Danger Point

Chapter 11

WHEN Lisle had driven about half a mile she stopped by the side of the road and put down the hood. One reason for her obstinate clinging to this little car was the fact that she could open it completely and drive with nothing over her head but the sky – not with either Dale or Alicia, but when she was alone, or sometimes with Rafe. She liked to feel the wind in her hair and see the clouds and the aeroplanes go by, high up and free.

When she got back into the car the beating of her heart had steadied. Thought slowed down. Dale had gone to London. Alicia out of sight was Alicia out of mind. She was Lisle alone, in her own car, with her own road to take. The sun and wind belonged to her, and she belonged to no one. She was free. These were not words. They were hardly thoughts. They were the stuff out of which thoughts are made – escape from authority, the child who gets out of the grown-ups’ way, escape into liberty of thought and action – one of the oldest instincts in the world.

Lisle drove slowly along the straight, flat road. There were fields on either side, with here and there a farmstead, a cottage or two, a group of trees. The sky overhead was of a pale, cloudless blue. The wind which she felt in her hair was the wind of her own going. There was no other. The sea came into sight, blue against the blue horizon, a long way off. But when she turned into the steep lane which dropped to Tanfield village the blue glitter was lost behind the high bank and hedgerow of the sunken road. It sloped gently at first, then fell to a hairpin bend, steep above the turn and steeper still below.

It was as she took this bend that she remembered about the steering. The wheels came round, but midway something snapped. The steering-wheel jerked in her hands, wrenched out of them, and was free. The car slewed violently and plunged down the hill, rocking and slipping on the uneven surface. There was a second turn to come, sharp to the right where the side wall of Cooper’s barn barred the straight. It had been kept whitewashed ever since someone had driven head-on into it one black night. Lisle’s car was driving head-on for it now. The whitewash dazzled her. The man had been killed. His car had been smashed. She had the wheel again, but it was loose and useless in her hands. She let go of it, opened the off-side door, and jumped.

Rafe Jerningham, just round the turn, saw the car smash against the whitewashed wall. He ran forward, and what his thoughts were only he could have told. He had come to that place to meet Lisle, and if there are any certainties in life, he must have had the certainty that he would find her dead. He ran to the broken car, and heard the sound of running feet behind him. Cooper came out of his yard with a purple, twitching face. The car looked like a toy that has been trodden on, but the driver’s seat was empty. Rafe gave it the one look, filled his lungs with a deep draught of air, and ran on towards the hill, the blood pounding in his ears.

She was lying against the hedge where she had jumped, lying face downwards with her arms flung out. The place where she lay was where the ditch came in from Cooper’s field. There was a thick growth of grass and wild hemlock, thriving on the damp. She lay there. And she wasn’t dead. The hand which was clutching a hemlock spray moved. Her head moved.

He took a moment before he touched her. Then he was on his knees.

“Lisle!”

She was alive. She pushed against the bank and raised herself. They kneeled there facing one another. There was a little blood on her face. It made the only colour there. Her eyes were blank and grey. She stared at Rafe, and Rafe stared back at her.

“Are you hurt?”

She said, “No – I don’t know – I thought I was dead-” and Rafe said,

“So did I.”

After that the whole village arrived – Cooper and Mrs. Cooper, Miss Cole from the post office, her niece Cissie who took in dress-making, her brother James who kept the general shop, Mr. Maggs the baker, old Mr. Obadiah Crisp, and a crowd of young Crisps, Coles, and Coopers, all related to each other by marriage if not by blood, and all shocked, horrified, excited, and full to the brim with curiosity and kindness. It was disappointing to find that Lisle had broken no bones, because it made it less of an accident, but as Mrs. Cooper said, “It don’t always show at the time.”

Lisle, sitting on the grass which had broken her fall, felt herself gingerly all over and repeated in as firm a voice as she could manage,

“I’m all right.”

Rafe got hold of Miss Cole.

