The House Above the River (13 page)

Francine came out of the room, closely followed by Susan. The old woman watched Giles's face change, and his eyes light up. With a sour look at the pair of them she stumped away downstairs.

Giles caught Susan close to him. They kissed as if they had been parted for twelve months, instead of so many hours.

“You're the only bright spot in this sordid muddle,” he whispered.

“Hush! She'll hear us. She's nearly out of her mind. Come in quickly.”

The curtains were drawn, the windows all shut. In the half-light Giles saw Miriam, in bed, raised on one elbow, her staring eyes directed towards him, her face haggard and drawn. He went near to her, and could not prevent the convulsive movement with which she flung herself into his arms. Over her head, buried against his shoulder, he looked at Susan. The latter smiled, shook her head in pity and understanding, and crept out of the room.

“Miriam,” said Giles, shaking her gently. “Miriam, pull yourself together and tell me what's happened.”

His cool voice steadied her. She let go her feverish grip, and lay back on her pillows. Her great dark eyes went round the ceiling, vacant, searching.

“Tell me what has happened,” he repeated. “Tell me the truth, as you know it.”

That roused her.

“Do you think I would lie to you?”

“I think you scarcely know at present what is the truth and what is false.”

She raised herself again on her elbow, and compelled him to look at her.

“You have seen the things that have taken place here. They were Henry's doing. This is the last and cruellest move. He has gone into hiding, on purpose to frighten me to death. He failed to kill me in an arranged accident. Three times he failed. Now he will wait until I can bear the suspense no longer. Until I kill myself, or go mad!”

“No,” said Giles. “That's all wrong. I can prove it. Now listen to me.”

He told her of the night's events, working up the detail as much as possible, trying to make her think and feel for him and his crew. But he had no success. She had lived too long in the adolescent turmoil of her self-regard.

“You see,” he finished, “only someone who understood boats and the sea could have thought of it. Henry understands those things. He must have wanted to get rid of
me
, not you. It all falls into place. You would never have gone down that hole, because you would have noticed the seat had been moved. You often went to see the view from that place, but I was there for the first time. The same with the notice board at the creek. You know the beach there as well as you do the clearing in the woods. I had gone to get the bathing things from the yacht, so it was natural to suppose I would be the first to arrive on the beach. Motive—jealousy. He knew we had been engaged. I grant you, it sounds pretty silly to expect jealousy of that degree in any sane individual, and without obvious new grounds for it. But is Henry a normal person? He has always seemed a bit odd to me.”

Miriam moved her tongue across dry lips.

“Susan was with you both times,” she said, ignoring his question. “If she hadn't been there, would you really have fallen into the hole? If she hadn't been with you, would you have spent so much time getting the bathing things that Tony and Pip were first on the beach, and Tony was caught in the sand? Did Susan save you from Henry?”

“Perhaps she did, in a way, bless her.”

“Are you in love with Susan, Giles?”

“Yes,” he told her, quite simply. “I am.”

She lay and looked at him.

“In spite of what I told you about her and Henry?”

“Did you tell me anything? If so, I've forgotten, and I certainly don't want to hear it now. It would not be true.”

“You are cruel,” she said, sorrowfully.

He made an impatient gesture.

“No. No, Giles, don't leave me! Perhaps you are right. Perhaps Henry was trying to get rid of you, not me. Perhaps he was jealous—not for my sake, I assure you—but for Susan's.”

“Once and for all, that's nonsense. Fantastic nonsense. You know perfectly well it is false.”

“Yes,” she said, and her eyes glittered in imagined triumph. “At last you believe me. It is false that Susan has any part in it. I know it is false. Henry wanted to get rid of you and your friends, not because he was jealous of you, but because you were interfering in his plans to bring about my death.”

They were back where they had started, Giles thought wearily. She was impossible. Nothing could loosen the grip of her obsession.

He got to his feet.

