Return To Tremarth

CHAPTER III

THE next day the two girls acquired some pots of paint from the village store and started to touch up the woodwork in the kitchen and other neglected comers of the house. As if by mutual consent they said nothing about the reasons why they were thus attempting to disguise the various weaknesses of the house, behaving as if they had just moved in and were intending to settle down there indefinitely.

Charlotte removed all the cushion covers from the cushions in the drawing-room and washed and ironed and replaced them, attacked the carpets with carpet cleaner and polished the furniture. Mrs. Ricks, the daily woman from the village, put in a somewhat belated appearance, and began an assault on the bedrooms; and Hannah painted away steadily in the kitchen, covering herself and anyone who unwisely approached too near to her with paint, but satisfying herself and Charlotte that the job was worthwhile long before the second day of intensive operations was over.

Mrs. Ricks was a useful cook, and she prepared the girls’ meals; but after so much labour they felt the need of something slightly more tempting than a cold Cornish pasty when they desisted from their efforts and took a bath and changed into fresh un-paint-stained and undust-streaked clothes. They made do with the pasty on the first evening, but the second evening seemed to issue them with a challenge. Charlotte decided that as hostess she must do better for her guest who was already working her passage in a most ungrudging manner, and said they would go down to the Three Sailors and have dinner in a slightly more civilised setting than the kitchen at Tremarth.

Hannah was nothing loath, and put on a smart little black number for the occasion that was rather over-dressy for the Three Sailors, and would have become her even more if she had taken pains with her make-up and adopted a hair-style that was more in keeping with her youth and did not make her look like a severe governess in search of unfamiliar entertainment. Charlotte – following upon the intrusive thought that Richard Tremarth might still be staying at the inn – decided to wear her latest acquisition for a quiet evening away from home, and that was a lemon yellow silk dress over which she draped a black lace mantilla that she had bought on a trip to Spain the previous summer.

The two girls set off in Charlotte’s car, and the landlord of the Three Sailors welcomed them with effusive smiles and assured them he could fit them up with a table in the dining room. Luckily they had chosen one of the occasions when his menu, was quite exceptional, and that meant a bottle – or rather, a half bottle, since they were neither of them heavy drinkers – of wine to accompany the meal, and perhaps a liqueur apiece afterwards.

When they arrived at the liqueur stage, however, Charlotte said she would skip it, remembering that she had to drive them both back to Tremarth; but as the half-bottle of wine in the dining-room was still very nearly half full the landlord did not seem to think there would be much danger of her infringing the laws of driving. He had carried coffee to them in the lounge, and was beaming because of the flattering comments on the meal he had just served to them, when Charlotte asked him whether Mr. Tremarth was still a guest at the inn.

The landlord looked slightly intrigued when she asked the question, and then admitted that Richard Tremarth was still staying with him.

“But he’s a gentleman who likes to come and go when he pleases,” he explained. “He may be in to dinner to-night, and he may not. At the moment he’s out. I think he’s doing what he calls’ ‘rediscovering Cornwall’,” he added, lowering his voice as if to him that was a novel occupation.

Charlotte nodded, and then addressed a remark that had nothing whatsoever to do with Richard Tremarth to Hannah, just in case the landlord might have received the wrong impression. He no doubt remembered that she and Richard had sat at that same table on the night of her arrival in Tremarth, and although it must have struck him that their relationship was not particularly good one could never tell.

On the way back to Tremarth Hannah voiced the thought that Charlotte herself was thinking as she drove over the cliff top in a swirl of cold, white unfriendly mist that had encroached upon them from the sea.

“Your friend Tremarth must either have made up his mind that he’s not going to remove himself until you’ve changed your mind about selling him your house, or else the countryside has really gone to his head and he can’t have enough of it.”

She peered through the swirling white vapour ahead of them, and warned:

“Look out! You were very nearly off the road…”

“Sorry!” Charlotte jammed on her brakes, and then proceeded more cautiously. It was eerie driving through the mist, and she felt as if ghostly fingers were tapping at the windows on either side of her, and behind them the blackness they had left behind seemed intense. “We would pick upon a night like this to go out junketing, wouldn’t we? Not that a dinner commencing with grapefruit and taking in local lobster and apple flan before its grand climax of coffee and no liqueur could honestly be described as junketing! But I’m not really used to this part of the world, and – ”

Headlights pierced the mist and bathed them in a flood of uncanny yellow light, and Charlotte practically gasped as the oncoming car swept past them. It was travelling far too fast for such a night and such a spot, and Hannah, too, gasped:

“The man must be out of his mind! Or else he’s in a tremendous hurry to get somewhere -” “It was Richard Tremarth!” Charlotte had glimpsed him only for a moment, and she had also recognised his gleaming, expensive car. “He’s probably hungry and hoping they’ve kept some dinner for him at the Three Sailors.”

