THE CHINA MAIL, SEPTEMBER 29, 1939.
NIGHT IN THE FERRY INN
The inn owned the ferry rights of the causeway, and when the huge iron. bell was tolled across from the main-
obliteration.
"But
Roger Pooley
himself thinking, "had she been She wrenched herself into con-
worth it?"
There was not a great deal of cus- giness, of the mucky breakwater un- with a grunt, overcome at last, rolling of tom for the Ferry Inn. It was too der his heavy boots, the odd squelch under the table.
authority, behind, it a row of isolated. It was not on the mainland as he had lowered the sagging bur-
frightened faces, distorted from fam- but across the river causeway.
den he had carried a mile along the
So he had done many nights, and illarity until they appeared as blank those many nights she had been and taut as those of the sheep wind- Behind it lay miles of sheep-graz- marshes.
thankful for the drunken ing, on either side the sluggish marsh- It had not been difficult to
stupor ing danger. force which gave her relief of him. Thank- Before he knew more he felt the es against which the sea silted, year that unresisting weight down deep; fully she closed her eyes again, wait- chill of steel fettering his wrists. after year, from the river mouth, a the mud had sucked greedily as if ing for strength to return to her.
"I'll want you. "the voice was mixture of sand and mud, and, in anxious to be ahead of the dawn tide
It was at that moment that she again harsh and rasping, but Roger stormy weather, piled its stinking so soon to sweep in, bringing further heard the clang of the ferry bell echo- was not listening to it. His staring burden higher and higher to form a
ing from the other side of the water.
eyes focussed slowly. Very gradual- natural breakwater.
found
ly he noticed along dark patch, soak- ing, sticky in its spread towards him, sciousness. He could not go, he was
and here and there some splintered There had been little risk at the snoring in oblivious discomfort, SO
glass. But there was something part- must. land the inn's boat was rowed across endured its hardships, courted where painfully, she dragged herself to her partly stained-the breadknife which
time. A man worked on the island, she knew that she
Wearily, ly bright with the sun's rays on it, to answer its summons. But the profit from that obligatory transport could find. One day he rebelled. He
he could, took such company as
he feet.
had fallen from his clasp as he rolled was greatly dependent upon the sea- crossed to the mainland; he was
Again came the insisted clamour, on the floor. He saw a hand reach no and she found herself hurrying. The for and pick it up carefully. son of the year, while the dilapida- more seen. tion of the inn and the known surli-
That had happened be- loose pebbles of the slight shingling It was then that he became aware fore, it would happen again. It was rattled under her feet as she reached of Beth's body, crumpled and down- ness of its owner, Roger Pooley, caus- ed the fishing boats and small yachts one had thought more of the disap- she slipped on them
quite understood. Within a week no the beached boat, but even thought flung with the still limpness of a half- which at times put in for anchor- pearance of Jem Marston.
in her down- spilled sack. He could not withdraw trodden shoes she found in herself a his gaze from it. age down the river to ignore the With the exception, perhaps, of renewal of strength born-of necessity. creaking, shabby sign which
"Beth?" his parched lips soundless- out over the water's edge. Only the
Once she had pushed the boat out ly formed her name. He could not few inhabitants of the island regularly her in the end, but it had been a she felt better.
Roger's mouth twisted. He had got and was tugging at the clumsy oars understand why she appeared so un- frequented the bar parlour or tap- struggle. She had shown little sign
familiar. Her hair had fallen loose room, and that was for lack of better. of the smarting of humiliation in what The moon disentangled of the former it was ghastly pale and her
The water had become smoother. round her upturned face, and though Beth, Roger's wife, served them. had so clearly been desertion of her flying clouds
lips Beth did all the work of the inn. in her first young love. But for long pathway across the causeway as if to more as when he had first seen her, flung a shimmering drained of colour, yet she seemed once Roger preferred to absorb his own wares with such company as he could obtain, even though his surly con- viviality was apt to lose him his com- pany.
hung Beth..
