Appleby's End (6 page)

“Swim,” said Appleby soberly. “It's only a few yards. But there's an altogether surprising volume of water coming down.”

“Better wait.” For a moment Judith took charge. “There's a sharp bend. We'll probably be washed on the bank. Here it is.”

The moon had disappeared again and they could judge of their situation only from the movement of their queer craft. It had tilted sharply on its side, so that the open door banged to; but now it had returned to an even keel and its motion was difficult to judge. They waited for some seconds. “It certainly hasn't grounded,” Appleby said. “What happens after the bend?”

“Oh, then you come into the river.”

“The river!”

“The Dream. It gets quite broad here. Hullo, here's the moon.”

Once more Appleby peered out. They had made better speed than he had guessed, and the prospect around him was extremely disconcerting. Instead of a narrow and turbulent stream with banks only a few yards distant on either hand there was now a great expanse of water, smooth, slow-moving, and argent under the moon. “It's absolutely grotesque!” Appleby said. “We might be on the Volga.”

“Of course there isn't much of it like this. It narrows again about a mile down.” Judith was looking calmly out of the other window. “Why don't we sink?”

“Heaven knows. But the sooner you and I stop being inside passengers the better. It's either swim straight away or climb to the roof. If the first, get some of your clothes off; if the second, not.”

“We'll try the roof. Swing the door open and see if we can climb by that.” Judith Raven was perfectly collected in this strange situation. “And as for clothes, a wet skirt's likely to be a nuisance in any case.” With surprising speed she divested herself of this garment. “You first.”

Without great difficulty Appleby got on the roof and hauled Judith up. They lay for a moment panting heavily – and their panting brought home to them how utterly still was everything around. Not a lap or ripple of sound came from the fantastic forepeak of their vessel, and all about them was the oddly noticeable silence that belongs to falling snow. “I say,” said Appleby, “do you think your people are still hollering at each other across that ford?”

“Sure to be. But we've got right away from them – and all chance of dinner. I think it's rather restful – like the cinema before they invented all that nasty noise.” Judith laughed softly. “By the way – did Dr Johnson say anything useful about travelling like this?”

“It's more the sort of thing favoured by Shelley. Fantastic voyages in unlikely craft. Occasionally we shall meet a serpent or an eagle. And most of the voyage will be through a system of underground caverns. These tell us much about the psychotic condition of the poet.” Appleby was staring warily ahead down the glimmering river. “And I may say that you yourself are quite in the picture – providing we regard you as a personification of Hope, or Art, or Liberty. Only you ought to be dressed in something filmy and transpicuous.”

“I don't think I like Shelley as much as Dr Johnson. And my dress is not at the moment a suitable subject for conversation.” Judith stretched out her silk-clad legs in a sort of ironic exhibitionism. Then, finding this rather chilly, she hunched her knees up to her chin and clasped them in her arms. “Now if this were August,” she said, “it would be altogether romantic. I should look back and dream of my wonderful policeman. Our delights, I should recall, were dolphin-like. But his conduct was irreproachable and his conversation uniformly improving.” She sneezed violently. “As it is, I would swop you without a moment's hesitation for a bowl of hot soup.”

“And if the temptation came, I don't say I wouldn't part with you for a decent cigarette.” Appleby fumbled in an inside pocket. “Hullo, here are some, as a matter of fact. And quite dry. Matches too.”

They smoked – and for two people who had met only an hour before felt most companionably inclined. The glow from her burning cigarette outlined Judith's nose. Was it indeed by some millimetres too long? Undoubtedly she was a creature beautifully made – and for Appleby there was particular attraction in some enigmatic quality to her mind. She was looking at him now with a concentration that might – as in the railway carriage – be aesthetic and speak of her profession. The problem, conceivably, was how to modify the ears or relate the forehead to the plane of the jaw. Or was it some entirely different speculation that now occupied her mind?

