The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (135 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

Max of the Black Watch was going over the top to rescue his pal, and if he had to die heroically to save her, then so be it. He knew she was out here somewhere. He’d seen her swooping low over the sand, and he’d heard her cries as the dastardly Boche ravens launched their attack
. . .

But he couldn’t
find
her. The sea mist had crept up on him when he wasn’t looking, and he didn’t know where he was.

Miss McAllister would be furious. He’d rushed out without hat or coat or mittens, and now he was so cold that his teeth were chattering. He couldn’t even feel his toes. He was going to get most awfully told off.

‘
Never
go out of sight of the House,’ she always warned. But he was so far out of sight that he couldn’t tell where the coast road had gone. He was in a deadly world of swirling mist and threatening seals; he was facing an icy, heaving sea that quite possibly contained tiger sharks.

The fear was an iron band round his chest. He couldn’t breathe. But he couldn’t turn back. His pal needed him.

‘Julia!’ he cried. ‘Where are you?’ The mist muffled his voice as if he were under water.

A distant squawk. But was it raven, seagull or macaw? And which way?

The wet sand dragged at his feet. Water slopped into his boots. The sea was getting closer and closer in a way he’d never seen before: each wave clawing a little higher up the beach, as if it were after him.

A gust of wind parted the mist like a curtain, and he saw a finger of rock sticking out into the sea – and on it a flash of red amid a flurry of black.

‘
Julia!
’ he shouted. ‘I’m coming!’

Grabbing a stick of kelp to beat off the marauders, he leapt onto the rocks.

They were slimy with seaweed. He slipped and went down, banging his knee painfully. Cold waves slapped him in the face, making him splutter. He grabbed at the rocks to push himself upright. His hands were so cold that he didn’t know he’d cut them until he looked down and saw the blood.

A seal bobbed out of the water and stared at him with bulging black eyes. It was huge. Max gripped his kelp stick, and prayed that Miss Lawe was right about seals never attacking humans.

‘Go away,’ he cried, waving his stick.

The seal disappeared beneath the waves, then bobbed up again.

Through the mist, Max saw Julia flapping her wings and lashing out with her formidable beak; the ravens lifting in a tattered cloud.

‘Go
away
!’ Max yelled at the seal, brandishing his stick. He lost his footing and crashed into the sea.

If anything happens to that boy, thought Adam as he pulled on the oars. If anything happens . . .

The mist was so thick that he could hardly make out the prow. Rocks loomed with alarming suddenness. He could feel the incoming tide dragging at the boat. With each pull on the oars, the old wound in his chest ached savagely.

‘No more racing across No-Man’s-Land for you,’ Clive had told him, ‘but you’re fit enough for ordinary duty.’ Adam wondered if rescuing small boys and parrots qualified as ordinary duty. Judging by the pain in his chest, probably not.

The next moment, he saw them. A small figure cowering at the tip of the promontory, clutching what looked like a baby wrapped up in cloth.

‘
Captain Palairet!
’ yelled Max, trying to stand, and nearly toppling into the sea. ‘Here I am!’

‘I can see you,’ called Adam. ‘Don’t move, I’ll come and get you.’

The tide was running fast, but the sea was no more than choppy, so it wasn’t too hard to bring the boat about and get near the rocks. As Adam approached, Max tried to hold the bundle out to him, and nearly lost his balance. ‘I found Julia,’ he said unnecessarily. Now that help had arrived, he seemed more excited than scared. ‘I wrapped her up in my jacket, like in “How They Saved The Pets”.’

‘Max, listen to me,’ said Adam. ‘I’m going to come alongside and you’re going to pass me Julia, then climb in yourself. Got that?’

Max nodded.

As Adam drew closer, he saw that the boy was soaking wet, and shaking so hard that he could hardly stand.

‘Change of plan,’ said Adam. ‘Just stay there and don’t move.’ With the oars out of the water, he stood up, bracing his legs against the sides, then leaned over and lifted boy and bundle bodily into the boat. Then he whipped off his own jacket and wrapped it round Max.

‘B-but you’ll catch cold,’ stuttered Max.

‘No I won’t, I’m rowing. Did you fall in?’

Max nodded. ‘I was warding off a seal and I slipped. But I climbed out, and then I got Julia. I think she was glad to see me, but I had to wrap her up to stop her scratching.’

