Free The Rich Are Different by Susan Howatch Page B

Mallingham Broad.
    I had never sailed at Newport because it was felt that the motion might disturb my health, but later when it seemed I had outgrown my illness, I learnt about yachting during summers spent at Bar Harbor, Maine. Sailing was not my favourite sport but I enjoyed it, and I had never enjoyed it more than I did on that Sunday morning early in June when Dinah’s little boat danced over the waters of Mallingham Broad. From the water my perception of the landscape altered. I could see the ‘Isle de Mallingham’, the slight rise in the ground on which the village had been built, and found it easy to imagine the area as part of some ancient inland sea. Unfamiliar birds watched us from the reeds. In the clear water below the prow I glimpsed the flash of small fish and once saw the shadow of a pike lurking in the depths. I was soon longing for a rod, and when I asked Dinah if the fish were fair-sized she laughed and began to talk of trout weighing thirty-five pounds.
    At the far side of the Broad the water narrowed into the channel known as Mallingham Dyke, and we had to unlock the padlock of the chain which lay across the water as a warning to trespassers.
    ‘But we have few trespassers,’ explained Dinah, slipping the key back into her pocket, ‘because you can only reach Mallingham from Horsey Mere, and Horsey too is a private broad.’
    We drifted on into the dyke. I got out the oars when we were becalmed, but soon a breeze helped us into a second dyke, the New Cut, and picking up the sea-wind again we scudded swiftly south into Horsey Mere.
    ‘That windmill!’ I cried above the wind as we tacked back and forth.
    ‘Isn’t it grand?’
    It took me a moment to realize she was taking me straight to it, and so intrigued was I by the whirling sails that I was nearly decapitated by the swinging boom. By the time I had recovered, we were gliding up the little dyke and the millman was waiting for us on the staithe.
    Heights have always made me uneasy. I declined the millman’s offer to show me all the storeys of the mill, but I went up the first ladder to peer out at the wild green remoteness of the flats. The clanking sails were making such a noise that it was a relief to return outside and accept Dinah’s suggestion that we should walk to the sea.
    Along the lane I had to stop to see Horsey Church which was hidden inthe woods, and later I stopped again to talk to a yokel gardening in front of one of the flint-walled cottages I so admired. It was he who told me that Horsey and Waxham had been a centre for smuggling in times past when each shipment of contraband had been hidden in the rector’s barn while the millsails were set at a certain angle to warn of the approach of the revenue men. When we finally reached the Brograve Level, those sea-fields directly below the long line of the sandhills, we had taken over an hour to walk a mile, but I was enjoying myself as I had not enjoyed myself for months, and beside me Dinah had evidently forgotten the crass commercial streak I had displayed earlier.
    A cart-track ran through the fields straight to the sand-hills. These were dunes, huge mounds of dark sand studded with tufts of sea-grass, and the grass rippled in the wind. Beneath the hills the wind dropped but as we hauled ourselves to the top I could hear the wind mingling with the roar of the sea beyond the summit. It was a stiff climb, and although I wanted to pause for breath I climbed on until I was standing on top of the highest mound and gazing in exhilaration at the dark glowing sea.
    The horizon was clear. Waves crashed rhythmically on miles of empty sands and gulls soared effortlessly above our heads.
    I was still gazing across the sea to Holland when Dinah scampered down to the beach and shouted something over her shoulder, but the wind whipped away her words long before I could hear them. My exhilaration overcame me. Kicking off my sand-stuffed shoes, I tore off my socks and cascaded down the dunes to