Strange Recompense

by Catherine Airlie

  “We’re all right, Sara,” he said in that same quiet voice. “How about you?”

  “I made it,” she said with a small gasp.

  Noel stood up, looking towards the sand dunes.

  “Will you look after Anna while I go and find her a wrap of some sort?” he asked. “I don’t think the others have realized what has been happening.”

  Sara did not answer. She stood, tall and straight, on the slab of grey rock, watching him as he picked his way across the quicksands, her eyes stormy, her lips trembling with unleashed passion, and when he had gone beyond hearing she turned on Anna, who sat hunched up in the sun at her feet.

  “You spectacular little fool!” she hissed. “Do you realize that a valuable life might have been lost just now trying to save you?”

  Anna stared up at her, too shocked to reply for a moment, and then she said unsteadily:

  “I know what Noel risked, and I have told him how sorry I am.”

  Sara laughed outright.

  “A charming gesture, and one I am sure Doctor Melford will understand! Believe me, he is no fool.”

  Amazed at such an outburst, Anna took refuge in silence. She was far too worried about Noel to quarrel with Sara, and she watched as he made his way from patch to patch of safe sand, breathing deeply with relief when he finally reached the shadow of the cliffs.

  “If we could make our own way back,” she suggested then, “it would save him all that return journey.”

  “And give you the opportunity of presenting yourself as the heroine of the piece!” Sara scoffed. “Very well, if you must, but don’t expect me to drag you out of the quicksands next!”

  The childish malevolence of the remark took much of the sting out of it. Sara would undoubtedly be heartily ashamed of her outburst once she could view it in its true light, Anna thought, but jealous anger had already reduced Sara to the point where she was incapable of seeing clearly at all.

  She marched ahead, following Noel’s trail across the wet sand, keeping close to the line of boulders which marked the safe way, and when they reached the strip of dry beach she left Anna behind without a backward glance.

  Ruth and Dennis were coming up from the sea and Dennis gave Anna a brief, searching look as they met.

  “I don’t think you three should have gone over to the other side of the bay even if you are wonderful swimmers,” Ruth said as she came panting towards them. “The tide comes round the headland at a terrific pace and there are dangerous currents all along this strip of coast.”

  It was clear that she had no idea what had happened, and Noel glanced from Anna to Sara, silencing the latter with a quick frown.

  “We could do with something hot to drink after our effort,” he said casually. “Anna made it and no more, I’m afraid. We didn’t warn her sufficiently about the currents.”

  Ruth suggested a walk after tea and they strolled up over the headland on to the narrow pathway along the coast, but before they had gone more than a mile Anna was conscious of that strange, unnerving sensation of having walked here before.

  She turned to Dennis Tranby, who was walking by her side, to find him studying her intently.

  “What is it, Anna?” he asked. “There’s something troubling you.”

  “Out there,” she confessed, “while I was swimming, I began to think of the depth of water beneath me and I was suddenly terrified—not for now—not for that moment out there in the sun, but for something that had gone before. I had the impression of a raging sea and rain pouring down and—and someone drowning, I think, whom I could not help. I felt cowardly and unworthy—saving myself.”

  By the tenseness of the silence which followed her halting confession, she knew that Dennis Tranby was more than a little interested in what she had just told him. Ruth had walked on with Noel and Sara and they were alone for a moment, the others out of sight on the undulating pathway ahead.

  “Do you wish to go on?” Dennis asked. “Is there anything else you can tell me? All this is vital, Anna,” he added steadily. “We may be getting somewhere, at last.”

  “There’s only this—walking along here, high above the sea, I feel that I must have been here before but that’s impossible.” She drew in a deep breath. “Noel says it is quite a common experience, feeling that present happenings are only a repetition of what one already knows.”

  “This may be different,” he said. “Anna,” he added after a pause, “would you, as a more or less final effort, submit to an experiment?”

  She stood quite still, her hands clasped tightly before her, her eyes filled with sudden pain.

  “I’d submit to anything,” she told him. “Anything that would end all this, that would tell me who I really am and free you all from this dreadful burden of caring for me.”

  “Never mind about that,” he commanded. “It’s all part of the job, you know.”

  “What do you want me to do about this new experiment?”

  “Co-operate with everything you’ve got! Hypnotism has worked wonders in cases like yours and an intelligent approach to it often works miracles. I’ve discussed this step with Noel, by the way,” he added to give her confidence, “and he agrees that we might try it. We can do nothing, of course, without your absolute co-operation.”

  “If you both think it necessary,” Anna said, “I’ll help all I can.”

  “I’ll be on the job,” Dennis told her, “so you needn’t worry about taking up too much of Noel’s time.”

  Put like that, he wondered if he deceived her, but Anna felt that she would probably get better results with Dennis. There would be no complications, no fear of her betraying under the hypnotic influence the secret of her love which she believed she had managed to keep, but even if it should be betrayed in that moment of mental submission to another’s will she knew that Dennis Tranby would keep it as a matter of trust.

  “How is it that I know so surely that I was never so happy as I am now?” she asked, and Tranby felt it difficult to answer because he knew, with a sudden sense of misgiving, that he had realized the truth for days.

