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‘That would be Harry, he and his wife are the caretakers.’

‘Well, he said you were in Yorkshire and not on the telephone, so I thought it had to be here.’

The wind
was
rising again. It sounded as though it was trapped in the chimney. ‘How did you find it?’ Duncan was asking her. ‘It isn’t that easy,’ and she explained,

‘I passed here last summer, on holiday.’

‘With Michael?’ He wasn’t smiling, but he seemed amused and she supposed she had made her relationship with Michael sound a bit of a joke. It hadn’t been. There hadn’t been many laughs in it at all. She said, ‘With some girls from the office. One of them pointed the lodge out and I’ve got a good sense of direction. If I’ve been anywhere once I can always find my way again.’

‘You always know where you’re going?’

She looked up at him, her eyes bright and enquiring. ‘In life, you mean? Ah, that’s different. Do you?’

‘I think so.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Barring the unforeseen.’

The unforeseen for her had happened after she lost her pendant, and found herself weeping in Duncan Keld’s arms. There had been a changing of direction for her from then on, because now she felt she could only be happy if he was travelling the same road. She fluttered her hands over the cards and chanted, ‘Consult the oracle and the way ahead will be made clear,’ fooling because she was shaken to realise how much he could influence her future plans.

She turned up a ten of spades and shivered, ‘Nasty!’

‘Reshuffle them,’ Duncan suggested, and she acted horrified.

‘You can’t do that. That’s cheating!’ But it was as well she wasn’t a believer because she was holding a card of ill omen, and she looked at it with distaste until he twitched it out of her fingers, said, ‘Don’t let a piece of cardboard hex you,’ and spun it into the fire.

‘Now you’ve spoiled the set!’ She watched it catch alight, then her head jerked up and she turned to Duncan, gasping, ‘What’s that? Not the wind,’ because the noise in the chimney was rising to a roaring, crackling crescendo.

‘The chimney’s on fire!’ He was on his feet as the first lump of blazing soot fell, followed by half a dozen others, bouncing over the piled up logs in the fireplace like fireballs. The goatskin rug began to smoulder and he rolled it fast and pushed it away, then started dragging everything combustible back, armchair, cushions, while Pattie threw the logs she had brought in, and dried, and stacked neatly beside the fireplace, out into the room.

Puffs of acrid smoke were belching out, and when she touched the stone of the chimney breast it seemed red-hot. That last big log she had put on was leaning against the side of the fireplace with soot glowing all around. She held her breath and peered up into the swirling smoke and Duncan roared, ‘Get out of there, you silly cow!’ and pushed her aside, dumping a bucket of snow on to the fire that hissed and steamed and then went on burning merrily.

‘But I did it, I did it!’ she wailed, and he snarled,

‘What do you want, a citation?’ and dashed outside again. Soot was still falling and the only water available was snow. Patti grabbed the washing up bowl and ran into the yard with it. Out here was like a fireworks display - flames and sparks shooting out of the chimney, blazing stars drifting down into the snow. Sparks landed on Pattie as she scooped, and she rushed back to empty her bowl, then out again and back again, passing Duncan and screeching, ‘What else can we do?’

‘Nothing, except put the soot out as it falls and let it burn itself out up there.’

‘We couldn’t get up to the chimney?’ He didn’t bother to answer that, just gave a snort of exasperation, and it was a daft suggestion. Of course they couldn’t. There probably wasn’t a ladder, the roof would be a skidpad and what could anyone do up there without water and hose?

Finally they damped down the logs in the grate and then put up the spark guard to hold back some of the soot falls, and stood guard with snow. Pattie said miserably, ‘It’s all those logs I’ve burned, I’m so sorry.’

Duncan grinned, ‘You don’t do things by halves, do you? They’ll probably see this in town and think we’re sending up distress rockets.’

‘Will they?’

‘I doubt it.’

The flagstoned floor was running with melted snow. Nothing was likely to set on fire down here, but now she ventured to ask, ‘Do you think the timbers will catch?’

‘I think we should thank our stars we’re not thatched,’ he said. ‘The cards didn’t give much warning, did they?’

‘I
was
running into a bad luck patch.’ She chewed her lip, looking at the scattered, sodden pack. ‘And now I’ll never know what the last card was.’

