He was about to turn back to the porch when the sky was split with a dazzling glare of white, and an instant later he was rocked back on his heels by a thunderclap that he was momentarily certain must have stripped half the shingles from the inn’s roof. Thinly over the crash he could hear a woman scream.
“Damn me!” he gasped, taking an involuntary step backward as the tremendous echoes rolled away east across the Weald to frighten children in distant Kent. “Did you see that?” His ears were ringing and he was speaking too loudly.
After a few seconds he exhaled sharply, and grinned. “I guess that’s a stupid question, isn’t it? But truly, Boyd, if that had struck any closer, it’s a different sort of church ceremony you’d be bringing me to tomorrow.”
It was an effort to speak jocularly—his face was beaded with sudden sweat as if he’d stepped out into the rain, and the air was sharp with a smell like the essence of fright, and for a moment it had seemed to him that he was participating in the earth’s own shudder of shock. He turned and blinked behind him—his eyes had readjusted to the darkness enough for him to see that his companions hadn’t moved, though the two women looked scared.
“No chance,” Boyd called, sitting down and filling his glass. “I remember seeing Corbie’s Aunt clinging round your head in a storm off Vigo. The stuff likes you.”
“And who,” spoke up Appleton, his voice expressing only amusement, “is Corbie’s aunt?”
Crawford sat down himself and took a glass with fingers he willed not to tremble. “Not who,” he said. “What. It’s Italian, really, supposed to be Corposanto or Capra Saltante or something like that. St. Elmo’s Fire, the English call it—ghostly lights that cling to the masts and yardarms of ships. Some people,” he added, pouring wine into his glass and waving it toward Boyd before taking a deep gulp, “believe the phenomenon’s related to lightning.”
Boyd was on his feet again, pointing toward the south end of the yard. “And what are those buildings down there?”
Lucy wearily assured him that there weren’t any buildings at that end of the yard and told him to keep his voice down.
“I saw ‘em,” Boyd insisted. “In that flash of lightning. Little low places with windows.”
“He means them old coaches,” said Louise. She shook her head at Boyd. “It’s just a couple of old berlines that belonged to Blunden’s father that haven’t been moved in thirty or forty years—the upholstery’s probably shot, not to mention the axles.”
“Axles—who needs ‘em? Mike, whistle up Corbie’s Aunt again, will you? She’ll motivate the hulks.” Already Boyd was off the porch and striding jerkily across the muddy yard toward the old coaches.
“Oh hell,” sighed Appleton, pushing back his chair. “I suppose we have to catch him and put him to bed. You didn’t think to bring any laudanum, of course?”
“No—I’m supposed to be on holiday, remember? I didn’t even bring a lancet or forceps.” Crawford stood up, and was a little surprised to discover that he wasn’t annoyed at the prospect of having to go out into the rain. Even the idea of going for an imaginary ride in a ruined coach seemed to have a certain charm.
He had left his hat in the taproom, but the rain was pleasantly cool on his face and the back of his neck, and he strode cheerfully across the dark yard, trusting to luck to keep his boots out of any deep puddles. Behind him he could hear Appleton and the women following.
He saw Boyd stumble and flailingly recover his balance a few yards short of the vague rectangular blackness that was the coaches, and when Crawford got to that spot he saw why—the coaches sat on an irregular patch of ancient pavement that stood a few inches higher than the mud.
A yellow light waxed behind him, bright enough to reflect gold glints from the wet greenery and to let him see Boyd clambering up the side of one of the coaches—Appleton and the women were following, and Lucy still had the lantern. Crawford stopped to let them catch up.
“Gallop, my cloudy steeds!” yelled Boyd from inside one of the coaches. “And why don’t you sit a little closer, Auntie?”
“I suppose if he’s got to go mad, this is the best place for it,” remarked Lucy nervously, holding up the steaming lantern and peering ahead through the downpour. “These old carriages are just junk, and Blunden’s not likely to hear his ravings out this far from the buildings.” She trembled and the light wavered.
“I’m going back inside, though.”
Crawford didn’t want the party to end—it was the last one he’d ever have as a bachelor. “Wait just a minute,” he said, “I can get him out of there.” He started forward, then paused, squinting down at the pavement. It was hard to be sure, with the rain agitating the muddy water pooled on it, but it seemed to him that there were bas-relief carvings in the paving stones.
“What was this, originally?” he asked. “Did there used to be a building here?”
Appleton cursed impatiently.
“Back in the olden days there was,” said Louise, who was clinging to Appleton’s arm and absently spilling wine down the front of his shirt. “Romans or somebody built it. We’re always finding bits of statues and things when the rains fatten the creeks in the spring.”
Crawford remembered his speculations on the age of this establishment, and he realized that he’d misguessed by a thousand years or so.
Boyd yelled something indistinct and thrashed around noisily in the old coach.
Lucy shivered again. “It’s awful cold out here.”
“Oh, don’t go in just yet,” Crawford protested. He handed his wine glass to Appleton and then awkwardly struggled out of his coat. “Here,” he said, crossing to Lucy and draping it over her shoulders. “That’ll keep you warm. We’ll only be a minute or two out here, and I did pay you to keep serving us for a couple of hours past closing time.”
“Not for out in the damned rain you didn’t. But all right, a couple of minutes.”
Appleton glanced around suddenly, as if he’d heard something over the gravelly hiss of the rain. “I—I’m going in myself,” he said, and for the first time that evening his voice lacked its usual sarcastically confident edge.
“Who are you?” Boyd yelled, all at once sounding frightened. A furious banging began inside the coach, and in the lamplight it could be seen to rock jerkily on its ancient springs; but the racket seemed dwarfed by the night, and disappeared without any echo among the dark ranks of trees.
“Good night,” said Appleton. He turned and began leading Louise hurriedly back toward the inn buildings.
“Get away from me!” screamed Boyd.
“My God, wait up,” muttered Lucy, starting after Appleton and Louise. The rain was suddenly coming down more heavily than ever, rattling on the inn roof and the road out front and on lonely hilltops miles away in the night, and over the noise of it Crawford thought for a moment he heard a chorus of high, harsh voices singing in the sky.
Instantly he was sprinting back after the other three, and only after he caught up with Lucy did he realize that he’d been about to abandon Boyd. As always happened in moments of crisis, a couple of unwelcome pictures sprang into his mind—an overturned boat in choppy surf, and a pub across the street from a burning house—and he didn’t want to take the chance of adding the back yard of this inn to that torturing catalogue; and so when Lucy turned to him he quickly thought of some other reason than fright for having run after her.
“My ring,” he gasped. “The wedding ring I’ve—got to give to my bride tomorrow—it’s in the pocket of the coat. Excuse me.” He reached into the pocket, groped around for a moment, and then came up with it between his thumb and forefinger. “That’s all.”