The House Above the River (11 page)

She looked troubled. He caught her hand and held it.

“Henry will think it very odd if you go off without any warning,” she said. “It will look as if this morning's mishap on the beach has scared you all away.”

He laughed.

“As far as the Marshalls are concerned, he'd be dead right. But I see your point.”

“Come back to tea. Or at least for drinks, later. He's almost certain to make you stop for dinner.”

“Wouldn't he think we were scrounging a last meal off him?”

“Of course not. Oh, look, here she is!”

Susan snatched her hand away, with an uneasy feeling that Miriam had watched the movement, and understood its full implications.

“So sorry to have kept you all waiting,” the latter said, sweetly. “Shall we start?”

Nobody talked much on the way down through the wood. The two men strode ahead, carrying the bags, and the three women, in single file, Miriam leading, came after. Consequently the second group was soon left far behind, while Giles and Tony disappeared from their view.

Phillipa would have preferred to go faster. She and Susan were carrying the oilskins of the yachting party. While not as heavy as the bags, they were heavy enough, and their smell, combined with the heat, and the many flies that attacked the party as they moved, made the walk extremely disagreeable. But Miriam did not seem to notice the discomfort of her companions. She fanned herself with a bunch of leaves as she went along, planting her feet very carefully to avoid brambles.

When at last they arrived near the edge of the wood, Phillipa put down her burden to cool her arms.

“Oilskins are the last word on a hot day,” she exclaimed.

“Hear, hear!” agreed Susan.

“I'm absolutely dripping. I feel ready for another bathe.”

“So do I.”

Miriam went on, paying no attention, and presently the others gathered up the oilskins again and followed her.

When the stage came into view Susan stopped again.

“Henry!” she exclaimed. “He's talking to Giles. I thought …”

“We were
told
,” said Phillipa, with cold emphasis, “that he had gone to the creek.”

“I suppose he could have gone there first, and come on here.”

“Without passing us?”

“Oh, yes. There are plenty of paths through the wood.”

“So it seems.”

They moved on again. Miriam was some distance from them now. She had not altered her pace on seeing Henry. She simply continued as before, fanning herself as she went.

“I don't see Tony,” Susan said.

“He'll be getting the dinghy ready. Putting the bags into it. We can't see the third part of the stage from here. It's down the ladder a bit by now.”

“Yes, of course.”

They came up with the group on the bank.

“Were you told we were coming down?” she asked Henry, cheerfully. “Or was it intuition?”

“I was told,” he answered, quite seriously. “I took a short cut.”

“As you and Miriam are both here,” said Giles, “why not come off and have a look round
Shuna
?”

It was said from politeness only. He did not imagine either of them would accept. But Miriam greeted the idea with exaggerated pleasure.

“Yes, we will,” she said. “How do we get there? In that tiny little coracle?”

“It holds four.”

“But there are six of us.”

“The cannibals and the missionaries,” laughed Henry, unexpectedly. “How will you do it?”

“Tony can take the bags off, with Pip and Susan, and come back for the rest of us.”

“Susan has been on board before,” protested Miriam. “I'll go with Pip and the luggage.”

She clambered agilely on to the first ladder, showing none of the nervous ineptitude that Phillipa, for one, expected. There was a crack, a splintering sound, and the ladder swivelled outwards and then fell back against the staging with a loud clang.

Miriam screamed. Tony, below, stooping over the dinghy, was nearly pitched forward into it, as the second stage swung out and back, pulling the third stage with it.

“Hi!” he shouted. “What the devil …!”

He swung round and saw Giles seize Miriam's shoulder in a strong grip and pull her back off the ladder. He ran to the foot of it.

“Don't come up,” said Henry, from above. He was kneeling on the staging, leaning over its edge. “The tie up here has pulled out.”

“You're telling me! Can't you hold the darned thing? I'll put my weight on that side to hold it in.”

The tide had not gone down very far yet. Tony had only about six feet of ladder to negotiate. He stepped up gingerly and after two rungs was able to get his arms on to the stage and pull himself up to it without using the ladder.

“Well, well!” he said, as he stood upright. “Your property seems to be giving way in all directions, doesn't it?”

Henry looked up at him, but said nothing, only let go the top of the ladder and got to his feet, brushing his knees.

The group on the bank was strangely, ominously quiet. Miriam's behaviour, as usual, dominated and directed the response of them all. And Miriam, after that one terrified scream, stood silent and rigid, with her tragic eyes fixed on her husband. It was not difficult to interpret that gaze.

Giles was suddenly furious

“Why the devil don't you say something!” he shouted at Henry. “Why don't you
do
something about these fantastic accidents? This one, at least, was normal wear and tear.”

He knelt, brushing away the dust from the splintered wood, exposing the rusted broken bolt that had caused, the mishap.

“Might have happened any time in the last year or so, I should think,” he said, more quietly.

Miriam spoke, in a high, unnatural voice.

“Without you, Giles, I should have fallen, as I was meant to fall.”

“Oh, rubbish, Miriam,” cried Phillipa, outraged by this preposterous statement. “You don't mean that. You can't mean it!”

“You wouldn't have fallen far,” said Giles, roughly. “If at all. More than half the ladder is under water. The second bit of staging would hold it in, stop it falling right outwards, even if both sides of the top came off, instead of only one.”

She paid no attention at all to this.

“I was meant to fall,” she repeated.

Henry at last roused himself from the apparent stupor into which he had fallen. He stepped forward and took his wife by the arm.

“Come,” he said. “You are not well. I will take you back to the house.”

They all expected another outburst of hysteria, another scene. But this did not happen. Instead Miriam gave in. Her head drooped, her body seemed to shrink and age. She did not attempt to shake off Henry's restraining hand, but let him lead her away into the trees. And at that moment her own convinced premonition of death so affected all the watchers that they moved involuntarily a few steps after her, driven by an impulse to snatch her back from that unavoidable doom.

