She sighed and I, amazed by this flow of confidence, just sat back quietly, fearing that at any moment it might stop.
“She’d always loved the water. I remember when we first went to the seaside. She was about eight years old then. I took her down to the seaside. She held up her hand…wonderstruck like…and ran right into the sea. After that it was swimming at school. She took to it like a fish. Regular champion she was. Won prizes. I could show you.”
“I should like to see them some time.”
“ ‘Well,’ she said to me: ‘It’s awful, Mam. I can’t swim. The doctor said no…some time back. It could hurt the baby.’ ‘Well, who’d want to swim in your state?’ I said. ‘I’d like to, but I wouldn’t do a thing to harm this baby. Mam, I’ve never wanted anything more. I’m going to love that baby like no baby was ever loved before.’ That’s what she said.”
She looked at me, her eyes blazing.
“Are you going to tell me that she went swimming on that early morning?” she demanded.
“But…she was in the water…the cross-currents…”
“Cross-currents, my foot. She could have swum in the roughest sea, that one. But she didn’t go in that morning. You’re not going to tell me she went in of her own accord.”
“Are you suggesting that she was lured in…by some spirit…of that girl who died long ago?”
“That’s what people here said at the time. But I don’t hold with all that nonsense.”
“Then what do you think happened?”
“I don’t know. But you’ve got a sister up there. She’s going to have a baby. They say there’s some curse put on Tregarland’s by them Jermyns. It’s all nonsense, but…Well, you look after that sister of yours. You wouldn’t want what happened to my girl to happen to her.”
She sat back in her chair, looking into her cup where the tea had grown cold. She looked exhausted.
She was like another person. The hard shrewdness was just a veneer. She was a woman mourning a daughter whom she had loved and lost.
I said: “I am sorry…”
She looked at me searchingly. “You really mean that, don’t you?” she said.
“Yes, I do.”
She nodded and we were silent again. I knew it was time for me to go.
I stood up and said: “If you will let me know what cuttings you would like, I am sure there would be no difficulty in getting them.”
She gave me a rare smile. I felt glad that she was not regretting her confidences. In fact, I had a notion that she felt better for talking to me.
It was almost as though we were friends.
When I left the cottage I felt bemused. She had so convinced me that Annette could not have gone swimming of her own accord. When? How? On those wild cliffs one could almost believe there was some foundation in the legends which abounded here.
I walked thoughtfully down the west cliff and into Poldown. I crossed the old bridge to the east side and made my way toward the sea.
On impulse, I decided I would go back right along the shore rather than take the cliff road. I set out, my thoughts still with Annette. I could picture her clearly, for the photograph told me a good deal. She was a girl who loved pleasure, and she was determined to get the most out of life; she was very attractive to the opposite sex and well aware of it. She was impulsive, living in the present; she was everything that her mother had taught her not to be.
A slight breeze was blowing in from the sea. I walked close to the frilly-edged waves and listened to their murmur.
A young couple with a small boy, carrying bucket and spade, came along. Holiday makers, I thought. We exchanged smiles as we passed.
Deep in thought, I went on. I came to a barrier of rock which went out into the sea. I scrambled over it and found that I was in a kind of cove. There was another rock barrier which shut it in. The high cliff protruding over it made it look rather cosy, shut in by the rocks on either side as it was.
I decided to sit down for a while and to go over my conversation with Mrs. Pardell. I settled with my back to the cliff, thinking how strange it was that she had suddenly begun to talk to me. I congratulated myself afresh as to the cleverness of my approach. Perhaps I had caught her at a moment when she felt the need to confide in someone. Poor Mrs. Pardell! How very sad to lose the daughter for whom, in spite of her disapproval, she had cared deeply.
I wondered what life had been like in that cottage when Annette became a barmaid at the Sailor’s Rest. I imagined her admirers, Dermot among them. He was perhaps rather susceptible. He had almost immediately fallen in love with Dorabella. It might have been the same with Annette. I could imagine the quick romance, the consequences, and when she knew she was going to have a baby, he was brave enough to fight the family opposition and marry her.
And then…she died.
I stared out to sea watching the waves advance and recede.
What had Mrs. Pardell said about Dorabella? She had warned me. Did she think that some supernatural being was going to lure Dorabella into the sea? She was a practical woman, priding herself on her down-to-earth approach to life, and her good Northern common sense would not allow her to believe that what had happened was what it seemed. And she had told me this because she had thought I needed to know.
The answer must be that Annette had believed she would be safe swimming because it was something she had always done expertly. It might be that she had been overcome by cramp. That was possible. There must be a simple, logical reason why she was drowned that morning.
It was time to go. I was not sure how long I had been sitting there, so completely absorbed had I been in my thoughts.
I rose and went to the barrier rock. I was about to scramble over when, to my dismay, I realized that while I had been sitting there, the tide had come right in. I had failed to notice that the cove was on much higher ground than the beach on either side of the rocks, and if I stepped over them I should be waist high in water.
I looked about me and saw that the sea had crept well into the cove itself while I had been sitting there. I must have been there for nearly half an hour.
I ran to the other side. The sea was splashing about the rocks. It had come in a considerable distance; and even in the cove now there was only a narrowing strip of dry sand.
I was panic-stricken. What could I do? I could not make my way along the beach. The tide was coming in rapidly. In a short time the cove would fill. I was not a good swimmer.
I looked up at the overhanging cliff. I could not climb that. It was unscalable. There were a few clumps of valerian to cling to, but how strong were they? And in any case they were too few and far between.
What a fool I had been! While I had been complimenting myself on my cleverness in extracting so much from Mrs. Pardell, I had stupidly walked into this trap.
I looked about me in dismay. The implacable sea was creeping in slowly but very surely. For some seconds I stood helpless…not knowing what to do. How long, I wondered, before the sea filled the cove? How long could I survive? Could I attempt to scale the cliff? I knew it would be impossible. I was going to be drowned like the lovelorn maiden of the legend and Annette. Could there possibly be some curse…?
I was getting hysterical. I must not do that. I had been foolish and brought this on myself. Oh, why had I made that foolish decision to forsake the cliff path for the beach? I was to blame. This was no mythical revenge.
But what was I to do?
The sea was creeping nearer. Soon it would be rushing into the cove. I must do something, but what? I was completely unprepared for such a situation—helpless, ignorant.
Then my heart seemed to stop beating, for I heard a voice.
“Hello…there!”
Relief swept over me. It was a voice I knew—that of Gordon Lewyth.