Thunder On The Right (2 page)

By the end of the two years' exile there was no doubt whatsoever in Stephen's mind as to what he wanted—had to have, if he was ever to be whole and at peace again. It would have taken a dozen mother-dragons far better armed than Mrs. Silver to keep him from seeing Jennifer and making the beginning denied him two years before. But he did not even have to do battle; that had already been done by Professor Silver, to whom his wife, agitated by the news of Stephen's coming, had appealed. Stephen, once again facing a parent in the big music room, found himself dazedly listening to Professor Silver talking about his prospects in an entirely different manner. . . .

There would be, it appeared, a vacancy which Professor Silver was pretty sure Stephen could fill ... would see, in fact, that he
did
fill ...

Stephen came to with a jerk, and said warily, "Here, sir?"

"Undoubtedly." Professor Silver's eyes glinted. "The other place," he added, "would not be at all the kind of thing that Jennifer is used to."

And Stephen, still in a daze, had eventually found himself out in the street, with the Gavarnie address in his pocket, and the professor's final injunctions ringing in his ears: "You need a holiday, don't you? What's against going over there? Have you enough money? Good; well, good luck. She's in London just now, staying with an aunt for a week, but if I were you I'd get straight to Gavarnie and meet her there.

You'll both of you stand a much better chance off the home pitch, as it were.

But—go carefully, my boy. I don't think she's quite the fragile little blossom her mother thinks she is, but don't rush your fences."

So here he was, sitting in silence, watching her averted profile, and painfully conscious of the two years' gap that must be bridged, of all the things that must be said and that he must school himself not to say—yet. And Jennifer, carefully studying the end of her cigarette, felt the silence drawing out between them, not the easy silence of companionship that used to be theirs, but a pause charged with some new and disturbing element that she did not understand. What had happened? Why had he looked angry? And—why had he come? Her heart began to beat lightly and fast, but her face was shuttered, and she gave no sign. How could she, until he spoke more clearly? And Stephen, watching her, sensing some uncertainty in her, shut down even harder on his own hopes and desires.

Impasse. . . .

Then through the silence tramped the capably shod feet of Miss Shell-Pratt and Miss Moon, as they left their table and proceeded, still talking busily, toward the lounge.

"How were they bedded?' Miss Moon's eager query rang out almost directly above Stephen's head as they passed his chair. "Horizontally or vertically?"

Miss Shell-Pratt was brusque. "Vertically, Moon, vertically. And the bedding was much disturbed. . . ."

The dining-room door clashed behind them. Stephen had swung around and was staring after them, with a bemused expression that made Jennifer begin to laugh.

"What in the wide world was
that
about?"

"Geology, Stephen, just geology! I've been listening to it the whole of lunchtime.

You have no idea of the excitements of geology!"

"So it would appear." He got to his feet. "It sounds an extraordinary science. I suppose they do it at Cambridge. Come on, Jenny, let's get out of here; I want to stand you a liqueur."

The lounge was crowded, but they found two chairs in a cool corner, and Stephen ordered drinks. Around them the conversation surged in an exciting hubbub of languages and accents. Three Frenchmen just beside them were absorbed in a passionate discussion of a recent bank robbery in Bordeaux; a party which had visited the Cirque that morning was showing off to a party which was to visit it that afternoon; two Swiss climbers were comparing experiences with a French boy, while, still at Jennifer's elbow, the troctolites were having it all their own way.

". . . Not been up to the Cirque yet? Then
don't
hire a mule from the man with------"

"—a colorless amphibole------"

"—Who murdered the bank clerk. It was the Dupre gang all right. They got Marcel Dupre, but the woman—his sister, wasn't it?—she got away."

"... I tell you the wretched mule tried to trot------"

"—Up a sheer face of four thousand feet------"

"With a red-spotted troctolite------"

"—But they'll catch her, you mark my words . . . unless she's over the frontier already . . ."

"Thank God," said Stephen at last. "Here come the drinks."

The waiter, with a tray laden with drinks, was weaving his practiced way between the tables, managing with the
expertise
of the French professional to waste no time whatever and yet appear to take a vital interest in the subjects dear to his clients'

hearts. He threaded his way swiftly through the conversation, shedding the drinks as he went, with a technique that bespoke much practice in this kind of inverted potato race. . . . Penrod, messieurs? Yes, it was a disgrace, that robbery. The papers said one of the criminals had hanged himself in his cell.
Tant mieux
. . . Madame?

