The River Adventure

18

The River Adventure

    Sir Noël lay on his side and languidly chewed a blade of grass. “He is behind that hedgerow,” he murmured.

    “Take him over a drop of cider,” suggested Dr Fairbrother, grinning.

    “Ssh!” hissed Mrs Mayes as the company duly collapsed in sniggers.

    “Shall we try it?” murmured Mr Tarlington.

    Dr Fairbrother squinted up at the sky. “Aye—best make up our minds to it. Now, remember: wander about as much as you like, dear fellows, only do not let the girls out of your sight. That rascal in the muffler never got anything out of Fliss, y’know, so they may well have instructions to nobble any of you girls to see what you know.”

    “That’s right,” agreed Fliss anxiously.

    “Aye. Well, now, let’s see: perhaps you and Lord Rupert could wander off first, Fliss, me dear: pick a few flowers, exclaim over the beauty of a tree fifteen fields in the distance: you know the sort of thing!” he said, grinning.

    Giggling, Fliss agreed she knew the sort of thing. She scrambled up before Lord Rupert could pull himself together and assist her, but then kindly took his arm. And could be heard as they progressed across the field to say loudly: “Only look at that magnificent tree! Does not a great tree induce in one a truly humble feeling of being but the least of God’s creatures, dear Lord Rupert?”

    Pansy collapsed in muffled sniggers.

    “That’ll do,” said the zoologist, grinning. “Now, let’s see...”

    “Hold on a minute, Wynn,” murmured Sir Noël. “Do you have a pistol on you?”

    “Uh—no,” he admitted.

    “Shootin’ a Runner would indeed entail transportation, dear chap,” drawled Mr Tarlington.

    “Ssh!” said his friend crossly. “What if the damned fellow tries to accost Wynn and Miss Pansy in the wood?”

    “Sir Noël, perhaps you had better accompany them,” faltered Delphie.

    “No!” hissed Mrs Mayes strongly. “Where is your wits, me lovey? If Bessy and Sally is to be Dr Fairbrother and Pansy a-comin’ back to the house, who’s to be Sir Noël?”

    “I could be myself,” he said meekly.

    Mrs Mayes grinned sheepishly. “Never thought o’ that one, sir! Aye, so you could! Yes: I tell you what, you nip off with Dr Fairbrother and Pansy, and go just far enough to be sure you ain’t followed. For the critter will be at his wits’ end to know which of us he should be keepin’ an eye on, by that time!” she added, wheezing.

    “Quite,” said Sir Noël, grinning. “And then I come straight back here: that it?”

    “If you haven’t lost yourself in the wood,” noted Pansy drily, as Mrs Mayes nodded.

    “I don’t think he’ll do that, if he never managed to lose himself with the whole of the Iberian Peninsula at his disposal,” noted Mr Tarlington idly.

    “Shall we go next, then?” said Pansy hopefully, ignoring this.

    “Er—providin’ always Noël does have a pistol in his pocket: yes!” said Mr Tarlington with a grin.

    “Yes, I do,” he said simply, getting up. He twitched his coat into place and said cheerfully—and loudly: “Well, Miss Pansy? Shall we venture on a little wander? How effective the massy effect of that clump of trees yonder is, to be sure! I feel sure you will find the effect of their dappled shade most refreshing, also!”

    Pansy got up, looking rather uncertain, but saying loudly enough: “That sounds delightful, Sir Noël.” She glanced uncertainly at Dr Fairbrother.

    “Here!” said Mrs Mayes in a shocked voice. And very loudly. “What is you thinkin’ of, Dr Fairbrother, to be allowin’ a little bitty thing like Miss Pansy to go off into them woods with a feller we don’t hardly know?”

    Shaking all over, Dr Fairbrother, got up. “Aye, you’re right. I had best accompany you, my dear young people, to play propriety.”

    “Pray do,” said Sir Noël in a strangled tone. He offered Pansy his arm politely, but as the three of them retreated in good enough order, his fine shoulders could be observed to be quivering.

    “Smacks of verisimilitude,” murmured Mr Tarlington.

    Delphie had held up wonderfully to this point, but at this she collapsed in smothered giggles.

    Mr Tarlington had feared a rather different reaction from the older Miss Ogilvie at the point when her sister should disappear riverwards: he looked at her with approval evident on his dark face.

    Mrs Mayes was sitting up, busily tidying away the last remains of the picknick, but after a few moments she said cheerfully—and loudly: “Well, now! If you young things was a-thinkin’ of goin’ for a bit of a stroll, I dare say as I might stir me stumps to chaperon you!”

    “Delightful,” said Mr Tarlington promptly, getting up.

    “Yes: lovely,” agreed Delphie weakly. She allowed him to assist her to her feet.

    “Don’t look now, only he’s a-peerin’ over his hedge like a mad thing!” hissed Mrs Mayes as they walked off in a different direction entirely from those taken by the other two parties.

    “Aye: in especial as Fliss and Rupert have disappeared,” noted Mr Tarlington.

    “Lawks, should I ’a’ gone with them, sir?” she said in dismay.

    “Not at all, ma’am: they are cousins, after all.”

    Delphie looked at him doubtfully.

    “To say truth, I think Mamma would be only too thrilled if a match could be brought about between them.” he admitted. “And Rupert’s a thoroughly good fellow, you know: he will not cross the line.”

    “Aye, well, that’s what l would have said,” said Mrs Mayes in relief.

    “Mrs Mayes is very wise about people,” said Delphie, smiling at her.

    Mr Tarlington had observed that. He looked at Mrs Mayes somewhat drily and said: “Indeed. Which of the two, Harley or Noël, do you prefer, ma’am?”

    Mrs Mayes gave him an even drier look, but as Delphie was looking at her hopefully, said rather reluctantly: “Now don’t take anything I says as Gospel, acos no matter what anyone else may say, young people has to make up their own minds. Only I would say it’s a pity as we can’t mix the two together for her. For they both got their good points, that’s clear. But on t’other hand, if Mr Quayle-Sturt is more proper nor Sir Noël, well, Sir Noël is just that much more of a man o’ fashion, now ain’t he?”

    Delphie nodded mutely.

    “Harley’s no sailor,” murmured Mr Tarlington.

    “There you are, then,” said Mrs Mayes promptly.

    Delphie sighed. “Yes.”

    Mr Tarlington bit his lip. “I’m sorry, Miss Ogilvie. I shouldn’t have brought the subject up.”

    “No, don’t apologize: of course it has been clear to everyone that they both admire Pansy,” she said, smiling at him. “And I thought we were agreed, it was to be ‘Cousin Delphie’?”

    “Certainly: Cousin Delphie,” he said, smiling.

    They walked on together in a state of perfect amity.

    After some time Delphie murmured: “To say truth—though of course I have scarcely met him—it is Sir Noël’s uncle who—who appears to me to most nearly represent the—the desirable mix of the traits of Sir Noël and Mr Quayle-Sturt.” By the end of this speech she was very pink and wishing she had not embarked on it.

    “Bobby Amory?” croaked Mr Tarlington. “If you think Noël bears the dread ear-marks of a man of fashion, Bobby Amory, let me tell you, is an hundred times worse!”

    “No—I’m sorry: I—I meant Colonel Amory!” gasped Delphie, now a glowing scarlet.

    “Oh!” he said with a sheepish grin. “Good gad! You had me going there, Cousin Delphie! Why, yes, Richard Amory is all that is admirable. And you are certainly right in thinking he combines Harley’s right-thinking, if I may call it so, with Noël’s, er... manly attributes?” He raised his eyebrows.

    “That’ll do!” said Mrs Mayes roundly, after one swift glance at Delphie’s glowing cheeks.

    “I beg your pardon, Cousin Delphie,” said Mr Tarlington immediately.

    “So I should hope! Manly attributes, indeed!” said Mrs Mayes crossly.

    “Um, well, he has Noël’s good looks, ma’am. They are very alike, in feature,” he said sheepishly.

    Mrs Mayes sniffed.

    “Yes, it is so,” agreed Delphie faintly. “But—but Colonel Amory has—has something of a gentler look. Or so it seemed to me.”

    “Of course: you would have met him at the school, when he was collecting little Lizzie for the school holidays—or delivering her back,” realised Mr Tarlington.

    “Yes,” she said faintly.

    “Mm, you’re right: he is a gentler man,” he said thoughtfully. “Very much liked: very popular with his men as well as his officers, I believe.”

    “Yes. It—it is so sad about his leg,” she ventured.

    “Aye, indeed it is, poor Richard!” he said kindly, smiling at her.

    “He’s a cripple, is he, me deary?” asked Mrs Mayes, looking at her with interest.

    “Not that; he walks with a stick, dear Mrs Mayes,” she faltered.

    “A shattered knee, I think it was,” said Mr Tarlington. “He served in India, Mrs Mayes: invalided out.”

    “I see!” she said, nodding.

    Mr Tarlington was in no doubt whatsoever that she did.

    “This is far enough think,” said Dr Fairbrother.

    “We must be nearly at the river,” said Pansy.

    “Mm,” replied the zoologist noncommittally.

    “We haven’t been walking for very long: could I not accompany you the whole way?” murmured Sir Noël.

    “No,” replied Dr Fairbrother baldly.

    “Don’t you trust me, Wynn?” he murmured, raising his eyebrows mockingly.

    “It isn’t a matter of trusting you, I just feel that the fewer who know our rendezvous-point, the better.”

    “I see,” he said on a dry note. “Very well, I shall leave you here. May I wish you the best of luck with the voyage, Miss Pansy?” he added.