The fire in the grate was a black streaming mass. Everything seemed to be smoking or steaming, but the bright burning soot had stopped falling, and Duncan stepped forward to peer up the wide chimney.

‘You told me to keep my head out of there,’ Pattie muttered. ‘I suppose it’s all right to be bullish but not cowlike about these things.’

‘It’s nearly over.’ He smiled at her. ‘You should see yourself!’ and she was as relieved that he could joke about it as she was that the danger was passing. She ran into the kitchen and came back with the little mirror and held it in front of his face. He was sooty black so that his teeth flashed startlingly white, hair on end as though he had been up the chimney, acting as a flue-brush. He dropped on one knee, arms outflung, and burst into song, a passable imitation of Al Jolson: ‘I’d walk a million miles for one of your smiles.’

‘Don’t Mammy me!’ Pattie gurgled, and he got up again.

‘No, you’re right, it would never work.’ But the giggles died in her at once because the place was a shambles, and even now there could be sparks smouldering among the old beams. The stones of the chimney breast were cooling, but she was still fearful. She said huskily, ‘I could have burned the place down.’

‘The chimney should have been swept before. It wasn’t all your soot, you know.’ He wasn’t letting her take all the blame, but she was anxious for more reassurance, pleading, ‘It is going to be all right? Nothing’s going to crack or burst into flames?’

‘I shouldn’t think so for a minute, but we daren’t re-light the fire for an hour or two, so it’s going to get pretty chilly in here.’

Pattie had already started shivering. Some of it was reaction, and she had been running in and out of the snow in her stocking feet—how was that for panic? She hadn’t even stopped to put her boots on. She’d have to get out of her tights and into her boots, but now she crawled towards the old armchair and almost collapsed into it, holding her head in her hands, whispering, ‘I couldn’t have borne it if anything had happened to this place. That would have been too dreadful.’

‘Drink this,’ he said.

‘Not this much.’ She looked at the measure and shook her head, but he went on holding out the glass to her. He had another in his hand and she was too shaken to argue, so she took it and took great scalding gulps getting it down. She certainly needed something to steady her.

Duncan sat beside her in the big chair and she huddled against him. Not just for warmth but because it was good that he was still holding her when this could have thrust them apart. Of course it wasn’t all her soot, but she had kept up a fire like a furnace ever since she came. Of course if the lodge had burned down it might have been different. He might have called her more than a silly cow then, and she had a picture of scorched and blackened ruins against the white hills, and turned her face into his shoulder and tasted soot and singed wool.

But the brandy was making her sleepy, and when he said, ‘We’d be warmer upstairs,’ she said, ‘I could sleep for a month.’ Waves of exhaustion were sweeping over her, so that she swayed as she stood up, and kept her eyes closed, climbing the stairs.

Duncan probably carried her, because she seemed to get up there with hardly any effort, and the pillow smelt clean under her cheek. And her last conscious thought was, All this soot, all over us. How am I going to wash the sheets?

Pattie’s
head was throbbing when she opened her eyes. It was all that brandy, and probably the smoke too. She opened her eyes the merest slit, and closed them wincing. Then she took another peek and saw Duncan standing at the bottom of the bed, fully dressed and clean-shaven, his hair looking damp as though he had just washed it.

He was smiling broadly, and that seemed rather unfair when she felt so rotten. But she smiled back, weakly, and he asked, ‘What would you like best in the world?’

Her voice wobbled like her smile. ‘Surprise me.’

‘A hot bath.’

‘Second best.’ Her voice was getting stronger and he said,

‘Ah, you’re lovely,’ and came over and kissed her, and that made her feel better and she mumbled against his mouth,

‘What I’d like first best is two aspirins. I’ve got a hangover, my head is killing me!’

He burst out laughing. ‘And I thought you were putting me top of the list!’

‘Not at the moment.’ Pattie touched her temples gingerly. ‘It’s all that brandy you gave me on top of the wine.’

‘Treatment for shock. You need it.’ Duncan was still laughing, and she lay back on the pillow her head thumping.

‘It wasn’t a nightmare, was it?’ she asked. ‘We did have a fire?’

‘The chimney. Yes.’

