Dark Moonless Night. Anne Mather

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       CHAPTER THREE

      CAROLINE slept badly. She tossed and turned in the narrow bed, occasionally stubbing her toes on the unaccustomed rails at its foot, and was awakened with a start at half past six by an uproar from the children’s room. Only half awake, she sprang out of bed, searching for the quilted cotton robe she had draped over the chest the night before. The children’s room was across the passage and as she emerged from her room she could hear Miranda screaming and David whooping exuberantly.

      Wondering how on earth Charles and Elizabeth could sleep through such a din, she thrust open the children’s door. Miranda was a quivering heap in one corner of the room, while her brother was bouncing excitedly up and down on his bed.

      ‘What on earth is going on here?’ Caroline demanded.

      But even as she spoke she saw what it was that had reduced Miranda to a frightened jelly. Standing squarely on the floor between her and the comparative safety of her bed was a lizard, perhaps six inches in length, with grotesquely revolving eyes.

      Miranda had stopped screaming at Caroline’s entrance and pointed with trembling fingers towards the small reptile. ‘It—it’s a dragon!’ she announced, her voice trembling. ‘A baby dragon. And—and soon its mummy is going to come and take it away!’

      Caroline gave David an impatient glance. ‘Oh, really?’ she commented. ‘I suppose your brother told you that.’

      Miranda started to nod, but David broke in, his expression indignant. ‘No, I did not,’ he denied. ‘I only said that—

      well, perhaps it might be a dragon …’

      ‘But you knew it was not,’ stated Caroline, turning to him. ‘Didn’t you?’

      David hunched his shoulders. ‘How should I know what it is?’

      Caroline regarded the terrified creature with a certain amount of distaste. ‘Well, Miranda, it’s not a dragon. Nor is it a baby anything. It’s a lizard, that’s all. A harmless, frightened lizard, who can’t understand what all this fuss is about. Can you see the way its little body is throbbing? That’s because it’s scared—more scared of you than you should be of it.’

      Miranda scrambled slowly to her feet, her eyes glued to the creature as she did so. Then she looked across at Caroline. ‘But—but what’s it doing in here? How—how did it get in?’

      David looked as though he was about to make some startling explanation, but then thought better of it when he met Caroline’s cautioning stare. Caroline herself was trying desperately to think of some satisfactory explanation, but everything that occurred to her left the way open for Miranda to ask whether it might happen again. At last she decided to use the truth in a way that might relieve Miranda’s mind.

      ‘Well,’ she began carefully, ‘I expect Mr. Lizard was taking his morning stroll when he found himself passing through this room. And then you started screaming and David started shouting, and poor old Mr. Lizard thought: My goodness me, there must be something terrible going on here. I’d better not go any farther in case I get involved.’

      Miranda frowned. ‘You mean—you mean he—usually comes through our bedroom?’

      Caroline licked her lips which had suddenly gone dry. ‘Well—er—yes—and no!’ She paused, aware of David watching her closely. ‘I expect sometimes he comes this way, and sometimes he goes some other way, but today just happened to be the day for the Laceys’ bungalow.’

      Miranda suddenly let out another little scream as the lizard, clearly tired of waiting any longer, darted swiftly towards the window, ran up the wall and disappeared through the shutters. Even Caroline could not completely hide the desire to gather her skirts more closely about her legs, but at least now it had gone and the atmosphere eased considerably.

      ‘There you are,’ she managed, with as much nonchalance as she could muster. ‘He’s gone, and after today’s performance I doubt very much whether he’ll want to come back.’ Miranda breathed a sigh of relief, and David sat cross-legged on his bed, watching her as she picked her way gingerly across the linoleum.

      ‘I’m glad I’m not frightened of lizards,’ he remarked disparagingly. ‘I expect there are millions of them here——’

      ‘David!’ Caroline’s tone was sharp. ‘I will not have you deliberately frightening your sister like this! Now, I’m going to make some tea. If you two want to come along, you can. But put on your dressing gowns—and please be quiet! I don’t want to wake your mother and father.’

      ‘Oh, Daddy’s gone,’ remarked David airily. ‘He left about half an hour ago.’

      Caroline frowned. ‘Left? For where?’

      ‘For work, he said. He came in to say goodbye to us. They start terribly early here because it’s too hot to work later on.’

      That made sense. Caroline nodded. ‘Well, don’t wake your mother, then,’ she advised dryly.

      ‘I expect Miranda’s done that already,’ replied David practically, and Caroline gave him another exasperated look before turning along the passage towards the kitchen.

      She filled the kettle from the tap which Charles had explained the night before was attached to a large water tank outside. When the tank was empty, it had to be refilled from the nearby stream, and if it should rain, water was collected in barrels to be used as well. Plugging in the kettle, Caroline felt her spirits reasserting themselves. In spite of her broken night’s sleep, things seemed infinitely brighter this morning. It was all an adventure, and in spite of his attitude towards her yesterday, the knowledge that Gareth Morgan was only a few miles away filled her with an unreasoning excitement.

      While the kettle was boiling she took her first real look at La Vache. From the kitchen-windows there was little to interest her in a patch of scrubby grass and a belt of jungle-like undergrowth, although the purple-shadowed mountains beyond had a remote beauty. But the living-room windows overlooked the lawn at the front of the house, and beyond it the hard-baked track which served as a road.

      It was much bigger than Caroline remembered from the night before, СКАЧАТЬ