Joyce Hunter was gazing around her with evident satisfaction as if she had personally ordered God to do this little favor and He had obeyed.
Miss Seton looked at her and giggled. Joyce turned in her direction and shouted, “Are you all right? You’re not hysterical?” Her voice rang out sharply in the new intense silence.
In spite of her stiff cracked lips Miss Seton managed a murderous smile. “No, I’m not hysterical, Miss . . . ?”
“Hunter,” Joyce said.
“Seton,” Miss Seton shouted.
Paula said quietly, “I think there’s a house over there.”
“A house!” Maudie Thropple gave a long shuddering sigh and swooned comfortably against Herbert. “A house. We’re saved.”
“Saved!” Mrs. Vista echoed.
Joyce casually flicked the snow from three curls at the top of her parka and remarked that there had never been any danger anyway and it seemed silly to get all emotional because they’d seen a house. She herself, she added, had known from the first that there’d be a house.
Miss Seton looked around carefully. The house lay some five hundred yards to the east, a huge square pile of grey stone squatting on a small hill. A thin scraggly wisp of smoke issued from one chimney straight up into the sky.
It’s the only place, Miss Seton thought. He must have gone there. There’s nothing else.
Yet she hesitated. The footprints had disappeared now as if they had never existed. There was only a smooth unbroken field of snow in front of them, serene and inhuman. Inhuman, Miss Seton thought with a shiver. I can’t believe a man walked there.
Chad Ross was leading the way towards the house, his long legs moving in slow rhythm through the drifts. No one was talking, they were straining towards the house because it was very cold again. For a few minutes after the wind had lifted, they were warm by contrast and from excitement, but now their faces were aching. The fine laugh-lines around Miss Seton’s eyes deepened and became static.
Awful, she thought. Why would people live here? Or did people live here? Perhaps the house was inhabited by snow creatures, white wind-bloated ghosts which skimmed the snow and left no marks.
I am hysterical, she thought, the girl was right. I’m too old to cope with ghosts. I must think of something else.
Mr. Goodwin was directly in front of her so she thought about him and wondered where he got the strange hat with the feather. She kept looking at the feather to keep from thinking about the cold and the dreary-looking house ahead of them.
There was a queer sharp noise and the feather disappeared from Mr. Goodwin’s hat as precisely and quickly as if it had been shot off.
Shot off, Miss Seton repeated to herself.
She became aware that the others had stopped almost simultaneously and that Mr. Goodwin’s hands were fumbling towards his head. His voice, slightly cracked and husky, came to her ears:
“Someone is shooting at me.”
Mrs. Vista sat down abruptly in the snow. A second sharp crack splintered the silence.
“Down!” Charles Crawford yelled. “Keep down, everybody!”
Miss Seton’s knees were fluid and she sank gratefully down. She looked around at Charles Crawford and saw that he was the only one left standing and that he seemed to be doing his best to be murdered. He had taken off his hat and was waving it violently in the air. He didn’t look at all frightened or desperate as he had when he was trying to start the
bus. He simply looked angry and at the same time a little amused.
We must look like a pack of fools, Miss Seton thought. Close beside her, Miss Morning’s voice whispered, “Well, I’ll be damned. They must think we’re somebody else.”
Miss Seton raised her head a little and peered towards the house again. A light flickered for a moment in one of the windows on the second floor, and something white moved past the window. Like a ghost, Miss Seton thought, and closed her eyes very tightly and painfully.
Behind her Charles Crawford spoke again. “It’s all right now, I think, but I suggest we take it slow and keep down as much as possible. Move on, up there!”
Chad Ross, still at the head of the column, turned his head and scowled, but he started walking anyway with Paula Lashley close behind him. When they were within twenty yards of the house the front door began to open slowly and cautiously and a head appeared in the crack. It stayed there, motionless, for a full minute.
Mrs. Vista put up her hand and shouted, “Ahoy! Ahoy there! We’re lost!”