The river was narrowing again. Now etched in moonlight, and now altogether shadowy and obscure, there floated by on either hand delicate alders and stout, gesticulating elms. Willows, pollarded and rime-covered, overhung the river like frozen cascades; and presently a line of poplars, aloof and towering, cast great bars of shadow obliquely across the water on which snow still softly fell. The carriage as it floated smoothly through this wintry nocturne rotated slowly on its axis, so that the whole scene was like a chill kaleidoscope in white and black and silver and grey. Appleby found it increasingly difficult to look out for snags in the water. “If this roundabout-business gains momentum,” he said, “we shall presently be spinning like flies on a top. A pity there seems to be nobody abroad at this hour. We should become a legend that would cling about the countryside for generations, don't you think?”

Judith shook her head. “Quite enough legends already.” She waved her hand in a gesture embracing both banks. “All this is the Raven country still, you know.”

“Is it, indeed?” said Appleby – in the respectful tones in which the English commonly acknowledge such territorial statements. “Then you can't all be so overwhelming a burden on your cousin Everard's resources.”

“My dear man, I don't mean we
own
it. All Everard has left is a chunk of park and a couple of hummocky farms. I mean this is the country Ranulph wrote about. Hardy's Wessex, Trollope's Barsetshire, Ranulph Raven's Dream country. See?”

“I see. And did Ranulph create the legends, or just find them lying about?”

“It rather seems as if he grubbed them up. Anything with lurid possibilities that happened within twenty miles about he would ferret out and add knobs to.”

“What a dismal trade.” Appleby spoke with distaste. “Did Ranulph write about nothing but crimes?”

“Anything melodramatic served. Long-lost heirs and missing wills and Eastern drugs and somnambulism – stuff hopelessly
vieux jeu
now, but it went down well enough at the time. Particularly somnambulism. It's unbelievable the number of queer things that happen in sleep in Ranulph's world. And he liked the supernatural – or the supernatural and water. For instance, I remember one story called
The Spectral Hound
. It's about some great brute that's suspected of having rabies and is hanged. Everybody sees it hanged in a barn. But its ghost turns up at night and haunts the place, and presently all the other dogs round about go rabid too. Well, a ghostly bow-wow handing round hydrophobia is a bit too steep, so they investigate and discover that the creature had been buried in a dung-hill. The warmth and ferment had revived it.”

“Resuscitation. Your cousin Everard should make a note of it. But I don't think it sounds a very entertaining story.”

“Oh, I don't know.” Judith seemed inclined to stick up for the family genius. “That sort of thing depends very much on how it's told.” She threw away her cigarette. “But I think this tell-me-a-story idea is falling a bit flat. I vote we swim. There's a five-mile walk in front of us already.”

“And through what appears to be completely empty country. Doesn't anybody live round here?” Appleby found himself speaking rather as if the paucity of the rural population was a personal grievance. “Were they all despatched by the mad dogs?” His glance returned from the snow-covered countryside to the river bank. “By Jove, we're drifting straight inshore.”

The river had widened again at a broad bend, and towards the outer perimeter of this, where the bank was low and the water probably deep, the current was steadily driving them. It looked as if in a few seconds a jump would be possible. “Come on,” said Appleby, “we'll make that dinner yet.” He pulled Judith to her feet, so that they stood unsteadily on the curved roof of the carriage. “When I say jump, jump.”

“Don't be silly. I shall jump when I think it's a good idea myself.” Judith was taking off her shoes. “And if it's me who falls in–”

They both jumped in safety. Appleby, rolling over and sitting up in the snow, was in time to see the Raven carriage veering out towards mid-stream. Then he turned to Judith; she was standing on one leg, slipping on a shoe again. “Look here,” he said, “where the deuce is your coat?”

“Left it on board. Too heavy and flappy to risk jumping in.”

Appleby took off his overcoat. “Here,” he said, “put it on.”

Judith shook her head. “If you turn out to be the chivalrous type of policeman I shall bite.”

“Put it on.”

