Margaret Millar - Fire Will Freeze

Mr. Goodwin gulped. “How... how do you do.”

“Mr. Goodwin wants his hat,” Joyce continued, undaunted. “We expect to be leaving soon, but Mr. Goodwin cannot go without his hat.”

“He will freeze,” said Miss Rudd.

Joyce nodded encouragingly. “Of course he will. Perhaps if you give him back his hat Mr. Goodwin will give you his tie which is much prettier.”

“No, thank you kindly,” Miss Rudd replied in a reasonable tone.

A faint light appeared in the hall and Floraine came in carrying two oil lamps and set them on the mantel. She said over her shoulder, “Please don’t annoy Miss Rudd. She doesn’t like strangers to come too close to her.”

“My hat,” Mr. Goodwin bleated.

“I’ll get it for you.” She went out and came back in a minute carrying a few strips of green felt. “I’m afraid it won’t be much use to you anymore. Miss Rudd loves to cut things. She will apologize, won’t you, Frances? Say you’re sorry, Frances.”

“I’m sorry,” Miss Rudd said brightly.

So the first round was Miss Rudd’s, Isobel Seton reflected as she sipped the last of her coffee.

The room was becoming very hot and steamy and smelled of wet clothes and salmon sandwiches and Gracie Morning’s primeval perfume. Miss Seton’s eyelids felt heavy, so she leaned her head against the back of the chair, too inert to force the issue of the disappearing bus driver and the rifle shots. The more she considered them, the more preposterous and unreal they seemed, especially now that Miss Rudd had been sent up to her room and Floraine was talking pleasantly to Charles Crawford in front of the fire. She wasn’t in the least sinister, but a normal attractive young woman.

Miss Seton dozed for a while and dreamed of an encounter with Miss Rudd, who, armed with garden shears, hacked expertly at Miss Seton’s sable coat.

When she awoke, the scene was much the same as it had been, except that the blinds were drawn over the windows and Floraine’s voice was sharper as she talked.

“We are not inhospitable,” she was saying. “We are simply unable to accommodate you. The Chateau is only a few miles further along the road...”

“A few miles,” Crawford repeated. “We couldn’t get half a mile under the circumstances.”

“You understand, Miss Rudd and I are alone here. We have no extra bedding or food, nor fuel to heat the extra rooms. We have no telephone. We are completely isolated.”

“Why?”

“Why?” She stared at him. Miss Seton, watching her, had the impression that Floraine was deliberately exaggerating the expressions of her face and voice in order that the other people in the room should not miss them.

She’s talking to all of us, Miss Seton thought.

“Why?” Floraine said again. “You realize Miss Rudd’s condition. Her family do not want her in a sanitarium. Miss Rudd herself prefers to stay here. It is her home.”

“Must be a dull life for you,” Crawford said.

Floraine let out a slight laugh. “Oh, no. I don’t care for excitement and I am paid well. And besides, my fiancé has gone to war.”

“We’re willing to pay you for a night’s lodging.”

“No, I couldn’t...”

“We’ll pay very well. You realize that we have to stay here anyway. You can’t kick us out. Let’s arrange it without too much unpleasantness.”

Floraine’s eyes glistened. “How much?”

“Ritz rates. Five dollars a head, and a bonus if you cough up the bus driver and no questions asked.”

“Questions?”

“He may have had his reasons for skipping. We guarantee to let that pass if he deposits us at the Lodge tomorrow morning. We’ll back up his story about a breakdown.”

“But how absurd!” Floraine cried. “You’re bargaining with me about a man I’ve never seen or heard of in my life! A bus driver! Surely if such a man came here Miss Rudd would tell you, even if I wanted to keep it a secret. People like Miss Rudd tell everything.”

“She may not have seen him,” Crawford said. “He may be here in this house without your having seen him either. It’s a big place.”

“Ridiculous!”

“All right,” Crawford said easily. “Forget him. The most vital question is bed. Fifty-five dollars.”

“And breakfast?”

“Fifty cents apiece,” Crawford said grimly.

“Sixty dollars and fifty cents,” Floraine said. “Very well.” She held out her hand.

“That woman will go far,” Miss Seton murmured, reaching for her purse and extracting some bills. “By the time her young man comes back she’ll have a dowry that looks like the Chase National Bank.”

They all paid willingly enough, except Gracie Morning, who said there wasn’t a bed in the world worth five bucks and that anybody who paid in advance for anything was a sucker. In the interests of peace Miss Seton hastily fished out another bill, and Floraine, accompanied by Herbert as a volunteer, went to fetch more lamps.

Waiting for them to return, Miss Seton curled up in her chair and studied Mr. Goodwin with half-closed eyes. Contrary to the magazine report, Mr. Goodwin had shown no signs of relapsing into a drunken stupor.

It was an unfortunate moment to examine Mr. Goodwin, for he was giving birth to a sonnet and his face was moving rhythmically and unbeautifully in labor. He looked quite incapable of debauchery.

“Englishmen are not great lovers,” Miss Seton murmured with the false air of a connoisseur.

Mr. Hunter who had been watching her for some time let out a gasp of surprise. “No. No, I daresay they’re not.”

He looked around to see if Joyce was still asleep, and finding that she was he stroked his mustache knowingly and remarked that it had something to do with glands.

“What has?” Miss Seton asked.

“The... the... what you said.”

“Oh. Too many or too few?”

“Too few or too many what?”

“Glands.”

“Oh.”

“Well?”

Mr. Hunter flushed. “I don’t believe it has anything to do with number.”

“Intensity, perhaps?”

“I don’t know,” he said irritably. “I think you’re just doing this.”

“Doing what?” Miss Seton asked in surprise.

“There. You did it again.”

“Doing what?”

“I’m sure I didn’t start this conversation.”

“I’m equally sure I didn’t.”

“You spoke.”

“To myself only,” Miss Seton said sternly. “You horned in.”

“Merely out of politeness.”

“Politeness? Ha!” said Miss Seton.

With a final snort Mr. Hunter rose to his feet and approached Mr. Goodwin.

“I understand,” he said, “that we’ll have to double up in the rooms because there isn’t enough bedding. I’d be glad to share a room with you.”

“Share?” Mr. Goodwin’s features became ominously still. “Did you say share a room?”

“Anthony dear,” said Mrs. Vista with an edge in her voice, “it will be just for one night. I’m sure you’ll find Mr. Hunter a delightful person...”

“He will not,” said Mr. Hunter decisively. “I presume he wants to have a room to himself while the rest of us herd like cattle.”

“I wonder,” Mrs. Vista meditated aloud, “whom I shall choose. Let me see. Someone thin , and preferably quiet . That girl in the corner over there. What’s your name, my dear?”

Paula smiled slightly and said, “Paula Lashley.”

“That man isn’t your husband, is he?”

“No,” Paula said, while Chad growled something unintelligible.

“Well... that’s settled,” Mrs. Vista said. “What about the rest of you?”

It was decided that Isobel Seton and Gracie were to share one room, and the Thropples another. Since Joyce was still sleeping on the chesterfield and no one particularly wanted her as a bedfellow, she was allotted a bedroom to herself.