“He’ll never reach the Three Sailors if he continues on his way like that!” Hannah was peering backwards through the rear window at the disappearing tail light of Tremarth’s car, caught up in a pocket of mist. “He’ll go over the cliff! ”

“Oh, don’t!” And Charlotte shuddered so much that she decided it was her own fear of going over the cliff that was affecting her. They were very close to the edge here, and in fact the wall of Tremarth rose up like a bastion on the other side of them and provided her with the uncomfortable feeling that it was literally thrusting them into the sea. The road was quite wide, but allowing for the various indentations in the cliff it was not so wide, and her heart had been in her mouth when Tremarth swept past them.

She sighed with relief when she recognised the tall piers of a pair of gates ahead of them, and knew that once inside the drive they would be comparatively safe. And if they wanted to avoid crashing into a tree-trunk they could always walk up the drive.

The next moment vexation rolled over her, for the car had stalled as a result of the crawling speed at which they were proceeding. They had come to rest in a comparatively clear stretch of the road, with the red brick wall of her own house on their right hand and the sea making mystical splashing noises on the beach at the foot of the cliff on their left. The noise of the sea seemed strange in the otherwise clammy stillness, and she was about to remark that it was a most inconsiderate moment for an engine to go out of action when that same curious stillness was shattered by a sound like a violent explosion.

Hannah blenched visibly and stared at Charlotte.

“What… do you suppose that was?”

“It sounded as if something blew up! ”

“What could blow up in a place like this? On a lonely stretch of coast like this?”

“A car accident?”

Their eyes met and held for a moment, and then each was scrambling out of the car and on to the wet grass of the cliff top.

“It’s no use my attempting to turn the car,” Charlotte panted. “I couldn’t do it in a place like this, with so little visibility!”

“Then don’t try.” Two years of hospital training, and with memories crowding back on her of some testing experiences she was unlikely ever to forget, undoubtedly affected Hannah’s thinking just then, and without considering it necessary to explain her intentions she started to run back along the road they had crawled over only a minute or so before. Long before Charlotte had started to break into a trot after her she had disappeared into the darkness and the mist, and Charlotte called frenziedly in fear lest she too should become the victim of an accident that would mean that her body would be found the following day at the foot of the cliffs, if it had not already been carried out to sea by the tide.

“Keep away from the cliff edge! It’s dangerous and crumbling in places -! ”

Her voice came back to her like an empty echo on the moistureladen air, and she realised that the only thing she could do was follow Hannah and hope that, by some miracle, disaster refrained from claiming them both, and that when they finally caught up with one another again the shock would not be so great that it would pulverise their wits.

If an accident had happened they would need their wits. Not that she had any doubt at all that Hannah would keep hers. Hannah might think she was an artist, but she should have stuck to nursing.

Her instincts were quite obviously the right ones, and it was Charlotte who allowed her feet to drag became she was horrified of what awaited her at the end of a fairly peaceful and reasonably convivial evening. And the knowledge she had that, unlike Hannah, she was never at her best in a crisis made her feel slightly sick.

Ahead of her the blanket of mist was pierced by an angry light. It was like the damped-down glow of a bonfire, and as far as she could judge it was on the cliff top, and most certainly not on the beach.

So, if the car that had speeded past them had overturned, it had done so without rolling over and over down into the inky blackness of the sea.

But if that really was a conflagration…”

Hannah’s voice came back thinly to her through the mist.

“Stay where you are! There’s nothing we can do… and the heat’s too great to get really near.”

Charlotte came to a standstill within a foot or so of her friend. She put both hands to her face to protect it from the intense heat, and in her ears an angry roar like the howling of a gale in an old-fashioned chimney, and a continuous crackling that was even more horrifying than the hollow roar.

“Is it – is it the car that passed us?” she barely whispered to Hannah.

The latter nodded.

“It must be. As far as I can make it out it hit a projection of your wall, but it didn’t go over into the sea although it must have turned somersault several times.” She was tinning her glance in all directions, seeking with a very faint hope in her heart for some evidence that the driver – Richard Tremarth – had been thrown clear, and was in need of some attention from her and reasonably close at hand. But every time her fascinated gaze was drawn back to the glowing wreck of the car the hope died, and she knew that what she was feeling was a forlorn hope, and that no one could live who had been involved in such a catastrophe.