    Pansy beamed. “Thank you, Sir Noël! And we shall see you and your yacht in the Pool. I’m so looking forward to seeing her!” ‘

    “You’ll like her. I think. Schooner-rigged.”

    “Yes, you said,” she agreed eagerly.

    “All the best, Noël. Sure you can make it to the Pool in time?” said Dr Fairbrother.

    “Unless we are kept in port by an unseasonal blizzard or a flat calm, I am very sure of it, my dear Wynn,” he replied. “Now, do not forget: you have promised me a ship’s parrot for Égyptienne and a monkey for my little cousin Lizzie!”

    “Mm. You’ll get ’em when you’ve brought us off all right and tight!” he said, grinning very much and wringing his hand.

    “Oh, that’s understood!”

    “Will Lizzie’s papa want her to have a monkey, though?” said Pansy weakly.

    Sir Noël smiled a little. “Richard is the best fellow in the world, Miss Pansy. I think you would have met him when he called at the school: did he strike you as the sort to refuse his little daughter anything?”

    “Well, no. Only monkeys can be very destructive.”

    “Rubbish. I’ll start training up one of Percy’s young cousins this very evening,” said Dr Fairbrother briskly. “Dare say he’ll be jealous of it. Still, can’t be helped.”

    Pansy frowned. “Do you truly wish for a monkey?” she demanded grimly of the baronet.

    “Certainly!” he said with a little laugh. Pansy’s scowl did not abate. “Why, yes.” he said on a gentler note. “These little marmosets are irresistible, do not you think?”

    “Yes. Only if you haven’t thought it through, then it will be most unfair on Percival Cummings the Second to have to support Dr Fairbrother’s spending time with another monkey.”

    “Oh,” he said, very taken aback. “I see. Well, I am very sure Lizzie will adore one. But—um—perhaps I had best write to Richard,” he ended lamely.

    Pansy nodded firmly. “That would be best.”

    Sir Noël eyed her drily. “I’ll tell him to address his answer to the Pool, shall I?”

    Pansy scowled horribly. “No. Brighton.”

    “Mm. Well, then: à bientôt.” He sketched a bow, and was gone.

    After a moment Pansy said: “I can’t even hear him.”

    Dr Fairbrother eyed her sardonically. “No.”

    Pansy swallowed. “l—I suppose he must have learnt to—to move silently in wooded country in the Peninsula.

    “I suppose he must have, yes. I think there is rather more to that fine gent than meets the eye.”

    She swallowed again. “Yes.”

    “Come on,” said the zoologist neutrally.

    Pansy accompanied him in silence.

    “Well, bless me, Miss Pansy, you ain’t changed a jot!” said the former Swan Coddles cheerfully.

    Pansy swallowed. Swan was only about her own age, but she was cradling a plump little boy of perhaps ten months, and there was another child very evidently on the way. Added to which, when last seen she had been a delicate slip of a thing, with a mop of shiny black ringlets and a piquant heart-shaped face. She had since grown about six inches in height and broadened in girth to something like three times the size of her fourteen-year-old self. Though the mop of ringlets was still in evidence.

    “The same can’t be said of you, Swan,” noted Dr Fairbrother, grinning. “How are you? Keeping well, I hope?”

    “Oh, aye: I’m fit as a flea, never you fret!”

    “So—so you have a little boy, then?” said Pansy weakly.

    “Aye: this one be Johnny, Miss Pansy! See the pretty lady, Johnny!” she encouraged him. “Only I was thinkin’, if you didn’t mislike it, sir, as we might call the next one Wynn, if so be it’s a boy,” she said to the zoologist.

    “I’d be flattered, Swan,” he replied promptly. “Want me to stand godfather?”

    Fred Coddles, a short, wiry man with the same rioting black curls as his daughter, and a skin burnt dark by his open-air life, came up to Dr Fairbrother’s elbow and said with a scornful laugh: “Chance ’ud be a fine thing! Well, we stopped off up-river a ways and spoke to the vicar what married Swan, and asked him about it. Only he wouldn’t do us a christening, not if it was ever so.”

    “Even though he done Johnny, and no questions asked,” agreed Swan, kissing her infant’s head.

    “You mean he won’t perform the christening for the new baby? But whyever not?” asked Pansy in amaze.

    George Hanley had been assisting Mrs Coddles to tie up the second boat: he lounged up the tow-path in time to overhear this. “Two guesses, Pansy,” he said drily.

    Pansy looked blank.

    Mr Coddles shook his head. “That husband of hers, he weren’t a river man,” he explained. “Ma and me said at the time, it were a daft thing to go and do, only Swan would have him. He didn’t last no more’n six months. First hint of frost and he was off.”

    “Aye; and it’s real cosy on the boats, too,” said Swan placidly.

    “Good gracious! You mean he deserted you?” cried Pansy.

    “Well, ’e couldn’t take the river life, not no-how,” responded her old friend calmly. “Don’t think it never struck ’im as us river-folks don’t never sleep in no house. Thought as we should be drawin’ up by an inn every night, see?”

    Mr Coddles spat ruminatively. “Aye. Liked ’is pint, too.”

    “It don’t do, on the river. Not when you’re in charge of a boat,” said Swan.

    “No, indeed!” agreed Pansy. “So—so he just went home, then, Swan?”

    “I dunno!” she said with a comfortable chuckle. “We think as ’e musta pushed off back to ’is village, aye. Only none on us never bothered to go a-findin’ out, did we, Pa?”

    Mr Coddles shook his head. “Good riddance, we all said. Never did pull ’is weight.”

    “I see... But that doesn’t explain why that vicar won’t christen your new baby, Swan,” said Pansy.

    “It’s acos it ain’t his’n, Miss Pansy,” she said placidly.

    “Oh,” said Pansy, going very pink.

    “Whose is it, then?” asked Dr Fairbrother with kindly interest.

    “It be mine,” said Swan with a grin. “Well, to tell you true, Dr Fairbrother, I ain’t certain-sure. That Jack Pretty, he will have it as it’s his.”

    “Well, that’s all right: he’s river-folk, too, isn’t he?”

    “Aye, but he’s a right cloth-head, for all that!” she said with a laugh. “No, well, I ain’t sayin’ as it ain’t. Only there was this nice young lad as we met downriver a ways.”

    “Spent three weeks on the boats. Think he were a college boy, only he didn’t never let on,” explained Mr Coddles. “Soon see: if the baby’s got red hair, it’ll be his’n. Only,” he said firmly, patting his daughter’s sturdy shoulder: “it don’t make no matter. Acos it’ll be a Coddles, like the rest on us.”

    “Aye,” said Swan placidly.

    Pansy drew a deep breath. “This vicar must be a short-sighted fool! How can he hope to—to accumulate souls for his blessed church, if he goes round refusing to baptize blameless babes?”

    “That’s what George said,” noted Mr Coddles placidly.

    “Yes,” agreed George Hanley calmly.

    “After which,” reported Mr Coddles with relish: “he offers to black his eye for ’im!” He went off into a prolonged wheezing fit, in which he was immediately joined by the elderly Mr Venn, who had been standing by silently, not putting his oar in.

    “Good for you, Mr Hanley!” cried Pansy loudly.

    Mrs Coddles now came up, panting rather, for she was a woman of great girth, and chuckling richly, enveloped Pansy in a huge hug. Declaring, as her daughter had done, that Pansy hadn’t changed a bit!

    ... “You would never think,” said Pansy in a very much lowered voice to Lady Sarah, later that evening, as she assisted her to pack her few belongings, “that Swan used to be the most sylph-like creature. I used to wonder how Mrs Coddles could have produced her. Truly, Lady Sarah: she was like a—a nymph!”

    Lady Sarah nodded sympathetically.

    Pansy sighed. “And she was such fun! We did everything her brothers did, on the boats, you know; and we used to collect tadpoles, and Swan had a pet stickleback in a jar for ages... I suppose everyone has to grow up,” she ended in a tiny voice, “only I would never have thought that—that all she would be interested in would be babies and—and men.”

    Lady Sarah had been somewhat shocked by Swan Coddles’s story, which Pansy had not hesitated to pour out to her and her sister, it not having dawned that Mr and Mrs Hanley, Dr Fairbrother, and even the aged Mr Venn would tactfully have refrained from enlightening the Claveringham ladies as to the facts of this particular case. Nevertheless she looked at Pansy very sympathetically and said gently: “I think it is very often so with the lower orders, is it not? For—for their situation in life does not encourage them, or indeed, allow them, to—to take the opportunity of thinking of anything else.”

    “No,” said Pansy gruffly. “You’re right. Only I—I thought Swan was different. It was silly of me.”

    Lady Sarah just gave her another sympathetic look and did not point out that young women from genteel backgrounds were also normally expected to concentrate on, if not babies and men, then certainly a gentleman and his babies, when they grew up.

    “So: we’ll sleep aboard tonight!” said Dr Fairbrother happily.

    “Thought you were going straight back home, Wynn?” replied George Hanley with a grin.

    “Uh—well, no harm if I come with you just as far as, um, well...”

    “Two locks, no more,” he said firmly.

    “Oh, very well, then. Dare say Mrs Mayes and Jacky might start to worry, if I was away longer. Um—let me see, where does that take us to? ...Yes,” he said as old Mr Venn’s grimy forefinger identified the very spot on the map. “Look here, Grandpa Venn, are you sure you’ll be all right here with only Martha to spell you? Harley could always stay with you to help out.”

    Mr Venn chuckled and wheezed and nodded his head. “Aye, that I’ll be!”

