Thunder on the Right

by Mary Stewart

  ‘And your pictures and lamps and carvings—’

  ‘As to that,’ replied the Reverend Mother tranquilly, ‘I can’t say. As you can imagine I’ve been only too glad in recent years to put all our business affairs into Doña Francisca’s most efficient hands. The furnishing of our chapel has been her affair for some time now. I know that she has put many things in the chapel, pictures and a carpet and some candlesticks … last year she had a workman up from Bordeaux who made an altar-rail for us; but, although in former years I myself used to keep the chapel plain, I realize that some – most, indeed, of our members – are helped in their worship by the visible beauty of a statue or a lamp. So, though as a poor community we cannot spend a great deal on these things, I have allowed Doña Francisca to do as she wishes with the chapel, to please the younger sisters and’ – she smiled her wise old smile – ‘the children.’

  Jennifer thought of the great concourse of saints and angels, soaring on wings of flame above the altar; she thought of the sanctuary rail, which no ‘workman from Bordeaux’ had ever touched; she thought of the candlesticks, hammered from Florentine gold ‘to please the children’ … there was more than one mystery, it seemed, about the Convent of Our Lady of the Storms. And if it involved golden lamps and El Greco saints … she recollected all at once the letter she had found behind the triptych, with what now appeared its highly provocative mention of ‘three million francs’. A nerve twisted like a tiny painful needle, deep in her stomach.

  ‘I see.’ She was angry to find that her voice was shaking. ‘Well, it’s very lovely. And Doña Francisca does it all?’

  Doña Francisca’s voice said, softly, behind her chair:

  ‘Did you want me, Reverend Mother?’

  ‘Ah, yes …’ The Prioress gave no hint of surprise: with the extra sense vouchsafed to the blind she must have been already aware of the presence of a third person. ‘I am glad you have come. Here’s a matter that had better be cleared up straight away if possible. You have already met Mademoiselle Silver, of course.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She has come – in some distress of mind – to see me, Francisca.’

  Doña Francisca did not look at Jennifer, but spoke still in that same colourless, composed voice. ‘Her grief is very natural.’

  ‘True. But it is not only a natural distress at her cousin’s death that brings her to me.’ She turned to Jennifer, who sat frozen in her chair. ‘Doña Francisca is the person you should talk to, my child. Tell her what you have just told me – of your conviction that there’s some mystery attached to your cousin’s death.’

  Doña Francisca’s eyes moved, with an almost palpable jerk, to fix themselves on Jennifer’s face. Something flashed in them like the flicker of light off a knife-blade. Anger? Apprehension? Fear?

  Jennifer, clutching Gillian’s handbag with shaking fingers, tried vainly to avert a situation she had not had time to foresee. ‘It doesn’t matter, ma mère. Perhaps – not now. We’d better leave it—’

  ‘It is better now,’ said the Prioress decidedly. And turning towards the rigid figure of the bursar she related briefly but faithfully all the doubts and suspicions that Jennifer had recently laid before her. Jennifer dared not look at Doña Francisca, but she felt that unwavering regard fixed on her face. The woman stood like a statue, uncannily still and quiet, but for the red jewel that beat and sparkled on her breast.

  ‘So I think it best,’ finished the Reverend Mother, ‘that mademoiselle should lodge with us here for a while and—’

  Doña Francisca moved at that, as sharply as a jerked puppet. The ruby flashed. ‘Here? Stay here?’

  Surprise touched the Prioress’ face. ‘Yes. It seems to me that it’s the least we can do for her; and if it will set her mind at rest to make inquiries, this is surely the best place for her to be.’

  ‘Inquiries? What inquiries can she possibly have to make?’

  ‘This, for one,’ said Jennifer, and was surprised at the hard, level sound of her own voice. ‘What did “Madame Lamartine” look like, Doña Francisca?’

  The bursar turned to look down at her. There was a tiny, fractional pause. Then she smiled. ‘She was not very tall, and she was slightly made. She had fair hair, that curled a little, and eyes of a clear, true grey. A straight nose, and thick, straight brows.’ She spoke slowly, watching Jennifer from under hooded lids. ‘Is that a fair description, mademoiselle?’

