A Christmas Escape (8 page)

“Charles,” Finbar said very quietly, “you know as well as I do that Stefano puts on a front for all of our comfort. Maybe it won't blow, but maybe it will. I've heard it rumbling all night. The strength of it is building. I only ask you to promise me that if anything happens to me, you will not let Candace stay and try to help me, and get burned to death or crushed.” He gave a very slight smile. “Perhaps the volcano is only complaining in its sleep, and it will all be quiet again in a few hours. We will stay here over Christmas, and then Bailey and poor Isla will go back to some nice home that he has chosen, and she hates. Bretherton will go back to his home, and try to forget her, and of course he will fail. Quinn will continue to pretend to be writing another book, which of course he will not do, because he did not write the first one.”

“What do you mean, ‘he did not write the first one'?” Charles asked, shocked.

Finbar shook his head. “He took the credit, but the passion is someone else's,” he replied.

“Who else?” Charles was disturbed by the thought. “You mean someone else told him the stories?”

“Probably something like that.” Finbar dismissed the subject. “All I meant was that life will go back to normal. You will return to London and whatever it is you do, Candace and I will go back to our lives. Stefano will have new guests. The mountain will go back to sleep again.”

It sounded terribly final, and in a way like a kind of failure, something attempted and not achieved, searched for and not found.

“Of course I will look after her if anything happens,” Charles said, hearing his own voice as if it belonged to a stranger. “And you,” he added. “They say Stromboli is always erupting, but that it is never serious.”

“I hope so,” Finbar agreed. He held out his hand, offering it to Charles.

Charles took a deep breath, and then clasped it. It was the making of an agreement, the sealing of a promise, and he knew it. But surely it would never be needed? The mountain would go back to its habitual silence. Finbar would benefit from his holiday, and this would all be a memory. But the gesture was a kindness at six o'clock on a winter morning, after a disturbed night.

Finbar rose to his feet a little stiffly and Charles stood as well, as courtesy required.

“Thank you,” Finbar said softly. “I will see you at breakfast.”

B
reakfast was unusually subdued. Stefano came out of the kitchen with his usual smile, but he spoke very little, and it was only about the food. Did everyone have sufficient? Was the bread to their taste? And the goat cheese and the ham? Everyone agreed that it was, and thanked him.

Isla drew in breath once and began to ask how everybody was, then stopped halfway through. It seemed they had all heard the mountain in the night. Comments were begun, and then abandoned. No one wished to put voice to what might happen next, until Walker-Bailey said what they had all been thinking.

“Bit of a surprise, isn't it?” he said to Charles. “Wasn't expecting so much noise in the night. Closer to the damn thing than I realized. Still, this house has been here for generations, possibly centuries. I daresay it gets the occasional scar, but nothing serious. I suggest no one climbs today.”

“I'm sure no one was going to,” Quinn said to him, then took the last piece of bread out of the basket. He reached for the jam.

Just as he pushed the spoon into it, there was a deafening crash and then a roar that seemed to fill the air. He dropped the spoon on the cloth and went sheet white.

“God Almighty!” Bailey said in a high voice.

Isla opened her mouth but made no sound at all.

“Everybody, keep calm,” Bretherton ordered, as if he were in charge of a military platoon under fire.

Candace took Finbar's hand, but she did not move. Perhaps beside him was the safest place she could imagine.

There was another roar and red light filled the room, although it was long past the blazing winter sunrise. It remained for seconds…nine or ten…although it seemed like an age. Finally it died and there was only a distant grumbling.

“Thank God!” Quinn said, letting out his breath.

There was the sound of an explosion, perhaps a hundred yards away, loud as a blast of dynamite.

“Bombs!” Charles cried out. “Under the table!”

“Bombs under the table?” Quinn said incredulously. “Have you lost your wits, man?”

“Lava bombs!” Charles shouted at him. “From the volcano…Get under the table. It'll protect you at least a bit, if the ceiling comes in.”

“Don't be absurd!” Quinn retaliated.

Bretherton took Isla by the hand and pulled her off her seat. “Do as Latterly says!” he ordered. “There'll be more.” And as she all but fell onto the floor on her hands and knees, there was another crash of exploding lava bombs not more than fifty yards away.

Candace pulled Finbar off his seat, and both of them scrambled under the table as well.

There was another great roar of sound, drowning everything else, and then a tremendous crash as if part of the earth had been torn open. Red light filled the room again.

Now everyone was under the table. It had seemed quite large when they sat around it, but with their entire bodies cramped between the four legs they were tangled with one another in a forced intimacy all of them would have preferred not to know. Charles was closest to Candace and Finbar, but Bretherton's foot was next to his thigh, and he had to double up uncomfortably to avoid his own feet poking Isla Bailey. Walker-Bailey was so averse to the whole idea that only his head and chest were actually under the table, his legs extended completely into the room. Quinn was bent forward, knees drawn up to his chest.

Only Stefano was missing, and that worried Charles. He, of all of them, was the one man who understood the dangers of flying rocks and the explosive nature of the gases inside the lava.

