“That lady you told me about once--the one that was drowned--was it
somewhere about here?”
“Eh? Oh, the one that fell in! Yes. Ay, it was close by here. Dreadful
it was. There must have been twenty of us here, with the police,
searching about.”
“Dragging the channel?”
“Yes. We got out planks and ladders, but they broke through under us; we
cut up all the ice in the end. Here”--he stopped suddenly--“you can see
the way we went.”
I can see in the dark space where the boats had moved out and broken
through the ice to drag the depth; it was frozen over again now.
The porter goes on:
“We found her at last. And a mercy it was, I dare say. The river was low
as it was. Gone right down at once, she had, and got stuck fast between
two stones. There was no current to speak of; if it had been spring,
now, she'd have travelled a long way down.”
“Trying to cross to the other side, I suppose?”
“Ay. They're always getting out on the ice as soon as it comes; a nasty
way it is. Somebody had been over already, but that was two days before.
She just came walking down on this side where we are, and the engineer,
he was coming down the road on the other side--he'd been out on his
bicycle somewhere. Then they caught sight of each other and waved or
made a sign or something, for they were cousins or something, both of
them. Then the lady must have mistaken him somehow, the engineer says,
and thought he was beckoning, for she started to come across. He
shouted at her not to, but she didn't hear, and he'd got his bicycle and
couldn't move, but, anyhow, some one had got across before. The engineer
told the police all about how it happened, and it was written down,
every word. Well, and then when she's half-way across, she goes down. A
rotten piece of ice it must have been where she trod. And the engineer,
he comes down like lightning on his bicycle through the town and up to
the hotel and starts ringing. I never heard the like, the way he rang.
'There's someone in the river!' he cries out. 'My cousin's fallen in!'
Out we went, and he came along with us. We'd ropes and boat-hooks, but
that was no use. The police came soon after, and the fire brigade; they
got hold of a boat up there and carried it between them till they got to
us; then they got it out and started searching about with the drag. We
didn't find her the first day, but the day after. Ay, a nasty business,
that it was.”
“And her husband came, you said. The Captain?”
“Yes, the Captain, he came. And you can reckon for yourself the state he
was in. And we were all the same for that matter, all the town was. The
engineer, he was out of his senses for a long while, so they told us
at the hotel, and when the Captain arrived, the engineer went off
inspecting up the river, just because he couldn't bear to talk any more
about it.”
“So the Captain didn't see him, then?”
“No. H'm! Nay, I don't know,” said the porter, looking around. “No, I
don't know anything about that--no.”
His answer was so confused, it was evident that he did know. But it was
of no importance, and I did not question him again.
“Well, thanks for coming up with me,” I said, and shared a little money
with him for a winter wrap or something of the sort. And I took leave of
him, and wanted him to turn back.
He seemed anxious, however, to go on with me a little farther. And, to
get me to agree, he suddenly confesses that the Captain had seen the
engineer while he was here--yes. The porter, good foolish creature, had
understood enough of the maids' gossip in the kitchen to make out that
there was something wrong about the engineer and this cousin of his
who had come to stay; more than this, however, he had not seen. But, as
regards the meeting between the two men, it was he himself who had acted
as guide to the Captain on his way up to find the engineer.
“He said he must find him, and so we went up together. And the Captain,
he asked me on the way, what could there be to inspect up the river now
it was frozen over? And I couldn't see myself, I told him. And so we
walked up all day to about three or four in the afternoon. 'We might see
if he's not in the hut here,' I said, for I'd heard the lumbermen used
the place. Then the Captain wouldn't let me go on with him any farther,
but told me to wait. And he walked up to the hut by himself, and went
in. He'd not been in the place more than a bare couple of minutes, when
out he comes, and the engineer with him. There was a word or so between
them--I didn't hear; then all of a sudden the Captain flings up one arm
like that, and lands out at the engineer, and down he goes. Lord! but he
must have felt it pretty badly. And not content with that, he picks him
up and lands out at him again as hard as before. Then he came back to me
and said we'd be going home.”
I grew thoughtful at this. It seemed strange that this porter, a
creature who bore no grudge or ill-will to any one, should leave
the engineer up there at the hut without aid. And he had shown no
disapproval in his telling of the thrashing. The engineer must have been
miserly with him, too, I thought, and never paid him for his services,
but only ordered him about and laughed at him, puppy that he was. That
would be it, no doubt. And this time, perhaps, I was not misled by
jealous feelings of my own.
“But the Captain--he was free with his money, if you like,” said the
porter at last. “I paid off all my owings with what he gave me--ay,
indeed I did.”
When at last I had got rid of the man, I crossed the river; the ice was
firm enough. I was on the main road now. And I walked on, thinking over
the porter's story. That scene at the hut--what did it amount to, after
all? It merely showed that one of the two men was big and strong, the
other a little, would-be sportsman heavily built behind. But the Captain
was an officer--it was something of that sort, perhaps, he had been
thinking. Perhaps he ought to have thought a little more in other ways
while there was yet time--who can say? It was his wife! who had been
drowned. The Captain might do what he pleased now; she would never come
again.
But if she did, what then? She was born to her fate, no doubt. Husband
and wife had tried to patch up the damage, but had failed. I remember
her as she was six or seven years back. She found life dull, and fell
in love a trifle here and there perhaps, even then, but she was faithful
and delicate-minded. And time went on. She had no occupation, but had
three maid-servants to her house; she had no children, but she had a
piano. But she had no children.
And Life can afford to waste.
Mother and child it was that went down.