“Look here, will you telephone to the house. Tell them to send Evans with the other car. And tell them to hurry. I want to get Mrs. Jerningham home.”

“Whatever could have happened?” said Cissie Cole. She stared after her aunt and then shifted her gaze to Lisle again. “One of those irritating young women who never look at you in case you might take a liberty,” was Rafe’s quick, impatient thought. He disliked Cissie a good deal – a tall, thin, straw-coloured creature, like Lisle in caricature – untidy too. She pushed a pale wisp of hair behind her ear and said in a flat, lugubrious tone, “Whatever could have done it?”

Rafe Jerningham put the same question in rather different words a couple of hours later. Lisle had refused to go to bed, to have a doctor, or be fussed over. Her dress was torn and stained. She changed it, and came down to sit in a deep chair on the lawn which looked towards Tane Head and the sea. She had tea there alone. It was very peaceful and resting to be alone. She would have used this form if she had spoken, but the thought behind it would have been, “It is very peaceful without Alicia.”

Rafe came presently to sit on a stool at her feet and ask his question.

“How on earth did it happen?”

“I don’t know. Something went when I took the bend.”

“How do you mean, something went?”

“The steering,” said Lisle. Her eyes widened. “It just went.”

“You didn’t notice anything before?”

“Dale did.”

He jerked his head aside and looked out to sea.

“Oh, Dale did? What did he notice?”

Lisle caught her breath.

“He’ll be angry – because he did notice something. He said there was something odd about the steering-”

He cut in quickly.

“Who was driving – you, or Dale?”

“Oh, Dale. He hates being driven. And he said to take the car to Langham’s and get them to test the steering.”

Rafe turned back as abruptly as he had turned away.

“Dale told you that, and you didn’t do it? Why didn’t you?”

She flushed a little.

“I didn’t want to.”

“Why?”

“Alicia was there. She had to go to Langham’s for her car. She was trying to quarrel with me. I didn’t want to quarrel, so I didn’t wait.”

From the time he had turned back, his eyes had been upon her face – bright, watching eyes.

“You’d rather risk a smash than a quarrel – is that it?”

“I didn’t think there was any question of a smash. At first Dale said, “Let Evans see to it.” It was only just as he was going off that he told me to go to Langham’s, so when I didn’t want to wait I thought it would be all right if Evans had a look at it when I got home.” She gave a small hurried laugh. “I didn’t really think very much aboutit.”

Rafe hugged his knees. He was in flannels, with a sweater across his shoulders. His skin looked very brown against the white wool. The hair on his temples was ruffled above the pointed ears.

“Why were you and Alicia quarrelling?”

“I wasn’t. Rafe – why does she hate me so?”

“Don’t you know?” He lifted up his voice and sang mellifluously,

“ ‘She could not hate thee, dear, so much,

Loved she not – someone – more.’ ”

She coloured deeply.

“Don’t -that’s horrid!”

He laughed easily.

“It’s not much of a secret, is it, honey-sweet? Anyhow, in case you haven’t noticed it, Alicia hates you for the oldest reason in the world – she’s jealous. And if you say ‘Don’t!’ again, I shall tell you why.”

Lisle said nothing, only looked distressed, but she met the mockery in his eyes with a certain childlike candour. Rafe laughed at you – he didn’t take anything seriously. But in spite of that, perhaps because of it, you could say anything you liked to him. It was all on the safe, bright surface where the waves splashed gaily and there were no rocks or quicksands. She said,

“Would you say I was a milk-and-water sort of person?”

He laughed.

“Is that what Alicia said?”

Lisle nodded.

“She said I had milk and water in my veins.”

“She would! You should have told her it was better than vinegar.”

“But have I, Rafe? Do you think I’m like that?”

He made the oddest face.

“Milk and water? No, I don’t think so – more like milk and honey.”

Lisle burst out laughing.

“Oh, Rafe – it sounds so sticky!”

He hugged himself. At any rate he had made her laugh. She had her colour back, and she was seeing something nearer than the horizon-line. He thought he had done pretty well in the time.

