The House Above the River (9 page)

This caused a mild sensation. The other women looked up and laughed, and evidently teased the old lady. She got to her feet and came over to the wall.

“You have taken my photograph?” she asked, in a high quavering voice, with a strong Breton accent.

“Yes, madame. You don't mind?”

“With my capotte?”

She touched the crisp wings of her cap. Giles nodded.

“Tiens!” she said, and looked round at the younger women.

“I'll send you a copy,” he promised, “if you give me your address.”

This earned another round of applause and comment, but as no one made any move to give him the address, he began to walk away. He caught up Tony outside the grocer's shop, where the latter was standing, talking to Susan.

“Pip is buying coffee,” Tony said. “She remembered we were running short on the boat. She said she was going to borrow the good lady's coffee mill to grind the beans.”

“She could have used ours,” said Susan.

“She likes chatting with the natives, or trying to, at least. Giles is our prize linguist.”

Phillipa came out of the shop and they all walked back to the house.

“Henry is looked on with great respect,” said Phillipa. “I felt rather grand when the grocer's wife said of course I could grind my coffee in her mill as I was a friend of the
seigneur
at the château.”

“It only goes back to Henry's father, really,” said Susan. “I believe he did a lot for Penguerrec between the wars, though they disapproved of him going to England when the second war started. He never came back, himself. Henry was over several times during the war, with the commandos, but he says the people here never quite forgave the old man for deserting them, as they called it.”

Giles carried Susan's parcels. When they reached the house, he said to her, “I'm going down to open up
Shuna
and dry things out. Coming?”

“I'd love to. I'll just take the shopping to Francine.”

She was back in a few minutes.

“Want any help?” asked Tony. But Phillipa drew him away.

“No. He doesn't. Don't forget to bring off the bathing things, Giles,” she reminded him, as the two went out into the sunlight.

“I'll see he doesn't,” Susan called back, happily.

The river was flowing quietly again, and
Shuna
sat peacefully on its waters, her white, topsides, washed by the rain, gleaming in the sun.

“Isn't she lovely!” Susan exclaimed, as they came out on to the landing-stage.

“She is that, and more,” Giles answered.

When they went aboard they found the rain had made one or two damp patches in the cabin, but on the whole the bunks and bedding did not seem wet. While Susan took the sleeping-bags and blankets on deck, to hang them over the boom in the sun, Giles went over the rigging and ropes, to check any damage the gale might have caused. He found nothing to worry him unduly, and nothing he could not put right, except for a block caught under a halliard at the top of the mast.

“I'll have to wait for that till I get Tony back on board,” he told Susan.

“Why?”

“Because you can't hoist me in the bosun's chair, I'm too heavy, and I can't hoist you, because you don't know what to do when you get there.”

“Can't you tell me?”

He smiled at her.

“Want to go aloft? It's quite a way. Sure you won't get giddy looking down?”

“After looking down that hole in the ground yesterday, hanging by one arm, I should think this will be a picnic.”

He felt sudden concern.

“Your arm? I haven't even asked after it today.”

She laughed.

“It's quite recovered. You'd all have known about it if it hadn't been.”

“All right. You only have to unsnarl that block that won't shake free.”

He got out the bosun's chair, fixed it to the main halliard, told Susan how to sit in it, and how to steady herself against the mast, and began to haul her up. There was a hitch at the first cross-trees, which she negotiated clumsily. But with a few more shouted instructions from Giles, she slipped past the second cross-trees without difficulty, and reached the captive block. She freed it without much difficulty.

“What's it like up there?” Giles called to her.

“Fine. I can just see the chimneys of the house.”

“Want to stay up?”

“Not particularly.”

“Hold on, then. I'll bring you down.”

She let herself slip out of the chair as it came near the deck, and landed neatly on her feet beside him. She was near, very near, her eyes and hair were shining, her cheeks flushed from excitement and the sun. Giles caught her to him, and with their first long kiss felt the sad remains of his regard for Miriam dissolve from his heart for ever.

