The Wind and the Spray (23 page)

She looked around her as she plodded through the lake. It was heavy going, but, she thought hopefully, although the water has risen quickly it’s not rising so quickly now. There seemed a slack somewhere. She paused for breath, for already she felt exhausted, and she saw that the slack was because the volume of water was now submerging all it could of the flatter part of Nor’s land. When that task was completed, and the current was free to return, it should rise quite sharply again.

She hurried her steps, or at least she tried to hurry them. It was very hard to make any progress at all.

Nor had a rough shelter built for the jeep some yards away from the cottage, just four supports and a roof.

The jeep was not there of course, it would be at the station where he had left it when he had gone down to the
Clytie
yesterday. She was glad of that much, anyway. It would be safer there.

How much safer she did not realize until she saw the car port tremble. One moment it was there, the next moment the current had reached it and the whole erection was shaking. The time it would take to dismantle altogether would depend on how much flood-borne wreckage came against it. Forgetting her own position, fascinated, she stood and watched an uprooted tree come sailing down and hit it violently. The next moment the car shelter was gone.

She plodded on again. The water was near her knees now. It was uncomfortable, but it was not dangerous. She could pick her way round the edge of the deeper part of the stream.

It was then she heard the cow-bell. Plush, she thought, stupid, silly, exasperating, but plum-eyed Plush, meandering down to her favourite pasture, to Nor’s grass.

“You foolish cow,” she called into the rain, “there’s no grass now, only flood. Go back.”

She knew the cow could not understand her, but it might
recognize
the authority in her voice and turn and retreat as it always did when she routed it with the aid of a stick.

“Go back ... go back
...
” she shouted, “go back, Plush!”

Tonk-tonk, said the bell. Laurel looked around, puzzled. It didn’t sound as though Plush was coming to her favourite pasture, it sounded as though she was already there.

Oh, well, if she was determined to be a crazy as well as a greedy cow, it was her fault.

But it didn’t stop at that, and with a groan Laurel stopped her own steps. She simply couldn’t leave the docile, lovable, plum-eyed creature to a possible fate like the car port’s. I hate cows, she complained bitterly, and turned back down the slope again.

Still it was reasonably passable if one picked one’s steps round the rim of the deeper middle channel, waded through the slack.

“Plush, where are you?” she called. “Plush, you naughty girl.”

It was difficult to see through the beating rain. Laurel looked left and right to no avail. Then straining her eyes she glimpsed something large and dusty-coloured and forlorn near the house. It was Plush. The cow must have nudged up for shelter. I’ll have to go right back and rout her, Laurel despaired.

She plodded over with difficulty. Halfway there she bent down and retrieved a stout flood-borne stick. “And she’ll get it too,” she resolved aloud, half in tears.

What happened then, Laurel could not have said clearly. One moment she was berating Plush outside the house and the next minute she was in the house again, pulled in by violent fingers, the door slamming behind her, slamming fast.

She caught her breath in a little cry.

Jasper stood there.

For a moment they stared at each other across the dim room, the fox-like, drenched, unshaven man, the soaking girl.

“I would have thought he’d have had you out of all this yesterday.” It was Jasper who spoke first. He jerked his thumb in the direction of the station where evidently he had thought she was. “Bit of luck you being here, though.” He looked consideringly at her.

“Why are
you
here?” she demanded.

“Not begrudging me hospitality, are you, not in this weather?” The man was wringing out some of the water from his dirty clothes and it dripped over the already wet floor.

“You’ll have to go,” she said foolishly. As though, she thought, I intend stopping myself.

“I’m going all right, Mrs. L., because this house is going, too, and I’d say within the hour. Once the current takes up all the slack, the place will collapse.

“But before I go, I want it, see? The pearl. I know he has it. I saw him when he found it. I saw his face. I knew it was something special. Now I want it. If you know what’s good for you, you won’t waste any time handing it across.”

