Dear Deceiver(27)

'Probably followed the camel train to Iraq.' Paul's flippancy jarred.

She looked with new eyes at the small well moulded jaw above the jazzy  turquoise shirt. That night on the long train journey from Euston, and  for several nights after, the whole face had haunted her dreams. Now its  charm seemed superficial.

'Anyway, you've not been the loser,' Paul remarked. 'It's made a woman of you. I'm a connoisseur,' he added softly.

She could believe it, but it was startling how little she wanted his compliments-or the kiss that followed.

'Silly!' she said scathingly, and stopped, jerking her head away. 'What's that funny smell?'

'You say the nicest things,' Paul was murmuring.

She cut him short. 'Hurry. I think it's smoke. Hurry!'

Where had he thrown the match? Had it been properly extinguished? He'd  been too irritated to check, she hadn't pressed him. Terror clutched her  as she ran, terror and guilt. More than half the blame had to be hers.  Paul had not lived with the hazard as she had for the past four weeks.

Even he had stopped joking. The acrid tang of wood smoke became stronger  with every yard. Dear Lord, Haidee prayed desperately, don't let there  be a fire.

Just this side of the badger sett they met the first puffs of smoke  coming from a patch of leaf mould on the forest floor. The dryness of  the air Haidee knew all about, the stillness seemed a dispensation of  mercy. No draught. It was not blazing and Paul was already stamping on  the mould. But at that moment a puckish breeze-ironically probably the  forerunner of the rain Rory had prophesied-caught the danger area and a  bright tongue of flame appeared. It was followed by others, small but  greedy and licking perilously at the lower branches.                       
       
           



       

She had run so hard that her chest was sore and a second's pause was imperative, but ill-timed.

'Good grief! Don't stand there!' a voice thundered. A birch broom was  thrust into her arms, a second flung at Paul. Rory-she didn't dare look  at his face-was already beating out the edge of the fire. Toby,  similarly armed with a beater, had also appeared from nowhere and was  following suit.

'Spread out, in a line,' Rory barked. Bad enough to have the fire he'd  been dreading without having to fight it with a child and two complete  novices. But to fetch more help would mean laying down a desperately  needed brown.

It was worse than it seemed. Only the first patch was actually blazing, but already smouldering leaf mould covered a large area.

'Look out behind!' Rory shouted, and swung round. A heap which one of  them had treated too lightly was suddenly showing a red glow and a tiny  wicked flame. He beat it vigorously and it subsided.

Was that me? Haidee thought fearfully.

It was nightmare. The acrid curtain of smoke whipped into eyes and  lungs. Tears came stingingly and streamed down her cheeks. She backed  away for a minute to blink and cough.

Hard to say how long they had struggled. And still that one place  blazed. For all the ferocity with which Rory's broom crashed into it the  eager flames continued to fork upward. She saw them with a clutch of  terror. The birch beaters were for ground work. If the trees caught they  were finished.

Had Rory bargained for the hold the fire had got? Should he have spared  time to call the fire brigade? Strength, comage and experience, great as  they were, could not do the impossible. Her heart told her sinkingly  that here was the proof of it. His heart must be telling him the same,  for he had just passed a hand across his forehead. It seemed like a  gesture of despair. Haidee could have wept. Who knows how many of his  trees Rory might lose, who knows how many years would go up in smoke? It  took beech one hundred years to reach maturity. The conifers did it in  sixty, but that was hardly overnight.

Inferno was a word out of fashion. Suddenly it was close, stinging eyes  and nostrils, crackling in ears. Heat shimmers distorted her vision. She  saw quiveringly-Rory's arm crooked for a second across his scorched  forehead, Paul's bright shirt spattered with black smudge, Toby who had  just panted out: 'Oh, gosh!' and retreated with squeezed-up eyes. Toby  had fought like a Trojan, but he was only a child and she suspected he  had reached his limit.

It was the way she felt herself if she could yield to it. But she  couldn't Half her fault, she had to go on. One more try, you can, you  must. She raised the beater and at that moment Toby screamed something  and went hell for leather towards the main approach.

