The House Above the River Read Online Free PDF

wife—Mrs. Marshall, Mr. Marshall, Mr. Armitage.”

Chapter Three
    The conversation was general, mainly explanatory. Very slowly Giles’s embarrassment faded, though his utter bewilderment and protesting incredulity remained. Miriam, of all people. The lost love turning up in the last place on earth he would have looked at, if he had been trying to find her. Peeping at him from a window of this seedy make-believe château above the river. How long had she been here? Henry Davenport was not the name that had wrecked his happiness. Or was it? He was amused to find that he really did not remember. Perhaps she had never told him. Her exit from his life, like her re-entry, had been characteristically dramatic. He was delighted to find it so utterly painless, and was both surprised and elated by his own mild cynicism.
    Meanwhile the others chattered together, a lively set of variations on the theme of the persisting fog, and what it had meant to them all in terms of altered plans.
    â€œNot that my wife and I were much put out by it,” Henry said, glancing across at her, where she sat with Phillipa on a wide window seat. “We were in Paris and the car met our train at the station. My chauffeur is a Breton born and bred. He could find his way about the country roads in any weather.”
    â€œDid you have a good time in Paris?” Giles asked, feeling it was time he joined in the conversation.
    Henry did not answer. But Miriam turned her head to look at him, and said, in a slow grave voice, suggesting hidden depths of sorrow, “Henry does not go to Paris for fun. He goes for treatment of his slipped disc.”
    There was an awkward pause. Henry, ignoring his wife’s explanation, filled up his guests’ glasses. Giles moved closer to Susan, who was sitting a little way from the others, only taking part in the conversation when someone spoke directly to her. She smiled up at him and then glanced out of the window.
    â€œIt’s clearing,” she said.
    â€œHow d’you know? There was no mist up here, earlier.”
    â€œBy the clouds.”
    He followed her gaze and nodded.
    â€œHow right you are. The wind has gone round, too.”
    Henry was filling Tony’s glass.
    â€œSlipped disc?” the latter said, cheerfully. “Beastly condition! I’m sure I’ve got one myself. My back gives me hell at the start of every season.”
    â€œThat’s just stiffness,” said his wife. “Hauling on ropes, and lifting weights which you never do at home.”
    â€œHow does it affect you?” Tony went on, addressing Henry. “You seem pretty active. You’d need to be, living on the side of a precipice like this.”
    Henry smiled: a reluctant smile, Giles saw, of politeness, not amusement. He was about to answer, when Miriam said, in her slow, tense way, “Sitting at his desk, mainly. It’s so important. Whatever happens, he must be able to work in comfort. He is a writer.”
    â€œOh, I see,” muttered Tony, with an Englishman’s instinctive recoil from the arts. “Very inconvenient. Does it affect typing, as well?”
    â€œI actually write in long hand,” said Henry, quietly. “I am not good at typing. At present I am very lucky to have Susan here. She has been typing for me.”
    â€œAre you an expert?” Giles asked her.
    â€œI’ve had some training,” she answered, laughing, “but that isn’t quite the same thing.”
    â€œI’m sure it is in your case.”
    They went on talking about her work, and Giles discovered something of her life in England. She still lived at home, in a country town, mainly looking after two rather elderly parents. They had kindly lent her to Henry for the summer, because they were themselves going on a long-planned cruise to the West Indies.
    â€œIt was lucky for me that Henry wanted me to be here,” she said.
    â€œWouldn’t you have liked