by Anne Mather
Nicholas was driving along slowly, the big car’s headlights illuminating the road ahead with absolute clarity.
Madeline was on edge. ‘She won’t thank us for coming after her,’ she murmured anxiously.
‘My dear Madeline, right now, I’m not wholly concerned with Diana’s feelings,’ retorted Nicholas. ‘She had no right to disappear like that!’
Madeline sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right. But I’ll be glad to find her, all the same.’
Suddenly Nicholas stiffened. ‘Isn’t that the boy she was with?’
They were nearing a car which was stopped on the other side of the road and a boy was standing talking to the driver. He looked wet and bedraggled, but it was definitely Jeff.
‘Oh, Nicholas!’ Madeline went cold. ‘Do you think there’s been an accident? Where’s Diana?’
‘We’ll soon find out’ Nicholas had stopped his car almost before the words were out of his mouth and he walked swiftly across the road to the other car which Jeff was about to enter.
‘Hold on,’ he called. ‘Jeff! What gives? Where’s Diana? And where’s the van?’
Jeff turned a horrified face on them, hardly believing he was seeing aright.
‘Mr. Vitale!…Mrs. Scott!’ Madeline had followed close behind Nicholas.
He closed the door of the car again, and looked helplessly at the driver. ‘There…there’s been an accident,’ he exclaimed. ‘Diana has fallen into a quarry!’
‘What!’ Madeline had never felt nearer to fainting dead away, but by exerting all her will power she remained conscious.
‘Steady on,’ said Nicholas quietly, and then to Jeff: ‘How far is this quarry from here?’
‘Not…not far. Through that copse of trees…’
‘Well, for heaven’s sake, what were you doing near the quarry?’ cried Madeline, in bewilderment.
‘Later, honey,’ said Nicholas, pressing her arm for a moment. ‘And where were you going?’ This to Jeff.
‘The van’s over there, under those trees. It wouldn’t start. I flagged these people down and I was going for help.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said the man in the car. He was a big, blustery-looking man, obviously a farmer.
‘I see.’ Nicholas studied for a minute. ‘Jeff, could you give us instructions on how to get to this quarry?’
Jeff looked white and strained in the glare from the headlights. ‘Yes, I think so. Why?’
‘Well, I suggest you go phone for help, as you had intended to do, and Madeline and I will go look for Diana ourselves. We might be able to find her. I’ve got a torch in the car. Are you sure she’s down this quarry?’
Jeff swallowed hard. ‘Quite sure.’
Madeline stared at him. ‘We shall want an explanation for this, Jeff,’ she said chokingly.
‘Yes, Mrs. Scott.’ Jeff looked completely cowed.
‘Right.’ Nicholas was businesslike, taking charge as he had been used to doing at work for the last twenty years. ‘Where is this quarry?’
Jeff gave them stammered instructions and the farmer exclaimed:
‘Why, it’s old Davison’s place. Why didn’t I think of it before? You’ll find it easily enough. It’s a massive place. Look, I don’t want to raise your hopes, Mrs. Scott, but that quarry is a mass of edges and jutting-out sections. It’s possible your daughter might have only fallen a few feet. Just sufficient to stun her and make her unable to answer when this young man shouted.
Madeline nodded. ‘I hope you’re right.’
‘Anyway,’ went on the farmer, as Nicholas was about to go across to collect his torch, ‘I have a length of rope in the boot of the car. Would you like to take it with you, in case you can reach her?’
‘Sure,’ said Nicholas at once. ‘That’s a good idea.’
The farmer slid out and walked round to the boot. ‘I always keep it here for emergencies. Where we live, down a lane that’s more often than not a quagmire in winter, I often have to get the tractor to haul us out.’
He handed the rope to Nicholas and then got back into his car.
‘There’s a telephone box quite near here,’ he went on. ‘Only a couple of miles down the road. You’ll soon have assistance.’
‘Thank you.’
The car drove away and Nicholas and Madeline collected the torch and then plunged through the hedge and into the copse. It was still raining hard and in no time at all they were as wet as Jeff had been. Madeline kept blaming herself as they stumbled along. Had Diana not come home and found her with Nicholas, she would never have dived out of the flat as she had done and then she would not have been with Jeff and had the misfortune to fall into the quarry.
