Summer Lightning (10 page)

“I’ll have everything ready for you.”

She had reached the foot of the staircase and turned, with a hand on the balustrade, to smile at him. But he had already turned away.

She climbed the marble stairs dispiritedly. Illogically all her joyful expectation of the next day was dampened.

Going along the corridor to her room, she almost tiptoed past Mrs. Vining’s door. She felt she could not, just this moment, face the sort of catechism to which she had been subjected the last time she paid her a visit.

Guilty but unchallenged, she reached her own door, slipped inside and thankfully shut the door.

When Dominic appeared in the library at the prearranged time, she saw at once that something was wrong.

“Ready?” he asked brusquely.

“Quite ready.”

“Run this lot through quickly—I can’t stay more than a few minutes. My mother isn’t well.”

“Oh—I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

“Thank you. I think not. Lotta is with her.”

He didn’t tell her of the scene his mother had made. It had started with reproaches over Louise’s continued presence at Santa Clara. When he had pointed out, gently, that Louise had a right to be there, he had been told that he was to blame; if he would only announce his engagement to Chloe, Louise would give up the chase and go.

The argument had ended with tears, hysteria, finally collapse. Lotta had known what to do, the right sedative to give, but he was worried, afraid of one of his mother’s heart attacks. As soon as he had seen the slides once he hurried away.

There was nothing for it, after Chloe had put away her apparatus, but to go to her room.

She sat down at the writing desk and began an overdue letter to her mother, but soon found she wasn’t in the mood for the sort of gossipy letter her mother enjoyed, and gave it up.

She took a bath and spent a long time over it, turning on the hot tap with her toes as the water cooled.

Afterward she stood out on the balcony in the starlight for a while, cooling off. But somehow the sight of the diamond-sprinkled, velvety southern sky, and the caress of the silky night air, only deepened her feeling of depression.

Taking up a book on Maltese architecture that Dominic had recommended to her, she climbed into her bed and after a long time managed to read herself to sleep.

The sharp slam of a door, very nearby, woke her an hour or two later. She sat up and listened.

Someone was moving around in the bathroom next door. Louise, of course, returned from the party. Chloe thought she could detect the smell of the Turkish cigarettes she smoked.

She was on the point of lying down again when the door of her room burst violently open. Louise, still in the evening dress, stood silhouetted against the oblong opening into the lighted bathroom.

There was something oddly baleful in the way she stood there, not speaking, smoking in quick vicious puffs, swaying gently, as if she were a little drunk.

“Good lord, how you startled me, Mrs. Carlyon,” Chloe exclaimed. “What is it? Is there something I can do for you?” She wished she could see Louise’s face.

Louise cut in sharply, “There certainly is. Listen, Chloe Linden. Lay off my cousin Dominic, will you?” she said. “You got in here by a trick, didn’t you? And now you think you can have them all at your feet—Mark, Robert, even Dominic. But let me tell you right now that Dominic is mine. We belong to each other. We always have. He’ll always be in love with me. That’s why he’s never married. Why he’s turned down all the pretty, rich, suitable girls his mother has lined up for him. You’re a fool to think you’ll ever get him away from me. So quit trying, or else!”

Before Chloe could marshal her wits to frame any sort of a reply Louise was gone, savagely slamming the door between the bathroom and her own bedroom, and pointedly turning the key in the lock.

Chloe stared after her blankly. She was shocked, almost dazed, by the malevolence she had unwittingly aroused.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The first pale stars were already blinking in the darkening sky when Robert returned Chloe to Santa Clara the next evening.

They had spent the day together, as he had intended they should.

At breakfast that morning, Chloe had had a message from Dominic, via Mark. His mother, though a little better, was still unwell. Their plans for the day must, he regretted, be postponed.

“I’d have loved to take you out somewhere myself,” Mark said. “But I’ve been commandeered to take Louise out to a destroyer for a gin party. You could come, too, if you liked. Why don’t you?”

“I think not.” She was wishing Dominic had thought it worthwhile to tell her himself, and struggled to hide her disappointment. “Actually, your brother will be telephoning...”

“Oh. Will he indeed?”

Mark looked and felt rather piqued. All their lives, Robert, with his superior looks and address, had been whisking charming girls from under his nose.

“After exercises,” she said. “He plans to show me the island.”

“He does, does he? All I can say is, beware of him, Miss L. He’s been a menace since he was in sixth grade.”

“I’ll be careful,” she assured him cheerfully.

She didn’t anticipate having trouble with Robert; he should be easy enough to handle, she thought.

In point of fact she thoroughly enjoyed her day with him. The weather was warming up, the sun shone brilliantly, the whole island seemed to sparkle.

