Thunder On The Right (19 page)

She turned and began to walk, leaden-footed now, down the slope toward the convent gate.

"And Gillian wants to go."

"It would seem so."

"She—she might have told me."

He said nothing.

"Do you suppose she's somehow mixed up with his criminal affairs, too? And that's why she didn't tell me, and wouldn't recognize me?"

"Hardly, Jenny. She'd have written to stop you coming, if that had been the case."

There was a pause. "It doesn't get any clearer, does it?" she said.

"Not much. No."

Somewhere away to the southeast, the thunder murmured. She looked up. "Thunder on the right. . . ." Her voice was not quite her own. "The happy ending, Stephen. It seems that all the drama's been for nothing, after all. The heroine doesn't want to be rescued. There's nothing more to do."

"Oh, yes there is. Plenty." His voice had quickened. "We can't just leave it at that, Jenny. There's too much that's unexplained about Gillian's part in this. Damn it, darling, there's one thing, from first to last, that's been sticking out like a sore thumb:
why did she write to invite you here and then not write to stop you?
She's had three weeks, and surely a letter keeping you away would be simpler than cutting you dead after you'd come?"

She put a hand to her head. "Of course! If she were involved with Bussac in his criminal activities, she'd have moved heaven and earth to stop me coming!"

"And Bussac," said Stephen grimly, "would have personally posted the letter. No, whatever the state of friend Bussac's emotions toward Gillian, I don't think we can assume anything about Gillian's for him. If Doña Francisca has a hold over Bussac, he may in his turn have one over Gillian. It would explain quite a bit if he had."

They had reached the cover of the convent wall. She stopped and faced him, speaking low.

"What can we do? Try and stop them?"

"I think we must."

"They'll have gone already."

"That's only too likely. But the sooner we get to the police, the better. They can be picked up in Spain. And there's one other—circumstance—I'd like to clear up, while we're about it."

She glanced instinctively at the convent gate.

"Her?"

"Her. Don't forget she's promised to go up there after Compline. If she finds them gone, she may follow to make sure he doesn't quit. She probably knows the way.

And I'm not sure that I like the idea of her being free to follow Gillian."

She shivered. "We'll have to stop her. We'll have to. Will the police believe us?"

He said grimly, "I'll see they do. Listen." He took her hands in his and held them hard. "It's just possible that Bus-sac mayn't be able to get away as quickly as all that.

It's a long trip and I imagine a hard one, and he may still have preparations to make.

Also, remember, Gillian fainted . . . that might put a fairly effective brake on for an hour or two."

"You think there's a chance?"

"There's always a chance. Even if the police aren't in time to stop Bussac, they might be able to follow and catch him up, if we can only get them to move straight away.

Now"— his grip tightened—"can you get straight in there and get to the telephone without being seen?"

She said tightly, "There's no telephone."

"What? Oh, my God, I suppose there's not." His voice was savage and weary. "I should have thought of that. So much for the mountains I was going to move, Jenny, my darling. All we needed was a blasted miracle, and they don't happen any more.

Well, we'll have to content ourselves with catching the she-wolf. At least there's plenty of time for me to get down to Gavamie and drag the police up to the farm by the time Compline's over."

He loosed her hands then, and lifted his own to cup her face. He said, very gently,

"Don't worry, dear. I'd stake my life Bussac won't hurt her." He bent his head as if to kiss her, but in the very act she felt him stiffen, and he lifted his head from her, turning sharply, as if listening. Then he dropped his hands and straightened up. He spoke softly, but his eyes were beginning to blaze.

"And there's my miracle, by God," he said. "Who said they didn't happen any more?"

Then she heard it, too. The swift heart-beating pulse of hoofs coming downhill from the northeast.

"Luis? Miracle?"

"Transport," said Stephen, and laughed.

There they were, the three of them, the big stallion, leading, coming down the long slope with manes flying, their chestnut coats glowing richly in the queer light. Luis'

face gleamed pale as he turned to look toward the convent. Stephen raised an arm, beckoned urgently, and began to run,
limping
, toward him. Luis, lifting a hand in reply, brought the stallion's head around. Stephen stopped at that, and waited.

