Ashenden (24 page)

“How dashing you look, Letitia,” said Jimmy, rising to his feet. It was no more than the truth, but he would have said it anyway.

“You are too kind,” Mrs. Carrington said. “In view of our excursion today, I thought I’d dress accordingly.”

Bradshaw looked up from his newspaper and smiled. In his experience, few actresses could resist the opportunity to play to an audience, whether they were still on the stage or not. He wondered whether anyone now remembered the costume Mrs. Carrington had worn back in the days when she was performing, the skimpy white robes, the goose-feather wings that sprang from angular shoulder blades that were like wings in themselves. (Bradshaw had arrived in England long after those celebrated appearances but had turned up a picture postcard of “Miss Letty Lee, the Cockney Seraph” on a barrow in Farringdon Market on a wet March morning soon after he had met her. Although the postcard was over ten years old, he had been mildly shocked at its casual indecency.)

“What is the excursion?” said Koenig.

“We are going on the river,” said Mrs. Carrington, who was heartily looking forward to it. She had been somewhat disappointed
the previous night when no footsteps made their way to her door. Jimmy was highly amusing and she missed male company.

“I thought we’d motor down to Caversham late morning and make our way back at our leisure,” Jimmy said to her.

Mrs. Carrington buttered a slice of toast. “That sounds like a charming day out.”

“Yes,” said Koenig, gazing round at the table. “A river trip would be most pleasant.”

The Germans girls agreed, with great enthusiasm.

“Oh, I am sorry,” said Jimmy. “But I have made arrangements at the boatyard only for myself and Mrs. Carrington. Quite a small boat, you see. I thought the rest of you might enjoy exploring the grounds while we’re gone. Plenty to do.”

“But surely we could hire another boat?” said Koenig.

“There may not be another boat,” said Jimmy.

“Ha,” said Koenig. “That is funny. There is bound to be another boat at a boatyard.”

Across the table, Mrs. Carrington caught Jimmy’s eye and smiled ruefully. “Shall I see Cook about the picnic?” she said. “We’ll need more food.”

This assumption of a wifely duty pleased Jimmy sufficiently to give him hope that the outing might still turn out well.

*  *  *

The boatyard occupied a quiet inlet downstream of the lock at the end of a muddy lane. Flat-bottomed punts, skiffs, outrigger canoes, and pleasure craft in varying states of repair and riverworthiness were tied up to mossy landing stages, bobbing at their moorings in water the color of strong tea. Seas, thought Jimmy, smelled mineral, rivers vegetable. From somewhere came the sound of banging, the hard metallic ring of hammer against nail. As he neared the yard, striding out in advance of the others, a man in oil-stained clothing clutching a tin mug emerged from the long, low shed that crouched on the bank.

“Hello there,” said Jimmy. “I’ve a booking. May I speak with the proprietor?”

The man took his time to approach. “That’ll be me, sir.” He pointed to a small slipper launch. “And that’ll be yours. Just the two of you, if I remember rightly.”

“I’m afraid there’s been a slight change of plan,” said Jimmy, as the others came down the lane. “There seem to be seven of us now. We’re going to need another boat.”

“That won’t be a problem,” said the proprietor.

“Are you certain?” said Jimmy, his heart sinking. He’d hoped there would be a problem.

“It hasn’t been the best summer for hirings, to be honest.” A youth of about eighteen or so came out of the shed. “Peter!” shouted the proprietor, waving. “Is
Mirabelle
ashed out?”

“Done her last week.” The boy approached. He was barefoot and had hair like fine coils of spun metal.

“Good lad. Come with me, sir.”

The proprietor walked Jimmy round to a launch moored at the far end. Made of varnished teak with a canvas awning raised like a flat lid over the middle seats, it had “Mirabelle” painted on the stern in gold letters outlined in black.

“She’ll take twelve, with room to spare.” The proprietor was gazing at
Mirabelle
as if he might marry her one day. “Almost brand-new. Two-foot draft, so you’ll glide through the shallows. Bellis and Co. compound condensing engine and they don’t come finer. Birmingham-made.”

“I had rather been thinking of
two
boats,” said Jimmy.

“Two boats?” said the proprietor. “But you’ll all fit in this one.”

“So we will,” said Koenig, who had come up to join them. “Won’t we, Mrs. Carrington?”