    Martha Hanley pointed out briskly that the weather was very fine, and Pa hadn’t been bothered by no aches and pains for weeks now, and him and her could manage the lock, no trouble. And she thought Mr Harley would be of more use on that second boat, if so be as they was to tow a barge.

    Dr Fairbrother, grinning, admitted this might be so: he and Mr Quayle-Sturt had been somewhat disconcerted to see the Coddles family turn up not only with two flat-bottomed boats, as requested, but also with laden barges linked to each of them. Mr Coddles had explained that Swan had her own boat, now, and it weren’t worth makin’ the run to Lunnon if so be they didn’t have a cargo. The zoologist refrained from mentioning Harley’s earlier doubts about accompanying the ladies: if the fellow had rethought his position, so much the better.

    Martha then bustled them all off, declaring if they was goin’ then they’d best set off while there was still a mite of light to see by, and if they dawdled any longer that Peter Banks would be a-sniffin’ round the place, sure as eggs was eggs! Only breaking down at the very last to embrace Lady Jane fiercely and say with a sob: “Now, me deary, you take care, hear?” Forthwith, Lady Jane having kissed her round red cheek gently, bursting into tears and throwing her apron over her face.

    ... “Stay below, we’ve got to get past damned Peter Banks’s cottage.” said George Hanley grimly as Pansy’s head poked up hopefully from the little cabin.

    “Oh.”

    “You lasses can get us some supper,” added Mr Hanley in a neutral tone.

    Pansy gulped.

    “Bustle about, then!”

    She gulped again, and disappeared.

    Mr Hanley waited, in expectation of nothing very much, but after a little the tiny galley chimney began to smoke cheerfully. Mr Hanley began to whistle.

    Meanwhile, Swan Coddles and Dr Fairbrother between them were initiating Mr Quayle-Sturt into the mysteries of managing the placid barge-horse, whose name. it appeared, was Old Horse, managing the towed barge, and, just incidentally. “walking” the boats under the lower canal bridges. Which fortunately, or so Mr Quayle-Sturt felt, they couldn’t demonstrate just at this precise point. By the time that George Hanley called them for supper, Peter Banks’s cottage having been left safely behind, Swan had begun to initiate Mr Quayle-Sturt into the mysteries of locks.

    “There’s a great deal more to it than I had thought,” he confessed, sipping hot soup.

    “That there be. –Have a egg, Mr Harley.” said Swan hospitably. Weakly Mr Quayle-Sturt allowed Swan to crack an egg into his bowl of soup.

    “Not duck’s, I trust?” said Dr Fairbrother.

    “No. Pansy Hen, she done laid it fresh this mornin’.”

    The Ladies Jane and Sarah had to swallow. Swan’s flat-bottomed boat supported several hens and a very fine cockerel, all of which pottered about pecking on top of the cargo, which was some sort of rubble-like material which the ladies had not identified. And all of which she had apparently named after her friends and acquaintances. Both Delphie and Pansy had been favoured, as also had Martha Hanley. The cockerel’s name was apparently Maudlin. After some puzzling, for he appeared a happy, indeed feisty bird, Lady Sarah had given in and asked why. Swan had explained placidly it was acos she had got him in Oxford and the tower, it were a landmark, acos then you knowed you was a-gettin’ in to the town. M,A,G,D,A,L,E,N, her hearers had concluded limply.

    ... “I shall sleep on deck,” decided Mr Quayle-Sturt.

    “Eh? Rats! Why, there ain’t enough room to swing a cat out there, let alone for a grown man to stretch ’isself out!” cried Swan.

    “You must see that I cannot leave the young ladies without protection.”

    “I don’t see that, Mr Harley, with the four on us to settle any feller!”

    “Exactly,” agreed Pansy, giving him a hard look.

    Mr Quayle-Sturt opened his mouth but before he could speak George Hanley said peaceably: “The best thing would be for us to stand alternate watches, I think, Harley.”

    “That ain’t a bad idea. Pa’s got a gun,” offered Swan.

    “Then perhaps he’d like to take one of the watches,” said George.

    “Not if he’s going to go drawing attention to us by loosing off his gun at shadows,” said Mr Quayle-Sturt uneasily.

    “He ain’t witless!” replied Swan with terrific scorn. “I’ll get ’im. And you young ladles had best turn in. You gents can wait up on deck.”

    The young ladies had brought their night-gear but the Claveringhams had not been at all sure whether they should change out of their dresses. Or even be given the opportunity to do so. Now they removed their clothes quickly and huddled into their nightdresses and wrappers.

    “Leave your wrappers on: it can get chilly on the river overnight,” ordered Pansy. “You two must take the lower bunks.”

    Meekly Ladies Jane and Sarah took the lower bunks. Though Lady Sarah did murmur as she did so: “But will Swan wish to clamber up to a top bunk, in her condition?”

    “She said herself she’s as fit as a flea,” replied Pansy, nimbly clambering up to her narrow little bed. “And if she doesn’t wish to, she’ll sling a hammock.”

    “Yes,” murmured the ladies faintly. They had already had a demonstration from Mrs Coddles of how the family fitted into the other boat when they had had but the one: the boys slept either on the floor or in hammocks slung across the width of the narrowboat.

    After a little they heard the sounds of voices on deck, and then Swan descended into the cabin again.

    “So they’re standing three watches?” said Pansy.

    “No: four. Pa’s gonna wake me up, and I’ll take the last. So if so be you hears a bit of a racket, like, young ladies,” she said with a chuckle. “don’t pay it no mind! Acos I’m a terrible heavy sleeper!”

    “Swan, don’t you need your rest?” said Pansy anxiously.

    “Indeed,” agreed Lady Sarah faintly.

    “Oh, don’t you worry your head about me! I can take a cat-nap during the day.”

    “Are you sure? I could take your watch,” offered Pansy.

    “No, you couldn’t. A bitty little thing like you couldn’t throw a feller in the drink!” she said with a laugh. “Only I’ve done it I dunnamany times.”

    “Well, I don’t suppose Lord Whatsisface will ever track us down here in any case,” said Pansy. “Good-night, everyone.”

    “Good-night, Pansy,” said the ladies faintly.

    “Aye: sweet dreams!” grinned Swan.

    “Good-night: and—and thank you a thousand time, dear Swan,” said Lady Jane in a trembling voice.

    Swan just laughed cheerfully.

    “Yes; we shall never be able to repay you for your kindness,” said Lady Sarah.

    “Rats! Now, you get off to sleep! There be no sweeter sleep than what you gets on the river!”

    Whether or no that was true, the Claveringham ladies, to their own surprize, did sleep very soundly, only half-rousing when Fred Coddles came in to shake Swan awake for her watch. By the time they awoke, the boat was on the move again.

    “It must be very early, I think,” murmured Lady Jane.

    “Yes. Well, that’s sensible: the further away we get from Oxford, the safer we shall be.”

    Lady Jane shivered a little. “Yes.”

    “Papa must have got your letter by now,” said Sarah.

    “I suppose so,” she said faintly, swallowing.

    They were silent for a while.

    “It is a very pleasant motion,” murmured Lady Jane.

    “Very smooth: yes,” agreed Sarah. She looked uncertainly round the cabin, which was empty save for themselves, with no signs of breakfast and the stove unlit. “Should we—should we perhaps get up, and—and prepare breakfast?”

    Jane swallowed. “I do not think l could, from scratch, even after dear Martha’s careful tuition.”

    “Nor I,” she admitted, wrinkling her nose. “l would not have had a notion how to start that stove, last night! It is as well Pansy decided to come with us!”

    “Indeed.” After a moment she added: “What do you suppose one eats for breakfast on a barge, dearest?”

    “Narrowboat,” corrected Lady Sarah, her fine hazel eyes twinkling a little. “I think it will not be the soft rolls or delightful brioches which Mamma’s cook was used to prepare, at any rate!”

    “No. Martha’s bread and milk was not unpleasant. Perhaps it will be something of that sort.”

    Sarah smiled a little. “I preferred that marvellous thing she would fry up occasionally, with the cold potatoes, to tell you the truth! Er—I fear it will not be bread and milk, however, my love.”

    “It is very simple fare,” pointed out her gentle sister.

    Sarah’s eyes sparkled. “Yes, but where would they put a cow, or even a goat, on these narrowboats?”

    “Oh, dear!” she squeaked.

    Lady Sarah laughed. After a moment she said: “They seem very good people.”

    “Indeed!” sighed Jane.

    “Though from something Mr Hanley let slip, I should not be surprized if Mr Coddles offers us a slice of cold pheasant or a nice fresh lamb’s kidney.”

    “What do you mean?” said Jane blankly.

    “Well, my love, do not be shocked: I gathered that he is the sort of man who regards anything that moves either on the bank or the water, not to say in the water, as his natural prey!” she murmured with a smothered giggle.

    “Er... Oh, dear.” After a moment Lady Jane added in a quavering voice: “Dearest, do you think we shall be safe with him?”

    The little cabin was rather gloomy: Sarah peered at her sister’s face and said: “Don’t upset yourself, my love. Of course we shall be perfectly safe with him. Well. if it should cross his mind to ask Papa a substantial ransom for our return, I own I should not blame him for it! But in any case we have Mr Quayle-Sturt and dear Mr Hanley to look after us.”

    “Ye-es... He looks a rascally fellow.” she whispered.

    Lady Sarah replied composedly: “I make no doubt he is. But he is most certainly a rascally fellow who very much loves and supports his daughter. Think it over, my love.”

    Lady Jane did. After a few moments she said in a low voice: “Yes. I see.”

    Lady Sarah was sure she did. She said nothing more.

