Swing, Swing Together

by Peter Lovesey

  She tossed her head to shake such silly notions out of it, and wielded the brush more vigorously still.

  Of course it was out of the question to pass the night with Thackeray and Hardy. Goodness, her reputation was in ruins already after Tuesday’s episode. It was enough to face Mamma and Papa with that when they got back to England. She had been over the scene in her mind a dozen times. Mamma would collapse sobbing into a chair and Papa would pace the drawing room invoking the Almighty and saying he should take a whip to her, but going straight to the whisky instead. Mortifying. To confess after that that she had spent a night sleeping in a boat with two policemen would drive Papa beyond the brink. She could not do it.

  Besides, the conditions down there must be insufferable. The canvas was up, admittedly, but it could be counted on to leak, and a night on damp boards was enough to give you rheumatism for life if you did not die of pneumonia within a week. No wonder the constables had spent the entire evening in the public bar.

  Not that she pitied them much. Thackeray she had a spark of compassion for—he had not been unkind, and he was rather large to fit into a small boat. She would have preferred to think of Cribb suffering down there, but he was doubtless in a hotel bed himself, the wily man.

  Hardy was another matter. It would do that young man no harm at all to suffer some discomfort. His boating clothes would be hideously crumpled by morning and she would leave him in no doubt that she noticed the fact. He might even be a shade more endurable with wrinkles in his trousers. Perhaps it would improve his manner. He had not been so objectionable in uniform; he had behaved quite differently, in fact.

  Harriet’s brushing became slower, and the strokes carried to the ends of her hair.

  She recollected Tuesday evening. Not the three men in their boat, nor the dangerous time in the water, but the meeting with Constable Hardy. Up to now she had thought of it exclusively from her own point of view.

  How must it have seemed to him as he stood shining his bull’s-eye lamp through the spokes of his bicycle wheel?

  She put down her brush and flicked her now gleaming hair over her shoulders. Then she got up and went to the curtains. Through the rain she thought she could just make out the shape of the skiff with its canvas awning. She closed the curtain carefully, collected the candle from the bedside table and deposited it on the dressing table to the left of the mirror. From a flower arrangement on the mantelpiece she selected a fern and placed it beside the candle.

  She took three steps back from the dressing table and unfastened the bows at the front of her nightdress so that it parted at the bodice. Watching her movements in the mirror, she guided the garment over her shoulders and allowed it to fall to her feet. Without looking down, she stepped over it and advanced slowly towards the mirror, stooping slightly, as she had when she had climbed the riverbank, feeling the movement of her bosom, then straightening as the light caught the bloom of her skin. Her hand reached forward for the fern and held it close to her eyes, so that she could study her reflection through the fronds—the best she could improvise for bicycle spokes. What she saw was neither vulgar nor offensive, but rather elegant. She thought she might understand the effect it could have on an impressionable young man.

  Harriet put down the fern and smiled shyly at her image in the glass before extinguishing the light. She picked up her nightdress, drew it quickly over her head and climbed into bed. She slept well.

  CHAPTER

  13

  Thackeray runs out of steam—Hooray for the G.W.R.—A proposition for Harriet

  IN THE MORNING THEY pulled up to Streatley, an eight-mile row which the constables accomplished in a little over two and a half hours without stops, except for the locks at Mapledurham and Whitchurch, and without much conversation either. Harriet could only suppose that the previous night’s sleeping arrangements were responsible, but she deemed it tactful not to inquire, nor did she comment on the breakfast provided by the Roebuck. By the time the bridge connecting Streatley and Goring came into sight, she was actually looking forward to Sergeant Cribb rejoining the party.

  This proved to be premature, for when they had tied up and found the police station, they were told Cribb had left the town two hours before. “The gentlemen he was taking an interest in made an unexpectedly early start,” explained the constable on duty. “He was obliged to board a passenger steamer to pursue them. His instructions are that you are to make the best speed you can and keep your eyes skinned for a sight of the Lucrecia.”

