Dom Manoel turned away, and swiftly approached his own parked car on the quay. He spoke jerkily to Madelena as he slid behind the wheel.
“We are going to the cottage to find out whether Miss Wayne is there with her brother. That is Carlos D’Castelos’s boat out there, and she talked of sailing with him in it later to-day.”
“But, surely, she wouldn’t do anything of the kind when she
saw how the weather was deteriorating. . . ?”
“It might not have been too bad when they set off. And she has developed a passion for sailing. ... But she gave me her
word that she wouldn’t!”
Madelena glanced at him swiftly. His lips were set, his black brows were actually meeting above the bridge of his nose. She could see the whiteness of his knuckles as his hands gripped the wheel of the car.
“She gave you her—word. . . ?”
He nodded.
“I didn’t expect her to break it. Stephanie is not like that.
. . . Stephanie is one hundred per cent reliable!” Madelena regarded him with enormous, understanding eyes.
“And she is . . . Stephanie?” she suggested, suddenly and very quietly.
He nodded again.
“She is Stephanie! . . . And if she is out in that boat!”
Tim met them as soon as they ran down the steps from the road into the house, and one look at his face told Manoel the worst. Tim had a powerful pair of binoculars in his hand, and he had been out on the tiny terrace of the cottage that was so close to the sea.
“I didn’t want her to go!” he said, his face working oddly, his lips almost white. “But she said it was so hot. . . . She wanted to go!”
“She promised me she wouldn’t go,” Manoel said, snatching the binoculars out of his hand.
“Is there anything we can do?” Tim asked, helplessly. “We can’t just stand here, watching. If we could get a boat out to them----- ”
“It wouldn’t live in that sea. You couldn’t possibly launch a small boat, and there is no lifeboat nearer than Amada, six miles away, as you know.”
“Then—what. . . ?”
Manoel had the binoculars glued to his eyes, and
Madelena slid a comforting small hand into the crook of Tim’s arm.
“Carlos is an expert with boats,” Manoel conceded, as if he was trying desperately to add up and make sense of the only advantages that were to hand. “He is trying to make for that small cove over there, in the shelter of the Black Rock. If he can reach it—if he can only gain some protection from the rock!—he’ll be all right. That is to say, he should be all right! . . . But the boat is bouncing about like a cork. And it’s a small thing in such a sea.”
He turned vaguely to Madelena.
“You’ll stay here with Senhor Tim. I’m going to take the car along the coast road, and reach the cove ahead of the boat, if I can. . . And if the boat ever reaches the cove!” a voice echoed hollowly inside his head.
Madelena watched him go. It was rapidly growing darker, and her silver dress gleamed like the brightness of an afterglow in the dimness. The sea was roaring up the beach, surf was scudding along before the fierce shriek of the wind, and the clouds that hung in the purple gloom of the sky seemed to be weighted with lead and actually pressing upon them. Madelena felt cold with dread, and moved nearer to Tim.
“If anything happens to your sister! . . .” she gasped. And then she clapped a hand over her mouth as if she wished she hadn’t allowed such words to pass her lips. “But, if it does—” as Tim grew rigid beside her— “Manoel will not be able to endure it!” Manoel’s fiancee finished in a whisper.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
STEVE was soaked to the skin, and already she crouched in several inches of water. Carlos implored her to keep on with the bailing, but although she obeyed him it seemed to make little difference to the depth of water they trod in the boat.
Great seas kept breaking over them, and although the Silver Streak came up splendidly every time, and rode them magnificently, she shipped a lot of water before the threatened complete submersion was defeated once more. The engine had given up the ghost half an hour before, and Carlos had had to risk making use of sail. Fortunately, the wind was with him, and it seemed to be carrying them headlong towards the shore. If nothing intervened they would be smashed up on the rocks long before they felt dry land. . . . But their one hope was that that same wind that was so eager to sweep them off the surface of the ocean would do its job properly and cast them up on to the shore. Like pieces of flotsam they might then be salvaged.
