Free The House Above the River by Josephine Bell Page B

comfort. But I do feel we ought to get back on board, and leave you in peace.”
    â€œIn peace,” repeated Henry, wrapping up the phrase in his accustomed gloom. The others, feeling embarrassed, looked down at their plates. Susan broke the silence with artificial gaiety.
    â€œWe ought to bathe,” she proposed. Phillipa shuddered. “In this wind?”
    â€œThe creek is beautifully sheltered. The sun’s hot enough.”
    â€œAll right,” said Giles, who welcomed any prolonged escape from the house. “We’ll bathe. Good for my crew. They didn’t take a stroke of exercise yesterday.”
    â€œWe did.” Tony was indignant. “We walked round the whole of Tréguier at least twice. And there’s nothing more exhausting than trailing round a foreign town, trying to find the shops you want, which never seem to be where you’d expect them.”
    â€œA good swim is what you want,” Giles insisted.
    â€œYou’ll have to be careful not to go out too far,” Henry warned them. “We usually bathe in the last hour of the flood. There’s plenty of water then, with the mud and the rocks and the seaweed covered. It’s perfectly safe at slack water, but don’t stay in too long. It whistles out on the ebb and there are some nasty rocks at the entrance on our side.”
    â€œWhere your tunnel comes out?” asked Giles.
    Henry gave him a cold, hard stare, and nodded.
    â€œBut I thought you said the entrance rocks were covered when the tide was up?” Giles persisted.
    â€œI was warning you of the ebb. The entrance is covered at high tide. But the outcrop of rock goes right out from the entrance of the tunnel to the beginning of the creek. There is a dangerous eddy round that corner when the water begins to go down.”
    â€œWe’ll remember,” promised Tony.
    The three friends went upstairs towards their rooms, taking Susan with them.
    â€œI must write some letters,” Phillipa said.
    â€œYou’re always writing letters,” Giles grumbled.
    â€œThat’s all right,” said Susan. “We can’t bathe for hours. Anyway, I expect I’ll have jobs to do for Miriam. I haven’t seen her yet.”
    â€œAccording to Henry we ought not to go in before about one o’clock. High water is around two. But I should think we might go down at twelve.”
    â€œWill Henry be coming?” Tony asked.
    â€œI shouldn’t think so.” Susan seemed doubtful. “He hardly ever does swim. And his back has been worse lately.”
    â€œWhat about Miriam?”
    Phillipa’s question was answered by gloomy looks from the men, but Susan laughed.
    â€œPoor Miriam! But it’s all right. She sunbathes a lot. I expect she’ll come down in one of her lovely play suits and lie on the sand at her favourite spot. But she won’t go in.”
    â€œIs there sand? I thought it was all mud.”
    â€œThere’s mostly a mixture. But there’s a piece of sand not far from the rocks, just this side of the danger point.”
    They thought she was describing the same hazard that Henry had warned them of earlier, so they asked no more questions. Susan went away, and the Marshalls settled to writing postcards to their children. Giles wandered back downstairs and out into the garden. But the long grass was still wet from the storm, and the hot sun, sucking up the drops, was turning the whole enclosed space into a steam oven. He went back into the house, uneasy and restless, and filled with a great desire to leave the place. Something was going on there that he did not understand, and had no wish to take part in. Something dangerous; some evil, beginning to show itself, suddenly, startlingly, as in the averted accident to Susan the day before. No one spoke of it today. It might never have happened. It was not discussed, but it had not yet been explained. And there was a certainty, at least, of