North Face by Mary Renault Page B

forced himself to speak to Susan about it. She flared up quickly; the boredom she had been suppressing was close to the surface. After that, the real quarrel was a matter of days.
    He realised, after, that it had supplied Susan’s conscience with some kind of sanction or permit. She persuaded herself, probably, that he no longer loved her, or, possibly, that he had got even with her while he had been away. At all events on the following evening, when a masters’ meeting guaranteed his absence (the Head’s meetings were never brief) she rang up the latest of her men and asked him over.
    From this point of the story, there were no more gaps for Neil to fill in with imagination or inference. He knew the rest. If he could get through it clearly and sanely, and somehow without re-living it, he would have done.
    The American camp had sent much of its strength home, or to Germany, since the European armistice, but a reduced force was still there. Susan had met this most recent man only a month or two before. That evening, having made it clear to him that Neil deserved no more consideration, she took him up to the small guest room at the top of the house. They were there some time.
    Before this, Sally had been put to bed. She must have wakened, and been frightened by silence or by sound. When no one answered (the cottage was an old one, the walls and doors thick) she fumbled her way downstairs, in her nightgown, to Neil’s study. It was empty; but there were warmth, interest and company in the fire, banked to last and burning brightly in the grate.
    That night Marks and Canning, seniors by now but unregenerate, were breaking bounds. The novelty of the camp had worn off, their special friends had left, and they had gone back to poaching again. They were on their way tonight to set snares for the rabbits which, tomorrow, they would skin and cook in the furnace-room under the labs, a useful supplement to tea. They went carefully, for they had been cautioned last term, and a threat of expulsion hung over both their heads. When they passed the cottage, therefore, they kept well down behind the wall, concerned not to be seen rather than to see.
    The screams from inside had not held their attention at first; they assumed a fit of temper, and crept on their way. After the first few yards, something in the sound made them feel uncomfortable; they stopped in their tracks. No answering voice was audible; the shrieking mounted, intolerably. They looked over the wall, and saw through a window a flame running about a room.
    A long career of lawlessness had made them resourceful. They scaled the wall, smashed the window, which was locked, with their muffled fists, scrambled in bleeding, and caught up a rug. By then the curtains were alight as well. Marks singed off half his hair, and Canning’s hands were scarred for life. When the flames were out, they lifted the rug again and looked inside. Canning turned faint and had to lie on the floor; Marks, who did not feel well either, picked up the telephone quickly. He knew about the masters’ meeting; their expedition had been timed for it. He dialled the Head’s number.
    Through the broken window the final screams must have carried further than the others; they penetrated to the spare room upstairs, at the other end of the house. There was a pause, a tension; Susan got out of bed and felt for her slippers. The American, who had seen service and knew the value of time, flung on his trousers and ran down barefoot and stripped to the waist. Marks and Canning were past astonishment; they were glad to see anyone. Susan was a little later. She opened the faintly whimpering bundle, screamed, and clung to the American’s neck. They were standing like this, with the green-faced boys behind them, when Neil and two other masters, who had run the quarter-mile from the Head’s house, came in at the door.
    Sally lived for nearly twenty-four hours. Neil sat all night by her cot in the hospital; she had had