"Spectacular young devil, isn't he?" he said in some amusement.

"Stephen"—Jennifer came breathlessly behind him—"what are you going to do?"

"Borrow a horse, my darling."

"But Luis tried to kill us."

"What? Oh, that. No, Jenny, that was Bussac. Didn't you see his mule? It was sweating. He'd just got in. He must have seen you running out of the convent to meet me, and taken an impulsive chance on shutting you up or frightening you away. He got a bad start when we turned up at his cottage within the hour. . . . Don't you worry about Luis. He's a friend of mine."

"Not of mine. He was horribly rude, and he looked as if he hated me."

He grinned briefly. "You must have been probing a bit near the bone. Had you been asking questions about the convent?"

"I suppose I had. What's that to do with Luis?"

"The whole world. Celeste."

Before she could do more than blink at this intelligence, the horses were on them, the big stallion coming to a sweating, plunging halt not four yards away. Before it had stopped, Stephen was at its head.

"Luis,
mon ami
------"

"M'sieur?"

"Listen, Luis, I can't explain, there's no time. But I've got to get to Gavarnie, and quickly. Will you let me have Foix?"

The young man sat like a rock, looking down at Stephen, his dark eyes inscrutable under their long lashes. The stallion jerked his head viciously, but Stephen's hand dragged him down and held him hard.

"
Eh bien
, Luis?"

"It is nothing to do with me—or—mine?"

The hazel eyes met his steadily. "Nothing."

Luis nodded. "Then I lend him with pleasure." His teeth flashed in a smile. "If you can ride him, m'sieur. He's a devil at the best of times, and Beelzebub himself when there's thunder about. . . . But he can hurry." He swung out of the saddle and slid to the ground. "You know what you're taking on, of course? He'll probably try to kill you."

"I'll risk it." Stephen was busy with stirrup leathers, and spoke absently, but Jennifer cried out.

"No, Stephen! He means it! He's not joking!'*

"I know." Luis had the three bridles now in his grip, and Stephen came quickly over to Jennifer, pulling her to him. "But this happens to be one thing that I can do. This'll be one fight I'll win today. . . ." He held her close, speaking urgently. "I'm going now, sweetheart. Get straight into the convent and stay there till I come. The rest's for me and the police; you'd better keep out of it."

His eyes glimmered for a moment with a smile. "That's my girl. If I can get help up here in time, so much the better; if not, we'll certainly get up to the farm in time to arrange a reception committee for you-know-who after Compline. Till then—keep out of her way, my darling."

"I will."

"And whatever happens, today the drama hasn't been for nothing, Jenny. . . . Didn't you see the golden gates opening for us, up there in the woods? Didn't you hear the trumpets?"

"All the trumpets."

He stooped to kiss her once, a brief hard kiss, then he turned quickly away. A hand from Luis, a swift heave, and he was astride. The big stallion, white-eyed, threw his head up, laid back his ears, and began to sidle, swishing his tail. Luis, still holding the bridle, spoke softly to him, then flung an anxious glance upward.

"Are you sure, m'sieur? He doesn't like strangers, and he's always queer in thunder, even with me."

"I'll manage. By the time I've got to Gavarnie he'll be quiet enough, thunder or no thunder! Let him go, Luis—and thanks!"

Luis stepped back.

The big horse, ears flat, nostrils cracking, moved backwards and sideways, and raked his great head down to get a grip of the bit. But he was held hard, and brought up to the bit with an expert kick that wrung from the watching Luis a small sound of satisfaction and relief.

Stephen was fighting now to turn the circling horse back onto the track. He dragged the wicked head around onto the off side, and drove in his left heel. Foix, held as he was, still plunged viciously to the left, trying to pitch the rider over his exposed shoulder.

"Blast you," said Stephen cheerfully, and pulled him around again.

This time he went straight, in one long arrow-swift leap, only to stop dead as he shot out stiff forelegs to brake in the dust.

Jenny made some little sound, but Luis' eyes were shining, and they heard Stephen laugh as he drove in his heels again.

"Gee up, Dobbin," he said, between his teeth. Then he slashed the stallion hard across the neck with the reins, and, in a tempest of angry hoofs, they were gone at a gallop down the valley.

