Patricia Wentworth - Danger Point

Lisle drew the car in to the kerb. The garage entrance lay just ahead. She opened the door, got out, and stood there, pale but not trembling now. She opened the rear door and waited until Alicia got out.

They stood there together for a moment, and now they were both pale. Alicia without colour was Alicia spoiled. There were marks like bruises under her eyes. She looked her age, and more. But Lisle looked very young – heart-rendingly young, like a child accused of some fault it does not understand. She said,

“Are you sure your car will be ready? I’ll wait whilst you find out.”

Alicia stared at her.

“Wait? You’ll have to wait for your own car, baby. Won’t you? You needn’t wait for mine – it’s ready.”

Lisle said nothing. She got into the car and drove away.

WHEN Lisle had driven about half a mile she stopped by the side of the road and put down the hood. One reason for her obstinate clinging to this little car was the fact that she could open it completely and drive with nothing over her head but the sky – not with either Dale or Alicia, but when she was alone, or sometimes with Rafe. She liked to feel the wind in her hair and see the clouds and the aeroplanes go by, high up and free.

When she got back into the car the beating of her heart had steadied. Thought slowed down. Dale had gone to London. Alicia out of sight was Alicia out of mind. She was Lisle alone, in her own car, with her own road to take. The sun and wind belonged to her, and she belonged to no one. She was free. These were not words. They were hardly thoughts. They were the stuff out of which thoughts are made – escape from authority, the child who gets out of the grown-ups’ way, escape into liberty of thought and action – one of the oldest instincts in the world.

Lisle drove slowly along the straight, flat road. There were fields on either side, with here and there a farmstead, a cottage or two, a group of trees. The sky overhead was of a pale, cloudless blue. The wind which she felt in her hair was the wind of her own going. There was no other. The sea came into sight, blue against the blue horizon, a long way off. But when she turned into the steep lane which dropped to Tanfield village the blue glitter was lost behind the high bank and hedgerow of the sunken road. It sloped gently at first, then fell to a hairpin bend, steep above the turn and steeper still below.

It was as she took this bend that she remembered about the steering. The wheels came round, but midway something snapped. The steering-wheel jerked in her hands, wrenched out of them, and was free. The car slewed violently and plunged down the hill, rocking and slipping on the uneven surface. There was a second turn to come, sharp to the right where the side wall of Cooper’s barn barred the straight. It had been kept whitewashed ever since someone had driven head-on into it one black night. Lisle’s car was driving head-on for it now. The whitewash dazzled her. The man had been killed. His car had been smashed. She had the wheel again, but it was loose and useless in her hands. She let go of it, opened the off-side door, and jumped.

Rafe Jerningham, just round the turn, saw the car smash against the whitewashed wall. He ran forward, and what his thoughts were only he could have told. He had come to that place to meet Lisle, and if there are any certainties in life, he must have had the certainty that he would find her dead. He ran to the broken car, and heard the sound of running feet behind him. Cooper came out of his yard with a purple, twitching face. The car looked like a toy that has been trodden on, but the driver’s seat was empty. Rafe gave it the one look, filled his lungs with a deep draught of air, and ran on towards the hill, the blood pounding in his ears.

She was lying against the hedge where she had jumped, lying face downwards with her arms flung out. The place where she lay was where the ditch came in from Cooper’s field. There was a thick growth of grass and wild hemlock, thriving on the damp. She lay there. And she wasn’t dead. The hand which was clutching a hemlock spray moved. Her head moved.

He took a moment before he touched her. Then he was on his knees.

“Lisle!”

She was alive. She pushed against the bank and raised herself. They kneeled there facing one another. There was a little blood on her face. It made the only colour there. Her eyes were blank and grey. She stared at Rafe, and Rafe stared back at her.

“Are you hurt?”

She said, “No – I don’t know – I thought I was dead-” and Rafe said,

“So did I.”

After that the whole village arrived – Cooper and Mrs. Cooper, Miss Cole from the post office, her niece Cissie who took in dress-making, her brother James who kept the general shop, Mr. Maggs the baker, old Mr. Obadiah Crisp, and a crowd of young Crisps, Coles, and Coopers, all related to each other by marriage if not by blood, and all shocked, horrified, excited, and full to the brim with curiosity and kindness. It was disappointing to find that Lisle had broken no bones, because it made it less of an accident, but as Mrs. Cooper said, “It don’t always show at the time.”

Lisle, sitting on the grass which had broken her fall, felt herself gingerly all over and repeated in as firm a voice as she could manage,

“I’m all right.”

Rafe got hold of Miss Cole.

“Look here, will you telephone to the house. Tell them to send Evans with the other car. And tell them to hurry. I want to get Mrs. Jerningham home.”

“Whatever could have happened?” said Cissie Cole. She stared after her aunt and then shifted her gaze to Lisle again. “One of those irritating young women who never look at you in case you might take a liberty,” was Rafe’s quick, impatient thought. He disliked Cissie a good deal – a tall, thin, straw-coloured creature, like Lisle in caricature – untidy too. She pushed a pale wisp of hair behind her ear and said in a flat, lugubrious tone, “Whatever could have done it?”

Rafe Jerningham put the same question in rather different words a couple of hours later. Lisle had refused to go to bed, to have a doctor, or be fussed over. Her dress was torn and stained. She changed it, and came down to sit in a deep chair on the lawn which looked towards Tane Head and the sea. She had tea there alone. It was very peaceful and resting to be alone. She would have used this form if she had spoken, but the thought behind it would have been, “It is very peaceful without Alicia.”

Rafe came presently to sit on a stool at her feet and ask his question.

“How on earth did it happen?”

“I don’t know. Something went when I took the bend.”

“How do you mean, something went?”

“The steering,” said Lisle. Her eyes widened. “It just went.”

“You didn’t notice anything before?”

“Dale did.”

He jerked his head aside and looked out to sea.

“Oh, Dale did? What did he notice?”

Lisle caught her breath.

“He’ll be angry – because he did notice something. He said there was something odd about the steering-”

He cut in quickly.

“Who was driving – you, or Dale?”

“Oh, Dale. He hates being driven. And he said to take the car to Langham’s and get them to test the steering.”

Rafe turned back as abruptly as he had turned away.

“Dale told you that, and you didn’t do it? Why didn’t you?”

She flushed a little.

“I didn’t want to.”

“Why?”

“Alicia was there. She had to go to Langham’s for her car. She was trying to quarrel with me. I didn’t want to quarrel, so I didn’t wait.”

From the time he had turned back, his eyes had been upon her face – bright, watching eyes.

“You’d rather risk a smash than a quarrel – is that it?”