But it seemed a small hope . . . especially to Steve, as she crouched in the stern. Carlos—who had uttered all the apologies he could think of under such conditions—was a trifle more hopeful. He had experienced rough weather before, and he was a man, and strong, a good swimmer . . . although Steve, he understood, wasn’t very much of a swimmer.
“But, don’t worry, senhorita,” he begged her, above the shriek of the storm, “I will not let you drown! It is I who am responsible for this unhappy experience, and I give you my word it shall not end badly. . . .”
Steve, who was already wearing his sweater, and blue with cold, could only hope he was in some sense of the word a soothsayer. She looked towards the shore, and saw that lights were appearing, strung out like jewels along the coast. They appeared very far away, and between her and them there was a heaving expanse of water. If the little craft kept on its way—wallowing in shallows, but riding the crest of every wave like a bird— they would eventually reach shore; but if not!
She saw one light moving high up on the coast road, and dimly she realized that it was the light of a car. A pair of powerful headlights were causing it, and as they drew in closer the headlights were dipped, and then swung round to form a pathway of silver light across the inky surface of the sea.
Steve gasped. She hadn’t realized it was so dark before, and their tiny white sail picked up in the brilliance of the headlights had the helpless luminosity of a pair of moth’s wings.
“They are helping us,” Carlos exclaimed, in relief. “Or at least, they are trying to help us! . . . Someone has focused his headlights on us, and others are doing the same. So long as they do not lose sight of us!”
He looked around him at the swirling dark sea, and then at the slender figure of the girl wearing his sweater. Her hair looked almost black, plastered against her head, and her face was streaming with salt water. She was so small, he thought, and he had to save her somehow! . . .
The moment of excitement and danger was approaching, for they were now within shouting distance of the shore, and the wind was hurling them towards the beach. But for the small amount of protection they had gained from the Black Rock they could never have survived, but in the shelter of it they still had some hope. The Silver Streak was going to pile herself up on the hidden rocks, but down there on the beach there were men who were toiling to launch a boat, and one man who was prepared to disdain it if necessary and swim out to the assistance of the girl with the pallid, shining wet face and the streaked-back dark hair, who was still clinging on determinedly to her bailer, and crouching in the stern at the same time.
She was never quite clear, afterwards, how the end came about. She knew that Carlos was waiting for a moment that seemed ripe, and when that moment arrived he stood up, grabbed her, and jumped with her into the sea. The icy cold of it—even in such normally warm waters—knocked all the breath and consciousness out of her, and she had no awareness of the moment when another man seized her and waded with her up the beach, declining to accept any assistance, although many hands came out to help him, and he was as wet through as Steve was herself. Streaming with sea water he opened the door of his car and deposited his burden on the seat beside him, and wrapping her in a couple of car rugs and then starting up the car. Without wasting a moment he drove straight to the quinta, not waiting to enquire after the well-being of Carlos D’Castelos, or having a word with Tim or Madelena, who had sped aft
er him along the coast road in Tim’s car.
At the quinta the sound of his car racing up the drive brought lights flashing on all over the house, and streaming out down the drive. Agitated servants rushed to help their master bear his burden indoors, but once again he refused to surrender her to anyone, only issuing instructions between his teeth for the doctor to be sent for, and the housekeeper to go ahead and turn on all electric equipment in the nearest room, which happened to be his own bedroom.
The housekeeper sent other servants hastening to fill hot-water bottles and collect additional blankets, and by the time Steve recovered consciousness amongst a nest of pillows in a great carved bed she was so warm and luxuriously comfortable that she felt lapped about by warmth and overwhelming solicitude.
She did not know that Manoel himself, without waiting for the houskeeper, had stripped off her sodden clothing, and that it was one of his silk dressing-gowns that was wrapped round her. She did not know that it was Manoel who massaged her hands and her feet, and forced brandy between her lips, so that by the time the doctor arrived the blueness had fled from her lips and she was blinking her eyes and thinking of sitting up, if hands hadn’t forced her to lie where she was.