    After quite some time, during which the two ladies, not sure what they should do, remained quietly in their bunks, there was considerable commotion up above.

    “What is it?” whispered Lady Jane fearfully.

    Lady Sarah sat up. “I have no notion. Can you see anything on your side?”

    “No.”

    Sarah got out of bed and went to peer out of the little window near the stove. “I think we must be in a lock. Take a look out of your window again, my love.”

    Lady Jane looked. “There—there is a—a wall,” she quavered.

    “Yes,” said Sarah with satisfaction. She remained glued to the window.

    “Are we are going up?” said Lady Jane faintly at last.

     “Down,” replied her sister firmly.

    “Oh.”

    At that moment Pansy descended into the cabin, beaming. “Good! You’re awake! We’ll just get past this lock and then we’ll have breakfast. But in the meantime we’re still too close to Oxford for you to show your faces, so stay below. won’t you?”

    “Yes,” agreed Sarah limply.

    Pansy smiled and came to perch on the end of Lady Jane’s bed. “Are you feeling better now?”

    “Well, I was feeling very much better in any case: dear Martha looked after me so very well, you know,” Lady Jane replied, pinkening. “But yes: I don’t know how it is: I have the most extraordinary sensation of liberation!” she ended with a tiny laugh.

    “It’s being on the river that does it: I always feel like that, too! Have you ever been sailing, Lady Jane?”

    Blushing, Lady Jane said: “Please, dear Pansy, just ‘Jane’. Yes, my brother Broughamwood has a yacht, and I have several times been on that.”

    “She’s a good sailor,” said Sarah with a sigh.

    “Poor Sarah gets seasick, so I was rather afraid she might not like the motion on the river; but she has been fine, have you not, dear?” said Jane.

    “Yes, it isn’t like the sea at all.” admitted Lady Sarah.

    “Oh. no: quite different,” said Pansy. “The sea is even more exhilarating, do you not find?”

    “Well, yes: I do,” admitted Jane, with an apologetic look at her sister.

    “Good. I’ll take you out in Poppet!”

    “l should like that,” she murmured.

    Pansy nodded. “Good. And, um, perhaps the Commander will take you out on Finisterre.” She made a face. “If he has got over his stuffy fit.”

    The two ladies looked at her dubiously.

    Pansy revealed glumly: “I had a letter from him just before we left. Delphie was right, and I shouldn’t have written him. Well. I didn’t let on what was it was all about. But he said if I was in trouble he would come to my aid, but he couldn’t envisage any scenario which would necessitate my being smuggled out of London.”

    The two Claveringham sisters bit their lips and glanced guiltily at each other.

    Pansy swallowed a sigh. “Oh, well. Just as well I didn’t ask him to bring Finisterre up to the Pool, I suppose.” With this she went out again.

    There was a little pause. Then Lady Jane murmured: “Sarah, my dear: should we dress?”

    “I don’t know. I was going to ask Pansy, but somehow…”

    “Perhaps we should wait until we are past this lock,” murmured Jane, as there came the sound of male voices shouting.

    “Yes,” she said, pinkening.

    They waited until they were past the lock. And then were rather disconcerted by Swan’s erupting into the cabin with a hearty: “Lawks, ain’t you ladies dressed, yet? Ma says to ask you if a nice piece of bacon might be what you fancies!”

    “Is your mother cooking breakfast?” asked Lady Sarah. scrambling out of her bunk.

    “Aye, for all on us. Usual, we gets up early and makes a bit of way and then we has a bite,” she explained.

    “Yes, I see. Do you—do you draw in to the bank, dear Swan?” asked Lady Jane. also getting out of her bed and endeavouring to remove her nightdress in the shelter of her wrapper.

    “Usual, unless we is in a tearin’ hurry. –Turn round, Missy Jane, let’s give you a hand, there.”

    Limply Lady Jane allowed Swan to undress her.

    “Skinny!” she exclaimed in disapproval.

    “She—she has lost weight, just lately. Dear Martha Hanley tried to feed her up,” said Sarah weakly.

    “Aye, well, me and Ma’ll see to it you eats hearty, Missy Jane. And the river, it do give an appetite. –I’d leave that blamed thing off if I was you, Missy Sarah: you won’t be needin’ it on the river,” she added.

    Lady Sarah, who had turned away modestly in order to put her corset on, started. “Will I not?” she said limply.

    “No. This ain’t warm enough, Missy Jane,” she said disapprovingly, pulling the muslin dress Jane had produced down over her head. “Pansy says I ain’t to call you ‘Lady’, acos we is to forget as we ever heard it,” she added. “And Dr Fairbrother, ’e said as that Mr Harley, he be a mutt!”

    “A mutt?” quavered Lady Jane faintly.

    “Acos ’e went and said it. Only never you mind, Missy Jane, us river folks is good at fergettin’! –Here,” she ended, thrusting a rough woollen garment at her.

    “No, really, I—” gasped poor Lady Jane.

    “It be quite clean. River folks be clean folks,” said Swan.

    “Of course! Indeed, we were remarking earlier how—how spanking clean both your boat and your mother’s are!” gasped Jane.

    “Right. Put this on, then, Missy Jane. I be growed out of it, and we thought we might cut its top off and make it into a petticoat, only I dare say it won’t be that tight on you! Now, let’s see what you got on, Missy Sarah. Lawks, that won’t do! What is it, a bit of a print thing? Aye, well, it be pretty enough, only it won’t do for the river. Didn’t that Martha give you no sensible clothes?”

    “She—she did indeed lend us each a gown. But—but we could not deprive her of them,” faltered Sarah.

    Swan sniffed. “And that there Pansy, she never thought to bring nothing for you, neither! Well, you can wear that dress of her’n!” Briskly she disinterred a black woollen dress from the small bag that Mr Quayle-Sturt had brought to George’s lock for Pansy.

    Sarah demurred but was overborne. Although she was a slight lady, she was a good deal taller than Pansy, and about four inches of her own print gown showed beneath the hem of the black dress. Swan then completed the picture the ladles presented by firmly crossing a worn brown shawl over Sarah’s black wool bosom, knotting it behind her, and forcing Lady Jane, even though her rust-coloured dress was very warm, into a grey knitted spencer.

   “That’s better. And you can’t wear them bonnets, they’ll give the game away good and proper,” she announced.

    “They are only plain straw, dear Swan,” faltered Lady Jane.

    “Too fancy!” said Sarah, suddenly laughing.

    “Aye, that they be, you’re catchin’ on, Missy Sarah! l got a spare sunbonnet, here, and there’s this here scarf, which ain’t half bad. We was over to Readin’ some time since, and I got it at Readin’ Market,” she said in a careless voice. “’T’ain’t half a good market.”

    The scarf was a bright printed cotton, and sufficiently hideous, but it was obvious that it was a prized possession. The ladies politely demurred, but eventually Jane had it forced upon her.

    “Well, now, you be two neat young river girls, me dears!” said Dr Fairbrother with a laugh when the two eventually emerged topsides.

    The ladies smiled and blushed a little, not merely for their own appearance, for Dr Fairbrother himself was hatless and in his shirt-sleeves, wearing a rough leather jerkin instead of a waistcoat, and quite minus a neckcloth, and Mr Quayle-Sturt presented a similar picture except that his neck was adorned with a rough woollen scarf and his hands with old black woollen mittens.

    “Are we to draw in to the side to breakfast, sir?” Lady Jane asked Dr Fairbrother in a timid voice.

    “Ask the helmsman!” he said with a laugh.

    “Aye, we shall stop for a little,” said George Hanley.

    “I see,” she said, glancing nervously over her shoulder.

    “The chances of your father’s men being anywhere near the river must, I should calculate, be in the region of ten thousand to one.” he said kindly. “But if it will make you feel easier, we’ll draw in to the further bank.”

    Lady Jane reddened but admitted it would.

    “I’ll tell the others!” said Pansy. The Claveringham ladies watched in horror as she scrambled lithely along the length of the boat, waited her moment and then leapt onto the towed barge of the lead boat. to make her way along its length order to speak to Mr Coddles, at the helm of the other narrowboat.

    “You’ll be doing that yourselves without a second thought by the end of the week!” said Dr Fairbrother with a chuckle.

    “Not I,” said Sarah, shuddering. “Though l grant you the motion of the boats is not unpleasant. But the mere thought of—of standing directly above all that water, with nothing to hold on to—”

    “It’s a matter of confidence, as much as balance,” said the zoologist thoughtfully.

    “Quite!” she agreed with feeling.

    Mr Quayle-Sturt chuckled and said: “I am entirely of your opinion, Lady Sarah. Walking quietly at Old Horse’s head is, I fear, destined to remain the limit of my boating expertise. And I have to confess that I also was most relieved to find the motion of a narrowboat nothing like that of a sea-going vessel.”

    “You must have been very sick on the troop-ships, Harley,” noted Dr Fairbrother.

    “I was,” he said frankly, and Lady Sarah smiled at him with terrific sympathy.

    Dr Fairbrother glanced thoughtfully from one to the other of them, but said nothing.

    The first breakfast of Mrs Coddles’s providing proved to be a reliable indicator of the sort of fare they could expect on the river. For river folk, she explained with a chuckle, could not be doin’ with bits of nothin’ like what gentry called a breakfast, the which she could vouch for, for she had a sister what was once in good service with a genteel family over to Readin’ way, whose young ladies had ate nothing but a bit of bread and jam for their breakfast! Only she (the sister, presumably) had missed the river life, and her second, he were a river man. Forthwith she served up not only the promised bacon, in great thick slices, but also sausages, which Swan explained they had had off a cottager not two mile above the lock, and right glad she had been to sell ’em, and thick slabs of dark bread. With, as they had ladies with them today, fresh butter. Though it was to be feared the Coddles boys managed to get more of this last than the ladies did.

