AT HIGH TIDE
Sowergate felt the full force of a south-westerly gale; sometimes heavy seas would be washing right over the Promenade, flooding the road beyond, and rendering it impassable.
It was great fun to go walking by the sea at such times. There was the excitement of dodging the great waves as they broke over the broad sea-wall, and there was the sense of adventure in braving the perils of the road, which at such times was apt to be strewn with wreckage of all sorts.
In the early part of February the weather was so stormy that for three days the girls could not get out, their only exercise being the work in the gymnasium. Of course this meant fresh air of a sort, since they had the whole range of the landward windows open, and the breeze was enough to turn a good-sized windmill. But it was not out of doors by any means, and it was out of doors for which every one was pining.
On the fourth day the wind was still blowing big guns—indeed, it was blowing more than it had been; but as it did not rain, the whole school turned out to struggle along the Promenade. Miss Mordaunt, the games-mistress, was for going up the hill to the church, and taking a turn through the more sheltered lanes beyond. But the mud was deep in that direction; moreover, every girl of them all was longing to see the great waves at play: and, provided they kept a sharp look-out in passing Sowergate Point, it was not likely they would get a drenching. So the crocodile turned down the hill outside the school gates, and took its way along the Promenade in the direction of Ilkestone.
There were very few people abroad this morning; the bus traffic had been diverted during the heavy weather, and sent round by way of the camp. The crocodile had the road to themselves, and great fun they found it.
It was quite impossible to walk on the Promenade, for it was continually being swept by heavy seas. Even on the path at the far side of the road they had to dodge the great wash of water from breaking waves. Then the crocodile broke into little scurrying groups of girls, there were shrieks and bubbling laughter, and every one declared it was lovely fun.
Miss Mordaunt was in front with the younger ones; it was very necessary that a mistress should be there to pick the road, to hold them back when a stream of water threatened them, and to choose when to make a rush to avoid an incoming wave. Miss Groome was at the other end of the crocodile, and those of the Sixth out walking that morning were with her.
They had reached as far as the point where the flight of steps go up to the Military Hospital, when a taxi came along the road at a great rate, mounting the path here and there to avoid the holes in the road which had been washed out by the battering of the sea-water.
Miss Mordaunt promptly herded the front half of the crocodile on to the space which in normal times was a pleasant strip of garden ground. The other half fell back in a confused group round Miss Groome, while the taxi came on at a rate which made it look as if the driver were drunk or demented.
The group squeezed themselves flat against the railings—time to run away there was not. Indeed, to stand still seemed the safest way, as the driver would at least have a better chance of avoiding them.
Suddenly they saw that there was purpose in his haste. A tremendous wave was racing inshore, and he, poor puny human, was trying with all the power of the machinery under his control to run away from it.
He might as well have tried to run away from the wind. With a swirling rush the big wave struck the sea-wall, mounted in a towering column of spray, and dashing on to the Promenade, struck one of the iron seats, wrenched it from its fastenings, and hurled it across the road right on to the bonnet of the taxi at the moment when it was passing the huddled group of girls.
The wind screen was smashed, splinters of glass flying in all directions. The driver hung on to his wheel in spite of the deluge of broken glass; he put on the brakes. But before he could bring the car to a stand the door was wrenched open, and a stout woman, shrieking shrilly, had hurled herself from the car, falling in a heap among the startled girls.
Dorothy was the first one to sense what was happening, and being quick to act, had spread her arms, and so broken the fall of the screaming woman. The force of the impact bowled her over; but as she fell against the thickly-clustered group of girls, no great harm was done. The wind was fairly knocked out of her, for the woman was bulky in size, and in such a fearful state of agitation, too, that it was as if she had been overwhelmed by an avalanche.
“Oh, oh, oh! What a truly awful experience, my dear! I should have been killed outright if it had not been for you!” cried the poor lady; and then, slipping her arms about Dorothy’s neck, she half-strangled her in a frantic sort of embrace.
“It was surely a great risk for you to take, to jump in such a fashion,” said Miss Groome severely. As she spoke she came close to the frightened woman, who was still clinging fast to Dorothy.
“I had to jump—I was simply rained upon with splinters of broken glass. See how I am bleeding,” said the unfortunate one, whose face was cut in several places with broken glass. She was elderly, she was clad in expensive furs, and was unmistakably a lady.
The taxi-driver reached them at this moment; his face was also cut and bleeding. He reported that his car was so badly damaged that he would not be able to continue his journey.
