The Portuguese Escape by Ann Bridge Page A

bathing-things?’
    â€˜No—but I can swim in my petticoat! I often swam in my nightdress in the Tisza.’
    â€˜It’s frightfully cold, and pretty rough,’ said Julia doubtfully.
    â€˜I swim strongly!’ Hetta pronounced firmly; ‘and at Estoril I swim every day—for the first time, here, I swim in the sea. Oh, I do wish to! Where can I undress?’
    Rather unwillingly, Julia arranged for Hetta to undress in the bedroom of the proprietor’s wife; the girl emerged in a crêpe de chine slip under her pale tweed overcoat and ran gleefully down to the little sandy bay. But instead of plunging thence into the breaking waves she nipped up onto one of the rocky points, threw off her long coat, and entered the Atlantic in a clean dive just as Atherley, Townsend Waller, and Major Torrens arrived on the balcony.
    â€˜Good God, who on earth is that diving in?’ Torrens exclaimed.
    â€˜Hetta Páloczy.’
    Atherley swung sharply round, and like the othersstared towards the sea, where Hetta’s black head promptly reappeared.
    â€˜What on earth did you let her do that for, Julia?’ he said brusquely. ‘It’s not a bit safe bathing here, in water as rough as this, except for very strong swimmers. Surely you know that?’
    â€˜She says she
is
a strong swimmer,’ said Julia coolly— with a second’s wonder as to why Richard should be so cross. Anyhow, she was not going to excuse herself to him.
    â€˜And
how
!—just look at her!’ Townsend exclaimed enthusiastically, watching that black head smoothly surmounting the great crests of the incoming waves. Indeed she seemed to be an eel, a fish, and the water her natural element—as she got farther out the watchers noticed that she took to turning onto her back to slide down feet foremost into the trough behind a wave, swinging over as the next approached to cross it with her powerful breast-stroke.
    â€˜She seems thoroughly in control,’ said Torrens.
    â€˜Yes. Have a drink,’ said Julia turning to the table, and filling their glasses with the delicate wine.
    â€˜Just the same, I think we ought to yell to her to come back now,’ Townsend said after a few moments; ‘she may get into a current—she’s going pretty far out.’
    â€˜Well, yell,’ Julia said. ‘She may pay attention to you— she wouldn’t to me.’
    Townsend cupped his hands round his mouth and bellowed ‘Hetta!’
    The black head turned on the summit of a green crest.
    â€˜Come on in!’ Townsend roared. ‘We’re hungry!’
    They could see her laughing face as she turned round and started to swim towards the shore. But it is much easier to swim out through big waves than to swim back with them; each one bears you forward, but after it has passed there is a strong suck-back in the trough until the next carries you on again. Atherley could see Hetta frowning as she encountered this phenomenon—glass in hand, they all stood at the rickety rail of the balcony, watching her progress with some anxiety. But she soon learned the trick of it, swimming vigorously with each overtaking wave, then relaxing till the next came along.
    â€˜God, she is a good swimmer!’ Townsend said, watching appreciatively. ‘Half the people who get drowned in swimming do it coming back in water like this. She must have had a lot of practice.’
    â€˜No, she says she never swam in the sea in her life till she came to Estoril,’ said Julia.
    â€˜Well, really, Julia, I must say—’ Atherley was beginning angrily when Townsend exclaimed—‘Oh, watch out!’
    The one thing that Hetta was not prepared for, strong and resourceful as she was in the water, was the merciless force of a breaking wave. The tumbling crest picks the swimmer up and flings him forward like a piece of wreckage, rolling him over and over till sand and water fill eyes, ears, and