Strangers in Company by Jane Aiken Hodge

down his cheeks, but when Marian took his hand and began to lead him upwards, he followed in silent obedience.
    Just the same, it was a horrible and difficult journey, with Stella, following behind silent and, it seemed to Marian, oddly unhelpful. Turning back to light Mr. Hilton over a specially rough bit of stair, she cut short an impatient expostulation with Stella when she saw that silent tears were running down her face. Stupid to have forgotten that it must be the child’s first sight of death.
    Mike had been right about the candles. She was just beginning to look anxiously at the stub she carried, now flickering low in its socket and threatening, soon, to burn the hand that held it, when she saw, blessedly, the faintest hint of light ahead. “Thank God,” she said. “We’re almost there.”
    â€œBut where’s Martha?” said Mr. Hilton.
    The unanswerable question brought them in silence out into the warm sun that showed Hilton as ghastly as Marian had expected. We ought to have hot tea, she thought, and brandy. As it was, she spread her plastic raincoat on the grass and made him sit on it. “Do you smoke?” she asked.
    â€œMartha didn’t like—” He choked on it.
    â€œHave one now.” Stella, at least, had pulled herself together and took the cue to produce a battered package. She and Marian registered, with a relieved exchange of glances, that he was speaking of his wife in the past tense.
    He must have noticed it himself. He looked up at them. “It can’t be true,” he said. “Just a fall; a little fall like that? They’ll bring her up. She’ll be all right, won’t she?”
    â€œWe must hope so,” said Marian. Let him take his time; better so.
    â€œIf only my shoelace hadn’t come undone.” He was reliving it now. “But it wasn’t safe, down there in the dark. And hard to tie.” He looked down at his right foot where the lace of a surprisingly good brogue looked indeed as if it had been tied with fumbling hands. “She shouldn’t have gone,” he said. “If only that young man—Cairnthorpe—if he’d only not urged her not to, she’d never have come. She didn’t mean to. But she was always one for a dare, was Martha.” And then, aware of the past tense again, he crumbled helplessly into tears.
    Stella was prowling restlessly about on the springy grass. “God,” she said, “this is horrible. How long, do you think?”
    â€œCairnthorpe, or the others?” Marian was sitting beside Hilton, holding his hand and stroking it gently, as she might, once, have done for one of the twins in one of childhood’s moments of despair.
    â€œBoth, I suppose.”
    â€œWell”—Marian did her best to make her voice sound matter-of-fact—“at least, here come the others. I hope they have some sense.…”
    Mercifully, they did. The subdued babble of voices she had heard, doubtless exclaiming with relief, as she had,on sight of daylight, was stilled when the first of the others emerged and saw Hilton’s crumpled figure. Mrs. Duncan, in the lead, blew out her candle and took charge. “Over here,” she told the group who followed her. “Out of the way.” They looked, understood and moved dutifully away. Only Mrs. Duncan came over to lean close to Marian and say, softly, “Should we move him? They’ll be up in a moment.”
    â€œYes.” Marian looked up at her doubtfully. “I know, but I’m not sure.…”
    â€œYou may be right,” said Mrs. Duncan. “Anyway, he’s got to know.”
    Mr. Hilton took no notice of anything. He was staring at his own shoes, as if hypnotised. “Here they come,” said Mrs. Duncan, and moved forward to spread her neat grey raincoat on the short grass as far as she could from where Mr. Hilton sat.
    Mrs. Esmond and her son had just emerged from the