The Morning Gift

‘Keep her exactly like this,’ he said to Verena. ‘Do nothing else,’ and she nodded and took the wheel.

Now there could be speed, but as he took the rope Elke was holding out to him there were more moments lost for Sam had climbed onto the gunwale, was taking off his jacket, and Quin lunged out to pull him back onto the deck with such force that the boy lay there stunned. And then the rope was round his waist, the knot secure.

‘Now let me down,’ said Quin – and at last was in the sea.

The rocks were his only chance . . . if she could cling on long enough for him to reach her, but they loomed out of the water, barnacle encrusted and sheer. He saw her struggling for a hold . . . begin to pull herself out . . . then lose her grip and try to swim back towards him, but that was hopeless. No one could swim against that tide.

In the Peggoty, Huw turned his head and retched suddenly, the rope unmoving in his huge hands.

Quin was closer now . . . close enough for her to put out an arm to reach him – and then a wave broke over her head, and she was gone. Twice he found her . . . and lost her. And then, when hope was almost gone, he found something that he could grasp and hold and wind round his hand . . . Something that did not escape him; her hair.

‘No!’ said Dr Elke. ‘Leave her. You can talk to her later.’

Quin shook her off. Refusing to strip his soaking clothes, his teeth chattering, he had waited to turn the boat and set her on course for the harbour, but he would wait no longer. His anger was like nothing he had ever known: it came from the gods – a visitation abolishing cold, propriety, compassion.

Ruth lay where they had dragged her, naked but for a rough grey blanket, in the stuffy cubby hole beneath the deck. Her hair was coiled in an unappealing tangle among the lobster pots; there was a smell of fish, and tar. It was almost dark, but not so dark that she couldn’t see Quin’s face.

‘Well, I hope you’re satisfied. You’re a heroine now, aren’t you – you and Grace Darling! You’ve put the life of half your friends at risk – that besotted youth who gawps at you tried to jump in after you, but that doesn’t matter, of course. Nothing matters as long as you can be in the limelight, you attention-seeking spoilt little brat. Well, let me tell you, Ruth, no one will ever take you on any field trip again, I’ll see to that. You’re a danger to everyone, you’re incapable of the two things that are needed – unselfishness and common sense. Dear God, Verena Plackett is worth ten of you. As soon as the doctor’s seen you, I’m packing you off home.’

She had closed her eyes, but there was no escaping his voice.

‘Is he dead?’ she managed to say.

‘Who?’

‘The puppy.’

‘Almost certainly, I should think. You can be glad he’s the only casualty. This isn’t some amusing Austrian lake, you know. This is the North Sea.’ And as she turned her head, trying to hide the tears under her lashes, his rage mounted again. ‘Are you even listening to what I’m saying? Are you capable of understanding just what you’ve done?’

Her voice, when it came, was almost inaudible. ‘Could I. . . please . . . have a bucket? I’m going to be sick.’

Late that evening there was a kind of miracle. A message from the coastguard carried to the boathouse to say that the puppy had been washed onto the shingle further down the island and was alive. But Ruth was not there to share in the rejoicing.

‘We have to tell her,’ said Pilly. ‘We have to find some way of getting a message to the house.’

‘The Professor will tell her,’ said Dr Elke.

‘No, he won’t.’ Pilly’s round blue eyes were desperate. ‘He’ll go on punishing her. He hates her.’

Dr Elke was silent. Existing in extreme content without the company of men, she sometimes saw further than she wished to.

‘No, Pilly,’ she said sadly. ‘He doesn’t hate her. It’s not like that.’

20

Ruth woke, bewildered, from a drugged sleep. The clock beside the bed said three o’clock – the pre-dawn hour in which demons gibber and people die. At first she didn’t know where she was . . . she seemed to be in a large bed covered by some kind of animal skin: the pelt of a bear or something even more exotic. Then, as she touched it, she remembered.

She was in Quin’s tower. He had given instructions to have her carried there after the boat landed – still furious, taking no notice when she said that she was perfectly well, that she wanted to go back to the boat-house with the others. He’d told the students to keep away and sent for two men from the farm to carry her.

‘No one is to go near her till she’s seen a doctor,’ he’d said.

This wasn’t help; it wasn’t concern; it was punishment.

The doctor had come earlier, an old man, sounding her chest, feeling her pulse.

‘I’m all right,’ she’d kept saying, and he said, ‘Yes, yes,’ and left her something in a bottle to make her sleep.