Even at that short distance it was difficult to be sure, for the bank was obscured by the threshing rain and the woman splashing through the ford, now thigh deep, looked like an animated scarecrow, her clothes in tatters. The moment she saw him she altered course, and a few seconds later was clawing at his stirrup and shouting up at him, but what she said he was unable to hear, for just then thunder went crashing across the valley and she loosed her hold on his leathers and pressed both hands to her head. He dropped out of the saddle and looped the reins round his forearm, for the skewbald was showing signs of restlessness under the impact of the thunder and Henrietta's jostling. She shouted in his ear, “I’ve killed him…he's over there…a hut beyond the trees!” and with that a little of his half-forgotten battle experience returned to him and he made the first decisive move of the afternoon, shouting, “Take the horse! Go home! Get away from here Henrietta!” and when she stared at him uncomprehending, and continued to dither, he bent, grabbed her foot, thrust it into the stirrup, and propelled her into the saddle where she slumped forward, clutching the skewbald's mane, the tatters of her dress trailing across its haunches to the ground.
He pulled the horse round and gave it a thump so that it began to canter back along the towpath and was soon lost to sight in the blurred landscape. Then, as the rain slackened and settled to a moderate downpour, he sloshed across the ford and found a path that led through the trees to a stone building on the far side of the islet. He thought, dismally, “She's hysterical. Can’t be true! She couldn’t kill a chicken…” but then he remembered the state of her clothes, and the fact that she had been half-crazy with terror and running like a hare when he had spotted her, and the recollection made him sniper-wary so that he made a circuit of the building, fetching up at a point where he could look through the doorway without being seen.
A man was there, a young man wearing fashionable clothes, and he noted with relief that whilst he might well be injured he was far from dead, for he was crawling across the floor like someone in an advanced stage of intoxication, and suddenly he checked the movement to vomit. Fascinated, and still extremely puzzled, the Colonel edged closer until he was standing in the doorway, glancing around for some discarded weapon but seeing none, and presently the young man wiped his mouth and stood up, very unsteadily, so that the Colonel saw a deep gash on the crown of his head, and a streak of blood from a superficial cut on his temple that had run down under the ear and stained his collar. He was still standing in the doorway when the man saw him and glowered, as though he was a trespasser, but he said nothing, seemingly preoccupied with a third hurt in the area of his groin that he began to massage very gingerly, swearing and muttering under his breath. The Colonel had the impression that he had seen the fellow before, but he couldn’t be sure so he said, in a parade-ground voice that he hadn’t used in twenty years, “What the devil has been going on in here? What sent my daughter-in-law flying across the river half-naked, and half out of her wits, hey?” and the man made an effort to pull himself together, seating himself very carefully on the bench and saying, “She's mad! Mad as a hatter! She tried to brain me with that stone—there—under your feet with my blood on it!” The Colonel glanced down and saw a triangular piece of stone that might have weighed a couple of pounds. It was lightly spotted with blood, and the stain caused him to look more closely at the pulpy swelling on the crown of the young man's head. Aspects of this unlikely affair began to form a pattern as he said, noncommittally, “Ah, that's as may be,” but he thought, with approval, “She might have looked helpless but it seems she can take care of herself if she has to,” and then, because his chivalry was instinctive, and not the fashionable abstract of a later generation, he growled, “Would it be too much to ask what you did to provoke her? Was it for stripping the clothes from her back, and forcing yourself on the girl like a wild beast?” but when Manaton made no reply his temper hissed up like a Congreve rocket and he stepped closer, saying, “Speak up, lad, for if that's the case I won’t wait upon the Magistrates. I’ll call you out, damned if I won’t, and face the consequences if I put a bullet in you.”
The threat did not intimidate Manaton, but it roused him to the extent of understanding some kind of explanation would be necessary if he was to avoid trouble and serious trouble at that. Now that the ache in his testicles was receding somewhat he was able to think clearly, and saw that his advantage must lie in putting that little devil in the wrong. He said, carefully, “I’ll tell you precisely what happened, Colonel Swann. You’ll hear her account of it, no doubt, and believe her rather than me, but bear in mind she got off with a torn dress, whereas I had my head laid open,” and he bent forward so that the Colonel could see the wound and the blood-clotted hair about it. “I’ve been giving her riding lessons. At her instance I might say. Today, when the storm came on, we went in here out of the rain. There was a kiss or two, I won’t deny that. But she began it, and that's a fact, and you’re man of the world enough to make allowances for it. The truth is, Colonel Swann, your daughter-in-law gave me every encouragement to treat her the way I did, and ended by asking me to run away with her. It was for turning that down that I got this, not for taking advantage of her. Question her closely enough and you’ll find that out.”
He paused, undecided how much disposed the old man was to believe this, then went on, “She didn’t lose half of her dress defending her virtue, although that's the defence she’ll put forward. She used that damned stone on me for deeper reasons than that—pride, I daresay. And don’t tell me she didn’t know in advance what usually happens when a man and a woman of our age find themselves alone in a place like this. Ask her why she came seeking me out day after day, and why she led the way here instead of taking shelter under the trees within full view of the footpath. All I know is that I got this crack on the head and she got her dress ripped from her back trying to dodge the consequences, for if I had caught hold of her I would have given her the thrashing her husband should give her once a week. Even that isn’t the whole of it. When I was on my back, over there near the door, she hit me again in a way that could have maimed me. You saw how it was when you came here.”
