Over the Blue Mountains (18 page)

“Could be.”

“There is no air anywhere.” She held out her bare arm, on which a faint film of moisture gleamed. And, as she did so, she felt the first slight stirring of a breeze against it. “Oh, yes! There’s a tiny wind at last. Can you feel it?”

“Yes, I felt it.” But he raised his face to it, not his hand, and he drew in a long breath, which flattened his nostrils.

At something in his tone she turned and looked at him. She thought how deeply the strong lines of his face were etched, and how grim he was looking. Then he said quietly, almost conversationally, “Do you smell anything?”

She drew in a deep breath in her turn.

“N-no. I don’t think so.”

“No—you might not. It’s only the first breath of it. But there’s a fire somewhere, Juliet.”

In spite of the fact that she could neither see nor smell anything herself, Juliet experienced a curious chill at those words. Not a pleasant chill—though three minutes ago she would have welcomed any chill as pleasant—but a clammy sensation in the region of her spine.

And with this went a sudden immense alertness, a wakeful quivering of every nerve, so that all at once she was like a sensitive receiving set tuned in to a powerful station.

Juliet had no idea that what she was experiencing for the first time in her life was animal fear. That extraordinary elemental fear that only the elements can rouse.

All she knew was that somewhere out beyond that hill—and now confirmed to even her inexperienced senses by the faint smell of burning borne on the increasing wind—was something far more immense and cruel and powerful than anything she had ever experienced before.

“Max—” She turned to him. And as she did so the shrill sound of the telephone ripped through the silence of the house behind them.

“It’s the alarm, I expect.” He put her aside almost roughly and went into the house.

She ran after him, and at the same time—as though sensing that this was a telephone call that superseded all others—the rest of the family came running from various parts of the house.

It was Max who reached the telephone first.

“Yes,” they heard him say. “Yes. We’d just begun to smell it ourselves. All right. I’ll be along.”

Then he put down the receiver and spoke, it seemed to Juliet, directly to her.

“They’re alerting all the villages around and calling for volunteer fire beaters. There’s a fire started out beyond Melwood and it’s moving this way.”

CHAPTER TEN

“Bang goes our nice quiet weekend,” Elmer Lawson said in a tone of studied casualness. “Come on, Ormathon. I suppose you and I join the volunteers at this point.”

“Of course.”

“Oh, must you go?” That was Verity, and the sharp note of fear and protest had something in it that Juliet had never heard in her voice before—deep and painful concern for someone other than herself.

She loves Max,
thought Juliet, in a moment of blinding revelation.
She really loves him.
And an indescribable depression, which had nothing to do with the fire, settled on her.

“I’m coming, too!” Andrew announced, with a touch of blitheness in adventure that revealed him for the schoolboy he really still was.

“No!” Aunt Katherine exclaimed sharply.

And Max said more quietly, but with authority, “No, Andrew. You are needed here.”

“Why me?” grumbled Andrew. “Why not one of you chaps?”

“Yes,” Verity agreed eagerly. “Why not—one of you?”

“Because Elmer and I shall be more use actually at the fire. There’s no need to anticipate any immediate danger here, but your father and Andrew together can handle any possible threat that might develop.”

Max took command quite naturally and, in spite of a few grumbles and protests, no one seriously questioned his decisions.

Just before he and Elmer left the house he took Juliet aside.

“Now, remember—you are all under your uncle’s orders. He isn’t in a condition to be very active and that’s why I’m leaving Andrew, but he is perfectly capable of judging the situation and telling you what you all have to do.”

“Max, is there any real ... danger here?” The whole thing seemed somehow fantastic—like a scene one witnessed on the stage but in which one took no part.

“Probably not. But a change of wind or a stroke of bad luck can change a threat into a disaster. Keep either in the house or close to it and see that the others do the same. You’ll receive warning by telephone if there is any need to move out.”

“To move out?” she repeated incredulously. “Leaving... all this, you mean?” Her helpless little gesture seemed to embrace the whole house that she had struggled to make so nice, the curtains she had made, the furniture she had arranged, the personal belongings that they all cherished.

“It isn’t at all likely to be necessary.” His voice softened in concession to her distress. “But don’t attempt to disobey any order of the sort if it should come. In the final event, one’s life is the most precious of all one’s possessions,” Max reminded her grimly.

“I’ll remember. And, Max—” she went a little pale suddenly and her hand was on his arm “—please remember that, too.”

“I will, dear. Don’t worry.”

He patted the fingers that rested on his arm and, indescribably comforted by the “dear,” she let him go.

