The House Above the River (5 page)

“Well, I'm right, aren't I?”

The eyes widened. He felt, against reason, against outraged pride, the old surge of anxious distress for her predicament. Her palpable anxiety flooded into his own being, though he fought against it with all his maturer self.

“I am afraid,” she whispered.

Giles stared at her. She had always exaggerated: she was a prize liar, she loved, and lived for, sensation, however childishly contrived. But in spite of his knowledge of her, his reviving painful memories, he could not help being impressed.

In an impulse to escape from the situation he had begun to move along the landing-stage, level now, as the water had only just begun to go down.

“Help me, Giles,” she went on, her voice rising. “You must help me!”

He had to look back at her. He was too far away to speak comforting words. He could not shout them. It was a ridiculous position; he wanted to laugh, but he could not. That white face, those terrified eyes, stopped mirth. Liar she might be, but there always was, there always had been, he corrected himself, some background to her fantasies. So he walked back again, and stood over her.

“What exactly do you mean?” he asked, in a voice loaded with contempt and unbelief.

Miriam lifted her hand, listening.

“The others,” she said. “Another time.” She added, in a rapid undertone, looking up at him, “You aren't really angry with me, are you, Giles? It seemed a miracle when I saw you from the window. I thought I was saved. I need help. I do need help. You must believe me.”

He did not believe her, but again he felt the dread chill of her anguish, which was real, however imaginary its cause. He had to protect himself against it.

“I'm sorry if you are upset over something,” he said, tritely. “I don't expect it's as bad as you think. But I'm not much use to you, I'm afraid. We are going up river after tea, and on to Lézardrieux tomorrow.”

The rest of the party joined them on the stage. Tony and Phillipa exclaimed in delight at finding the mist entirely gone. Giles was amazed. He had been there for over ten minutes and had not even noticed this simple fact. Miriam had so imposed herself and her mysterious problem upon him that he had been for those minutes quite oblivious of his surroundings. It was uncanny. It was also humiliating and dangerous.

“I wouldn't trust it,” Henry said. “When the fog goes suddenly like this with a change of wind, it usually means bad weather coming in from the Atlantic.”

“It cleared yesterday,” said Tony, “in the afternoon. Just like this.”

“The forecast wasn't too bright this morning, though,” Giles reminded him. “It mentioned a depression. And the glass had gone down several pips when we came ashore.”

Henry was looking down river, towards the hard.

“I see they are making their boats fast to the wall,” he said.

“That means they are expecting a blow. They will not be going out today, even now it has cleared.”

“
Bad
weather?” said Phillipa, incredulously, looking round at the summer scene.

“Well, we'd better get back on board,” Giles said, briskly. “Get the next shipping forecast at one-forty.”

They all said goodbye to the Davenports, thanked them for their hospitality, and went out along the stage. Giles called back, “Don't let Susan be late. We want to start up river between five and six.”

Seeing blank faces he explained, “She's coming along for the trip up to Tréguier.”

Henry nodded and turned away, but Miriam moved towards the dinghy.

“She must have forgotten,” she said, slowly and distinctly. “She promised to drive me to Paimpol this afternoon. I don't drive, unfortunately. I'm afraid she won't be able to come.”

“She
promised
to come!” Giles spoke with a boyish emphasis that made Phillipa smile.

“What a pity,” Miriam answered. Then, with a smile and a wave of her hand she followed her husband into the shelter of the trees.

“Damnation!” said Giles. On the way out to
Shuna
in the dinghy he did not speak another word.

Clouds blew up from the west during the afternoon, putting out the sun. The forecast had been depressing; the fine weather was leaving them. Tony and Phillipa waited for the skipper's word to go up river, but he spent the time on deck, morose and silent, and tea came and went, and still no orders were given.

“I'll have to think about what to make for dinner, if we go on waiting,” suggested Phillipa.

“If we're waiting for Susan to show up, Giles will be disappointed. Mrs. Davenport was about as likely to part with her as a steel trap.”