    Dr Fairbrother had thoughtfully brought along some coffee, so Fred Coddles and the gentlemen had that, with the oldest Coddles boy, who was about sixteen, being allowed a taste. Mrs Coddles, beaming proudly, supposed as the ladies would like tea. She produced some from a very small caddy, and although it tasted very stale as well as very weak the ladies drank it gratefully. As a sort of dessert to this repast Mr Coddles, Swan, and the two older brothers had each a slab of the bread liberally spread with treacle. And in Mr Coddles’s case also a bit of left-over bacon. The which, he explained, was right tasty together. And when Ma got goin’, he added proudly to the Claveringham ladies, she would whip up a batch of muffins or pancakes like you never saw, on her little stovetop! Pansy agreed eagerly with this, so the two ladies, who had been silently wondering how Mrs Coddles managed for bread, nodded and smiled.

    The second lock was encountered that afternoon, and there Dr Fairbrother regretfully left them. Lady Jane and Lady Sarah tried to express their deep gratitude, but he brushed their protestations aside cheerfully, and strode off, whistling.

    “Such a good man,” said Lady Jane, applying her handkerchief to her eyes.

    “Yes, he is. But he did it partly for the adventure,” admitted Pansy.

    “She’s right, you know!” said George Hanley with a laugh. “Now, if you ladies would like to hop on down to the other boat. l dare say Mrs Coddles could do with a hand.”

    “Oh—yes! Certainly!” gasped the ladies, blushing.

    “A hand at what?” asked Pansy blankly as the black woollen dress with four inches of pretty print skirt showing beneath it and the tightly tied shawl above it, and the rust-coloured woollen dress with the grey spencer above it disappeared onto the lead boat.

    “It don’t matter. My Martha used to give ’em anything that’d make ’em busy and happy!” he said with a laugh. “You never saw so many pitted prunes! And one day, she was so pressed for something for them to do, she ended up having them make comfits out of the seeds she was going to use for the seedy-cake! The children were glad of them!” he owned, laughing. “And you saw anything like the seriousness with which those ladies dipped and rolled those seeds in the sugar syrup!”

    Pansy swallowed, and smiled shakily at him. “I see.”

    George stared dreamily across the sun-dappled river. “I wouldn’t half mind having that father of theirs at the business end of my fists for two minutes or so.”

    “Yes,” she agreed hoarsely.

    George Hanley hesitated and then said: “Pansy, my dear, have you considered what the end of this adventure is to be?”

    “They may live with me for as long as they please. You know I have all that silly money now.”

    “Yes. But how are you to effect a reconciliation with their parents without getting yourself and your sister into very serious trouble?”

    “We—we hope that their brothers may—may assist us in that,” she said nervously.

    “Good sort of men, are they?”

    “Um—well, I think the elder, Lord Broughamwood, most certainly is. Both Mr Tarlington and Mr Quayle-Sturt have spoken very highly of him.”

    “Mm.” George scratched his chin. “I grant you that Harley Quayle-Sturt’s had the gumption to come downriver with us—never thought he would, y’know, though I can see his heart’s in the right place. But how sound is his judgement, Pansy?”

    “I—well, I scarcely know him. But I would say, very sound. He—he strikes me as an admirable man himself. So—so anyone of whom he approves, I think, would be, um, reliable.”

    “Aye... Look, when we get to—well, one of the larger towns, perhaps: Windsor, maybe—I think the two ladies had best write to their brothers themselves. I’ll see the letters get off to them safely.”

    “Won’t it betray our position?”

    “I’ll post ’em from the far side of the town, how’s that?”

    “I suppose it will do. And by the time the gentlemen get the letters, we’ll be long gone.”

    “Aye,” he agreed.

    They both gazed dreamily across the river. Finally Pansy said in a vague voice: “Swan says we can pick wild strawberries a little further down.”

    “That’s right.”

    She sighed. “Is it not a perfect day?”

    George looked at her with considerable sympathy. “Aye.”

    The sun danced on the dimpled river: gnats and mayflies spun in its light; occasionally there was the gauzy flash of a dragonfly.

    “I envy you your life,” said Pansy eventually.

    George Hanley knew that. “Yes. But it was a conscious decision, you know. And at times it is—well, not a struggle, for I’ve got past that—but at times I have to make an effort, still, not to regret some of the things I’ve given up.” He smiled suddenly. “I used to be fond of hunting, unlikely though that may seem, and of the opera!”

    “I see,” said Pansy on a dubious note, never having experienced either.

    “And I suppose I miss... well, my mother’s linen sheets! And sometimes, the life of a scholar that I thought at one time I might take up. ...Yes: the chance to work quietly into the night up my own little staircase, without chick nor child to worry my head about,” he said with a wry smile. “That and music, are what I miss the most, I think.”

    After a moment Pansy said: “The linen sheets and the hunting coming second, then.”

    “Mm.”

    Pansy stared down the river for a long time. Finally she said: “I understand.”

    “Mm. Sometimes the most difficult thing of all,” said George Hanley tranquilly, “is not to lose my temper with my dear, good Martha for not being something that she never can be. And that I neither wanted nor asked of her she should be.”

    Pansy nodded.

    George glanced at her, hesitating. Then he asked her to take the helm while he lit his pipe. When the pipe was going he did not take over, for she was managing very competently, but leaned beside her in the sunshine, gazing into space.

    “It can be lonely,” he said after some time.

    “I can see that,” replied Pansy thoughtfully. “Living with people with whom you have, really, very little in common.”

    “Aye: that’s it,” he agreed tranquilly.

    After quite some time Pansy frowned and said on a cross note: “I see! This is a cautionary tale, is it, Mr Hanley?”

    “Something like that. I usually avoid giving advice,” he said mildly.

    “Then I’m flattered,” she returned in a hard voice.

    “Don’t be cross: it’s too nice a day. Um... Well, I only wanted to say, be damned sure of what you’re giving up before you decide you don’t want it.”

    “I should have thought,” said Pansy in a shaking voice, “that you would be the very last person on earth to endeavour to persuade me to waste my time on the frivolous, worthless life of fashionable London!”

    “That would be because you’ve never been to the opera,” he returned mildly.

    Pansy choked indignantly.

    “I mean it.” His eyes narrowed: he stared up into the sky. “Excellence,” he said finally.

    “What?” returned Pansy crossly.

    George sighed. “Excellence. That’s what the simple life can never attain, my dear. And that one sometimes—if rarely—finds in the concert hall or the opera house. Or the exhibitions of the Royal Academy: do you like pictures?”

    “I don’t know,” she said blankly.

    “No. Give it a try,” he said mildly.

    Pansy licked her lips nervously. “What about all the nonsensical business of—of stupid dances and parties?”

    “I’d just let that wash over me.”

    “Oh.” She stared down the river.

    “You get excellent flap mushrooms over there in autumn,” said George, nodding to their left.

    “What? Oh. Um... I have experienced what I would call true excellence, out sailing,” said Pansy gruffly.

    “Yes,” he agreed calmly.

    Pansy swallowed. “I’ll think about it.”

    “Mm.”

    “And sometimes,” she added, “in solving a mathematical puzzle.”

    George Hanley did not question whether these two activities could be considered to fall within the definition of excellence; he merely replied: “Your father was used to say the same about mathematics. Strange he did not also enjoy music: many mathematicians do.”

    “He was tone-deaf,” she said uncertainly.

    “I see. Never took you to hear the choir at his old college, then?”

    “At the chapel? No,” said Pansy blankly.

    “I sometimes go. In me boots, an’ all,” he said with a grin.

    “Good for you!” said Pansy with spirit.

    “Aye. Even the so-called Christians we gets round Oxford way don’t dare forbid a feller in boots to cross the threshold of their blessed chapel!” he said with a laugh. “Interesting architecturally, too, of course. Oh, by the way, I hear you’ve seen the gilded Elizabethan ceiling of the Blefford Park chapel?”

    “Um, yes.”

    George Hanley threw back his untidy, greying head with its unshaven chin and gazed directly up into the blue. “I find it quite glorious.”

    Unexpectedly tears prickled in Pansy’s eyes. “I—I’m afraid I was thinking only of my feet, by then.” she gulped.

    He looked down at her, and grinned. “Pity,” he said simply.

    After a moment Pansy said timidly: “Looking back, it was glorious.”

    “Mm.”

    Neither of them said anything more. George could see she was thinking things over. He didn’t insist. Nor did he say anything about the fact that choosing a course for one’s life divergent from the norm was far more difficult for a woman: not only the decision, but the carrying out. Pansy wasn’t stupid: she must have realized that. And nor did he say anything about such a decision’s entailing her missing out on the most fulfilling aspects of a woman’s life. George Hanley, as has been noted, was not a Romantick. And he did not find anything either romantic or fulfilling about childbirth. Certainly he was very fond of his own children. On the other hand, it had sometimes occurred to him to wonder whether the quality of his love for them was any different from that of Wynn Fairbrother for Percival Cummings the Second.

