The Brother of Daphne Part 8

After spending the night at Salisbury, we pushed on to the Cornish coast. It was not until we were within three miles of our village that we lost the way. When we found it again, we were seven miles off.

That is the worst of a car. However.

Stern is a place, where the coast-line is a great glory. The cliffs rise there, tall, dark, majestic-grave, too, especially grave. When the sky is grey, they frown always, and even the warm rays of the setting sun but serve to light their grand solemnity. Very different is the changing sea at their foot. At times it will ripple all day, agog with smiling; anon, provoked by an idle breeze's banter, you shall see it black with rage. In the morning, maybe, it will sleep placidly enough in the suns.h.i.+ne, but at eventide the wind has ruffled its temper, so that it mutters and heaves with anger, breathing forth threatenings. Yet the next dawn finds it alive with mischievous merriment and splitting its sides with laughter, to think how it has duped you the night before. The great grave cliffs and the s.h.i.+fting sea, and, beyond, woodland and pastures and deep meadows, where the cows low in the evenings, while the elms tower above them, their leaves unshaken by the wind--it is not difficult to grow fond of Stern.

And now we were sitting on the cliffs in the heat of the morning sun, half a mile from the village and another from the places where it was best to bathe.

After a while:

"Aren't you glad I made you come here?" said Daphne triumphantly.

I sat up and stared at her sorrowfully.

"Well?" she said defiantly.

"You have taken my breath away," I said, "Kindly return it, and I will deal with you and your interrogatories."

"I suppose you're going to say it was you--"

"It was. I did. I have. But for me you would not. You are. I took the rooms. I drove the car nearly the whole way down. I got you all here. I sent the luggage on in advance."

"With the result that it got here two days after we did, and I had to wear the same tie three days running, and go down to bathe in patent-leather boots, thanks very much," said Berry.

Beyond saying that I was not responsible for the cra.s.s and purblind idiocy of railway officials, I ignored this expression of ingrat.i.tude and continued to deal with Daphne.

"You know," I said, "there are times when I tremble for you. Only yesterday, just before dinner, I trembled for you like anything."

"It's the heat," said my target, as if explaining something.

"And my reward is covert reflections upon my sanity. Need I say more?"

"No," said everybody.

"Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your kind attention. The next performance will be at four o'clock this afternoon, underneath the promenade pier."

I relapsed into comfortable silence and sank back into the bracken. My sister got up from the clump of heather in which she was ensconced, crossed to where I was, took my pipe out of my mouth and kissed me.

"Sorry, old boy," she said; "you're not such a bad sort, really."

"Dear love," said I, "what have you left behind?"

"My bathing-dress, darling."

In spite of the fact that I returned to the hotel and got it, they were positively rude about the bathing-cove I selected.

"Bathe there?" sneered Berry, as we looked down upon it, all smiling in the sun, from the top of the cliffs.

"Thanks awfully, I simply love the flints, don't you, Jill?

Personally, my doctor bled me just before I came away. But don't let me stop you others. Lead on, brother--lead the way to the shambles!"

Of course, Daphne took up the running.

"My dear boy, look at the seaweed on the rocks! Why, we should slip and break our legs before we'd taken two steps!"

"That's all right," said Berry. "We have between us three s.h.i.+rts.

Torn into strips, they will make excellent bandages, while for a splint--"

"The cove," I said, "is ideal. Its sand is a field of lilies, its sea perfumed, its boulders sweet-smelling cus.h.i.+ons."

"Of course," said Berry. "Why do you tarry? Forward, friends all!

This way to the drug department. To the lions, O Christians! For myself, if I start at once, I shall be able to get back with the coastguard's ambulance before you've been lying there more than an hour or two, and I can wire for your relatives at the same time."

"Anybody would think the place was an oubliette," said I. "As a matter of fact, the path down is an easy one, there are no flints, and there is a singular paucity of seaweed of any description. On the other hand, the sun is hot, the sand is soft, and I have already selected that rock, in the seclusion of whose shade I shall prepare myself for the waves. Sorry it's too dangerous for you. I'll write about some bathing-machines to-night. Do you like them with red or green doors?"

Without waiting for their reply, which would probably have been of the caustic and provocative type, I turned down the path I had not trodden for some three years. At one of the bends I looked up and saw them moving north along the coast-line.

I had the cove to myself, and was soon in my bathing-dress. The water was magnificent. I swam out about forty yards, and turned just in time to see Berry & Co. disappear in the distance, apparently descending into a neighbouring cove. After a rest on a rock, I set out to swim round and join them. It was further than I thought, and I was glad to wade out of the water and lie down on the sand in the sun. No sign of the others, by the way. But hereabouts the coast was very ragged. It must have been the next cove they were making for.

"Quite still, please," said somebody, and the next moment a camera clicked.

"You might have given me time to moisten the lips," said I.

"I doubt if it would have done any good."

"Thanks, very much. By the way, I suppose you're The Daily Gla.s.s? How did you find me out?"

"Rumour travels apace, sir."

"And I had been congratulating myself on eluding the Press since breakfast. Well, well! Only this morning--"

"Dry up!"

I apostrophized the sea.

"I don't want to have to report the chap," I said, "but if--"

The camera clicked again.

"I'm not sure this isn't an a.s.sault," I said. "That it is a trespa.s.s, I know. Who are your solicitors? And may I take it that they will accept service?" (Here I rolled over and leaned on my elbow.) "You do look fit. Just move your heel out of that pool--there's an anemone going to mistake it for a piece of alabaster. That's right! Oh, but, Mermaid, do tell me how you keep your hair so nice when you're bathing?"

"Like it?"

"I love it."

"I simply don't put my head under."

"A most dangerous practice, believe me."

"It's worth the risk."