And then all at once she was grave again. It was her own word which drove away the laughter. Sticky – a sticky end – Dale had said that about someone only yesterday – “Oh, he came to a sticky end.” That meant smashed, as she had so nearly been smashed with her car against Cooper’s barn. Odd to think that instead of sitting here with Rafe in the sun she might have been – well, where? She didn’t know. Nobody knew – except God. And if He knew, you were all right.

Rafe said quickly.

“What are you thinking about?”

“If I hadn’t jumped -”

He went on looking at her hard.

“What made you jump?”

“I thought it was my only chance.”

He nodded.

“So it was. But did you think that, or did you just jump in a blind panic without thinking at all?”

Her eyes darkened.

“I thought – a lot of things -”

“Tell me.”

His voice was so urgent that it startled her. She looked surprised. But because it was Rafe, and because it was a relief to speak, she answered him.

“It’s very odd what a lot of things you can think about all in one moment when anything happens. I thought about Dale being angry because I hadn’t had the steering tested, and I thought Alicia would be pleased because she hates me, and I was glad I had made my will – because of Dale being able to keep Tanfield. And then I saw the whitewash on the side of Cooper’s barn, and I thought, ‘I’ll be dead in a minute if I don’t jump’ so I waited for the wet place where the ditch comes in, because I thought that would be the softest place, and then I opened the door and jumped for it as hard as I could.”

He made that queer grimace again.

“Clever – aren’t you, darling? How do you do it? Too busy thinking to get frightened – was that it?”

“Oh, I was frightened,” said Lisle in a matter-of-fact sort of voice.”I didn’t want my face to get cut.”

“Save, oh, save my complexion! Well, it’s worth saving – I grant you that. That scratch on your cheek is only skin-deep – it won’t mark you. When did you make your will?”

How like Rafe to go straight from one subject to another without so much as a change of voice. She said,

“Oh, about a fortnight ago, when Dale and I were in town. I ought to have done it before. But, Rafe, you knew – we all talked about it.”

He nodded.

“True – I’d forgotten. I’m suffering from overwork and senile decay. That’s why I sprained my thumb this afternoon – it’s one of the symptoms. And mark you how blessings come disguised! If I hadn’t sprained my thumb through catching it carelessly in a door when I was thinking of something else, I should have been drawing lovely, accurate plans of aeroplanes, all hush-hush and confidential, instead of waiting about in the village to cadge a lift home and be deftly on hand to retrieve you from your ditch. By the way, I hope your dress wasn’t spoiled.”

“Torn,” said Lisle.

“Pity about that. It was just the colour of honey – nice with your hair. What sort of will did you make, my sweet? Good old-fashioned everything-to-my-husband kind?”

“Of course.”

His eyebrows went up in a quiver of sardonic mirth.

“Why of course? Haven’t you any relations?”

Lisle winced stupidly. This was one of the days when she did not want to be reminded of how alone she was.

“There are some cousins over in the States, but I’ve never seen them. The money would have gone to them under my father’s will if I hadn’t made one.”

“And you didn’t leave anything to Alicia? I’m surprised! But I think it would be a really good gesture if you did. Something on the lines of ‘My fifth-best pearl necklace to my cousin by marriage, Alicia Steyne.’ Like Shakespeare leaving his second-best bed to his wife. I have a feeling that that would go down frightfully well. And what about me? I was rather counting on coming into something in the nature of a competency – enough to keep me off the parish in case my thumb remains permanently sprained. Didn’t you leave me anything at all?”

Lisle sat up straight. She looked at the sea and said,

“Did Dale tell you?”

Rafe said, “No.” The word came out with a jerk. Where his hands clasped one another about his knees the knuckles showed bone-white.

Lisle got up. Her knees shook a little. She said,

“I did leave you something, but I didn’t mean you to know.”

Rafe Jerningham sat where he was. He looked on the ground and said,

“I didn’t know.”