Wildfire Quest

by Jane Arbor

  He had brought a flower-spray for her in a florists’ perspex box. She drew it out with delighted care. ‘May I wear it?’ she asked.

  ‘That was the rough idea. Whereabouts?’

  ‘Here, I think.’ She pointed to the front of her left shoulder.

  ‘Yes. Let me—’ As he pinned it on with expert (too expert?) fingers, he queried, ‘Lois?’

  ‘She has gone to bed. I promised not to wake her when I come in. About when will that be?’ Maryan asked.

  ‘As early or late as you please. I’m at your service. Are you ready now? Then let’s go.’

  Maryan had not seen the inside of the Domaine house since she had peered through its windows that first day. It had had dignity then; now it was luxuriously elegant; its furnishing rich; the double doors to its reception room wide to the press of people moving about.

  It was a mixed crowd, dressed in every imaginable style and flamboyant colour. The clamour of voices and laughter competed with continuous music from a radiogram and the chink of glasses; Ninon’s guests talked in groups, standing, strolling or sitting on piled cushions on the floor. There were gambling games—a roulette wheel, a shuffleboard—in one of the back reception rooms; long cold-buffet tables in both dining-room and hall; the french doors at the far end of the deep salon gave on to the lantern-lighted terrace, inviting people out from heat and glare into the gentle dark of the summer night.

  Maryan and Raoul had been given drinks and Raoul had done some introductions of her before Ninon came to greet them.

  She was in a vivid green trouser suit, barefoot in matching sandals; hands, as always, weighted with rings; the flame of her heavy sweep of hair the perfect tiger-lily foil to the brilliant green of her suit.

  Her greeting to them both was ostensibly the same—the handshake, the conventional peck on either cheek. But her hand lingered longer in Raoul’s and the kisses were real. Standing back from him, she appraised Maryan with a cool eye.

  ‘So you were able to persuade our Mademoiselle Workaday to come to see me? Now whom shall we find to amuse her while you amuse me, my friend?’ she asked Raoul.

  ‘Or while you amuse me, why not?’ he countered lazily.

  ‘It’s not my job,’ she flashed. ‘Anyway, haven’t I earned the right to relax a little, by showing you just what I’ve been able to do with a house which has deserved better manners from you for a great deal too long? What do you think of it?’

  As Raoul looked about him she turned to Maryan. ‘Believe it or not, I haven’t allowed this character past the vestibule since I’ve been doing it up.’ Back to Raoul—‘Well?’ she demanded.

  ‘Extremely chic. I congratulate you. A perfect reflection of your taste.’

  Ninon laughed, sounding pleased. ‘You should say so to Raymond of Semel Freres, who claimed he would achieve just that. A most individual young man. He made me sit for him first, as if for my portrait, and then demanded a free hand in expressing my personality. With the result you see. And by the way, thank you for your gift. I had it hung at once. Over there—’

  The other two followed the direction of her pointing finger. Raoul said, ‘You liked it? I happened on it by chance in a print-shop in Bayonne, and I intended it as a peace offering to the house.’

  Ninon thrust her lips forward in an overdone pout. ‘Not as a present for me? Why should the house need placating? I am hurt!’

  ‘I addressed it to you. You should be flattered that I see you and the house as one.’ Raoul turned to Maryan. ‘If you are interested, come and see what La Domaine looked like to an unknown artist more than a hundred years ago.’

  The three of them moved over to where a medium-sized sepia engraving hung on a recessed wall of the salon. It was in a plain wooden frame; its surround was faintly stained with old damp; the misty browns and greys of its tone in gentle contrast to the brilliant colours of its surroundings.

  The house it showed in its background was unmistakably La Domaine, sketched in the distance from a soft-toned foreground of marshland and sedge and reeds in water, with a middle view of the lawns which then, as now, dropped gradually down from the rear elevation of the house.

  Maryan looked at it, delighting in its gentleness. Well over a hundred years old? More, perhaps? Artist and engraver, long since dead. But that was how this house had looked then, possibly about when her great-grandfather Vaile had believed Feu-Follet would be his by way of the broken promise which had brought her here once ... and now again. She wished she had found it in a print-shop by chance.