“She's a queer creature,” said Phillipa. “Odd her turning up at the landing-stage with Giles. She must have beetled down another of their forest paths. On purpose to have him to herself, do you think?”

“Stop building scandal. I'll get the skipper down for a conference.”

Giles went below reluctantly. He still hoped that Susan would come, but he knew that it was an unreasonable hope. Miriam had decided that. She was not going to let the girl enjoy a trip she was not herself invited to share. That was the old Miriam; the selfish, self-absorbed Miriam, who must be at the centre of every project. She had not changed at all, it seemed, in her desires. But was her power undimmed? Could she still impose her will on everyone about her, as she had done in the old days? Was Susan not young enough, and independent enough, in a matter-of-fact, take it for granted, modern fashion, to withstand the emotional tyranny of her cousin's wife? Or would she submit meekly, agree to drive Miriam to Paimpol? A false engagement, surely, invented on the spot, or the girl would have told him of it when he asked her to join them on
Shuna
.

While they discussed what they ought to do, Giles kept going up on deck to see if Susan had arrived on the landing-stage. The tide was coming up again now, but the ladders were still exposed. The mud smelt of stale fish. And no one came there, down the path through the trees. Another hour went by, and another. The Marshalls waited patiently, but Phillipa peeled some potatoes and reviewed her larder. Giles went on deck and stayed there.

“Something's happened to him,” Phillipa said to her husband.

“Several things, seemingly,” Tony agreed.

“He was knocked flat by Susan, for a start. Or as flat as he ever is, which means practically vertical.”

“He'd obviously met Mrs. Davenport before. Extraordinary woman, didn't you think?”

“We agreed on that. It's all rather upsetting. I mean the atmosphere in that house. Susan's Cousin Henry gave me the creeps. So very affable, and really not there at all. It was like talking to a sleep-walker.”

“Don't work it up. Everything was all right until the wife came into the room and the buzzer went off between her and Giles. Incidentally Henry must have noticed. Perhaps that accounts for him being so detached afterwards.”

“Why don't you get Giles to tell you about it? Do him a power of good. And it might clear the air for him over Susan. I have a feeling that particular angle ought to be encouraged.”

“You would,” said her husband. But he took her advice and joined Giles on deck. The latter began to give several very lame excuses for not going up to Tréguier that evening, the chief of them being that they had left it too late to have dinner there. Tony listened in silence and did not hide the fact that he found these explanations unnecessary. He tried to lead the conversation to the Davenports, but Giles was not drawn, and his friend failed to get any interesting details of his more remote past. He knew that Giles was often attracted to women and always professed to despise them. He realised now that his and Phillipa's cheerful curiosity was out of place. The whole thing must be much more serious than they suspected.

He managed to convey this to her before Giles finally joined them below for dinner. She was suitably impressed. The light-hearted holiday mood of the morning had vanished. And their surroundings had changed, too. The mist had not come back, but neither had the sun. The grey sky had turned the trees to a dull heavy midsummer green. The harbour wall and the cottages at Penguerrec were a harsh grey in the evening light. The wind had begun to sing in the rigging, and even where they lay in the river, little white-capped waves, whipped up by it, slapped at
Shuna
's topsides. The shipping forecast had given gale warnings for the whole length of the Channel.

The wind blew harder and harder all night, and by morning
Shuna
was rocking on a heavy swell, rolling in from the sea.

Giles woke early, after a night of many disturbances. Both he and Tony had been up on deck several times in the dark hours, trying to locate and subdue some of the many noises produced by flapping ends of rope and rattling blocks. Even the soft, rubber-protected bump of the dinghy, tied fore and aft alongside, was maddening when endlessly repeated. After he could bear it no longer, Giles went up again, to alter the fenders and secure the warps more tightly. Then he wriggled into his sleeping-bag once more, to drowse fitfully until the grey morning light brought the day at last.

By now the gale was at its height. The three listened in a gloomy silence to the shipping forecast. It gave them no hope of better things for the next twenty-four hours at least. They got up and dressed, and Phillipa made breakfast, surprised to find she was less upset by the movement of the boat now than she had been on the way over from England.