The strong beam from the torch provided a good light and it was easy to find the rim of the quarry and to realize how easy it would be to fall in.
Nicholas got down on his hands and knees and shouted:
‘Diana? Can you hear me?’
There was no answer.
He rose to his feet, and began systematically searching the quarry with the beam of light, illuminating each wall in turn. As the farmer had said, the quarry was an uneven edifice. Great outcrops of rock spread frequently over the sides, white stunted trees and shrubs, dripping with water, gave it an outlandish appearance.
Madeline shivered, wondering where Dina could be in all that black mass. What if he had fallen to the bottom? She wondered how deep the pit was at its lowest point. Well over a hundred feet, she assumed, unable to judge in the torch light.
Nicholas was methodical and although his slow scrutinization of the quarry seemed to take hours, in fact it only took a few minutes before he said:
‘I think I’ve found her!’
Madeline put a hand to her throat. ‘Where?’
Nicholas pointed down, his beam of light throwing a shaft over the unconscious girl. She was lying awkwardly, caught on the branches of two of the bushes, her head hanging limply, her body strung, hammockwise, between the shrubs.
Madeline gave a sigh of relief. She was only about fifteen feet down. Surely she could not be seriously hurt!
‘Oh, thank goodness!’ she exclaimed. ‘She’s probably been stunned by the fall, but at least she didn’t fall far!’
She looked up at Nicholas. Even in the faint light from behind the beam of the torch his face looked grim.
‘Wh…what’s wrong?’ she cried. ‘She is safe, isn’t she? You don’t think she’s seriously hurt, do you?’
Nicholas shook his head. ‘No, honey, I don’t think she’s seriously hurt.’
‘Then why are you looking so worried?’
Nicholas frowned. ‘Look, Madeline, I don’t want to say this, but if Diana should come round…and move….’
Madeline pressed a hand to her mouth. ‘You mean she wouldn’t be aware of the danger.’
‘Precisely. It’s possible…I suppose it’s very probable, that she won’t come round before help arrives…but can we take that risk?’
Madeline swallowed hard, feeling slightly sick. ‘And what’s the alternative?’
Nicholas compressed his lips. ‘That I go down to her, on the rope, and tie it round her, then I might be able to climb back up and haul her up, too. If I couldn’t get back up it wouldn’t matter. I could hang on, and at least she would be safe on the end of the rope if she did happen to move.’
Madeline sighed heavily. ‘Is that the only alternative?’
‘Can you think of anything else? Come on, honey, we’re wasting time. Now look…I’m going to tie this rope round that tree over there. All I want you to do is to shine the beam of the torch on me all the way down and make sure you don’t dazzle me!’ He smiled. ‘Cheer up, honey, I’m not in my dotage, yet, you know.’
Before tying the rope round the tree he tied several knots down the length of it.
Madeline frowned. ‘What are they for?’
‘It’s just a help for anyone climbing up or down a rope,’ he replied. ‘The knots provide footholds.’ He grinned. ‘All the
fun of the circus, lady?’ He was trying to lighten her tension and she knew it, and wondered how many men would risk their lives in this manner for a girl who had always treated them with the utmost indifference.
It was a slow business for Nicholas going down the rope. It was years since he had done anything in the nature of acrobatics and he was naturally stiff. Madeline watched anxiously, equally as concerned for Nicholas as for Diana.
He dropped slightly below where Diana was caught, and tried to find a foothold in the side of the quarry. There were no ledges near where Diana lay, but there were quite a few of the stunted bushes, and he managed to lodge himself behind one of them, sufficiently so to release his hold on the rope and enable him to tie it round Diana.
The worst moment was when he was trying to put the rope right under Diana and her body shifted heavily, almost falling against him and shaking his balance. He grabbed at the tree nearest to hand and managed to propel her back into her place and for a second he clung, panting, to the growth, getting back his confidence as well as his breath.