  “Make the best speed we can!” said Thackeray, wiping his forehead with his soft hat. “What does he think we are—blooming galley slaves? Till yesterday I’d never touched an oar in my life—save for a day at Southend—and I reckon we’ve covered more than twenty miles since Henley. I’ve got stilts for legs and arms six inches longer than they were, and they’re the only parts of me with any feeling left at all. The rest is numb. Make the best speed you can! That’s a fine blooming message to leave as you step aboard a steamer, ain’t it?”

  “We could try drawing the boat with a towrope,” Harriet suggested. “I could take a turn at that. It would give you a change from rowing.”

  “A tow from a steam launch would be more like it,” said Thackeray.

  “It happened in Three Men in a Boat,” said Harriet. “They met some friends who pulled them all the way from Reading to within a mile of Streatley.”

  “A fat lot of good that is to us,” said Thackeray.

  “Now, Ted, that ain’t no way to speak to a young lady,” Hardy unexpectedly put in. “We know you’re sufferin’, and we’re grateful for all the work you’ve done with the oars, but you’ve no cause to take it out on Miss Shaw. Matter of fact, she’s given me an idea. Do I understand from what you said, miss, that you’ve read the book now?”

  “Yes, I read most of it last night and finished it this morning,” Harriet answered, surprised at Hardy’s intervention, and curious where it was leading.

  “I can see you wasn’t idlin’ away your time in the Roebuck, miss,” said Hardy with a glance at Thackeray. “I wonder if by any chance you remember where the three men in the story made for after they left Streatley.”

  “I do. They passed the next night under canvas, in a backwater at Culham.”

  “Culham?” vacantly repeated the constable on duty, looking up from the Occurrence Book.

  “It might as well be Timbuktu,” said Thackeray unhelpfully.

  “I believe they stopped on the way at a place nearby called Clifton Hampden,” Harriet added. “The Barley Mow inn came in for special comment, I remember.”

  “Very good, miss,” said Hardy, venturing a smile. “I think we can take it from what we heard about our three men that they’ll spend this evening at the Barley Mow too. They sounded most particular about copyin’ what happened in the book.” He turned to Thackeray. “At least we’ll get a drink when we get to Clifton Hampden.”

  “You’ll need one,” said the constable on duty. “It’s fourteen miles from here.”

  “Jerusalem!” said Thackeray.

  “No, Clifton Hampden.”

  Thackeray muttered something inaudible.

  “But don’t you see?” said Hardy. “Now we know where we’re goin’, we needn’t go by river at all. We can take a train. If we cross the river to Goring, we can catch a local to Oxford. It’ll put us off at Culham Station and we can walk up the road to Clifton Hampden. We might be there before Cribb.”

  A moment’s silence followed this audacious suggestion.

  “Do you think that’s wise?” said Harriet, turning to Thackeray.

  “It may not be wise, miss, but it’s good enough for me. ‘Make the best speed you can,’ he said, and that’s what we’ll do. There’s no better way of making speed than on the Great Western Railway.”

  They returned to the boat, crossed the river and found a mooring. Hardy produced a mallet and drove spikes into the bank to secure the boat fore and aft, taking the initiative quite naturally now
that his plan was being acted upon. Watching the two men, Harriet understood why Thackeray had never been promoted to sergeant. Subordinate positions undoubtedly suited some people. Hardy, on the other hand, had a personality better fitted for responsibility. There were grounds for supposing that if he were promoted he might lose some of his more objectionable characteristics and even develop into a passable young man.

  “We’ll take the travellin’ case,” he told Thackeray. “Miss Harriet will want her things with her at Clifton.”

  “That’s very considerate,” said Harriet, “but won’t it be awfully heavy to carry? You remarked just now that there is a mile walk at the other end.”

  “No trouble, miss. We’ll manage between us. Take the other end, Ted. Hello, that’s a familiar blazer out there.” The others followed the direction of his eyes and saw a skiff steering towards the Goring bank with obvious respect for the foaming water on the weir side. The crew were Mr. Bustard, still in his blazer, and Jim Hackett in braces. An odd sensation of revulsion afflicted Harriet at the sight of them. She supposed the yellow blazer reminded her of her angry mood the previous afternoon, when Hardy had made his tactless remarks and she had rebuked him by taking extra notice of Mr. Bustard. It was a cheap thing to have done, and she would have preferred to forget it.

