Summer on the River by Marcia Willett Read Free Book Online

sympathetic onlookers. He glances around anxiously, probably expecting to see the child’s mother rushing up to see what the trouble is all about; telling him off for not exercising more care.
    Claude experiences a twinge of fellow feeling: he often gets into trouble with his daughter for allowing the children too much freedom.
    The older boy comes across to the bench, looking shocked but excited, too.
    â€˜Did you see that, Dad?’ he asks the thin fair man, sitting down beside him. ‘That was really scary.’
    His father puts an arm around the boy’s shoulders. ‘Remember that, Mikey, next time you have an ice cream,’ he says, ‘or you could be sharing it with one of those brutes.’
    â€˜Are you OK, Dad?’ the boy asks, rather as if it is he who is the adult; as if he is used to checking up on his father.
    â€˜Yeah, yeah. Sure. Just one of those moments, you know.’
    The boy, Mikey, nods. Yes, he knows.
    Claude is struck by a sense of their private suffering: he feels that he is eavesdropping on them. He stands up and walks away from the scene, around the Boat Float, where small boats lie at their moorings along the wall, into the town. He tries not to dwell on how much it has changed since he was a young sub-lieutenant up at the College and instead concentrates on the preparations for regatta: marquees being erected around the bandstand in Royal Avenue Gardens, burger stalls, the fair, traffic notices. He turns into Anzac Street and passes beneath the churchyard wall, with its overhanging canopy of feverfew and valerian, the east window of St Saviour’s towering above him. It’s getting on towards lunchtime but he’s probably got time for a quick pint before he goes back to the boathouse. He crosses Fairfax Place, passes the cars queuing for the lower ferry, heads for the Dartmouth Arms and disappears into the bar.
    When Claude arrives back at the boathouse Evie is waiting for him. She has a purposeful look, as if she has taken a decision, and she is holding a glass of wine.
    â€˜Have you had a drink?’ she asks, indicating the glass.
    â€˜Had a pint,’ he answers. ‘Not for me, thanks. What’s up?’
    â€˜There’s something I want to tell you,’ she says, and makes a little gesture behind her.
    On the big oak table are some small framed sketches and he bends to look at them. They are almost cartoons: an elephant with a howdah full of astonished-looking dignitaries; a blimpish-looking colonel; an Indian rajah. In each of these is a small dog: a Cairn terrier, whisking round a corner, sitting up to beg, nipping someone’s ankle. The drawings are full of character and charm, and down in the right-hand corner are the initials DF.
    â€˜I recognize these,’ Claude says. ‘They used to hang in one of the bedrooms in the Merchant’s House.’
    â€˜I want to tell you about them,’ Evie says, sitting down. ‘It’s a way of clearing my mind. It’s quite a story. I’m not going to tell it to you the way TDF pieced it together but as his final conclusion. I’ve got to share it with somebody, Claude, and you are the only person I can totally trust. I’m telling you in complete confidence.’
    He sits down, flattered but rather puzzled, and also slightly nervous.
    â€˜I shan’t say a word, of course.’ He looks again at the cartoons. ‘Who was DF? He was a relation, wasn’t he?’
    Evie picks up the sketch of the elephant. She stares at it as if she is getting things organized in her mind and then begins.
    â€˜The Fortescue estate was always entailed on the eldest son. TDF’s great-great-grandfather had two sons, Thomas and David. The younger, David, married first and had a son called George. David was an artist, he worked for the
Illustrated London News
and he did these cartoons.’
    She puts the sketch down again and clasps her hands together. Claude