Authors: Unknown
“It will have to be just the two of us because Jamie has a golf game lined up and he can’t very well break the appointment at such short notice,” Fran said, “but don’t worry, I can manage perfectly well on my own.”
Nevertheless he watched them enviously as they stepped aboard the launch; fair and black heads bobbing busily as they cast off before Fran sent the vessel purring into deeper water, the hot sun cooled suddenly by the wind of their progress, a bow wave frothing creamily on either side of them.
“Oh, that’s better,” Katie sighed, tossing her black hair back. “It’s gorgeous after that airless heat on shore.”
Fran smiled her agreement, concentrating on steering the launch out of the confines of the tiny harbour and into the open sea. There was no gentle sloping sand at Mare Green; the low quay had been built on almost solid rock that fell immediately into deep water, but further round the coast, under the frown of the cliffs, there were small shingly beaches, so tiny as to be almost non-existent, and indeed many of them disappeared at high tide. The curve of the cliffs formed a natural harbour, but only sheltered one side of the village, leaving the other almost completely exposed.
Today the water smiled a dazzling welcome as they rode easily on the rippling waves and both the girls wore swim suits under their brief dresses. Fran had plaited her fair hair into a thick pigtail which swung over one shoulder and, combined with her white and navy dress, gave her a nautical look most appropriate to the occasion.
Katie’s hair, too thick and too short for a pigtail, was tied back with a thick white bandeau that matched her sleeveless dress and made her look incredibly beautiful, even vaguely oriental.
“There’s a lovely little cove along here,” Fran shouted above the sound of the engine, “and we can bathe from there.”
“Lovely!” Katie smiled, anticipating the cool water and enjoying the breeze. “This was a marvellous idea, Fran.”
“And really more peaceful without Jamie,” Fran laughed, taking the launch further inshore after rounding the point of the cliffs that formed the harbour.
There were still rocks jutting into the sea and looking, Katie thought, rather dangerous, but Fran brought them safely alongside a natural quay to which they moored the boat and stepped ashore. A walk along the grey rock that thrust its way into the sea brought them to a tiny shingled beach, half in shade and looking very cool and inviting.
The cliffs were higher this far along the coast and huge, sheer heights of sand-coloured rock hung over their haven menacingly. Katie glanced up uneasily as they jumped down from the rock on to the sand and shingle. “It looks a bit threatening,” she said, half jokingly, looking up at the overhanging cliff. “Is it safe?”
“Safe as houses,” Fran assured her. “Jamie and I found it years ago. No one else ever seems to come here you could even swim in the altogether if you wanted to,” she laughed.
Katie laughed, pulling a face at her. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I like something between me and the casual observer.”
“Here I go!” Fran pulled off her dress and tucked the thick plait of her hair under a bright blue cap. “Coming, Katie?”
It was deliciously cool in the water and the two of them swam and laughed like schoolchildren until they were exhausted. Katie ran from the water, pulling off her cap as she ran, and threw herself on to the big rug they had spread on the sand. She began towelling herself vigorously, watching Fran, who still floated happily, reluctant to leave the water.
Katie was dry and ready to don her dress before Fran emerged at last. “Phew!” she gasped, flopping down inelegantly beside Katie. “Let’s just laze for a bit after that, shall we? Oh, bother!” she jumped to her feet again. “I left my towel in the launch. I’ll get it.” Leisurely she strolled across the intervening yards to the moored boat, leaving Katie pulling her dress on.
“I’m going to move back into the shade a little more,” Katie called to her, and took two comers of the rug to pull it back with her into the shadow of the sheltering cliff.
Fran lost the last few words in the sudden heart-stopping rumble that drowned them and she would have run back, but Katie had disappeared behind the great pile of rock that still breathed choking dust as it settled.
“Katie!” She stood trembling and white-faced, her bright blue cap gripped in one hand, staring at the place where Katie had been a moment before. “Katie!”
Slammed against the hard face of the rock by whatever instinct had warned her, Katie brushed the choking dust from her eyes and mouth and looked around her. Miraculously she was not hurt, apart from a few minor scratches and some future bruises, but she was penned in by a huge wall of boulders and crumbling rock that looked very precariously balanced and completely unscalable.