“I don’t know where it is.”

His gaze slid round her.

“He—he sold it,” she cried, and saw at once it would have been better if she had kept her mouth shut. Every syllable shrieked untruth.

“Where is it?” he repeated.

“I tell you I don’t know.” She looked at him aghast, at what he was now doing, and her eyes were indignant. She said angrily, “You mustn’t go on like that.”

But he was not heeding her. He had crossed to Nor’s bureau and was searching rapidly. As he searched, he threw out everything that came to hand. Papers, books, cheques, documents, he tossed them all on the floor.

In a fury he finally kicked at the bureau and the small desk fell forwards with a smash.

Now he was at the kitchen cabinet, knocking out groceries, tossing down canisters, his sneak intellect urging
him
to look where a man like himself would hide things ... under boxes of soap powders
...
behind milk jugs
...
in tins.

Tins
... A
tin, Laurel thought, and almost as though she had spoken her thought aloud the man wheeled and went across to the shells.

The clams and lobster floats were dashed downward, the frail little nautilus that she herself had brought up from the beach only last week crashed to the floor.

Then he had the old silver beer mug in his hands, he was wrenching it open, scattering its contents downward once more.

He gave only cursory attention to the little pearls. With a scornful gesture he threw them away with all the papers he found there.

Laurel went down on her knees to collect them. She loved the little pale pearls, it didn’t matter that they were of minor value ... but as she put out her hands something riveted her attention. A letter. Thin spidery writing.
David
’
s
writing. Clearly she saw, “My beloved new brother, my dear, dear Nor
...
”

“It’s not here.” The words came thickly from Jasper. With difficulty Laurel returned from the import of what she had in her hands and looked at the man who was looking boringly now at her.

“Where is it?” he snarled.

“I tell you I don’t know.’ She got to her feet. She felt herself trembling—but it was not because of Jasper, it was because of the discovery she had just made. She had known she loved Nor. She knew she had loved him even while she made those half-believed vile accusations, but now, with this evidence in her hands, with this testimony that was David’s letter, she knew a different sort of love, it was a fighting love for him. Before she had shrunk back from showing him how she felt. Now, knowing how he must feel, even though it must only be a small thing in comparison to what she realized she held, knowing that it must have been in him to have done what he must have to have received an answer like this from her brother, she would not shrink any more.

The room was a shambles. Wrenched cups and saucers and plates, dishes and bowls were all over the floor. Books were tossed down, torn in two, two bags had been dragged out, their contents strewn.

“Where is it?” he almost screamed, and suddenly he pulled her roughly by the arms.

She screamed back and pulled away from him, making for the door. He caught her as she went, swinging her backward, pushing her hard. As she reeled away he caught her again and held her in a vice-like grasp.

“Hurry up,” he hissed violently. “We don’t have much longer. Listen to that roar.”

She listened
...
and she believed him. There could not be much longer now.

Even as they both stood there, the cottage shook sickeningly. Under their feet they felt it shudder, then settle like a pile of sand.

“It’s going,” she shouted, and tried again to escape.
\

“The pearl!” He stopped her at the doorway with a thrust of a hard brutal arm.

She hesitated, wishing desperately she had not done what she had, concealed it as she had. The hesitancy betrayed her. She felt the grasp tighten, saw the mean eyes narrow. He stepped nearer ... he was only a breath away.

“The pearl, Mrs. L.”

“It’s here ... on me.”

“Hand it over.”

She hesitated another moment, then obeyed. He smiled thinly as he watched her remove the ring, then he grabbed at it, examined it, gloated over it, wrapped it greedily in a dirty handkerchief and put it carefully in his pocket.

He opened the door, and the rain came racing in. He considered briefly for a moment, the turned and grabbed her after him.

“As fast as we can,
up,”
he said. Sobbingly she complied.

Everywhere there was water. Bushes poked out of the great expanse of it, looking like floating cabbages. The current was fast.

