Cold Pastoral (20 page)

“My dear Phil! Would you deny her normal advantages—”

“Normal advantages are here for her, Dave. I don't want her to go myself. She's so much to come home to; so happy and sweet-tempered, so full of conversation—”

“I know,” said David quickly, realising the emptiness of his brother's emotional life. At thirty his knowledge of women was entirely clinical! Idealisation was dangerous allied to the uncertain returns from a beautiful unusual child. In inner disquietude David searched for the white helmet capping Philip's child. Felice was swimming away while Mary stood still, watching bathers enter and leave the sea. She seemed to turn more towards those who plunged forward in the icy blue. Suddenly she ran down the grey stones, throwing herself in the water with a luxury of immersion. The impetus of a long, springing motion took her far out on the shining sea.

“She can swim, then,” said David absently. “My God, can she? Philip!”

His brother wheeled round to see white arms sawing the air in wild surprise.

“God, the little fool!” shouted Philip, leaping towards the steps. “I'm coming, Mary!” he yelled at the top of his voice.

“She's drowning!” screamed David to the beach, and answering calls came back with the sound of feet crashing over stones.

Herd anxiety ran like the throw of a chain.

“Yes,” said David out loud, “the little fool! Can you swim? I expect
so! We're the fools!”

Reaching one of the platforms of the crazy wooden steps, he
realised the futility of another headlong descent. The sea showed
no signs of Mary Immaculate. Sleekly it had closed over her, hiding
its secret under an innocent level. Claiming its own, it was not
permitted to hold. A strong body shot forward like a projectile, while
sun made a glint on a Nordic head. Disappearing, it came up,
followed by shoulders churning the water to a maelstrom. The
co-operation of life saving was being upset by a wild struggle.

“God!” said David unhappily.

A brown arm made a curve in the air and spent its force against the
bosom of the sea.

“God,” said David again, “he's knocked her out!”

Peace came back to the water, disturbed only by a swimmer doing
a job in a perfect way.

“He knows how,” said David, addressing a company that was not
there. Continuing his descent he saw his wife wringing her hands as
she wavered towards her cape. His sensitiveness flinched to see the
limp body of Mary Immaculate trailed at the side of a muscular young
man. Within his depth he swung her across his chest, carrying her like
some sacrificial offering. The downward droop of white arms and legs
suggested beauty slain for some palliation.

Regardless of the fact of being fully dressed, Philip waded into the
sea to take his child. Straddling like a colossus, the young man placed
her across extended arms. As David trod painfully over the beach, the
Nordic head and muscular body sent his mind to the clean modelling
of Greek sculpture. The Hermes of Praxiteles was panting just a little
as drops ran down his body like liquid diamonds.

“Sorry, sir, very sorry I had to knock her out, but I think she was
surprised and couldn't realise I was saving her. She got me round
the neck. I hated to do it, but it was the only way. I don't think she
was in the water long enough to need artificial respiration, but she's
certainly done in—”

“Thank you,” muttered Philip, working his hand round to one of
the child's wrists. “I'm a doctor, I—”

“It was beautifully done without the waste of a second,” said David, more competent in the civilities following a rescue. “Cut along, Phil!
I'll come up later.”

“Yes, dear,” said Felice, shivering in her cape. “We'll go! Get his card or something—”

A glance at the magnificent body rebuked the possibilities of his presenting a club address from a pair of blue shorts. He should have been given garlands or a laurel-wreath she thought vaguely, running after Philip's wet trouser-legs, speeding up the steps. A dangling white arm made a mute wave towards a rescuer still standing in the water. Blue eyes followed an ascent two things hastened. Philip's anxiety for his child and an intense desire to hide her from gaping spectators.

“Phil, take her to David's room. Mine is all luggage. What can I do? What do you want?”

“Her pulse is all right,” he called back. “She's unconscious from the blow. Fetch my bag.”

When Felice stepped under sloping walls a narrow bed had been stripped of glazed chintz with apple-blossoms patterned on white. Mary Immaculate's green bathing-suit was lying in a corner, while her prone body was wrapped in a fleecy blanket.