    Abingdon was past, and Henley, and Marlow was almost within sight. The weather remained glorious, Mrs Coddles continued to serve up huge and sustaining meals, and the party, to the silent amusement of George Hanley, had more or less sorted itself out into sub-groups. Pansy and Lady Sarah, who was the more active of the two ladies, if the poorer sailor, not infrequently accompanied Swan, with or without her brothers, on foraging expeditions in the woods and fields on either side of the river. Wild strawberries were certainly the best of the bounty they brought back, but Mrs Coddles was not above making a tasty soup out of a basketful of nettles. When Pansy was not off on one of these expeditions, she normally kept George company at the tiller. Pansy did not bring up any personal matters and he did not revert to their previous topic, either. Sometimes they were merely companionably silent together. Sometimes they talked about his parrots, or Dr Fairbrother’s menagerie, and sometimes Pansy drew him out about his adventures abroad, or described her own sailing adventures in Poppet or on Finisterre.

    It was pretty plain to George Hanley that she greatly admired this Commander Carey; on the other hand, it was also pretty plain that his failure to come flying to the rescue of her friends in his Finisterre had given Pansy the feeling that her idol had feet of clay. Well, thought George tolerantly, we were all only human; but there was no use in telling that to a person of her age: she’d have to find it out for herself, like the rest of us!

    Harley Quayle Sturt, as he himself had indicated, preferred accompanying Old Horse to the more navigational aspects of their journey, and not infrequently walked with the heavy old creature along the tow-path—though the horse had been doing the job for so long that he needed no guidance, really. After a little Lady Sarah took to accompanying him, when she was not off foraging with Pansy and Swan: sometimes walking at his side, or sometimes perched on the old horse’s back. In her borrowed black woollen dress with the frill of print showing under it, and Swan’s faded sunbonnet on her head, she would never have been taken for anything but a river girl, as Swan herself assured her, chuckling richly.

    Lady Jane spent a good deal of time with Mrs Coddles and when she was not doing that, or resting, she was generally with the youngest Coddles boy, Sam, and Swan’s little sister, a frail-looking child of around six years of age. Not named for any river-linked notion, but simply Mary. The two children were very fond of fishing, either from the boats, which did not generally result in very much except in keeping them happy and occupied for a while, or from the bank. Mr Coddles’s own piscatorial activities, which generally took place just before dawn or at dusk, did not usually involve a line; however, he was quite amenable to taking a break from time to time with rod and line in the company of Lady Jane and the little ones.

    “Well,” said Mrs Coddles comfortably, as Marlow hove in sight, “we can spend the night here, and in the morning I’d best nip over to market. Us could do with a few carrots, and such-like. Do you like cheese, me lovey?”

    “Yes, I’m very fond of cheese,” replied Lady Jane gallantly.

    “Good. Acos there is a woman what sells her own cheeses at Marlow, and they be not half tasty. Keepers, too: I ain’t never ’ad one with cheese mites, yet. And if they goes a bit mouldy, it can always be scraped off. I dessay as we might pick up a decent flitch o’ bacon, too.”

    “Indeed,” she agreed.

    “Right, then,” said Mrs Coddles, patting her arm: “you an’ me can nip on over to market, and Mary can come with us, and Sam if ’e likes, and I dare say as ’e will , acos there’s a stall what sells lickrish, and you never seen such a boy for lickrish!”

    “Ye— Oh: liquorice. Yes, of course.”

    “And if Fred takes the boat on a ways, we can join up with ’em, easy as nothing. Only he might like to do a bit o’ fishing. I’ll see.”

    “Yes. Will it—will it be safe for me to come with you, dear Mrs Coddles?” she asked in a trembling voice.

    Mrs Coddles eyed her up and down, and shook all over with chuckles. “I think it will, me lovey! Yer own ma wouldn’t know you! Only if you’d feel safer with your pretty face hid in a sunbonnet, I dessay as we could find one!”

    “I think I would,” she said, smiling.

    “Fine! Well, that’s what we’ll do.”

    So the next morning, Fred having decided to take the boats just past Marlow and moor there, and do a bit of fishing first thing, Mrs Coddles, Swan, and Lady Jane, all equipped with large baskets, duly set off for market. George Hanley having elected to go fishing with Fred, Mr Quayle-Sturt decided he had best accompany the ladies. Once Mrs Coddles, shaking all over, had forced him into a pair of her husband’s boots, he had the look, as she did not neglect to assure him, of a real river man. In that his buckskins would never be the same again, Harley could not but agree with her. If the boots and the stained buckskins, not to say the black mittens and the neck-scarf, had not been sufficient disguise, there was the added point that young Sam elected to ride the second half of the way on his shoulders.

    Pansy had scoffed at the notion that she and Lady Sarah would not be perfectly all right by themselves on the boats, but nevertheless Mr Coddles had left a proud-faced Tim Coddles, aged fourteen-and-a-half, in charge of them. Without the gun, however, Mr Coddles not being as green as he was cabbage-looking.

    The sun was well up in the sky, the birds had ceased their morning chorus and were merely twittering in a desultory manner, the insects were zinging over the water and the two young ladies were not doing anything more exciting than sit near the prow of Swan’s narrowboat dangling their feet over the side, when Tim Coddles gave a strangled squawk, and a man’s voice called from the towpath: “Ahoy, Bluebell Lady!” –Such being the Romantick name of Swan’s vessel.

    “A gennelman!” gasped Tim, scrambling to the girls’ sides.

    Pansy squirmed round and looked at the gentleman without interest. “Aye?” she shouted.

    “Are you Bluebell Lady?” cried the gentleman.

    Swan’s spick and span boat had her name proudly emblazoned in bright blue picked out with yellow on both her side, up at the prow, and her stern. “Be you blind, or what?” shouted Pansy.

    Lady Sarah, nervous though she was, at this collapsed in giggles.

    “Ssh!” hissed Pansy. “And don’t speak!”

    Still giggling helplessly, Sarah shook her head.

    “Whatcher want?” demanded Tim Coddles, legs well braced, arms akimbo.

    “I have a message for your captain!”

    “Tim: that’s not the man that might be the new baby’s father, is it?” hissed Pansy.

    “No. He had red hair.”

    “Oh, of course.”

    This gentleman had black, very shiny hair. He was, however, young and sufficiently attractive, and Pansy was not altogether sure that he might not be one of Swan’s swains. She got up cautiously, murmuring to Tim: “Don’t call me ‘Miss’, whatever you do.”

    Tim gave her an indignant look, but said nothing. Apart from the fact that he wasn’t as green as he was cabbage-looking, either, the family had pretty well got out of the habit of bothering to call her that at all.

    “The captain be gone on an errand,” said Pansy, cautiously approaching the shoreward side of the boat. And feeling thankful that they had taken George Hanley’s advice and pulled up the plank. “What be you a-wantin’ with him?” she added cunningly.

    The gentleman, who was on a fine chestnut, at this swept off his hat—affording Pansy an even better view of the glossy black curls—and bowed low, very plainly, or so Pansy concluded, mocking her. “I have a message for a Captain Swan. Is this not the Bluebell Lady after all?”

    “Maybe he can’t read!” hissed Tim, scrambling to Pansy’s side.

    “On the contrary,” said the gentleman politely. Pansy was now near enough to see that he had very blue eyes: long, narrow eyes with very thick, curled black lashes. The eyes danced mockingly in a dark, almost gypsy-like face. “Nor am I deaf,” he added politely.—Pansy swallowed.—“But I was under the impression that Captain Swan was a lady?”

    “She ain’t a lady!” said Tim with huge scorn.

    “No. River folks ain’t ladies and gennelmen,” said Pansy with immense satisfaction. “You can give us the message, Mister.”

    “Ah: but can I be sure of your bona fides?” he replied placidly.

    Pansy choked indignantly. “And can us be sure of your bony Fridees, me fine gent?” she cried. Behind her, Lady Sarah went into renewed whoops.

    “Aye: whatcher want with Swan?” added Tim grimly.

    The gentleman’s right hand went to the breast of his coat: Tim gasped, and grabbed at Pansy’s arm. Pansy gulped, but stood her ground.

    But it was only a letter.

    “I am charged to make quite sure of whose hands I deliver this into,” said the gentleman in an apologetic tone—though it was very plain to both Pansy and Tim that he was still mocking them.

    “You can see we be Bluebell Lady, what more does yer want?” cried Tim aggrievedly.

    “Aye. Give it here,” ordered Pansy grimly.

    The gentleman held it out with a mocking glint in his blue eyes.

    “Watch it, Pansy, it’ll be a trap!” hissed Tim.

    “Get the boathook,” she replied tersely.

    Tim scrambled to grab up the boathook. The gentleman watched this activity tranquilly.

    “Now,” ordered Pansy as the boy returned to her side: “get off that horse and grab our bow rope and pull us in a little.”

    “But what if the horse should bolt?” the rider replied plaintively, not moving.

    “I’ll bolt you!” gasped Tim, shaking the boathook at him.

    “Yes. Loop the reins over your arm, and just do it!” ordered Pansy loudly.

    Straight-faced, the gentleman obeyed her.

    “Hold out the letter,” she ordered.

    “But I have not a third hand, as you see,” he said plaintively.

    “I’ll get it. It be in his pocket,” said Tim.

    “Yes: but be careful, Tim.”

    Pansy stood by with the boathook poised, as Tim leapt on shore, felt in the gentleman’s righthand coat-pocket, triumphantly retrieved the letter, and jumped back aboard, gasping a little. “’E don’t half pong!” he reported.

    “I might say the same of you, young shaver,” he responded.

    “He’s been skinning an eel: what do you expect?” retorted Pansy grimly. “And let go of our rope!” she added crossly, shaking the boathook at him.

    Bowing, the gentleman released the rope. He did not, however, mount his horse, but lounged on the towpath, watching them.

    Pansy handed Tim the boathook and operated on the letter, which bore no superscription.