Already cars and an occasional motorcycle were flashing past along the road in front, and Max and Elmer, in Elmer’s low-slung sports car, joined the stream. Verity came and joined Juliet as she stood on the veranda watching, and presently she said, in bitterness and distress, “I don’t know why
he
had to go!”

“Why, Verity—” real sympathy struggled with her acute awareness of why Max had had to go “—I suppose every woman could say that about her man. And if they all stayed away the fire would burn where and what it chose.”

“But he doesn’t even
belong
here. It isn’t
his
home town.” That was true, of course, but a specious argument, which would hardly have appealed to Max, or any other man worth his salt.

“I don’t think you could expect him to look at it that way,” Juliet said mildly.

“Oh, I know, I know. And I suppose I wouldn’t love him if he thought differently,” was the astonishing thing that Verity muttered as she turned away.

The frank avowal that she did love him was no more astonishing than the admission that she loved him because he insisted on doing what was right. And in that moment Juliet realized that, under all the selfishness and possessiveness and unkindness of which her cousin was capable, Verity did know—and presumably even cared—what was right and what was wrong.

I can’t ever quite dislike her again,
thought Juliet.
And, in any case, there is the terrible bond of our both being horribly worried about Max. Oh, Max, Max!
And suddenly her heart cried out for him at last, and she was astonished and dismayed by the strength of her feelings.

“Girls, why don’t you come in and have tea?” demanded Aunt Katherine’s voice from within the house. “One must eat and drink, even if there is a bushfire. Particularly one must drink. I’m terribly thirsty in this thick and ghastly heat.”

Recognizing this as her cue, Juliet went indoors and busied herself with the making of tea. Penelope joined her in the kitchen and, on impulse and prompted by the knowledge that the younger girl knew so much more of these things than she did herself, she said, “Penelope, will they be in real danger—Max and Elmer Lawson? What does
one do
exactly at a bushfire?”

“They won’t necessarily be in any danger, Juliet.” Penelope gave her an odd glance of understanding, but Juliet was looking away and did not see. “There will be fire-fighting apparatus from several villages around, and the men who actually operate it. Maybe, if the fire’s widespread and the country open, lines of men with wet sacks will help to beat out the flames in the grass. The real danger is from burning trees falling, or from the wind changing suddenly and sweeping around to encircle them. But there’s no need to expect anything like that.”

“But Verity seems so anxious!”

“I know. I noticed that.”

“She must be really in love with Max, Penelope.” Juliet recalled the previous conversation about her with something like compunction. “We were wrong when we thought otherwise.”

“Perhaps,” Penelope said, and carried the tray of tea things into the other room.

It was difficult to settle to anything. Even during tea Juliet noticed that her uncle got up two or three times and, going to the window, stared out frowningly toward the hill, which seemed even more sharply outlined against the sky now.

“What is it, uncle?” she asked quickly, seeing him shake his head as he came back from one of these excursions.

“Don’t like the look of it, that’s all,” her uncle replied rather disagreeably. “The smoke is beginning to drift over the hill.”

“Does that mean—”

“Don’t ask silly questions, Juliet. It could mean almost anything. But they must be having a tough fight for it where the fire really is,” Uncle Edmund admitted grudgingly.

Verity pushed back her chair sharply and, getting up, went out of the room.

“Oh, dear, can’t we talk about something more cheerful?” Aunt Katherine demanded.

But no one seemed to find this a good idea.

As the evening wore on, an increasing pall of smoke seemed to hang like a physical menace over the summit of the hill, and the light began to go earlier than usual. But, as the natural evening light faded, the sullen glare in the sky behind the hill seemed to brighten.

Neither Penelope nor Andrew showed any disposition to go to bed at the usual time. They sat instead on the back veranda watching to see whether the glow of the fire increased or died down. In consequence, they missed the sound of the first ambulance that rushed past the front of the house on the way into Borralung.

Verity, however, was on her feet immediately.

“Someone has been hurt!” she exclaimed distractedly. “There was the sound of an ambulance taking a casualty in to the hospital. Oh, why did I let him go?”

“You couldn’t help it,” Juliet said rather stupidly. Then she felt how comfortless that must have sounded, and she added gently, “Don’t be so frightened, Verity. It’s many chances to one that it wasn’t ... Max.”

Verity passed her hand over her eyes and then pushed back her hair wearily. She stared at Juliet as though she had not really understood or heard what she said. Then she murmured, “Yes, of course—of course, you’re right.”

Andrew and Penelope came in from the back at that moment.

