Rainbow Cottage (23 page)

But now as he swept over the rock, he saw a human face, white and still, lying there almost as if it floated on the sea. What could he do? The tide was high. There was little beach to land on, and if he waited to take the plane to the landing field above the cliff by the house and climb down the rocky steps, he might be too late. On a little farther down around the curve of the rocks there was still a stretch of beach visible. He did not hesitate. He swept down with a terrific roar of his engine that could be heard even above the roar of the sea and made a hurried landing in a most unfavorable spot. Struggling against all odds, his mind on that white face out there in the sea, he did not think of peril to himself or his plane. He only knew that he had landed somehow and struggled out into the sand, which was deep and hard to run in. But he ran, his heart pumping like a great engine. Flinging his helmet and as many other garments as he could tear from himself as he ran, he plunged down the beach toward the rocks.

The noise of his landing had brought out the Galbraiths from The Cliffs and had brought Grandmother to her window, and Jacqueline to hers.

His people shouted to know what was the matter, but he could not stop to answer. He tore on up the beach to the cove, and the family on the cliff turned their eyes toward the rock and saw the girl lying there in peril.

For once Malcolm came out of his merry self and rushed to help. He called to his mother to telephone for the lifeguard up the coast toward the village. He brought out life preservers and ropes and even pushed the lifeboat down the sand.

His mother went in to answer the telephone, which was wildly ringing, and found Grandmother wanting to know if something had happened to Angus’s plane and if he was hurt.

“There is someone out on the big rock, Myra,” answered Mrs. Galbraith. “Hang up, please. I’m phoning for the lifeguards.”

Mrs. Galbraith knew nothing of Sheila’s being lost. Angus had gone out quietly to his plane when Grandmother telephoned him. The people at The Cliffs had no idea that anyone they knew might be out there drowning. They were simply interested for common humanity’s sake.

Jacqueline had been listening at the door when she heard Grandmother telephoning, and now she appeared in bright pajamas. “What is it, Grandmother? Is someone hurt? I think I’ll get in the car and run down to the beach. I know the tide is high, but there is room enough to get around the garden wall and a hard road beyond that. I’m going!” Jacqueline danced excitedly toward the stairs.

“Go back and get on your bathrobe or raincoat or something,” ordered Grandmother severely. “If you haven’t a raincoat of your own, you’ll find one of Jessica’s in the hall closet under the stairs.
Don’t go without it!
And
I’m
going with you. Get your car turned around, and I’ll be down at once. It’s Sheila, I’m sure, out on the rocks. Maybe dead. I don’t know. Take some blankets from the linen closet. Janet,” she called in the same breath, “fill a hot-water bag quick and wrap it in a blanket.”

Jacqueline paused for an instant with blanching cheeks as Grandmother spoke those awful words, “maybe dead,” then she adjusted a demure little mask over her giddy face and danced on down to the hall closet. In view of the seriousness of the affair, perhaps it would be as well not to rouse Aunt Myra too much by refusing to wear the raincoat. One could always drop it off opportunely, and it looked as though one had sprung into action from an afternoon nap, to go this way. Jacqueline knew how to assume gravity when it suited her plans.

Janet filled two hot-water bags and brought them in an incredibly short space of time, and as soon as Jacqueline had turned her car, Grandmother was at the gate with blankets and medicine, and they whirled away down the beach.

Janet watched them drive away thoughtfully, cannily. Then she hastened to the kitchen and put on plenty of hot water, prepared a tray, put a saucepan with a bit of soup left over from dinner last night on the back of the stove to heat, got out the coffee and tea both, in case of sudden demand for either, and then with a quick, wild glance out the window to where the airplane and car were parked, she stole briskly up the stairs to the yellow guest room now occupied by Jacqueline.

Once inside the room, she gave a quick, comprehensive glance around that took in every item in sight and then went with the agility and stealth of a cat across the room and flung open the closet door.

A waft of strong perfume from Jacqueline’s many colored garments met her nostrils, and she turned up a discriminating nose and said aloud, “Pah!” Then she drew a chair to the open doorway and, mounting it, carefully inspected the closet shelf in its farthest recesses.