It did not seem an improbable story, and he was content to reserve judgement. He said, “See here, Mr. Manaton. I’ll give you two pieces of advice for nothing. Go home and get that skull of yours stitched, and don’t show your face around Tryst when my son is at home, for if you do there’ll likely be murder done when his wife tells him what occurred this afternoon.”
“She’ll not tell him if you don’t,” Miles said, sulkily, “and the fact that she won’t should underwrite my version. If ever a woman brought trouble on herself she did, and will again if she isn’t watched. As for me, my furlough expires tomorrow, and I’ll be serving overseas in a month or two. I don’t expect I’ll ever see her again, and that's a hardship I can shoulder.”
“What's your regiment?” asked the Colonel and when Manaton told him he said, rubbing his long nose, “I might ha’ guessed. It was my experience in the field you could always rely on the gunners to stand off out of range and make a pretty fair mess of things every time they went into action.”
He rose heavily, feeling his age, impatient with the young and their shiftless ways. Without another word he stumped back across the islet, over the river and down the path towards home, his boots gurgling with the water, his hat brim tipping trickles down his wrinkled old neck. As expected he found the kitchen quarters in uproar, maids running this way and that, and that scold of a housekeeper scampering about like an outraged hen and babbling nonsense about “the poor lamb having been thrown into the river by a horse.” He said, sourly, “Hold your tongue. If it's true she should know better than to go out riding in a bad thunderstorm!” Then, “Where is she?” and Ellen told him the mistress had retired to her room with a glass of milk and a headache powder. He went into the dining-room and poured a tot of brandy, carrying it up to the big bedroom over the porch and finding her sitting up in bed and drying he
r hair that was fluffed like a clown's. She looked pale and agitated but by no means prostrate, so that he thought, “What the devil do any of us know about women? As far as she's aware she might be up on a charge of manslaughter or worse, but all she's concerned about is her appearance!” He said, thrusting the tot in her direction, “Get that down you and let's see if your story matches his. And you’d best tell me the truth, for a rare lot depends on it!”
“I don’t like brandy,” she said, sniffing the measure like a spoiled child, but he growled, “Get it down, I say!” and she swallowed it in two gulps, spluttering as the colour returned to her cheeks.
“How…how was he?” she said, at length.
“A long way from dead,” he told her. “He had a bump on a head that is already too big for a hat, but I fancy that jab you gave him below the belt will keep him clear of other men's wives for a day or two.”
Suddenly, and to his indignation, she giggled. He said, severely, “Listen here, I’ll be damned if I can see anything to laugh about! You got off very lightly in the circumstances. You realise that, don’t you? For if you don’t you’re a far bigger fool than I took you for!”
“I got off lighter than he did,” she said, cheerfully, and then, composing herself in the way of a mischievous child called to order, “I was only flirting with him, and if he told you anything else he's a liar as well as a beast. Do you think I would have gone riding and fishing with him if I’d had the least idea he was that kind of person?”
“No,” he said, “I don’t, but what right had you to go riding and fishing with him at all? Dammit, woman, you’ve got a good husband, a couple of children, a great house, and everybody dancing attendance on you. What more do you want?”
“I don’t know,” she said, ruefully, “fun, I suppose, and something to occupy me all the time Adam is away. He's not blameless you know.”
“Did I say he was? I’ll take that up with him, maybe.”
For the first time, he thought, she showed deep concern, enough to bring her out of bed and down beside him so that again he thought of her as a child in disgrace. “You’ll not tell Adam? You’ll not provoke another scene, like the one we had over the chimney sweep? Oh, I’m not afraid of what Adam might do, what he has a right to do, I suppose, but if what happened gets gossiped about the entire neighbourhood will think of me as…well, as that kind of woman, and I’m not. I’m not that kind of woman at all. You must know I’m not.”
“Adam needs a dressing down as much as you,” he conceded, “but what I tell him is my business. If it's any comfort to you I’ll spare your reputation, if that's what you’re concerned about. All I intend to do is to make sure this doesn’t occur again with that young fool or anyone else. We’ve had more than enough trouble lately and there's no damned sense at all courting more, the way you did with that gunner. Can I depend on that, Henrietta?”
“You know you can, but I can’t be answerable for what Miles might spread about.”
“He’ll say nothing.”
“How can you be sure?”
“He's leaving here tomorrow but there's more to it than that. Womanisers of his type are gamblers and when did you hear a gambler boast of his losses? They’ll brag their heads off when they win but judging from what I saw of him, crawling round on his hands and knees, you can be sure he’ll keep the facts to himself.” He looked at her with a glint of humour. “Did you have to use him so hardly after letting him think you were fair game? Was it done on impulse the moment you realised he wanted more than you were prepared to offer? Or did you have it in mind to teach him a lesson?”