“Henry often goes off for a few weeks at a time,” he said. “You told me so, yourself.”

“But he always leaves a note to say he is going, unless he has told me the day before. He never leaves an address, but he does let us know he is going. This time there was no note. He did not even tell Francine.”

Giles remembered the old woman had said this, as if it were a great outrage.

“Well,” he said. “As Henry isn't here, the less said the better. No good going to the police.”

“The
police
!” she exclaimed.

“Why not? I would do just that in England if anyone tampered with my boat in harbour. But it would be no good here. They wouldn't do anything. Except question the fishing types, who'd say it was my own fault for not putting down enough chain. I couldn't prove I had, and that it had been taken up again, and more besides. Whoever did it was cunning enough to leave it as it might have been when I came in five days ago, just after neaps.”

A thought came to him.

“Will you be asking the police to find Henry for you?”

Her face sagged. She lay back on her pillows, breathing very fast.

“No,” she whispered. “No.” Then rallying herself a little she said urgently, “No! Because I don't want him back. Not ever. If only you would take me away, Giles. Save me … If only …”

She was sobbing and reaching out her arms to him, willing him, forcing him, to share her distress and her fear. But he was utterly wearied; of her, of the whole situation, of his own false position at this moment.

“Go to England, then!” he shouted at her, suddenly losing his temper. “You silly bitch, if you're afraid of Henry, get the hell out of it! There's nothing to stop you. But leave me alone, damn you! I've had enough! I'm leaving the whole bloody business flat, I tell you. Flat.”

His violence did not shock her. She enjoyed it. At last she had roused him. She was satisfied.

“You can't leave me flat, Giles,” she said, with a little giggle at the word. “Go now, my darling. You will follow this thing to the end. I know it. I will face whatever comes, as bravely as I can. Goodbye and God bless you.”

Giles glared at her, speechless, sickened. Then he turned and rushed out of the room.

He was still seething when he reached the hall Susan was there, waiting for him.

“She's stark, staring,” he said. “You'd better get a doctor.”

“He's been. But she wouldn't see him.”

“Oh, God,” he groaned. “That means I can't make you leave this mad-house, I suppose?”

“Not till Henry turns up.”

“Do you think he will?”

“I don't think anything. I just hope.”

“Write to me. I'll be in Morlaix for a day or two, having repairs done on
Shuna
. Write to me every day.”

“Of course I will.”

Giles went back to the yacht. The Marshalls were inclined to make light of the new development.

“I don't blame poor old Henry for vanishing,” Tony said. “He must lead a dog's life with that woman.”

“The point seems to be he always says when he's going away. This time he hasn't. So far.”

“Perhaps he was thinking up another of his traps and he's fallen into it himself,” suggested Phillipa, hopefully.

“She doesn't like Henry,” Tony pointed out.

“He gives me the grues.”

“I just never made him out,” said Giles. “Until today I was quite prepared to take his word for the traps, as we seem to be calling them.”

“You mean that they were set up by village oafs?”

“Yes.”

“That would include people who knew about boats, wouldn't it? There can't be many men or boys in Penguerrec who don't know about boats.”

“Fair enough,” Giles agreed.

Phillipa, who was getting lunch, said, “I know what I'll do. I want one or two stores, so I'll go ashore and have another chat with the grocer's wife. We're great buddies now. I think she likes to unburden herself about the locals. The provincials, she calls them. She was born in Paris. She thinks now that she ought to have settled there, but her parents were very keen on her marrying this grocer. He was a family connection.”

“It sounds unbelievably Victorian,” said Tony, “but I suppose the system still holds good in places.”

“It certainly does. Anyway, I'll have a go at her. She might know something. I suppose it hasn't occurred to either of you two that Miriam might have done away with Henry? That it's been all the other way round, all along?”

“It's an idea,” said Tony, thoughtfully. “Traps made to look as if they were for herself, but …”

“No,” Giles interrupted. “Miriam could never have set the traps. And she's not
pretending
to be afraid. She's half dead with fear.”

