The Brother of Daphne Part 10

"All right--I'll get it."

I got it, and one stocking, but though I swam about till I was tired, and even climbed on to the rock, now almost submerged, to which we had raced, I could see nothing else. I returned temporarily exhausted to the cove. She waded out to meet me.

"Tell me exactly where your cave is," I said, as I handed her the flotsam.

She showed me, and, after a moment or two's rest, I swam out and round to the mouth, only to find the water too high to enter. I did try, but a wave lifted me up to the roof, and I only saved a broken head at the expense of a nasty cut on the back of my hand.

She was anxiously awaiting me, and listened to my report without a word. When I had finished, she deliberately wrung the last atom of water out of the derelict stocking, smoothed it out carefully by the side of the chemise in the sun, laid herself down on the sand, and burst into tears.

I tried to comfort her. I patted her shoulder and took her hand in mine.

"Don't worry, Mermaid dear," I said. "Trust me--I'll think of something. I know. I'll swim round to my cove and dress, and then go and get you some fresh clothes before anyone's the wiser. See? I'll go now," I added, getting up and licking the blood off my hand. "You wait here and--"

I broke off abruptly, and one of the more violent expletives, indicative of combined horror and amazement, escaped my lips before I could stop it.

"What is it?" wailed the Mermaid.

On the crest of a wave, some thirty yards from the sh.o.r.e, danced my grey hat. Beyond it, a little to the right, was something which might be a shirt.

Stammering incoherent sentences, I staggered into the water and swam for the hat. When I had caught it, I went on to get the shirt. I would have gone on round the headland to my cove, only the shirt was not my shirt. It was Berry's! Yes, it was--had his name on it and all. And not ten yards away floated Daphne's straw hat. For the next two minutes I was in imminent danger of drowning. At last I began to swim feebly, blindly back. When I reached the sh.o.r.e, I fell on my knees in the surf and laughed till the eighth wave knocked me head over heels and the ninth broke into my open jaws and choked me. The next moment the girl caught me by the arm, and I stumbled out and lay down on the dry sand with the shirt clasped to my breast. My hat had gone again ages ago. Then I looked at the girl kneeling anxiously by my side, and began to laugh again. She sat back on her heels, with one hand to her lips and a scared expression on her face.

"He's mad," she said, half to herself, "mad! Must have been stung by a jelly-fish or something. I've heard--"

I cut her short.

"Mermaid dear, I'm as sane as you are, only--"

"Only what?"

"Everybody's doing it"--she recoiled--"doing it! Listen to me. True, that is your chemise. True, that out there is my hat--there it is.

But here is Berry's shirt, and miles out there is Daphne's straw hat.

If I'd stayed long enough, I've no doubt I should have seen Jonah's trousers and Jill's chemisette, which means or mean--whichever you like--that...."

Hurriedly I explained, and then fell again into uproarious laughter.

This time she joined me in my mirth. At length:

"But, after all," she said, "it doesn't make it any better for me, because I'm all alone, while you're a party."

"I admit it has been said that Unity is Strength," said I, "but I don't know that that exactly applies--"

"And I can't walk home like this, even with that on." She indicated the chemise.

"Certainly not with that on: it'd only make it more indec--"

"More what?"

"Er--unusual. Indeed, it would."

She regarded me suspiciously. Then:

"What about you?"

"Me? How d'you mean?" I said uneasily.

"Well, couldn't you slip back to the hotel somehow? Quite quietly, I mean, and--"

"I could slip all right," said I. "The short gra.s.s on the top of the cliffs would help me there. But, my dear girl, how on earth can I do anything quietly in this dress?"

"Everybody will be--"

"Just finishing lunch or sitting on the terrace. Thanks very much."

"There's a back door."

"I never thought of that. Splendid! Leading to the kitchen, of course. They'd never notice me there. And I could just drop in at the office for the key of my room, and see if there were any letters on the way up, and---- My dear girl, how can I? I admit I've a good deal of nerve, but there is a limit. I know one can do most things nowadays, but--"

"But this is a special occasion."

"You seem to want to make it one."

"And it can't be helped. This sort of modesty's out of date."

"Not my date."

"Besides, everybody'd understand."

"I know they would. That's just what I'm afraid of."

"Well, we must do something, and if you--"

Suddenly there fell upon our ears the scrambling, clattering noise which invariably accompanies the descent of anybody rash enough to enter a Cornish cove with undue haste in leather-soled shoes. The Mermaid darted behind a rock, and I advanced gratefully up the foresh.o.r.e to the fringe of stones. The noise grew louder, and the slips more frequent, until there was one long one, and then a thud. Up rose a fat oath. After a moment or two, there limped into sight--oh, blessed spectacle!--one of the hotel porters, conventionally hatless and coatless.

"Ah!" said I.

"The coastguard you sent hailed me, sir, across the fields yonder.

Said something had happened--he didn't know what--but he heard the word 'hotel.' You see, you shouting to him from here, and he being up on top, he couldn't hear anything else rightly, so I came straight down."

"Why didn't he come down himself when--er--when I shouted?"

"He was taking a telegram to the post office sir. Said he told you so; but I suppose you didn't hear."

Berry's coastguard. Berry's porter.

I told him that my clothes had been washed away, and that the mermaid was in the same plight. I gave him implicit instructions and, with her a.s.sistance, the numbers of our respective rooms. He wrote it all down.

He was to get some clothes for me himself, and enlist the services of a chambermaid for my companion.

"Be as quick as you can," I said, as he turned to go. "You're sure you'll know this cove again? They're all rather alike."

"That's all right, sir."