Danger Point

Chapter 6

LISLE went down to the sea wall. She did not love Tanfield, but she loved this low cliff above the sea. From where she had talked to Dale a green ride led on between the trees until they opened out to show the curve of the bay with its shoaling waters which changed continually under sun and cloud. The cliff had been none too safe fifty years ago, and though the drop was no more than some fifteen to twenty feet, Dale’s father had fenced it with a low stone wall broken only where a flight of steps ran down to the bathing beach.

Lisle sat down on the coping and looked out across the water. It was half past five, and the sun slanting over Tane Head. Presently it would go down there and the shadow of the headland spread like spilled ink right over until it touched the very foot of the cliff. But for the moment the water was all clear and bright, and the shadow only a line on the farther side of the bay. The day had been hot, but the wind blew fresh off the sea. At the first touch of it she shivered a little in her green linen dress, and then forgot whether she was hot or cold. Dale was angry. She had known very well that he would be angry. Even if she had told him everything, he would still have been angry with her for running away. Angry – and contemptuous. The contempt hurt more than the anger, and she had no defence against it, because if Dale despised her, she also despised herself. She had run away when she ought to have stayed and outfaced calumny with the strength of her confidence and trust. She looked across the water and her eyes filled slowly with stinging tears. She was bitterly ashamed and unhappy, but behind her pain and misery there was still that something which was fear.

She sat there for a long time, with the shadow creeping nearer across the water and the blue losing colour and shading imperceptibly into grey. Someone came up behind her and stood there for a while before he said her name. As she turned round startled, she saw that it was Rafe.

He had pulled on a sweater over his white tennis shirt, and he was holding out a coat all gay stripes and checks of green and yellow on a cream ground.

“This is yours, isn’t it? What a fool you are to come down here in that thin dress without a wrap – and after the way you looked yesterday.”

“I wasn’t cold.” But she shivered as she spoke.

Rafe made a face at her.

“Are you trying to make yourself ill? Or don’t you have to try? Here – put the thing on. What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing.”

She was fastening the coat. It felt soft and warm, as if all the gay colours were radiating some warmth of their own. Dale liked colour, and she had bought the coat – for him – with a little uncertainty, because she really liked herself best in softer shades. But now she was glad of the colours. She buttoned up the coat without looking at Rafe or thinking of him.

He pulled her down again on to the flat coping and sat beside her, his back to Tane Head. His eyes were very bright, and the wind caught his hair.

“What’s all this about, my dear?”

“Nothing.”

“Storm in a teacup? Probably – most things are.” He sang in a whispered tenor: “ ‘Car ici-bas tout passe, tout lasse, tout casse.’ That’s the way it goes, and ‘The sooner it’s over the sooner to sleep.’ I can do a lot more maudlin quotations like that. But meanwhile what’s getting you? You came home yesterday like a death’s head escaped from the feast, and just as you begin to cheer up a little Dale comes home and you go all to bits again. What’s up?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t be a fool!” He snatched both her hands and swung them up and down. “Quit looking like a hypnotised sheep and tell me what happened at the Cranes’.”

“Really, Rafe-”

“Yes, really. I want to know, and I mean to know. Come along – you’ll feel a lot better when you’ve got it off your chest. Did some sweet womanly soul tell you that Dale had been Marian’s lover?” His eyes danced maliciously. “It isn’t true, you know, but I suppose you swallowed it whole and rushed home to meditate divorce.”

If he wanted to rouse her he certainly succeeded. She jerked her hands out of his and said indignantly,

“Of course not! It wasn’t that at all!”

“Then what was it? Tell me, honey-sweet.”

“Don’t be so silly!”

He said in a melting voice, “But you are honey-sweet – when you like, and when you are happy. That’s why I can’t bear to see you unhappy.”

“Rafe!”

“Didn’t you know? I must be an awfully good concealment-practiser. It shows what brains will do when really used. Do you know, Alicia thinks I don’t like you – she said so just now. That shows how terribly well I’ve practised to deceive, doesn’t it?”

He had startled her into a laugh which was partly caught breath.

“You really do talk more nonsense than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“That’s why I’m such a safe confidant. Even if I repeat everything you are going to tell me, nobody will believe a word I say. They’ll only think I’ve made it up.”

“But I’m not going to tell you anything.” said Lisle. “There’s nothing to tell.”

He smiled.

“I shall have to ask Dale – and I’d so much rather you told me yourself.”

“Rafe -you couldn’t!”

“Oh, couldn’t I, honey-sweet? You just watch me!”

“Rafe – you really can’t! Look here, it wasn’t anything. But you can’t ask Dale, because – it was about Lydia.”

He whistled softly.

“Oh, my hat! Has that cropped up again?”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” His tone mocked her.

Lisle leaned forward, her hair lit by the sun, her hands on the coping, taking her weight.

“Rafe, I want you to tell me about Lydia. Nobody will. I can’t ask Dale. Will you tell me?”

He laughed. The sound floated away on the wind.

“Why not, my dear? She wasn’t a very interesting person, and she didn’t live very long, so there isn’t a great deal to tell.”

“You knew her?”

“Of course I knew her. Being an interesting orphan, I was brought up here with Dale. We both knew Lydia. Her father made a lot of money out of pots and pans of the humbler sort, but her mother’s sister was married to the man who had Tallingford before old Mossbags, so Lydia and her mamma used to visit, and both families had the bright idea of marrying her to Dale. He was twenty, but very well grown for his age, and she was twenty-five. He would have Tanfield, and she would have pots of money. The relations fairly cooed.”