  She was not allowed to.

  “It’s your friend Bustard,” Hardy pointed out in an unconvincing attempt to be casual. “Aren’t you goin’ to wave to him?”

  The fury rose in Harriet like a head of steam. “Yes, I am,” she said on the impulse. “Certainly I am.” She stood up in the boat, took off her hat and brandished it like a battle standard. “Mr. Bustard! Mr. Bustard! Don’t pass us by!”

  It was the more infuriating that Hardy took no notice as the skiff changed course and headed towards them. He simply carried on moving the case out of the boat and onto the towpath.

  “What a capital surprise!” called Mr. Bustard when they came parallel, an oar’s length away. “What do you think of that, Jim? If it isn’t the Lady of the Lock herself, the delectable Miss Shaw, with her two sturdy watermen in attendance. Where are you going, Miss Shaw? Not abandoning the trip, I trust. There’s nothing wrong, is there?”

  Everything was wrong that could be, but Harriet answered, “No, we have decided to continue our journey by train, that is all.”

  “On a day like this? It’s criminal to go by train. Look at those hills ahead. Beautiful country!”

  “Mr. Thackeray and Mr. Hardy have done enough rowing,” said Harriet.

  “So that’s it. Watermen not so sturdy after all, what? I say, I have a suggestion, my dear. Come aboard with us. Allow me to repay your kindness yesterday. Then if the others go by train, they can wait for you further up the river.”

  “I couldn’t do that,” said Harriet.

  “Why not, for goodness’ sake?”

  “It wouldn’t be proper, going on a boat with two gentlemen I hardly know at all.”

  “Not so, my dear. Two’s quite safe. I wouldn’t recommend an outing with one gentleman, but two’s a most acceptable arrangement. Besides, I’m a married man, as Jim will testify. He used to work for my father-in-law, a very upright gent. You don’t see me doing anything my pa-in-law wouldn’t approve of, do you, Jim?”

  “Christ, no,” said Jim emphatically.

  Harriet was still dubious. “It’s much too far. We have to get to Clifton Hampden.”

  “We can make it to Clifton by tonight. What do you say, Jim? Jim can row all day. I might take a rest now and then, but he carries on. Part of his philosophy, you see.”

  On cue, Jim Hackett quoted his authority, “Psalm 104, Verse 23: ‘Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening.’ ”

  “So it’s agreed,” said Mr. Bustard. “We’ll come alongside and you can step aboard.”

  Harriet stole a glance at Hardy. He was back on board, putting up the hoops that supported the cover. He appeared to be totally absorbed in the task.

  “Could you really take me as far as Clifton?” Harriet asked. “It’s fourteen miles, I’m told.”

  “No trouble at all. Stand by to come aboard.”

  Hardy’s voice, thick and close at hand, muttered, “Put one foot into that boat, Harriet Shaw, and I’ll hump you over my shoulder and carry you to Goring Station myself.” She was in no doubt that he meant it. There was nothing she could do. Tears of humiliation blurred her vision.

  “She has to come with us. We’re responsible, you see,” Hardy explained to Mr. Bustard, pushing his foot firmly against the skiff as it came alongside. “Decent of you to offer.”

  On the train, twenty minutes later, Harriet’s indignity flared into anger. “I strongly resent the way you spoke to me.”

  “I could have lifted you off Bustard’s boat without so much as a word, but you wouldn’t have thanked me for that,” Hardy quietly answered.

  “You seem to presume that you have the right to order my actions.”

  “I do, miss, up to a point.”

  “Take care what you say, Constable.”

  “I shall,” said Hardy.

  “I intend to speak to Sergeant Cribb about you. I shall tell him that you threatened me with physical violence.”

  “And I shall tell him what you were proposin’ to do, miss.” “It was nothing criminal. I have the right to accept a perfectly proper invitation from a gentleman, do I not?”

