A SHORT STORY

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 16, 9 April 1927, Page 23

A SHORT STORY

COLD WATER

By Eva BretHerton. It was the icy cold of the water that brought sanity back to Carstairs. Cold, slick, deadly water, it was, without the resiliency of the sea which was all in the way of water he had been accustomed to. And God -how heavy a man wearing boots and sodden clothing felt in it! Down, down down into its horrible depths he had S? 1 } 0 . to rise again at last, feeling little breath left in him. . Making a despairing effort alter the small capacity for keeping afloat once his, he struck out for the side of the J reservoir, managed to reach it, stretched out his hands to cling only to realise that the side, perpendicular. almost too slippery to Five | foothold for a fly, towered five good feet above him. Trapped! Doomed after all to die. As for the matter of that he had in the first place meant to do. But that was before the icy water brought him sanity. Now, his eyes were those of a hunted animal, as he glanced round the great reservoir, gaunt, grey, horrible, in the melancholy l ight of dawn, and the cold gnawed at his vitals. He essayed a shout —to hear his own voice, and that alone, thrown back at him from those slate coloured, implacable walls. Another; and he sank with the effort, down again into unplumbed depths of horror. , _ Once more, for what he knew would be the last time, he came up struggling feebly. And (heavens with what gratitude!) heard now another voice hailing him from the side. „ _ It was a woman’s voice, small and thin, in the morning emptiness. "All right!” it said. “I’m here, keep Jour head now and don’t waste your strength. Take a deep breath. Float °n your back for a minute or two.” Carstairs followed her instructions "ith some difficulty, and resting on the w &ter felt some measure of strength return to him. "Now," the voice continued, “if you can keep yourself afloat paddle over this way. I’ve a sash that I think will just reach you. He saw her ungirdling herself as she s tood on the bank, a slim figure, bareheaded. A moment later the end of a woollen sash hit the water near him. “Got it?” said the voice. “Now, be careful or you’ll pull me in. too, and that won’t help matters. Paddle along as well as you can. and I’ll tow you. here are some steps round on the other side.” Stepping back to a safer distance horn the edge the woman drew him steadily round two sides of the reser'°ir to where a ladder up the wall was fixed. By the time he reached it he 1 d regained command of himself, and able to climb out without assistance. even though he did sink exhausted at the feet of his rescuer. The latter, without comment, bent n ' ,er him and vigorously slapped his arms un(J shoulders. ‘.There. You’ll ho all right nr”'.” *ua. “Here’s your coat and .iat; I °jjnd them as I came along.’’ kne threw the coat round him, and huddled into it miserably, feeling ” u ‘len and ashamed, almost resentful now the danger was over) at having oeen rescued. The girl—he saw she was a girl, and fnn, Was looking 1 him over thoughtU .?y but not unkindly. we get from here quickly,” !. ® u &l» e sted. “It’s after six, and the in» aker of this place may be com- € Y.*ti° Un<k * don’t suppose they would -*y encourage your coming and try-

ing to drown yourself in their reservoir ” 1-Ie scowled at her, refusing to take the hand she offered to help him up. “Better let me be,” he said sulkily. “You know nothing about it.” “Oh yes I do! One doesn’t usually go just for an early morning swim in most of one’s clothes! And anyway, I saw you just before it happened. Jolly lucky for you I did, too, as you’ll say when you feel better. Come along now.” She held out her hand again, and this time Carstairs grasped it, staggering miserably to his feet. They crossed the grass surrounding the reservoir, climbed the fence, and were soon crossing a meadow at some distance from the place of ill omen. “I’ve got a tent in the corner over there,” the girl was explaining. “You can’t—er —go home as you are, so better come and dry yourself. I’ve lit my camp fire and slung my billy.” Still sullen with humiliation, Carstairs followed her to where in a sheltered dip a small tent stood cosily, the wood lire brightly burning before it. “I’ve been camping with another woman,” the girl went on. “She’s gone now and I’m alone. Look here—go in and you’ll find a pair of pyjamas, just ironed, on the table. They’re biggish; you’ll get into them, and there’s a big coat hanging on a nail. You slip into the lot while I get some hot coffee and food. We’ll soon dry your own things.” He shambled silently into the tent. A few minutes later the girl saw his own sodden clothing cast vengefully out through the opening. Five minutes later Carstairs himself emerged, grotesque of aspect in his borrowed clothing and exceedingly shamefaced. though with a grim gleam of amusement in his eye. The first to be there for a considerable time, as his hostess perhaps suspected. She herself was turning over sizzling slices of bacon in a pan which occupied a small oil stove. On the fire a large saucepan simmered comfortably, emitting a delightful fragrance of coffee. The sun shone brightly. “Sit down and get warm,” the girl pointed to an upturned box beside the blaze. “See your things?” lie did. They hung on various belongings round the fire, and very miserable they looked. He sat down opposite them and scowled into the embers. Once more he wished the reservoir had kept him and done the job. A moment later a large cup of boiling coffee and a heaped plate of fried bacon were pushed before him on another end-up box. _ , He fell to, half reluctant, and gradually as he ate and drank the- misery of the past few* hours faded away. The girl, seated on a camp stool nearby, quietly eating her own breakfast. seemed almost to have forgotten his presence, certainly to be quite unaware of the ravenous satisfaction with which he was finishing the meal. •Well.” she said at last, pouring him out another bumper of coffee, “Now, aren’t you glad you’re alive?” Carstairs drew a deep breath. “I owe it to you!” lie said huskily. “If deep gratitude is anything I ” “That’s all right.” she said, with the boyishness lie had already noticed about her. “I think your clothes will soon be dry now.” , , “And jolly shrunk, too, 111 be bound, Carstairs said ruefully. Simultaneously they burst into helpjess an d on his part almost hysterical —laughter. . . I say.” he said, choking it back at last “What an ungrateful boor you mU st have been thinking me! And then disgusting fellow wolfing my food down like that! But you don't know. L'd been —well down and out. Bedrock, miserable. Hadn’t fed for 24 hours, tramped miles, lost count of time—l shall never be able to thank you, but