Charlotte said as much as she stood there with her hands pressed against her face, her gaze equally fascinated.

“Why, oh, why was he travelling at such a speed?” she demanded of the bleak unfriendly night.

But Hannah didn’t answer.

“We must make absolutely certain,” she said, a minute later. “I’ll grope my way along this end of the verge, and you retrace your steps. If he was anywhere on the road we’d have stumbled over him before this.”

Charlotte turned mechanically to return by the way she had come, and then out of the strange and ghostly night a voice spoke to her

– a little plaintively, but quite strongly:

“You don’t have to search! I’m here! Luckily, for once, I didn’t fasten my seat belt… I was thrown clear! I’ve just climbed up several feet from somewhere down the re… He indicated the rocks below them, and then folded up on the grass and lay almost touching Charlotte’s feet. “Sorry!” he apologised, before he became unconscious.

Hannah took charge in a way that proved her to be a considerable loss to the nursing profession. First she ascertained that the victim was breathing, and had not passed out altogether, and then she ordered Charlotte to stay with him while she returned for their car and drove it back along the road to the spot where Tremarth was stretched out silently on the soaking wet grass of the cliff top.

“But wouldn’t it be better if we left him undisturbed until we can get an ambulance?” she protested, with memories of the one or two lessons she had received in first-aid rushing up over her.

Hannah answered immediately: “If we do he’ll die of pneumonia. So far as I can judge he’s not badly hurt, but he is concussed. If we can get him into the car he’ll be all right, provided we’ve enough strength to get him into Tremarth!”

“Thankfully we’re on the telephone,” Charlotte breathed with relief. “The Emergency Service will get you a doctor.”

Hannah did not wait to discuss the matter, but darted back along the road to the spot where they had parked the car. By some strange irony of fate the mist had started to clear, and by the time she reached the car a patch of starlit sky was visible above her head, and wan fingers of moonlight straggled across the cliff top. Hannah decided to risk going over the cliff herself and backed the car, and Charlotte saw the tail light moving towards her with more relief in her heart than she was sure she had ever experienced before.

She had made one or two attempts to penetrate Richard’s unconsciousness and establish beyond doubt that he was not badly injured, but following upon that single “Sorry!”, and his collapse at her feet, he had made neither movement nor sound.

The moonlight showed her his unconscious face, and she lifted it and his sleek dark head gingerly on to her lap. Moisture was sparkling on his hair, and she found that she had a handkerchief tightly clenched in her hand and dabbed at it with a comer of the cambric that was impregnated with the perfume she had used before going out that night.

Fresh horror seized her as she recollected the kind of evening they had enjoyed while Richard was approaching his doom… and despite Hannah’s optimism she found the fact that not so much as one of his eyelids quivered horribly alarming. She had been talking of him as if he was a kind of public nuisance, and now here he was at her feet, his cheeks slightly hollow, his thick eyelashes very dark, his mouth very shapely and curved a little upwards at the corners as if in his state of unconsciousness he was not entirely unhappy.

Charlotte bent nearer to him, and tried to trace the likeness between him as he now was and the boy who had so obligingly obeyed all her behests when she was so very young, and in the attractiveness of his mouth and the square chin below it she thought she succeeded. Richard had always had a polite and rather bright smile for her great-aunt, who had described him as a handsome boy, despite the fact that she had had little or no time for him, and Charlotte thought him an almost startlingly handsome man as he lay with his head in her lap… and this surprised her afterwards, for when people are unconscious they do not normally appear at their best, and yet Richard Tremarth, who was now in his early thirties, actually caused a strange little wrench in the region of her heart as she gazed at him in the cold, unfeeling moonlight and recognised a most peculiar and insidious masculine appeal.

The fact that he was a hard man – and had wanted to turn her out of her house – was forgotten. When Hannah came running swiftly over the grass and made to lift his head from her lap she protested sharply:

“Are you absolutely certain it’s safe to move him?”

“Of course! Unless you’d rather we left him here to contract pneumonia…?”

They had great difficulty in getting him into the car. Episodes from various films and television plays that she had witnessed returned to Charlotte as they half dragged and half carried him towards the stationary vehicle, and when the most difficult moment arrived and they had to get him on to the back seat he partially recovered consciousness and more or less helped himself. But he relapsed into complete unconsciousness again once they had draped him as comfortably as they could against the back seat.

Charlotte felt as if her nerve had all but completely gone, and she was only too happy for Hannah to take over the driving and get them back to Tremarth in as short a time as possible. She sat in the seat beside the driving seat and watched nervously in case Richard rolled off the back.