  She came back from the past to hear Ninon asking, ‘It would have been done from the edge of Feu-Follet, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘When Feu-Follet itself was only marsh terrain too, yes,’ said Raoul.

  She threw him an oblique glance. ‘With none of the value it has now?’

  ‘With no value at all, as it stood then. Nor for a generation or so after that was done.’ He jerked a thumb at the engraving and brought Maryan back into the conversation, asking,

  ‘I daresay you’ll recognise this aspect of the house from the levels below? Have you explored Feu-Follet yet? No? Well, remind me some time to walk you over it,’ he promised carelessly, then excused himself to them both as his attention was called by some other people.

  Before moving away herself Ninon did her duty to Maryan by calling over a young man of whom, as she introduced him as Guy Manet, she said in an aside to Maryan, ‘He is a junior to his father, Maitre Manet, my advocate in Bayonne.’

  The young man offered a formal hand. ‘But haven’t I seen you before, mademoiselle? In the rampart gardens one morning, wasn’t it?’

  Maryan looked at him. ‘Oh—yes,’ she agreed, remembering her brief sight of him. ‘Weren’t you with Monsieur Tissot, Maitre Druot’s clerk, when he came over to speak to me? You waited for him—He is a friend of yours, monsieur?’

  Guy Manet shrugged indifferently. ‘So-so. I know him. We junior types in the profession tend to meet in the same cafe-bars for dejeuner. But he is perhaps a friend of yours?’

  ‘Oh no. It was simply that he remembered me from my having consulted Maitre Druot on one occasion,’ Maryan hastily disclaimed Georges Tissot and changed the subject to ask her companion how well he knew Peyrolle and La Domaine.

  He proved a rather dull, uncommunicative person, and when the inevitable party change-partners moved him on, she was relieved. She went to the buffet with a gay young couple who insisted on practising their English on her and sponsored her for most of the rest of the evening, loaning her out briefly to other people, then claiming her back.

  Their friendliness did a great deal to make Maryan’s evening, and when they left after midnight, she decided to go too. She was wondering whether or not to keep Raoul to his promise to escort her, when he came to join her.

  ‘And look who claimed she wouldn’t be a success! Why, every time I’ve glimpsed you, you’ve been surrounded,’ he accused her lightly.

  She laughed a little headily. ‘Oh, nonsense! But I have enjoyed myself. Thank you for persuading me to come.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Well, it’s rather late, and I think I’d like to go.’ He didn’t try to dissuade her. ‘Have you curtseyed prettily to Ninon?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve thanked her, yes.’

  ‘Then—a minute, and I’ll be with you. Wait for me in the hall?’

  She watched him thread his way across the room to Ninon, saw Ninon frown and lift a shoulder and appear to argue something with him, then went to wait for him to rejoin her.

  When he did, ‘There’s really no need for you to see me back to the Pavilion. It’s such a very short way,’ she protested.

  ‘Which you aren’t taking alone. Come along.’

  His hand beneath her elbow, they went out together. He asked about her evening; she told him the names of some of the people she had met; then, too soon, they reached the Pavilion and as she offered her hand to his shadowy figure, she allowed herself a deep, lingering breath of the
soft night air which had eluded her for so long. Expelled, the breath turned to a sigh, and Raoul questioned it.

  ‘What was that for?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing. Just that your nights are so marvellous, and this is the first time that I’ve been out after eight o’clock since I arrived.’

  ‘You can’t mean that?’

  ‘I do. We keep early bedtime hours.’

  ‘Dictated by Lois? However, now you are off the chain, what about a stroll in the moonlight?’

  Maryan giggled lightheartedly. ‘There’s no moon.’

  He looked up into the dark bowl of the sky. ‘Too bad. Then what about a stroll anyway?’

  Badly tempted, she said, ‘I’m not shod properly for walking.’

  ‘Well, go in on tiptoe, change your shoes and pick up a coat. You may need one, down on the marais.’

  Reluctantly Maryan tried again, though not very hard. ‘Madame Barbe will be expecting you back,’ she said.

