The House by the River Part 8

"When he came down he said all was well--or fairly so--and he'd come again this evening. I'm expecting him now." Then with sudden energy, "I wish to G.o.d he'd come.... Is that _him_?" Stephen stopped and listened.

John listened. There was no sound.

"But we mustn't waste time--half-past eight now--tide turning in a moment." He leaned forward now, and began to speak with a jerky, almost incoherent haste, telescoping his words.

"When he'd gone I dashed down to the boat ... could still see the--the thing in the distance--going round the bend ... thought I'd catch it easily, but the engine wouldn't start--of COURSE! Took me half an hour ... starved for petrol, I think...." He stopped for a moment, as if still speculating on the precise malady of the engine.

"When I _did_ get away ... went like a bird ... nearly up to Kew ... but not a sign of the--the sack ... looked everywhere ... couldn't wait any longer ... I _had_ to get back ... only just back now ... against the tide. John, will _you_ go out now?... for G.o.d's sake, go ... take the boat and just patrol about ... slack water now ... tide turns in about ten minutes ... the d.a.m.ned thing _must_ come down ... unless it's stuck somewhere ... you must go, John. We must get hold of it tonight ...

tonight ... or they'll find it in the morning. And, John," he added, as a hideous afterthought, his voice rising to a kind of hysterical shriek, "there's a label on the sack--with my name and address--I remembered yesterday."

"But ... but ..." began John.

"Quick!... I've got to get back." Stephen stood up. "G.o.d knows what they think of me at home as it is.... Say you'll go, John--_here's_ the key of the boat ... she'll start at once now.... It's a thousand to one chance, but it's worth it.... And if you're not quick it'll go past again."

Something of his old masterfulness was coming back with his excitement.

But when John still hesitated, his slow mouth framing the beginnings of objection, the hunted look came upon Stephen again.

"John, for G.o.d's sake!" he said, with a low, pleading note. "I'm about done, old man ... what with Margery and--and ... but there's still a chance ... John!"

The wretched John was melted again. He left his objections to the preposterous proposal unspoken. He put his hand affectionately on the other's shoulder.

"It's all right, Stephen.... I'll manage it somehow ... don't you worry, old boy.... I'll manage it."

"Thank G.o.d! I'll go now, John.... I'll come down when I hear you come back.... I _must_ go...."

Together they hurried down the stairs, and John found himself suddenly alone at the end of his garden in an old mackintosh, bemused and incredulous.

The rain had come, a hot, persistent, sibilant rain, and already it had brought the dark. The river was a shadowy mosaic of small splashes. The lights of Barnes showed mistily across the river, like lamps in a photograph. The tide was gathering momentum for the ebb; a ma.s.s of leaves and dead branches floated sluggishly past under the wall.

John was in the boat, fiddling stupidly at the engine, glistening and splas.h.i.+ng in the rain, before he had thought at all what exactly he was going to do to discharge his fantastic undertaking. The engine started miraculously. John cast off and the boat headed doggedly up against the tide, John peering anxiously from side to side at the rain-speckled water.

The engine roared and clattered; the boat vibrated, quivering all over; the oars and boathook rattled ceaselessly against the side of the boat--a hollow, monotonous rattle; the exhaust snorted rhythmically astern. The rain splashed and pattered on the engine and on the thwarts, and rolled with a luxurious swis.h.i.+ng sound in the bottom. The fly-wheel of the engine revolved like a Catherine-wheel composed of water--water flying in brief tangents from the rim. John had come out without a hat, and his hair was matted and black; the river splashed on his neck and trickled slowly under his collar.

It was a heavy task, this, for one man with two hands to attempt, to s.h.i.+eld the engine and himself with the same mackintosh, extending it like a wing with one arm over the fly-wheel, and to oil occasionally with an oil-can the mechanism of the pump, to regulate the oil-feed and the water-supply, and do all those little attentions without which the engine usually stopped; and at the same time to steer the boat, and look in the river for the floating body of a dead woman in a sack. It was madness. In that watery dusk his chances of seeing an obscure sack seemed ludicrously small. And what was he to do with it when he had found it? How should he dispose of it more effectually than it had been disposed of before? John did not know.