‘That was brave,’ said Adam.

Max wiped the seawater from his face. ‘The ravens were scared of me,’ he said. ‘They flew away.’

The boy had been given a warm mustard bath and was tucked up in bed with two hot water bottles and a mug of steaming milk before Maud allowed herself to hope that he might survive.

‘You look as if you could do with a drink, too,’ said Belle, who was seated at the foot of the bed. ‘Why don’t you go downstairs? I’ll stay with him till the doctor arrives.’

Maud hesitated.

‘You’ll come back soon?’ said Max with an anxious frown. He looked very small in her bed, incongruously wrapped in her warmest flannelette nightdress, and with both hands bandaged. He seemed embarrassed at the fuss he’d caused, and it had taken some time to reassure him that he wasn’t going to be told off.

‘Of course I shall come back,’ Maud told him. ‘This is my room. Now no more talk, and drink your milk.’

‘Come back
soon
,’ he mumbled.

Maud managed to get herself out onto the landing before her knees gave way and she sat down heavily at the top of the stairs.

She’d never fainted in her life, but she’d come close to it when she’d seen Adam striding out of the mist with that terrible, limp bundle in his arms.

And now here they all were, safely back at Cairngowrie House, and waiting for Dr Bailey. Julia was downstairs in her enclosure and, from the sound of it, giving Adam merry hell; and the boy was tucked up in her bed, and requesting that she come back
soon
.

He was asking for her; not for Adam or Belle. He was sticking like a limpet to plain old Miss McAllister.

‘Like a limpet,’ she murmured in astonishment.

Another squawk and a muffled curse from downstairs. She was needed in the kitchen. She put her hand on the balustrade and pulled herself to her feet.

She knew now what she had to do. She only hoped she was brave enough to go through with it.

No more shirking, she told herself grimly. You’ve been putting this off for long enough. That boy has just shown you the meaning of courage. If he can do it, so can you.

She found Julia hunched on her branch, bedraggled and furious, but otherwise unharmed by her ordeal. ‘Off you go,’ she squawked at Adam, who was standing at the sink, holding a bleeding forefinger under the tap.

‘She can bite, can’t she?’ he said over his shoulder.

Maud sat down with a sigh at the kitchen table. ‘That was only a playful nip,’ she said. ‘A proper bite would have taken your finger clean off.’

He snorted a laugh.

She placed both hands on the table and pressed down hard. ‘Adam—’

‘Here you are,’ he said, setting a steaming mug before her. ‘Tea and sherry. I couldn’t find any whisky.’

‘Thank you,’ she replied. The tea tasted vile, but she found it curiously strengthening. Dutch courage, she reflected, has something to be said for it.

‘Shall you be all right tonight?’ asked Adam. ‘Or would you like me to stay?’

She shook her head. Without looking at him she said, ‘You take Belle back up to the Hall.’

‘Very well.’

‘But if you could send Nelly down, it’d be a help. And she can bring some of my things.’

‘Of course.’

For a while, neither of them spoke. Adam stood silent and thoughtful, while Maud sipped her tea and covertly observed him.

He was leaning against the range with his arms crossed over his chest. His shirt was still damp and clinging to his shoulders, and his dark hair was tousled and dripping seawater. As she watched the little drops sliding down his neck, something twisted in her heart. She knew what it was. It was the ache of farewell.

It’s a sort of a bargain, she told herself. You have to give him up to Belle, which is as it should be, if she can make him happy. And in return, you may have your reward. Yes. It’s a bargain. That made her feel a little better.

‘Adam,’ she said again.

He raised his head and looked at her with a slight lift of his eyebrows.

‘When I say what I’m about to,’ she began, ‘you may well assume that I’m not thinking straight; that I’m still upset by what’s just occurred. But it’s not that at all. I’ve been meaning to say this for some time. I’ve given it a great deal of thought. So please listen without interruption.’

His face went still.

Maud took a deep breath. ‘That boy,’ she said, ‘must not go to boarding school. Nor must he be sent away to live with some aunt whom he’s never met.’ She paused. ‘Cairngowrie is good for him. He’s just beginning to come out of his shell. If he went anywhere else, he’d go right back into it again.’

