This Rough Magic

by Mary Stewart

  I gripped his arm, almost crying with relief and excitement. ‘Oh, Max!’ I staggered again, and his soaking arm came round me. I hardly noticed. I was watching the dark, starry sea where, far out, a trail of sea-fire burned and burst in long, joyous leaps and curves, and vanished into the blackness …

  ‘Oh, Max … Look, there he goes, d’you see the light? There … he’s gone. He’s gone. Oh, wasn’t it marvellous?’

  For the second time that night I felt myself gripped, and roughly silenced, but this time by his mouth. It was cold, and tasted of salt, and the kiss seemed to last for ever. We were both soaked to the skin, and chilled, but where our bodies met and clung I could feel the quick heat of his skin and the blood beating warm against mine. We might as well have been naked.

  He let me go, and we stood there staring at one another.

  I pulled myself together with an effort. ‘What was that, the forfeit for the roses?’

  ‘Hardly. Call it the climax of a hell of a night.’ He pushed the soaking hair back off his forehead, and I saw him grin. ‘The recreation of the warrior, Miss Waring. Do you mind?’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ Take it lightly, I thought, take it lightly. ‘You and Adoni must have had yourselves quite a time out fishing.’

  ‘Quite a time.’ He was not trying to take it any way at all; he merely sounded cheerful, and decidedly pleased with himself. ‘As a matter of fact, that was the pent-up feelings of a hell of a week. Didn’t you see it coming? My father did.’

  ‘Your father? After that first meeting? I don’t believe you. You looked as if you’d have liked to lynch me.’

  ‘My feelings,’ he said carefully, ‘could best be described as mixed. And damn it, if you will persist in being half naked every time you come near me—’

  ‘Max Gale!’

  He laughed at me. ‘Didn’t they ever tell you that men were only human, Lucy Waring? And some a bit more human than others?’

  ‘If you call it human. You flatter yourself.’

  ‘All right, darling, we’ll call it the forfeit for the roses. You took a fair number, didn’t you? Splendid. Come here.’

  ‘Max, you’re impossible … Of all the complacent – this is ridiculous! What a time to choose …’

  ‘Well, my love, since you spark like a cat every time I come near you, what can I do but duck you first?’

  ‘Shows what a lot you know about electricity.’

  ‘Uh-huh. No, keep still a minute. You pack a pretty lethal charge, don’t you?’

  ‘You could blow a few fuses yourself, if it comes to that … For pity’s sake, we must be mad.’ I pushed him away. ‘Come on out. I’d love to die with you and be buried in one grave, but not of pneumonia, it’s not romantic … No, Max! I admit I owe you anything you like, but let’s reckon it up on dry land! Come on out, for goodness’ sake.’

  He laughed, and let me go. ‘All right. Come on. Oh, God, I’ve dropped the rope … no, here it is. And that’s to pay for, too, let me tell you; a brand new sisal rope, sixty feet of it—’

  ‘You’re not the only one. This frock cost five guineas, and the sandals were three pounds ten, and I don’t suppose they’ll ever be quite the same again.’

  ‘I’m perfectly willing to pay for them,’ said Max cheerfully, stopping in eighteen inches of water.

  ‘I’m sure you are, but it’s not your bill. Oh, darling, don’t be crazy, come out!’

  ‘Pity. Who do you suppose settles the dolphin’s accounts? Apollo, or the Saint? I think I’d opt for Apollo if I were you. Of course, if you’ve lost your sister’s diamond it’ll step the bill up quite a lot.’

  ‘Murder! Oh, no, here it is.’ The great marquise flashed blue in the starlight. ‘Oh, Max, seriously, thank you most awfully – you were so wonderful … I’ve been such a fool! As if you could ever—’

  His hand tightened warningly on my arm, and in the same moment I saw a light, a small dancing light, like that of an electric torch, coming round the point along the path from the Villa Rotha. It skipped along the rocks, paused on the moored boat, so that for the first time I saw her name, Ariel; then it glanced over the water, and caught us, dripping and bedraggled, splashing out of the shallows. We were also, by the time it caught us, at least four feet apart.

  ‘Great God in heaven!’ said Godfrey’s voice. ‘What goes on? Gale – Lucy … you’re soaked, both of you! Is this another accident, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘No,’ said Max. ‘What brought you down?’

