Thunder On The Right (4 page)

Seen here, in the clear unshadowed light from the small window, her appearance seemed as Spanish as her first words had suggested. Somewhere, a score of times, Jennifer had seen those high-bred, fine-boned features, on faces gazing proudly from ruffed and jeweled canvases. The longish nose and arched nostrils, the clean angles of cheek and jawbone, the thin line of a once passionate mouth—here was the breeding and arrogance of old Spain, starved, as it were, into submission. Only the eyes, large and dark, spoke still of what fire had been there once, and they were hooded hawkwise, under lids no longer smooth, but crinkled and bistered like fading poppy petals. Their once deep luster had shallowed and flattened, so that they showed as unreadable, as expressionless, as the obsidian gaze of a sphinx.

She remained standing just inside the door, with her hands folded and hidden traditional fashion, in the long sleeves of her robe. Robe and headdress were alike of black, unrelieved by any delicate contrast of white frill or wimple to frame the face. Over the heavy floor length robe she wore a species of tunic reaching to the hips and girdled at the waist with a knotted cord. This medieval-looking garment (here Jennifer was reminded sharply of seventeenth-century Spanish canvas) had a hood which completely concealed the hair and was fastened close under the chin, framing the face. Over it was a fine light veil which fell below the shoulders. All that relieved the somber black was the small cross on her breast and the rosary hanging from her waist.

With a slight inclination of the head she indicated the single chair to Jennifer. She herself remained standing near the door.

Jennifer sat down. To her own surprise, the illogical feeling of discomfort persisted.

Faced now as she was with one of the inmates of the convent, this woman who stood quietly in traditional medieval garb against the austere simplicity of white wall and unvarnished deal, she should surely have been able to dismiss her earlier tremors as absurd. Why, then, should the appearance of the woman realize rather than quell the senseless unease of the past few minutes?

Then the Spaniard's hand moved from her sleeve and came up to touch the cross at her breast, and Jennifer understood, if only with a deepening puzzlement. On one of the long white fingers glowed a big ring, an amethyst, its color blandly feminine against the black tunic. As Jennifer's eyes, faintly shocked, followed the movement of the ring, she saw, too, that the tunic and robe gleamed with the unmistakable heavy sheen of silk. The veil was of silk, too, as fine as lawn.

. . . Now the long fingers were playing with the pectoral cross. There, too, Jennifer caught the wink of a jewel; the male glitter of a ruby answering the softer amethyst. .

. . The effect was one of somber richness, and—against that simple white background—curiously unpleasant.

"And how can I help you?" came the cool, precise voice.

Jennifer banished what must after all be only a momentary and slightly nerve-ridden impression, and introduced herself and her mission without delay.

"My name is Silver, and I'm the cousin of Madame Lamartine, who is, I understand, staying here with you. ..."

She paused, not quite knowing why she did so. The black eyes watching her showed no expression, but the ruby on the woman's breast sparkled and then dulled again.

She said nothing.

Jennifer found herself going on, a little hurriedly:

"She wrote to ask me to come and see her, so I've taken a room in Gavarnie for a fortnight. I arrived this morning, and have come straight up, hoping to see her today.

Is it possible, or have I come at an inconvenient time?"

She paused expectantly. For a moment the woman did not reply. Then she repeated, slowly, "You are Madame Lamartine's cousin?"

"Yes."

"She told you that you could come here and see her?"

"Yes," said Jennifer again, trying to keep the edge of impatience out of her voice.

"But you are English."

"So is she. She married a Frenchman, and her mother was French, but she's English."

"But------" The woman began to speak, then stopped short, and the heavy lids came down over her eyes, but not in time to conceal a flicker of puzzlement, and something else that Jennifer could not read. She was silent.

"Does it matter?" asked Jennifer. "Surely she mentioned the fact that I'd be coming to see her? Naturally, I assumed that I could, or she'd have written to put me off."

The other did not raise her eyes. She said slowly, almost absently, "No. No, she did not mention it. We were not aware that she had any ... connections."