She swallowed hard on the panic that rose in her throat and thought sickeningly of Fran whose voice she had heard faintly calling her name. Desperately she took a deep breath and called as loudly as she could, “Fran!”
“Oh, thank goodness!” she heard Fran’s breathless prayer close to the threatening wall and raised her voice again.
“Don’t come too near, Fran, it may fall again,” she urged, and bit her lip as the terrifying thought filled her. She rubbed a grimy hand over her dust-covered face and shuddered.
“But I
can't
leave you!” Fran protested, her voice quivering. “I can’t, Katie!”
“Go and fetch help,” Katie told her, dreading being left alone, but realising that it was the only solution. “Get help, Fran, please, there’s nothing you can do on your own.” She sensed the other girl’s indecision and called out again, “Please, Fran, go now.”
There were agonising seconds of indecision before she heard Fran’s sandals scrambling on the shingle and her voice fainter this time. “O.K.,” she called uncertainly, “I’ll go and get help.” The footsteps paused. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’ll be fine, Fran!” she called, with more assurance than she felt, and heard the other girl move away.
“I’ll be as quick as I can!” just reached her before she heard the growl of the engine as it roared into life, and Katie prayed that panic would not depreciate Fran’s navigation.
It seemed an eternity to Katie standing there against the cool hardness of die treacherous rock. There was almost no room to move and she dared not attempt too much movement for fear of bringing the precariously balanced boulders rumbling down on top of her.
She heard the sound of the engine die away and leave only the swishing sigh of the sea for company with an occasional gull shrieking its ribald' amusement at her plight. After what seemed like hours she caught the hum of an engine and closed her eyes in a hasty prayer as it grew louder. Within minutes she could hear men’s voices approaching and she felt tears of relief roll down her dusty cheeks. “Here!” she called.
Footsteps crunched over the shingle towards her and she raised startled eyes as she heard the clipped, incisive voice of John Miller. “It’s not going to be easy. These boulders look as if they could come down at any minute.”
Then a strange voice, slow and oddly comforting, “Once that big one’s offa the top there, Mr. Miller, it won’t be too bad, I reckon.”
She looked up at the massive round smoothness of the topmost rock perched above her head and felt chilled. There were seemingly endless moments of careful movement outside her prison and presently the great boulder went crashing down from the top, letting through a shaft of sunlight that promised warmth and light again.
As the voice had forecast, the removal of the top boulder made the moving of the others easier, but there was a frightening caution about the way the two men worked, and impatience made Katie, more than once, want to push the pile over and escape into the sun.
“Should be able to manage now.” The same slow but confident voice filled her eyes with tears of relief as she looked up to where the imprisoning wall was now no higher than her forehead. “Use this big ’un here as a step,” the voice advised, and a moment later John Miller’s head appeared over the top.
“Take it easy,” he said quietly. “If we move too fast the whole lot will collapse.” He lay along the top of the pile and slid, very cautiously, nearer. “Right?” He extended a hand to her, pointing first to a jutting ledge in the cliff behind her. “Now use that ledge and give me your hands, and for heaven’s sake don’t lean against this pile or you’ll smother us all.”
She obeyed without question, conscious of her trembling hands and thankful for his strong grip that helped her climb on to the ledge. She heard and felt her dress rip as he pulled her up beside him, and shivered at the precariousness of their perch on the heaped rocks as they rumbled ominously at the added weight.
The other side was more difficult, if anything; to negotiate with a slope of crumbling rock down to the shingle, that slid and rolled under her feet.
“Right you are, miss,” the voice she recognised and could now put a face to. A round, weathered face burnt brown as a nut, with narrow, sun-faded eyes that smiled at her encouragingly. A face she had seen at Coral House several times, but more often on the quay near the moored boat. Willing hands helped her down and stood her gently on the shingle, then turned to help her rescuer.
“Are you all right?” The anxious question jolted her out of a near faint; her legs felt ridiculously weak and she could not control the tears that streaked her dusty face. She nodded, unable to speak. “Shock,” she heard the voice say, and a second later, “We’d best be away as soon as we can, sir, in case she decides to fall again. She don’t look too safe to me.”