  His tone was about as informative, and as welcoming, as a blank wall with broken glass on the top. But Godfrey seemed not to have noticed. He had already jumped lightly down from the rocks to the sand beneath the pines. I saw the torchlight pause again, then rake the place where the dolphin had lain, and the wide, gouged track where he had been dragged down to the sea. My coat lay there in a huddle, with the sandals kicked off anyhow.

  ‘For pity’s sake, what gives?’ Godfrey sounded distinctly alarmed, and very curious. ‘Lucy, you haven’t had trouble, have you? Did you get the diamond?’

  ‘How did you know that?’ I asked blankly.

  ‘Good God, Phyl rang up, of course. She said you’d come down hours ago, and she was worried. I said I’d come and look for you. I’d only just got in.’ The torchlight fingered us both again, and rested on Max. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Don’t flash that thing in my face,’ said Max irritably. ‘Nothing’s happened, at least not in the sense you mean. That dolphin of yours got itself stranded. Miss Waring was trying to heave it back into the water, and couldn’t manage, so I brought the boat along and towed the beast out to sea. We got drenched in the process.’

  ‘You mean to tell me’ – Godfrey sounded frankly incredulous – ‘that you brought your boat out at this time of night to rescue a dolphin?’

  ‘Wasn’t it good of him?’ I put in eagerly.

  ‘Very,’ said Godfrey. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Max. ‘I could have sworn I heard you go out some time ago.’

  ‘I thought you were out yourself?’ said Max. ‘And had only just come in?’

  Here we were again, I thought, the stiff-backed dogs warily circling. But it might be that Max’s tone was repressive only because he was talking through clenched teeth – owing to cold, rather than emotion – because he added, civilly enough: ‘I said ‘along’, not ‘out’. We went out, as it happened, some time after ten. We got in a few minutes ago. Adoni had just gone up when Miss Waring came running. I was still in the boat.’

  Godfrey laughed. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to belittle the good deed! What a piece of luck for Lucy and the dolphin!’

  ‘Yes, wasn’t it?’ I said. ‘I was just wondering what on earth to do, when I heard Mr Gale. I’d have come for you, but Phyl had said you wouldn’t be there.’

  ‘I wasn’t.’ I thought he was going to say something further, but he changed it to: ‘I went out about ten-thirty, and I’d only just got into the house when the telephone rang. Did you find the ring?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. Oh, it’s been quite a saga, you’ve no idea!’

  ‘I’m sorry I missed it,’ he said, ‘I’d have enjoyed the party.’

  ‘I enjoyed it myself,’ said Max. ‘Now, look, to hell with the civilities, you’ll have to hear it all some other time. If we’re not to die of pneumonia, we’ve got to go. Where are your shoes, Miss Waring? Oh, thanks,’ this as Godfrey’s torch picked them out, and he handed them to me. ‘Get them on quickly, will you?’

  ‘What’s this?’ Godfrey’s voice altered sharply.

  ‘My coat.’ I paid very little attention to his tone; I was shivering freely now, and engaged in the very unpleasant struggle to get my sandals on over wet and sandy feet. ‘Oh, and there’s Phyl’s bag. Mr. Gale, would you mind—?’

  ‘That’s blood!’ said Godfrey. He was holding the coat up, and his torch shone, powerful as a headlamp, on the sleeve. I looked up, startled.

  It was indeed blood. One sleeve of the coat was str
eaked with it.

  I felt, rather than saw, Max stiffen beside me. The torch beam started its swing towards him. I said, sharply, ‘Please put the torch out, Godfrey! I don’t feel decent in this sopping dress. Give me the coat, please. Yes, it’s blood … The dolphin had got a cut from a stone or something; it bled all over me before I saw it. I’ll be lucky if I ever get the stain out.’

  ‘Hurry up,’ said Max brusquely, ‘you’re shivering. Put this round you. Come on, we’ll have to go.’

  He slung the coat round my shoulders. My teeth were chattering now like a typewriter; the coat was no comfort at all over the soaked and clinging dress. ‘Y-yes,’ I said, ‘I’m coming. I’ll tell you about it when I see you, Godfrey. Th-thanks for coming down.’

