Return to Tremarth by Susan Barrie

enjoyed while Richard was approaching his doom ... and despite Hannah’s optimism she found the fact that not so much as one of his eyelids quivered horribly alarming. She had been talking of him as if he was a kind of public nuisance, and now here he was at her feet, his cheeks slightly hollow, his thick eyelashes very dark, his mouth very shapely and curved a little upwards at the corners as if in his state of unconsciousness he was not entirely unhappy.
    Charlotte bent nearer to him, and tried to trace the likeness between him as he now was and the boy who had so obligingly obeyed all her behests when she was so very young, and in the attractiveness of his mouth and the square chin below it she thought she succeeded. Richard had always had a polite and rather bright smile for her great-aunt, who had described him as a handsome boy, despite the fact that she had had little or no time for him, and Charlotte thought him an almost startlingly handsome man as he lay with his head in her lap ... and this surprised her afterwards, for when people are unconscious they do not normally appear at their best, and yet Richard Tremarth, who was now in his early thirties, actually caused a strange little wrench in the region of her heart as she gazed at him in the cold, unfeeling moonlight and recognised a most peculiar and insidious masculine appeal.
    The fact that he was a hard man — and had wanted to turn her out of her house — was forgotten. When Hannah came running swiftly over the grass and made to lift his head from her lap she protested sharply:
    “Are you absolutely certain it’s safe to move him?”
    “Of course! Unless you’d rather we left him here to contract pneumonia... ?”
    They had great difficulty in getting him into the car. Episodes from various films and television plays that she had witnessed returned to Charlotte as they half dragged and half carried him towards the stationary vehicle, and when the most difficult moment arrived and they had to get him on to the back seat he partially recovered consciousness and more or less helped himself. But he relapsed into complete unconsciousness again once they had draped him as comfortably as they could against the back seat.
    Charlotte felt as if her nerve had all but completely gone, and she was only too happy for Hannah to take over the driving and get them back to Tremarth in as short a time as possible. She sat in the seat beside the driving seat and watched nervously in case Richard rolled off the back.
    Within a matter of minutes lights were streaming from Tremarth and
    Hannah was telephoning for a doctor. The latter came in a remarkably short space of time and helped them get Richard inside the house, and on a couch in the drawing-room he finally recovered consciousness and appeared amazed to find them all grouped attentively round him. In particular he appeared to find it astonishing that Charlotte, in her lemon-yellow silk, should be actually down on her knees within a few inches of his face; and when he made the discovery that he was in the drawing-room at Tremarth an oddly gratified smile crossed his face.
    “Strange, he murmured, “very strange.” Then he grimaced at the doctor who was ordering him to he still and not attempt any talking.
    “Don’t be silly, doctor,” he protested weakly. “I gather you are a doctor ... ?”
    The competent young man who apparently nowadays resided in the village of Tremarth and had taken over old Dr. Tremarth’s practice smiled at him in a cheerful manner.
    “For your sake I hope I’m completely qualified,” he answered. “You’ve got a lump on your head that is going to be very painful in the next few days, and I’m afraid your left arm is broken. You’re going to have to let me set it! ” Tremarth winced.
    “Any other broken bones?” he asked.
    “None that I’ve discovered as a result of a preliminary examination. But on the whole, I’d say you’ve come off rather lightly ”
    Tremarth winced