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.Oh, dear, she thought, he looks terribly Easter Island, or even like Mr.Rochester in Jane Eyre.'And what is going on in your head now?' he asked, a little sarcastic.'I was thinking,' said Catherine slowly, 'that it isn't only we poor women who can find consolation in literature.Men can have the comfort of imagining themselves like Heathcliff or Mr.Rochester.I wonder if they often do?''What rubbish you talk,' he said brusquely.But suddenly the sun broke through on the grim surface of the carved rock and he smiled.'But what should I do with all my notes if I didn't write them up?' he asked.'Oh, we'd soon think of something,' said Catherine gaily.CHAPTER TWENTYTHE first meeting between Miss Clovis and Miss Lydgate after the fatal week-end was a stormy one.Things were said on both sides which might be regretted afterwards, and both felt the perverse satisfaction which is to be got from saying things of precisely that kind.It is very seldom that we can tell our friends exactly what we think of them; for some the occasion never presents itself, and they are perhaps the poorer for not having experienced the exultation of flinging the buried resentment and the usually irrelevant insult at a dear friend.Afterwards they were both exhausted and hungry.They went together to the kitchen and, with hands still shaking.Miss Lydgate attempted to open a tin of pilchards.Miss Clovis took over from her with rough affection.'I'm sorry, Gertrude,' she declared.'I can see now that this was none of your doing.'Miss Lydgate was bending over the bread-bin to get out the loaf.'Let's have a strong cup of Nescafe,' she said, 'we both need it.I can't help feeling,' she went on as she filled the kettle, 'that I might have been a little more intelligent, though.That day when we were having lunch, he hinted in that sly way of his — you know how he does - that he might be getting funds from somewhere.Perhaps I should have known?''But if you had known, what could you have done?''I could have warned you and Felix.I could have spared you the strain of the week-end.''Well, the young things had some good meals, better than they usually get, I'm sure.That is something to the-good.''Gemini - twins - there is something two-faced even about his name,' declared Miss Lydgate in a disgusted tone.They sat down at the table, both rather subdued.'I suppose this has been a purging, a catharsis,' said Miss Clovis.'It has had the effect on us that a Greek tragedy might have.We are drained and exhausted of all feeling now.''This means the end of our linguistic collaboration.And I know what I shall do.' Miss Lydgate laid down her knife and fork and thumped the table.'We were writing an article together, but it was not finished.I shall withold my material on the Gana verb,' she declared harshly, 'without that the whole thing will fall to pieces, but he shall not have it!'Miss Clovis paused, then said, 'Yes, Gertrude, I can understand your feeling like that and I am grateful for your loyalty.But you are too great a scholar to be able to carry it through.That material on the Gana verb is too important to be withheld and it must be published in conjuction with Father Gemini's researches.''Yes, I see what you mean.It is greater than any of us and through it we must somehow rise above our petty squabbles.''That's it.Floreat scientia!' cried Miss Clovis.They rose from the table making no attempt to do anything with the dishes, for it was not their custom to.'I am worried about Alaric,' said Miss Lydgate.'I telephoned him last night and he was not in.Mrs.Skinner didn't seem to know where he had gone.''I suppose he didn't tell her - he may not have thought it necessary.''But she told me that he was in the house when she went out to evening service at the chapel and when she came back he had gone without leaving any message.She didn't know what to do about the meal.''Well, he is a grown man,' said Miss Clovis with a bark of laughter.'I'd always imagined he might break out sometime.''You don't think it could be anything like that, do you?'Miss Lydgate looked worried.'I am fifteen years older than he is and have always felt responsible for him.Mother always used to say that he was weak.''He may just have gone out to the cinema,' said Miss Clovis reassuringly, 'but if you're anxious let's pay him a surprise visit.He will surely be back now, twenty-four hours later.''Yes, let's do that.We'll go on the bus.'As they got out of the bus and walked along the road, they heard a number of explosions, some in the distance, others startlingly near, and once the night sky was illuminated by a rocket which broke in a shower of green and golden stars.There was a smell of gunpowder in the cool frosty air.'Why, it's Guy Fawkes night,' said Miss Clovis, 'what fun!''I hardly think that Alaric will be celebrating it in any way,' said Miss Lydgate, as they walked up the path to his front door.'I don't know about that,' said Miss Clovis, peering round the side of the house.'It looks almost as if he has a bonfire in the garden, unless it's next door.'They rang the bell but nobody came for some time.Then Mrs.Skinner opened the door.She looked even more worried than usual and the large flower ear-rings she wore contrasted incongruously with her pinched anxious little face.'Oh, Miss Lydgate,' she cried, 'Mr.Lydgate is in the garden, and Miss Oliphant is there.''Miss Oliphant? Who is Miss Oliphant?''We met her that Sunday afternoon,' Miss Clovis began to explain, but Miss Lydgate was already striding through the hall and out of the back door.'Alaric!' she called.'What are you doing?'There was no answer so they ventured further into the garden, then stopped in the middle of the lawn to gasp at the sight that met their eyes.A large bonfire of sticks and garden rubbish was blazing beyond the vegetable patch.Two figures, a tall man and a small woman, were poking at it vigorously with long sticks, pausing from time to time to throw on to it bundles of paper which they were taking from a tin trunk which stood on the ground nearby.'Alaric, what are you doing?' Miss Lydgate's voice had now risen to a screech.'Why, hullo, Gertrude,' he said, 'we're having a bonfire.''Yes,' said Catherine, her face shining in the firelight, 'Alaric had so much junk up in his attic and Guy Fawkes night seemed just the time to get rid of some of it.'She is calling him Alaric, thought Gertrude irrelevantly.'But these are your notes,' screamed Miss Clovis, snatching a half-burned sheet from the edge of the fire.'"They did not know when their ancestors left the place of the big rock nor why, nor could they say how long they had been in their present habitat."' she read, then threw it back with an impatient gesture.'Kinship tables!' she shrieked.'You cannot let these go!' She snatched at another sheet, covered with little circles and triangles, but Alaric restrained her and poked it further into the fire with his stick.'Esther, it's no good,' he said.'I shall never write it up now.If Catherine hadn't encouraged me, I don't think it would ever have occurred to me that I could be free of this burden for ever.''Miss Oliphant, you are a wicked woman!' cried Miss Clovis, making as if to strike her.'The bonfire was my idea,' said Alaric, 'and now we are all going to have some mulled wine.''What, even Mrs.Skinner?' asked Miss Lydgate, again with seeming irrelevance, but the idea of drinking with Mrs.Skinner was certainly a startling one.'Yes, she will be joining us
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