Anne Part 28

For she had not slipped far. The cliff jutted out slightly a short distance below the verge, and, by what seemed a miracle, the girl was held by this second edge. Eight inches beyond, the sheer precipice began, with the pile of broken stones sixty feet below. Anne was the first to discover this, reaching the verge as the girl sank out of sight; the others, shuddering, put their hands over their eyes and clung together.

"She has not fallen far," cried Anne, with a quick and burning excitement. "Lie still, Valeria," she called down. "Close your eyes, and make yourself perfectly motionless; hardly breathe. We will save you yet."

She took hold of the young tree to test its strength, at the same time speaking rapidly to the others. "By lying down, and clasping that tree trunk with one arm, and then stretching over, I can just reach her hand, I think, and seize it. Do you see? That is what I am going to try to do.

I can not tell how strong this tree is; but--there is not a moment to lose. After I am down, and have her hand, do anything you think best to secure us. Either hold me yourselves or make ropes of your sacques and shawls. If help comes soon, we can save her." While still speaking, she threw herself down upon the edge, clasped one arm strongly round the tree trunk, and stretching down sideways, her head and shoulder over the verge, she succeeded in first touching, then clasping, the wrist of the girl below, who could not see her rescuer as she lay facing the precipice with closed eyes, helpless and inert. It was done, but only two girls' wrists as a link.

The others had caught hold of Anne as strongly as they could.

"No," said Isabel, taking command excitedly; "one of you hold her firmly, and the rest clasp arms and form a chain, all sitting down, to that large tree in the rear. If the strain comes, throw yourselves toward the large tree."

So they formed a chain. Isabel, looking over, saw that the girl below had clasped Anne's wrist with her own fingers also--a strong grasp, a death-grasp. If she slipped farther, Anne must slip too.

All this had not taken two minutes--scarcely a minute and a half. They were now all motionless; they could hear the footsteps of the men hurrying up the hill behind, coming nearer and nearer. But how slow they were! How long! The men were exactly three minutes, and it is safe to say that never in their lives had they rushed up a hill with such desperate haste and energy. But--women expect wings.

Heathcote and Dexter reached the summit first. There they beheld five white-cheeked women, dressed in various dainty floating fabrics, and adorned with ferns and wild flowers, sitting on the ground, clasping each others' hands and arms. They formed a line, of which the woman at one end had her arm round a large tree, and the woman at the other round the body of a sixth, who was half over the cliff. A seventh and free person, Isabel, stood at the edge, her eyes fixed on the heavy form poised along the second verge below. No one spoke but Isabel. "She has caught on something, and Anne is holding her," she explained, in quick although low tones, as if afraid to disturb even the air. But while she was speaking the two men had gone swiftly to the edge, at a little distance below the group, and noted the position themselves.

"Let me--" began Dexter.

"No, you are too heavy," answered Heathcote. "_You_ must hold _me_."

"Yes," said Isabel. "Quick! quick!" A woman in a hurry would say "Quick!" to the very lightning.

But if men are slow, they are sure. Heathcote stretched himself down carefully on the other side of the little tree, but without touching it, that being Anne's chief support, and bearing his full weight upon Dexter, who in turn was held by the other men, who had now come up, he seized Valeria's arm firmly above Anne's hand, and told Anne to let go her hold. They were face to face; Anne's forehead was suffused with red, owing to her cramped position.

"I can not; she has grasped my wrist," she answered.

"Let go, Miss Morle," called Heathcote. "I have you firmly; do you not feel my hand?"

But Valeria would not; perhaps could not.

"Some of you take hold of Miss Douglas, then," called Heathcote to the men above. "The girl below will not loosen her hold, and you will have to draw us all up together."

"Ready?" called the voices above, after an instant.

"Ready," answered Heathcote.

Then he felt himself drawn upward slowly, an inch, two inches; so did Anne. The two downward-stretched arms tightened; the one upward-lifted arm began to rise from the body to which it belonged. But what a weight for that one arm! Valeria was a large, heavy girl, with a ponderous weight of bone. In the position in which she lay, it seemed probable that her body might swing over the edge, and almost wrench the arm from its socket by its weight.

"Stop," said Heathcote, perceiving this. The men above paused. "Are you afraid to support her for one instant alone, Anne?" he asked.

"No," murmured Anne. Her eyes were blood-shot; she saw him through a crimson cloud.

"Keep me firmly," he called out, warningly, to Dexter. Then, letting go his first hold, he stretched down still farther, made a slight spring forward, and succeeded in grasping Valeria's waist. "_Now_ pull up, and quickly," he said, panting.

And thus, together, Valeria firmly held by Heathcote, the two rescuers and the rescued were drawn safely up from danger to safe level again.

Only a few feet, but all the difference between life and death.

When the others looked down upon the now uncovered s.p.a.ce, they saw that it was only the stump of a slender cedar sapling, a few inches in height, and two little edges of rock standing up unevenly here and there, which had formed the parapet. A person might have tried all day, with an acrobat's net spread below for safety, to cling there, without success; Valeria had fallen at the one angle and in the one position which made it possible. Two arms were strained, and that was all.