    “Oh: from Dr Fairbrother,” she said, sagging.

    “Why couldn’t you ’a’ said so?” cried Tim aggrievedly to the gentleman.

    “Ssh. Least said, soonest mended,” he replied, putting a finger to his nose.

    Pansy looked up. “Very amusing. You, I collect, are James?” she said grimly.

    He bowed.

    “Yes. Well, thank you, James. You may be on your way back to Sir Chauncey,” said Pansy grandly.

    James mounted on his horse again. He bowed very low once more, and was off.

    Lady Sarah came cautiously up to Pansy’s elbow.

    “It’s all right. he was only a messenger from Dr Fairbrother. One of his brother-in-law’s men,” said Pansy.

    “A—a groom, or some such?”

    “I suppose so. He was dressed fine as fivepence, wasn’t he? Oh, well Dr Fairbrother has always maintained Chauncey’s Couriers cost the Admiral a fortune. Read it, Sarah.”

    Sarah began to read it to herself, but noticing Tim’s open mouth and hopeful expression, smiled a little and read it aloud:

Dear Pansy & all aboard Bluebell Lady,

    I’m sending this by James, since he has just dropped in with a message from Chauncey. Might as well make use of him: he may drop it off to you ‘somewhere along the river’, on his way back to London.

    All is exceeding well here, and the plan went off without a hitch. Mrs M. & the girls returned in fine fettle, what with the strawberry tea Lord R. quite unnecessarily regaled them with halfway to —shire!

    Mr T. & his sister left for London and thence Brighton with D. the day after your departure. I have received a note from Mr T. to say that they reached London with no bother, but that as we thought might be the case, not without being stopped on the London road. Sir N. left the same day you did. He has already reached Brighton and sent up a courier to inform us of the fact. You may expect the Egyptian woman to be waiting for you as arranged.

    You will be thrilled to know that Portia’s egg has hatched. In time for Miss T. to see the infant, what is more! Oddly, the incredible ugliness of a parrot baby seemed to make her keener than ever, and she wept buckets over it. Portia is unbelievably proud and keeps it very close, but it appears to be healthy. Jacky thinks we should call it ‘Felicity’ and in that the name certainly reflects the state of its proud parents I think we shall do so, irrespective of its sex.

    I have started training up a small cousin of Percy’s for Sir N. as promised. Somehow it has got itself named ‘Little Nole’ (sic.) Percy was jealous at first but as Little Nole is clearly fonder of Jacky than myself, has settled down again.

    Thought it best not to go near G.’s place in person, but Jacky has been for me and assures me that all is well, and M. and her father are managing splendidly. They must be, as she had the time to stuff the young rascal with cheese-cakes!

    Well, my dears, that is all the news for the present. James calculates he will catch up with you somewhere near Marlow; perhaps you could drop me a note from there or Windsor.

Yr affectionate friend & comrade,

W. F.

    “So we be safe, then?” asked Tim, after some thought.

    “I think so, Tim. But that is not to say the roads are safe, yet: Lord Whatsisface will not have given up so easily,” replied Lord Whatsisface’s daughter calmly.

    “No. Never mind, you’ll be safe with us on the river! –So long as that gent don’t tell,” he added, scowling.

    Pansy explained all over again who the messenger was.

    Tim still scowled. Finally he said: “Black as a gypsy, he were.”

    “Yes,” agreed Pansy. “But Dr Fairbrother’s brother-in-law would not hire an untrustworthy man. He is an admiral, you know, and used to sizing up men.”

    Tim thought this over. “Dessay it’ll be all right, then.”

    “Yes, indeed!” Lady Sarah encouraged him.

    “Only we better not linger here. And I tell you what: I’ll stand guard with this here boathook!”

    He proceeded to take up his position, standing foursquare on the foredeck.

    The day was now very warm: Lady Sarah looked at him askance. “I own, I wish I knew how to make barley water,” she murmured.

    “Ye-es... Cook used to make lemon barley water, is that the same thing?” asked Pansy hazily.

    Sarah bit her lip. “I’m not at all sure. Oh, dear, what useless lives we have led, Pansy!”

    “Yes. Never mind,” said Pansy, tucking her arm in hers: “when you are living with us, Mrs Bellinger will teach you all sorts of useful things. Did I tell you she makes a cordial out of the peppermint which she grows herself?”

    “Indeed? That sounds delicious!”

    “It is. And very refreshing,” said Pansy with a sigh.

    “Yes. Well, shall I fetch Tim a mug of small beer?”

    Pansy smiled. “I think he would like that. And I think I might I have one myself.”

    Sarah sighed. “I cannot accustom myself to it. I must admit I would kill for a glass of lemonade! And the more I think of it, the worse it gets.”

    “I know what you mean. Papa said that when he was journeying in South America he conceived a hankering for roast mutton with caper sauce. Not because he was fonder of that than any other meat, but just because it was unobtainable!”

    “It is exactly that!” she said with a laugh, disappearing below to fetch the drinks.

    … “I fear I am not cut out for the adventuring life,” she admitted when they were once again sitting up at the bow.

    “Well, Papa felt the same, you know, amidst the folds of the Cordilleras with not a sheep in sight, let alone a caper bush! But that did not stop him having many more adventures.”

    “No...” Lady Sarah sighed deeply and looked at the river. “In spite of the lack of lemonade, I am happier now than I ever was in my whole life before!” she confessed.

    “Yes,” said Pansy, cautiously touching her hand.

    A tear slid down the fine, aristocratic cheek.

    “You won’t have to go back!” declared the gruff seaman fiercely, scowling horribly.

    “No,” she said, sniffing. “Indeed. Dear Pansy, we can never, never thank you enough—”

    “Don’t try,” said Pansy, reddening. “It embarrasses me.”

    “Yes,” she said with a wan little smile. “I can see that. Well, you know how we feel.”

    Pansy merely nodded, looking at the river.

    Sarah sipped the boiled water she had poured for herself, and after a moment said: “If there is any possible way in which I can repay you: any—any sacrifice I might make for you, dear Pansy, rest assured that I shall do it without hesitation.”

    “Don’t talk so daft!” said Pansy, suddenly grinning at her.

    She smiled a little but said: “Well, I shall not mention it again; I just wished to—to say it.”

    Pansy nodded silently.

    Lady Sarah Claveringham drank Mrs Coddles’s conscientiously boiled river water, reflecting that if it was true, as it certainly appeared to her, that Mr Quayle-Sturt admired Pansy very much, then that should be her sacrifice. And she would never, by so much as a look, betray that she herself felt— Well, never mind, it could not signify, and if dearest Pansy wanted him, he was hers! And she would start by not spending so much time with him. And leaving the field free for dear Pansy.

    The gruff seaman was thinking of something rather different. After a while she said: “You know, it was odd.”

    “What, my dear?”

    “That messenger. He did not speak like a groom, or some such.”

    “No-o... Well, I was trying not to get too near, lest he get a sight of my face. But—well, perhaps he is a person of genteel origins, fallen upon hard times. And Dr Fairbrother’s brother-in-law kindly offered him a position.”

    “Mm. Yes, I suppose so. Or—” Pansy stopped, flushing.

    “What is it?” asked Lady Sarah in some surprise.

    “Well—um—well, it might have been Lady Winnafree who offered him the position,” said Pansy hoarsely.

    After a moment Lady Sarah said: “Oh, dear.”

    “Um—yes. Well, even Dr Fairbrother says that she does have”—Pansy swallowed—“favourites. She’s younger than Dr Fairbrother, you know: in her late thirties, I think, and the Admiral is—um—about eighty.”

    “Well, in that case,” said Lady Sarah in a shaken voice: “the thing is not impossible.”

    Pansy chewed her lip. “No. Though a man of any principle at all would not have taken the position.”

    “No. Well, we do not know that it is so,” she said, looking at her doubtfully.

    “No.”

    Since Pansy then seemed disinclined to pursue the topic, Sarah very thankfully let it drop. She was unaware, for of course she did not know the gruff seaman at all well, that it was most unlike Pansy to bring up the topic of any young man, be he servant or gentleman.

    Marlow was left behind, as also Windsor and Eton, and they had passed Teddington, where Mr Coddles had come aboard the Bluebell Lady specifically to explain to the young ladies that this was where the river started to become tidal; Tim Coddles had fallen overboard only three times, none of them precisely accidental; Will Coddles, the eldest son, had fallen overboard once, haying drunk too much on a visit to a handy hostelry with his father and Mr Hanley, and had been fished out ignominiously with the boathook by Swan; Sam Coddles had fallen overboard once, not accidentally, and been soundly spanked by his ma for giving them all such a fright; and little Mary and Baby Johnny and even Lady Jane’s little cat, Stripey, had not fallen overboard at all in spite of predictions, and Stripey was now perfectly accustomed to the taste of chub or perch, and even stickleback and eel. Lady Jane had been persuaded to taste eel soup and had pronounced it delicious, and London was almost in sight, with its spires and smoke and noise.

    “We’ll tie up here,” decided Mr Coddles.

    “Richmond, is it?” asked Mr Quayle Stunt, looking about him with interest.

    “Aye, that it be, Harley. Pretty place, ain’t it?”

    “Yes, indeed. I have an aunt who lives... Well, somewhere in that direction, I think!” he said with a laugh.

    “Aye? She’ll be pleased to receive you, I makes no doubt.”

    Mr Quayle-Sturt collapsed in sniggers. “Yes!”

    Mr Coddles spat, grinning.

    “I have an idea!” said Pansy eagerly. ‘‘Let us take a basket of Mrs Coddles’s pegs and go up to your aunt’s house and pretend to be peddlers!”