There was something so queer about the tone of the last sentence that once again Jennifer felt that curious stir of uneasiness. She said, keeping her voice pleasant and un-worried, "I see. I'm sorry to have taken you unawares. But I'd be very glad to see her now that I have come. Will you take me to her, please, Sister?"

But the woman in black still stood there without response, and suddenly Jennifer's impatience and earlier uneasiness gathered and broke in a jet of apprehension. All at once it became urgent, immediate, that she should see Gillian: it was both wrong and absurd that this should be made so difficult; a convent was not a prison, and, in any case, Gillian could not possibly have taken any vows yet, so the convent rules could not bind her. Why, then, should these impalpable barriers be erected between them at every turn? Ridiculous as the suspicion appeared, she began to see, in the silence of the girl at the gate, and in the unresponsiveness of this woman, evidence of a mysteriously motivated effort to keep her away from Gillian.

She said levelly, "I know that my cousin has been ill; she wrote and told me so. If she is ill at present, I should be glad if you will tell me the truth about it. In any case, well or ill, I should like to see her. At once, please."

This, at any rate, elicited some response. The heavy lids lifted, and the expressionless eyes met hers.

"I am afraid that is not possible."

"You mean I
can't?
" Jennifer moved sharply. "Why not? She's here still, isn't she?"

Something flickered again behind the dark Spanish eyes, and, quite suddenly, Jennifer felt once more, deep inside her, the cold twist of fear.

"
Isn't
she?"

"Oh, yes," said the cool voice, "she is here. She died two weeks ago, senorita, and was buried in our churchyard. Shall I take you to her now?"

It was in a state of merciful numbness, as yet unthawed into grief, that Jennifer, following her new guide, retraced her recent steps. Down the corridor, between the blind doors and the glaring windows, where the saints waited, dumb in their shadowed niches . . .
I have found that which was lost
... St. Anthony's changeless smile passed over her unheeding head; nor did she lift her eyes as she went softly down the broad staircase between yet other ranks of watchers . . . St. Francis, St.

Teresa, St. Sebastian . . . whatever of consolation lay in those dim canvases went unsought; she gave them never a glance. The hall, rich still in swimming light that swarmed gold-dusty with motes of blue and scarlet and topaz, the tunnel's cool echoing passage, the chapel door . . . these flowed by like a dream, forgotten even as it passes.

And then they had left the building, and over them broke the brilliance of the blazing garden.

If poverty had been the keynote of the convent buildings, its garden was redolent of wealth. There was, even here, certain evidence of monastic austerity, in that no flowers grew for the sake of their beauty alone, but the formal beds beneath the peach trees were rich with thyme and lavender and purple rosemary, while the feet of the pear and apple trees espaliered on the surrounding walls stood deep in a silver drift of sage. A row of apricot trees lent support to a disciplined riot of vines; below it, in careful ranks, fading stems were weighted with the fabulous red of tomatoes.

There was even a pair of orange trees, standing sentinel at the end of a box-bordered path, looking, with their symmetrical heads hung with glossy green fruit, for all the world like guardians of some fantastic gateway to fairy tale, or to the herb garden pictured on some faded medieval page . . . basil, vervain, borage; saffron, hyssop, juniper; violet for heart's-ease, and blue clary and the little lemon thyme. . . . Over all hung the scent of spices and warm earth, and the resinous smell of the near pinewoods mingled sleepily with the fragrance of lavender. Not a bird sang, but the air was loud with bees.

Of none of this was Jennifer even remotely aware; neither, it appeared, was her black-robed guide, who, for some doubtless cogent reason of her own, passed swiftly between the orange trees with downcast eyes, and led the way along a path whose borders held back a tide of balsam and drowsy poppies, toward an iron gate set in the east wall of the garden. But before she reached it, something—whether it was the sudden high drone of a bee passing too near her cheek, or the flash of a lizard across the path, or the muted plop of a ripe apricot falling among the herbs—some small jerk at her senses recalled Jennifer to herself.

She checked her pace, and spoke. "Sister, please."

The woman turned. The white hands were hidden again, but the ruby sparkled as the sun caught it. The shadow of a peach tree, making patterns with the sun upon her black habit, cast a veil across the upper part of her face.

