The Incomplete Amorist Part 55

A turn of the river brought to sight a wide reach dotted with green islands, each a tiny forest of willow saplings and young alders.

There was a boat moored under an aspen, a great clumsy boat, but it had sculls in it. It would be pleasant to go out to the islands.

She got into the boat, loosened the heavy rattling chain and flung it in board, took up the sculls and began to pull. It was easy work.

"I didn't know I was such a good oar," said Betty as the boat crept swiftly down the river.

As she stepped into the boat, she noticed the long river reeds straining down stream like the green hair of hidden water-nixies.

She would land at the big island--the boat steered easily and lightly enough for all its size--but before she could s.h.i.+p her oars and grasp at a willow root she shot past the island.

Then she remembered the streaming green weeds.

"Why, there must be a frightful current!" she said. What could make the river run at this pace--a weir--or a waterfall?

She turned the boat's nose up stream and pulled. Ah, this was work!

Then her eyes, fixed in the exertion of pulling, found that they saw no moving banks, but just one picture: a willow, a clump of irises, three poplars in the distance--and the foreground of the picture did not move. All her pulling only sufficed to keep the boat from going with the stream. And now, as the effort relaxed a little it did not even do this. The foreground did move--the wrong way. The boat was slipping slowly down stream. She turned and made for the bank, but the stream caught her broadside on, whirled the boat round and swept it calmly and gently down--towards the weir--or the waterfall.

Betty pulled two strong strokes, driving the boat's nose straight for the nearest island, s.h.i.+pped the sculls with a jerk, stumbled forward and caught at an alder stump. She flung the chain round it and made fast. The boat's stern swung round--it was thrust in under the bank and held there close; the chain clicked loudly as it stretched taut.

"Well!" said Betty. The island was between her and the riverside path.

No one would be able to see her. She must listen and call out when she heard anyone pa.s.s. Then they would get another boat and come and fetch her away. She would not tempt fate again alone in that boat. She was not going to be drowned in any silly French river.

She landed, pushed through the saplings, found a mossy willow stump and sat down to get her breath.

It was very hot on the island. It smelt damply of wet lily leaves and iris roots and mud. Flies buzzed and worried. The time was very long.

And no one came by.

"I may have to spend the day here," she told herself. "It's not so safe in the boat, but it's not so fly-y either."

And still no one pa.s.sed.

Suddenly the soft whistling of a tune came through the hot air. A tune she had learned in Paris.

"_C'etait deux amants_."

"Hi!" cried Betty in a voice that was not at all like her voice.

"Help!--_Au secours_!" she added on second thoughts.

"Where are you?" came a voice. How alike all Englishmen's voices seemed--in a foreign land!

"Here--on the island! Send someone out with a boat, will you? I can't work my boat a bit."

Through the twittering leaves she saw something white waving. Next moment a big splash. She could see, through a little gap, a white blazer thrown down on the bank--a pair of sprawling brown boots; in the water a sleek wet round head, an arm in a blue s.h.i.+rt sleeve swimming a strong side stroke. It was the lunatic; of course it was.

And she had called to him, and he was coming. She pushed back to the boat, leaped in, and was fumbling with the chain when she heard the splash and the crack of broken twigs that marked the lunatic's landing.

She would rather chance the weir or the waterfall than be alone on that island with a maniac. But the chain was stretched straight and stiff as a lance,--she could not untwist it. She was still struggling, with pink fingers bruised and rust-stained, when something heavy crashed through the saplings and a voice cried close to her:

"Drop it! What are you doing?"--and a hand fell on the chain.

Betty, at bay, raised her head. Lunatics, she knew, could be quelled by the calm gaze of the sane human eye.

She gave one look, and held out both hands with a joyous cry.

"Oh,--it's _you_! I _am_ so glad! Where did you come from? Oh, how wet you are!"

Then she sat down on the thwart and said no more, because of the choking feeling in her throat that told her very exactly just how frightened she had been.

"You!" Temple was saying very slowly. "How on earth? Where are you staying? Where's your party?"

He was squeezing the water out of sleeves and trouser legs.

"I haven't got a party. I'm staying alone at a hotel--just like a man.

I know you're frightfully shocked. You always are."

"Where are you staying?" he asked, drawing the chain in hand over hand, till a loose loop of it dipped in the water.

"Hotel Chevillon. How dripping you are!"

"Hotel Chevillon," he repeated. "Never! Then it was _you_!"

"What was me?"

"That I was sheep-dog to last night in the forest."

"Then it was _you_? And I thought it was the lunatic! Oh, if I'd only known! But why did you come after me--if you didn't know it _was_ me?"

Temple blushed through the runnels of water that trickled from his hair.

"I--well, Madame told me there was an English girl staying at the hotel--and I heard some one go out--and I looked out of the window and I thought it was the girl, and I just--well, if anything had gone wrong--a drunken man, or anything--it was just as well there should be someone there, don't you know."

"That's very, very nice of you," said Betty. "But oh!"--She told him about the lunatic.

"Oh, that's me!" said Temple. "I recognise the portrait, especially about the hat."

He had loosened the chain and was pulling with strong even strokes across the river towards the bank where his coat lay.

"We'll land here if you don't mind."

"Can't you pull up to the place where I stole the boat?"

He laughed:

"The man's not living who could pull against this stream when the mill's going and the lower sluice gates are open. How glad I am that I--And how plucky and splendid of you not to lose your head, but just to hang on. It takes a lot of courage to wait, doesn't it?"

Betty thought it did.

"Let me carry your coat," said Betty as they landed. "You'll make it so wet."