  ‘Very fair,’ said Jennifer hoarsely.

  Doña Francisca turned back to the Prioress. Her voice sharpened, harsh as a saw biting wood. ‘You see, there are no inquiries to make, Reverend Mother. There is no mystery. Mademoiselle’s suggestions are an outrage—’

  ‘Francisca …’ The old voice was soft, but the Spaniard stopped short in mid-tirade. She bent her head.

  ‘I am sorry, Reverend Mother.’

  ‘La petite is our guest,’ said the Prioress gently, ‘and we have wronged her. You may talk to me of this later – after Compline – but now I shall be glad if you will give orders for a room to be prepared for mademoiselle.’

  Doña Francisca said, in a still submissive, but quite definite tone: ‘We have no spare room, Reverend Mother.’

  ‘No? Who is in the one that Madame Lamartine had?’

  ‘Sister Marie-Jeanne. She is suffering from a chill.’

  ‘Ah, yes. And the hospital room?’

  ‘Two of the children—’

  ‘I remember. Then it seems …’ The blind face turned to Jennifer. ‘We can only offer you a poor kind of hospitality after all, mademoiselle. Perhaps you don’t care to share a room? If that is so, you need not mind saying so.’

  ‘Share a room?’ Doña Francisca cut in before Jennifer could reply. ‘There’s no bed free.’

  ‘But surely – Sister Marie-Jeanne’s, if she is in the spare room? Mademoiselle won’t mind sharing with Celeste.’

  Jennifer heard the bursar above her, draw a little breath like a hissing snake. ‘Mademoiselle Silver will not wish—’

  Jennifer lifted her head for the first time and looked the woman straight in the face. Blue eyes met black with the kiss of a sword’s salute.

  ‘On the contrary,’ she said. ‘I shall be delighted.’

  The sun was westering fast when at length Jennifer let herself out of the gate and began to hurry down the valley. Gradually the gold of the day had deepened, and the lengthening shadows of the western peaks lay blue across the valley, to shade the track where she walked. Once again she felt the loneliness of the place press on her, and she shivered and quickened her pace, as if by so doing she could escape the memory of the afternoon. So short a while ago she had thought this valley beautiful; she remembered the flowers and the spice-laden wind, the tumbling waters, and those three horses with their flowing gallop and the light slipping over their flanks. It was just here that they had plunged from the track to leap the stream; she could see the dash of white water, ghostly and unsparkling in the mountain’s shadow …

  Her heart gave an uncontrollable twisted jump, and she stopped dead and stared upwards.

  Above the valley, beyond the ghost-foam of the Petit Gave, sharply black against the rich sky, stood a horseman. The horse was motionless, save where the wind moved in his mane, and the rider sat, too, as if carved from the black rock. But about the set of the young shoulders there was no suggestion of ease, as there had been that afternoon; his head was thrust forward, sunk between the tense shoulders like the head of a hawk, watching, waiting.

  The only sound that held the valley was the soft rush of water. Then the rider moved, and the horse, reined sharply back, reared as if at a sudden pain. There was the crack and clatter of hoofs on stone, and then horse and rider vanished beyond the ridge.

  Jennifer reached the main road and turned towards Gavarnie. When, a few moments later, a big touring car stopped beside her and an English voice offered her a lift down to the village she accepted thankfully, and with the odd sense of a sharp return to normal. Soon s
he was being swept swiftly down the valley towards the hotel and the now immensely comforting prospect of seeing Stephen.

  9

  Interlude: con desiderio

  She had not realized, till she walked into the hotel dining-room and failed to find Stephen waiting there, how much she had depended on seeing him straight away. She sat down, reaching mechanically for her napkin, and scanned the luscious menu with unseeing eyes. When the food came she ate without tasting, watching the door. But he did not come. He must, she thought with a sick disappointment that surprised her, be dining at his own hotel.

  She felt drained and empty; suspended in that soul-destroying vacuum between the knowledge that drastic action is necessary, and the moment when the first move has to be made.

  Between the acting of a dreadful thing.

