A Christmas Escape (7 page)

“Colonel Bretherton's in love with Mrs. Bailey, you know,” she told him.

He thought of arguing, but she would only think he was evading the truth.

“Yes, I think so,” he agreed.

“I wouldn't blame her if she'd pushed him,” Candace went on. “He's horrible to her, no matter how hard she tries to please him. If it was she, and I found out, I wouldn't tell anyone.”

He felt a sudden chill of real fear. “You must, Candace. If you know anything you must share it.”

“Why? He's horrible! I wouldn't hurt him! But I wouldn't tell on anyone else who did.” There was certainty and defiance in her face and in the rigid angles of her body.

He caught her shoulder. It was slender, the bones fine.

“Candace! Maybe you wouldn't hurt him, but he might very well hurt you if he thought you knew something.”

She stared at him.

“How would your uncle manage without you?” he said. “Have you thought of that?”

“No,” she agreed in a whisper. “I'll be careful, I promise!”

“Good. I believe you. Now go to bed and don't get up until tomorrow morning.”

She smiled. “Yes, Charles.”

C
harles was tired after the long climb up the mountain, and then the tension at dinner. He was asleep within ten minutes of putting out the light.

He woke up with his heart pounding but no idea what had disturbed him. It was still dark. He could barely make out the shape of the window, which was just a little paler than the walls.

Had he been dreaming? He could recall nothing, but then most dreams slipped away within moments.

Then he heard it again: a sharp, cracking sound that seemed to fill the air and be all around him, as if it came from every direction. He sat upright in bed, muscles knotted, body aching with the strain. But what was it? It was too loud, too all-pervasive to be any kind of gun.

Thunder?

There was a low rumbling sound, as of someone rolling a heavy cart over a stony road, but far louder.

Now, bone-deep, he knew what it was. The mountain was awakening. Deep in the caldera the lava was boiling up, shaking the earth, seeking escape from its long imprisonment beneath the surface.

Trembling, he climbed out of the bed and put on his dressing gown. He fumbled with the ties. His fingers were awkward, and all the time he was listening for another crack, another sound that would tell him what was happening.

Why? There was nothing he could do about it.

He opened the door and went outside into the still night air. It smelled a little different, more acrid. Or was that his imagination? There was no light except for that from a very fitful moon. No red glare of flames. He looked toward the mountain, but there was nothing to see except a heavier, denser blackness where it loomed over them, filling the sky. There were no flames, no scarlet rivers of molten rock.

Perhaps he was making a fuss over nothing very much. It had stirred in its sleep, that was all. A summer thunderstorm might make such noises and, with lightning strikes, probably do more damage. He was making a fool of himself. Not a good example to set.

He turned to go back to his room, glad no one had seen him.

“Signor? Signor Latterly?”

He recognized Stefano's voice the moment before he saw him in the gloom, just a deeper shadow.

“Stefano? Are you all right?”

“Of course.” Stefano's voice was low, confident, but there was a note in it that Charles had not heard before. Anxiety? Or just concern for his guests?

“Did the mountain disturb you?” Stefano went on. “I am sorry. Sometimes it makes a noise. Don't let it worry you.”

“I don't see anything.” Charles was still facing the mountain, searching for signs of smoke in the sky, a red glow of fire reflected on the clouds above.

“Maybe some fire later.” Stefano was close beside him now. “It shake a little bit. Just want to see nothing has fallen, broken on the ground, you know? Don't want anyone not looking carefully, and trip.”

“You mean like Bailey?” Charles said with a wry smile.

“He is an unhappy one, that,” Stefano said sadly.

“And determined to make the rest of us the same,” Charles agreed.

“I am sorry…” Stefano sounded as if he felt he was to blame.

“It's not your fault,” Charles assured him.

“I let him come. This is my house. I want all of you to be happy here. Is good. Is peace. Christmas coming. Time of hope, for everyone.” Stefano was smiling in the darkness, Charles could tell that from the sound of his words, but there was unease in them, too. Was that caused by Walker-Bailey or the mountain?

“Go back to bed, Signor Latterly,” Stefano urged him. “I think there is nothing broken. It was only a little shake. But I make sure. Please, go back to sleep. In the morning it will all be quiet again. Rest, so you can go for a long walk tomorrow, perhaps the other way. You see different sights, yes?”