“What about the bathe?” said Susan, presently.

She was astonished and dizzy with happiness, but she remembered Miriam, and did not know yet that her cousin's wife no longer held any power over Giles.

“Yes.” He was quite glad to come back to earth. Rocket flight had its disadvantages. “You go below and rummage out the bathing suits and towels. I think you'll find them in the lockers at the for'ard end of the cabin. Mine are in a drawer under my bunk, aft. The quarter-berth on the port side.”

She went below, and Giles, having stowed the bosun's chair again, and made up the halliard, went forward to the anchor chain.

“What are you doing now?” Susan asked, putting her head up through the forehatch.

“Letting down some more chain.”

“I heard it rattling. I thought you were weighing anchor. Isn't that what you say? I wondered where we were going.”

He grinned at her.

“Hardly likely to cast loose, without a sail up or the engine on.”

“I suppose not. Why more chain?”

“Because it's coming up to springs. High tides, ten feet at least higher than neaps. That means that at the top of the flood she'll ride ten feet higher from the bottom of the river.”

“I see. Why do the tides do all that? Change, I mean?”

“The moon. You get spring tides with the new moon and the full, and neaps at the half.”

“Every fortnight, then?”

“That's the idea.”

Giles made the anchor chain fast. He and Susan put away the aired bedding below. Then they rowed back to the stage.

They found that the Marshalls had already started for the creek. Francine came into the hall to give them this message.

“Monsieur Henri is working, and begs to be excused,” she went on.

“On a lovely day like this?” Giles exclaimed. “After being cooped up for two days.”

“He took a walk before he went to the library, monsieur.”

“And Madame?” Susan asked.

“Madame is sunbathing, as usual.”

“That'll be at the creek,” the girl explained to Giles. “I told you, she has a favourite spot on the sand. Tony and Pip will find her there.”

But this had not happened. As Giles and Susan came to the outer fringe of the trees above the creek, they met Miriam on her way back.

“I've given up,” she said, in an exhausted voice. “I got as far as this, but my head is quite awful. I'm going back to lie down.”

Susan cried sympathetically, “You poor thing!” But Giles said, “Did you see the others?”

“They've gone on. They are rather annoyed with you for taking so long over fetching the bathing things. They have Henry's shrimp nets. They are going shrimping until you arrive.”

Susan gave her a worried look.

“Shall I come back with you?”

“By no means. Giles would be very angry with me.”

There was a concentrated venom in her voice that made them both recoil and flooded Susan's cheeks with scarlet.

Giles looked stonily at Miriam. She was wearing a big floppy sun hat, and a strapless, skinless, play suit in gay flowered cotton. Her body was tanned an attractive brown, Giles thought, and her face was as lovely as ever. But he rejoiced to find that his immunity held firmly in her presence. He even felt detached enough to pity her.

“I expect it's the sudden swing back in the weather,” he said. “Your headache, I mean.”

“Perhaps,” she answered, quietly enough. “But it is also the things that have happened.” She turned suddenly to Susan and cried passionately, “You should have told me!”

“Told you?”

“That the ground gave way. That you might have been killed!”

Giles said gravely, “How did you find out? Henry asked us not to say anything. He wasn't going to tell you. He thought you'd be too much upset.”

“Isn't it worse not to be told?” Miriam's voice was hoarse with terrified self-pity. “Besides, it is not the sort of thing that can be kept secret. Louis knew, because he helped Henry to fetch the rope, so of course he told the maids, and they told Francine, and she told me.”

She broke off, shutting her eyes and screwing up her face in pain.

“Let me take you back to the house,” urged Susan.

“No! No! You want to bathe. Go and bathe. I won't be a nuisance to anyone. I am used to suffering alone.”

She staggered away with a tragic gait, but they noticed as they watched her, that very soon she changed this for a normal walk, and quite a brisk one at that.

“Poor thing,” sighed Susan. “If only she wouldn't build everything up, so.”