  And the first motion … and here she was, caught in the fantastic interim, in a dream made more hideous by the doubts that, in retrospect, assailed her. What if she should be mistaken? What if there was, after all, nothing wrong? And what, in fact, did she imagine could be wrong? The unlikely phantoms mocked her; Gillian alive … Gillian hidden away somewhere, somehow … kept under restraint … Gillian in danger … She shook them away. Such things didn’t happen. Or did they?

  It was a stiff and tautly controlled Jennifer who, after dinner, sought out the patron of the hotel and apologized to him, in her easy flawless French, for her change of plan.

  ‘I did give you to understand that this might happen,’ she finished, ‘but I didn’t expect to go quite so soon. Of course, I’ll pay you for tonight.’

  The patron, who had opened his mouth to protest, shut it again, and, after another look at her face, became extremely helpful. His kindness and obvious sympathy did nothing to increase her self-control, and when at length she parted from him she almost ran out of the lighted foyer with one thought only in her mind, to find Stephen.

  Twilight had deepened into dusk pricked with a few faint stars, but she saw him almost at once, walking past the end of the hotel, down towards the river. She ran after him, down the steep bank between the dark trees, stumbling unheedingly over the pine-roots that webbed the path.

  He had stopped below her, on the stone-flagged bridge that crossed the fall, and was looking down at the boiling foam beneath. The rowans fanned out across it, their shadowy leaves whipped by the wind of the fall into a whitening dance, and the ravine was luminous with the froth of falling water. He stood, head bent, watching the torrent.

  To Jennifer, running down the dark track under the pine trees, the sight of that familiar figure did much to strip from her the last vestiges of her careful control. While she had had the burden to bear alone, she had – somewhat to her own surprise – been equal to it; but now it was weighing her down, it must be shared. With the sharing, she knew, much of her tight grasp on herself must be loosened. And here was Stephen, representing all that just at that moment she needed most. Comfort, strength, reassurance … no more. Big-brother Stephen. She was suddenly glad that that was the way he seemed to want it. Elder-brother Stephen … that was the way it was. Jennifer, retreating into innocence like a snail into its shell, put out her hands and ran towards him, calling his name.

  He turned his head and saw her. The noise of the fall had prevented him from hearing her approach, and all he saw was Jenny, a ghostly figure under the pines, running towards him with her hands held out.

  His lips shaped the words: ‘Why, Jenny!’

  ‘Stephen – oh, Stephen!’

  He turned swiftly to meet her, holding out his arms. And then she was in them, folded close. His heart had begun to race, in sickening hammer-thuds. His arms tightened, his head went down, his mouth seeking hers.… But her head was bent, pressed hard into his shoulder, and his lips only found the silk of her hair.

  He said hoarsely: ‘Jenny.’

  She did not lift her head.

  ‘Jenny.’

  Still no movement. It was five blind and whirling seconds later that he realized that she was crying, oblivious of everything save her own distress. The trembling of her body was due, not to passion, but to tears, and her arms clung to him only for comfort. Big-brother Stephen. Hold your horses, fool: she doesn’t even know it’s you …

  Five lifetimes later he heard his voice repeat, unrecognizably: ‘Why, Jenny!’ And then again, very gently: ‘What’s the matter?’

  She shook her head, burying it more deeply in his shoulder, so he remained silent, holding her closely, till her sobs began to subside. He had himself well in hand now: over her head his face was like a mask, but he was breathing fast, and the hand that crept up, in spite of itself, to stroke her hair, shook ever so slightly. It seemed that presently he noticed this, for his mouth twisted wryly, and he dropped his hand.

  After a while she stirred in his arms and, pushing away from him a little, groped for her handkerchief.

  ‘Have mine.’ He proffered it. ‘I don’t know why men are always better equipped than women for these emergencies. Self-defence, I suppose.’

  Jennifer, dabbing at her eyes, managed a rather shaky smile. ‘Have I soaked your shoulder? I’m sorry. I must say you show up suspiciously well in the said emergency, Stephen. Do a lot of people run and cry on you?’

  ‘Not more than three a day.’

