The Vision of Desire Part 12

In the evening Lady Susan complained of fatigue.

"I've not quite got over that fall of mine yet," she acknowledged ruefully, when Ann suggested that perhaps she had been out driving too long in the hot sun. "Elderly ladies should refrain from tumbling about; it shakes them up too much. I should immensely like to go to bed, if you don't mind watching the Venetian fete in solitary splendour. Do you?"

She emitted a sigh of satisfaction when Ann a.s.sured her that she did not.

"Then I shall just disappear to bed with a novel. It will entertain me far more than gazing at a lot of illuminated boats paddling about the lake."

"I think I shall take our boat out, then," said Ann. "I'd rather like to see it all at close quarters. It's all new to me, you know."

Lady Susan nodded. At different times they had spent a good many enjoyable hours together, pulling about on the lake, and she had complete confidence in Ann's ability to manage a rowing-boat.

"Very well. Only don't forget Tony is coming to take you to the dance at ten and tire yourself out."

Ann laughed and shook her head, and when Lady Susan had departed to bed she threw a knitted coat over her evening frock and made her way out into the garden. It was a long, rambling garden, sheltered from the road by a high wall and, at its farthest end, skirting the lake itself. Here a small wooden landing-stage had been erected, and moored against it lay a light rowing-boat--the _Reve_. With practised hands Ann untied the painter, affixed a light to the bows of the boat, dropped the sculls into the rowlocks, and rowed quietly out across the placid water.

One by one illuminated boats came creeping round the arm of the bay, each adding a fresh cl.u.s.ter of twinkling lights to the bobbing mult.i.tude already gathered there. Like a cloud of fireflies they seemed to dart and circle and hover above the dusky surface of the lake. Motor-launches flashed here and there, in and out amongst the slower craft, while from one of the lake steamers, decks and rigging outlined in quivering points of light, came the inspiriting strains of a band. s.n.a.t.c.hes of song drifted across the water, and now and again the melancholy long-drawn hoot of a syren pierced the air.

Gradually Ann drew abreast of the a.s.sembled craft, and leisurely pulled her way in and out amongst them. The decorated boats delighted her, some agleam with Chinese lanterns--giant glow-worms floating on the water, others with phantom sails of frail asparagus fern lit by swaying lights like dancing will-o'-the-wisps--dream-boats gliding slowly over a dreaming lake.

Presently she rested on her oars, watching the scene with the eager, vivid interest which was characteristic of her. So absorbed was she that she failed to notice that her own small skiff was getting rather dangerously hemmed in. To her right lay a biggish sailing vessel, blocking the view on that side, behind her a small fry of miscellaneous craft, packed together like a flotilla of Thames boats on a summer's day awaiting the opening of the lock gates. Half unconsciously she heard the approaching chug-chug of an engine mingling with the sound of voices singing l.u.s.tily--the hilarious chorus of a crew of roysterers who had been celebrating not wisely but too well.

... It all happened with appalling suddenness. One moment she was watching the fairy fleet that glittered on the lake, the next a hubbub of hoa.r.s.e, warning shouts filled the air, the throb of an engine pulsed violently in her ears, and a motor-boat, overloaded by half-tipsy revellers and travelling too fast for safety, drove past the bows of the sailing vessel and veered drunkenly towards her. Instinctively she clutched at her oars.

But they were useless, pinned to the sides of her boat by the press of others round it. Then, from almost immediately above her, it seemed, a terse voice--curiously familiar--rapped out a command.

_"Stand up!"_

Hardly knowing what she did, she obeyed, yielding blindly to the peremptory order. She felt her frail barque rock beneath her feet, then strong arms grasped her--strong as tempered steel--and lifted her clean up out of the lurching boat and over its side into another.

Almost before she had time to realise that she was safe, the motor-boat crashed, head on, into the empty _Reve_, staving in her side so that in an instant she had filled with water, her gunwale level with the lake. Then, as though some ghoulish hand had clutched at her from the depths below, she sank suddenly out of sight.