Haidee had not heard him properly, but now there were other sounds,  tyres crunching on the tarred roadway, and, blessedly, miraculously, a  siren. Now she knew what he had shouted; it had been: 'Fire brigade!'

Steel-helmeted figures dragging their long hose were running down the path.

Beside her Rory's broom fell from his hands. 'Thank God,' he said.

The terror ended as dramatically as it had begun. The hissing of the  jets died away and the writhing flames gave place to soaking black mould  and dripping trees. Rory was still with the fire crew and Toby hanging  round them.

'Do I get the impression that nobody loves us?' Paul asked Haidee.

It was only too evident. 'I'm sorry,' she had faltered to Rory as the firemen rushed into action. 'I'm sorry.'

'Sorry!' He had cracked back the word like a whip. 'Look at it, girl,  look at it! You did that-you and Freeman!' A vein throbbed scaringly in  the grime on his forehead.

Walking now with Paul to his car she shivered at the memory. It did not go unnoticed.

'Forget it. Always knew the fellow was a boor.' Paul looked at her  concernedly. 'Look, change your mind. Get your things. I'll wait.'

'I've told you no.' She couldn't explain why the suggestion should now  seem even worse. Except that in every crisis there had to be 'behind the  scenes' help-hot water for baths, a good meal, clothes to be cleaned.                       
       
           



       

'Would you like a wash?' she offered.

'In this house? Ta very much, love. Wild horses wouldn't drag me.' A  villain, she knew, but not a Grade A villain, and suddenly she felt  sorry for him. He had done his best at fire beating, a best as poor as  her own, but at least he had tried. And what a mess he had made of his  clothes!

'Sorry,' she jerked.

It was not spurned as last time. 'So am I,' he said quite gravely for  the opportunist she knew him to be. 'And listen. I'm here till tomorrow.  I'll ring you later.'

The long rubber hose still snaked across the apron. She had just stepped  over it when Jennie's flying figure rounded the corner from the main  drive. She had obviously been running hard and was out of breath.

'Is it out? Was it bad? Was I right to phone?'

Rory, still talking to the fire officer, caught the last word and turned.

'You phoned? You, Jennie? Good girl!'

She nodded, her cheeks near to bursting. 'I saw it from up there-the  smoke, I mean. I wasn't sure, but I thought there seemed a lot of it.'  The spaniel eyes searched anxiously for approval. And got it, warmly and  generously.

'Thank the lord you did, Jen, that's all I can say.' His arm went affectionately across her shoulders.

It was Jennie's hour and well earned, Haidee conceded wholeheartedly as  she looked at the child's glowing face. It made her own thoughts of Rory  and Jennie in future years even more credible. In fact it would not be  surprising to find that even at this moment Rory shared them.

Paul phoned during the evening from the pub in the village.

'How are things? You sound pretty cheap,' he commented.

She was sorry not to be a better actress, but the temperature, so far as  she was concerned, had been sub-zero. 'Whose idea was it to take  Freeman into the woods?' Rory had asked.

'Well-mine.' Remorseful as she felt his tone had nettled. 'Since when have they been out of bounds?'

'Always, to those who can't be trusted,' he had flung back. 'And that  includes cigarette smokers. I gave even you credit for knowing that.'

The 'even you' was surely a needless cruelty. 'Rory, I've said I'm sorry. We didn't do it on purpose.'

'No? There's not much distinction, is there? You brought him there, he  threw the match. I pay the piper. If it hadn't been for Jennie we could  have lost the wood.'

She knew he had been under heavy strain, but this venting of spleen had  shocked her. Angrily, she had fought her corner. And yes, Paul was  right, cheap was the way she felt. Cheap and valueless. She had never  been highly rated in Glenglass, now she had no rating at all. It gave  her second thoughts about leaving. It could even be that by doing so she  would be performing a service.

When Paul suggested meeting him for drinks she hesitated, not relishing  running the gauntlet of the village bar on Saturday night, but weakly  longing for the company of someone who would not condemn her.

'Meet me anyway,' Paul concluded amiably. 'If you don't fancy the  Shamrock ...' he named the pub in question. 'We can go further afield.'