“Is she all right, Phil? It was an unfortunate present. I didn't know she couldn't swim.”

“I didn't either,” he said grimly, watching the effect of an aromatic capsule.

“I should have stayed by her—”

“Nonsense, Felice, I should have known she couldn't swim. Run and get dressed like a good girl and telephone Mater, in case she hears of this in an indirect way. Tell her everything is quite all right.”

“Very well, dear, but you must change yourself. I'll put out some of David's things.”

“It's too warm to take cold,” he said indifferently.

“Will you leave her all night, Phil? I'll have a room prepared—”

“Impossible,” he said instantly. “I have to get back and I wouldn't consider letting her stay without me. If she's not all right David can drive us and I'll hold her. Of all the most abandoned recklessness!”

As he spoke the child's eyelids fluttered, opened, while she stared round the room without focus. Glazed eyes came to rest on Philip, trying to blink him into sight.

“Take your time, Mary,” he said in the fever-reducing voice she knew so well. “You'll be all right in a minute.”

“Philip,” she said restlessly as thought came flooding back, “I thought the sea was my friend, but it didn't hold me up like it did the others. I went down, down! Water in my nose and mouth! It hurt, terribly! I liked dying in the woods better. It was awful! I didn't feel brave…”

She shivered, and Philip became soothing and adequate.

“You were taken off your guard and you panicked. This time you were well and full of fight. Before, you were weak and depleted—”

He stopped as if he hated the subject himself. Then he gathered up the blanket-cocoon with an intensification of possession.

“It's over, thank God,” he muttered.

Felice tiptoed to the door as if the occasion demanded muted feet.

“I'll get dressed and come back. Don't forget your wet feet, Phil.”

Mary Immaculate flung back her head for bigger and better breath.

“I hated it,” she said restlessly. “I came up and felt the sun hot on my face. I went down—I felt—I'll never know how I felt. It must be the difference in summer-dying—”

“Oh, stop, Mary! Don't dwell on it. You're safe now.”

With an unreserved face and body she crowded against him. He was safety, sanctuary, and in the core of her shattered being she was awed at the miracle of natural breath.

“The men in the Cove who die that way? There were so many. It's not a pleasant death, Philip—”

“Why do you do such reckless things?” he said sternly.

She went still, feeling the hum of the natural day. It included his anger for her misdeeds.

“Are you very cross with me?” she asked with a desperate cling to his neck.

Her dependence ousted any mental attitude he might have. The bones were shaken out of him, and his voice became full and indulgent.

“No, I'm not cross. I know I was angry the day you went for that walk, but tell me why…?”

“I'm so mean,” she sighed. “I've got to know what things are like. Today it looked so easy. People dropped into the sea and went forward in that lovely long way. I thought I could do it, too.”

Surprise and humility over her incapacity made her press her wet head against his face. It seemed to remind him of her mortality.

“Go to sleep, Mary, and I'll hold you like I used to in hospital,” he suggested tenderly.

“Can I learn to swim, Philip?”

“Won't you be frightened?”

“No,” she said, shocked. “I couldn't bear to stay frightened of the sea.”

“Yes, I'll see about it. Relax now and go to sleep.”

“Felice said you must change your shoes, Philip.”

A settling of herself precluded any such possibility taking place. She made of his chest and arms a pillow and bed. She closed her eyes pondering on the rude crash that could shatter the core of joy. So many high moments were a tightrope walk! Tim—What would happen to Tim and herself? Nothing, she thought cosily, we're too nice! Philip surrounded her. She gave a small contented wriggle, causing response from his arms. She seemed to be his patient again, under his control, body and soul. Nice, she thought, with gathering content.

Downstairs, Felice played a small cottage piano. Knowing that Mary Immaculate was asleep, her long fingers made soothing contact with a slumber-song. At one of the windows Rufus slept in an orange ball. David came through the screen-door, disposing his body in the deepest chair.

“Darling,” said Felice, twirling round, “you look exhausted.”

