After they had taken all the things they needed out of the car, Oliver drove it a quarter of a mile into the tiny nearby village to park it safely, so that they need not worry about it while they swam or lounged on the shore all day.
It was a superb day, as Caroline had predicted, and as they were all more than reasonably good swimmers they spent a good deal of time in the water, only coming out to enjoy their excellent lunch.
Afterwards they lay on the sand, tossing an occasional remark to each other, but growing a little sleepy, if the truth be told.
“Leslie, in fact, was just beginning to see the whole scene as a dim mist of blue and green and gold, when they were aroused by an urgent shout from a short, stout French official, who was climbing over the rocks with a purposeful air towards them.
“He can’t be warning us off, surely? Isn’t the seashore public property?” said Caroline, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.
“He’s saying something about a car,” replied Reid, whose French was, naturally, a good deal more serviceable than that of the others.
Indeed, when the Frenchman, panting a little, had come right up to them, it was Reid who conducted the conversation from their side. Oliver, however, evidently caught enough to follow the general line, because at one point he shouted,
“What’s that he says? Our car’s been stolen?”
“No.” Reid shook his head. “He says you stole it.”
“Good lord! I like that. I’ve got the receipt for the damned thing. At least, I suppose I have.”
He reached for his coat and began going through his pockets with some urgency.
‘I don’t think a receipt’s going to help you much.” Reid was attending still to the flow of talk from the purposeful official, but managed to slip in a word or two of explanation to the others from time to time. “He seems quite sure that it was stolen property—the thief didn’t even bother to change the number plates—and if his story’s true, you’ve been sold someone else’s pup, old boy.”
“But, look here” Oliver had, to his own surprise, actually produced the receipt by now—“this means something, for the lord’s sake! Tell him to get on to the fellow in Laintenon who sold me the thing.”
“I think,” Reid said, getting to his feet, “that you and I had better put a few clothes on and go along with this chap to the garage where the car is. We don’t want the police collaring our only means of returning home.”
“Need we both go?”
“Well, you’re the owner, and perhaps I can do the explaining better.”
“Yes, that’s true. Will you girls be all right?” Oliver glanced at Caroline and Leslie.
“Yes, of course.” They spoke simultaneously, and Leslie added, “We’ll stay and look after everything here. You go along.”
The two men threw on their coats and prepared to accompany the Frenchman.
“We shan’t be long,” Oliver promised optimistically.
But Reid, who had more experience of French small-town officialdom, said,
“Back tonight, I hope.”
Leslie looked after them for a few minutes, and then dropped back on the sand.
She felt she did not want a long afternoon alone with Caroline, that the strain of making agreeable conversation would be more than she could stand, and, for a while at least, she was going to pretend to be sleepy.
Caroline fished a book out of their varied luggage, and seemed quite prepared to follow her own devices. Possibly, of course, she was no more anxious than Leslie for this prolonged tête-à-tête.
Overhead sea birds wheeled and called, and there was the ceaseless murmur of waves breaking on the shore. Otherwise there was silence and, after a while, Leslie’s pretence at sleep gradually merged into the real thing.
When she woke up some time later, she was, to her surprise, alone. But, raising herself on her elbow and looking round, she saw that Caroline was swimming about leisurely quite close inshore.
Seeing Leslie sit up, she waved a hand and called,
“Come on in. It’s wonderful now.”
Certainly the sea looked inviting, with the afternoon sun sparkling on the water. And unbuttoning the skirt of her beachdress, to reveal her slim-green suit, Leslie ran down to the water’s edge and waded out into the cream-edged, curling waves.
She swam near enough to Caroline to address a sociable word to her from time to time, but not near enough to feel that she was definitely in her company.
Presently she turned on her back and floated lazily, and revelled in the sensation of sun and sea.
“Race me to the tip of the promontory over there?” suggested Caroline amiably, swimming up alongside of her. “It’s just about far enough for a warm afternoon.”
Leslie didn’t really want to bestir herself to that extent. But somehow a challenge from Caroline—even a challenge of this sort—was not to be refused. Besides—she was pretty sure she was the stronger swimmer.
“Right,” she agreed, abandoning her pleasantly indolent floating. And a moment later they were travelling, neck and neck, towards the rather distant promontory.
“It’s farther than she thought,” reflected Leslie. And something sensible and reasonable in her warned her to suggest that they abandoned the attempt.
But Caroline was looking very fresh and going strongly. She was not, Leslie thought, in a mood to abandon any sort of competitive effort at this moment.
It was a perfectly friendly piece of rivalry, of course, proposed in genuine good-nature on Caroline’s part. But, as the test lengthened and began to make real demands upon her, Leslie felt grimly that, in this as in the much more important matter, she and Caroline were real adversaries.
She must win. There was something symbolical .about it. To fail would be to suffer a quite disproportionate loss of self-confidence. The failure in itself would not matter. It would be the fact that she had lost to Caroline which would rankle unbearably.