Isabel was white with nervous fear; the others showed traces of tears.

But the cause of all this anxiety and trouble, although entirely uninjured and not nervous (she had not seen herself), sat smiling upon them all in a sweet suffering-martyr way, and finally went down the hill with masculine escort on each side--apotheosis not before attained. Will it be believed that this girl, fairly well educated and in her sober senses, was simpleton enough to say to Heathcote that evening, in a sentimental whisper, "How I wish that Miss Douglas had not touched me!"

There was faint moonlight, and the simpering expression of the neutral face filled him with astonishment. Dexter would have understood: Dexter was accustomed to all varieties of women, even the Valeria variety: but Heathcote was not. All he said, therefore, was, "Why?"

"Because then _you_ alone would have saved me," murmured Valeria, sweetly.

"If Miss Douglas had not grasped you as she did, we might all have been too late," replied Heathcote, looking at her in wonder.

"Ah, no; I did not slip farther. You would have been in time," said the belle of Morleville, with what she considered a telling glance. And she actually convinced herself that she had made an impression.

"I ought not to have done it, of course, Louisa," she said to her bosom-friend, in the privacy of her own room, after her return to Morleville; "but I really felt that he deserved at least _that_ reward for his great devotion to me, poor fellow!"

"And why couldn't you like him, after all, Valeria dear?" urged Louisa, deeply interested, and not a little envious.

"I could not--I could not," replied Valeria, slowly and virtuously, shaking her head. "He had not the principles I require in a man. But--I felt sorry for him."

Oh, ineffable Valerias! what would life be without you?

Dexter had been the one to offer his arm to Anne when she felt able to go down the hill. At the main-road crossing they found the Reverend Mr.

Sloane faithfully sitting on a dusty bank, with the orchid in his hand, waiting for them. It seemed to Anne that a long and vague period of time had pa.s.sed since they parted from him. But she was glad to get the orchid; she knew that no slight extraneous affair, such as the saving of a life, would excuse the absence of that flower. Rachel Bannert had chafed Heathcote's strained arm with her soft hands, and arranged a sling for it made of her sash. She accompanied him back to the picnic ground. It was worth while to have a strained arm.

Miss Vanhorn considered that it was all nonsense, and was inclined to reprove her niece. But she had the orchid; and when Dexter came up, and in a few strong words expressed his admiration for the young girl's courage, she changed her mind, and agreed with him, although regretting "the display."

"Girls like that Morle should be manacled," she said.

"And I, for one, congratulate myself that there was, as you call it, a display--a display of the finest resolution I have ever seen in a young girl," said Dexter, warmly. "Miss Douglas was not even sure that the little tree was firm; and of course she could not tell how long it would take us to come."

"They all a.s.sisted, I understand," said Miss Vanhorn, impa.s.sively.

"They all a.s.sisted _afterward_. But not one of them would have taken her place. Miss Morle seized her wrist immediately, and with the grasp of a vise. They must inevitably have gone over together."

"Well, well; that is enough, I think," said Miss Vanhorn. "We will drive home now," she added, giving her orders as though both the carriage and its owner were her own property.

When she had been a.s.sisted into her place, and Anne had taken her seat beside her, Heathcote, who had not spoken to his fellow-rescuer since they reached level ground, came forward to the carriage door, with his arm in its ribbon sling, and offered his hand. He said only a word or two; but, as his eyes met hers, Anne blushed--blushed suddenly and vividly. She was realizing for the first time how she must have looked to him, hanging in her cramped position, with crimson face and wild falling hair.

CHAPTER XIII.

"So on the tip of his subduing tongue All kinds of arguments and questions deep."

--SHAKSPEARE.

"What is the use of so much talking? Is not this wild rose sweet without a comment?"--HAZLITT.

Early the next morning Miss Vanhorn, accompanied by her niece, drove off on an all-day botanizing expedition. Miss Vanhorn understood the worth of being missed. At sunset she returned; and the girl she brought back with her was on the verge of despair. For the old woman had spent the hours in making her doubt herself in every possible way, besides covering her with ridicule concerning the occurrences of the day before.

It was late when they entered the old ball-room, Anne looking newly youthful and painfully shy; as they crossed the floor she did not raise her eyes. Dexter was dancing with Rachel, whose soft arms were visible under her black gauze, encircled with bands of old gold. Anne was dressed in a thick white linen fabric (Miss Vanhorn having herself selected the dress and ordered her to wear it), and appeared more like a school-girl than ever. Miss Vanhorn, raising her eye-gla.s.s, had selected her position on entering, like a general on the field: Anne was placed next to Isabel on the wooden bench that ran round the room. And immediately Miss Varce seemed to have grown suddenly old. In addition, her blonde beauty was now seen to be heightened by art. Isabel herself did not dream of this. Hardly any woman, whose toilet is a study, can comprehend beauty in unattractive unfashionable attire. So she kept her seat unconsciously, sure of her Paris draperies, while the superb youth of Anne, heightened by the simplicity of the garb she wore, reduced the other woman, at least in the eyes of all the men present, to the temporary rank of a faded wax doll.