Hannah did not wait to discuss the matter, but darted back along the road to the spot where they had parked the car. By some strange irony of fate the mist had started to clear, and by the time she reached the car a patch of starlit sky was visible above her head, and wan fingers of moonlight straggled across the cliff top. Hannah decided to risk going over the cliff herself and backed the car, and Charlotte saw the tail light moving towards her with more relief in her heart than she was sure she had ever experienced before.
She had made one or two attempts to penetrate Richard’s unconsciousness and establish beyond doubt that he was not badly injured, but following upon that single “Sorry!”, and his collapse at her feet, he had made neither movement nor sound.
The moonlight showed her his unconscious face, and she lifted it and his sleek dark head gingerly on to her lap. Moisture was sparkling on his hair, and she found that she had a handkerchief tightly clenched in her hand and dabbed at it with a comer of the cambric that was impregnated with the perfume she had used before going out that night.
Fresh horror seized her as she recollected the kind of evening they had enjoyed while Richard was approaching his doom… and despite Hannah’s optimism she found the fact that not so much as one of his eyelids quivered horribly alarming. She had been talking of him as if he was a kind of public nuisance, and now here he was at her feet, his cheeks slightly hollow, his thick eyelashes very dark, his mouth very shapely and curved a little upwards at the corners as if in his state of unconsciousness he was not entirely unhappy.
Charlotte bent nearer to him, and tried to trace the likeness between him as he now was and the boy who had so obligingly obeyed all her behests when she was so very young, and in the attractiveness of his mouth and the square chin below it she thought she succeeded. Richard had always had a polite and rather bright smile for her great-aunt, who had described him as a handsome boy, despite the fact that she had had little or no time for him, and Charlotte thought him an almost startlingly handsome man as he lay with his head in her lap… and this surprised her afterwards, for when people are unconscious they do not normally appear at their best, and yet Richard Tremarth, who was now in his early thirties, actually caused a strange little wrench in the region of her heart as she gazed at him in the cold, unfeeling moonlight and recognised a most peculiar and insidious masculine appeal.
The fact that he was a hard man – and had wanted to turn her out of her house – was forgotten. When Hannah came running swiftly over the grass and made to lift his head from her lap she protested sharply:
“Are you absolutely certain it’s safe to move him?”
“Of course! Unless you’d rather we left him here to contract pneumonia…?”
They had great difficulty in getting him into the car. Episodes from various films and television plays that she had witnessed returned to Charlotte as they half dragged and half carried him towards the stationary vehicle, and when the most difficult moment arrived and they had to get him on to the back seat he partially recovered consciousness and more or less helped himself. But he relapsed into complete unconsciousness again once they had draped him as comfortably as they could against the back seat.
Charlotte felt as if her nerve had all but completely gone, and she was only too happy for Hannah to take over the driving and get them back to Tremarth in as short a time as possible. She sat in the seat beside the driving seat and watched nervously in case Richard rolled off the back.
Within a matter of minutes lights were streaming from Tremarth and
Hannah was telephoning for a doctor. The latter came in a remarkably short space of time and helped them get Richard inside the house, and on a couch in the drawing-room he finally recovered consciousness and appeared amazed to find them all grouped attentively round him. In particular he appeared to find it astonishing that Charlotte, in her lemon-yellow silk, should be actually down on her knees within a few inches of his face; and when he made the discovery that he was in the drawing-room at Tremarth an oddly gratified smile crossed his face.
“Strange, he murmured, “very strange.” Then he grimaced at the doctor who was ordering him to he still and not attempt any talking.
“Don’t be silly, doctor,” he protested weakly. “I gather you are a doctor…?”
The competent young man who apparently nowadays resided in the village of Tremarth and had taken over old Dr. Tremarth’s practice smiled at him in a cheerful manner.
“For your sake I hope I’m completely qualified,” he answered. “You’ve got a lump on your head that is going to be very painful in the next few days, and I’m afraid your left arm is broken. You’re going to have to let me set it! ” Tremarth winced.
“Any other broken bones?” he asked.
“None that I’ve discovered as a result of a preliminary examination. But on the whole, I’d say you’ve come off rather lightly ”
Tremarth winced again. The light seemed to be hurting his eyes, and Charlotte switched off the big central light and put on a tall standard lamp instead.
“What – happened?” Tremarth wanted to know, blinking bewilderedly up at the ceiling.
“You came to grief in your car. I’m afraid it’s a complete write-off.”
The eyes of the man on the couch turned almost appealingly to Charlotte. “Car?” he queried. And then a glimmering of intelligence showed between the thick black eyelashes. “Oh, of course, I – I’d stayed out rather late, and I was hoping to get back in time for dinner… ”
“According to these young ladies you were travelling at about sixty miles an hour.” Richard’s white teeth gleamed.
“That must be an exaggeration,” he said huskily. “It was on the cliff top, and I’d hardly be breaking records in a confounded sea mist at that elevation. I remember the mist was particularly irritating…”
“Nevertheless, you’ve smashed up your car, and I’m afraid you’re not going to feel too good yourself for some time. Miss Woodford has a room you can occupy, but I’m not sure you ought to make the effort to get upstairs tonight. I’m not even sure it wouldn’t be best if I packed you off to the hospital straight away. You’ll have to have some X-rays, and you’ll probably need efficient nursing. But I don’t like the thought of jolting you again to-night-” “Of course not,” Charlotte protested, and was amazed because she felt so strongly about it. “It wouldn’t do at all, and in any case Hannah knows a lot about nursing, and Richard
– Mr. Tremarth,” she corrected herself – “can stay here on the couch to-night, and to-morrow we can see about moving him. We’ve lots of empty bedrooms, and hospitals are always overcrowded…”
Her voice died away, and she found the doctor smiling at her a little.
“You can say that again, Miss Woodford,” he observed. “I doubt very much whether I could get a bed for Mr. Tremarth tonight, but tomorrow is an entirely different matter. Tomorrow we’ll have to have a thorough examination.” His eyes swung round to Hannah, standing very slim and shapely in her smart black dress beneath the flattering rays of the standard lamp, and he cocked an eyebrow at her. “What’s this about you knowing something about nursing?” he asked. “You certainly behaved very admirably to-night… and I noticed you seemed to wear a detached air that didn’t interfere with your usefulness when dealing with our friend on the couch here.”
Hannah explained.
“I trained for two years in London, and I was actually entering upon my third year when I decided I’d rather not go on. I’m not sure now that I did the right thing in giving it up as a profession, but at least I know enough to do emergency duty to-night if you feel you can trust Mr. Tremarth to me.”
The doctor studied her appreciatively for a moment, and then nodded.