The Vision of Desire Part 26

Cara looked up in dismay.

"You're not thinking of going, after all?" she exclaimed. "Oh, don't, Ann!"--urgently. "It's really too risky to-day. If one of those big breakers knocked you down you wouldn't have time to get up again before another came. I once saw a woman drowned just in that way. It was horrible.

She was flung down by a huge breaker, and before she could pick herself up a second wave broke over her. She had no chance to get her breath. And there wasn't any one near enough to help her. I saw it all happen from the cliff." She shuddered a little at the recollection.

"And if one of those waves _didn't_ knock me down," retorted Ann, "I should have the most glorious dip imaginable. Honestly, Cara"--coaxingly--"I wouldn't do more than just dash in and out again."

"Well, ask Robin what he thinks first," begged Cara.

Ann shook her head.

"I'd much rather ask him after!" she answered whimsically, "In fact, I'm going to sneak into the water before he and Tony finish their respective toilettes."

Without more ado she vanished into the tent which she usually shared with Cara, and in a very short s.p.a.ce of time reappeared equipped for the water, the ta.s.sel of her jaunty little bathing-cap fluttering defiantly in the wind. Slipping out of her _peignoir_, she let it fall to the ground and emerged a slender, naiad-like figure in her green bathing-suit. She ran, white-footed, to the edge of the water and danced into the creaming foam of a receding wave, while Cara watched her with inward misgivings. Even from where she sat she could see how strong was the undertow--each wave as it retreated dragging back with it both sand and pebbles, and even quite large stones, in a swirling seaward rush against the pull of which it was difficult to maintain a footing. Ann, lithe and supple though she was, staggered uncertainly in the effort to retain her balance, her feet sinking deep into the shifting sand, as she turned to wave a rea.s.suring hand to the solitary watcher on the beach.

And then it happened--the thing which Cara had foreseen must almost inevitably ensue. She had a momentary glimpse of the slim naiad figure swaying against a background of sea and sky, then a terrific wave towered up behind it, blotting out the horizon and seeming for an instant to stand poised, smooth and perpendicular like a solid wall of green gla.s.s. She saw Ann's face change swiftly as she realised her danger, the upward fling of her arms as she tried to spring to the surface in an effort to escape the full force of the wave and be carried in on its crest. But it was too late. With a crash like gun-thunder the huge billow broke, and to Cara's straining eyes it seemed that Ann's light form was s.n.a.t.c.hed up as though of no more moment than a floating straw and buried beneath a seething, tumbling avalanche of waters.

She sprang to her feet and ran towards the water, shrieking for help as she ran. But the noise of the sea drowned her cries so that neither Robin nor Tony, still dressing in one of the tents, heard anything amiss. Even as she called and shouted she realised the utter uselessness of it. No weak woman's voice could carry against that thunderous roar. In the same instant, she caught sight of Brett's head and shoulders in the distance, and she waved and beckoned to him frenziedly. With a choking gasp of relief, she caught his answering gesture before he turned and headed straight for the sh.o.r.e, shearing through the water with a powerful over-hand stroke that brought him momentarily nearer.

Though actually not more than a few seconds, it seemed to Cara an eternity before the huge wave which had engulfed Ann spent itself. Then, as it receded she discerned her figure struggling in the backwash, and as the girl at last dragged herself to her knees Cara rushed waist-deep into the foaming, eddying flood in a plucky effort to reach her. But, before she could get near enough, the suction of the retreating wave had swept Ann out of her reach and the next incoming breaker thundered over her again. Cara herself barely escaped its savage onslaught, and as she staggered into safety she turned a desperate, agonised face seaward. Brett was still some yards away, and Ann would die--die with succour almost at hand! Her own helplessness drove her nearly frantic. She was beating her hands together and quite unconsciously repeating Brett's name over and over in a sick agony of urgency.

"Brett! Brett! G.o.d, let him come in time!... Brett! Brett! Brett!..."

The retreating wave revealed once more the slight girl-figure, spent and effortless this time, tossing impotently in the churning backwash.

Forrester would be too late! A third wave would batter the life out of that fragile body. Cara's voice died into a strangled sob of despair.

... And then came the sound of racing footsteps, something pa.s.sed her like a flash, and the white spray flew up in a dense cloud as a tall figure hurled itself headlong into the sea. For an instant Cara could distinguish nothing but a dark blot and the blur of flying spume as it spattered against her face. Then, with a shaking cry of utter thankfulness, she saw Eliot Coventry come striding out from amid the maelstrom of surging waters, bearing Ann's unconscious form in his arms.

He carried her swiftly beyond reach of the hungry, devouring waves and, laying her down on the sand, tore off his coat and placed it beneath her head. At the same moment Forrester reached the sh.o.r.e and raced towards them, and as Eliot straightened himself it was to meet the other man's eyes blazing into his--savage, challenging eyes, like those of a tiger robbed of its prey. For an instant the two men remained staring straight into each other's faces, while on the ground between them lay Ann's slender, white-limbed body, limp and unconscious.

To Cara, hurrying towards them as fast as the wet skirts which clung about her would allow, the brief scene seemed like a picture flung vividly upon a screen. In that moment of fierce stress the innermost thoughts of the two men were nakedly revealed upon their faces--if not to each other, at least to the clear, unerring vision of the woman, who caught her breath sharply between her teeth in a sudden blinding flash of enlightenment.

The little group seemed to her symbolical--the two men standing face to face like hostile forces, with the young, girlish figure lying helplessly between them.

