Gwen Wynn: A Romance of the Wye

Volume Two – Chapter Eleven

A Startling Cry

During all this while Wingate has not spoken a word, though he also has observed the same figure in the pavilion. With face that way he could not avoid noticing it, and easily guesses who she is. Had he any doubt the behaviour of the other would remove it.

“Miss Wynn, for sartin,” he thinks to himself, but says nothing.

Again turning his eyes upon his patron, he notes the distraught air, with head drooping, and feels the effect in having to contend against the rudder ill directed. But he forbears making remark. At such a moment his interference might not be tolerated – perhaps resented. And so the silence continues.

Not much longer. A thought strikes the waterman, and he ventures a word about the weather. It is done for a kindly feeling – for he sees how the other suffers – but in part because he has a reason for it. The observation is —

“We’re goin’ to have the biggest kind o’ a rainpour Captain.”

The Captain makes no immediate response. Still in the morose mood, communing with his own thoughts, the words fall upon his ear unmeaningly, as if from a distant echo.

After a time it occurs to him he has been spoken to and asks —

“What did you observe, Wingate?”

“That there be a rain storm threatening o’ the grandest sort. There’s flood enough now; but afore long it’ll be all over the meadows.”

“Why do you think that? I see no sign. The sky’s very much clouded true; but it has been just the same for the last several days.”

“’Tan’t the sky as tells me, Captain.”

“What then?”

“The heequall.”

“The heequall?”

“Yes. It’s been a cacklin’ all through the afternoon and evenin’ – especial loud just as the sun wor settin’. I niver know’d it do that ’ithout plenty o’ wet comin’ soon after.”

Ryecroft’s interest is aroused, and for the moment forgetting his misery, he says: —

“You’re talking enigmas, Jack! At least they are so to me. What is this barometer you seem to place such confidence in? Beast, bird, or fish?”

“It be a bird, Captain? I believe the gentry folks calls it a woodpecker; but ’bout here it be more generally known by the name heequall.”

The orthography is according to Jack’s orthoepy, for there are various spellings of the word.

“Anyhow,” he proceeds, “it gies warnin’ o’ rain, same as a weather-glass. When it ha’ been laughin’ in the mad way it wor most part o’ this day, you may look out for a downpour. Besides, the owls ha’ been a-doin’ their best, too. While I wor waiting for ye in that darksome hole, one went sailin’ up an’ down the backwash, every now an’ then swishin’ close to my ear and giein’ a screech – as if I hadn’t enough o’ the disagreeable to think o’. They allus come that way when one’s feelin’ out o’ sorts – just as if they wanted to make things worse. Hark! Did ye hear that, Captain?”

“I did.”

They speak of a sound that has reached their ears from below – down the river.

Both show agitation, but most the waterman; for it resembled a shriek, as of a woman in distress. Distant, just as one he heard across the wooded ridge, on that fatal night after parting with Mary Morgan. He knows now, that must have been her drowning cry, and has often thought since whether, if aware of it at the time, he could have done aught to rescue her. Not strange, that with such a recollection he is now greatly excited by a sound so similar!

“That waren’t no heequall; nor screech-owl neyther,” he says, speaking in a half whisper.

“What do you think it was?” asks the Captain, also sotto voce.

“The scream o’ a female. I’m ’most sure ’twor that.”

“It certainly did seem a woman’s voice. In the direction of the Court, too!”

“Yes; it comed that way.”

“I’ve half a mind to put back, and see if there be anything amiss. What say you, Wingate?”

“Gie the word, sir! I’m ready.”

The boatman has his oars out of water, and holds them so, Ryecroft still undecided. Both listen with bated breath. But, whether woman’s voice, or whatever the sound, they hear nothing more of it; only the monotonous ripple of the river, the wind mournfully sighing through the trees upon its banks, and a distant “brattle,” of thunder, bearing out the portent of the bird.

“Like as not,” says Jack, “’twor some o’ them sarvint girls screechin’ in play, fra havin’ had a drop too much to drink. There’s a Frenchy thing among ’em as wor gone nigh three sheets i’ the wind ’fores I left. I think, Captain, we may as well keep on.”

The waterman has an eye to the threatening rain, and dreads getting a wet jacket.

But his words are thrown away; for, meanwhile, the boat, left to itself, has drifted downward, nearly back to the entrance of the bye-way, and they are once more within sight of the kiosk on the cliff. There all is darkness; no figure distinguishable. The lamps have burnt out, or been removed by some of the servants.

“She has gone away from it,” is Ryecroft’s reflection to himself. “I wonder if the ring be still on the floor – or, has she taken it with her! I’d give something to know that.”

Beyond he sees a light in the upper window of the house – that of a bedroom no doubt. She may be in it, unrobing herself, before retiring to rest. Perhaps standing in front of a mirror, which reflects that form of magnificent outline he was once permitted to hold in his arms, thrilled by the contact, and never to be thrilled so again! Her face in the glass – what the expression upon it? Sadness, or joy? If the former, she is thinking of him; if the latter of George Shenstone.

As this reflection flits across his brain, the jealous rage returns, and he cries out to the waterman —

“Row back, Wingate! Pull hard, and let us home!”

Once more the boat’s head is turned upstream, and for a long spell no further conversation is exchanged – only now and then a word relating to the management of the craft, as between rower and steerer. Both have relapsed into abstraction – each dwelling on his own bereavement. Perhaps boat never carried two men with sadder hearts, or more bitter reflections. Nor is there so much difference in the degree of their bitterness. The sweetheart, almost bride, who has proved false, seems to her lover not less lost, than to hers she who has been snatched away by death!

As the Mary runs into the slip of backwater – her accustomed mooring-place – and they step out of her, the dialogue is renewed by the owner asking —

“Will ye want me the morrow, Captain?”

“No, Jack.”

“How soon do you think? ’Scuse me for questionin’; but young Mr Powell have been here the day, to know if I could take him an’ a friend down the river, all the way to the Channel. It’s for sea fishin’ or duck shootin’ or somethin’ o’ that sort; an’ they want to engage the boat most part o’ a week. But, if you say the word, they must look out for somebody else. That be the reason o’ my askin’ when’s you’d need me again.”

“Perhaps never.”

“Oh! Captain; don’t say that. ’Tan’t as I care ’bout the boat’s hire, or the big pay you’ve been givin’ me. Believe me it ain’t. Ye can have me an’ the Mary ’ithout a sixpence o’ expense – long’s ye like. But to think I’m niver to row you again, that ’ud vex me dreadful – maybe more’n ye gi’e me credit for, Captain.”

“More than I give you credit for! It couldn’t, Jack. We’ve been too long together for me to suppose you actuated by mercenary motives. Though I may never need your boat again, or see yourself, don’t have any fear of my forgetting you. And now, as a souvenir, and some slight recompense of your services, take this.”

The waterman feels a piece of paper pressed into his hand, its crisp rustle proclaiming it a bank-note. It is a “tenner,” but in the darkness he cannot tell, and believing it only a “fiver,” still thinks it too much. For it is all extra of his fare.

With a show of returning it, and, indeed, the desire to do so, he says protestingly —