when I think that I might have been at the bottom of that infernal tank now, as dead as mutton, ugh!” “Don’t think about it!” the girl said. “But I should rather like to know. Why was it?” Dow pretty her eyes were, Carstairs thought. Clear brown, like a moorland stream. So sensible she looked, too, with her neat shingled head and in her simple jumper with its short sleeves and open collar. And kind. A woman one could tell things to. So it all came out. How, an electrical engineer, keen on his job, he had spent all his small capital in the special training he had thought certain to obtain him the particular kind of work he required, and failing at first he had gone on week after week, lengthening into months, at first buoyantly enough, expecting each day to see the end of the search, finally with lessening hope and apparently with ever-lessening chances of employment. lie had saved on his food, saved on his lodgings, his clothes, his amusements, growing miserable and discouraged, all in the vain attempt to gain time for that which never came. Finally a chance had offered. It had seemed a certainty, a real job of the kind he knew he could make good at, and his for the asking. He spent most of his last few pounds on a suitable rig-out (those very garments that now hung shrinking by the lire), got together his credentials, and with the letter from the pal whose introduction was to get him the post in his pocket, went for the crucial inter - They turned him down. Quite definitely, though for no fault of his own. The job would have been his but that another man carrying more influence had got there an hour before him. Then it was that his nerve suddenly failed. , . After the long night spent stumbling through the darkness, faint for want of food, toward dawn he had seen the reservoir shining palely below him, its invitation grotesquely exaggerated by circumstances. A few minutes later Joan Travers, standing in the morning freshness at the door of her tent had seen him hurrying by, head down, blind to the world, and drawn her own conclusions. The two cries for help had been so expected that, following him, she had been actually close at hand, and hei quick wits solved the difficulty with the belt of the woollen sports coat she had thrown on. “And now?” said Joan, in the pause that followed his woeful narrative. Her words were brief, but her eyes full of sympathy. "Now?” Carstairs squared his shoulders in the absurd feminine garments. “Now that I’ve learnt that life —on dry bread, as a tramp, a coal-heaver, a dustman, anything—it is still a damned sight better than no life at all. I'm —• well I’m out to live it, to the best of my ability. And before this day is out I get a job of some kind. It doesn’t matter what so long as it keeps me from starvation. The girl’s eyes shone. "That’s the spirit! And now perhaps you'd like to dress.” She gave him his now dry garments, and lie retired to the tent to put them on, emerging five minutes later a normal and well set-up looking young felHe was just going to say something to the girl—whose sltek head he saw bent over the washing up of the plates a yard or two away—when he saw another woman approaching her across the grass. The newcomer was dark and angular, and the sombre eyes fixed on Joan were full of venom. At that moment the latter looked up from her task and met them. •■Oh ” she began, only to be interrupted rudely by: "I left a bag. I'm not going to lose It so She turned toward the tent and saw Carstairs standing in its entrance. “Oh, I see! Now I understand!” Her voice was harsh and spiteful. "Sorry to intrude, but I think I’ll get my bug all the same."

She pushed past Carstairs, and after a few minutes, presumably spent rummaging the interior of the tent, emerged, small bag in hand. Contenting herself with a scowl at Carstairs she bent for a moment to say something in a venomous undertone into Jean’s ear, and then slouched away across the meadow, finally disappearing. A somewhat uncomfortable silence followed. Then the girl said: “It was she I was sharing the tent with. We teach at the same school, and it was her idea we should take this camping holiday together. I was afraid it wouldn’t answer, and it didn’t. We—l am sorry to say we quarrelled rather badly yesterday, and she went

off and left me. I never noticed she had left that bag. She didn’t look very pleasant, did she? I hope she won’t .” Whatever she had been going to say remained unfinished, but Carstairs thought she looked vaguely troubled about something. A moment later she picked up her pile of plates and began deftly storing them away in a hamper. Her holiday was at an end, she explained. She was breaking camp that afternoon. Carstairs insisted on helping her to pack most of her belongings, eager to put off the moment of parting, even if only half an hour. But at last it liad come. In answer to his request, humbly made, to be allowed to come and report himself some day, she gave him her address, that of a girls’* school on the outskirts of London. He took her hand in his, holding it perhaps rather longer than was necessary, awkwardly stammered out more thanks and strode away. At the gate of the meadow into the road he looked back. She still stoQd at the door of the tent and waved to him cheerily. But us he finally turned away

