In my concentration on the meal I had said nothing to him and had managed to forget his existence beyond the I click of silverware against china. My attention was drawn back to him when a pack of cigarettes was thrust under my I nose.
“Smoke?”
“I don’t.”
He lit one, the smoke he exhaled shadowing briefly the injured cheek. His look, without the disfiguration, would have been somber enough. I noticed that his hand bore scars, too, and I later learned that he had taken mine fragments all through the right arm and chest. He had, it turned out, been trying to drag the man in front of him out of the minefield.
“The situation is this, Miss Murdock,” he said bluntly, leaning forward slightly. “It was perfectly all right for me to extend hospitality to my male ward of twenty. Quite another thing when that ward is female. There is no one in the house but me. And while this may be wartime, there are still proprieties to be observed.”
“But we barely made it here,” I exclaimed, gesturing out at the whirling night.
He shook his head impatiently. “Not tonight, of course, you idiot. I’ll find you a place in the village tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry I was so silly not to tell you,” I babbled, unable to meet his eyes. “And I’ll be twenty-one in less than a year so you won’t be bothered with me long. Oh, the whole thing is ridiculous,” I cried, jumping up, annoyed because I couldn’t even make a decent apology to him.
He looked up at me with less rancor. He reached out one hand and reseated me.
“It’s not that I am bothered with you, my dear ward. To be truthful, I couldn’t do enough to repay the debt I owe Jim - your father. It’s just that it would be so much easier if you were a boy.”
“That’s what father always said,” I muttered sullenly.
“You make a much prettier girl or you would if you had some flesh on you. That dean didn’t exaggerate when she said you were run down.”
“Her!” I grated out between my teeth. I’d had my run-ins with Crab-eyes. Some of my resentment must have been reflected in my expression for he suddenly smiled at me.
“From the tone of her letter, I gather she considered me her contemporary,” he remarked dryly.
“Fatherly and white-haired, suitable guardian to a well-brought-up army brat,” I replied in a simpering voice, up to the last two words which I spat out.
“Brat is right,” he agreed firmly. “And as your guardian and by the few gray hairs I possess as of this moment, you get to bed.”
“It isn’t even ten yet,” I complained, glancing at the clock.
“The time is immaterial, the way you look. I’ll show you your room.”
“The way I look indeed,” I murmured to myself but I followed him.
“Which bag do you need tonight?” he asked and I pointed.
He led the way through the corridor into the dining room, to the front hall beyond. As I entered the foyer, I saw on my left the most unusually lovely stairway I have ever seen. A short flight of steps, parallel to the front door, ended on a low landing where the stairs continued, again parallel to the front door, to an intermediate landing, then switched on a short leg of a Z to the upper level. The balustrade over the stairwell was slightly bowed out, the spindles gracefully and unusually turned. It was a clever variation which fitted into a smaller space than conventional flights.
Major Laird noticed my surprise and pointed out the chandelier hanging over the stairwell.
“I mean to get the house electrified one day but not that. With candles in it, it is lovely to behold. Electricity would spoil it. This house is fairly old, added onto during the course of the eighteen hundreds. The oldest part is between the kitchen and the garage. I’ll show you tomorrow.”
We climbed the stairs and I stopped at each level, turning to see the effect.
The major shoved open an H-hinged door into a room at the front of the house, to the right of the stairs. Merlin padded in ahead and circled the room. The major ducked mechanically where the roof sloped down in front of the house. He lit the kerosene light on a massive old cherry bureau and laid my case at the foot of the four-poster spool bed with its quilted coverlet.
“It’s a lovely room,” I murmured, glancing around at the sparse but good furnishings, noticing the handmade braided rugs on the wide planked floors.
“My mother enjoyed this sort of stuff,” he commented, implying that he did not.
“Bathroom’s down the hall, second door on the right. Colder’n Croesus, I warn you. No way to heat it.” He turned to the fireplace in this room, its coals glowing warmly. He threw on more wood and the fire flared up obediently.
“More blankets in here if you’re cold,” he told me, tapping the blanket chest at the foot of the bed.
I sat down wearily on the high bed. Merlin jumped up and I was about to order him down, looking up at the major apprehensively. Even if he didn’t approve of the antiques, he might not want a dog on his mother’s patchwork quilt.
“I wish I had him to keep me warm tonight,” he said, grinning ruefully as he closed the door behind him. He stuck his head back in. “We’re on total blackout here, so keep your curtains drawn.”
“In a blizzard?”
“In a blizzard!”
I waited until I heard his footsteps on the stairs. Fatigue seeped through me. I pulled myself up by a bedpost and struggled to open the suitcase. I found slippers and a flannel nightgown. I shed my clothes and kicked them out of my way under the bed and the hell with them tonight.
I shuddered as the cold sheets chilled me even through the heavy flannel. Merlin did his usual act of stretching out beside me. He was longer than I. His warmth spread soothingly through the heavy blankets and he squirmed on his back to get comfortable against me. His warm moist nose prodded my ear in a canine kiss. Fine life when only your dog wishes you goodnight, I thought as I closed my eyes.
CHAPTER TWO
It was a combination of the cold and the wind that roused me. And once half conscious, I felt a vague nausea develop rapidly from chronic to acute. I staggered from the bed, barely aware of my surroundings. Merlin was instantly alert, whining a concerned question. I fumbled for the door latch, managed to open the door, and ran down the hallway. The upper hall was narrow and I barely avoided tumbling down the stairs, dizzy with nausea as well as sleep.
“Second door, second door,” I heard myself mumbling and swallowed against the rising substance in my gorge. I slammed open the door and saw the gleam of the toilet bowl. I just made it.
Merlin thrust an inquisitive nose at my arm and I pushed him away impatiently. He was no use to me. I heard his nails scrabbling against bare floor. I kept on being ill. I kept on being ill and then I started to shiver, because the bathroom was indeed colder’n Croesus. I started to shiver and I couldn’t stop and it was a toss-up between shivering and dry-retching. I didn’t have the strength to crawl back to bed. I huddled weakly against the toilet seat.
My eyes had just become accustomed to the dark when I caught a glimpse of a light over my shoulder. I groaned at the humiliation of having the major find me in such a condition. I groaned and my teeth chattered and I retched futilely.
“God, what next?” I heard him say as he paused on the threshold. I felt his warm hand on my forehead, the skin rough with the uneven scar tissue.
“You’re freezing.”
I chattered back at him.
“Through being ill?”
I nodded, swallowing against the reflexive spasm that seized my diaphragm. He took my hand in his and drew me to my feet. His wool bathrobe was warm under my hands. He slipped an arm under my knees and picked me up. He also cracked my head against the door frame as he maneuvered me out.