“Lie still,” a quiet voice ordered her, and the house -keeper begged her master agitatedly to go and change out of his own wet things.
“A hot bath is what you require, senhor------------”
“All in good time,” the quiet voice returned inflexibly, and he turned to the doctor and demanded his earliest report. “She will do? She is all right?” he asked, his voice sounding curiously husky as he put the leading questions. “Naturally, there is shock to contend with, but....”
The doctor put out his hand soothingly.
“But, of course she will do. She was never in any real danger of drowning, and her head was kept well above the water, which is most fortunate. A night’s rest. . . . A good sleep, with the aid of a sedative, and she will be perfectly all right in the morning.”
A sound like a long-drawn-out sigh of relief filled the room.
The housekeeper said again, with increased agitation: “Senhor, your own wet things! ...”
“In a moment, Inez.” He bent above Steve, although careful in his wet condition, to keep well away from her. “You feel all right now, Stephanie? You are warm? You are comfortable? ... You know you are safe!”
She raised herself partially on one elbow.
“But, where am I? Dom Manoel! . . .” Her eyes, huge, dark blue and bewildered, gazed up at him. Her curling hair, all bright brown lights now, was strewn all over his pillow. “Dom Manoel, did you bring me here? I remember the waves! They were so enormous! . . .” she shuddered. “How do I come to be here? Where is it? What about Tim... ? Carlos!”
“Lie still,” he ordered her again, more softly, and his cool, firm fingers closed over one of her hot hands. “Go to sleep, little one. The doctor says it is best for you.”
“But, is this the.... It can’t be the quinta! If so, I am causing you a lot of trouble! . . .”
His fingers tightened fiercely over hers.
“If it is trouble, then I am happy to have so much of it! Now, Inez will bring you some hot broth, and then the doctor will give you a sedative, and you must sleep. In the morning your brother will come to you, and so will I....” The fingers of her other hand reached out and touched his sleeve.
“But, senhor, you are wet! . . . How do you come to be as wet as all this?” Her hand flew agitatedly up his arm. “Oh, Manoel, you must go and get dry! You will catch a chill! Oh, Manoel, I don’t understand. . . ?”
He bent lower still over her, and his voice sounded utterly shattered—almost broken—and very low, as he told her:
“I will do what you wish, my darling, if you will do what I wish. . . . Drink your broth and go to sleep! There is nothing for you to worry about. Carlos is safe, you are safe. . . . And in the morning we will have a lot to talk about!”
Her blue eyes hung upon his. Her fingers fastened about his as if they were limpets attaching themselves to him. The doctor withdrew into the shadows.
“Manoel, I thought about you in the storm! ... I thought I would never see you again!” The weak tears rolled from her eyes.
He kissed her fingers. He kissed them several times, and when at last he let them go there was moisture on them where his own long eyelashes had brushed them. “Good-night, my little one. I will look in on you again to make certain you are asleep.”
But, when Steve opened her eyes some time after midnight, it was to find Madelena sitting beside her bed. Madelena was still wearing her silver dress, and in the light of the single bedside lamp that was burning she looked composed and peaceful, with watchful eyes regarding Steve.
She bent forward eagerly over the English girl. “There is something that you want?” she asked. “You are quite comfortable?” anxiously. “No aches or pains, or anything of that sort?”
Steve shook her head.
“No, I’m perfectly comfortable ... blissfully comfortable!” She sighed drowsily. “I’ve never slept in a bed like this before. Is this a guest room at the quinta?”
“No, it’s Dom Manoel’s own room.”
Steve’s eyes flew open wide.
“Dom Manoel’s? Then, in that case—where is he. . . ?” Madelena smiled at her.
“There are lots of beds in the Quinta Rosa. He is occupying one of the others. . . . That is to say, if he has already gone to bed. I don’t know whether he has.”
“But, it is your birthday night, Madelena! You should have been dining out!”
Madelena smiled with more amusement.
“What is a twentieth birthday?” she demanded. “But a mark that I’m growing older! And, as a matter of fact, your brother dined here, and we three have been sitting together until about half-an-hour ago, when I replaced the housekeeper in this room.”