“Oh, I could not have gone any farther, even if the car had escaped injury. I am almost too frightened to live,” moaned the poor lady, who was trembling and hysterical.
The taxi-driver treated her with great deference and respect. Seeing how shaken she was, he appealed to Miss Groome to know what was the best thing to be done for the comfort of his hurt and badly frightened fare.
“Here is the police station; she could rest here while you find another car to take her back to Ilkeston,” said Miss Groome.
“That will do very nicely, and thank you for being so kind,” said the lady, who was still clinging fast to Dorothy. “I wonder if you would be so kind as to permit this dear girl, who saved me from falling, to go with me to my hotel? I am staying at the Grand, in Ilkestone. The car that takes me there could bring her back. I feel too shaken to go alone.”
“Dorothy could go, of course,” said Miss Groome. But her tone was anxious; she did not like allowing even a grown-up girl of the Sixth to go off with a complete stranger. “Would you not rather have some one a little older to take care of you? Miss Mordaunt would go with you, or I can hand the girls over to her, and go with you myself.”
“No, no, I would not permit such a thing!” exclaimed the lady, waving away the suggestion with great energy and determination. “You have duties to perform; your absence even for a couple of hours might mean serious dislocation of machinery. But this dear girl—Dorothy, did you call her?”
“My name is Dorothy Sedgewick,” said Dorothy, her voice having a muffled sound by reason of one arm of the lady being still round her neck.
“Are you a daughter of Dr. Randolph Sedgewick of Farley in Buckinghamshire?” demanded the lady in great excitement, giving Dorothy a vigorous shake.
“Yes—that is my father.” Dorothy smiled happily into the face that was so near to her own—it was so pleasant to encounter some one who knew her father.
“My dear, your father is a very old friend of mine. I am Mrs. Peter Wilson, of Fleetwood Park, near Sevenoaks. It is quite possible you may not have heard him speak of me by my married name; but you have surely heard him talk of Rosie O’Flynn?”
“That wild girl Rosie O’Flynn, is that the one you mean?” asked Dorothy, smiling broadly at the recollection of some of the stories her father had told of the madcap doings of the aforesaid Rosie.
“Yes, yes; but I have altered a good deal since those days,” said Mrs. Wilson with a gasping sigh. “I should have welcomed an experience of this sort then, but now it has shaken me up very badly indeed.”
“May I go with Mrs. Wilson to the Grand?” asked Dorothy, turning to Miss Groome with entreaty in her eyes. What a wonderful sort of adventure this was, that she should have had her father’s old friend flung straight into her arms!
“Yes, certainly you may go,” said Miss Groome, who was decidedly relieved at hearing of the social status of the lady. “But, Dorothy, you must come back in the car that takes Mrs. Wilson to the Grand, for I am sure you must be wet. It will be very unsafe for you to be long without changing. Ah! here comes the driver, and he has another car coming along after him; that is fortunate, because Mrs. Wilson will not have to wait.”
“If I have to send Dorothy straight back to-day, may I have the pleasure of her company to tea to-morrow afternoon at four o’clock?” asked Mrs. Wilson, holding out her hand with such friendliness that Miss Groome at once gave consent.
The driver had secured a taxi from the Crown Inn at Sowergate, and the driver of the fresh car took his way with infinite care along the wreckage-strewn road to Ilkestone.
Mrs. Wilson was fearfully nervous. She kept crying out; she would have jumped out more than once during the journey if Dorothy had not held her down by sheer force of arm, beseeching her to be calm, and promising that no harm should come to her.
“Oh, I know that I am behaving like a silly baby; but, my dear, I have no nerve left,” said the poor lady, who was almost hysterical with agitation. “I am not very well—I ought to be in peace and quiet at Fleetwood—but I had to come on rather unpleasant business about a nephew of mine who is at the Gunnery School at Hayle. I suppose I shall have to go back to Sevenoaks with the business undone, unless I can do it from Ilkestone, for certainly I cannot make another journey along that wreckage-strewn road beyond Sowergate. Oh! it was awful.”
“It was rather grand and terrible; I have never seen anything like it before,” replied Dorothy, who had been really thrilled by the sight of the tremendous seas.
“I can do without such sights; I would rather have things on a more peaceful scale,” sighed Mrs. Wilson, whose face was mottled with little purply patches from the shock of the accident.
Dorothy helped her out of the car when they reached the Grand. She went up in the lift to the suite of rooms on the first floor which Mrs. Wilson occupied. She handed the poor fluttered lady into the care of the capable maid, and then came back to Sowergate in the car.