Staring with horrified eyes at the swift and utter destruction of the _Reve_, Ann shuddered uncontrollably. But for the unknown deliverer who had s.n.a.t.c.hed her bodily from the doomed boat she herself would be struggling in that almost fathomless depth of water or, stunned by the savage drive of the motor-boat's prow, sinking helplessly down to the bottom like a stone.

"Don't be afraid. You're all right." Again that strangely familiar note in the rea.s.suring voice.

Ann twisted round within the circle of the arms which held her and peered up at the face of their owner. A flickering gleam of light revealed a small white scar high up on the left cheek-bone.

"You!" she exclaimed under her breath. "Is it you?"

"Yes." She could detect a note of amus.e.m.e.nt in the voice that came to her through the dusk. "Your creed has proved false, you see. I expected nothing--and here I am with an altogether charming adventure."

"I shouldn't describe it quite like that," she answered ruefully.

"No? But then you've lost a boat, whereas I've gained a pa.s.senger. Our points of view are different."

The arms which held her had not relaxed their hold, and she stirred restlessly, suddenly acutely conscious of their embrace. Instantly she felt herself released.

"Will you be all right?" came in a cool voice.

"Oh, yes--yes." Ann stammered a little. "This is a very steady boat, isn't it?"--wonderingly.

"It's a motor-boat, that's why."

Now that the uproar occasioned by the accident had died away, she could hear the soft purring of an engine forward.

"Still, you'd better sit down," resumed the Englishman. "The Baccha.n.a.lian gentlemen in the boat which ran you down are still blundering about, and may quite probably cannon into us. And you don't want to take a second chance of being shot out into the lake."

"Indeed I don't." She sat down hastily. "I--I don't really know how to thank you," she began haltingly, after a moment. Somehow she felt curiously shy and tongue-tied with this man.

"Then don't try," he replied ungraciously.

This was hardly encouraging, but Ann returned to the charge with determination.

"I must," she said. "If it hadn't been for you I should certainly have been drowned."

"Rather improbable," he answered--as indifferently as though it really mattered very little whether she were or not. "With so many people close at hand, some one would have been sure to fish you out. You'd have got a wetting--and so would your unfortunate rescuer. That's all. Still, I'm just as glad I saw what was going to happen. I prefer to keep a dry skin myself."

"Oh! Then you would have jumped in after me?" asked Ann, with interest.

He sat down in the stern of the boat, his arm on the tiller, and regarded her contemplatively.

"I suppose so. A man has no choice when a woman chooses to go monkeying about in a boat and gets herself into difficulties."

"'Monkeying about in a boat!'" repeated Ann indignantly. "I suppose you'll say next that I rammed my own boat and sank it!"

"You certainly put yourself in the way of danger," he retorted. "Who in the name of Heaven allowed you to go out on the lake alone on a fete night like this? Isn't there any one to look after you?"

"I look after myself," she replied shortly. "I'm not a child."

He laughed.

"Not much more, surely. How old are you? Seventeen? Eighteen?"

"Add four," said Ann, "and you'll be nearer it."

"So much?" He fell silent. There had been genuine surprise in his voice.

Perhaps he was recalling her as he had seen her at the Kursaal--boyishly slender, her eager, pointed face alight with gay enthusiasm and amus.e.m.e.nt.

_One, two, three_--nine strokes. The sound of a clock striking came wafted faintly across from the sh.o.r.e. Ann started up.

"I must get back!" she exclaimed. "I'd forgotten all about the time."

A brief smile crossed the man's dark face.

"So had I," he said. And there was something in the quality of his voice which sent the colour flying up into her face.

"Why must you go back in such a hurry?" he resumed composedly. "One can watch the fete very well here."

"I'm going to a dance--at the Gloria," said Ann. "Some one--they are coming to fetch me, and if I'm not there--"