Madeline, showing the utmost consideration, stifled her own immediate exclamation and only the shakiness of the torch light betrayed her inner consternation.
At last Diana was securely tied to the end of the rope. She was still unconscious and Nicholas could see a nasty bruise on her forehead, but otherwise she seemed to be all right. She was very wet, of course, and he felt concerned about the effects of shock in cases like this.
With careful deliberation he climbed slowly back up the rope, thankful he had provided the knots which helped as handholds as well as footholds.
Madeline hauled him over the edge and for a minute he lay inert upon the muddy surface.
‘Are you all right?’ she whispered, running her hand over his wet hair.
He sighed and forced himself up on to his knees. ‘Sure,’ he said, with a grimace. ‘Just out of condition, that’s all! I really must take up more sports than golf. This shows me in a very poor light.’
Madeline helped him up and then clung to him for a moment. ‘I don’t know what I would do without you,’ she muttered huskily, and he bent and kissed the top of her head, before putting her determinedly from him.
‘Now,’ he said, pulling on the overcoat which he had discarded during his climb, ‘I think we had better try and pull her up. I don’t much like the idea of all this exposure.’
Madeline nodded. ‘Can we get her up without jarring her?’
Nicholas nodded slowly. ‘I think so,’ he said. ‘The side of the quarry seems to slope inwards a little. That being so, we should be able to bring her up quite gently.’
Even so, it took quite a few minutes to bring up the unconscious girl. She was a dead weight and Nicholas had to do most of the pulling. At last she reached the rim and Nicholas bent and lifted her and took her to lie on the grass beneath the trees at the edge of the copse. He took off his coat and laid it over her, running his hands over her body first, examining her for broken bones.
He looked up at Madeline. ‘I think she’s okay. I can’t feel any fractures. There’s always the chance of concussion, though. Do you think we should take her to the car? At least she’ll be in the dry then. We don’t want to risk her contracting pneumonia.’
Madeline nodded and Nicholas picked Diana up in his arms and carried her through the trees, wrapped still in his overcoat.
Madeline tramped along behind, shining the torch as best she could, but Nicholas seemed as surefooted as a goat.
They were nearing the hedge when they heard the sirens heralding the arrival of the ambulance and Nicholas smiled teasingly at Madeline. ‘Here comes the troops,’ he remarked dryly. ‘As usual, they arrive when it’s all over bar the shouting.’
The next few hours were a nightmare. The police arrived too, and wanted to know all the details. Diana was put straight into the ambulance and, accompanied by Madeline was driven to Otterbury General Hospital.
She came round in the ambulance, but her words did not make sense and although she seemed to recognize Madeline she said very little, before drifting away again.
The doctor, who was with the ambulance, said that she was in a state of shock but that from a brief examination he did not think anything was physically wrong. She had no broken bones and the bruises were only minor blemishes.
Diana was put into a side ward on Nicholas’s instructions. He had followed the ambulance in his car, together with Jeff, who had already been partially questioned by the police.
After ascertaining that Diana was going to be all right, Jeff was driven to the police station to make a statement before going home. However, after he had explained a few of the details, the officer only cautioned him about the outcome of this kind of tomfoolery and he was allowed to go home.
Madeline remained at the hospital. There was nothing she could do, but as the Sister offered her a bed she accepted it with alacrity.
She did not sleep much. Nicholas had gone back to his hotel and she was sure he was thinking that after this they could not very well inform Diana that they wanted to get married immediately. She had really postponed things this time, and quite unintentionally….
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE next day was Good Friday and Madeline was awake at six. She had not undressed fully the night before and only had to don her slacks and blouse to be completely dressed. She slipped out of her room and walked along the antiseptically smelling corridor to the Sister’s office.
The Sister bade her enter and she went in, feeling overwhelmingly conscious of her slightly muddy slacks, which were certainly not the usual attire for anyone visiting a hospital.
‘How is she?’ she asked, at once, as the elderly Sister looked up and smiled at her.
‘Much better,’ said the Sister emphatically. ‘She’s conscious now, fully conscious, although she may have fallen asleep since I saw her at five-thirty. A nurse is sitting with her and you can go along and see her yourself if you would like to.’