“Let’s go.” The order was decisive, and so was the movement that lifted Katie and carried her across the shingle to the launch. “You take her, Clay, will you?” The constant use of the feminine pronoun was confusing and it took Katie a moment or two to realise that the slow-voiced Clay was not being asked to take her from John Miller, but to take the launch back to Mare Green. She was set gently down on to the leather seat, hot and burning after being in the sun.
“Do you smoke?” A cigarette case was pushed towards her and she shook her head, shivering in spite of the hot sun. His shabby canvas jacket was lying beside her on the seat and he picked it up and put it round her shoulders, making her shrug gratefully into its warmth. She raised dust-rimmed eyes in thanks and felt the tears still rolling dismally down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” she said plaintively, “I’m sorry I’m such a baby.”
Surprisingly he did not make the impatient rejoinder she expected, but moved nearer to her, putting strong, comforting arms round her until her dusty, tear-stained face rested against him, holding her tightly. “It’s all right. It’s all over.” She scarcely recognised the voice that spoke so close to her ear. “It’s all over now,” he said, and comforted her like a frightened child.
Fran’s anxious face greeted them at the quay, and Katie attempted a smile as she stepped from the launch steadied by John Miller’s hands. “Take her straight to the house, Fran,” he told his cousin. “Is Dr. Barlow there?”
Fran nodded, taking Katie’s arm.
“I’ll take care of her, John,” she said, and put an arm round Katie. Katie, still wearing his jacket over her torn dress, glanced back briefly, to see him talking rapidly to Clay and running his grimy fingers through the usually immaculate fair hair.
“I’m fine,” Katie insisted as they crossed the quay and started down the long gravel drive of Coral House. “I don’t need a doctor, Fran, you shouldn’t have bothered him.” The name puzzled her. “Did John say Dr. Barlow?” she queried.
“That’s right,” said Fran, somewhat cheered by her curiosity. “It was no bother to him, though, he was calling on Dodo anyway; he’s a nice old boy even if he is Eleanor’s father.”
“Fran, I can’t just—”
“Stuff!” Fran retorted in her usual manner. “Here he is, anyway.” It seemed to Katie that all the Dennisons had become involved, for scarcely had they stepped on to the driveway when Golly came bounding up, followed closely by Sir Janus and a tall, thin man of his own age, and with Dodo Dennison hovering anxiously behind them.
“My dear Katie!” Sir Janus’s handsome head bent over her concernedly; putting an arm around her shoulders, he led her gently along to the house. “What a terrible thing to have happened! Come into the house, child, and let Dr. Barlow look at you.”
“I’m terribly dusty and dirty,” Katie said, apologetically, “but I’m not hurt, Sir Janus, really, I’m not hurt at all.”
“You were very fortunate,” he told her as they entered the cool, quiet of the house. “Those little coves under the cliffs simply aren’t safe. You shouldn’t have been there, either of you.”
“Idiotic pair!” Five pairs of eyes turned to the door as John Miller came into the room. His paint-splattered trousers were even dirtier, patched with sandy dust from the cliffs, and the vivid blue eyes, sharp with anger, were red-rimmed. He looked at his cousin. “Fran, you should have had more sense—there’s no excuse for you. You know this coast, even if a stranger doesn’t.”
The ‘stranger’ looked at him curiously, her grey eyes dark with the memory of her near escape and of his gently consoling arms about her on the way back. She found it difficult to remember that it had been the same man who now stood, angry and impatient, before them.
“But I’ve used that cove for years,” Fran said defensively. “There’s never been a fall before. Jamie and I found it ages ago.”
“Then you’re lucky not to have been killed! ” her cousin retorted.
“John,” Sir Janus crossed to his grandson and put a conciliatory hand on his arm, “I think perhaps we should have a drink while Dr. Barlow looks at Katie.” He turned to his daughter. “Are you coming to join us, Dodo? I’m sure Fran and Dr. Barlow can manage without us.”
If the doctor resembled his daughter in build and features, the resemblance ended there, for he had the kindliest eyes Katie had ever seen as he smiled at her. “You don’t appear to have suffered any ill effects,” he said, taking her wrist in one hand and placing the other against her dust-grimed forehead. “Nothing,” he added smilingly, “that soap and water won’t cure! ”