  “Happiness—true happiness comes to us unbidden, I think,” he said instead, “and we hang on to it instinctively while we can, fearful, almost, that it is bound to elude us because of the very wonder of it and the knowledge of how little we deserve it, I suppose.”

  He had spoken automatically while he grappled with the knowledge of Anna’s love for his friend, his pity called into being by her simple admission of happiness. But what of the past? What of the marriage symbolized by the ring she wore? The thought left him frowning and he still looked preoccupied when the others turned to join them.

  Ruth explained that they had turned back where the path ended in a dangerous landslide a hundred yards farther on.

  “These recent gales have done a lot of damage,” Noel observed. “Your favorite walk has been completely cut off, Dennis!”

  Tranby did not answer immediately. He was thinking of something else, and the suggestion had taken complete possession of his active mind by the time they finally returned to Glynmareth.

  “A word with you, Noel, if you can spare me the time,” he asked when Ruth and Anna went to unpack the picnic baskets. “Ten minutes will do.”

  Noel glanced at him and nodded.

  “In you go,” he said, opening the study door. “I’ll be with you in a couple of seconds.”

  When he followed his friend into the small, book-lined room he looked gravely thoughtful and Dennis came to the point at once.

  “It’s about Anna,” he explained. “We had a talk up there on the cliffs this afternoon and she confessed that the sea had some sort of terror for her. Could it be that she lost her husband in that way?” he suggested tentatively. “By drowning.”

  Noel took a full minute to answer. Recently any direct reference to Anna’s marriage had produced this constrained silence in him, as if he resented even the mention of it, but there was no real way of avoiding the fact that she was married. />
  “You know as well as I do that we can’t build anything up in this case by jumping to conclusions,” he said sharply. “The fact that her husband is dead can only be a wild guess at most.” He moistened lips that had suddenly gone dry. “It will be hard enough for her facing a complete loss of memory without our making suggestions of that kind before we can be absolutely sure.”

  “But what about her obvious distress every time the marriage is mentioned?” Dennis objected. “That seems to me to point to unhappiness in the ordinary way, and linked with her horror this afternoon when she found herself at the mercy of the sea it looks very like a clue to me.”

  “But not necessarily a clue to her husband’s decease,” Noel reminded him. “We’ll follow it up, of course, we’ll follow everything up even if it leads us nowhere. All these things which apparently mean nothing can make a whole, in time. Even now, we’ve got several facts to go on. We know that she dreads the power of the sea, and that she felt there was something familiar on the cliff road this morning, and we also know that any reference to her marriage distresses her. Not a lot to go on, I’ll admit, but better than nothing,” he mused. “Tomorrow,” he added thoughtfully, “you can see what the subconscious has to offer. You have your own methods, I dare say, and in the meantime I think we’ll say nothing to Ruth about this afternoon’s performance.”

  “The swimming accident?”

  “Yes. I don’t think Ruth realized just how serious it was.”

  “Nor did I. You carried it all off most commendably, and I must hand it to Sara for keeping so calm and paddling to your rescue.” Apparently Noel had not thought about Sara’s part in the afternoon’s adventure.

  “Of course,” he said. “Sara! She’s always like that in an emergency.”

  “Supper is nearly ready, you two!” Ruth called as she passed the study door on her way to the dining-room. “I should have thought all that fresh air this afternoon would have made you ravenous!”

  Sara had been invited to stay to the meal, and in spite of the fact that she was on call for duty during the night she had accepted. It was almost as if she could not bear to let Noel out of her sight until she was sure that he would have very little time to spend with Anna.

  They were scarcely seated round the table when she looked over to where Anna sat and said bitingly:

  “Have you really lost your ring, or have you just removed it again?”

  Anna stared down at her left hand and her breath caught in a small gasp of alarm.

  “Oh!” she cried, “I’ve lost it! It’s gone—”

  “Are you quite sure you had it with you?” Ruth asked. “You didn’t take it off and put it in one of your pockets while you were swimming?”

  “No. I’m sure I had it on when I went into the water. I haven’t taken if off since—since Doctor Melford gave it back to me.”

  She gazed at Ruth in obvious distress and Noel was about to speak when Sara said:

  “You can always get another one. They’re not terribly valuable, are they?”

  The cold, infuriating voice did something to Anna. She felt as if she could have reached across the table and smacked that smiling mask of a face, wiping the stupid jibe from Sara’s lips, but all she did was to rise to her feet and say with a dignity which made Sara bite her lip in angry annoyance:

  “One can’t replace such things. The ring was—given to me by someone I loved. I feel quite sure about that now, and I shall never forgive myself for losing it in this careless way. But—marriages aren’t destroyed by the loss of a ring. It is only a symbol, but its meaning goes deep enough for me to appreciate it, even if I have forgotten all about the past.” She turned towards Noel, looking straight into his distressed eyes for one blinding instant, and then she moved away from the table. “Forgive me if I can’t eat anything, Ruth,” she apologized as she passed Ruth’s chair, “I feel so utterly tired.”