Within a matter of minutes lights were streaming from Tremarth and

Hannah was telephoning for a doctor. The latter came in a remarkably short space of time and helped them get Richard inside the house, and on a couch in the drawing-room he finally recovered consciousness and appeared amazed to find them all grouped attentively round him. In particular he appeared to find it astonishing that Charlotte, in her lemon-yellow silk, should be actually down on her knees within a few inches of his face; and when he made the discovery that he was in the drawing-room at Tremarth an oddly gratified smile crossed his face.

“Strange, he murmured, “very strange.” Then he grimaced at the doctor who was ordering him to he still and not attempt any talking.

“Don’t be silly, doctor,” he protested weakly. “I gather you are a doctor…?”

The competent young man who apparently nowadays resided in the village of Tremarth and had taken over old Dr. Tremarth’s practice smiled at him in a cheerful manner.

“For your sake I hope I’m completely qualified,” he answered. “You’ve got a lump on your head that is going to be very painful in the next few days, and I’m afraid your left arm is broken. You’re going to have to let me set it! ” Tremarth winced.

“Any other broken bones?” he asked.

“None that I’ve discovered as a result of a preliminary examination. But on the whole, I’d say you’ve come off rather lightly ”

Tremarth winced again. The light seemed to be hurting his eyes, and Charlotte switched off the big central light and put on a tall standard lamp instead.

“What – happened?” Tremarth wanted to know, blinking bewilderedly up at the ceiling.

“You came to grief in your car. I’m afraid it’s a complete write-off.”

The eyes of the man on the couch turned almost appealingly to Charlotte. “Car?” he queried. And then a glimmering of intelligence showed between the thick black eyelashes. “Oh, of course, I – I’d stayed out rather late, and I was hoping to get back in time for dinner… ”

“According to these young ladies you were travelling at about sixty miles an hour.” Richard’s white teeth gleamed.

“That must be an exaggeration,” he said huskily. “It was on the cliff top, and I’d hardly be breaking records in a confounded sea mist at that elevation. I remember the mist was particularly irritating…”

“Nevertheless, you’ve smashed up your car, and I’m afraid you’re not going to feel too good yourself for some time. Miss Woodford has a room you can occupy, but I’m not sure you ought to make the effort to get upstairs tonight. I’m not even sure it wouldn’t be best if I packed you off to the hospital straight away. You’ll have to have some X-rays, and you’ll probably need efficient nursing. But I don’t like the thought of jolting you again to-night-” “Of course not,” Charlotte protested, and was amazed because she felt so strongly about it. “It wouldn’t do at all, and in any case Hannah knows a lot about nursing, and Richard

– Mr. Tremarth,” she corrected herself – “can stay here on the couch to-night, and to-morrow we can see about moving him. We’ve lots of empty bedrooms, and hospitals are always overcrowded…”

Her voice died away, and she found the doctor smiling at her a little.

“You can say that again, Miss Woodford,” he observed. “I doubt very much whether I could get a bed for Mr. Tremarth tonight, but tomorrow is an entirely different matter. Tomorrow we’ll have to have a thorough examination.” His eyes swung round to Hannah, standing very slim and shapely in her smart black dress beneath the flattering rays of the standard lamp, and he cocked an eyebrow at her. “What’s this about you knowing something about nursing?” he asked. “You certainly behaved very admirably to-night… and I noticed you seemed to wear a detached air that didn’t interfere with your usefulness when dealing with our friend on the couch here.”

Hannah explained.

“I trained for two years in London, and I was actually entering upon my third year when I decided I’d rather not go on. I’m not sure now that I did the right thing in giving it up as a profession, but at least I know enough to do emergency duty to-night if you feel you can trust Mr. Tremarth to me.”

The doctor studied her appreciatively for a moment, and then nodded.

“Of course. In any case, I haven’t got very much alternative.” He bent over the patient. “I shall leave you in good hands, Mr. Tremarth, but to-morrow I’ll have to get you moved. You should be quite comfortable on this couch – ” he glanced at Charlotte – ” with some blankets and pillows and things. And now, if you feel up to it, I’ll have a go at that arm.”

Charlotte withdrew hurriedly in response to a meaningful look from Hannah, and while the mistress of the house rushed round collecting blankets and an eiderdown from the spare room that had luckily been given a thorough airing and spring-cleaning that day Hannah lent her assistance to the local practitioner, whose name was James Mackay.

The fact that he had red hair and one or two freckles indicated that he was very Scottish; and by the time the minor operation on the arm was over Hannah was of the opinion that he was also a very good doctor.