It was Phillipa. who stopped them.

“Let's go on board,” she said. “We can do no good here.” Tony turned towards the landing-stage.

“Hold the ladder in, Giles, while I go down again,” he said. But Giles was looking at Susan.

“Is that true?” he asked, in a troubled voice. “Is there nothing we can do?”

“Why ask me?” she said. “Why not ask Miriam?”

“You don't mean that,” he answered, going to help Tony.

She did not, but she was so confused by the most recent event that she now felt nothing but resentment. Only not against Giles, she reminded herself, ashamed of her own churlishness.

She went forward and stood beside him. He was still holding the ladder, for Phillipa this time. When she was safely on the stage below, he handed the bags down to Tony.

“I'm sorry I said that,” Susan told him. “I'm a bit rattled by what's happening.”

He looked up at her and grinned, then scrambled to his feet.

“You've every right to be. If we only knew what
is
happening.”

“Do you think Miriam is mad?”

He looked at her.

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Neither do I. But I'm damned if I know whether she's play-acting deliberately for some obscure reason, or if she can't help herself.”

“If she can't help it, then it means she's genuinely frightened.”

“Of Henry? Can you believe that?”

She shook her head.

“No, I can't. In his own way he's fond of her. I know he is. And he's worried to death about her—as well as about himself.”

“I know.”

“His back has been worse this last week. And something else is wrong. Haven't you noticed how swollen his hands are?”

“Can't say I have. But I haven't looked particularly. He got down on his knees quite briskly to look at the ladder. But that could have been in the excitement of the moment. He went off walking rather slowly.”

“His ankles were swollen this morning, too, Francine told me.”

Tony and Phillipa were sitting in the dinghy, waiting. They had the luggage piled in the bows of the little boat.

“Shall we take this off, and come back for you two?” Tony called.

“You do that. Bring a bit of rope back, so I can fix this ladder for the last one down.”

Tony pushed off. Giles and Susan sat on the bank to wait.

“This last scare was a genuine accident,” said Giles, after a time. “The wood is rotten and it gave way. It might have gone any time. No one could possibly arrange for it to go the precise moment Miriam got on to the ladder. Besides, Tony had already used it.”

“I know. It was sheer bad luck it had to be Miriam.”

“And it was sheer bad luck for some criminal or other it had to be you who was caught in the first trap, and Tony in the second.”

“They
were
traps, then, were they?”

“They damned well were. Pretty sinister ones, too. And noticeably of the same pattern.”

“How do you mean?”

“In each case there would have been a disappearance, without obvious cause, and
without trace
.”

Susan drew a long breath.

“Of course. The seat would have been put back over the cover, which would have been put back over the hole. And the notice would have been put back in its real place.”

“Exactly. But the main question is this. Who were those traps set to catch? I know that Miriam used to go and sit on the memorial seat to enjoy the view in solitude. And she used to sunbathe on the sand near the warning notice. But surely if she made a habit of going to these places, you'd expect her to know them so well she'd notice any change in them, immediately. She may be neurotic, but she's no fool.”

“Yes. I'm sure you're right. If the traps were meant for Miriam, they were very clumsily thought out. But suppose they were not meant for her?”

“Who then?”

“Me, perhaps. Or even you.”

“In heaven's name,
why
?”

She looked at him, steadily.

“We are assuming all the time that Henry has done these things, aren't we?”

“I suppose so. Who else could it be?”

“I'm wondering about Francine.”

“
Francine
!”

“Yes.”

“But she seems to be devoted to Miriam. Actually she's tackled both Pip and myself on the subject.”

He laughed self-consciously, and Susan pretended to be indignant.

“On the strength of your old attachment, I suppose? Does she think it still operates? In any case, how did she find out about it?”

“Snooping, I gather from Pip. She might take a sentimental view, I suppose. But she's French. I don't think it's likely. Just wishful thinking, perhaps.”

“I was a bit doubtful about you, myself, at first. But not for long.”

He gave her a quick kiss, and another, more prolonged.

“She practically accused me of making Miriam unhappy, so I suppose she may really have noticed you and me getting to like each other, and wanted to get rid of me. A bit drastic, though.”

“Impossible, really. I'm being fanciful. She knows you are going as soon as you can. You've been trying to get away ever since you came. Besides, respectable French housekeepers don't go in for crime.”

“With a few notable exceptions. However, I think we can cut out Francine, however much she sympathises with Miriam. Besides, she wouldn't be capable of doing the actual physical work of preparing those traps. I mean, moving the seat, and the notice board.”

“No, of course not. Silly of me. Wash that out.”

“So it must be Henry. But you may be right about the intended victim. It is quite on the cards that Henry might want to get rid of
me
. Miriam described him as a sort of obscure ogre, but I didn't believe a word of it at the time.”

“He isn't. He is never very forthcoming, but then he is never really well. I can't say I know him at all, though. And I've been here nearly two months.”

“I thought he behaved in a rather sinister manner just now. He did nothing whatever to help Miriam, or to comfort her afterwards. Simply took her off with him as if she'd been a dog in disgrace.”

Susan shivered, and drew closer to Giles. He put an arm round her.

“Why don't you come with us? For a day or two, at least. While we're cruising on this side.”

She said, wistfully, “If only I could.”

“Then why not …?”

“Look,” she said, scrambling to her feet, “here's Tony back with the dinghy.”

By this time the wind had dropped to a light breeze. The sun shone brilliantly from a clear sky. The open channel in the distance beyond the mouth of the river, looked very inviting.

“I wish we were going
now
” said Phillipa.

They were all four sitting about the deck, while Phillipa dispensed tea from the cockpit.