  ‘Good night,’ said Godfrey. ‘I’ll come over tomorrow and see how you are.’

  He turned back into the shadow of the pines. I saw the torchlight move slowly over the ground where the dolphin had lain, before it dodged once again up on to the rocks.

  Max and I went briskly across the sand. The wind blew cold on our wet clothing.

  ‘The coat cost nine pounds fifteen,’ I said, ‘and that bill’s yours. That dolphin wasn’t bleeding. What have you done to your hand?’

  ‘Nothing that won’t mend. Here, this way.’

  We were at the foot of the Castello steps and I would have gone past, but he put out a hand and checked me.

  ‘You can’t go all the way home in those things. Come on up.’

  ‘Oh, no, I think I’d better—’

  ‘Don’t be silly, why not? Manning’ll telephone your sister. So can you, if it comes to that. And I’m not going to escort you all the way over there and then tramp back myself in these. What’s more, these blasted boots are full of water.’

  ‘You might have drowned.’

  ‘So I might. And how much would that have been to Apollo’s account?’

  ‘You know how much,’ I said, not lightly at all, but not for him to hear.

  10

  He is drunk now; where had he wine?

  V. 1.

  THE terrace was empty, but one of the long windows stood open, and Max led the way in through this.

  The room was lit only by one small shaded lamp on a low table, and looked enormous and mysterious, a cave full of shadows. The piano showed its teeth vaguely near a darkened window, and the unlit stove and the huge gramophone loomed like sarcophagi in some dim museum.

  Sir Julian sat in an arm-chair beside the lamp, which cast an almost melodramatic slant of light on the silver hair and emphatic brow. The white cat on his knee, and the elegant hand that stroked it, completed the picture. The effect was stagey in the extreme. Poe’s Raven, I thought appreciatively; all it needs is the purple drapes, and the croaking from the shadows over the door …

  In the same moment I became aware of other, even less comfortable stage effects than these. On the table at his elbow, under the lamp, stood a bottle of Turkish gin, two-thirds empty, a jug of water, and two glasses. And Sir Julian was talking to himself. He was reciting from The Tempest, the speech where Prospero drowns his book; he was saying it softly, an old magician talking half to himself, half to the heavenly powers from whose kingdom he was abdicating. I had never heard him do it better. And if anyone had wanted to know how much sheer technique – as opposed to nightly sweat and blood in front of the lights – was worth, here was the answer. It was doubtful if Sir Julian Gale even knew what he was saying. He was very drunk indeed.

  Max had stopped dead just inside the window, with me close behind him, and I heard him make some sort of sound under his breath. Then I saw that Sir Julian was not alone. Adoni detached himself from the thicker darkness beyond the lamp, and came forward. He was dressed, like Max, in a fisherman’s sweater and boots, rough clothing which only served to emphasise his startling good looks. But his face was sharp with anxiety.

  ‘Max—’ he began, then stopped abruptly as he saw me, and the state we were both in. ‘It was you? What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing that matters,’ said Max shortly.

  This wasn’t the time to choose words, or, certainly, to resent them. So much was made more than ever obvious as he advanced into the light, and I saw him clearly for the first time that night. Whatever aggressive high spirits had prompted the little interlude there in the sea had vanished abruptly; he looked not only worried now, but angry and ashamed, and also very tired indeed. His left hand was thrust deep into his trouser-pocket, and there was some rag – a handkerchief, perhaps – twisted round the wrist, and blotched with blood.

  Sir Julian had turned his head at the same time.

  ‘Ah, Max …’ Then he, too, saw me, and the hand which had been stroking the cat lifted in a graceful, practised gesture that looked as natural as breathing. ‘Most sure, the goddess, On whom – no, we had that before, didn’t we? But how delightful to see you again, Miss Lucy … Forgive me for not getting up; the cat, as you see …’ His voice trailed away uncertainly. It seemed he was dimly realising that there was need of more excuse than the cat would provide. A smile, loose enough to be disturbing, slackened his mouth. ‘I was having some music. If you’d care to listen …’

  The hand moved, not very steadily, to the switch of the tape-recorder which stood on a chair beside him, but Adoni stooped quickly and laid a hand over it, with a gentle phrase in Greek. Sir Julian gave up the attempt, and sank back in his chair, nodding and smiling. I saw with horrified compassion that the nod had changed to a tremor which it cost him an effort to check.