  ‘Poor Stephen. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Silly child.’ The words mocked, but his voice was gentle, and his eyes considered her face gravely. Then he dropped an arm lightly across her shoulders and urged her towards the far side of the bridge. ‘Come away where we can hear ourselves think, and tell me all about it.’

  They began to climb the path that led to the mountain pastures, emerging almost at once from the cold shadows of the lower cleft. The warm air of evening met them, with its turf-scents and juniper-scents, and its caressing undertones of mountain breeze. Behind them the roar of the river sank to a murmur, and was finally lost under the darkness of its tossed boughs.

  They found a low wall spanning the meadow, and there, sitting on the still-warm stone, with her eyes upon the grass at her feet, she told him. She told him of her reception at the convent, of her growing premonition of disaster, and then of Doña Francisca’s bald announcement of Gillian’s death.

  ‘Dead?’ said Stephen, in a shocked voice, and then gently: ‘Poor Jenny. I’m sorry. What a rotten thing to happen – and for you to run into it as you did. Damn it all, even if Gillian was about to retire from the world, they might at least have taken the trouble to tell you about that!’

  Jennifer pressed her hands tightly together, and said, on a caught breath: ‘That’s just it, Stephen. Listen.…’

  And she went on to tell him the rest of the fantastic business; of the colour-blindness and the gentians; of the dying woman’s extraordinary reticence; of the interviews that she herself had had and the things that she had seen. And through it all, like a black thread through a coloured tapestry, ran the voice and actions of the Spanish woman, now lying outright, now merely obstructive, but all the time palpably calculating and apprehensive of – what?

  The moon was up now, full sail among the stars, like a swan serene on a lotus-pool. Mountain and meadow had withdrawn a little into the darkness. The wind moved silently, invisibly, across the turf. So quiet was the valley that they could hear the stirring of the tiny flowers at their feet.

  Stephen spoke at last, and his words were sufficient of an anticlimax. He said: ‘It seems you’ve had a fairly trying afternoon, all things considered. Cigarette, Jenny?’

  Across the flame of his lighter her eyes, wide and strained, studied him. ‘Stephen. You can’t not believe me.’

  ‘I do believe you – up to a point.’

  ‘A point? What point?’

  ‘The point where you start to make Grand Guignol out of facts – queer enough, admittedly – which will eventually prove to have quite simple explanations.’

  ‘You think so?’ Her voice was tight, brittle, a danger-signal. He grimaced to himself as he he
ard it.

  He said flatly: ‘My darling girl, look at what you’re postulating: two young women, of similar appearance, somehow get interchanged. One dies, even on her deathbed pretending to be the other. The other one, a respectable and responsible Englishwoman, disappears without trace. You’re left with two sticky problems: one – who was the dead woman? two – where is Gillian?’ He shook his head. ‘It won’t wash.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He was deliberately brutal: ‘Because it’s more reasonable to take, instead of two improbabilities, the one possibility that everyone else accepts, that Gillian is dead and buried.’

  She said, after a while, in a small shaken voice: ‘And I thought you’d help me, Stephen.’

  He made an involuntary little movement. ‘That’s what I’m trying to do, Jenny, can’t you see? I don’t want you to go building up some fantastic story – and perhaps getting yourself into an excessively awkward jam – by imagining accusations against people who’re hardly likely to be the sort of criminals your story makes of them.’

  ‘It’s only Doña Francisca, and she—’

  ‘Fair enough. She lied to you, and you don’t like her. That doesn’t make her a criminal.’

  ‘I didn’t say she was a criminal! But if you’d seen her today and talked to her, Stephen, you’d be convinced, as I am, that she’s not all she should be!’

  ‘Just who is the woman, anyway? What’s she doing in the convent?’

  She related what Sister Louisa had told her. ‘And later on I tried to pump the novice who showed me out of the convent. She was a nice girl and obviously in terrific awe of Doña Francisca. I gathered that she – Doña Francisca – pretty well runs everything that isn’t directly a religious concern. I also gathered – not from anything the girl said, but from her general manner – that none of them like Doña Francisca very much, and they think she presumes on the Reverend Mother’s blindness, but nobody likes to say anything. They’re mostly simple souls and tend to take the woman at her own valuation.’