“This is absurd!” Walker-Bailey said angrily. “I didn't come here to spend my Christmas crouching under a table with a bunch of strangers.”

“Well, if you wanted to do it with friends you should have brought them with you!” Bretherton told him.

“You could always leave,” Candace suggested hopefully.

But it was Charles who backed out carefully, trying not to crack his head on the table frame. “I'm going to find Stefano,” he told them.

“What on earth do you imagine he can do about it?” Quinn asked derisively. “It's the volcano, man! Not even God can stop the bloody thing!”

“I'm not expecting him to do anything about it,” Charles snapped back at him. “I want to make sure he's all right! He might be hurt somewhere, and needing help, while we're all crushed under here in safety.” He stood up, looking around him. Nothing appeared to be damaged, but through the window facing the mountain he could see the sky was sullen red. There was a lot of smoke constantly billowing, changing shape as more ash was added to it. He could smell it in the air, acrid, stinging his eyes.

“What's happening?” Quinn demanded.

“A lot of ash and dust,” Charles replied. “I can't see anything broken.”

“Good. False alarm.” Quinn unfolded himself clumsily and stood up, too, and the moment after Walker-Bailey came out also.

Charles walked over to the door and pulled it open.

Outside was less awful than he had feared. There was a fine film of either dust or ash over everything, and the smell of burned grass, but no damage to the structure of the building that he could see.

He walked a little farther, calling out Stefano's name. It was another twenty yards before he heard an answer, and finally came across Stefano standing in front of the chicken coop with a hammer in one hand and nails in the other.

“You should be inside, Signor Latterly,” he said reprovingly. “It isn't finished yet.” He glanced beyond Charles at the mountain, now half hidden by enormous plumes of smoke and ash towering into the sky.

“You think there'll be more?” Charles asked him.

Stefano frowned. “I have no reason, I just feel it. Maybe the smell of it is different, I don't know. But it is Stromboli; it will never completely finish, nor will it blow the whole island up, like Vesuvius. Not even as bad as Etna. But one thing above all, it will keep no rules. It will do as it pleases. No warning. At least none that we understand. And I have been here, my family, for centuries. But I do not trust the old devil. It will quiet soon, then we will go down to the sea…for a while. Safer there.”

Almost as he finished speaking they were deafened by a crack like thunder from near the top of the mountain, and a great gout of fire shot high into the air. It must have been a thousand pieces of molten rock—ten thousand—but it looked like a sheet of fire arced into the sky, brilliant in color even through the smoke. Then it began to fall like burning rain, but far away on the southern side, so they did not see it land.

Stefano shook his head. “Go back inside, Mr. Latterly,” he said gravely.

Charles did not move. “What are you doing with the chickens?”

Stefano sighed. “I think I let them go. Best they look after themselves.” He put the nails back into the loose pocket of his trousers. “If I shut them in, and it comes this way, they burn. Or they get bad fright and hurt themselves trying to get out.” Then he spoke to the chickens, in Italian, as if they would understand what he said. He propped the coop door open and, blinking a little, put his hand on Charles's arm and led him back toward the house.

“We go into the cellar now. Is safer there. When it is quieter, we all go down the mountain toward the sea. Stromboli never rain fire that far. Even the worst lava stop when it reach the water. Come. I have food prepared. And water. It take us a little while to get that far.”

Obediently Charles went with him. He realized for the first time that Stefano was frightened of the mountain. It was not love he felt for it but respect, awe, and that included a knowledge of its power. He lived with it as a sailor does with the sea. Its grandeur was dangerous, compelling, and in a way it was beautiful, but only a fool took any part of it for granted. It gave life, but it also dealt death.

They were all glad to see Stefano, perhaps as much feeling relief that he was there to look after them as pleasure that he was unharmed. He shepherded them to the cellar, a deep cool place beneath the main house where a vast quantity of wine was stored.

They had gone through a hatchway down a long flight of steps, so Charles was aware that it was far under the ground. There were two entrances as a precaution against getting trapped below.

Stefano looked around at them. “Where is Mr. Bailey?” he asked.

“Late, as always,” Quinn replied before anyone else could.

“I thought he was behind us! Do you think he might be hurt?” Isla said, alarmed. “The gashes on his leg last night were quite deep.”

“It didn't stop him walking around,” Colonel Bretherton said with a scowl. “He just can't bear taking orders, even for everyone's safety.”

“I'll go and look for the damn fool,” Quinn offered. “He can't be far.”

No one argued with him. Isla shot him a look of surprise and gratitude.

Bretherton swore under his breath. “Damn fool!” he said, worry sharpening his tone. He turned to Stefano. “Do you think the mountain has stopped, and he sees no need for this?”

“No, the mountain has not stopped,” Stefano answered without hesitation. “It is building up. I think it will be quite…quite large.” He bit his lip with regret that he had said so much.

Finbar and Candace were sitting together. The guests could all see each other, but only dimly, by the light of two lanterns Stefano kept in the cellar for searching the wine racks, and doing the occasional sweeping and tidying necessary. There were additional candle supplies, he assured them.

“Good God!” Bretherton exclaimed. “How long do you think we are going to be down here?”