Steve looked almost ludicrously concerned.
“But, that is dreadful! What about your plans. . . . ? You and your mother were being taken out to dinner by Dom Manoel because you had to postpone your dinner-party. . .” Madelena bent almost mischievously over her. . . . At any rate, her eyes were suddenly alight and dancing a little.
“Is there any need for us to deceive ourselves?” she asked, softly. “Or for us to deceive one another? You and I know that my marriage was planned before something else happened that made it seem undesirable. . . . I know that is an appalling admission when the wedding is so near; but weddings—as well as dinner-parties—have been postponed before. And when that happens they frequently don’t take place at all. . . . Which is not always an occasion for wailing and the gnashing of teeth!”
Steve, looking rather fragile but quite exceptionally lovely against the whiteness of her pillows, lay staring up at her as if this was too much—and too wildly important! — for her to take in all at once, and in the very middle of the night. So Madelena touched her cheek lightly with a fingertip, smoothed her hair, and picked up a silver flask that was standing on a little table beside the bed.
“There is a hot drink in this,” she explained. “I was to offer it to you if you awoke. . . . Or if you would prefer a cool drink, there is lemon barley here as well.”
“Thank you, I think I would like a cool drink. . . .” Steve replied. She was trying to believe in the casual statement Madelena had made to her. . . . Sometimes weddings are postponed, and then they do not take place at all!
She swallowed.
“What have you and Tim and—and Dom Manoel been talking about?” she asked.
Madelena smiled again, impishly.
“Oh, lots of things. . . . Apart from our anxiety on your behalf it has been a very harmonious evening. Very harmonious!” she repeated, and her eyes glowed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IN the morning Steve felt quite refreshed, and when a breakfast tray was brought to her she was not revolted by the sight of food. But she was very much concerned because she was still occupying
Dom Manoel’s room, and, by doing so, keeping him out of it.
She asked the maid who brought her breakfast to run a bath for her, and then she asked for her clothes to be brought to her. The maid hesitated.
“They have been carefully pressed, and are ready for you, senhorita, but Dom Manoel’s instructions are that you are to rest in bed for the morning. The doctor is coming to see you.”
“I don’t need to be seen by the doctor,” Steve replied, and left the big bed hastily. “Please bring me a dressing-gown,” she requested, looking down at the far too large silk pyjamas in which she was encased. They had an M, as well as a kind of crest, on the pocket, and she realized that they belonged to her host. The thought made her blood suddenly leap through her veins. “Perhaps Senhorita Almeida would lend me one of hers,” she added.
“Of course, senhorita.”
The maid disappeared, to reappear with a lavender silk
dressing-gown which Steve slipped into, after which she combed her hair and sat down before her breakfast tray.
It was a wonderful morning. The storm had gone, and both sky and sea were blue again, with the wonderful blueness that was a part of the colourful coast off which she nearly drowned the night before. She shuddered as she thought of it, and set her coffee cup down on the tray. What part had Dom Manoel played in her rescue... ? He had been very wet when he stood beside her bed the night before.
And then she remembered that, although the doctor had stood there also beside the bed, he had called her ‘My darling’. Her eyes roved round his room, and for the first time she took in all the details of its furnishings. A handsomely equipped room, but not as luxurious as one might have expected. . . . A little severe, too, which reflected the severity in the Dom’s own autocratic nature. Her blood warmed as the thought crossed her mind that he could be very much the reverse of autocratic.... As tender as a woman when he pleased, and last night his eyes had been wet when he kissed her hand.
She felt bewildered. What ought she to do. . . ? She remembered Madelena sitting beside her bed and smiling, but that meant nothing, because Madelena was to be married in a week’s time, and you couldn’t postpone a marriage when it was so near. And, in any case, why should Madelena wish to postpone the marriage. . . ? And the Dom’s family pride was linked up with her promise to marry him. She would have to go through with it now whatever the reason she might prefer to get out of it if she could.
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