Barbara, looking at the tumult of water through the streaming panes, shook her head. “It’s a day for the fireside, and some quite good books have come from the Times, and I’ve work to finish—Do you mind?”
“Not a bit. I rather like to walk by my wild lone. . . . No, Mums, I will not take Harris, she’s particularly busy to-day tidying clothes. No, nor Christina, nor Beenie—not even Mrs. Martin. They would tell us with truth that they had been engaged as domestic servants, not as props in a storm. I assure you I’ll come to no harm. Don’t worry. I’ll be home for tea.”
In spite of her daughter’s reassuring words Lady Jane spent most of the afternoon looking out of the window, nor was Barbara at all comfortable with her new novel and her work, and when the early darkness began to fall and her aunt asked if she thought anything could have happened to Nicole, she became distinctly cross and said that it was extremely selfish of people to make other people uneasy with their whims and fancies. “So like Nicole,” she added, “to want to go out and watch waves. I’m sure we can see more than we want of them from these windows. I don’t know why we ever came to live by the sea. . . . But I suppose I’d better go and look for her—restless creature that she is!”
But even as she got up to go, the door opened and the wanderer appeared, her wet hair whipped against her face, her eyes bright with battling against the wind.
“Nicole,” cried Barbara, relief in her voice, “you look like the east wind incarnate! The very sight of you makes me feel cold and blown about.”
“Such fun!” Nicole gasped. “Yes, rather wet, Mums, and more than a little battered. Give me ten minutes to change. Here’s Christina with the tea——”
They demanded to know, when she came down dry and tidy, where she had spent two and a half hours on such a day.
“We got so anxious about you that Babs was just starting to look for you when you came in,” her mother told her. “And we had no idea where you had gone.”
Nicole patted her mother’s hand and Barbara’s knee to show her penitence, and took a bite of buttered toast.
“It was wretched of me to worry you, but, you see, I’ve been making the acquaintance of some of our neighbours.”
“On such a day!” cried Lady Jane.
Nicole laughed aloud. “You may say it, Mums, on such a day! . . . Give me my tea over here, will you, Babs? Having sat myself down by this gorgeous fire I must stay hugging it. Thanks! Now this is cosy, and I’ll tell you all about it. . . . First, you must know, I went to the Harbour, which was quite deserted except for a boy lounging against the wall as if it were a summer day. A wave came over the top and nearly washed me into the water. I had to hold on to a chain.”
“Then,” cried her mother, “you must have been drenched from the very beginning. Oh, my dear, that was reckless of you.”
“No, no. Salt water never gave any one cold. I gasped and spluttered for a bit to the evident amusement of the boy and said, ‘Oh! what a storm!’ He grinned again, and spat into the water. ‘Storrum?’ he said. ‘It’s no a’ storrum, it’s juist a wee jobble.’ Wasn’t he a horrid fellow? . . . I left the Harbour then, and walked along the shore to the Red Rocks. It took me about half an hour, for the wind seemed to clutch at me and pull me back; indeed when I reached the rocks I got down on my hands and knees and crawled; I thought it would be rather silly to risk breaking a leg. . . . The waves were fine. To watch them rush in and hurl themselves against the rocks so exhilarated me that I found myself shouting and encouraging them—— It’s a good thing you weren’t there, Babs, you would have been ashamed. I was just thinking of coming home when I suddenly heard, quite near me, a scream which almost immediately turned into a laugh, and turning round I found a small boy clutching his hair while his hat soared sea-wards.”
“A small boy alone on the rocks?” Lady Jane asked.
“Not alone, Mums. There was a young man with him.”
“A young man!” said Barbara.
Nicole’s eyes danced. “An extraordinarily good-looking young man with a delightful voice, and, as far as I could judge among jagged rocks and gathering darkness and a wind blowing at a thousand miles an hour, some charm of manner. Aha!”
Barbara made a sceptical sound, and asked what such a being was doing in Kirkmeikle.
“Ah, that I can’t tell you,” Nicole confessed; “he didn’t confide in me. The small boy is called Alastair Symington and lives with his aunt at Ravenscraig. When we call on that lady we may hear more.”
“It’s a matter of no interest to me,” Barbara declared.
“I threw out feelers,” continued Nicole, “to find out what he was doing here. I told him what we were doing here, but he offered no confidences in return. I think he must be in rooms near Ravenscraig, for the small boy kept hinting that he would like to go to tea with him. . . . You’d like him, Mums, the small Alastair, I mean. He told me a long tale about the minister, Mr. Lambert, finding a gold comb on the sands, which he took home with him, and that night as he sat in his study somebody tapped at his window, and it was a mermaid to ask for her comb! According to Alastair the minister went with her to the Red Rocks and had dinner with her—cod-liver oil soup, which, it seems, is excellent, and a great delicacy—and she asked him what she could do to show her gratitude. There had been a great storm a little while before that, and many boats had gone down, and women had lost their bread-winners, and the mermaid gave the minister gold and jewels from the bottom of the sea to sell for the poor people.”
Barbara looked indignant. “What a very odd sort of minister to tell a child such ridiculous tales.”
Nicole helped herself to strawberry jam, and laughed as she said: “A very nice sort of minister, I think. Alastair was stumbling along in the storm looking for another comb. He said he thought it was the sort of day a comb would be likely to get lost, and he’s very anxious to see a mermaid in a cave. Mums, we must call at once on Miss Symington, if only to get better acquainted with this Alastair child. How old? About six, I think. A queer little fellow and most pathetically devoted to this tall young man. To a boy brought up by women a man is a wonderful delight. The two escorted me to the door. I asked them in to tea, and Alastair was obviously more than willing, but the man said they were too wet, as indeed they were.”
“Did you discover the man’s name?”
“I did, from Alastair. He is called Simon Beckett.”
Lady Jane wrinkled her brows. “Isn’t there something familiar about that name—— Simon Beckett?”
“Aren’t you thinking of Thomas à Becket?” Nicole suggested.
“No, no. I am sure I read somewhere lately of a Simon Beckett having done something.”
“Crime?” said Nicole. “He didn’t look like a criminal exactly. Isn’t there a Beckett who boxes?”
“I know,” cried Barbara. “I know where you saw the name, Aunt Jane. It was in the account of the last attempt made on Everest, more than a year ago. You remember? Two men almost reached the top and one died. Simon Beckett was the one that came back. You remember we read about the lecture to the Geographical? Uncle Walter was tremendously interested.”
“Why, of course. . . . But this