‘Oh…oh, thank you!’ Madeline’s reply was fervent.
‘Come along, I’ll show you the way.’
Diana was not sleeping when they entered, and her eyes flickered at once to her mother. She was very pale and the bruise on her head had been dressed, but at least she did not look concussed.
‘Hello, darling,’ said Madeline warmly, crossing to the bed. ‘Are you all right?’
Diana managed a half-smile. ‘I think so. My head aches, but I suppose that’s only to be expected.’
‘Of course.’ Madeline looked at the Sister. ‘When can I take her home?’
The Sister bit her lower lip. ‘Oh, I think perhaps tomorrow,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘We’ll keep her in today, just to keep an eye on her, but I don’t think we have anything to worry about.’
‘Oh, that’s wonderful!’ Madeline sat down on the side of the bed. ‘Can I stay a little while?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ the Sister nodded. ‘Nurse!’
The young nurse who had been sitting at the other side of Diana’s bed rose and accompanied the Sister from the room and Madeline took one of Diana’s hands.
‘Oh, darling,’ she murmured, ‘we were so worried about you!’
Diana looked a trifle uncomfortable. ‘I know, Mother, and I’m sorry, truly I am.’
Madeline stared at her. ‘Why did you run away from Jeff like that? You could have been killed!’
‘I know, but I was…frightened. And I didn’t know the quarry was there!’
Madeline bent her head. ‘Well, you’re safe now, and that’s the most important thing.’
Diana bit her lip now. ‘Mother! It was Nicholas Vitale who got me out, wasn’t it?’
Madeline raised her eyes. ‘Yes.’ She frowned. ‘How do you know?’
‘The nurse told me. She was romancing over him. She apparently saw him when he came here last night. She said she thought he was very handsome.’
Madeline flushed. ‘Did she indeed?’
‘Yes.’ Dia
na gripped Madeline’s hand hard. ‘Was it true? About me? You know I heard what you were saying yesterday, don’t you?’
‘Yes. We guessed. Nicholas came to look for you.’
‘I know. I guessed he would do that, so I waited until after he’d gone before I left the building.’
Madeline nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Diana.’ She sighed. ‘I know what a shock it must have been to you. I don’t know what to say!’
Diana looked hard at her mother. ‘You don’t have to say anything. Jeff said something yesterday which I thought was good sense. He said that you could have had me adopted or put in a home….’
‘But I loved you!’ exclaimed Madeline at once. ‘Right from the moment you were put into my arms, I adored you. I don’t think it ever occurred to me, right from the very beginning, to try and stop having a baby, or that I might have you adopted when you were born.’
Diana smiled. ‘You did the only thing possible, then, didn’t you? After all, it seems that Daddy…Joe?’
‘Daddy!’ said Madeline firmly.
‘Well, it seems that Daddy knew all about it.’
‘He did. You see, darling. I lived with your great-grandmother and it would have broken her heart if she had found out. Joe needed someone to take care of him and so we made a bargain. He got a housekeeper and I got a husband…in name only.’
‘I see.’ Diana nodded. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Madeline bent her head again. ‘I was too cowardly, I’m afraid. I seem to take the line of least resistance in most things.’
Diana squeezed her hand. ‘Like now, for instance.’
‘What do you mean?’
Diana sighed. ‘About you and Nicholas Vitale! Does he really want to marry you?’
Madeline looked up, her face scarlet ‘However did you find that out?’
Diana grunted amiably. ‘It’s been pretty obvious for a long time. I was just too stubborn to believe it. I think I have been very possessive. Jeff accused me of being a prude and being a child, but I think I’ve grown up now. You’ve tried to do what you thought was right all my life and consequently I’ve become dependent upon you. Perhaps if I had known that Daddy wasn’t my father after all, I might have been different, more independent somehow. As it was, when he died, I clung to you because my world seemed to be falling apart. I see now, that it wasn’t that at all.’ She smiled. ‘Don’t look so surprised, Mother, or I may change my mind! I’ve had plenty of time for thinking this last hour.’