Ward of Lucifer

by Mary Burchell

  She watched him run those strong, clever hands of his over the uneven surface. Then he caught hold of a large projecting rock and, with an effort which whitened his knuckles and almost drove the blood out under his nails, he managed to shift it. But, as he did so, there was an ominous "settling" of the rest of the mass, and he abruptly desisted.

  l Turning back to Norma, he took the light from her and put it out, at the same time putting his arm round her for reassurance.

  "We'll only use that while it's strictly necessary," he explained. "Now tell me did anyone know that you came out on to the moor this morning?"

  "Oh, yes. Richard did." And she explained about the trick she had played on Richard.

  "You silly little idiot," her guardian said, rather roughly. "Why did you want to take a damn-fool risk like that?" But he held her very close against him.

  "I thought you might be killed," Norma explained in a whisper.

  "And did you think it would make it any better if you got killed too?"

  "I had to try to save you," she said doggedly. "There was no 'had to' about it," he began. But he broke off to add: "Did anyone else know about your coming?"

  "Yes. The man at the barrier. He tried to stop me, but I managed to get past."

  "Well, at least that means that there'll be a search party out after us right away. And I think Inworth's car will be visible from the road."

  She thought "If there's anything left of it." And, from his sudden silence, she guessed that he too was wondering how much there was left of Richard's expensive sports car or if what there was of it had remained sufficiently near their hiding place to give a pointer to where they might be found.

  "It's rather a small chance, isn't it?" she said, striving to make her voice steady.

  "Not a very good one," he admitted with curt, characteristic frankness. "But, if there's anything left of the car to tell the tale, someone is bound to think of the disused shaft. Several people in the village will know about it."

  "And then they'll have to dig us out?" "Yes."

  "Do you think much has fallen?" "It's impossible to say."

  "You don't think we ought to see what we can do from this side before they come?"

  "No. We'll leave that as a last resort. We should be working literally in the dark, and are just as likely to bring down more as to dig a way out with our hands."

  "I see."

  "We'll give them a couple of hours. If they're going to find the spot, they should have found it by then."

  "And after that?"

  "After that, we'll take our chance at trying to shift that mass ourselves."

  He spoke quite cheerfully, as though there were several hopeful alternatives open to them, but she knew and she knew that he knew their chances of seeing daylight again were rather horribly small.

  "Sit down on the ground," he said. "There's no need to tire ourselves, and we may be in for a long wait."

  A long, long wait! Perhaps hours perhaps days.

  Norma felt her flesh creep as the expression "buried alive" forced itself into her shuddering consciousness.

  But she would not think of that. She would think hopefully talk hopefully. And, sitting down on the ground, she reached for her guardian's hand.

  It closed round hers firm, strong and curiously sensitive. She had not realized before how much could be conveyed by a sense of touch. When you could see someone, you didn't need to feel them. But when everything was strangely and terribly dark, how wonderfully comforting was that most primitive of all the senses!

  She drew a little against him, so that she could feel his arm against hers, and said, as though they were having quite an ordinary conversation: "I did have time to explain to Richard. About my not marrying him, I mean."

  "Did you?" Then, as though he had forced his mind to take in what she was saying. "Did he take it badly?"

  "No. He was very good about it."

  "So that everything was working out rather nicely." "I suppose so."

  "Rather silly to risk throwing so much away, wasn't it?" he said, and passed his arm round her.

  "I don't think so."

  He was silent for a few moments. And then, perhaps because it was easier to say things in the dark, he said slowly: "I'm sorry you didn't have time to let Paul know how things stood. I'm afraid I spoilt all .that for you, Norma. It's stupid and inadequate to start talking about being sorry now but there it is."

  "You don't need to say it," Norma told him, and she lightly stroked the hand she was holding.

  "Don't I?" He put his cheek against her hair. "And yet I can't even plead ignorance, you know. I knew it was going to be Paul, right in the very beginning. But I wanted you to marry Inworth, and I thought that if I very quickly put an end to the connection with Paul, perhaps I could stop the mischief and marry you quite happily to Inworth."

  She shut her eyes, pretending to herself that she only had to open them and she would see that infinitely dear, clever, cynical face.

  "Were you so sure that I had fallen in love with Paul?"

  "Yes," he said slowly. "I can't tell you why I was so sure, even that very first evening. I don't think you

  knew it yourself then. I was annoyed and disturbed when you told me about his giving you a lift from the station, and then the telephone call alarmed me further. But I don't know what it was about you, Norma by the time you went to bed that night, you looked like a girl who had fallen in love. I never believed before that that sort of thing happened. But there it was, happening in front of me. It's true, isn't it?"

  "That I had fallen in love that very first evening?" "Um-hm."

  "Yes. It was true. But it wasn't with Paul, you know. It was with you."

  "Norma! What are you saying?"

  "The truth," Norma said slowly. "There isn't much chance of our getting out of here, is there? We're oddly near death, you and I. And there are some things so much more important than death. This is one of them the bond between you and me."

  "Good God," she heard him say softly, "and I thought you a child!"

  "You mean you never thought of me that way?"