  ‘And I shall go back—all in good time,’ he retorted coolly. ‘Ninon’s parties frequently include breakfast for her guests. So are you coming or not?’

  She nodded, giving in, wanting to—When she rejoined him a few minutes later he took her back towards the house and, skirting it, went down the slope of the lawns towards the marshes. At the lowest level they followed a boundary wall to a gate-way giving on to the rough road which ran alongside the marshlands, stretch upon reedy stretch of them; studded with salt pools, white with cotton-grass, purple with sea-lavender, brown with bamboo; north and south, and westward to the far line of the coastal dunes between them and the sea. The Landes. The marais. The baffling, mazy swamps of Aquitaine. My father’s country. Through him, mine. Raoul’s ... thought Maryan with a little ache she recognised for what it was—love.

  Outside the gate she paused to look back at the house. ‘Was it from here that the engraving was done?’ she asked.

  ‘I think not. From the angle, I’d say further on, nearer to Feu-Follet. I’ll show you,’ Raoul promised.

  She turned back to stare out over the dark marsh. ‘I’ve only been far enough on it to gather a few flowers,’ she said. ‘Is it passable? Can one cross it on foot all the way to the coast?’

  ‘Mostly, yes, at this time of year—for anyone who knows the trodden paths and if there haven’t been freak rains. Though even this season has its hazards, in that if you don’t know the paths and get lost, you couldn’t be. seen among the tall bamboo—only heard, if you yelled loud enough. So don’t try it alone, please, unless you’re quite sure of your bearings. But come—there’s something for you to see now—perhaps.’

  She put her hand into the one he offered her to lead her on to the marsh at the far side of the road. ‘What? And why perhaps?’

  ‘Because I can’t promise it—our speciality of the region, our particular version of feu-follet; really, only spontaneous marsh-gas which I suppose you have in England too. What is the English for it?’

  ‘Literally, “wildfire”. Or “will-o’-the-wisp”. Or “jack-o’-lantern”. But I’ve never seen it in action. It’s very elusive, isn’t it?’

  Raoul nodded. ‘As you say—fickle as first love; the classic case of “Now you see it; now you don’t.” You can walk here for hours and never catch a gleam; on other nights it may look to be a long way ahead or only a pace or two away. But take a step towards it, and it’s gone from where you saw it—or could swear you did.’

  ‘But it’s not just a trick of illusion? It does happen?’

  ‘Oh, it happens. Chemically, it’s intermittent phosphorescence or something acting on decaying matter. But don’t ask me why tracking it down is about as rewarding as rekindling a dead love-affair, for I wouldn’t know.’

  By the slightest involuntary reflex Maryan’s hand turned in his as she asked, ‘What colour is the light? Red, like flame?’

  ‘It depends on your eye. Some people see it red; others, whitish or even blue. Or it may vary with the degree of darkness. Naturally it doesn’t try to compete with the moon.’

  But though they walked the paths of the marais for some time, they were tantalized by no creeping wildfire; for company they had only the blackness about them, the dry rattle of the reeds or the occasional distant cry of a wading-bird disturbed from its roost.

  As they came out on to the road again Raoul said, ‘Well, that was a fruitless errand. And of course I know what you are thinking, don’t I?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re remembering my boast—“We seek the unattainable—” and the rest.’

  Maryan laughed. ‘I wasn’t!’ she denied.

  ‘You were—and feeling insufferably smug. And so I’d better qualify—even the Leducs don’t claim to command Nature; only immovable objects in their paths, that’s all.’

  ‘Very modest of the Leducs, I’m sure,’ Maryan murmured, and realised from his laugh that her intended irony hadn’t escaped him.

  ‘As I suspected—not merely smug, but crowing! Though supposing, another night, I can persuade Mother Nature to perform for you, what then?’ he retorted.

  Maryan smiled into the darkness, enjoying herself. ‘Do you know, I can hardly wait?’ she said.

  They walked on in silence until he halted and, a hand lightly on her back, turned her about. ‘I think this could have been our artist’s viewpoint—do you agree?’ he asked.