“She would be,” said Phillipa, grimly, “until his body turns up and she knows she's succeeded at last.”

“I wonder,” said Tony.

A few hours later Phillipa rowed herself ashore. Neither of the men had any errands in the village, and Giles wanted Tony to help him prepare the boat for sailing. So Phillipa went alone.

There were a number of men on the hard, as usual. They eyed her silently, but did not answer her polite greetings. Nor did they offer to help her pull the dinghy up the hard, beyond reach of the rising tide. She had to manage this alone, and was out of breath by the time she had dragged it beyond the fringe of seaweed and found a ringbolt to tie the painter to. She sat down on the harbour wall for a few minutes to recover.

While she was sitting there a girl came along the road and passed her, going down to the hard to speak to one of the men. Phillipa recognised her as one of the maids from the château. She was in ordinary clothes, and Phillipa did not notice her until she heard her voice speaking to the fisherman. She was then aware that the girl, too, had given her no sign of recognition, or even of interest, when she passed her.

So that was that, thought Phillipa. For some obscure reason the village was hostile. She got off the wall and walked slowly up the hill to the main street with its double row of shops.

The grocer's daughter was serving behind the counter. She greeted Phillipa coolly when the latter produced her list. But her enthusiasm for selling was not repressed. She was eager to serve and to find exactly what madame wanted. Phillipa thought regretfully of her usual shopping expeditions at home, where the girl behind the counter carried on a private conversation with her fellow assistant, and was only able to spare a fraction of her time, and no interest whatever, for the customer. But then, of course, the girls at home were not daughters of the proprietor, and the man in charge of the shop did not own it.

The girl weighed out some coffee beans and began to pour them into a bag.

“I wonder if I might grind them here,” said Phillipa. “Your mother had the kindness to allow me to use her mill the last time I needed some coffee.”

The girl stared, but she went to the back of the shop and called her mother. The latter appeared immediately, and seeing Phillipa, broke into a welcoming smile.

“But of course, madame,” she said. “Come in. My little mill is at your service.”

Phillipa went into the room at the back of the shop. It was a long, low room, with a bare well-scrubbed kitchen table, and a few upright chairs. The old-fashioned kitchen range stretched the length of one wall. Beside it a huge box was filled with the wood that served it for fuel.

The room was very hot, for the fire was alight in the range, and the window, though open, was small. A cloud of flies buzzed about it and crawled on the table. The grocer's wife drove them away with broad sweeps of her hand, as she brought out her coffee mill and sat down.

“You have been in trouble on your sail-boat,” she said. “The men cannot understand it. They thought the English yachtsmen knew how to manage their boats.”

“So we do,” cried Phillipa, indignantly. “Our anchor chain …” Her French did not provide the rest of the explanation. She finished lamely, “Someone made an alteration to it.”

The grocer's wife was puzzled, but polite.

“I do not understand such things,” she said. “But who could have done it?”

“We do not know.”

“You have complained to the police, perhaps?”

“No.”

A look of mingled relief and contempt crossed the woman's face.

“Then it is not serious?”

Again Phillipa was nettled.

“I think it is very serious,” she said. “But there is something else that is serious. Monsieur Davenport has disappeared.”

“
Vraiment
?” said the grocer's wife, calmly.

She filled the top of the coffee mill again with beans and handed it to Phillipa.

“You would like to take a turn,” she said. “My hand is tired.”

She sat back, complacently watching Phillipa, who set the coffee mill between her knees and began to grind.

“It does not surprise you that Monsieur Davenport has disappeared?” Phillipa asked, presently, as the other remained silent.

“I think it is not exactly true.”

“Oh. Why?”

“There has always been a little air of mystery about Monsieur Henri, that is not really true. You understand?”

“No. I'm afraid I don't.”

“It is his wife. She is a little queer—
toquée
—you know.”