She climbed back into bed. It seemed to her then that anything short of complete honesty would be offensive on her part. “It was both. Manaton assumes that every woman in the world would give all she had to become his slave, never mind his mistress. I knew that, and he knew that I knew it. The trouble was he didn’t realise I was married to a real man, someone who doesn’t find it necessary to impress every woman he meets. The real difference between them struck me the moment he touched me. There was…well…condescension in everything he did and said, in his eyes and mouth and even his hands. He made me feel like somebody's cast-off property and that's something Adam never could do, to me or any other woman.”
“Well, that's progress of a kind. Go on.”
“I think I hit him not just to get away from him but to show him what I thought of his silly conceited ways. I didn’t think about it, I just did it because it showed him what I was thinking. I hit him where his vanity lives. Both places. I’m not pretending, though, I wasn’t terrified at the time. Not of him, exactly, but for us; myself, Adam, the babies, even for you. Does that sound very likely to you?”
“Far more likely than anything else I’ve seen or heard since I saw you sneak off to meet him.” He looked at her, indulgently, “Get up and dress yourself. No damned sense pretending to be an invalid. Tell Ellen we’ll have dinner together and that I shall expect something toothsome for all the trouble I’ve been put to. Where's that dress you had trailing about you?”
“On the window seat and quite ruined. Throw it away while I’m getting ready.”
“Aye,” he said, “I’ll do that but go my own way about it. They may have pretended to believe that tomfool story of yours about falling in the river, but they’ll put their own interpretations on it, in the way servants do if they’ve got a mistress who lets ’em make a fool of her.”
He picked up the sodden rags and tucked them under his coat, going out and along the corridor to his own quarters. He was wet, tired, and bothered by twinges of rheumatism that had their origin in nights on the slopes of the Pyrenees half-a-century ago. But, taken all round, he was pleased with himself. For the first time in years he felt useful.
Five
1
ON HIS WAY INTO TOWN THE COLONEL HAD PLENTY OF TIME TO TRIM HIS brief, deciding to confine himself to broad hints concerning the encounter, and lay the emphasis on the folly of letting her roam the neighbourhood unchaperoned. He also intended to have something to say concerning his son's frequent absences, but he found, after no more than a few words with Adam, that he had underestimated his son's sagacity, and that his mere presence here had been sufficient to plant in the boy's mind a suspicion that he was listening to an edited story. In fact, when the old man got as far as saying that Henrietta should be forbidden to ride out alone, Adam laughed in his face, saying, “Come, now, what really happened? You’re the worst liar I ever met. Has Henrietta been kicking over the traces?”
He told him all then, or nearly all, and was astonished when his son showed no signs of outrage either against his wife or that popinjay of a gunner, but said, equably, “Well, I’m obliged to you for keeping track of her, and it was lucky for all concerned you were there when it happened. But it's a relief to learn she can handle someone like Manaton at a pinch. In a way, I suppose, I’ve only myself to blame for the scrape and should think myself fortunate she was able to fight her way out of it.” He stood musing a moment. “One on the sconce and another where it hurts most, you say? Well, that saves me the trouble of doing it myself and making bad blood between neighbours. I wouldn’t care to tangle with Henrietta if she was desperate for there's more of Sam Rawlinson about her than she realises.”
His son's imperturbability irritated the Colonel, who saw it as yet another indication of the renunciation of values that had been standard currency for centuries. “God damn it, boy,” he burst out, “shouldn’t a man show more concern over someone's attempt to use his wife as a doxy? Time was when a husband would have called that fellow out, then gone home and given his wife reason to eat her meals standing for a fortnight!” but Adam smiled, blew a smoke ring, and said, easily, “Ah, I don’t doubt it. But times change, and knowing Henrietta as well as I do I can read more and less into this than you can. More, because she's in desperate need of something to absorb her energy—and that's something I intend to remedy, less because she was telling the truth when she said it was
no more than a joke on her part to gammon that young fool Manaton. She might have been married five years and presented me with a couple of children, but she's really no more than a schoolgirl, and that's my fault more than hers. I’ve known it long enough but put off thinking about it until that chimney-sweep business. In a way it's lucky this occurred, for it’ll likely soften the impact.”
The old man looked pained, recalling his half-promise to Henrietta to make light of the business. “You mean you intend to give her the whipping and let that damn Manaton get off scot free?”
“I don’t mean anything of the sort,” Adam said, impatiently. “A man who struts round inviting duels and a husband who knocks his wife about is not only a bully but a damned fool living in the past. I’ve got faults enough but I hope I’ve more brains than to react like someone in one of those trashy tales she feeds on. I won’t tell you what I intend doing, you’ll find out soon enough, but I’ll give you a hint. I’m going to find her the kind of problems that keep my nose to the grindstone so that I’m not obliged to trot around to Kate Hamilton's plush establishment to prove myself every so often. Meantime I can only thank you again, and ask you to do one thing more for me. Go on home and send her up here. Michelmore can drive her into Croydon, and I’ll have her met at London Bridge. There's a train that gets in about five in the afternoon and we shall be putting up at the George, in the Borough High Street, overnight.”
God is an Englishman Page 49