  ‘Who’s been here, father?’ asked Max.

  The actor glanced up at him, then away, with a look that might, in a less distinguished face, have been called shifty. ‘Been here? Who should have been here?’

  ‘Do you know, Adoni?’

  The young man lifted his shoulders. ‘No. He was like this when I got in. I didn’t know there was any in the house.’

  ‘There wasn’t. I suppose he was alone when you got in? You’d hardly have given me the “all clear” otherwise.’ He glanced down at his father, who was taking not the slightest notice of the conversation, but had retreated once more into some private world of his own, some gin-fumed distance apparently lit by strong ambers and swimming in a haze of poetry. ‘Why did he come back, I wonder? He hasn’t told you that?’

  ‘He said something about Michael Andiakis being taken ill, but I haven’t had time to get anything more out of him. He’s not been talking sense … he keeps trying to switch that thing on again. It was going when I got up to the house. I got a fright; I thought someone was here with him.’

  ‘Someone certainly has been.’ Max’s voice was tight and grim. ‘He didn’t say how he got back from town?’

  Adoni shook his head. ‘I did think of telephoning Andiakis’ house to ask, but at this time of night …’

  ‘No, you can’t do that.’ He bent over his father’s chair and spoke gently and clearly. ‘Father. Who’s been here?’

  Sir Julian, starting out of his dreams, glanced up, focused, and said, with dignity: ‘There were matters to discuss.’

  His enunciation was as faultless as ever; the only thing was, you could hear him working to keep it so. His hands lay motionless now on the cat’s fur, and there, again, you could see the controls being switched on. The same with Max, who had himself well in hand now, but I could hear the effort that the patient tone was costing him. Watching them, I felt myself so shaken with compassion and love that it seemed it was that, and not my wet clothes, which made me shiver.

  ‘Naturally,’ said Sir Julian clearly, ‘I had to ask him in when he had driven me home. It was very good of him.’

  Max and Adoni exchanged glances. ‘Who had?’

  No reply. Adoni said: ‘He won’t answer anything straight. It’s no use.’

  ‘It’s got to be. We’ve got to know who this was and what he’s told him.’

  ‘I doubt if he told him much. He wouldn’t say anything to me, only tried to turn the tape on,
and talked on and on about the story you are writing the music for, you know, the old story of the island that he was telling Miranda and Spiro.’

  Max pushed the damp hair off his brow with a gesture almost of desperation. ‘We’ve got to find out – now, before he passes out. He knew perfectly well where we were going. He agreed to stay out of the way. My God, I was sure he could be trusted now. I thought he’d be safe with Michael. Why the hell did he come home?’

  ‘Home is where the heart is,’ said Sir Julian. ‘When my wife died, the house was empty as a lord’s great kitchen without a fire in it. Lucy knows, don’t you, my dear?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Shall I go, Max?’

  ‘No, please … if you don’t mind. If you’ll please stay. Look, father, it’s all right now. There’s only me and Adoni and Lucy. You can tell us about it. Why didn’t you stay at Michael’s?’

  ‘Poor Michael was playing a very interesting game, Steinitz gambit, and I lost a rook in the first few minutes. Do you play chess, my dear?’

  ‘I know the moves,’ I said.

  ‘Five moves would have done it. White to play, and mate in five moves. A foregone conclusion. But then he had the attack.’

  ‘What sort of attack?’ asked Max.

  ‘I had no idea that his heart wasn’t all it should be, for all he never drinks. I am quite aware that this is one reason why you like me to visit Michael, but a drink occasionally, for purely social reasons, never does the least harm. My heart is as strong as a bell. As strong as a bell. One’s heart,’ added Sir Julian, with the air of one dismissing the subject, ‘is where the home is. Good night.’

  ‘Just a minute. You mean Michael Andiakis has died of a heart attack? I see. I’m sorry, father. No wonder you felt you needed—’

  ‘No, no! Who said he had died? Of course he didn’t, I was there. They have no telephone, so it was a good thing, the doctor said so, a very good thing. But then if I hadn’t been there, I doubt if Michael would have had the attack at all. He always did get too excitable over our little game. Poor Michael.’