“I thought so!” she told herself aloud, putting a triumphant hand back to the right-hand corner and pulling out two of Grandmother’s best linen sheets crumpled into a tight little wad away back out of sight. They were rammed in tight, and she had to pull to get them out, for whoever had placed them there had carefully put a heavy bag, weighted with shoes, in front of them.

As she gave the final pull, something small and hard fell down on the closet floor, and a still smaller object followed it, striking the door frame and dropping in two parts, one of which rolled out into the room and spun across the floor and under the bed.

In great astonishment, Janet got down from her chair and crept under the bed after it, her heart beating wildly. Suppose it was something belonging to Miss Jacqueline. She would be very angry. Suppose they should suddenly return and find her, Janet, under the bed!

She clutched for the tiny yellow object and brought it out wonderingly. It was an old-fashioned wedding ring, worn thin but with the marking still inside. Janet carried it to the window to read what it said. That ought to tell whose it was.

“Moira from Andrew.”

There it was in fine little script, still clearly discernible, with a date that seemed too long ago to Janet to bother with.

Wasn’t Andrew the name of Mrs. Ainslee’s son, the name of Miss Sheila’s father? And Moira must have been Miss Sheila’s mother, since it was a wedding ring. A dawning comprehension came into Janet’s eyes. Then this was something belonging to Miss Sheila! She had come up in this interval of the absence of the guest to hunt the sheets that had been missing from the laundry, and which Jacqueline had said in her presence that she had put down the laundry chute. Here they were. And here perhaps was where the fantastic Jacqueline had hidden Sheila’s missing things. What were they? Didn’t she say something about a carved box? And letter? Well, if they were here she would get them before Jacqueline could return.

She gave a quick glance from the window and saw the red car still parked beside the airplane. She put the ring in her apron pocket under her clean handkerchief and dived into the closet again. There was a tiny cube of a white box, worn on the edges but lined with white velvet. That would be the ring box. But something else had fallen. She poked around on the floor under the trails of Jacqueline’s evening dresses, and her hand came upon a small object about the size of a pencil, made of tarnished metal. Was that the penholder that Sheila had spoken about?

She studied it curiously a moment, and then new panic came upon her. She must find all the things before they got back! She ought to get more blankets hot, too. There was no telling what had been happening out there. And they might be back any minute now.

She put the penholder in her pocket with the ring and climbed the chair again, pulling out the pillowcase now. Yes, there were more things behind there, and they evidently had been stuffed in a hurry, perhaps while they were being examined. Likely somebody came to the door and she had to get them out of sight quickly.

There was a package of letters tied with a faded blue ribbon. They looked as she brought them out to the light as if some of them had been pulled out and hastily stuffed back again. Behind the letters there was a wooden box. She could feel the carving on it before she pulled it out where she could see it. There were more papers in it. One on the top that looked like some kind of legal paper, with a border around it and two hands clasped under a wreath of orange blossoms. That was like her sister Allie’s marriage certificate. And there under it was a yellowed envelope with a long curl of yellow baby hair showing under the flap. It had been carelessly handled, for the hairs were loose and flying. Oh, Janet was sure she had found Miss Sheila’s things all right enough. Her only care now was to be sure to get everything before Miss Jacqueline got back.

She got down and spread out the pillowcase carefully and carried it into Sheila’s room, laid it in the bottom bureau drawer just as it was, and locked the drawer, carrying the key downstairs with her and hiding it inside the kitchen clock.

Janet gave a glance out the kitchen window and saw a little group around the red car and a body being carried in a tall man’s arms. That probably meant that someone was drowned or hurt and might be brought home soon. She hurried to Grandmother’s ample store closet for more blankets and set them heating before the open oven door. Three clean ammonia bottles she carefully filled with hot water, slowly so they should not break, and wrapped them in pieces of old flannel that Grandmother always kept on hand in the linen closet. These she carried upstairs, and after another look out the window toward the cliffs, she threw back the covers of Sheila’s bed, laid the hot blankets within, put the hot bottles inside them, and covered them in. She wasn’t sure, of course, that it was Miss Sheila they were bringing back, but it seemed to her it was mighty likely to be, so she was prepared.