Cinzano? Indeed yes, Paul Lescaut should keep his mule under better control. It was the grandmother of the devil, that one. . . . Messieurs? Your Dubonnet—a guide?

The best was Pierre Bussac, but he was not often in the village; in fact, he had not been down with his mule since—let me see, yes, it was the night of the bad storm, three weeks ago; but if monsieur wished to arrange for a guide there was Robert Vrillac. . . . Mesdames? Vichy water . . . ah, yes, there
were
rocks hereabouts, no doubt; he had certainly been told so. ...

He escaped with some relief to Stephen's table, and set down the benedictines with the air of one who had brought the good news to Aix against considerable opposition. Benedictine, monsieur . . .
merci
, monsieur . . . and he hoped the pictures were going well? With an air of subdued triumph he slid away.

"How in the world did he know that?" demanded Stephen.

"What did he mean?"

"Only that I mess about with water colors as a hobby. It's rest and recruitment of the spirit, and what you'd probably call comic relief."

"I wouldn't! I might even admire them. I know all the right things to say. I never knew you sketched, Stephen!"

"I've never dared to tell you, my dear. Well, I'll await your expert judgment. . . . And meanwhile, I gather, you've come to see your cousin?"

She nodded, but a shadow touched her face, so that he said quickly, "What is it, Jenny? Is there something wrong?"

"N-no. That is, yes, Stephen. I'm worried about her."

"Would you like to tell me?"

"Yes. You never met Gillian, did you? She married Jacques the year the war was over. He had something to do with the wine trade; they had a nice house in Bordeaux—I once stayed with them there—and they were very happy. Then a few years ago Jacques died, and as there were no children and Gil was on her own in Bordeaux, we rather hoped she'd come back and make her home in England. She hadn't been left very well off, either. But she wouldn't come. She seemed to have some silly ideas about being a burden to us, or something. Later we heard she'd taken a job teaching English in a local convent school. Then, last spring, she was ill—oh, not seriously; I gathered it was a kind of flu, not dangerous, but weakening and depressing. At any rate, she seemed to take a long time to get better. We wrote again and tried to persuade her to come to England—she'd had to give up her job—but she finally said she was coming up here, into the Pyrenees, to try and recuperate."

"Here? In Gavarnie?"

"Not exactly. She's staying at a convent in the next valley. It's called the Convent of Notre-Dame-des-Orages, and it's also an orphanage."

"I've seen it. It's in a wild little valley a few miles from here."

"Well, that's where she's staying. She wrote to tell me all about this last month, and suggested that I might come up here for a holiday. I said I would, and then I got another letter from her."

He was watching her. "And just what was wrong with that other letter?"

She said slowly, "She told me she was glad I was coming because she very much wanted to talk to me, to discuss . . ." Her voice trailed off, and she looked up at him, her eyes shadowed. "Stephen, Gillian says she's thinking of becoming a nun."

She stared at him with a sort of horror, and in spite of himself, Stephen laughed. It was apparent that to Jennifer, aged twenty-two, a convent was about as normal a habitat as the palace of the Dalai Lama.

"What a hidebound Protestant conscience!" he said. "Why shouldn't she?"

Jennifer laughed too, a little ruefully. "I know. It's silly of me. But, Stephen, that's not all that I'm unhappy about. I'm beginning to think she must have been taken ill again, up at the convent. I told you she wrote to me again. It was the night before she left for Gavarnie. Look, here's the letter. . . ." She groped in her handbag and gave it to him. It was dated June 12th. . , . "I'm awfully glad you're coming. I want very much to see you, and talk to you about this thing. By the time you get this I shall be at Notre-Dame-des-Orages, and I hope, feeling a good deal better. I hope that up there I'll come a bit nearer to finding the answer . . . you know what I mean. I haven't time now, and anyway I'm not clear enough in my own mind yet, but I'll try and write more to you about it when I get up to the convent. I'm beginning to look forward to the drive up. The old car's still going strong, and we've arranged to start early tomorrow. . . . Try the Hotel du Pimené. I believe they do you very well there, and it's reasonable. But I'll see if it's at all possible for you to stay at the convent—these places usually take guests, and it'll be pleasanter, as it's some way from Gavarnie (and much cheaper too, I expect!). I'll let you know when I write...."