he was conscious again of that slight hint of uneasiness in her manner. However, in spite of his new found courage, he still had plenty of anxieties of liis own to think of, conscious as he was of. but. very few shillings in his pocket to carry him on his way. He started as, putting a hand mechanically into that pocket with a vague idea of counting what he had, liis fingers touched a crisp little roll of notes. In amazement he drew them forth. There were three, each of one pound. A week’s keep, anyway! The girl, bless her! Somehow she had slipped them in. But they must be returned. On second thoughts, however, he de-

cided to keep the notes. In a few days, a week at latest, they would be returned with interest. Squaring his shoulders once more he trudged off toward the nearest station. He caught the first train and was in London by mid-day. Once more he made his way straight to liis rooms with the intention of putting his affairs in order previous to seeking the first manual job, however mean, that offered. Outside his door, however, lie saw a figure restlessly pacing the pavement, that of the friend whose introduction was to have got him the post the pre“Why, 'man alive!” the latter shouted, seeing him coming. “Where in the name of everything have you been? That job’s yours, if you’re not t6o late. The fellow they gave it to turned it down after all. Got a better one, I understand. They phoned me up early this morning, and , I’ve been holding it for you. But i ! there’s not a moment to lose if you j want the thing?” I "Want it! Don’t I just!” j Five minutes later Carstairs was on | his way. A couple of hours later the

coveted job was his, and he saw the future outstretching ahead of him. * * * There followed a hectic time of transition and settling down to the new Carstairs’s first impulse had been to seek out Joan Travers and communicate the good news, but his pride intervened again. No! Let him wait until his position enabled him to say with certainty that he was making good. The longing he felt to see his rescuer again should be the test of new-found strength. So it was three weeks before, feeling himself safely in the saddle with nothing to do but to go forward, he set out on a Saturday afternoon to call

o:i the girl at the school she had told him of. In liis pocket reposed the three one pound notes, unbroken, and wrapped round as pretty a little enamel watch bracelet as he could buy. Would she let him fasten it on, he wondered, as he rang the bell and asked for her? “Miss Travers has left, sir!” “Left? But ” Carstairs felt as though he hud had a blow in the face, but recovering himself asked for Joan’s present address. The maid said doubtfully that she would inquire. She went away, and in response to her query he heard a sharp voice say: “No. no address left! You can say that Miss Travers was not taken back at the beginning of the term. We know nothing about her since then.” The maid gave the message. Carstairs turned blankly away, conscious that the success he had thought so much of counted now for just nothing at all! But he would find her! Of course he would. He set about it systematically, advertised. called at scholastic agencies, even* went so far as to look up the

names of other girls’ schools in the London area. Spending his Saturdays and Sundays calling at their doors on the chance of finding Joan among their staff. But all in vain. At the end of two months he was no nearer finding her than he had been at the beginning. Meanwhile he slogged at his work as he had never slogged in his life before. His salary was raised, the position next above his own promised for the near future. Success! And no one’s feet to lay it at! For Joan he began to see, was lost to him. Fool that he had been to let her go! Then suddenly, hurrying down into an underground station, he saw a slim figure climbing toward him, looked into an upturned face with eyes clear like a moorland stream. It was she! What he said he did not know. All he became conscious of ultimately was, that they were walking along a quiet street, quite in a different direction to what his own destination had been, and that his arm was through hers holding it close. Also, most wonderful of all, that she was not resisting. He poured out his news, and saw that she listened with interest and enthusiasm, her eyes lighting charmingly. At last he thought to ask her why she had left the school. She drew away from him then, and tried to evade the question, said she had just left, that was all.” “I believe that woman I saw that day had something to do with it!” Carstairs persisted. “She looked as though she meant something.” “Well, she did. She made some mischief,” Joan admitted. “She always had a nasty mind, and having seen you coming out of the tent the day after she and I quarrelled, she well, she “Good Lord—got you the sack! You poor little girl! My dear, can you forgive me?” “It was no fault of yours. I’d do the same all over again, and let her think what she liked!” The clear eyes flashed. “Little brick! But what have you done since? That’s a long time ago?” “It is, unfortunately! I well I’ve just been looking for a job. It wasn’t quite so easy as it might have been as they—they didn’t give me a reference. It was my first post, so ” “Brutes!” Carstairs saw now what he had been too happy to notice before, that the girl looked pale and tired, with shadows of anxiety under her eyes. “You and I are rather like Box and Cox,” she laughed, trying for her old gaiety. “When one’s in the other’s out!—of a job, in this case!” “I’ve had a job waiting for you this two months—Joan!” Carstairs said, taking her hand as well. “Can you guess what it is?” She shook her head. But the colour rose in her cheeks. “I think you can!” he said, bending to meet her eyes.—The “Australasian.”