Then she went downstairs and made a big pot of hot coffee and a big pot of tea. Janet always liked to be ready for emergencies.

W
hen Jacqueline drew up her car as near to the scene of action as she could get, though the sea had come roaring into the inlet and shut off the approach to the cove, there was a little knot of frantic people watching while Angus battled with the angry waves.

Grandmother had brought her binoculars and was standing up in the car looking off toward the rocks, a stern little gray figure with her coat blowing around her and her white hair pulled loose from the felt hat she wore, floating off behind her.

Jacqueline sprang from the car and prepared to get busy. She dashed up to the group standing on the highest dune and began to chatter in a light, high key but found it didn’t carry to the strained ears attuned to howling winds and roaring seas. One of their own family was out there fighting with storm and tide for a human life, and another one was coming down to help, to go out into the angry waves himself if need be. Jacqueline found that the limelight was not turned on herself just then.

Then down the hill, picking his way from crag to crag, not taking the winding steps but choosing a quicker, more perilous path, came Malcolm Galbraith. He was attired only in the trunks of his bathing suit, and his white flesh gleamed against the dark threatening of the sky behind him. Yet in his bearing was something Jacqueline had never seen there before. A high, fine courage, born of the moment perhaps, and the necessity, yet a heritage from generations of noble braves behind him. Something of this Betty, his wife, must have seen in him when he wooed her, perhaps. He was not in the least like the handsome idler, the careless playmate, that Jacqueline knew. Sheila, could she have seen him now, would not have known him. This was not the carefree trifler who had tried to toy with her hand and look deep into her eyes. The spirit and courage of all the brave Galbraiths through the centuries were in his look as he plunged down the cliff and took a hazardous dive from a frail promontory.

Even as he took that perilous drop into an angry sea, his cousin had reached the rock, had lifted the inert girl, and was slowly, painfully battling his way to shore with her against fearful odds, and Malcolm set himself to reach him with the life preserver, whose rope was held by a servant from The Cliffs.

For an instant, Betty felt a thrill to watch him. The next instant, Jacqueline arrived and began to clap her hands prettily and cry, “Bravo! Bravo! Wasn’t that simply precious!” And Betty turned and looked at her with a bitter sneer on her lips and walked back to the car where Grandmother stood.

Malcolm was still doing a brave thing, though no longer necessary, for it soon became evident that he could not reach Angus. He was having his own struggle to save himself, for the waves and the undertow were mighty. But Betty had lost her thrill and was no longer watching. Jacqueline might enjoy the exhibition to her heart’s content.

All eyes were now on Angus as he struggled toward the shore. Again and again a rope was thrown to him, and again and again he almost made it, only to have it snatched from his grasp by an angry sea, like a strong man playing with a tiny human kitten.

Grandmother remained standing by the big red car, with the glasses to her eyes, and that set look on her face. Grandmother was still praying.

“Oh, God don’t take her away from me now. I didn’t know I was doing wrong. Forgive me. Give me a chance to make it up to her. Father! Oh, don’t let her die now!”

Softly her lips moved in prayer, while her trembling hands continued to hold the binoculars to her eyes.

And up on the cliffs, her old friend Marget Galbraith was praying, too, as she watched her dear, wayward son and her beloved nephew in the raging sea. She was coming hurriedly, uncertainly, down the steep, rocky path from her house, following the others, bareheaded, her gray hair flying in the wind, the driving rain drenching her white anxious face. She drew a little gray knit shawl closer around her shoulders and tried to hurry faster as she came on, praying.

The sea had carried Angus and his burden farther down the shoreline toward the car, which would have been a help, except that it also carried him farther out to sea, and the beach here was steeper for a landing place. Yet he was holding his own, though the waves caught him and his burden and threw them around, pummeling them till it seemed to the little group of watchers that there was scarcely a shred of hope for them. They stood with blanched faces and bated breath, waiting for the outcome. Oh, would the lifeguards never come? Could they do anything in such a sea even if they got here in time?