

He waited for her to continue. He was interested in what she was going to say, but on the other hand, he did not want to embarrass her.

“They expect them to be all very pure and obedient,” she went on in a rush. “We're not supposed to be told about anything…scandalous. It isn't ladylike. Women who enjoy that kind of thing are bad. Actually I think I would rather be bad.” There was a flush of color on the side of her face that he could see.

He was very careful not to smile. At this moment she looked so very young. He could easily understand the weight of Finbar's responsibility.

She walked for several more paces before she turned to face him.

“Have you any daughters?” she asked.

It was the last comment he had expected.

“No. No, I'm sorry to say, I haven't.” He
was
sorry. Right at this moment he would like to have had a daughter more than anything else he could think of: a bright, funny, sensitive, impossibly brave daughter.

“Oh. I'm sorry.” She was instantly contrite. “Maybe I shouldn't have asked. Uncle Roger says I ask all sorts of things I shouldn't. I just thought you might, because you seem to understand me. We can be friends, though, can't we? So I can still ask you things?”

“Of course we can,” Charles agreed. His throat was choked with emotion. He was being absurd! He had never thought much about children before, and when he had, he had pictured sons. Now, in the space of a day, he felt as if he had been bereaved of an important pleasure.

She smiled at him, shy and pleased. Then suddenly she increased her pace, and the next time she spoke it was about old, ordinary subjects.

“Mr. Walker-Bailey says that Quinn is really a poor writer, which is just stupid, because everyone says the book is a masterpiece. He also says that Quinn will never write another one. What do you think?”

“I think I need to read it,” Charles replied quite seriously. “I admit, from what you say of the book, and the heroine of it, Lucy…?”

“Yes, Lucy. Nobody ever says what her other name is.”

“Right, Lucy…she doesn't sound like the sort of woman whom Quinn would understand at all, never mind create. Which goes to show that we have no idea what people are like inside.”

She smiled at him again. “Of course we don't. That's marvelous, don't you think? You could have all sorts of passionate dreams, wounds inside and no one else can see them, unless you allow them to.” Her face clouded again. “But of course lots of people don't want to see. They don't care. I care! Don't you?”

That was a hard question to answer. The truth was that until now he had not cared greatly. Maybe that was part of his unhappiness. But he could not say that to her.

“The older I get, the more I care,” he said. And that was definitely honest. Yesterday he had not cared enough. Today, as far as she was concerned, and perhaps Finbar, and Isla Bailey, even Bretherton, yes, he cared. Bailey's cruelty angered him. Charles didn't know them at all, but he wanted Isla to be able to keep her home. He felt for Bretherton's hopeless affection for her.

“But you're not so very old,” she pointed out. “So maybe you are going to care a lot more yet?” She said it as if to comfort him, as if it were a happy new thought.

He was a great deal less sure about that, but he did not argue. They walked the rest of the way mostly in companionable silence, with just the occasional observation about a plant or the ever-changing view. Twice more, they noticed a plume of smoke or steam rise from the mountain and cast a momentary shadow across the land.

Sunset was a glory of hot color staining the sky across the west. They stood side by side watching it, both knowing that the darkness would come swiftly after, and they would have trouble picking their way over the uneven ground. It did not matter. Charles said nothing. He was certain in his own mind that Candace felt exactly as he did. This particular sunset would never happen again. There would not be exactly this banner of fire across the sky, quite such a delicate breath of turquoise above the cloud, like some ancient enamel, green, tender with age. The last colors would come in the same places, but perhaps the indigo of night would be somehow different.

When they moved on Candace turned to look at him once. He was certain she was smiling, but he could no longer see her face.

D
inner was excellent. Stefano had spent a good deal of the afternoon preparing baked fish for them, and arranged it with artistry on a large platter. It was decorated with winter vegetables, including potatoes baked and crisped so the edges were a delicate golden brown.

They were all gathered, except Walker-Bailey.

Everyone was uncomfortable.

“Where the devil is the man?” Bretherton said under his breath to Charles. He looked at Isla, who had taken some care with her appearance, especially her hair, which was curled and dressed up on her head. She was wearing a soft muslin dress in a shade of pastel blue that was most flattering to her particular kind of beauty. His admiration was too plain for Charles to miss.

“I've no idea,” Charles confessed. “I went up the mountain and I saw no sign of him there.”

“One is tempted to hope that the damn fool fell into the sea,” Bretherton said bitterly. “But unless he were washed up on the shore, we would never know.” He colored a little uncomfortably at his own outspokenness. It was tactless, although possibly no one would be surprised.

Quinn was also less than composed about it. He clearly saw no reason why he should not express his annoyance.

“For heaven's sake, what is the matter with the man?” he demanded of no one in particular. “Even if he forgot his watch, the sunset is plain enough! Any fool can tell roughly how long it is until sundown. He knows what time we eat!”