    “Certainly not,” said Mr Quayle-Sturt, rapidly recovering from his fit.

    “Just for a joke,” said Pansy weakly. “There could be no danger.”

    “My aunt would be inexpressibly shocked, were her servants to recognize me,” he said repressively.

    Pansy scowled.

    “Lawks, it’d only be bit of ’armless fun, Mr Harley!” said Mrs Coddles, poking her head out from the cabin.

    “No doubt, Mrs Coddles,” he said courteously. “But I fear my aunt would not see it that way.”

    “I’m going back to the other boat!” said Pansy abruptly.

    Swan was lagging behind: Mr Coddles obligingly steered in to the verge and Pansy leapt off, to run along the towpath and wave at Swan to pull in for her.

    “She be a real lady, your aunt, then, sir?” said Mrs Coddles politely.

    “Er—yes,” said Harley, biting on his lip.

    “Ah,” she said, disappearing below once more.

    “For Heaven’s sake!” said Mr Quayle-Sturt very loudly, whether to the mild evening air or to Mr Coddles was not immediately apparent. “Surely she must see the ineligibility of such a prank?”

    Mr Coddles spat.

    “I shall assist Will with the horse,” said Mr Quayle-Sturt abruptly.

    Expressionlessly Mr Coddles pulled in for him. Harley leapt off and hurried along to where Will was walking at the older Coddleses’ horse’s head.

    Mrs Coddles’s head poked out again. “Has ’e pushed off?”

    Mr Coddles sniffed slightly. “Aye.”

    “Niffy-naffy. In ’is ideas, like,” she said.

    “You’re in the right of it there, Ma,” he said, shaking his head.

    Mrs Coddles disappeared belowdecks again.

    Mr Coddles shook his head slowly.

    ... “You are up betimes, Lady Sarah,” said Harley politely the next morning, as the slender figure in its grotesque garments appeared on the towpath.

    “Yes; Swan said there might be berries, over yonder,” she said faintly, not having expected to find him also up and about. “And it is the last chance, really, before London.”

    “Indeed, yes.” Harley strolled into the field with her.

    Lady Sarah swallowed, but did not know how to tell him not to come.

    After a little Harley, who had had no intention of saying any such thing, said abruptly: “Why have you been avoiding me?”

    “I have not!” she cried, blushing brightly.

    “I think you have,” he said in a low voice. “Have I said or done anything to offend you?”

    “No, of course not. You could not possibly say or do anything that would— Mr Quayle-Sturt, you must know how very, very grateful Jane and I are to you for your help and protection,” she ended stiffly.

    Harley frowned. “I have done very little. I think you must clearly perceive that the whole thing is due to the grit and enterprise of Miss Pansy, Dr Fairbrother, and Aden Tarlington. With considerable assistance from Hanley and the Coddleses, it goes without saying.”

    “Not entirely. You—you have been our protector since the night before we reached Tall Oaks,” she said, pink but determined.

    “Faute de mieux: yes, perhaps,” he allowed.

    “I will not allow you to denigrate yourself! I—I can perceive,” said Sarah in a restricted voice, “that this whole escapade has seemed to you very shocking, and it is most gallant of you indeed to lend yourself to—to such an unlikely and uncomfortable masquerade.”

    “For an unlikely masquerade, it has been distinctly comfortable, on the contrary!” he said with an attempt at lightness.

    Lady Sarah smiled awkwardly and did not respond.

    “So what have I done to merit your shunning me?” he said in a low voice.

    “Nothing!” she cried, very flushed again.

    Harley swallowed. “Lady Sarah, forgive me if what I am going to say seems ineligible, or—or inappropriate, but—but at the beginning of our adventure, I think perhaps you might have seen that I admired Miss Pansy Ogilvie very much.” He paused. “As much for her intrepid spirit as—as anything, I suppose.”

    “Indeed,” she said hoarsely.

    “But—but can it have escaped your notice that over the past few weeks, that although my admiration for that dauntlessness has not abated, my—what I imagined I—” He took a deep breath. “In short, I was mistaken in my first feelings for her. I admire that spirit as much as ever, but—er—it is not something with which I could ever be comfortable: certainly not with which I would ever wish to live.”

    “No—um—she is entirely admirable!” gasped Sarah, very flustered.

    “She is, indeed.”

    “And I owe her more than I can ever repay.”

    “Yes, of c— Oh,” he said. A light appeared in his eyes: he smiled just a little, and took her arm very gently. “I think I see,” he murmured.

    Lady Sarah looked at him timidly.

    “Over these past weeks, if you will not think me a very vain fellow for saying so, I am very sure that Miss Pansy has also found that she was a little mistaken in her original feelings towards me,” he murmured.

    “Oh,” she said numbly.

    Harley looked at the delicate curve of her fine cheek and the slender line of her nose and wanted very much to say boldly that he loved her and did not ever wish to think of another woman for as long as he lived. His pulses raced; but he merely said quietly: “I think that is so. We are neither of us, on closer inspection, quite the characters we thought each other to be. She does not approve of me, you know. I am by far too prim!” He gave a tiny laugh.

    “Oh—no,” she said faintly.

    “Oh, yes!” he replied gaily. “But my real fault, I suspect, is that I do not wish to be otherwise! And though to say truth I have very much enjoyed our adventure down the river, I could not wish, for the sake of you ladies, for it to be prolonged.”

    “No,” she said faintly.

    “And I am sure my aunt would join with me in those sentiments!” said Harley with a little chuckle.

    “Your aunt?” she said, looking up at him in bewilderment. “I—I am sorry, sir, but what has she to say to the case?”

    “Well, everything or nothing,” he said on a wry note. “I’m sorry, my dear Lady Sarah, I did not mean to talk in riddles. My Aunt Belinda, Mrs Mayhew, lives in Richmond, not far from the river. I am very fond of her and she of me, but that does not mean she would approve of my appearing at her door in my present guise!”

    “No, indeed!” said Sarah in horror. “Oh—why, stay: a Mrs Mayhew, did you say, Mr Quayle-Sturt?”

    “Yes; do you know her, Lady Sarah?”

    “No. but my sister Pamela is a near neighbour of hers, and has often spoken of her! Is not that a coincidence?” she said happily.

    “Yes, indeed.” Mr Quayle-Sturt began gently to draw her out on the subject of her sister, and her sister’s house, and her sister’s little boy, and a very pleasant hour was whiled away in this fashion as the slight morning mist lifted from the river. No strawberries were picked, but then it must be admitted that both strollers had entirely forgotten that was the purpose of the stroll.

    “Now!” said Mrs Coddles proudly. “She done it all herself!”

    Beaming, a very flushed Lady Jane served the company with fried black pudding, fried eggs, and girdle-muffins which Mr Coddles declared to be as good as Ma’s. And with a bit of chopped onion to ’em, just the way he liked ’em! Missy Jane could come and cook breakfast for him any time she pleased!

    Lady Jane laughed a little but then suddenly burst into a tempest of tears, declaring through her sobs that she could never, never repay the Coddleses—

    Mrs Coddles soon got her calmed down, with both Johnny and Stripey on her knee as a sort of external soothing remedy, and a glass of aniseed-water in her hand as an internal one. Lady Jane did not explain that she did not truly care for it, but sipped it quietly, blinking and smiling.

    Then it was Ho! for London, and even at the pace of Old Horse and his comrade Young Horse it weren’t far now!

    ... “So the adventure is nearly over,” said Pansy with a sigh, as the horizon clouded with the dirt and smoke of London town and the river traffic thickened to a bewildering extent.

    “Aye; nearly at journey’s end. Look: that’s a ferry, I think,” replied George Hanley.

    “Thank you for everything, Mr Hanley,” said Pansy in a stifled voice.

    “I’ve enjoyed it,” he said neutrally.

    “That wasn’t entirely what I meant. –You know that!” she recognized, smiling.

    Mr Hanley just nodded, and requested Pansy to fill a pipe for him.

    “When I was a lad,” he said dreamily, gazing around at the vessels large and small surrounding them, “well, a young man, I suppose, in my second year at the university, I fell in love with a river girl.”

    “Really?” she gasped.

    “Yes. I actually met her again, not long ago. She’s fifteen stone if an ounce, and a great-grandmother!” he said with the ghost of a chuckle. “Settled down to keeping a tavern, in the end, up where the river begins to be navigable.”

    “That is extremely salutary,” said Pansy on a grim note.

    “No! I only meant to say that it’s normal and natural for one to be—not to be mistaken in one’s feelings, what I felt for Ruthie was real and passionate enough,” he said thoughtfully, “but, well, for us to experience changes and fluctuations in our tides of feeling. Well, ’tis for me. Perhaps I have had more fluctuations than most,” he admitted, “for it took me a fair while to find my Martha.”

    Pansy nodded slowly.

    “Nip forward and give Fred a yell, would you? No idea where he intends tying up, but it had best be soon.”

    “Aye, aye!” Pansy grinned at him, and regardless of the fact that the river had deepened, some might have said alarmingly, went forward to do her usual trick of scrambling the length of the boat, jumping the gap between it and Fred Coddles’s towed barge, and scrambling up to speak to Mr Coddles at the helm of the lead boat.

    “Damn’ pity in some ways that you ain’t a boy,” muttered George Hanley to himself. He sucked on his pipe. “Or that English society’s the way it is: one or t’other: yes,” he noted drily. He removed the pipe and sniffed. “Or, far’s I can make out, though I’m no philosopher,” he murmured, watching the grubby print dress make its way back to him, “human society in general!”

Next chapter:

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