The distance really was much greater than she had imagined. And glancing over her shoulder at Caroline, who was a short length behind her, Leslie thought that she too had been disagreeably surprised by the amount of effort required to cover the distance.
Well, it was much too late to turn back now. They would have to go on, and allow themselves a considerable rest on that promontory before they attempted the journey back.
At the thought of having to cover this distance all over again, Leslie experienced a most unpleasant sinking of the heart. But she firmly reassured herself. They would feel better after a rest. And, anyway, the thing to concentrate upon at the moment was the journey out there. As though in response to her common-sense determination, the difficulties seemed to ease slightly. She was travelling with less effort, and the rocky bulk of the promontory loomed very near now. With very little difficulty, she increased her speed, and shot ahead to victory in the last two minutes.
As she hauled herself out of the water, dripping and trembling rather with exertion, Caroline came up only a yard or two behind her. She too seemed to have found the last stretch less trying. But she looked none the less anxious for that.
“You certainly made that in good time,” she said, as she pulled herself up on to the rock beside Leslie. “But I don’t like the implication of that last easy bit.”
“You mean there was a strong under-current running with us?”
“Yes. And it will be against us going back.”
Leslie turned her head suddenly and looked full at Caroline.
“I know. I’m thinking we’re a couple of fools too. But we’re strong swimmers, both of us. After a rest—”
“We can’t afford a long rest,” Caroline cut in shortly. “Look at that.” She pointed to the stretch of water they had so recently covered.
Leslie stared at it for a long moment. At first, she thought it was her imagination which seemed to make it wider. Then she realized, with an uncomfortable thump of her heart, that there was no imagination about it. The tide was rising rapidly, and the distance
between them and a safe shore was increasing every minute.
“At any rate the tide will be with us,” she said steadily.
“Yes. But what about the pull of this darned underswell?” Caroline retorted. “We’re in a nasty spot, Leslie. And I think, although we’re tired, the sooner we try to get out of it, the better.”
Leslie did not answer for a moment. She knew . what Caroline was saying was horribly true. It was just a question of balancing between the length of time it would take to regain their strength, and the length of time it would take for the incoming tide to broaden that stretch of water beyond their fullest capacity.
“I think we’d better go,” she agreed quietly.
And at that moment, to her inexpressible thankfulness, there appeared on the distant—terribly distant—shore where they had spent the morning, a figure. Only one figure. But, even at that distance, she knew it was Reid.
If they were to get into insuperable difficulties, he would be able to help them. No—one of them.
He was waving now, having evidently seen their bright, distinctive caps as they still clung to the rock, and his urgent gestures undoubtedly meant, “Hurry! Hurry!”
They probably, thought Leslie, with a wry gleam of humour as she struck out into the water again, meant, “Hurry, you unmitigated little idiots! Are you crazy, ever to have got yourselves into such a place?”
And then she didn’t think any more humorous thoughts. Or, to tell the truth, of anything else at all but the terrible, overriding necessity of pitting her strength and skill against the remorseless “pull” of the water.
They kept close together this time, a little perhaps to encourage each other, but they wasted no effort on words.
Mentally, Leslie was counting to herself, very much as she had when she first learned swimming, because a rhythmical count seemed to help. But, beyond that, she tried not to think at all, because she had to concentrate, she told herself. She had to concentrate.
Once she raised herself slightly in the water and took a look at the distant shore. But she was so discouraged to find how comparatively little distance they had covered with such terrible effort that she decided not to look again.
Then she realized that her glimpse of the shore had shown it to be empty, and she knew, with a hopeful beat of her over-taxed heart, that Reid was on his way to help one of them.
Glancing to one side, she saw that Caroline too was still going strongly, but the effort was evidently telling on her equally. She was in quite as pressing need of help as Leslie herself.
In spite of her desire to concentrate on nothing but her swimming, Leslie’s tired and harassed mind presented her suddenly with a completely clear picture.
There they were, the two of them, still struggling but with the odds most powerfully against them. Without assistance, it was doubtful if either of them would ever reach the shore and safety. Yet Reid could not hope to take on more than one of them.
“It’s as simple as that,” she thought, a great sob rising in her throat. “He can rescue only one of us. The one who matters more to him. And that is Caroline.”
At that moment, Leslie very nearly gave up the straggle. But because the sheer will to live is probably the most powerful impulse in any human being, somehow she drove her exhausted body on through the water.
But she was going much more slowly now, and the effort seemed superhuman. Once a wave went over her head. She came up again, gasping and shuddering, and very, very frightened. And for the first time in all her life she really looked death in the face, and thought,
“It could really happen. If I get too tired to go on any more, it’s over. I’ll never see Mother’s face again, nor lie in Reid’s arms, nor feel the sun and the wind. The world will go on, but I shan’t be there.”
If only she could have been sure that she was safely on the incoming tide, she would have dared to float for a few minutes and rest. But she knew that, if she were not clear of that treacherous outgoing current, she might in a few moments lose half the distance she had gained, and she could never find the strength to recover it now.
“I can’t—go on,” she gasped once.