A sharp cackle of laughter bounced over the snow and a small squat figure came out of the door. She was dressed in black except for the white cap she wore on her head. She stood still on the snow-covered veranda, laughing.
Miss Seton shivered and turned to Charles Crawford. He had his hat back on and was watching the figure on the veranda with narrowed eyes.
“I don’t like the sound of that laugh,” Miss Seton whispered.
He smiled, too quickly. “Well, do I?” He raised his voice. “Move on, up there!”
It was not Chad Ross who moved first this time, it was Mrs. Vista. She plunged through the snow, wheezing and shouting, “Ahoy!” The rest followed her slowly. She waited for them at the bottom of the veranda steps and when they reached the steps they found out why.
The lady in black was not laughing, but crying. The tears were sliding down each side of her thick white nose. She did not brush them off but stood watching the people clustered at the foot of the steps, her mouth drawn back from her big white teeth, her black eyes impassive behind the tears. She had a shawl over her shoulders clutched together at the front by bony hands that were slightly dirty.
For a minute no one spoke at all except Mrs. Vista, who kept wheezing, “Ahoy!” in a faint whisper as if she were hypnotized.
Miss Seton looked at Charles Crawford, expecting him to step up and take charge as he had before. But Mr. Crawford had no intention of taking charge, apparently. He stood with his hands in his pockets, scuffing the snow with his feet.
The other men seemed equally at a loss, and Joyce Hunter had passed into another coma.
That, Miss Seton thought savagely, leaves me.
She shouldered her way past Mrs. Vista, looked firmly at the lady in black, and said, “Hello.”
It wasn’t the most brilliant beginning but it had its effect.
The lady stopped crying and said, in a voice soft and husky from tears:
“You are lost?”
“No, we are not lost,” Miss Seton said crisply. “We have lost our driver.”
“Driver?”
“The driver of the bus we were in.”
“Bus?”
“The bus that goes to the Chateau Neige,” Miss Seton explained. “The driver got out and left us. He came here. We followed him.”
“Here?” The lady raised one shoulder and brushed off her cheeks with her shawl. “How sad. How very sad.”
“We . . .” Miss Seton’s voice cracked and she looked angrily around at the others. “Why doesn’t somebody else say something?”
Mr. Hunter carefully cleared his throat and said, “We are very cold. May we come inside? I’m afraid we’ll freeze.”
The lady in black made a clucking noise with her tongue. “It is a mild day, an extremely mild day. We have had an extremely mild winter.” Her black eyes rested speculatively on them, one after another, until they came to Maudie. “That thin one there, she will freeze. There’s no blood in her.”
Maudie gave a little shriek and clung to Herbert. “Oh, take me away!”
“She is already freezing,” the lady said, and her eyes moved on to the others. Quite suddenly she began to cry again and backed away towards the open door, moaning, “I don’t want you here. Harry, you go away. I don’t want you here. This is my house, my house. Go away,
you thieves.”
Miss Morning had had enough. She thrust her way past the others and walked aggressively up the steps of the veranda. When she spoke her voice was surprisingly gentle:
“Nobody’s going to hurt you. We want to get warm. We wouldn’t hurt you.”
The woman backed away from her and made another swipe at her tears with her shawl.
“I haven’t room,” she whined. “I don’t want you in my house. There are so many of us already.”
Miss Seton had recovered herself. She followed Miss Morning up the steps and said briskly, “The driver is here, of course?”
“No, no, no one is here but me and my dear friends.”
“Your—friends?”
“My dear friends Floraine and Etienne and Suzanne—don’t you go in there!” she shouted at Miss Morning who was already inside the door. “You thief! Stealing from a poor lady. Poor Miss Rudd. Poor old lady.”
She followed Miss Morning inside. Miss Seton rather hesitantly went inside after her.