‘What’s it like down there?’ She could imagine it. The floor would still be wet, everything would be all over the place and smelling of smoke.

‘All right,’ said Duncan.

‘How long have you been up?’

‘An hour or two.’ He brought her a couple of paracetamols and half a glass of water, and she gulped and swallowed. ‘Go to sleep again,' he said, and although she felt she ought to be up and doing she wouldn't be much use in this state. So she murmured apologetically and then drifted back to sleep.

Next time she woke the headache had receded. The pain was no longer agony. She sat up groggily and saw the soot stains on the pillow and remembered how filthy she was. There were tiny burn marks on the shirt she was wearing, that had been from the sparks outside, and when she ran her fingers through her hair little frizzy scorched ends came away. She threw back the sheets and grimaced.

She was still in the tights in which she had run into the snow, her feet were still damp, and she got out of them and put on a pair of thick socks she had found in the chest of drawers, then she went downstairs. She didn't expect it to be as bad as she'd left it last night, but she wasn’t prepared to find everything back to normal. The fire was burning brightly and nobody would have known anything unusual had happened, there wasn’t a sign or a smell of soot.

Duncan called from the kitchen, ‘Coffee?’

‘Oh, please, and you did mention a hot bath.’

He chuckled, ‘Up to it, are you?’

'I'd better be.’ She went into the kitchen. ‘Look at me, and your bed is revolting!'

‘Now that’s not a nice thing to say. A man could get a complex being told things like that.' Pattie grinned.

‘Well, I tell you most of the soot’s rubbed off on the sheets. You do have a change of bedding?'

‘Several.'

‘Thank goodness!’

Besides the kettle there was a big two-handled container boiling on the stove, and the tin bath was out of its cupboard. Pattie hadn’t seen the pan before, but there was enough hot water in there for a shallow bath. ‘You can have it in front of the fire,’ said Duncan, and she went on grinning,

‘Oh, you are so good to me!’

‘Oh, aren’t I just?’ He patted her cheek and she went weak at his touch so that she had to Jean against the kitchen table. Because he was making coffee, he wouldn’t want her hanging on to him. And he had bathed and she was still sooty; and it was too early in the day to expect him to take her into his arms and make love to her.

She drank her coffee while he carried the tin bath to the front of the fire and poured in the hot water. There was a large white towel and soap on the armchair, and he brought in a bucket of snow and said, ‘Get it down to the right temperature and you wouldn’t get better treatment in a five-star hotel.’

‘Certainly not better room service,’ she joked. She took off the socks she had borrowed, and began to cool down the near-boiling water with handfuls of snow. She was shy about stripping, although Duncan wasn’t watching her. All his attention was centred on his papers. It didn’t seem to bother him having a girl taking a bath in the same room. If the circumstances had been reversed she would have found it confusing but perhaps he was used to it. After all, that was how these old tin baths were used, for ablutions in front of the fire. Perhaps that was how everybody bathed in this house, including visitors.

Once in the water she concentrated on soaping herself liberally, including her hair. -It was the first time she had examined herself for bruises from the car crash and there were less than she had expected. Her tan was fading, and turning a dingy yellow, she would need some extra solarium sessions to restore that. She wondered if Duncan’s tan came from spending time under hot suns or because he was naturally dark. A touch of the gipsy perhaps, or Spanish blood. She was sure it didn’t come from a bottle or a sunlamp, as hers did.

Soon the water began to cool. If she had been offered another kettle to warm it up she would have lain here soaking a little longer. But she didn’t fancy disturbing Duncan, and what with the bruises and the fading tan she decided she looked a bit like a plucked chicken, so she hopped out and swathed herself in the enveloping towel.

As soon as she was dressed she would heat a kettle to rinse the soap out of her hair, and she began to towel herself dry, and then Duncan looked across and asked, ‘Finished?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

He dragged the bath out through the kitchen and the back door, and Pattie shivered as cold air blew in, and hastily donned bra and pants. As he came back, towards the fire, towards her, she pulled the towel round her once more, and asked, ‘Any sign of the thaw out there?’

‘I wouldn’t have said so.’

Good, she thought. She said, ‘It’s lovely in here, and we must have the cleanest chimney for miles.’