But no one heard her. And she went on. Endlessly, as it seemed.
All her life she must have been doing this. There had never been a time when she had not been struggling, in this fearful, heavy mechanical way.
She did not think of Caroline any more, nor even of Reid. She just went on and on and on and on.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
AND THEN, at last, Leslie knew that she was finished. She would stop. It would be so much easier. She wondered she had not given in before, instead
“All right, darling,” Reid’s voice said, not a couple of yards away from her. “Let yourself float. I can manage you.”
Incredibly, the sound of his voice tore away the veils of illusion. There was still a life to be lived and a struggle to be made.
And there were other considerations too. Recollections which forced themselves back on her with remorseless clarity.
“Caroline,” she gasped. “She’s—in danger—too.”
“I can’t manage more than one.’ His tone was grim and uncompromising.
“I know—understand.” Mechanically, she was doing what he told her to do, but something in her urged her to protest. “That’s why—you must take her.”
“Stop talking. My wife comes first.”
She knew it was idiotic to waste words and breath now. But, though the effort brought the tears to her eyes, something greater than herself forced the final protest from her.
“No. She’s—your love. She—comes first.”
“You are my love and my wife,” he said. “Now be quiet, for God’s sake. We need our breath for something else.”
She was quiet. Incredulously, rapturously, obediently quiet. She did exactly what he told her. She was even able to help herself a little, once his supporting arm had given her a tiny respite. In any case, the most difficult part of the journey was over.
But what gave her strength, far beyond any material consideration, was the fact that he had said she was his love.
The next few minutes were just a little vague. She was dimly aware that Reid was rubbing her vigorously with towels, wrapping her in a coat and making her drink brandy.
There were two or three other people there, she realized presently, and someone was sobbing breathlessly quite near her. With a dreadful feeling of guilt, she thought, “Caroline!” And though the effort hurt she rolled over on the sand to gaze in the direction of the sound.
It was a moment before she realized that the sobbing was not for Caroline, but from her. She was lying there, as exhausted as Leslie herself, and beside her knelt a dripping Oliver, his face a whitish-grey with anxiety and fear.
“She’s safe too!” Leslie gasped, in a cracked little voice, and she felt the tears of hysteria rising in her also. “Reid—”
“Stop it!” Reid told her peremptorily. “Caroline will be as right as rain in an hour or two, and twice as dry. Don’t you start crying, or probably Oliver and I will do the same. Come on, I’m taking you home now.”
And he rolled her in a rug and lifted her in his arms. One or two eager bystanders offered to carry her for him, seeing that he was a good deal exhausted already. But he would not let anyone else touch her.
Rather slowly, he carried her to the car which some kind passer-by had offered to put at their disposal. And still half dazed she was driven back to Laintenon, lying in Reid’s arms, indescribably warmed by his tenderness, and nearness, and possibly a little by the liberal amount of brandy he had poured down her throat.
She thought,
“There are so many things to ask him and to tell him.” But she could not think of the words in which to express any of them. And, since he seemed very well satisfied just to hold her and be silent, she felt that perhaps that was what she wanted too.
When they arrived at Madame Blanchard’s, that good lady rushed out, with a natur
al premonition of disaster—or at least sensation—little short of miraculous. But though she exclaimed in a variety of keys and three different languages, she was intensely practical and helpful too. And in a remarkably short time Leslie had been undressed and put to bed with hot-water bottles.
The warmth and ease and quiet were so delicious after the ordeal through which she had gone that Leslie could not restrain one or two little groans of sheer relief.
Then, because it seemed the loveliest and the most natural thing in the world to do, she went to sleep, and bothered no more about anything or anyone for several hours.
When Leslie woke, the last of the golden evening light was filtering into the room, and she lay there loving it with the grateful tenderness which we attach only to a beautiful, familiar thing we have very nearly lost. She was alive when she might have been dead, and the world was a wonderful place.
Then a very slight movement beside her made her turn her head, and she saw, with a fresh rush of grateful tenderness, that Reid was lying back in the chair by her bed, quieter and more thoughtful than she usually saw him.
“Hello,” she said softly. And he turned his head then and smiled at her.
“Hello, sweet. Feeling better?”
“I feel wonderful.”
He leant forward, with his arm on the bed, so that he was very close to her.
“Promise me that you’ll never take a risk like that again. I wouldn’t relive this afternoon for all Great-Aunt Tabitha’s fortune.”
“I promise. I’m awfully sorry, Reid. It was very wrong and silly of us, I know. We started to race and—I felt I had to win. It seemed otherwise as though—”
“Yes?” he said, because she had stopped.
Her lashes came down, making shadows on her cheeks, and a very faint colour showed under her pale skin.
“Come on. Tell me,” he coaxed, and kissed the side of her cheek softly.
“Reid—I thought you loved her.”
“So I did,” he retorted With cheerful candour. “Once.”
“Oh, darling, I thought—as late as last night.”
“Last night?” He looked mystified. “Why did you think I loved her last night, for heaven’s sake?”
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