Margaret Millar - Fire Will Freeze

Miss Seton raised her head a little and peered towards the house again. A light flickered for a moment in one of the windows on the second floor, and something white moved past the window. Like a ghost, Miss Seton thought, and closed her eyes very tightly and painfully.

Behind her Charles Crawford spoke again. “It’s all right now, I think, but I suggest we take it slow and keep down as much as possible. Move on, up there!”

Chad Ross, still at the head of the column, turned his head and scowled, but he started walking anyway with Paula Lashley close behind him. When they were within twenty yards of the house the front door began to open slowly and cautiously and a head appeared in the crack. It stayed there, motionless, for a full minute.

Mrs. Vista put up her hand and shouted, “Ahoy! Ahoy there! We’re lost!”

A sharp cackle of laughter bounced over the snow and a small squat figure came out of the door. She was dressed in black except for the white cap she wore on her head. She stood still on the snow-covered veranda, laughing.

Miss Seton shivered and turned to Charles Crawford. He had his hat back on and was watching the figure on the veranda with narrowed eyes.

“I don’t like the sound of that laugh,” Miss Seton whispered.

He smiled, too quickly. “Well, do I?” He raised his voice. “Move on, up there!”

It was not Chad Ross who moved first this time, it was Mrs. Vista. She plunged through the snow, wheezing and shouting, “Ahoy!” The rest followed her slowly. She waited for them at the bottom of the veranda steps and when they reached the steps they found out why.

The lady in black was not laughing, but crying. The tears were sliding down each side of her thick white nose. She did not brush them off but stood watching the people clustered at the foot of the steps, her mouth drawn back from her big white teeth, her black eyes impassive behind the tears. She had a shawl over her shoulders clutched together at the front by bony hands that were slightly dirty.

For a minute no one spoke at all except Mrs. Vista, who kept wheezing, “Ahoy!” in a faint whisper as if she were hypnotized.

Miss Seton looked at Charles Crawford, expecting him to step up and take charge as he had before. But Mr. Crawford had no intention of taking charge, apparently. He stood with his hands in his pockets, scuffing the snow with his feet.

The other men seemed equally at a loss, and Joyce Hunter had passed into another coma.

That, Miss Seton thought savagely, leaves me.

She shouldered her way past Mrs. Vista, looked firmly at the lady in black, and said, “Hello.”

It wasn’t the most brilliant beginning but it had its effect.

The lady stopped crying and said, in a voice soft and husky from tears:

“You are lost?”

“No, we are not lost,” Miss Seton said crisply. “We have lost our driver.”

“Driver?”

“The driver of the bus we were in.”

“Bus?”

“The bus that goes to the Chateau Neige,” Miss Seton explained. “The driver got out and left us. He came here. We followed him.”

“Here?” The lady raised one shoulder and brushed off her cheeks with her shawl. “How sad. How very sad .”

“We...” Miss Seton’s voice cracked and she looked angrily around at the others. “Why doesn’t somebody else say something?”

Mr. Hunter carefully cleared his throat and said, “We are very cold. May we come inside? I’m afraid we’ll freeze.”

The lady in black made a clucking noise with her tongue. “It is a mild day, an extremely mild day. We have had an extremely mild winter.” Her black eyes rested speculatively on them, one after another, until they came to Maudie. “That thin one there, she will freeze. There’s no blood in her.”

Maudie gave a little shriek and clung to Herbert. “Oh, take me away!”

“She is already freezing,” the lady said, and her eyes moved on to the others. Quite suddenly she began to cry again and backed away towards the open door, moaning, “I don’t want you here. Harry, you go away. I don’t want you here. This is my house, my house. Go away,

you thieves.”

Miss Morning had had enough. She thrust her way past the others and walked aggressively up the steps of the veranda. When she spoke her voice was surprisingly gentle:

“Nobody’s going to hurt you. We want to get warm. We wouldn’t hurt you.”

The woman backed away from her and made another swipe at her tears with her shawl.

“I haven’t room,” she whined. “I don’t want you in my house. There are so many of us already.”

Miss Seton had recovered herself. She followed Miss Morning up the steps and said briskly, “The driver is here, of course?”

“No, no, no one is here but me and my dear friends.”

“Your — friends?”

“My dear friends Floraine and Etienne and Suzanne — don’t you go in there!” she shouted at Miss Morning who was already inside the door. “You thief! Stealing from a poor lady. Poor Miss Rudd. Poor old lady.”

She followed Miss Morning inside. Miss Seton rather hesitantly went inside after her.

The hall was dim, with a high gilt ceiling. It smelled of must and rotting woodwork and stale food. An immense marble and brass staircase led up to the second floor, and on the first landing of the staircase a huge yellow cat stood waving its tail in the air.

“Hi, puss,” said Miss Morning.

Miss Rudd moved close to her and touched her arm. “My dear friend, Etienne,” she said softly. “Come, Etienne. Etienne, come here.”

The cat arched his back and spat. Then, with a last wave of his tail he stalked up the stairs.

Miss Rudd kept calling him softly, walking slowly towards the stairs.

The others were coming inside the house. Herbert came last, thrusting a reluctant Maudie ahead of him, and closed the door. At the sound, Miss Rudd darted back from the stairs and stood in front of Charles Crawford.

“I told you, Harry. I told you never to set foot in my house again with your thieving ways. Tell your friends to go, Harry. I won’t have them in my house!”

“You know her?” Miss Seton asked in a puzzled voice.

Charles Crawford looked at her savagely and blushed. “No, I don’t know her, you little dope.”

He shifted his feet and tried to appear nonchalant under Miss Rudd’s unblinking stare. Miss Seton began to giggle.

Miss Rudd’s eyes gleamed at her. “A pretty coat,” she said. “What a pretty coat.”

As she spoke a woman appeared on the stairs. She was holding Etienne the cat in her arms, stroking his fur. She was tall and well-built and wore a stiff white uniform that crackled as she moved down the steps. When she came closer Miss Seton saw that she was quite young, not over thirty, and heavily handsome, with dark skin and smooth dark hair braided with a coronet around her head.

She said, “Let them alone, Frances.”

Miss Rudd nodded her head back and forth.

“My dear friend, Floraine,” she cried. She plucked at Floraine’s sleeve as she passed. Floraine paid no attention.

“I am Floraine Larue,” she said in a brisk voice, “Miss Rudd’s companion.”

Miss Seton felt a surge of relief at the sight of this competent-looking nurse. She said, “We’ve lost our bus driver. He got out of the bus and came here.”

“Here?” Floraine raised her thick black eyebrows. “I’m sure you’re mistaken. No one came here.”

“No one came here,” Miss Rudd repeated, nodding her head.

“No one at all,” said Floraine.

Floraine turned on a wall switch and the enormous crystal chandelier in the center of the hall sprang into light. It was yellowed with age and the crystals threw grotesque dangling shadows on the gilt ceiling.