Robert had somehow acquired a convertible sports car. He drove her around the coast road, past the balconied houses of Sliema and St. Julien. On their right the sea, sun-sequined and streaked with purple, sapphire and jade, lapped against the pale shelves of rock.

“Now for a bit of tourist stuff,” he said, and showed her one of the square, high-perched Crusader forts that once formed a chain of lookouts against Barbary pirates and other infidel enemies. Further on they looked over one of the vast baroque churches that every
casal
boasted— mute witnesses of man’s aspirations toward God.

“The parishioners paid for it,” he told her. “For years on end they bring a few eggs, a basket of vegetables, a young goat, a handful of peaches or almonds or figs to the priest. These are sold, and the money goes into bricks and stones. They do the work, too. Fantastic, isn’t it?”

They went and inspected the Mosta dome, which held a world record for girth, and the San Anton gardens with palace, fountains, lily ponds and shady bowers.

“They sometimes do open-air plays here, as they do in Regent’s Park. I saw them do
The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Rather fun on a fine warm night in this perfect setting.”

“It sounds marvelous.”

They drove back to the coast road and stopped for lunch at the little fishing port of St. Paul. They ate on the terrace of the harbor inn, right above the water. There were freshly caught fish, stuffed eggplant, figs in syrup and coffee with an Italian liqueur called
strega
.

Across the green blue bay, dotted with painted fishing craft with eyes on their high prows, they could see the statue of the Apostle on the rocky island where he was shipwrecked on one of his missionary journeys.

Afterward they drove over Mellieha ridge to Marfa, a jutting point on the north of the island. Here, Robert said, a ferry left daily for the smaller island of Gozo. Leaving the car, they strolled over low cliffs fragrant with wild thyme and carpeted with tiny flowers. A stiff breeze flecked the strait between the islands with whitecaps, and sea gulls wheeled screaming overhead.

“Promise you’ll come over to Gozo with me one day,” Robert said eagerly. “It’s a charming little island. Look, I’ll hire a boat and sail you over. There’s always a stiff breeze in the channel. Or we could go on the ferry if you prefer. I’ll show you the cave where Calypso enticed Ulysses...”

“Have you forgotten? Working girl,” she reminded him, unable to help laughing at his enthusiasm.

He let his blue eyes, long-lashed as a girl’s, wander slowly and caressingly over her face. Already it had taken on a light golden tan. Her eyes were golden and her chestnut hair had golden gleams where the sun touched it. She looked warmly, vividly alive.

He caught her hand in his and swung it lightly between them.

“Let’s make a date now. Next Sunday? Say you’ll come next Sunday, Chloe.”

But she had no intention of committing herself. Next Sunday, Dominic might be free. He might want to take her to Hagar Qim and Mnajdra and the Cave of Darkness, Ghar Dalam. It would be terrible if he did, and she had to say she wasn’t free, she already had a date. Gently she removed her hand from Robert’s.

“No promises,” she said with a smile. “We must wait till nearer the time. You never will remember that I’m not a free agent, Robert, dear. Professor Vining may suddenly find he needs me.”
If only he would,
Chloe thought.

“He couldn’t need you half as much as I do, Chloe, darling.”

She laughed again—but rather hollowly, thinking how very right he was.

Robert had turned away, rather offended by her laughter, and was holding open the door of the car.

“Glad I amuse you so much,” he said stiffly. “Better get on. You’re quite heartless.”

But when she patted his hand and said amiably, “Nonsense, Robert, merely cautious,” he laughed too. He was a sunny tempered young man, really. He could never stay cross with a girl as pretty as Chloe for long. Experience had taught him that it wasn’t often necessary...

They drove on northwestward around to the cliffs above the blue bay of Ghain Tuffieha. A steep flowery path led to its golden beach.

Reluctantly, after wading in the edge of the water, they decided that it was still far too cold for a swim, and scrambling up to the car, drove on to where a charming place with towers rose above the lush woods and scented orange groves of Boschetto.

“Verdala, built by a former Grand Master,” Robert said.

Here they found a shady spot and Robert, with the air of a conjurer, produced a picnic basket with tea and some very special creamy cakes. Afterward they wandered hand in hand for a while among the orange trees.

“The Governor has his summer residence here,” Robert said. “It’s a blissfully cool retreat when the sirocco blows from North Africa. A foul, sticky, hot wind that makes life a misery while it lasts. You’ll miss it—luckily for you.” The careless words brought home sharply to her that soon—in a little over two months—she would have gone from Malta.

“I’ll be back in London, I suppose, nose to the grindstone,” she said flatly.