It was darker than it had been before. They could see nothing behind them, nothing ahead. Laurel wondered dully where Plush had gone.

There was no tonk-tonk now. Even if the cow-bell had rung it was doubtful whether Laurel would have heard it. There was a roar, and it was growing louder every moment. It seemed to pursue them, to be at their very heels.

“Faster,” Jasper spat.

Laurel did not know how long they were running through that water, how high they were ascending, she was only conscious of placing one foot in front of the other and not daring to stop. The pain of it all became unbearable. Suddenly she didn’t care any more what happened so long as she did not run another step.

And then—

“Get in, get in.” In the deafening noise they had not heard the engine, in the gloom they had not seen the flickering headlights. It was a car, a jeep, Nor’s jeep, but a jeep could not be here, Laurel thought, there wasn’t a road here, not even a track, only a slope growing steeper, and the surrounding bush. But it was not surrounding bush now, it was surrounding water, a lake of it, and to her horrified eyes the lake seemed at least a mile across.

Nor was out of the jeep and he was grabbing Laurel and flinging her on the seat beside the driver. He looked briefly at Jasper, hesitated a split moment, then nodded his head at him. His face was grim.

He got back into the jeep, Jasper in the seat behind. He tried to turn the car. The current instantly careened it round again. The engine stalled.

Above, to the left, was the farthest foothill away from the now streaming Tweedledum, fairly high for a foothill, rising rather abruptly, wide enough to take up a fair substance of surrounding water. Nor started the engine again. At first it protested and then it kicked over. Nor turned the jeep successfully this time and began to crunch painfully up the slope. It skidded, swerved and cracked through some submerged saplings. Nor heard Laurel fall off the seat to the floor.

Straightening the wheel with difficulty, he found himself headed for a tree trunk. He hit the brake and slewed the car round again.

He started upwards once more. The roaring behind them was getting fiercer now, the jeep skidded protestingly and fell back.

Nor reversed in a curve and drove diagonally forward and upward, he kept pushing the jeep on, pushing
...
pushing
...
getting every inch he could.

Laurel was sitting on the seat again. She yelled frantically, “Nor, there’s water coming at us.”

He glanced round quickly and decided she was seeing things, that she was hysterical, that it was only a hill. Then he saw it was water. That it was a hill. A hill of water. It must be the reservoir. It was no mere leak now, the thing had burst. It was still some distance away, but it was approaching them like a tidal wave
...
like a Niagara.

He kept forcing the jeep up, yard by yard, the ground rising more steeply, the task becoming more impossible. He could hear Jasper snivelling in terror behind them—but Laurel, bless her, wasn’t crying, she was shouting encouragement. She was calling, “Come on, Nor, we’re going to make it. Come on
...
come on
...
!’

“Yes, we’re going to make it, mate,” he answered back, and he surged over a ridge, shifted gear, and shot up a clear space of slope.

Then the jeep stopped, stopped definitely this time, and he turned in his seat and looked down.

There was an ocean beneath them, only twenty feet beneath them. They could hardly see it for muddy spume.

A great tree grew out of it. Even as they watched the tree teetered, fell its length and was sucked from sight. A huge log shot past as though it was a stick.

“Will it rise higher?” breathed Laurel.

“It’s lessening already, you can tell it by that level. It must have been the storage collapsed. Thank heaven it would only run down this side of the island, down on us. The others will be safe. It won’t take long to diminish its store either, not at that terrific pace of wastage. We’ll be stranded a while, but we’ll be safe.”

He looked at Laurel and grinned sheepishly.

“All r
ight
, say ‘I said so.’ Remind me you warned me, Laurel, I deserve that.”

But Laurel was in no position to gloat. She was sliding quietly downwards.

He caught her before she slipped entirely to the floor ... took her up in his arms
...
turned round to Jasper.

“I need that room. Get out!” he flung.

Then he eased Laurel gently along the length of the back seat.