  "No," he said, rather grimly. "I don't mean that at all." And then, with sudden sharpness: "Why are you saying this to me now? Did you guess this morning" "What should I have guessed?" she said gently.

  He didn't answer her, and presently she went on: "It was last night that you knew you loved me, wasn't it? And this morning, it was because you loved me that you told me to write to Paul and, as you thought, make things right with him?"

  "How did you know?" He spoke in a strangely low voice.

  "I suppose when you love someone with your whole heart and mind, as I love you, it isn't so difficult to guess their thoughts."

  "Darling, I don't seem to have guessed yours very well," he said. "Is it the truth? the real truth?

  God, how I wish I could see your face!" he exclaimed impatiently.

  "It doesn't matter. You can feel me," she said quite simply. "Just as I can feel you. It means much more than I could possibly have believed."

  He laughed tenderly, and she felt his hand caress the round curve of her cheek and chin.

  "Yes I can feel you," he said slowly. "How round and innocent your face is. And I can imagine your great dark eyes"

  "They're shut," she told him. "So that I can pretend to myself that, if I opened them, I could see your face."

  "Open them," he commanded, and she heard the small, scraping sound of his lighter. And she opened her eyes, and he was there. But she had never seen that expression of wondering tenderness on his face before, and she gave a smothered little exclamation.

  Then the light went out, and he took her in his arms and kissed her on her lips and her cheeks and her hair.

  "I'm glad I saw you look like that once," she whispered. "Now I don't mind so much if"

  "Darling, what in heaven's name makes you love me like this?" he said, almost despairingly. "I'm not a good man, I haven't even been very kind to you, except in materia
l things, which I could well afford.

  I'm cold and rather calculating, where you are sweet and warm and vivid and impulsive. And I suppose I'm years too old for you."

  She laughed, and put her arms round his neck.

  "I can't answer all that. It's quite logical and it's quite true, in theory. Only it has no real meaning.

  You are my love, and I can't argue about it. When I first saw you, you seemed to me quite apart from other people. I was glad I'd told those people in the train that Lucifer meant 'the shining one,' because you were that to me. And then you were so sweet to me about Aunt Janet and about saying that you hoped I'd never feel unwanted again. I never have felt unwanted since I came into Bishopstone"

  "Not even when you knew I was scheming to marry you off to Inworth?" he interrupted dryly.

  "No. I knew at least, I nearly always knew that you loved me even then. Reluctantly perhaps, but you loved me." He acknowledged the acid truth of that with a soft laugh. "Only you thought you wanted Munley more than anything else. And, when you finally gave in, it wasn't because you'd stopped wanting Munley.

  It was just that you loved me more, wasn't it? It was then that I knew how much you loved me. More than your life's ambition."

  "And by then I thought I'd lost you," he said, and put his lips against her cheek.

  He knew, from the way the line of her cheek altered, that she was smiling.

  "Why didn't you start scheming to get me for yourself," she asked softly and a little teasingly.

  "Do you really want to know?" "Yes."

  "Because I'd made the astounding discovery that I cared more about your happiness than about mine. You don't know how revolutionary that was, Norma." He laughed, just a little grimly. "I'm a coldly selfish creature usually"

  "Oh, no!"

  "Oh, yes." He mimicked her tone, though she knew he was smiling too. "You'd better learn what sort of man you're marrying "

  He stopped suddenly, and they were both completely silent. For, now that he had put it into words, they both felt the icy chill of reality strike across the radiance of their idle dreams. Who were they to speak of a future? Very probably they had no future.

  With a convulsive little movement, she buried her face against him and was still, except for a slight trembling which she could not quite control.

  "Darling, try not to be afraid," he said gently at last. "It's quite possible"

  "I know, I know. I'm not really m-much afraid. At least, not when you hold me. Only, it's so dark it's so dark!"

  "Hush!" he said. And, to her surprise, he didn't say it tenderly, but harshly and urgently.

  "I'm sorry, but"

  "Hush!" he said again. And she realized suddenly that he meant literally that she was to be quiet, because it was vitally necessary that there should be silence.

  His grip tightened on her with painful intensity, and there was no sound except their light, quick breathing and the beating of their hearts.

  And then muffled but unmistakable, on the other side of that hideous barrier which stood between them and life came an urgent, questioning: "Hallooo."

  With one accord, they cupped their hands to their mouths and hallooed in return.

  Silence.

  And then, repeated on that note of urgent questioning, the call from the outside world again.

  Desperately they replied, with all the strength they had. And the answering call had a note of joyous comprehension in it.

  "They've found us," Norma gasped. "They've found us!" And suddenly she began to cry passionately.

  "Don't, darling," her guardian said, "or I think I shall too."

  And when she gave a gasping little laugh through her tears, he snatched her up and kissed her hard once or twice.

  Then ho held her against him, while they stood there together, listening to the sounds now increasingly audible that showed frantic efforts were being made to release them.

  "It doesn't make any difference, about our escaping, after all, does it?" she whispered urgently once. "I mean, everything we said still counts. You

  didn't just say sweet things, because you thought you were comforting a d-dying person or anything?"

  "Do you mean do I really love you?" he asked. "Y-yes. That's just what I mean."

