The House Above the River Read Online Free PDF Page A

suppose?”
    â€œOh, yes. We both were. My father got out in the winter of ’ 39. He had no illusions about France. But the people here resented it. They thought he ought to have stayed, though what good that would have done.… German officers were billeted in this house. Everything went to pieces. It has never recovered. It still feels contaminated.”
    â€œUncle George helped much more by going, Mother always says,” added Susan, heartily. “Working in Intelligence, and helping to get people away from this coast. So did you, the last two years.”
    There was an uncomfortable silence. Giles looked at his watch again.
    â€œWe really ought to be going,” he said. “We’ve been ashore more than two hours. And the fog was pretty thick in the river.”
    â€œIt will have lifted by now,” said Henry. “But I mustn’t keep you if you are anxious about your yacht.” His indifference was pointed by his adding, “Susan will show you the shortest path down to the river.”
    They wondered how he knew about the fog, if he did know. There was no view from the windows of the dark room. It ran the whole width of the house. The window in front looked out on the drive, which was surrounded by bushes. There was another big window at the back, and this showed a dank lawn of long grass, upon which the sun shone through the trees in a bright circle at one corner, while the rest lay in shade. Leafy branches, hanging low across the upper part of the window, blotted out the sky.
    â€œHow did you know the fog has gone?” Phillipa asked, impulsively.
    Henry stared at her, not in resentment, but in slow surprise.
    â€œBecause that’s the sort of weather it is,” he said. “And will be until the wind goes back into the west.”
    â€œYou mean we may be stuck here another day?” Giles asked. The indignant dismay in his voice made them all smile.
    â€œUnless you feel confident of getting out to sea in the fog. There probably isn’t any ten miles out.”
    â€œWe want to go on round the coast. Lézardrieux, Isle Bréhat, eventually St. Malo.”
    â€œIn that case, I expect you’ll have to put up with Penguerrec. Or Tréguier, of course. You’ll be able to go up the river this evening.”
    Giles resented his host’s air of authority, but the chap must know what he was talking about. He lived here, and used the water. Giles always made it a rule to respect local knowledge of the sea and its ways. He did so now.
    â€œWell, thanks a lot,” he said. “Perhaps you’ll come aboard some time, if we’re staying. And Miss Brockley, of course.”
    â€œSusan might like to come up to Tréguier with us this afternoon,” Phillipa suggested.
    â€œWould you?” Giles’s voice sounded quite eager.
    The girl’s face lit up with a radiant smile. But before she could answer, the door behind them opened, and a woman stood on the threshold.
    Giles stared at her. The room span mistily about him, then cleared. It was the face he had seen at the window; the face he had hoped never to look at again. He watched her proud neck stiffen as she lifted her head to stare back at him. The high cheek bones, the long brown eyes, the black wings of hair, swept back in a fashionably careless manner now, he noticed; the wide curving mouth, the perfect skin; all, across the length of the low, dark room, exactly as he remembered them, Miriam, whom he had last seen eight years ago, taking leave of him with her usual ardent passion. Whose cool little note, two days later, told him that their impending marriage could not now take place. Miriam, whose lips were parting in her familiar smile of heart-piercing sweetness, whose eyes were lighting with a totally unexpected, unaccountable welcome.
    He stepped back behind Phillipa, with a quick, total revulsion from this encounter.
    â€œAh,” said Henry, in a bleak voice. “My