CHAPTER XV

ANCIENT HISTORY

Ann opened her eyes and stared incuriously up into a blank, indeterminate expanse of white. It was quite without interest--conveyed no meaning to her whatever. Moreover, her eyelids felt inexplicably heavy, as though they were weighted. So she let them fall again, and the placid, reposeful sense of nothingness which had been momentarily interrupted enveloped her once more. She was conscious of no particular sensation of any kind, neither painful nor pleasurable, but merely of an immense peace and tranquillity.

Presently a faint feeling of curiosity concerning that odd expanse of white overhead filtered into her consciousness, gradually increasing in strength until it became a definite irritation, like the prolonged light scratching of a finger-nail up a surface of silk. She opened her eyes again reluctantly. It was still there, immediately above her--a formless stretch of dull white. She wondered whether it extended indefinitely, and her eyes travelled slowly along until they were arrested by a narrow line of demarcation. Here the expanse of white ceased abruptly, at right angles to a misty blue surface in the centre of which glimmered a square of light.

Ann's mind seemed to struggle up from some profound depth where it had lain quiescent and feebly and disjointedly signalled the words: "Ceiling ...

wall ... window...." And finally, with an immense effort, "Room."

After that the cogs of her mental machinery began to move in a more normal manner, though still slowly and confusedly. She recaptured the memory of a blurred murmur of voices and of some fiery liquid being poured down, her throat which stung and smarted abominably as it went down. Later had followed a pleasant dreamy consciousness of warmth which had brought with it realisation of the fact that previously she had been feeling terribly cold. Then voices again--notably Maria's this time: "She'll do now, Mrs.

Hilyard, mum. 'Tis only warmth she wants."

Why did she want warmth? When it was summer. She was sure it _was_ summer.

She remembered seeing the sun overhead--hanging in the middle of the sky just like one of those solid-looking gold halos which the Old Masters used to paint round the head of a saint. At least ... had it been in the sky ...

lately? To-day? And then, accompanied by a rush of blind terror, came recollection--of an overcast sky and grey, plunging sea, and of a wild, futile, suffocating struggle against some awful force that had tossed her hither and thither as a child might toss a ball, and had finally surged right over her, blotting out everything.

A little moan of horror escaped her, and immediately Robin's dear familiar voice answered rea.s.suringly:

"You're quite safe, old thing--tucked up in bed. So don't worry."

He was bending over her, and she made an instinctive effort to sit up. The movement sent a stab of agony through her whole body, and she gasped out convulsively:

"It hurts!"

In a moment his arm was round her shoulders, and he had laid her gently back against her pillows.

"Yes. I expect you're pretty well bruised from head to foot," he said in a tone of commiseration.

Ann regarded him uncertainly.

"I feel so queer. What's happened to me? Where--where am I?" she asked.

Robin had the wisdom to answer her quite simply and naturally, telling her in a few words just what had occurred, and, her mind once set at rest, she lay back quietly and very soon dropped off into a sleep of sheer exhaustion. Afterwards followed a timeless period marked by the comings and goings of Maria with hot-water bottles and steaming cups of milk or broth, alternating with intervals of profound slumber. Through it all, waking or sleeping, ran a thread of wearisome pain--limbs so stiff and flesh so bruised that it seemed to Ann as though the wontedly comfortable mattress on which she lay had been stuffed with lumps of coal.

One break occurred in the ordered sequence of sleep and nourishment.

This happened when Tony quitted Silverquay to rejoin his uncle. The day following Ann's enforced retirement to bed, a brusque letter had come from the old man, in which he concealed a genuine longing to have his nephew with him again beneath an irritable suggestion that he was probably outstaying his welcome at the Cottage. Robin laughingly rea.s.sured Tony upon the latter point, but at the same time he agreed that the young man's return to Lorne might be advisable, since it was obvious Sir Philip was feeling his loneliness considerably more than the proud old autocrat was willing to confess.

So Tony had tiptoed up to Ann's room, when she had roused herself sufficiently to wish him good-bye and bestow upon him a parting injunction "to be good." After which she dropped back once more into the lethargy of weakness, painfully conscious of the fact that relief was only to be found in lying torpidly still and silent.

But all things come to an end in time--though the disagreeable ones seem to take much longer over it than the nice ones--and at the end of a few days Ann was able to sit up in bed without groaning and take an intelligent interest in the fact that her room was lavishly adorned with roses.

"Where did all the flowers come from?" she demanded of Maria.

"Why, 'tis Mr. Forrester what sends they, miss," came the answer, uttered with much satisfaction. Brett had a "way" with him against which even downright Maria Coombe was not proof. "He've a-called here to inquire every day since you was took bad. Very attentive and gentlemanlike, I call't."

"Very," agreed Ann with becoming gravity. "And who else--hasn't any one else"--correcting herself quickly--"been to inquire?".

"'Deed they have! 'Twas 'Can't I see Miss Lovell to-day, Maria?' with first one and then t'other of them. But I told them all the same"--with grim triumph. "'Not till I gives the word,' I told them."

"Who has called, then?" asked Ann curiously.

"Her ladyship up to White Windows, she came, and Mrs. Hilyard, and the rector and that there long-faced sister of his--all of 'em have been, miss.

And the squire--he've sent his groom down to ask how you were going on."

"The squire?"

"Mr. Coventry, I'm meaning--he as pulled you out of the water. You ought to be main grateful to him, Miss Ann, for sure."

A faint colour stole up into Ann's white cheeks.

"Oh, I am. You had better send back a message by the groom to that effect,"