  "Good God, beloved, I love you with every bit of my rather unworthy, unsuitable self. And, if we ever get out of this hell alive, I'll put everything I have at your feet, for the sake of one smile and your word that you forgive me," he told her.

  "Oh, darling, I'm glad I was here with you," she exclaimed ridiculously. "I couldn't have borne to be outside while they tried to rescue you."

  "You little idiot," he said fondly. And at that moment the first clear, blessed ray of light pierced the d Firkn GSS "Oh, dear God," Norma said softly and reverently.

  "What a beautiful thing light is! I'll never, never take it for granted again."

  It was, to her, the great moment of the rescue.

  There was, of course, the wonderful sound of voices actually speaking to them the realization that the barrier was clearing the moment when there was sufficient room for them to creep out into the open again, amid the exclamations and cheers of a group of whom Richard was the centre. But to Norma, that moment when the first beam of light shone into a world of blackness remained always the final miracle.

  "Oh, heaven be praised!" Richard was saying, confusedly but fervently. And, without caring who saw, he took Norma in his arms and kissed her.

  "Oh, Richard, dear, thank you." She returned his kiss very earnestly. "Please forgive me for playing that shabby trick, and is you car destroyed?"

  "It doesn't matter," Richard said, from his heart.

  "There was enough of it left to show where you were. That's all that matters."

  Then he turned and shook hands with Justin Yorke, and Norma heard her guardian say: "Thank you for saving the most precious thing I have."

  Richard looked faintly puzzled, for a moment. Then he evidently concluded that this was an obscure way of referring to Justin Yorke having his own rather unworthy life saved, and he turned his attention to seeing that Norma was bundled into a waiting car, and rapidly driven home to Bishopstone.

  Norma wanted to say that she must have her guardian with her, but he was already being accommodated in another car, and perhaps she owed Richard her company in the first few minutes after the rescue.

  "Gosh, Norma! That must have been a pretty bad half-hour for you both before we located you," Richard exclaimed, as they drove along.

  "Was it only half an hour?" Norma was incredulous. "Not much more. Seemed like a couple of hours, I suppose?"

  "It seemed like all the time in the world," Norma said slowly. "And yet too short for what we had to say."

  "Good lord! Did you have much to say? I should have thought a few horrified exclamations would have covered it."

  She laughed a little. And then she said gently: "Richard, don't mind too badly. It's" she hesitated over the name "it's Justin that I love. And he loves me too. He's going to marry me."

  "But good lord!" exclaimed Richard again. "He's your guardian."

  "Yes. I know. I've loved him almost from the beginning, only it took me a little while to realize it."

  "He's too old for you, Norma. He's well, he must be somewhere in the middle thirties and you're a kid. Besides, he hasn't got a drop of red blood in him or a warm-hearted impulse, come to that. I don't want to start running him down," Richard said earnestly and a little late, "but Norma dear, he's not human enough for you. This isn't nasty envy, you know. I just don't think he's the right chap for you. Anyway, I thought it was Cantlin."

  "So did Justin." Norma smiled faintly. "Perhaps I even thought it myself for a little while, when he had the attraction of forbidden fruit. But he's just a terribly nice friend. Like you," she added hastily.

  "Does he know he's just a terribly nice friend, like me?" inquired Richard, with unwonted irony.

  "II think so. There was nothing serious ever said
between us and he has many other interests, you know," she explained earnestly. "And we didn't see each other very often."

  ("Justin took care of that!" she thought, but reframed from saying so.)

  "Well, it's not my business," said Richard, promptly making it so. "But I must say I think Yorke took an unfair advantage of well, the drama of the situation.

  A man hasn't a right to start making love to a girl when she's more or less buried alive and her emotions all strung up."

  "It wasn't quite like that," Norma said, and began to laugh a little hysterically.

  "All right. I say, I'm sorry!" Richard looked concerned. "I ought to have said that. What's the matter, Norma?"

  "Only that it was I who took advantage of the situation," Norma said with a little gasp. And then, as Richard continued to look puzzled" It doesn't matter. I couldn't possibly explain."

  And with that Richard had to be satisfied.

  Once at Bishopstone, she was sternly taken over by Mrs. Parry and rushed off to bed, as a probable "shock" patient.

  Norma gathered that, if she were not suffering from shock, she should be. And, as she realized how easily she could both have laughed idiotically and cried copiously, she thought perhaps Mrs. Parry was right.

  Anyway, it was nice to lie in bed, and accept the sedative which a very serious-faced doctor prescribed, and then to drift off to sleep on the exquisite thought that Justin loved her.

  It was late afternoon when she woke, and for a few moments she could only think how comfortable she was, and how strange that her guardian should be standing by the window, looking out, with an air of sombre thoughtfulness.

  Then she remembered that he was not only her guardian. He was her love and most bitterly anxious about her.

  "Darling," she said quietly, because his Christian name still seemed strange to her.

  He turned immediately and came over to the bed. "Well, my dearest?" He bent over her.

  "I'm all right now," she told him. "Can I get up to dinner?"

  He stroked back her dark hair and smiled. "If you really feel all right."