The hall was dim, with a high gilt ceiling. It smelled of must and rotting woodwork and stale food. An immense marble and brass staircase led up to the second floor, and on the first landing of the staircase a huge yellow cat stood waving its tail in the air.
“Hi, puss,” said Miss Morning.
Miss Rudd moved close to her and touched her arm. “My dear friend, Etienne,” she said softly. “Come, Etienne. Etienne, come here.”
The cat arched his back and spat. Then, with a last wave of his tail he stalked up the stairs.
Miss Rudd kept calling him softly, walking slowly towards the stairs.
The others were coming inside the house. Herbert came last, thrusting a reluctant Maudie ahead of him, and closed the door. At the sound, Miss Rudd darted back from the stairs and stood in front of Charles Crawford.
“I told you, Harry. I told you never to set foot in my house again with your thieving ways. Tell your friends to go, Harry. I won’t have them in my house!”
“You know her?” Miss Seton asked in a puzzled voice.
Charles Crawford looked at her savagely and blushed. “No, I don’t know her, you little dope.”
He shifted his feet and tried to appear nonchalant under Miss Rudd’s unblinking stare. Miss Seton began to giggle.
Miss Rudd’s eyes gleamed at her. “A pretty coat,” she said. “What a pretty coat.”
As she spoke a woman appeared on the stairs. She was holding Etienne the cat in her arms, stroking his fur. She was tall and well-built and wore a stiff white uniform that crackled as she moved down the steps. When she came closer Miss Seton saw that she was quite young, not over thirty, and heavily handsome, with dark skin and smooth dark hair braided with a coronet around her head.
She said, “Let them alone, Frances.”
Miss Rudd nodded her head back and forth.
“My dear friend, Floraine,” she cried. She plucked at Floraine’s sleeve as she passed. Floraine paid no attention.
“I am Floraine Larue,” she said in a brisk voice, “Miss Rudd’s companion.”
Miss Seton felt a surge of relief at the sight of this competent-looking nurse. She said, “We’ve lost our bus driver. He got out of the bus and came here.”
“Here?” Floraine raised her thick black eyebrows. “I’m sure you’re mistaken. No one came here.”
“No one came here,” Miss Rudd repeated, nodding her head.
“No one at all,” said Floraine.
3
Floraine turned on a wall switch and the enormous crystal chandelier in the center of the hall sprang into light. It was yellowed with age and the crystals threw grotesque dangling shadows on the gilt ceiling.
“They clink,” Miss Rudd said, pointing. “They clink very prettily.”
“Hush, Frances.” Floraine moved quickly towards a heavy oak door and it opened with a shriek of hinges. “You understand we rarely use these rooms and are not prepared for company. But there is a grate in here. I shall build a fire.”
Miss Seton found her voice. “But what about the driver—and the shots?”
Charles Crawford put a warning hand on her arm. “Why not get warm first?” he said dryly, and pushed her, not gently, through the open door.
In front of the fireplace was a pile of split wood which Floraine began thrusting into the grate. Mr. Hunter offered to help her but Floraine, with a fine show of teeth, said she was quite used to work of this kind.
“Take off your wraps,” she added over her shoulder, “and sit down. Will you turn on the light, Frances?”
Miss Rudd darted to the switch and a second crystal chandelier blazed in the center of the room. There were no lamps although the room was so huge that the chandelier’s light did not reach the corners. On the floor were two Persian rugs faded and worn thin in
spots. The furniture was chiefly brown mohair, two well-worn chesterfields with chairs to match. The chairs looked rickety and listed to one side.
What a queer room, Miss Seton thought, and wondered whether it was simply because it was so old and out-of-date and had no lamps. Then she discovered with a shock that there was no furniture at all in the corners, it had all been brought into the center of the room and grouped around the fireplace.
As if most of it had been taken away, she thought. She looked at the walls and saw two gilt-framed oil paintings, in need of cleaning, one of Montcalm, the other of Frontenac. Where other paintings had once been there were pale rectangles on the walls.
