‘How vexing. Well, we shall have to wait. Let’s try and continue some tea in the back of the car.’
The thunder was still distant. The storm that was raging some miles away seemed unlikely to reach them, but now the rain was heavy.
‘Which way did Laurence go?’ the Baron said.
‘Towards the bridge.’
‘I’ll take his car and meet him. I daresay I shall pick up Mrs Hogg on her way back. She must be at the bridge by now.’
He drove off. Every few minutes Helena poked her head out of the back window of her car. ‘I hope they don’t miss each other,’ she said, ‘Laurence only has his jacket. Oh, there’s Georgina!’
Mrs Hogg was coming down to the riverside by a track through the trees on the opposite bank. She saw Helena and raised her hand in recognition.
Helena made a frantic dumb-show at her. Mrs Hogg stood waiting and stupid-looking.
‘Caroline,’ said Helena, ‘be an angel.’
‘You want me to fetch her in the boat,’ Caroline stated.
‘Put the mac over your head, do.’ Helena was nervy. ‘We shall be kept waiting here for ages if she has to plod round by the bridge. It’s two miles each way. I’m dying to get home.’
When Caroline did not reply, Helena seemed aware of having asked more than an ordinary favour.
‘I’ll go, dear,’ said Helena at once. ‘Give me the mac. I’m sure I can manage the boat.’
Caroline was sure she couldn’t. She jumped out of the car and was off like someone taking a plunge against nature.
In spite of the rain, with only a cardigan over her summer dress, Helena followed. She caught up Caroline at the houseboat, and added her gracious thanks to the owner. As Caroline unmoored she said, ‘This really is charitable, Caroline. Poor Georgina would be drenched if she had to walk round to cross the bridge.’
Caroline gave her an amiable smile, for she was too proud to reveal her neurotic dread. Her dread was on account of a very small thing. She knew she would have to give Mrs Hogg a hand into the boat. The anticipation of this physical contact, her hand in Mrs Hogg’s only for a moment, horrified Caroline. It was a very small thing, but it was what she constitutionally dreaded.
‘Step down here, Mrs Hogg. On to that stone. Give me your hand. Take care, the river’s deep here.’
The bank had grown muddy but there were several firm footholds. Caroline, standing astride in the boat, reached out and grasped Mrs Hogg’s hand firmly. Step there, now there. ‘I’m doing fine,’ Caroline thought, gripping the woman’s hand tightly in her own. She was filled with the consciousness of hand.
Mrs Hogg had rubber-soled shoes which had picked up a good deal of mud. In spite of all her care she slipped on her heels, she tottered backwards with her hand still gripped in Caroline’s so that the boat rocked wildly. In an instant she was loudly in the water and Caroline, still grasping the hand by the first compulsive need to overcome her horror of it, went with her. Mrs Hogg lashed about her in a screaming panic. Caroline freed herself and gripped the side of the boat. But she was wrenched away, the woman’s hands were on her neck — ‘I can’t swim!’
Caroline struck her in the face. ‘Hold on to my shoulders,’ she shouted. ‘I can swim.’ But the woman in her extremity was intent on Caroline’s throat. Caroline saw the little boat bobbing away downstream. Then her sight became blocked by one of Mrs Hogg’s great hands clawing across her eyes, the other hand tightening on her throat. Mrs Hogg’s body, and even legs, encompassed Caroline so that her arms were restricted. She knew then that if she could not free herself from Mrs Hogg they would both go under.
They were under water and out of sight for a while. Helena said later that it was only a matter of seconds before Caroline’s head emerged. But in that space of time it was a long breath-holding contest between them. Caroline had practised underwater swimming. Not so, Mrs Hogg. The woman clung to Caroline’s throat until the last. It was not until Mrs Hogg opened her mouth finally to the inrush of water that her grip slackened and Caroline was free, her lungs aching for the breath of life. Mrs Hogg subsided away from her. God knows where she went.
Caroline had the sense of being hauled along a bumpy surface, of being landed with a thud like a gasping fish, ‘before she passed out.
‘Jolly good luck I had my friend here. I can’t swim myself.’
Caroline lay in the bunk of the houseboat, without a sense or even a care of where she was. She recognized Helena, then the plump woman of the houseboat and a strange man who was taking off all his dripping wet clothes. Caroline had a sense of childhood, and she closed her eyes.
‘There was no sign of the other,’ the man was saying. ‘She’s had it. Any relation?’
‘No,’ said Helena’s voice.
‘She gave this one a rough time,’ said the man. ‘Just look at her face. I’ll bet she’s been trained to hold her breath under water. If she hadn’t, she—’d have had it too, this one.
The woman of the houseboat helped Caroline to sip from a warm beaker.
‘Have you anything to put on the scratches?’ That was Helena.
Presently Caroline felt something soft being smoothed over her face and throat. Her neck was hurting. And again she was sipping something warm and sweet, her shoulders supported by Helena.
The man said, ‘I had a look for the other, best I could. It’s deep in that spot. I daresay we’ll get the body. There was a tragedy five summers back and we got the body two days after.’
Helena murmured, ‘You’ve been marvellous.’
Before she went off to sleep, Caroline heard Laurence’s voice from somewhere outside, then the Baron’s, then Helena again, ‘Here they are with the doctor.’
Sir Edwin Manders was making his autumn retreat. October 24th, the Feast of St Raphael the Archangel; he had arrived at the monastery during the afternoon in time for Benediction.