Charlotte set milk boiling on the kitchen stove for no reason that she could think of – except that they might all require a hot drink before the evening was over – and carried hot water- bottles as well as the blankets to the door of the drawing-room. She hesitated outside it for a full half minute, but when no sound reached her ears from within she opened the door a mere crack and peeped inside.

The patient appeared to be resting quietly on the couch, and Hannah and the doctor were over by the window, talking earnestly. Charlotte crept towards the couch and was relieved to discover that Tremarth’s colour was distinctly better than it had been when she left the room, and although his eyes were closed he opened them immediately as she drew near.

“Thanks, Nurse,” he whispered with a very faint twinkle in the darkly grey eyes. “You may not be even partially qualified like your friend, but you did just as good a job to-night. And I seem to have taken possession of your house whether you will or not! ”

She slipped a pillow under his head and covered him with the eiderdown, and it was obvious that he was very drowsy, for he settled down immediately and appeared to slip away into slumber.

Hannah came across to her and spoke softly. “He’s had an injection, so he should sleep, but of course I’ll stay with him throughout the night. Dr. Mackay thinks you ought to go to bed and behave normally, but you can relieve me in time to have a bath in the morning. It might be a good idea if we offered the doctor some coffee before he leaves.” “Of course.” Charlotte was only too eager to do something practical, and having switched on the powerful electric fire to increase the temperature for the patient, and tucked in an end of one of his blankets, there didn’t seem much more she could do. So she departed hurriedly once more to the kitchen, made the coffee and brought it back to the drawing room.

Hannah, she realised, had changed perceptibly in the course of the last hour. The only things that were missing were a crisp cap and apron as she stood talking quietly to the doctor, and Charlotte found herself marvelling that she had ever felt the urge to abandon the profession of nursing. Her professionalism must have impressed Dr. Mackay, for he seemed to forget that she was not even qualified and appeared to have few qualms at the idea of leaving her in full charge of the patient. Just before he took his departure after hurriedly swallowing his coffee he said as he might have said to a nurse at the local hospital:

“Very well, Nurse, I’ll leave you to take over now and make him my first call in the morning. But of course, if you’re at all alarmed about him in the night you mustn’t hesitate to get in touch with me. However, I don’t think he’ll give you much trouble. He’s pretty tough, and lucky to be alive, anyway! ”

He nodded goodnight to her, and Charlotte accompanied him out into the hall.

“I’ll get in touch with the police,” he told her. “I should have done so before, but the patient had to come first. In any case, there’s nothing they can do about the wreck of that car. I suppose the landlord at the Three Sailors will have his home address?”

“Yes,” Charlotte answered, and that set her wondering whether there was anyone who ought to be informed about the accident – anyone who might be closely concerned because of it. She knew very well that Richard Tremarth had no parents, and somehow she had assumed he was without a wife. But there could be a fiancee, or even

– she couldn’t dismiss it – a wife!

She was feeling very thoughtful when she returned to the drawingroom. Hannah had poured herself another cup of coffee, and was sipping it in front of the glowing electric fire. Despite the fact that it was summer time the cold sea mist had lowered the temperature dramatically, and the long drawing-room, with its big windows overlooking the sea, was only just beginning to feel warm and comfortable.

Hannah nodded at an armchair she had drawn close to the patient.

“I’ll settle myself there,” she said. “Fortunately, I’m pretty good at keeping awake when it’s necessary, and I don’t think there’s much danger of my falling asleep. But just in case I grow drowsy I’ll read a book.”

“Can’t I take over half way through the night?” Charlotte suggested.

“No.” Hannah shook her head. “I promised the doctor I’d be on hand just in case – well, just in case, you know! ”

“But he’s not badly injured, is he?” Charlotte whispered, with a sudden extraordinary amount of fear in her voice as she moved nearer to the couch.

Hannah’s reply was almost as non-committal as the doctor’s would have been.

“We don’t think so, but that was a ghastly crash he was involved in. I’ll never forget the startling explosion when that petrol tank blew up!”

Charlotte stood looking down at the finely-drawn face on her immaculate pillows.

“I do hope you and Dr. Mackay are right,” she barely breathed. “I hope he’s not badly hurt! ”

Hannah flickered a somewhat surprised glance at her.

“It’s strange, isn’t it,” she mused, “that only an hour or so ago we were talking about him? At that stage I don’t think it would have hurt you very much if you’d heard that he’d jumped into the sea! ”

Then she smiled unexpectedly.

“Do you remember what we were talking about only yesterday? About the nursing-home,

I mean. Well, we’ve got our first patient! ”