Stephen looked up to find Jennifer's eyes fixed on him with the same shade of anxiety in them.

"But she didn't write to me again," she said. "That's three weeks ago. I'd told her when I was going to London, and gave her the address, and I haven't heard another word. I don't even know if she's arrived."

"Well," said Stephen reasonably, "I should stop worrying. Now you're here, there's an easy way of finding out."

Jennifer finished her drink and got to her feet. "I know. I'm going up to see her now."

She spoke with such determination that he looked at her quizzically. "To pry her loose?"

"Of course, if I can." She met bis look, and laughed. "Why not?"

"You versus the Holy Roman Church? Why not indeed? What d'you suppose the College of Cardinals would say?" "

"They can say what they like," said Jennifer calmly, picking up her handbag and making for the door. "I'm thinking of Gillian."

Stephen, with a fleeting memory of Mrs. Silver, grinned and followed her.

They made their way through the little village and began to climb the hillside road that winds through the valley of the Gave d'Ossoue, the first and loveliest tributary of the Gave. Behind them the houses seemed to sink and dwindle into the sunny hollow, till the colored roofs and the church spire and the little curved bridge appeared as a huddle of small bright toys at the end of a white ribbon of road.

It was a golden afternoon. The road lifted its length before them along the hillside, the valley unfolding itself in curve after curve. The road was, to begin with, narrowly enclosed, with steep green meadows falling sharply to the stream bed on the right, to rise again beyond the water in sheer pastures where cattle grazed with slowly tolling bells. The valley twisted toward the south, and before them the great barrier of dim-green peaks which barred it had, miraculously, parted, and now valley and road were cupped between pine-clothed slopes roaring, rich in sunlight, toward still more distant crests of blue that brushed the sky. And these, faint with distance, etched in with snow and shadow against the long fingers of cloud that clung to them were, unbelievably, but the first ridges of the greater barriers beyond.

It did not seem so very far to the Valley of the Storms. This ran from the south, a narrow green cleft springing from the Spanish range, and its icy rush of water, the Petit Gave, tumbled into the Gave d'Ossoue some three miles above Gavarnie.

'There you are. That's the Vallee des Orages," said Stephen. "You'll see the convent as soon as you pass that bluff." He looked down at her. "Would you rather go on by yourself now?"

"Yes, please. And thank you, Stephen."

"The pleasure was mine," he said formally, and smiled. "See you tonight."

She turned off the road into the track—it was little more —that climbed the smaller valley. She walked steadily, and soon, as she rounded a curve of the track, she saw, some distance ahead of her, set back against the mountainside to the left, the high white walls of the convent. A small square tower jutted up to catch the sunlight, vividly white against a rampart of pines beyond, and, even as Jennifer glimpsed it and guessed its nature, she heard, floating out of the thyme-laden wind, the silver sound of a bell.

She tilted her head to listen, smiling, her whole being pierced, rinsed through, tingling with a keen delight. But presently the very beauty of that pure passionless note, insisting beat by beat upon the strangeness of the place, took her with a new sensation, part pleasure and part fear, and wholly dreamlike. To her, suddenly, in that high haunt of bells and tumbling waters, the mission on which she was bound seemed to lose reality. With the remote white walls of the convent, backed against that single sharp wedge of pinewoods, Gillian could have no connection. Even to think of Gillian living in Bordeaux, a Frenchwoman among the French, had been fantastic, while to imagine her here—slim, blond Gillian, with the Northumberland sky in her gray eyes— to imagine her here, quiet and cloistered among the Sisters of Our Lady of the Storms, was just not possible. Gillian, shut away in this lonely valley, perhaps forever. . .

Her steps faltered, and stopped. She found herself staring up at the distant convent walls as if they were a prison, an enchanted fortess to be stormed—the Dark Tower itself, circled by its watching hills. And she had come alone to storm it, a stranger, a resented intruder . . . alone. Alone. The very word, in this wild valley, sounded colder, thinner, more forlorn.