UP RIVER
Bordered by cities, and hoarse
With a thousand cries, is its stream.
And we on its breast, our minds
Are confused as the cries which we hear,
Changing and shot as the sights that we see.
--MATTHEW ARNOLD.
The dawn was misty gray and the cold piercing when Doggett awoke his
second-in-command. The barge flotilla was just passing under
Hammersmith Bridge.
Felix, dazed with sleep, arose, and, as directed, lit a paraffin
stove, boiled a kettle, and made tea. Then he frizzled bacon in a
frying-pan, an accomplishment which was by no means new to him. He
took his own breakfast, a few hurried mouthfuls, and then, carrying
his mug and plate, went to relieve his master at the tiller.
As he passed, he stooped to where Rona slept, motionless in her nest
of hay. She was lying quite still, her lashes, with a bronze luster
on their blackness, penciled sharply upon her cheek, flushed with
warm slumber. The rosy tint made the face appear far more pleasing
than it had seemed last night. She panted now and then, as if it
hurt her to draw breath. But, as far as he could tell, she was not
feverish.
He went on to his post, wrapped himself up in old sacks, and set
himself with determination to his work. The steersman of the barge
immediately in front hailed him, and wanted to know, in a
particularly rich vernacular, whether he were going to pursue the Old
Man's policy of steering in the one exact way most calculated to
annoy the man ahead. Felix had been in queer places, and though
bargees were not among his experiences, convicts, it was to be
presumed, ran them pretty close in the way of language. His reply
was of the right kind, and given in the right tone. When Doggett,
munching his bacon, heard it, he gave a hoarse, inward chuckle, and
decided that his new "boy" was not such a green hand after all.
Having finished his breakfast, the Old Man turned in; and from that
time until ten o'clock, when he had been bidden to call him, Felix
sat guiding the heavy, sulky barge upstream. The mist cleared away
little by little, the sun came up, and the day broke out clear and
gay, though very cold. Just as he came off his watch, Rona awoke and
called him. He hurried to her side, knelt down, and took the warm
little hand thrust out to him.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
They looked at each other with curiosity. Felix was not an engaging
object, with the lower half of his gaunt face shrouded in stubbly
black beard. He had discarded his collar and tie, and Comrade Dawkes
had lent him a very dirty blue jersey. The girl had the soiled,
rumpled aspect of one who has slept in her clothes. Her hair was
rough and tumbling down, and full of bits of hay. There were purple
marks under her eyes, and her lids were red with the unavailing tears
of many days.
The friendliness of the young man's heart was curiously unmixed with
any feeling of sex attraction. Sex only entered into the question in
so far that he was more sorry for Rona than he would have been for a
boy in her case, on account of her greater helplessness.
"I feel very queer," said Rona, shyly, "and terribly stiff."
"I daren't let you get up and move about yet," he returned. "It is
so cold, the wind cuts like a knife. I'll go and make you some hot
tea. Could you eat some bacon?"
She said "No" to that, with an expression of loathing. He went to
the cabin, and with infinite labor managed to make a bit of toast,
which he took to her, fervently hoping that it did not taste of
paraffin. She earnestly asserted that it did not, but could not eat
it nevertheless. She drank the tea, however, and declared herself
refreshed. But Felix could see that she felt very ill. He could not
stay long with her, for he had to wash up, make the so-called bed,
put the cabin tidy, etc.; all the time parrying with difficulty the
intense interest and pointed questions of the steersman of the barge
ahead.
When he next went to her, she wished to know where they were going.
He told her Basingstoke, and that from thence they would have to
tramp to Sempleton, where the Convent was situated. She was glad she
had not to walk that day. She was sure she should be better
to-morrow, if she lay quite still. She was warm, and not very
uncomfortable.
They reached Teddington Lock at midday, and below it they waited
forty-five minutes by Mr. Doggett's watch; which delay provoked a
cataract of comment which left the listener stunned. At this place
Felix bought a paper, which, to his relief, said nothing of any
abduction or elopement, nor made any comment upon the disappearance
of two such obscure persons as themselves. He cheered Rona with this
news. Here he also persuaded the lock-keeper's wife to sell him a
fresh egg for the sum of one halfpenny, since "his sister" was ill,
and found herself quite unable to eat the pork chops which were, with
fried greens, to form the midday repast of himself and Mr. Doggett.
His cooking gave his new master great satisfaction. Mr. Doggett
consumed his succulent repast in full view of the envious crew of the
_George Barnes_, who had some cold meat of the least appetizing
description, and to whom the savory odor from the cabin of the _Sarah
Dawkes_ was a provocation hard to be endured.
The lock-keeper's wife, charmed by Felix's persuasive tongue, herself
toasted bread for Rona, who, stimulated by the fresh air and the rest
cure she was undergoing, managed to eat both egg and toast, to the
relief and triumph of the young man, whose only interest in life she
had suddenly become.
He developed powers of ready invention, coupled with artistic
restraint, in informing the crew of the _George Barnes_, in answer to
their vast and avid desire for personal information, how his sister
had worked in a pickle factory, and how the air was so bad that she
had been attacked with anæmia, and how the doctors recommended a trip
up the canal as the finest cure for this same dread complaint. The
man had never heard of anæmia, and treated it with the awe-struck
respect entertained by the scolding lady of Theodore Hook's story,
for a parallelogram.
