Sitting down beside her he put an arm round her shoulders and drew her muffled head on to his chest.
'Oh, Derek darling,' she sobbed, 'I've stuck it all day but I'm so cold; so cold I think I'm going to die.'
'Nonsense,' he whispered, with his lips beside her ice-cold cheek. 'We'll make Calais yet—if only the food hangs out.'
'That's just it,' she moaned. 'If we had another day's rations we'd do it, but now we've lost the spades we'll have to dig down to the houses with our hands, and mine are frost-bitten already, I think.'
Quickly he undid his coat, jerkin and shirt, then drawing off her gloves, placed her frozen hands flat against his chest so that they might receive the warmth of his body.
'That's sweet of you,' she smiled up at him in the semi-darkness. 'But it's no good, my dear. You couldn't warm my body even if you stripped to do it, as long as this wind lasts. There's not much of me and I'm chilled all through.'
'You'll be all right again once the tents are up and you've had some coffee.'
'Yes, I'll be better then, and through the night I'll be warm enough in my sleeping-bag. But tomorrow! Some of you may get through but I won't. I'm the weakest and I'll never be able to stick another day of it without a decent meal to keep up my strength.'
Derek was hungry too, yet he would gladly have given his share of the remaining food to Lavina. The trouble was that he knew she could never be persuaded to take it. He knew, too, that she had never once complained in the whole grim journey so now that she had at last broken down she must really be at the end of her tether, and that the flame of her life would flicker out unless she had enough food to sustain her next day during their last desperate bid to find Calais.
That the rest of them, with Margery riding on the sledge, could reach Calais he did not doubt. If the snow ceased they would probably wake to see its remaining spires within an hour's march and, even if the blizzard continued, now that they had the line of the cliff-top to guide them they could hardly fail to strike it if only they had chosen the right direction. He thought of carrying Lavina to conserve her ebbing strength when they set off next morning, but knew that he could not do so for any distance. With frequent halts he might have done so for a mile or two over firm ground but even the strongest man cannot carry a woman any distance over snow.
'You must ride on the sledge with Margery,' he said suddenly.
Rather disconcertingly, Lavina laughed, and withdrawing her hands, put on her gloves again. 'Thanks for my hands,' she said. 'They won't go bad on me until tomorrow now. But you can't pull two of us with this blizzard raging. No, Derek, no. I was in the dumps just now but there's no need to worry about me. I'll manage somehow.'
'I'll see you do,' he said slowly. 'You're more than life to me.
You know that. Even if all of us don't reach Calais you've got to.'
'Why me?'
'Because you're the best of us. I can't tell you why I know that, but I do. It's not just because I'm nuts about you, and your beauty is only a sort of bodily expression of it. There's a kind of spirit in you which I can't define, but it's something that's the salt of the earth and the champagne too. God knows, humanity's suffered a bad enough set-back but there are probably countries that escaped the flood and other little groups of survivors like ourselves. Life's darned hard to kill, you know, and it will struggle on somehow but it can't afford to lose its finest elements. That's why you owe it to yourself, and to us, to reach Calais and keep the old chin up until you can find a better land to live in.'
'A better land,' echoed Lavina. 'That's it, with sunshine and flowers and things. I'll get there, darling, but I'm worried about you.'
'Oh, I'm a tough guy,' Derek laughed.
'I know, but I do worry,' she sighed. 'You've been so marvellous all this time. You'd melt a heart of stone, and mine's only flesh and blood. Take me in your arms a moment.'
He put his arms round her and they sat there silent for a little time in the snow.
She lifted her face and kissed him, then drew away as she said: 'Look, they've got the tents up; let's get inside.'
All of them crawled into one of the tents and lay for an hour huddled together in their sleeping-bags, until their mutual warmth had restored their circulation. Margery, who was the least fatigued of the party from having ridden most of the day, then got up and crossing to her own tent began to heat some coffee on the primus. As they had been so economical with their remaining food they had enough left for a small evening meal and for one more on the following day.
A few minutes later Lavina entered the tent carrying her sleeping-bag. She got one of the maps, crawled into the bag, and turning over on her tummy, began to write in pencil on its back. When she had done, she took some items out of the pockets of her coat and folded the map round them. They were a one-pound tin of marching chocolate, two small bottles of Brand's Beef Essence and a good-sized flask of brandy. She had selected them herself before they left Selfridge's and carried them with her through the whole journey as an emergency-ration in case she got separated from the party at any time and was temporarily lost.
Having made up her package she turned over and said to Margery: 'Do you know what today is?'
Margery looked up quickly. 'Yes, it's the 7th of September.'
'I expect Sam told you,' Lavina went on, 'that I promised to give him a decision on the 7th about our matrimonial tangle.'
'Yes, he told me that,' Margery replied, trying to still the sudden beating of her heart. 'But hadn't we better leave things now until we, er—well, you know what I mean?'
'No, I made a promise so I'm sticking to it. Whether any of us will live to cross the Straits of Gibraltar is pretty uncertain, but I see no reason why those of us who survive the next forty-eight hours shouldn't do so. This blizzard has been raging for over two days now and it can't go on for ever. Once it lifts, we'll be able to see a church tower or something sticking up out of the snow which will show us where Calais lies; and once the party's restocked from the food that must be in the houses there, it can begin the long trek south. Things should improve from then on with every stage of the journey, and even if some of the villages are buried completely it shouldn't be difficult to identify others from towers and gasometers, so there's quite a decent chance of getting through.'
'Yes, I feel that too,' Margery nodded. 'If only we can hang out for another forty-eight hours; but can we? With no fires, no brandy, and so little food?'
'Well, whether we can or not; as today's the 7th I'll tell you my decision. I believe you think that you're a better woman than I am because Sam's fallen for you; but that isn't true. You may be a very good cook and housewife but don't kid yourself that those things make you so very marvellous.
'You've never earned a penny in your life. If we were back in normal surroundings you couldn't hold down a job at more than a couple of pounds a week, however hard you tried; whereas I am an artist. People who know have even said that I'm near-great as an actress and you can't achieve that sort of thing without working for it. While you sat at home I slaved in the studios to make a career for myself. It isn't easy to do that and keep your self-respect, if you happen to be good-looking, in a game where all the strings are pulled by men; but I did it, and I did it by sheer hard work. When I threw up my job to marry Sam I was earning as much money as a Cabinet Minister, and I did that without any help or favours from anybody.
'What's more, you threw your hand in today but I didn't; and as woman for woman, you wouldn't stand an earthly chance against me. If I wished, I could get Sam back from you before tonight is out. But, as it is, I'm very fond of Sam and I believe that he'll be happier with you than he would with me.'