"Please," said Jennifer, holding her with a little gesture, "just one moment. Please tell me a—a little more about it. It's been a bit of a shock, you see. I'd be glad if you'd tell me—how it happened."

"What do you want to know?"

Under the circumstances, the question was sufficiently surprising, but the cool voice, no less than the woman's whole indifferent demeanor, made it an outrage. A healthy prick of anger stabbed through the numbness of Jennifer's grief.

She said, hotly, "Somewhat naturally, I want to know everything about it! I come here, expecting to see my cousin; I've heard nothing from her since she wrote three weeks ago asking me to come; I have the greatest difficulty in finding out anything about her—and now you tell me that she's dead, and expect that to be enough! Don't you think I have a right to know how she died, and why none of her relatives has been informed of her death?"

Throughout this outburst the other did not move, but stood listening with bent head, a humble attitude that somehow completely failed to suggest humility; Jennifer found herself, indeed, with the odd impression that the Spaniard was indulging in a species of swift and unpleasant calculation. However this was, it appeared to result in a change of attitude, for when Jennifer stopped speaking, the other seemed ready enough to volunteer the information she sought; indeed, she was almost concerned to give an account so full that there would be nothing left to ask.

"She died of pneumonia, following a car accident which occurred on her way here from Bordeaux, on June the thirteenth. She drove herself up on a bad day, after a period of heavy rain. It was evening, and very stormy, when she came up the valley from Luz, and she was a little way below Gavarnie when the accident happened. It's thought that some boulders and clay above the road had been loosened by the rain; at any rate, an avalanche of stones and small rocks apparently swept the car off the road into the gorge. She------"

"One moment," Jennifer interrupted the even narrative. "What do you mean by 'it is thought,' and 'it appeared'? Don't you
know
how the accident happened? If Gil—if Madame Lamartine died of pneumonia following the accident, surely she was able to give account of it herself?"

"But no." The answer was emphatic. "She gave no account of it. I have said that it was a wild night; well, when the car went into the gorge, madame was bruised and shaken, but luckily escaped worse injury. There, the gorge is not deep. Nobody saw the accident. She managed to get up here, without help, but it is a long way, and in that terrible storm------" Inside the black sleeves the hands sketched a tiny gesture.

"When she reached our gate she was exhausted, completely exhausted. We took her in and put her to bed, but the shock had made her ill, and by the next day she was delirious. After that, it did not take long. She died eight days later, on the Tuesday, We did what we could.'*

"But I don't understand—where did you say this happened?"

"About six kilometers below Gavarnie."

"Then why," asked Jennifer, "didn't she go to Gavamie for help? Why did she struggle all the way up here? Didn't she go through the village? And didn't anybody see her?"

Anxiety and shock had unconsciously sharpened Jennifer's voice, so that the rapid questions sounded almost like an accusation, but if the other resented the tone, she made no sign, keeping her eyes on the ground and her voice smooth.

"There I cannot answer you, senorita. Why she acted as she did I do not know. The fact remains that she did not go to the village for help, but came on up here, alone. It may be that the accident had dazed her, so that she could only remember enough to struggle to the place she knew she was making for; it is certain that when she reached our gates she was in the far stages of exhaustion. She was wet through, and fainting.

The damage was done from which she died."

"I—see. You had the doctor from the village, of course?"

"Of course." The black eyes came up at last to meet Jennifer's, and in them, unmistakably, was anger, but she went on evenly enough: "Rest assured that we did what we could, senorita; we have some skill in these matters. Monsieur le Medecin was good enough to say that she could not have been in better hands." She paused, and then added, "Father Anselm was with her at the end. He will tell you that she died in peace."

Around them, in the quiet garden, rose the thousand healing scents of leaf and flower. Jennifer, her anger fading, felt herself touched with a sense of shame. She said, impulsively, "I'm sorry, Sister, I didn't mean to imply that you didn't look after my cousin; I'm sure that everything was done that could be. You must forgive me—this has been a shock, you see; even yet, I can't really take it in. It seems impossible that Gillian------" She stopped.