  They had stopped just short of the boundary fence of the Feu-Follet plantation, and when they turned, its dark ranking of young pine saplings was behind them. Maryan looked across the lawns to the house for a second time, then said, ‘No.’

  ‘No? Why not?’

  ‘Because the foreground to the engraving was all marsh—’

  ‘Where there’s a road now—this one?’ He stamped a heel and nodded. ‘Astute of you. Full marks for observation; none for facts you couldn’t know—namely, that there was no road here then, and that until a few years ago the whole area of Feu-Follet was marshland too. So that anywhere within a pretty wide arc of here, our engraver would have had marsh for his foreground at that date.’

  Maryan said quickly, ‘But I did know that—that Feu-Follet was derelict at that time——’

  ‘You did? How?’ He sounded surprised by knowledge she had had for almost as long as she could remember, but which he had also given her an hour or so ago.

  ‘You said so, when we were looking at the engraving,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Oh—yes. Well, that’s how it was. In the late eighteenth century there was this character named Chambrelent who set about reclaiming the marais. First of all he planted sea-pines to arrest the shift of the coastal sand-dunes, and then reafforested the rest with corks and oaks and chestnuts and more pines. The Leduc lands got the treatment, but by some freak doubt of ownership, the Feu-Follet strip didn’t, until I got it sorted out after my father died, and went ahead.’

  Later Maryan was to wonder why she hadn’t gone on from there to tell him why and how she could be said to have cut her milk-teeth on the history of Monsieur Chambrelent’s reafforestation of the Landes; why it hadn’t been the natural thing to do, to confide to him the story of her father’s claim which had proved to have no substance in fact. Thinking back, she was only going to remember that as they began to retrace their steps, Raoul changed the subject and what remained of the evening gave her no chance...

  Raoul’s casual question surprised her. ‘This greybeard English chief of yours, what is he like?’

  ‘Arnold Maddern? He is—well, he’s not a greybeard. He’s not old.’

  ‘But he’s a Professor of something or other?’

  ‘Of Sociology, yes. He specialises in social history. But he is quite young.’

  ‘How old, then? Married?’

  Maryan considered her chief—earnest, dedicated, mild; charitably deducted a year or two from his outward appearance to tell Raoul, ‘Probably about your own age. Not married,’ adding, ‘But you may meet him. He means to come over, some time while I am
here.’

  ‘To see you? Why, what are you to him?’

  ‘Personally? Why, nothing. I’m one of his two secretaries. I told you, because of my French, he released me for this research, and he’ll be coming to check what I’m doing, just as he’ll check on the rest of the team elsewhere.’

  ‘And how are you doing, so far?’

  ‘Theoretically, well enough. I’ve got a file of notes on your customs and the regional dances and the food and so on. But that’s not enough. I need to get out now and talk to people and see it all happening —whatever is. For instance—use my camera and sample the food and hear the songs being sung. The ideal would be to get them on a tape-recording. Which is where your sister could help, if she would.’

  ‘And she hasn’t shown willing yet?’

  ‘Not noticeably. She comes just so far—and retreats.’

  ‘You’ll have to keep plugging. Meanwhile, you need a good roistering fete-day to catch the happenings in action. Let’s see—what can we offer you? Yes, the midsummer folk frairie at St. Jean de Luz, I think. Three days and nights of organised frenzy. What about that? St. Jean de Luz, south of Bayonne; so near to the border that you get a Spanish flavour thrown in. I’d escort you by car. Is it a date?’

  ‘It sounds just— But I oughtn’t to trouble you,’ Maryan demurred.

  ‘Nonsense. June the twenty-fifth. Put it in your diary and Lois must lift curfew for that night too, for you won’t be home till dawn. I’ll be in touch—’

  They had reached the Pavilion now. The precious, friendly evening he had given her was over. Just her thanks and their goodnights to say. Or so she thought—until her woman’s instinct sensed the purpose of the step that brought him closer ... too close; understood the small half-sigh which changed the rhythm of his breathing, even before his arms went round her and his lips found hers in a kiss which was no conventional goodnight, but an invitation so unexpected, yet so tempting, that she yielded to it with a warm, spreading shock of pleasure; asking no questions of it ... simply accepting it while it lasted.