The Old Vengeful

Wilder inclined his head. 'In anticipation of just that request, dummy3

Mr Aske, I have prepared a little list for you.' He produced a long white envelope from his breast pocket. 'For the Americans I have also written brief letters of introduction.

For the English, it will be sufficient to mention my name . . .

And now I must be away, regretfully.' He bowed to Elizabeth.

Aske looked at Elizabeth quickly. 'But won't you stay, Professor? I'm sure Mrs Audley will expect us to ask you to ...

and we do still need your brains, sir.'

'No. I think you'll do very well without me.' Wilder spoke with the resolution of a grandee. 'Besides which, at my age one becomes a creature of habit, and my housekeeper has a steak-and-kidney pie and a bottle of Beaune waiting for me ... And these August evenings are closing in, and it will be dark soon, and the forecast is for rain . . . and I have an hour's drive ahead of me. So thank you—but no.' He turned for a last time to Elizabeth. 'Miss Loftus ... it has been a pleasure. And I hope you will regard me as a friend now, and will call on me. I see far too few young women these days.'

'Professor . . .' In any other circumstances she would have been nattered by that, and would have reacted to it somehow.

But her mind was bobbing wildly in the Shannon's wake, somewhere between Kyle of Lochalsh and the inner Sound of Raasay.

'I can see that your brain's full of new thoughts!' He smiled impishly. 'And that's what makes the historian, Miss Loftus—

the sudden fertilisation of knowledge by intelligence, to dummy3

breed some tiny embryo of truth! Nurture it, Miss Loftus, nurture it and cherish it!' He swung back to Aske. 'Now, Mr Aske—?'

Aske gave Elizabeth another of his quick looks. 'Yes, Professor . . . Allow me to see you out—'

They went, leaving Elizabeth to her own thoughts, which were carrying her on an irresistible tide past the old Vengeful on the rocks of Les Echoux and the Fortune on the Horse Sands, towards the Shannon—

The door-latch clattered again eventually.

'That wasn't overwhelmingly civilised, Miss Loftus, if I may say so,' Aske chided her. 'The old boy expected a more graceful dismissal, after all his trouble, you know.'

She heard him, but the words hardly registered; she could think only . . . if I can see it, why can't he see it?

He shook his head. 'Maybe he wasn't quite expecting a peck on the cheek. But you could at least have shaken his hand.'

Her confidence ebbed. If it meant nothing to him when it was so obvious, then perhaps it was nothing—a thing long since considered and discarded.

'Now the poor old boy believes you still haven't forgiven him for whatever it was he quarrelled over with your father—'

Whatever it was?

'—and we still may need his help, Miss Loftus.'

He didn't know! It seemed impossible to her. But then, when dummy3

she remembered how contemptuous Paul had been of him, and how Paul had gone about everything, it suddenly didn't seem so unlikely—it almost became inevitable, rather—

'Miss Loftus?' He had realised at last that she was only half listening to him.

'Don't you know what they quarrelled about, Mr Aske?'

'Does it matter?'

Did it matter? Even if he didn't know, Paul did—and Dr Audley must know too . . . Was it possible that they hadn't seen the wood for the trees? Or was there simply no wood to see?

'It was over the Shannon, Mr Aske.'

'Oh?' His glance flicked to the Guardian. 'Well, I hardly think that matters.' He sounded as though he was finding politeness difficult. 'Does it?'

'She was originally named the Vengeful—until about eighteen months ago, when they were fitting her out. Father got very angry about the re-naming.'

'Did he, indeed?' He started to yawn, then quickly put his hand to his mouth. 'Mmm?'

'Doesn't that . . .' Diffidence almost froze her, but for a tiny red spark of anger which his boredom kindled '. . . doesn't that suggest anything to you?'

'Well ... to be honest, Miss Loftus, the only thing I can think about at the moment is my dinner. That's what the Professor's steak-and-kidney pie did for me, I'm afraid.' He dummy3

indicated the door. 'Shall we go and see what that precocious child is up to?' He smiled. 'Then—'

The spark blazed into fire. ' Mr Aske!'

He raised his hands. 'All right, all right! The Shannon was once the Vengeful. Then so what?'