Charles could hear the pleading in his voice.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Good idea. In every direction there are beautiful things to see. Good night, Stefano.”

“Good night, signor. Sleep well.”

C
harles was awoken the second time by an insistent knocking on his door. He opened his eyes and saw that daylight was just beginning to break. There was a pallor to the sky through the window.

The knocking was repeated.

He climbed out of bed, seized his robe, and went to the door.

Roger Finbar stood just outside. He was fully dressed, but looked hastily so. He had no tie on, and his jacket was a trifle rumpled and unfastened. His hair was untidy, as if he had made only a perfunctory attempt to brush it.

But it was his face that arrested Charles's attention. Even in the dim light of the dawn, he looked haggard and very frail.

“Come in,” Charles said immediately, bracing himself to catch the man's weight if he should collapse.

“Thank you,” Finbar accepted and followed him inside. His voice was perfectly steady, but what effort that required of him could only be guessed. He sat in the one chair in the room, and Charles sat on the end of the bed, opposite him.

“Are you all right, sir?” Charles asked anxiously. “Is there anything I can do to help?” He had no idea what that might be, but he found himself wishing profoundly that there would be something.

“Yes, there is,” Finbar said with a wry smile. “That is why I have come to disturb you at this rather uncivil hour. I am not sure if I will have another chance. I think no one knows what this day will bring.”

“No one ever knows the future,” Charles pointed out. “Or do you mean this day in particular?”

Finbar gave a slight nod; in the slowly broadening light it was visible only in a shifting of the shadows.

“I mean it of this day in particular.”

“If you are thinking of that ass Bailey, then don't worry about him.” Charles tried to sound assured, although he wasn't. He was anxious himself about what further trouble Bailey would cause.

Finbar made a slight gesture of dismissal with one hand. “Oh, Bailey is a wretched man, and no doubt the cause of a great deal of unnecessary misery, but I was thinking of something quite unstoppable that not even Bailey can affect in the slightest.”

Charles did not interrupt with a question.

“Did you hear the mountain in the night?” Finbar asked, his eyes searching Charles's face as much as he could in the dim light.

“Yes,” Charles said warily. “I woke once. I think it was a particularly loud crash and then a sort of rumbling, rather the way a house does if it is set too close to the railway track and a heavy train passes by. I looked, but I couldn't see anything. Could it have been a rockfall? Does it do that? Higher up, some of the slopes seem loose, like scree.”

“I don't know,” Finbar admitted, “but it has been rumbling most of the night. In spite of all assurances to the contrary, I think we are going to have a real eruption with lava flow, bombs, and—”

“Bombs?” Charles could not hide his alarm.

The light was now broad enough for Charles to see the smile on Finbar's face. “Small lumps of lava, molten rock, and gas that fly up in the air out of the crater and land anywhere within a few miles, depending on size and the violence with which they are hurled. They explode whenever they hit something, much as a bomb would. They set fire to anything combustible, such as grass or the brush on the mountainsides.”

“Oh.” It was an acknowledgment. He should have realized it. “What is it you think I can do? That seems like a convulsion of the earth beyond any human intervention at all.”

“Of course it is,” Finbar agreed quietly. “But if the fires are too bad, the heat too intense, then we will all leave here and make for the sea, as fast as we can. I will do my best, but I'm afraid I have nothing like the strength I used to have. I'm slow. I falter and could fall. I want you to promise that if anything happens to me, you will look after Candace. She has no one else. I am the last of her family. She needs more than a roof over her head in some distant relative's house, until they can marry her off to someone they consider suitable.”

The very idea of it revolted Charles. Such a situation would crush the joy out of Candace.

“I see that you find the idea repellent,” Finbar said softly. “You can see the spark in her. And I know she likes you. She will trust you, and if you are honest and gentle with her, she will love you for it. Before you refuse, consider what the alternative is for her, please?”

He would not beg, but Charles could see the depth of emotion in his face, even in this pallid light. His instinct was to refuse, to tell Finbar what a failure he had made of his own life. If the old man had any idea how feeble, how directionless Charles was, he would never entrust him with such a task. He surely had nothing in his life as precious to him as that child!

“We'll get you down the mountain,” he said. “That is, if it does erupt. Stefano has lived here all his life, and he doesn't seem to think it will.”