“Sea legs coming along nicely, Pip.” Giles congratulated her. “Bouncing about at anchor, like this, is the ultimate test.”

“I'm fine, so far.”

Giles put his head and shoulders out into the cockpit. There was a choppy little sea all round them. Near the hard at Penguerrec the whole surface of the water was white with spray, while further off, on the other side of the river, he could see great waves breaking over the rocks at Pen Paluch.

“It would probably be more comfortable further up the river,” he said. “And I dare say we could get the anchor up without being blown on the mud. If you're both fed up with hanging about here so long, I'm quite willing to move.”

“Personally,” said Tony, “I'd rather stay put. You told us yourself it was practically impossible to get ashore at Tréguier at low tide. Here we don't have to worry.”

“Fair enough.” On the whole Giles seemed pleased. “Will that suit you, Pip?”

“Yes. Particularly as it's now beginning to rain, and I don't see any fun in standing out in the cockpit, motoring, with water dripping down my neck.”

“How right you are.”

Giles retreated into the cabin, pulling the hatch shut as he did so. The rain, driven by the high wind, beat down on
Shuna
's decks, and against her portholes. Giles moved about below, looking for drips.

“Wonderfully dry boat,” he said, complacently. Tony, who was lying on a bunk, with his feet up, reading, winced as a cold drop hit the top of his head.

“Marvellous,” he said, getting out a handkerchief to mop the spot. He looked up to discover the leak, and received the next drop in his right eye.

“One small drip!” said Giles, indignantly. “I don't think there's much to complain of in that.”

“I haven't complained.”

“Only suffered obviously, which is worse,” said his wife. “Move up, and let me investigate.”

Tony took his book to the opposite bunk.

“It's stopping,” said Phillipa. “The rain, I mean. Not the wind.”

“Yes. I'm afraid the wind is winning at present.”

“What's that?” she said, presently.

“What's what?”

“Someone hailing us, I think.”

Giles pulled the cover of the hatch back a few inches and a cascade of water fell down the companion-way. He swore heartily.

A shout, distinctly heard by all three of them, cut across the singing of the wind.

“It's your new girl-friend, old boy,” said Tony, lazily. “Nice day for a stroll in the woods.”

But Giles was up on deck by now and did not hear him.

Susan was on the landing-stage in a mackintosh coat and hat, and gumboots.

“Hello!” Giles called to her. “What are you doing out on a filthy morning like this?”

She laughed and caught at the ladder of the stage to steady herself.

“Can you hear me?” she called.

“Just about.”

“We want you to come up to the house till the storm blows out.”

“To
stay
, do you mean?”

“Yes. Henry says it'll be two days, at least, before you can move.”

Giles went along the deck towards the dinghy, remembered he had not got oilskins on, and stopped.

“Look,” he shouted. “I'll come across and bring you off here, and we'll talk it over.”

The girl nodded. This was what she had hoped for, having been prevented from seeing
Shuna
the day before.

Giles went below. The rain was nearly over, for the time being, and he had not got very wet. He put on oilskins and sea boots, and took the dinghy rowlocks off the shelf.

“Want any help?” Tony asked, not moving. Giles made a face at him.

“I'll brew some coffee,” said Phillipa. “What does she want, Giles? The visit Mrs. D. baulked her of?”

“By no means. It's an invitation to stay at the château.”

“Is it, indeed?”

But Giles had gone, without answering, and they heard him untying the dinghy, and setting off for the shore.

Susan stood waiting on the stage. She admired the easy way he handled the little boat in the choppy waves of the river. She hoped she would not make any terrible mistakes getting into it, herself. She had no qualms about the trip out to the yacht. Giles was far too competent for that.

With his quiet advice, and the help of a strong hand, she got down into the dinghy neatly, and instinctively, though she knew nothing of boats, settled herself in the centre of the thwart to balance it. Giles noted this with satisfaction. On the rather wet row against the wind and the waves, back to
Shuna
, he admired still further her complete serenity.