All of them were there now. Mrs. Carrington shrugged and gave Jimmy another rueful smile. Koenig, who was carrying one of the hampers, got into the boat. Paul Lyell, who was carrying the other, followed him. They settled themselves in the stern.

“You’ll need a skipper for the day,” the proprietor was saying. “These engines have a lot of power to them. We don’t go in for drowning parties at this boatyard, sir. Not like some I could mention. Peter?”

“Right you are, Mr. Benn,” said Peter, stepping on deck.

Anyone else while we’re at it? thought Jimmy. Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all?

The proprietor turned to Jimmy. “Don’t be fooled by his age. There’s nothing Peter Wells doesn’t know about engines. Or about this river, come to that.”

“Upstream or downstream, sir?” said the boy, uncoiling the rope.

“I was planning to picnic at Maple Durham,” said Jimmy, thinking regretfully of the willow-shaded bank and the crowd that would now shelter there.

“Upstream, then.”

*  *  *

“Never mind,” said Mrs. Carrington to Jimmy as they puttered out of the inlet. At least they were sitting next to each other, although that had been touch and go for a while. She patted his sleeve. “We’ll have a lovely day and then there’s always the evening to look forward to.” And the night, she thought, resolving to make better use of it this time.

And the night, thought Jimmy, shifting his leg closer to her skirts and feeling what he was certain was an answering pressure in return. Across the boat, Bradshaw was chatting to the German girls, and Jimmy took the opportunity to launch into a steady stream of flattery, beginning with the daintiness of Mrs. Carrington’s feet and proceeding upwards. He had to admit, it all went down very well.

After Caversham Lock they passed a walled enclosure for bathers, beyond which loomed the tall chimneys of big brick factories, hedged by a monotonous pattern of low terraced streets blackened by soot. A couple of boys on the broad towpath halfheartedly threw stones in their direction, which plopped in the water some yards shy of their intended target.

“What is this town?” said Koenig.

“Reading,” Jimmy said, raising his voice over the turn of the screw. “I’m afraid the river is rather dismal around here. It improves past the next bridge, I’m happy to say.”

“I have heard of Reading Gaol,” said Maus. “Oscar Wilde was imprisoned there.”

“He was,” said Bradshaw.

Mrs. Carrington, whose eyes had just been compared to heavenly stars—“so pellucid!”—favored Jimmy with a lingering glance from them. She hadn’t felt so happy, so cherished, since her husband died.

Above Caversham Bridge, a sturdy structure of iron girders and pillars, the water was broad and deep, free of weeds. A trim modern boathouse perched on the Oxfordshire bank, surrounded by an old, well-established garden with rose pergolas and shaded walkways which rose to high ground planted by firs. As they skirted an eyot, the river now running strong and fast, a train sped past close to the bank, then dived down into a deep cutting, out of sight but not out of hearing.

Things were progressing very nicely, thought Jimmy, who allowed himself a little daydream of a future life in which he was married to the grateful Mrs. Carrington (she was over forty, after all, the age when women ought to be grateful for any attention), he had her money to spend, and there was a little popsy tucked away somewhere.

“What is that, Jimmy?” said Mrs. Carrington, pointing at a clumsy-looking vessel moored on the far bank. “Is it a dredger?”

“It’s a horse boat. The towpath changes sides round here and they need to ferry them across for the barges.”

“Why does the towpath change sides?” said Koenig.

“Because the people who own these stretches of riverbank can’t agree over the rights of way. They’re always falling out.”

“Falling out?” said Koenig. “You mean falling in.”

“No,” said Jimmy, with one of his sudden laughs. “Falling in is what you would do if someone pushed you overboard.” Which was not a bad idea.

A bend in the river took them away from the railway line. Then farther along they came into a tranquil reach overhung by a whispering, shushing green vault of spreading branches. Wood pigeons
cooed and small insects flew at their mouths. Beneath the clear water, where ducks paddled, weeds furled and unfurled like streamers as the launch puttered through.

The German girls trailed their hands in the water.

“Ah,” said Mrs. Carrington, turning her veiled face into the breeze. “How glorious.”

“What a marvelous figurehead you’d make, Letitia,” said Jimmy. “You’ve the profile of the Venus de Milo. I’ve always thought so.”

Mrs. Carrington laughed and struck a pose.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “I can see you now at the prow of a ship.”