“Done in,” he admitted with a humorous shrug; “it's the Mad Hatter's tea-party. I'm too old for such living. Do you think you could find me a drink? Pour it yourself, dear. I couldn't trust that Hebe who feeds our stove with dead birds. I'm beginning to question familiar things.”

“Darling, what nonsense you talk,” she said with palpable affection in her light voice. “Of course I'll get you a drink.”

She left with the movements of a person who could walk through rooms without obtrusion. In a short time she was back with a dark-looking drink.

“Yes,” he admitted, tasting, “you've been generous.”

“We'll have tea as a chaser, darling,” she said, sitting down beside him. “Who was the romantic rescuer?”

“I've been talking to him ever since, much to the chagrin of a young thing who was swimming with him dressed in lipstick.”

“Spoilsport, David,” she accused, drawing her slight legs under her body.

“Not this time, dear. He was lost already, gone in thrall to chivalry and Mary's legs. He was a charming boy,” he said, smiling over the edge of his tumbler.

“But who was he, David? Anybody local? He had a very heroic look!”

“The Senior Service, dear, a naval officer on a sloop in town. I asked him up for a drink, but Miss Lipstick put her foot down. We made rendezvous for London; Naval and Military. I'm glad he didn't come up. If we presented him to Mary he might go to her disturbing little head. How is she and where's Phil? Doing his best bedside?”

“He is, on our bed, with the child cuddled in his arms, sound asleep. I peeped in, but he was getting on nicely without me.”

David almost groaned. “What do you think of it, Felice?”

“I haven't had much time for thought. I was surprised to see Phil looking so youthful and well. He's been so staid…”

“There you are,” said David disconsolately, “agreeing with me when I wanted you to say I was in my dotage. It's a case of belated adolescence! Just when Father died he would have been young and romantic over a child Mary's age. Now he's upstairs getting pins and needles in his arms, a definite indication of his state! Nobody but a boy could endure pins and needles and like it.”

“Poor Phil,” she said sympathetically, “he's an angel! Darling, you'll have to let it alone, hoping she'll grow up liking to sleep in his arms. I must admit I wasn't prepared for such dazzling good looks. She shimmers. Phil worships her, I can see that.”

David groaned again. “But he doesn't know her a bit. He's too busy turning her into a mannerly little person, and she's not the type to be cloistered. I know he's going on the rocks, but what can I do? Here I am with a weight of worldly wisdom and quite powerless to show him sense—”

“Darling,” she said with light decision, “the last quality Phil would acknowledge from you would be sense. In view of the fact that he's one of the hardest workers and you're one—”

“Of the lilies and languors,” he said with a grin. “In that case, dear, I'll have another drink. Then play to me, will you, Felice, something andante, mostly diminuendo, for I assure you at this stage the wrong note will shatter the crystal vase?”

“You dear idiot,” she said happily. “Here's the tea. I'll play to you after.”

“A WHITE AND RUSTLING SAIL.”

S
he was commanded to bed for a day, without books or amusements of any kind. Routine had been strict enough to make it another savour. Like a long-sailing ship she was content with a temporary anchor, while her mind recapitulated on many seas. In the manifestations of their concern she was amused. Philip inquired of her body as if it might break in two! Feeling the bound of her blood, she could smile to herself, but he seemed to expect her to feel some aftermath.

From her remote world the mater said very little. Rueful tolerance
went into the shake of her head, but she uttered no reproaches.

Felice sent out a satin bedjacket by David, resulting in a rapture of
appreciation. He stayed to lunch, and for a while the two tall
brothers lingered in her room. From the glamour of the jacket she felt
the mantle of some old regime. David lounged at the foot of her bed
and in doing so violated another convention. Lady Fitz henry did not
tolerate wrinkled spreads. It was impossible for Philip to sit on a
bed. he always stood as if a nurse must be behind him, placing a chair.
Surprised to find no support, he would reach for one himself. It
was not long before a drag at his watch made him depart with some
urgency. “A good sleep, remember,” he said from the door.