Giles said nothing. They went down to the creek in silence.

The tide was coming in fast, but it had not yet reached the strip of sand near the rocks at the seaward end of the creek. Some whitewashed cottages on the other side of the water were reflected in its smooth blue surface. A few gulls wheeled overhead.

“It looks so peaceful in here,” said Susan.

“And in the river,” Giles agreed. “The wind is taking off all the time. With luck the sea will be down enough to get away tomorrow.”

“In the afternoon?”

“It would have to be. Yes. Or perhaps the next morning, early.”

“You aren't so keen to dash away as you were at first.”

He put out a hand to draw her to him.

“You know who's responsible for that.”

He saw her answering smile change to a look of bewilderment.

“What's wrong?”

She swung round, pointing.

“The notice. Henry's ‘Danger' notice. It's gone!”

“No. It hasn't. I can see it. Tony and Pip were hiding it before they moved on.”

He was pulling her back, but she tore herself away and started to run. He heard her shouting, “Come back, both of you! Come back!”

Not understanding anything but the urgency of her action, he followed. He saw his friends stop, stand still, with their shrimping nets resting on the sand, wave and begin to turn. And then to his horror he saw Tony flounder, heard his yell of astonishment and fear, and saw that he was already up to his knees in the sand. Immediately he understood Susan's action.

“Lie down!” he shouted, as he began to run. “Lie down on the shrimp nets!”

Phillipa, who seemed to be on firm sand, pushed her net back towards her husband. He flung himself forward on to his own, and wriggling desperately, managed to catch hold of hers. By this time Susan had reached them. She and Phillipa, gripping the handle of the net, tugged at it with all their strength. But it was not until Giles reached them, adding his weight to theirs, that Tony began to move. Once his knees were free, his legs came out more easily, and they were able to shuffle back quickly. But Giles would not stop or let Tony get up until they were above tide level.

“We went by the notice,” said Tony, indignantly, when he was once more on his feet, and they had all got back their breath.

Susan nodded. Her face was very white.

“The notice has been moved,” she said.

“
Moved
?”

“It ought to be back there, in line with that fallen tree trunk and the sticking-out rock at the edge of the sand. The other side of that line is safe. This side is not. I mean, below the water-line.”

“Quicksand,” said Pip. She was still trembling with shock.

“Henry said something about no one being able to get to the tunnel's mouth by land. Only by sea.”

Giles nodded. “So that was what he meant.”

“Yes.”

“It hasn't been moved far,” Susan pointed out. “I shouldn't have noticed it, I think, if you two hadn't moved in front of it when I was looking at you. Then I saw it was the wrong side of the rock.”

“If you feel all right,” Giles said quietly to Tony, “I suggest we get back to the safe side of the line and have our bathe.”

“I'm all for it,” he answered. “That was mud under the sand, and stinking mud at that. I'd like to wash it off.”

They enjoyed their bathe, though none of them went out very far, nor did they attempt to put their feet down once they had taken to the water, though Susan assured them that the beach shelved steeply and they were safely out of their depth almost at once, and well above the treacherous mud.

As they were walking up through the wood afterwards, Giles went ahead with Tony.

“Did you happen to see Miriam on the beach?” he asked him.

“Yes. She was down there when we arrived.”

“Sunbathing?”

“No. Standing at the edge of the trees. She waved, and we went up to speak to her. She was all dressed up for the beach, but she didn't stay.”

“No. We met her, too. She had a raging headache, she said, and was going back to the house.”

“I see.”

As they walked up the last sweep of the drive, they saw Henry, sitting in a deck chair in the sun.

“The work must have gone sour on him,” said Giles.

“Or he may have finished his stint for the day.”

They went up to him.

“Enjoyed your bathe?” asked Henry.

They began to tell him what had happened. Before they had finished, Susan and Phillipa came up and Miriam appeared from the house. She had put on a skirt that matched her beach suit, and also a bolero, with short sleeves. Giles finished his account of the mishap.