  “Not while I’m responsible for you,” said Hardy.

  “You are not my chaperone.”

  Here Thackeray judged it right to intervene. “It was for your own good, miss. I don’t think those two are quite what they may appear.”

  “Neither are you, come to that,” said Harriet, glancing contemptuously at his ill-fitting flannels. “But at least they know how to speak to a lady.”

  No more was said until Culham. Having had the last word, Harriet should have felt better for the exchange, but Hardy’s inexcusable behaviour still rankled. If he had not taunted her into waving to Mr. Bustard, the incident need not have happened.

  CHAPTER

  14

  Hardy buys a German—Three men in the Barley Mow—Touching on Jack the Ripper

  THEY MANAGED TO AGREE on one thing by the time they reached Culham: they needed a meal. At the ticket barrier Hardy asked if tea was served anywhere locally. “I can think of three places,” said the ticket collector after some reflection. “The first is in Culham, but that’s closed down. The second I wouldn’t recommend, and the third is the Railway Hotel across the road.”

  It was an attenuated meal, owing partly to Thackeray’s repeated requests for more tea cakes and partly to a general understanding that it would not be prudent to get to Clifton Hampden before Sergeant Cribb. There was not much conversation, but Hardy did find the good grace to congratulate Harriet on pouring a perfect cup of tea, an observation she acknowledged with a nod. It would want more than that to reinstate him.

  Towards six o’clock the waitress signalled that tea was officially over by laying the tables for dinner in a good imitation of a rifle volley. After a short consultation, Hardy approached her and asked for the bill. “You serve a good dinner too, by the looks of it,” he told her, indicating a table spread with various kinds of cold meat. “That large sausage at the back—is that the sort they call a polony?”

  “I couldn’t tell you, sir. Germans is what we call them in the kitchen.”

  “Do you have another one like it? I’d like to take one with me.”

  “You’ll have to ask the waiter, sir. Germans are supposed to be for cold dinner, you see.”

  “Is he available, then?”

  “Just coming across the road from the station, sir. He comes on at six.”

  It was the ticket collector. He had exchanged his railway livery for a black tie and tails. “Can I be of assistance, sir?”

  “Yes,” said Hardy. “That—er—German on the table—”

  “The polony, sir?”

 
“Polony. I’d like to buy it, or another like it.”

  So when the party started along the road to Clifton Hampden, Hardy’s polony, wrapped in cheesecloth, perched on Harriet’s travelling case.

  “That was a good thought,” Thackeray remarked. “You never know when you might need something to eat.”

  “Oh, it’s not for eatin’,” said Hardy. “I’ve got something else in mind for this.”

  The sunlight of early evening on the brickwork of the village produced a roseate glow of the intensity only a pavement artist would dare reproduce. The church stood high in the background and the river was to the right. When they were midway across the narrow, six-arched bridge to the Berkshire bank, Hardy asked Thackeray to put down the case, and drew him into a bay. He pointed to a moored skiff with the hoops up and the covers gathered along the top. As they moved on, they were able to see the name Lucrecia on the side. When they drew level, a dog barked twice. Smiles were exchanged. They had saved themselves fourteen miles of rowing.

  The Barley Mow lay ahead, a timbered structure of genuine antiquity with whitewashed walls and a thatched roof.

  “Before we go in,” said Hardy, “I don’t think Cribb will thank us if we walk straight up to him and say, ‘Here we are, Sarge.’ ”

  “Which of us do you suppose would be so stupid as to do that?” Thackeray asked. He was still frowning as they entered and took their places at a corner table.

  Cribb was sitting in an armchair facing the door, staring into his beer with the preoccupied air of an angler waiting for a strike. The only others present were three seated round a table against the window adjacent to the door. Without question they were the crew of the Lucrecia, a bearded man of Viking proportions telling a story in painstaking detail to his not too attentive companions, a short, squat man with glasses so thick that all you could see from the side was concentric rings, and another in a pinstripe suit, hunched over a glass of sherbet.