  Before she had reached the door Noel had scraped his chair back and jumped to his feet, his eyes fiery in anger. He surveyed the table and the three people still sitting round it, and when he turned to look at Anna she had gone. He moved to the door, as if to follow her, and then he wheeled round to confront them again in cold fury.

  “If anyone ever mentions this wretched marriage again I shall find some way of dealing with them,” he said harshly. “For heaven’s sake give her a chance to pull out of the natural fear of not knowing who she is or to whom she is bound! It will all come right in the end, but I won’t have her chivvied into remembering!” He glared at them collectively but it was to Sara that his words were really addressed, and although Dennis Tranby managed to smooth the situation a little they were an uneasy foursome until Sara made her excuses and went away.

  Noel rose five minutes later, when he had given her time to reach the hospital.

  “I’m going out,” he said gruffly. “Don’t wait up.”

  Ruth looked across the room at Dennis in bewilderment.

  “What a party!” she exclaimed. “Do you think he’s gone to tell Sara what he thinks?”

  “He’s already done that,” Dennis answered dryly. “My guess is that he has gone to work it off over in the isolated eyrie of his in the east wing.”

  “So long as he doesn’t prowl,” Ruth said.

  Noel was “prowling,” however. He felt that the confines of the villa were suffocating him and only action, keen and vigorous action, would work off the mood which possessed him.

  He had almost forgotten what had provoked the scene at the supper-table, and Sara’s part in it seemed infinitesimal now. All he could remember was Anna’s pleading look and her pinched, white face and pain-darkened eyes asking for his understanding. Her words, too, kept ringing in his ears. Marriages aren’t destroyed by the loss of a ring. It is only a symbol, but its meaning goes deep enough for me to appreciate it, even if I have forgotten all about the past.

  It had been a heart cry, driven from her by Sara’s cruelty, but it was meant for him, too. He plunged on through the shrubbery and out at a side gate leading to the hill, and soon he had reached the moor road with all the hounds of despair and self-denunciation barking at his heels.

  The fiercely primitive urge dormant in all men had sought, time and time again, to discount the possibility of her marriage because he had wanted her for himself.

  CHAPTER SIX

  IF LOVE BE blind in some respects, it is almost painfully quick-sighted in others; and there was no doubt that Sara was in love with Noel. She had always been in love with him, ever since the day he had come to Glynmareth as resident surgeon. Sara, ever a fighter, had succeeded by sheer determination and application in her chosen career, succeeded beyond her wildest dreams, and here was something new upon which to fasten her ever-upward gaze. It was not long before ambition crystalized into a ruthless determination softened momentarily by a very real affection, the first worth-while emotion of her life.

  Sara was so well aware of her own physical attractions that she had believed for years that it was only a matter of time until Noel would propose to her and she would move across to the villa as the Superintendent’s wife. And after that the road would be broad and clear before them! Noel would progress from success to success with her by his side, specializing and making a great name for himself. There was nobody who could help him more than she could with her undoubted poise and her knowledge of the profession. A shared life and a shared interest! The ideal foundation for a successful marriage.

  And now, in a day, in a matter of hours, her firmly held convictions had been severely shaken. She had come face to face with a girl who was several years her junior, a nameless creature with a frail, ethereal prettiness about her, and she had seen a look in Noel Melford’s eyes that had threatened to topple the fairy castles she had built. It might almost have convinced her that Noel was already in love with Ruth’s waif, but, self-preservation being the strongest instinct, she clung to the hope that she was wrong. She had all but convinced herself of the fact until she met Noel
the following day.

  Nothing could have changed a man in so short a time but some overwhelming experience, an emotion stronger than any he had ever known, and nothing could have stamped that strained, white look on Noel’s face but the necessity for complete renunciation.

  Sara wondered if her best approach might be sympathetic understanding, and there was great consolation for her in the fact that the girl was already married. She saw in the fact a subtle weapon near to her hand, and it was not long before she began to use it.

  Her position at the hospital gave her free access to the notes on Anna’s case, which were filed in Noel’s consulting room, and she read what both he and Dennis Tranby added to them from time to time. Anna’s reaction to any discussion of her marriage was still one of distress, and therefore, Sara deduced, there must have been something discreditable in her past.

  Discussing it with Eluned Warth, the Matron at the hospital, she was met with a certain amount of sympathy, for Miss Warth deeply resented any sort of slight, real or imaginary, on her position, and regarded Noel’s continuing refusal to bring Anna into the wards under her charge as a personal reflection of the grossest kind.

  “I can’t think what Doctor Melford hopes to accomplish across at the villa that we cannot do here,” she observed in an aggrieved tone when Sara came in with her reports. “He is being most unreasonable about this case. It’s one for Doctor Wedderburn, but even now that Tim is back there’s no sign of the girl’s being handed over to him.”

  “You know Tim won’t say a thing while Noel has the case in hand,” Sara frowned. “He’s so terribly easy-going and it will suit him admirably so long as Noel gives him the odd report for his records! It strikes me,” she added, watching the older woman’s face for her reaction to the suggestion, “that this is essentially a police case.”