But the boat rattled and gurgled along, past the Island, and past the ferry, till they were level with the brewery, by the bend. The bend here made at one side a large stretch of slack water where the tide moved hardly at all. By the other bank the tide raced narrowly down. Here, John thought, was the place for his purpose. So for a long hour he steered the boat back and forth from bank to bank, peering intensely through the rain. Sometimes he saw a log or a basket or a broken bottle scurrying dimly past and chased it with a wild hope downstream. Once he made sure that he had found what he had sought--a light object floating high out of the water; this he followed half-way down the Island. And when he found it it was a dead cat--a light-coloured cat. "The yellow cat," he thought. Once, as he headed obliquely across the river, boathook in hand, a black invisible police-boat shot surprisingly across his bows. A curse came out of the gloom and a lamp was flashed at him.

The police-boat put about and worked back alongside; a heavy man in a cape asked him what the h.e.l.l he was doing, charging about without a light. John might have asked the same question, but he was too frightened. He apologized and said he had let go of the rudder line to do something to the engine. The policemen went on again, growling.

Then the tugs began to come down, very comforting and friendly, their lights gliding mistily through the wet. John had to be careful then, and creep upstream along the bank while their long lines of barges swung ponderously round the corner. And how could he be sure that Emily was not slipping past him in mid-stream, as he did so? It was hopeless, this.

The wind got up--a chilly wind from the East. He was cold and clammy and terribly alone. The rain had crept under his s.h.i.+rt and up his sleeves; his trousers hung about his ankles, heavy with rain. He wanted to go home; he wanted to get out of the horrible wet boat; he was tired.

But he had promised. Stephen was his best friend, and Stephen had appealed to him. He had done a bad thing, but he was still Stephen.

And he, John, was mixed up in it now. If Emily was found at Putney in the morning, his own story would have to be told. Not a good story, either, whatever his motives had been. What _had_ his motives been?

Margery Byrne, chiefly, of course. Well, she was still a motive--very much so.

But how futile the whole thing was, how wet and miserable and vile! It must have been something like this in the trenches, only worse. What was that going past? A bottle, a Ba.s.s bottle with a screw stopper, bobbing about like an old man walking. Ha-ha! What would he do when he found Emily? What the devil would he do? Sink her again? But he had no anchor now--nothing. Put her ash.o.r.e on the Island? But somebody would find her.

Take her out of the sack--the incriminating sack? If she was found by herself, a mere body, in a night-dress.... In a night-dress? The night-dress wouldn't do. She mustn't be found in a night-dress. He would have to get rid of that too--that and the sack. Then any one might find her, and it would be a mystery. And Stephen's stories ... Stephen's stories about her levity and light conduct--they would come in useful.

People like Mrs. Bantam would quite understand, now they knew what sort of person Emily had been. John realized with a sudden shame that he was feeling glad that Stephen had said those things.

But how would he be able to do it? How could he take her out of the sack, out of the night-dress, and throw her back? How could he do it?

and where? Once, long ago, he had come upon a big sack drifting in the evening. It was full of kindlewood, little penny packets of kindlewood, tied up with string. He remembered the weight of it, impossible to lift into the boat. He had towed it home, very slowly. He would have to tow Emily--land somewhere. She would be clammy--and slippery--and disgusting. He couldn't do it. But he _must_. The engine stopped.

The engine stopped, mysteriously, abruptly. The boat slid sideways down the river. John pulled her head round with a paddle and fiddled gingerly with the hot engine. The rain fell upon it and sizzled. He turned vaguely a number of taps, fingered the electric wires; all was apparently well. He heaved at the starting-handle, patiently at first, then rapidly, then with a violent fury. Nothing happened. The boat slid along, turning sideways stupidly in the wind. They were almost level with The House by the River.

It was no good. John took the paddle and worked her laboriously across the tide. He had done his best, he felt. The rain had stopped.

When he came to the wooden steps the lights were on in Stephen's dining-room, in Stephen's drawing-room. And against the light he saw a head, motionless above the wall. The tide was a long way down now, faintly was.h.i.+ng the bottom of the wall.

A hoa.r.s.e whisper came over the water:

"John--John--any luck?"

"None, Stephen, I'm sorry." John's voice was curiously soft and compa.s.sionate.

There was silence. Then there came a kind of hysterical cackle, and Stephen's voice, "John, it's--it's a boy!"

John stood up in the boat and began, "Congratulations, old ..."

There was another cackle, and the head was gone.

VII

Stephen Michael Hilary Byrne had given his mother the maximum of trouble that Friday evening; and on Sunday morning she was still too feeble and ill to appreciate his beauty. Old Dr. Browning was less cheerful than Stephen had ever seen him. He shook his head almost grimly as he squeezed his square frame into his diminutive car.