“And I’ll be at sea, thousands of miles away from you, worse luck,” Robert said with pathos. “I’ll be miserable when you’ve gone, Chloe, darling.”

“Cheer up, you’ll find ‘the Fishing Fleet’ waiting to welcome you back.”

He put his arms around her. “I don’t want ‘the Fishing Fleet,’ I want
you
.” he said ardently. “Kiss me, Chloe.” But she only laughed and patted his cheek, and led the way firmly back to the car.

“Home now. It’s getting chilly, don’t you think? Or perhaps it’s because we’re in deep shade. It’s been a lovely day, Robert,” she added warmly, seeing how piqued he looked. “And there’ll be time for others before you go away—mmm?”

He seized on that with flattering eagerness. “Promise!”

“Cross my heart.”

With that he had to be content. She wouldn’t agree to dine with him in Valetta.

“I’ve got to catch up on my letters. I haven’t written to my mother, or my godmother, the one I live with in London.”

“Couldn’t they wait one more day?”

“Perhaps. But I’ve got work to prepare for tomorrow, too. Honestly I have.”

“Oh, all right.” He could see that she wasn’t going to be persuaded. Her resistance inflamed his ardor.

They said goodbye in the open door of Santa Clara. With his arm around her waist, and his lips very close to her ear, he begged, “You’ll come out very soon—the very first time you’re free? You’ll call me? On the ship-to-shore telephone? Promise, Chloe, darling?”

“Of course—only I don’t know how soon it’ll be.”

Even as she spoke she saw Dominic descending the marble staircase. He
would
come just at this moment, she thought vexedly. Even if he hadn’t heard, he had certainly seen. His ironic expression told her that.
Bother and blast,
she thought,
and all those other words I heard at boarding school. What will he think of me?

“Goodbye, Robert, and thank you very much for a lovely day,” she said firmly ushering him outside.

“I say, that was bad luck,” he whispered.

“Foul. Go now, please.”

He murmured, “Goodbye, darling,” and ran down the steps. She turned to face Dominic.

“I—how is your mother? Better, I hope?”

“A little, thank you. She has asked for you several times during the day.”

Chloe felt miserably guilty, though there was no reason at all why she should. He had said there was nothing she could do—his mother had Lotta with her. Even so... “I’m so sorry,” she stammered. “If I’d known I—we drove around the island. I didn’t think...”

“There’s no need to apologize. Of course you couldn’t have known. But perhaps you’ll look in on her on your way up.”

It was an order.

“Of course,” she agreed meekly.

Hurrying to her room, she tidied herself, after the long day in the sun and wind. Then reluctantly, full of misgivings, she went along the corridor and tapped on Mrs. Vining’s door.

Lotta let her in and, at a sign from her mistress, went out into the corridor.

Chloe walked over to the vast bed. She saw that Mrs. Vining was indeed looking ill. Her cheeks looked hollow; her eyes were enormous and unnaturally bright.

“I’m so very sorry I wasn’t in when you asked for me,
contessa
. I wouldn’t have dreamed of going out had I guessed you might want to see me. How are you now? A little better, I hope?” she asked gently.

The contessa made a gesture of impatience.

“A little better. Don’t let us talk of my health. Tell me where you have been all day. I wanted to see you.”

“I’m so sorry,” Chloe said again. “I was being shown the island.”

“Ah. And what did you think of it?”

“It’s very pretty just now, with all the spring flowers and blossoms.”

“Wait till the summer heat burns everything up. It’s arid and ugly enough then.”

“But the architecture will always be lovely.”

Again that gesture of impatience. “Who drove you?” The contessa let her suspicion show in her voice.

“I went with Mark’s brother, Robert—the one in the Navy.”

“That debutante’s delight? You prefer his company to that of my son? I thought you had more sense,” pronounced the contessa with asperity.

Chloe felt the color rush into her cheeks.

“Of course I don’t,” she protested warmly. “Professor Vining had arranged to take me to see some of the other archaeological finds, but you weren’t well, he didn’t want to leave you...”

“Call him Dominic, can’t you? Surely you don’t think he looks like a stuffy professor?” his mother said testily. Her brilliant eyes searched Chloe’s face in that embarrassing way they had. “Tell me, are you in love with him yet?”

How do I answer such a point-blank question,
Chloe thought.

“I—I...” Not a very good effort.

The eyes lit with a gleam of triumph.

“You are. Of course you are. Wouldn’t any girl be? All that money and looks and fame? He could have married a dozen girls, all pretty and suitable. But no. He didn’t wish to be
involved
. Involved. One of these stupid modern words.”

“I’m very sure,
contessa,
that he doesn’t want to be involved now. Certainly not with me.”