They probably had a whole set of historical paintings, Miss Seton decided. The rest have been taken away. Sold? Or destroyed by Frances Rudd?
“Nosy parker,” said Mr. Crawford’s voice close to her ear. “Take time off to give me your coat.”
Blushing, Miss Seton hurriedly removed her coat. Mr. Crawford took it and examined the fur. He said, grinning, “Hmmm. Sable? Where have you been all my life?”
“I don’t know,” Miss Seton said crossly. “But I know where I’m going to be the rest of your life. Missing.”
“Suits me,” Crawford said with a shrug. “No harm in asking.”
“This wing is not used,” Floraine explained again for the benefit of the others. “There are only the two of us, you see.”
“Two?” Mrs. Vista sank down on one of the mohair chesterfields and raised a fine spray of dust. “Two? I thought that Miss—Miss Budd—”
“Rudd,” Floraine said.
“Miss Rudd said there were . . .”
From the hall came a cackle of laughter and a long drawn out sniffle.
“Miss Rudd is imaginative,” Floraine said delicately.
Mrs. Vista looked out into the hall and then back at Floraine. “Imaginative,” she repeated thoughtfully. “You mean she’s— batty?”
“Oh, a little,” Floraine said. “A very little.”
She went back into the hall. Her voice came through the door, firm but pleasant:
“You promised me you wouldn’t cry today, Frances.”
“Oh, I can’t help it,” Miss Rudd moaned. “It’s so sad. Everything is so sad.”
“You’d better not cry anymore. These people are nice, Frances, quite nice. You must go in and be pleasant to them. They are your guests, and you mustn’t pinch any of them.”
“Just the fat one.”
“Not any of them,” Floraine said sharply. “Be pleasant and ask their names while I make some coffee. Do you understand, Frances?”
Miss Rudd moaned again but Floraine’s brisk footsteps became fainter. They sounded as if Floraine was impatient. With Miss Rudd, Miss Seton thought, or with us?
Company would naturally be a nuisance in such a household. It would be difficult enough to manage Miss Rudd, without additional complications. But there were the two rifle shots. Indicating, Miss Seton thought dryly, a new high in impatience.
“Why do I assume
Floraine did the shooting?” she murmured.
“I don’t know.” Joyce Hunter was beside her, gazing at her with her clear cold eyes. “Why do you?”
“Floraine was wearing white,” Miss Seton said in a whisper. “I saw something white move at one of the second-floor windows right after the shots.”
“Yes.” Joyce bit her lower lip and stared pensively at the ceiling. It was her thinking pose. She said at last, “I think you’re right. You’d have to be on the second floor to make those shots.”
“And the driver—if he isn’t here, where is he?”
“Where is who?” Mr. Goodwin asked absently. He was sitting at the end of the chesterfield opposite Mrs. Vista, and gazing meditatively at his hat. “Phenomenal. Phenomenal phate. Peculiar Parca. What were you saying, Miss Seton?”
Miss Seton looked at him in annoyance. “I wasn’t really talking to you but I’ll repeat. Where is the bus driver?”
“Who knows?” said Mr. Goodwin. “We are all ephemeral. Here today. Gone tomorrow. Ephemeral effigies.”
“That’s excellent, Anthony,” Mrs. Vista said encouragingly. “I shall have to remember it.”
“Ephemeral effigies or not,” Miss Seton said acidly. “Even ephemeral effigies have to disappear to some place . . .”
“Not necessarily,” said Mrs. Vista loyally.
“. . . and I want to know where. If we don’t find him we’ll have to stay in this house until someone finds the bus and traces us here. That might take days. If you’ll kindly descend to our plane for a moment, Mr. Goodwin, you’ll understand that.”
“Oh, no!” Maudie cried. “Oh, no! I couldn’t stay here. I’m so frightened. That woman. Look at her!”
Fire Will Freeze Page 3
