The House Above the River by Josephine Bell Read Free Book Online Page A

the château.”
    â€œIs it, indeed?”
    But Giles had gone, without answering, and they heard him untying the dinghy, and setting off for the shore.
    Susan stood waiting on the stage. She admired the easy way he handled the little boat in the choppy waves of the river. She hoped she would not make any terrible mistakes getting into it, herself. She had no qualms about the trip out to the yacht. Giles was far too competent for that.
    With his quiet advice, and the help of a strong hand, she got down into the dinghy neatly, and instinctively, though she knew nothing of boats, settled herself in the centre of the thwart to balance it. Giles noted this with satisfaction. On the rather wet row against the wind and the waves, back to Shuna , he admired still further her complete serenity.
    â€œSorry about this,” he said, as a wave hit the bows of the dinghy and spray flew over them both. “I ought to have warned you, perhaps.”
    â€œMuch better not,” she laughed. “Or I mightn’t have come.”
    â€œI don’t believe it.”
    They both laughed, and neither felt that rain or spray or any other discomfort counted at all beside the pleasure of being there together.
    The house, that had seemed so gloomy and forbidding on the sunny day of their first visit, now appeared in a much more welcoming guise. Compared with the general discomfort of a yacht at anchor in a gale of wind and rain, they found dry warmth, and room to stretch their legs, and a firm surface under their feet, most heartening.
    When they arrived, Susan told them to dump their bags in the hall, and then led them to a small, pleasantly furnished sitting-room, where a log fire, recently lit, crackled on the hearth.
    â€œThis is Miriam’s room,” the girl explained. “I thought she’d be here. I’ll go and find her while you thaw out.”
    The three friends waited in silence. Phillipa sat down to warm her hands, cold from the rain; Tony got out a pipe and filled it, but put it back in his pocket unlighted; Giles wandered about the room uneasily, wishing he had not come. When the door opened, they all started. But it was only Francine, in her neat black dress, covered now with a small flowered apron.
    After greeting them all politely, she said, in her precise, high-pitched French voice, “Would you like me to show you to your rooms?”
    She spoke with the slight burr of a Breton accent, reminding Giles of the English west-country dialects. Her French, however, was perfectly intelligible to all of them.
    They followed her up a wide staircase, along a passage and round a corner into a short corridor, with a window at the end.
    She opened two doors, on either side of this corridor, waving the Marshalls towards one, and Giles towards the other. They separated and went into their respective rooms.
    Giles noticed at once that his bag was there already, placed on a chair under the window. This room, being further from ground level than those he had already seen, was less shut in by the trees, though the view was equally restricted to the woods that closed upon the house from all sides. While he was still looking out of the window, he heard the door of the room close behind him, and turning, saw Francine, standing just inside it, her hands clasped over her apron.
    â€œMonsieur must forgive me,” she said, “if I speak to him about Madame.”
    â€œWhich Madame?” he asked, smiling, and wondering what on earth she meant.
    â€œMadame Davenport.”
    He frowned, and was about to refuse to listen to her, when she came forward a few steps, and went on in a hurried, pleading manner that quite astonished him.
    â€œMadame is ill. She has been ill for many years. Here, you understand.” She tapped her forehead significantly. “Everyone is afraid for her, and a little afraid of her, too. Now Monsieur has arrived, so unexpectedly, and it has had a most profound effect on Madame. The