“The
Hesperus,
I daresay.”

“Oh, my dear, no. The
Golden Hind,
or Nelson’s
Victory
at the very least.”

Bradshaw, who was by nature, profession, and inclination an observer, a listener, half closed his eyes. At breakfast he had thought Mrs. Carrington was playing a part; now he was not so sure. He was very fond of her, and since the death of her husband she was lonely, he knew. Overhearing her and Jimmy Henderson batting gallantries to and fro reminded him of the disquiet he had felt the previous evening. While the champagne had flowed, along with their host’s flattering, solicitous attentions, he had noticed Mrs. Carrington looking around at the house as if she were measuring for curtains. Ashenden, as neglected as it was, represented a step up from the more modest Queen Anne house in Harcourt St. Mary her husband had left her, and if there was one thing Mrs. Carrington knew how to do, it was to climb ladders. In other circumstances, he might have wished her good luck with it, but he could not shake off the sense that under the bonhomie there was something cold and calculating about their host, something, in fact, a little malignant.

Jimmy was apologizing for the weather. “Of course, if it were a better day, one would have to put up with ghastly shrieking hordes grappling with boathooks. In fact, I don’t know what’s worse, mindless pleasure seekers or those oarsmen who look down their noses at motor launches.”

The water mill at Maple Durham came into view.

“Shall we stop here, sir?” said Peter.

“Anywhere you please,” said Jimmy, waving a hand.

The boy cut their speed, steered the launch to the bank away from the tumult of the weir pool, and looped the painter round the trunk of a willow alongside a sign that said “No Mooring.” As soon as he did, there was a patter on the canvas awning, and then the heavens opened and it began to rain in earnest, fat drops pocking the brown river, water splashing into water.

A shout and Paul Lyell and Koenig made a dash for cover. The fact that the awning did not extend over all the seats meant that there was a certain amount of confused scrambling and squashing up, like a game of musical chairs, which left Jimmy separated from Mrs. Carrington by Helga, and Koenig sitting at the center of the party next to Maus.

Koenig shook the rain off his hat. “Ha!” he said, after a moment. “That is so English. ‘No Mooring.’ ” He pointed at the riverbank. “And those others. ‘Keep Off.’ ‘Private.’ ‘No Fishing.’ I am surprised we are permitted to look at the trees.”

Lyell, who had squeezed alongside Bradshaw, twisted his head round to speak to Mrs. Carrington. “Max has paid out a fortune in fines to the college. He will keep walking on the grass in the quad.”

“Why not?” said Koenig. “In Germany, we are free to wander wherever we please. On Sundays, everyone walks.
Im Wald und auf der Heide, da such ich meine Freude
.”

“I find my joy in the woods and on the heath,” Helga translated helpfully.

“You’ll find that in England,” said Jimmy, unhappy to be usurped, “we respect property rights. I shouldn’t want anyone tramping about
my
woods without a by-your-leave.”

*  *  *

Over lunch, Jimmy found Koenig even more irksome, if that were possible. They had barely made a start on the contents of the hampers—bread rolls, potted shrimp, foie gras, pressed tongue, quail’s eggs, strawberry and lemon tartlets, Stilton, oatcakes, ginger beer,
and several bottles of excellent hock—when the mathematician began to hold forth about Göttingen, where he had studied for his first degree, and about his tutor there, Professor Hilbert, someone of great importance of whom none of them had ever heard.

Twenty interminable minutes later, Helga whispered in Mrs. Carrington’s ear, a deep blush rising from her neck to her cheeks. They murmured together, then rose and stepped across the launch, the boat rocking lightly under their feet.

“If you wouldn’t mind handing us out, Jimmy,” said Mrs. Carrington, “now that it’s stopped raining, we’d like to take a little walk.”

Jimmy, thinking of the opportunity this presented for a little tête-à-tête, said he would come with them. Mrs. Carrington gave him a meaningful look, whose meaning escaped him, and said that would not be necessary. “We won’t be long.” They headed down a path into the bushes.

Later, Jimmy would understand why Mrs. Carrington had shepherded Helga to the bank and into the undergrowth and realize that he could have avoided their embarrassment by instructing the boy to take them on to Pangbourne for the picnic, where they could have moored near inns and other conveniences. Yet it was not the most significant failure of the afternoon. That was to follow, and he was never to comprehend it fully.