Stephen went back disconsolately into the warm garden. He had seen Margery for a moment, and she had whispered weakly, "You go out in your boat, my dear," and then something about "a lovely morning ... I'm all right." Also he had seen his son and tried hard to imagine that he was two years old, a legitimate object for enthusiasm. He had helped Joan to feed her rabbits and swept the garden and tidied things in the summer-house. But he had done all these things with an anxious eye on the full and falling river. And already he had had several shocks.

Now he felt that he could not leave the river, not at least while the tide was up and there was all this muddle of flotsam quivering past.

Usually, on Sunday mornings he sat in his sunny window writing, with the birds bickering in the creeper outside and the lazy sounds of Sunday morning floating up from the river. Sunday morning along The Chase was an irreligious but peaceful occasion. The people of The Chase strolled luxuriously in the hot sun from door to door, watching their neighbours'

children depart with fussy pomp upon their walks. Babies slept interminably in huge prams under the trees. The old houses looked very gracious and friendly with the wistaria and ivy and countless kinds of green things scrambling about the rickety balconies and wandering through the open windows. Strangers walked in quiet couples along the path and admired the red roofs and the quaint bra.s.s knockers on the doors and the nice old names of the houses and the nice old ladies purring sleepily inside. Out on the river the owners of the anch.o.r.ed boats prepared them happily for action, setting sails and oiling engines and hauling laboriously at anchors. Two white cutters moved delicately about in the almost imperceptible breeze. Strenuous eights and fours and pairs went rhythmically up and down. The hoa.r.s.e adjurations of their trainers came over the water with startling clearness. Single scullers, contemptuously independent, shot by like large water-beetles in slim skiffs. On the far towpath the idle people streamed blissfully along, marvelling at the gratuitous exertions of the oarsmen. Down the river there was a mult.i.tude of small boys bathing from a raft, with much splas.h.i.+ng and shrill cries. Their bodies shone like polished metal in the distance. There were no tugs on Sundays, but at intervals a river-steamer plodded up towards Kew, a congested muddle of straw hats and blouses. Sometimes a piano tinkled in the stern, sounding almost beautiful across the water.

On all these vulgar and suburban and irreligious people the June sun looked down with a great kindness and warmth; and they were happy. And Stephen, as a rule, was happy at Hammersmith on Sunday mornings. He thought with repugnance of Sunday morning in Kensington, of stiff clothes in the High Street and the shuttered faces of large drapery stores; he thought with pity even of the promenaders in Hyde Park, unable to see the trees for the people, unable to look at the sky because of their collars. He loved the air and openness and pleasant vulgar variety of Sunday morning at Hammersmith. Here at least it was a day of naturalness and rest. On any other Sunday, if the tide served, he would have slipped out after breakfast in his boat to gather firewood for the winter. Just now there was a wealth of driftwood in the river, swept off wharves by the spring tides or flung away by bargees--wedges and small logs and box-wood and beams and huge stakes, and delicious planks covered with tar. Any one who had a boat went wood-hunting on the river.

He had a mind to go now. But it would look so odd, with his wife dangerously ill indoors, though she herself had told him to do it. But then that was like her. He must not go unless he had to--unless he saw something.... All Sat.u.r.day while the tide was up he had furtively watched from window or garden, and seen nothing. Perhaps he had made a mistake on Friday.

No. He had made no mistake. Emily Gaunt was drifting somewhere in this d.a.m.nably public river. Unless she was already found, already lying in a mortuary. And if she was--

Stephen looked enviously at the happy crowds on the towpath, on the steamers, in the boats. A heavy sculling-boat pa.s.sed close to the wall.

It seemed almost to overflow with young men and women. All of them gazed curiously at him, muttering comments on his appearance. Their easy laughter annoyed him. He went indoors.

He sat down automatically at his table in the window, and took out of a pigeon-hole a crumpled bundle of scribbled paper. It was the beginning of a long poem. He had begun it--when? Two--three weeks ago. Before Emily. He read through what he had written, and thought it bad--weak, flabby, uneven stuff--as it stood. But it was a good idea, and he could do it justice, he was sure, if he persevered. But not now. Just now he was incapable. Since Emily's night he had not written a line of poetry; he had only tried once. Not because of his conscience--it was the anxiety, the worry. He could not concentrate.

A bell rang below, and he wondered if it was John Egerton. There was the sound of conversation in the hall, Cook's voice and the voice of a man, powerful and low. Then Cook lumbered up the stairs.

"If you please, sir, there's a man brought the sack back what Mr.

Egerton took, as used to 'ang in the scullery, and 'e'd like to see you."