“They’ve got it under control, I should say,” Andrew announced. “The smell of burning is still terrific, but the glow is definitely dying out of the sky. Is there anything to eat, Juliet? Relief always makes me ravenous.”

“Yes, of course.” Juliet hurried to get something for them all because none of them had felt much like eating anything for hours.

At the same time, her uncle came out from his room where he had been making his own observations.

“The worst is over, I think. What about some supper?”

“The worst isn’t over until we know who has been hurt,” Verity exclaimed bitterly. “There goes another ambulance!”

And, sure enough, there was the sound of another ambulance passing.

“We must find out!” Verity ran out into the hall and, dragging open the screen door, hurried down the steps and along the path to the gate.

“I don’t know what Verity thinks she can do,” said Andrew indulgently. “They won’t stop for her.”

“One of the returning cars might,” Penelope suggested.

“They won’t see her in this light.”

“She’ll stop them somehow. You know how determined Verity can be when she’s set on anything. Listen—there’s a car coming now. I bet you she stops the driver,” Penelope said.

Instinctively they listened, but there was no slackening of the car’s speed. Instead, suddenly there was a scream of brakes jammed on too late, a confused shouting, and the car ground to a standstill in what seemed like deathly silence.

“What was that?” exclaimed Aunt Katherine, characteristically holding off an unpleasant certainty that had already made itself abundantly, horribly clear to the others.

“It sounded like an accident,” Juliet said grimly, and was out of the room and out of the house in a flash.

An unknown man was already coming up the path toward her, carrying the limp figure of Verity.

For no explicable reason, the realization of her own, near admitted feelings for Max smote Juliet with full and guilty knowledge in that moment. As she looked at her silent cousin she felt as though her unconfessed passion had, in some strange and terrible way, annihilated her rival. And it was in a flat, hoarse and almost expressionless tone that she jerked out the words, “Is she dead?”

“No, no!” The strange man repudiated the idea with shocked impatience. “Though it’d be only her own fault if she were. Rushed straight out in front of my car like a mad thing. God! What a day!”

Juliet saw then that he was utterly weary and grimy with smoke and she was glad that Andrew, coming out behind her, helped to carry Verity into the house.

Aunt Katherine exclaimed distractedly at the sight of her unconscious daughter, but immediately took charge in an unexpectedly efficient way.

“I couldn’t help it, ma’am.” The man seemed to feel that he ought to make his excuses afresh to Aunt Katherine. “She rushed out without a word of warning. I don’t know what she thought she was doing.”

“She wanted to stop you,” Juliet explained. “She was anxious about her fiancé. He was at the fire, and we heard the ambulances go by. Do you know who was hurt from Borralung?”

“Both the Merediths—father and son, but not badly. Then a new chap called Elian or Eland or something—rather more seriously.”

“Martin!” Until that moment she had not given a thought to Martin. She had not visualized him at the fire or even inquired in her own mind where he might be. And now ... “Was he badly hurt?” she asked shakily.

“I don’t really know. But more seriously than the other two. She’s coming around, ma’am,” he said as Verity stirred and uttered a moan.

“Yes. I think her arm is broken and there’s a nasty bruise on her forehead. But I doubt if it’s more. Penelope, find some doctor in the directory and call him up,” Aunt Katherine directed sharply.

“Martin—” Penelope began. But there was a peremptory gesture from her mother and she went out into the hall to the telephone.

At the same time, Verity opened her eyes and looked around rather wildly.

“It’s all right.” Juliet bent over her and spoke distinctly. “Max is perfectly safe.”

“Max?” Verity stared uncomprehendingly at her for a moment. Then her gaze focused full on Juliet. “Both of them—are they both all right?”

“Yes. The casualties were two people called Meredith and poor Martin. But we hope it isn’t too serious with any of them.”

“You’re sure?”

Juliet looked at the man, who nodded briefly and said, “Quite sure.”

“Thank you,” Verity said unexpectedly, and then the tears poured down her cheeks and refused to be stemmed.

“Now Verity!” her mother said admonishingly, but there was little to be done with her until the doctor came.

Fortunately Penelope had managed to get hold of a doctor who lived reasonably near and he promised to be with them in ten minutes. Meanwhile, Juliet gave coffee and sandwiches to the exhausted man who had brought Verity in, and from him they learned that the fire had indeed been brought under control.

“Nearly beat us once,” he declared, as he thankfully wolfed Juliet’s sandwiches. “But the danger’s over now. Until the next one,” he added, with grim cheerfulness.