The process of getting the barges out of the lock was one which
threatened to last forever. It was done at last, however, and they
proceeded up the river reaches, passing slowly below the long red
wall of Hampton Court. Mr. Doggett, his good dinner eaten, and his
pipe in his mouth, was quite content to sit at the tiller all day.
In fact, he never believed that anybody but himself could induce the
_Sarah Dawkes_ to take the right course--an opinion which was not
confined to his barge, but extended to the lady who was his wife, and
in whose honor the craft was named.
His devotion to duty left Felix free, after washing up the dinner
things, to try the effect of walking Rona up and down the deck. This
was, however, so painful to her, that he was obliged to desist. The
idea was growing in him that there was, as he at first feared,
internal mischief. What were they to do?
Mr. Doggett presently confided to him his intention to part from the
tug at Sunbury, and remain there that night, going on thence with a
horse. A few more questions extracted a piece of information which
was somewhat agitating to the young man. In his eagerness for flight
the previous day he had jumped at the idea of going to Basingstoke,
without having any clear notion of the waterway which would lead them
thither. Now he ascertained that, at Weybridge, they would follow
the Wey Navigation to the point where the Guildford and Basingstoke
Canal flowed in--and afterwards, the sinuous curve of the quiet water
would lead them within sight of the very uplands where Normansgrave
stood among its pinewoods.
His heart leaped up at the idea of passing so near to his old home.
His brow crimsoned with shame to think how any one of the villagers
who in old days had petted him, would now pass him on the towing-path
without recognition.
He plunged deeply into thought, into unavailing bitterness of heart
towards his sorely tried half-brother. But in his thought was a new
element. For the first time he began to see that Denzil might have
some right on his side--that it was conceivable that their father's
son might legitimately object to the use he had made of their
father's name.
He was glad he had not told Rona who he was. The old name at least
was not associated in her mind with the notion of a suicide and a
convict.
He longed for, yet dreaded, the moment when they should reach the
spot to which the poor heart that thought itself weaned from all ties
now discovered that it clung with passionate desire.
It was dark by the time they were moored at Sunbury. Mr. Doggett
went ashore to pass the evening with a few kindred spirits at the
Waterman's Rest. As he would probably return to seek his couch in
the cabin later on in the night hours, Felix made himself a
shake-down with hay not far from where Rona lay, with the benevolent
design of hearing her, should she call during the night.
But he slept like a log. The strain of body and mind through which
he had passed was relaxed to the extent of permitting him to yield to
an overmastering fatigue. There were clouds ahead. He still
apprehended the necessity of depositing Rona in some hospital or
infirmary. Every mile traversed by the barge was taking them farther
from the north of England, and would increase the length, and
consequently the expense, of their journey thither. Moreover, he was
on ticket-of-leave for another fortnight, and he did not quite know
what the police would make of his deserted room, his letter to his
brother, and the empty mug. But, in spite of these things--in spite
of the knowledge that his present route was slow and winding, and
that pursuit might catch up at any moment--still, the fresh air and
the food and the relaxation of tension had had their effect, and he
slept ten hours without a break, and would have slept longer but for
the ungentle touch of the Old Man's boot against his sparsely-clad
ribs.
All that day he was tramping along the tow-path. They nearly went
aground at the shallow just opposite Halliford, but, fortunately for
the Old Man's state of mind, not more than a good shove with the pole
would counteract.
Up to Weybridge, past Shepperton and the Island, and on to the narrow
black mouth of the Wey between the old gaping lock gates into the
deep jaws of the newer one. After that, they were in the region of
locks which they had to work themselves, and progress was very slow.
Felix had hardly a moment in which to think of Rona, though he felt
that she was growing worse instead of better. He had never been so
tired in his life as he was when they moored near a small village
called Dunhythe, where the night was to be spent.
Doggett had an errand for him. He was to go up to the village, which
lay half a mile from the little hythe or wharf, and get the
blacksmith to re-fix the iron point of the long pole, damaged at
Halliford. Before starting on his errand he went to look at the
girl, who had been unable to eat or drink anything but water at
dinner-time. She was now delirious. To his horror, she did not know
him. Her face was bright red, and her eyes preternaturally bright.
Felix determined that he must call in a doctor, if he could persuade
one to come without a fee. He said nothing of his intention to the
Old Man, but set out for the village as fast as he could go, with the
long pole over his shoulder.
Having deposited his burden with the blacksmith, and promised to call
for it, he asked the way to the doctor's house, and found himself
obliged to run nearly a mile. A smart motor was at the door when he
arrived, and the maid said the doctor was seeing a patient, but would
speak to him when disengaged. The minutes seemed hours to Felix as
he sat in the hall, filled with a vast and overwhelming depression.
It was of no use to struggle against his destiny. Rona, the sole
thing for which he was making this last stand, was going to die.
The door opened, the doctor came out, and advanced across the hall,
accompanied by an elderly lady with a plain, humorous face, and a
natural charm of manner.
"Well," she said, "that is reassuring, doctor. But mind, nothing is
to be spared. Let the poor fellow have port wine or tonic, or
anything he ought to have, and send in the bills to me."
"You are splendid!" was the reply, in a tone of deep feeling. "What
would happen without you, I wonder? Hullo, my good man, what can I
do for you?"
He spoke to Felix, who could not immediately reply. He was seized
with a fit of trembling, and grew white. He had seen the lady from
time to time in his boyish days. She was only sister to his father's
first wife--her name was Miss Rawson. She lived at Normansgrave, and
kept house for Denzil Vanston.