“Nonsense. Once I get walking briskly–”

“Do you think that I propose to be found roaming the countryside with a – a disrobed girl? Put it on and let's tramp, for the Lord's sake. Why I didn't choose Brettingham What's-his-name's pigs–”

They tramped – uncertainly up a long snow-covered selion through ploughland. They climbed a gate and were in what was probably a green-bottomed lane between hawthorn hedges. They trudged down this. “Take it back about the pigs,” Judith said. “Take it back and I'll give you some chocolate.”

They munched chocolate. “I suppose you can find your way?” Appleby said.

“Of course. At least, I think so. The country certainly is oddly unfamiliar by moonlight.”

“Will it be better in the dark? For there isn't going to be much more moon. But at least there's going to be no shortage of snow.” Appleby halted suddenly. “On the other hand, there's rather an absence of hedge.”

Judith stopped. “What do you mean?”

“Aren't we meant to be walking between hedges? Well, they've gone.” Cautiously Appleby explored a dozen paces around them. “Clean vanished. We're standing in the middle of nothing.”

“Oh, dear! We must have got out on the down.”

“No doubt. There's a perceptible slope. Would you like to slither or climb?”

“Better slither. More shelter down below – and most of the lanes are on the low ground. I've no doubt we'll come to a cottage presently, and they'll put us right.”

They slithered. “Murcott's Farm,” said Appleby darkly. “Or young Shrubsole, or the Sturrock family at Great Tew.” The snow was driving suffocatingly against them; it was like poking their noses into a strangely icy feather bed.

“I don't know what you're talking about.” Judith expended breath that would have been better kept to contend with the elements. “I think this is a perfectly idiotic exploit. Gosh! – there's a house. Down there on your left.”

Again Appleby explored – and the effort took him through a snowdrift. “There's a fence,” he reported, “which is something. But it's not a house. It's a haystack. I suppose that means there must be a house of sorts near. We'll follow the fence.”

But Judith didn't budge. “I say,” she said. “I've been told that haystacks are most frightfully snug. Escaping prisoners always sleep in them.”

“No doubt. But we're not escaping prisoners. Come along.”

“One takes off one's wet clothes and burrows in. At first it's extremely prickly. But presently a delicious warmth–”

“I don't believe a word of it.”

“–a delicious warmth steals through one's every limb. Come on. Let's try.” Judith was climbing the fence.

Appleby followed. He had the impression that Judith was discarding further garments and he played his last card. “There'll be rats,” he said.

“Rats.”

“Yes – rats. Place teeming with them.”

“And I said rats.” Judith was laughing in the darkness. “I believe you consider it improper. No doubt a policeman–” She stopped suddenly. “But I can't get
in!
” she cried indignantly. “It's like a brick wall.”

“Naturally. Think of the weight. You could get in only near the top. So put that coat on like a good girl and–”

“But I've found a ladder!” Judith was triumphant. “And I've no doubt the rats will stick to the lower storeys. I'm climbing.” Her voice came from somewhere above his head. “Shall I draw it up after me?”

“Leave it where it is,” Appleby said.

 

 

Were the Assistant Commissioner to hear of all this, Appleby's End would be an affair of a shattered reputation. But of the merits of hay there could be no doubt. The escaping prisoners were entirely right. For some time Appleby had been deliciously warm. Had he even, perhaps, been asleep? He rubbed his eyes.

Not that it would really do to settle in for the night. Their predicament next morning would be highly ridiculous, for they would have to emerge from their burrow and confront a zealous countryside already preparing to comb the downs and drag the river. Moreover – and Appleby looked at the luminous dial of his watch – although their adventures appeared to have occupied aeons of time and compassed a considerable area of the earth, the home of the Ravens could not really be very remote, and the night was still comparatively young. Some species of dinner or supper remained a possibility, as did a night's repose between sheets securely walled off, for a time, from this impetuous girl. “We'll start again in an hour,” Appleby said into the darkness. “Quite likely there'll be a bit of moon again by then.”

“I'm not going.”

“I think we'd better. It would be awkward to wait till daylight and be found by the bull.”