Margaret Millar - Fire Will Freeze

Joyce’s perfection was merely visual, however. As far as Miss Seton knew, the girl could not talk. Throughout the trip she had sat in perfect silence, yawning delicately now and then, running her eyes over the other occupants of the bus without the faintest flicker of interest. Witnessing such deadly boredom made Miss Seton sleepy and she closed her eyes only to open them again quickly when Joyce uttered her first words of the day.

“Damn and blast, Poppa,” she said. “I broke a fingernail.”

So the man with her was her father, Miss Seton thought, pleased with herself. She had had nothing more to go on than the fact that Mr. Hunter looked paternal. He had white hair and he wore a harassed and worried expression, as if he was anxious to be friendly with his daughter and didn’t know how to begin. Miss Seton was glad to note that his skis were as bright and unused as her own and that he too wore civilian clothes and didn’t look any too happy at finding himself on a Sno-bus.

“In fact,” Miss Seton said softly, “none of us looks very happy. I thought skiers were a jovial lot, always singing and thumping each other on the back.”

Perhaps the thumping would come later after they’d all had a couple of christianias, but the chances didn’t look bright. Suppose Herbert thumped the werewolf, it seemed probable that the werewolf would in turn thump Herbert right into heaven. And suppose she herself thumped Joyce...

She peered past the perfect Hunter profile and met Mr. Hunter’s eyes. He seemed to be aware, with the intuition of parents, that Miss Seton was having unflattering ideas about his daughter. He frowned slightly and turned his head away.

“Joyce,” he said.

Joyce blinked long black eyelashes to indicate that she recognized her name.

“Joyce, are you quite comfortable? Not too cold?”

Joyce blinked again to indicate that she was or she wasn’t, who cared. Miss Seton smiled slightly and maliciously at Mr. Hunter and closed her eyes. She wrote a brief, forceful note:

Dear Mr. Hunter:

You lack firmness and oomph. If you feel incapable of working up these qualities I shall be glad to assist. Is your wife living, by the way? I have brown hair, brown eyes and a modest income...

“There I go again,” Miss Seton said critically. “Thirty-five is a dangerous age.”

In the seat behind, Maudie blew her nose and started again from the beginning.

“I know you’re forty-three, Herbert. I know you’re twenty pounds overweight and you’ve always wanted to ski and if you don’t learn now you never will. I know all that. But what I say is, so what?”

“But you said you wanted to come, Maudie,” Herbert said. “You said you’d never been in Quebec.”

“So what?” There was a grim satisfaction in Maudie’s voice as if she had found exactly the right phrase and intended to go on using it. “So what, Herbert?”

“You said it would be kind of cozy, Maudie, just the two of us in front of an open fire.”

“Produce the open fire, Herbert,” Maudie said ominously.

“It will come.”

“We are already hours late.”

“One hour,” Herbert said faintly.

“Hours.”

“One hour.”

“I’m on your side, Herbert,” Miss Seton murmured. “One hour.”

“Hours!” Maudie yelled. “You can’t call me a liar and get away with it!”

“Oh yes he can,” Miss Seton whispered into her collar.

Even Joyce Hunter was roused to interest. She moved her head languidly, passed her eyes over Maudie and Herbert and Miss Seton, and turned away.

“Poppa. Cigarette.”

Mr. Hunter leaped to obey. He fumbled in the pockets of his tweed topcoat and brought out a cigarette case and a lighter.

“No,” Joyce said.

Maudie’s influence was making itself felt. “No what ?” Mr. Hunter cried irritably.

“Poppa!”

“Sorry, dear.”

“Don’t like that kind.”

“Sorry. They’re all I’ve got.”

Joyce sighed and resumed her contemplation of nothing. Mr. Hunter attempted to melt some of the ice from the window with his bare hand. Miss Seton saw the huge ruby on his third finger and thought, “With my modest income too...”

She went to sleep with her head resting against the rattling window and a cold wind blowing down her neck.

From his seat behind the Hunters Mr. Anthony Goodwin watched Miss Seton’s head sink lower and lower and gradually relax on her breast. Mr. Goodwin was filled with the profound bitterness found only in an insomniac contemplating a sleeping fellow human.

Mr. Goodwin’s mind seethed with chaotic monosyllables. “God. Sleep. Death. Rest. Hell.”

Nor was Mr. Goodwin’s body any better adapted to Sno-buses than his mind. There was no adequate space for his long and intense limbs. “Cribbed, cabined, confined,” Mr. Goodwin mumbled. “Cramped. Creased. Cold. Crushed. Crapulent.” When he stretched his legs he hit his ankle sharply against the stone-cold heater attached to the seat ahead. When he leaned back to rest his head it forced his hat down over his forehead. Finally he removed the hat, jerked his legs under him, closed his eyes, and tried to imitate Miss Seton. But while Miss Seton’s body followed the joltings of the bus like that of an experienced horsewoman, Mr. Goodwin teetered back and forth clinging desperately to the arm of the seat and to something else, something as soft and malleable as a woman’s hand.

“Well, dearie,” said the owner of the hand, “if you want to wrestle, you wrestle. It’s all right with me.”

Mr. Goodwin flung the hand away, he rolled his head back and grimaced at the ceiling of the bus. Then he waved his long arms wildly in apology.

“Well, say, you needn’t throw a fit. My name’s Morning, Miss Gracie Morning. What’s yours?”

Mr. Goodwin had been on the defensive against Miss Morning ever since she entered the bus. She had stood in the doorway, smiling impartially and cheerfully at all the occupants. Then, impelled by the fate which had dogged Mr. Goodwin’s footsteps for years, Miss Morning had singled him out, clambered past his legs and sat down beside him with a box of chocolates, a copy of Secrets and a strong urge to talk. So far Mr. Goodwin had avoided giving her an opening by shutting his eyes and mumbling to himself.

“If the woman has any sense,” Mr. Goodwin muttered, “she will know I am thinking and do not care to be disturbed.”

“I didn’t get the name,” Miss Morning said pleasantly.

“Goodwin.”

“English, are you?”

“Yes.”

“Fancy that! Refugee?”

Miss Morning peered around Mr. Goodwin’s elbow. Mr. Goodwin had a glimpse of vividly bronze hair and blue eyes, and a whiff of some primitive scent.

“No,” he said.

“Going to ski?”

“Yes.”

“What do you do for a living?”

“I...” Mr. Goodwin groaned and slapped his forehead smartly. To Mr. Goodwin’s friends this would have indicated that he was having an idea and couldn’t be bothered. Miss Morning simply thought he was a little crazy.

“Well look, Goodwin,” she said kindly, “if you don’t want to tell me you don’t have to. Though as far as that goes I’m no squawker. I wouldn’t tell a soul. Why, I got friends in some of the damnedest rackets you ever heard of. I know a guy back in Toronto, that’s my hometown, who eats beer bottles for ten bucks apiece. No kidding.” Miss Morning patted her red curls and smoothed the bright blue feathers on her hat. “I bet I look a fright.”

“You look anything but a fright,” Mr. Goodwin said stoically.

“In my profession we got to look our best,” Miss Morning confided. “The men expect it.”