Shells again, she thought distractedly. First limpets, and now more shells . . . ‘And when I say Cairngowrie,’ she went on, ‘I mean this house. Not the Hall. That boy needs to stay
here
. And so do I. It may be wicked and selfish to say so, but I don’t want that young friend of Erskine’s having this house for his family.
I
want it. I don’t want to go anywhere else, not ever again. I want to die in this house.’

Adam looked at her for a moment. Then he came and sat beside her and took her hands. ‘I had no idea you felt like this,’ he said. ‘Of course you shall have it. I’ll write to the Taliskers at once and put them off. I’ll do the same for Max’s aunt. I’ll put them all off. It shall be exactly as you say.’

Maud stared at him in stunned silence. All the months of anguish. The conversations in her head; the arguments, the deliberations. And all she had to do was tell him.

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. A great weight had lifted from her shoulders. She felt exhausted.

Slowly she pushed herself to her feet. ‘That sounds like the doctor now. And you need to take yourself off to the Hall and change out of those wet things.’ She paused. Then she said, without meeting his eyes, ‘Take Belle with you. She needs her bed.’

Chapter Twenty-Six

The mist had cleared and the stars were coming out in a luminous blue sky as the dog cart made its way up the hill towards the Hall.

After giving Belle the travelling rug and suggesting that she wrap up warmly, Adam didn’t speak again. He seemed preoccupied. She wondered if he’d had some sort of altercation with Maud.

‘You must have got pretty chilled down on the beach,’ he said when they reached the Hall. ‘You might want to take a bath to warm up.’

‘What about you? You’re the one who got wet.’

‘I’ll be fine.’ He paused with his hand on the pony’s neck. ‘I’ll take the dog cart round to the stables.’

An hour later she came downstairs to find him in the drawing room. A brisk fire was burning, and he was pouring drinks.

She noticed that he’d changed into tweeds and a thick blue fisherman’s sweater. His shirt collar was up at the back, and she repressed the urge to turn it down and free the dark hair trapped beneath.

‘What was all that about with Maud?’ she said as she took the glass from his hand.

He lifted his eyebrows. ‘A series of demands. She wants to stay on at the House. And she wants Max to stay with her, and no more nonsense about Somerset or boarding school.’

‘Ah. And did you accede?’

‘Of course.’

‘Good. I’m glad she finally found the courage to speak up.’

‘So am I,’ he said.

A log cracked, and they both jumped.

‘I’d forgotten,’ said Adam without looking at her, ‘that it’s Cook’s night off. She’s gone to stay with her sister in Stranraer.’ He paused. ‘Maud wanted Nelly down at the House, so I’m afraid it’s just us.’

‘Ah,’ Belle said again. She was suddenly sharply conscious of the bitter-sweet smell of the pinesmoke, and the way the firelight caught the line of his jaw.

Adam seemed to feel it too, because he was making a determined effort not to meet her eyes. ‘She’s left us some cold ham and salad,’ he said to his whisky. ‘Will that be all right?’

‘Fine. Actually, I’m not very hungry.’

‘You ought to eat something. You didn’t come down for luncheon.’

‘I was busy. I was – well, I was packing.’

She waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. He simply nodded slowly, still without meeting her eyes; then he put down his tumbler on the chimney-piece, and ran his thumb over his bottom lip.

Say something, she thought in exasperation.

When the silence had gone on long enough, she told him Dr Bailey’s verdict on Max. ‘Mild exposure, some nasty scratches to the hands and knees, but nothing a spell in bed won’t cure.’ She flushed. Why did she have to mention bed?

‘You were right about Max,’ he said suddenly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘When I talked about boarding school, I was taking it out on him. I shouldn’t have done that.’

She glanced down at her drink.

‘Belle—’

‘It’s all right,’ she said quickly. ‘I understand.’

‘Do you?’ He crossed the room to the window and stood looking out at the grounds. ‘The thing is,’ he said without turning round, ‘over the past few years, I’ve learned to be a pretty good actor. I’ve had to be. Over there – at the Front – one’s always acting. In front of the men. With one’s fellow officers. One’s superiors. Always putting on a show.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m quite good at acting, myself.’

He turned and met her eyes. ‘What I’m trying to say, very badly, is that I don’t want you to go.’

She swallowed. ‘I thought you couldn’t love anyone.’