Luis, with another of his dark unreadable looks at Jennifer, vaulted up on to one of his horses, and, with no more than a muttered word to her, turned the pair of them down toward the stream. The trotting hoofs echoed, queerly in the stillness, the rapid, dwindling gallop to the north.

The valley seemed all of a sudden empty, desolate. . . . She turned quickly and pushed open the convent gate.

The rain had started again. Big drops, thrown singly against the window, struck the glass with soft, vicious impacts. Beyond the pane the valley swam in green, liquid light, eerie under a slate-blue sky now scored across by the pale diagonals of the rain.

The convent seemed deserted, the nuns being either occupied with their teaching tasks at the other side of the building or else about some silent business of their own.

Jennifer had passed no one on her way up to the corridor above the refectory. She bad bathed and changed her soiled and crumpled dress, and sat now on the window seat at the corridor's end, hugging a coat around her in the chilly shadow, and straining her eyes for as far as she could see down the dim valley.

It was empty, but for the silver arrows of the rain. She sat still, her hands quiet in her lap, holding her thoughts, too, quiet, schooling herself to wait . . . wait. . . . Outside, the valley was empty but for the wet wind. But no; she was wrong. Something was there. Something —someone—was running up the hill from the Petit Gave, toward the convent gate.

A gust of wind shook the vine that clothed the window, shaking its drops even more thickly onto the streaming glass. She peered down, and a chord of memory vibrated at the sight of the slight figure, cloaked against the rain, that flitted across the grass below her. Celeste, driven in by the storm from some more-or-less guilty foray, some assignation down by the Petit Gave. ... It was true, then: Celeste and Luis —it was true. Jennifer's lips curved involuntarily as she saw that the girl was carrying flowers—more gentians, perhaps, for the poor mound in the graveyard? If the gentians had been nothing but an excuse for going out to meet her lover, then the girl's hesitation and guilty demeanor were explained. It was to be noticed that she had not minded being questioned when the bursar was not by.

Other memories flashed—the look of almost fierce possession with which Doña Francisca had seemed to brood over the girl; the flicker of impatient jealousy in her eyes at Celeste's evident care for the grave; the lovely little scarlet missal, the "gift in God. . . ." Jennifer stood up as Celeste reached the gate below. She had no wish to be caught watching the valley. She walked quickly down the corridor to her room, her own miserable preoccupation shot through with a sharp feeling of pity for the girl, so young, so ignorant, so bound in by ties of training and faith, now cruelly torn—for so she must be—between the sunlit promise of the young Gascon's passion and the narrow white life which was the only one she knew. No wonder there were tears and agonies in the little chapel. And no wonder, thought Jenny, at a vivid memory of Luis sitting the big golden stallion, no wonder she risks what she does to see him again, and yet again. . . "

Celeste must have left her tryst once more in time for chapel; there was a certain obvious symbolism about the way the bell began now to ring for a recall to devotion.

Three notes again, blown away by the wind. And again three. She looked at her watch, incredulously. The Angelus? Six o'clock? Two hours since Stephen had gone down the valley, and still the track showed no light, no car, no hurrying posse of rescue. . . .

She bit her lip savagely as she felt the scurry of panic in her brain. He wouldn't hurt Gillian; about that, surely, they had been right; and if he took her away he would be traced.
He wouldn't hurt her.
The only danger was Doña Fran-cisca, and she was safely held till half-past ten, when Compline finished.

Or was she?

The bell was beating steadily now, calling Vespers. Jennifer cast a quick glance in the mirror, ran a comb through her hair, and set off to find out.

Her steps tapped hollowly down the dim corridor; the wooden stairs creaked and echoed emptily; the tiles of the empty refectory rapped at her heels. The tunnel was full of whining wind, and the remote cold voice of the bell.

The chapel, warm and mellow with the blaze of half a hundred candles, was like a different world, a place of floating lights and shadows musky with incense and the smell of burning wax. The chords of the voluntary marched and thickened hi steady progression. Over the ranked lights on the high altar saints aspired and angels soared. She knelt down in a shadowed corner near the wall, just as the music gathered and swelled to its close, and the bell stopped.