Short Story
By Princess Paul Troubetzkoy
first coveted her, and to gain her had heaved his rival's body into the mire the sea had heaped guarding his secret.
Even as he was jerked roughly to his feet he continued to stare at her. "It was very queer," the thought stirred sluggishly in his fume-filled mind, "that she should be lying there like that!"
Beth was thirty, perhaps a little more. There were those who could have remembered her as a fresh com- plexioned, bright-eyed girl, with hair which had had the vital sheen of the wing of a blackbird. But 85 they saw day after day the drab figure of
Something very peculiar must have the woman who polished and scrub- months her steps had led her to the guide her; on the mainland the road happened to her, for her seemed to be bed, measured and passed, with her causeway, she had stood there, her ran to meet it, a gleaming white dead. There was blood all round her
with staring at lifeless air, the premature ageing of eyes strained
the ribbon on either side of which the as if she had bled to death. her caused them to forget that it was empty mainland road, her ears listen- heavy woods seemed to be standing He could not understand that. Nor she who had been the bride of whom ing for the toll of the bell.
in breathless guardianship.
could he understand the change in Roger Pooley had seemed almost But he had waifed and he had got "Weather's gone queer!" she her. Lying there she looked so young,
her. And then, that March night he thought.
and he had forgotten that she could They knew that Roger lifted his fist looked at her and wondered, after A strange surprise entered her she was smiling. to her, but in their opinion it was no all, what had he got? business of their to interfere between "Fetch out a bit of bread and man and wife.. Occasionally, if it cheese," he ordered her thickly. occurred to them, the women might She was on her knees at the hearth, murmur with some sympathy, recall- raking the embers. ing the past.
"Did you hear me?" His voice had "She'd have done better, if she'd a growling note.
proud.
mind as it seemed to her that her heart had lightened. The boat was no longer so heavy against the water; it was as if the tide bore it.
She became conscious that there was beauty in the night.
"Like those nights "she broke taken Jem 'What-was-his-name'
Hurriedly Beth moved. He
her thought abruptly, painfully, in an was he was a likely fellow
and he again in a mood the years had taught anguish of self-protection from а was courting her honest enough." her to dread. Menacing... bru- deep agony.
"True enough, but he cleared off tal..
HISTORIC DOCUMENTS RESCUED
The document, retrieved from a col- lection of family papers which wereTM threatened, with destruction is a deed executed by Thurstone, Provost of Be-- verley, who was elected Archbishop of York, 1174.
An-early twelfth century document: It was useless to remember the which had not seen the light of day for never came back to the island! One day, she supposed, he'd hit her torment she had buried. There had nearly 300 years, is one of the latest After that she hadn't much choice!" a bit too hard. With sick hatred in been those lovely nights when the of many papers of historic interest to There was, at that, little further to her heart she wished that he would, moon had bathed the whole of the have been rescued by the British Re- remark. The women of the island. He'd have to pay for it then. As she island in silver, when there had been cords Association. had their own troubles and perplexi- went into the kitchen she was think the soft crooning of sleepy birds ties, and Roger was a husband who ing of him twisting with a rope round soothed in Spring courting, the caress saw to it that his wife remained aloof. his neck. She'd lie, she thought, very of the air, salt-ladén, blowing up the At the same time, more than one made quiet in her grave if she could know river from clean endless space. the prophecy:
what 'ud happen to him. That 'ud be She had walked in the sweetness of "One day there'll be something justice, she thought. He'd taken her such nights with Jem. She forced happen, him being the brute he is!" life from her utterly, and the Book herself into an insistence that she no His election in that year establishes That prophecy was fulfilled. said, "A Life for a life." So far as longer remembered. It had been a the age of this document, executed by It was a night in March. Gusty, her body was concerned she would dream in a dreamlike past. To con-Thurston as Provost and not as Arch- with flying gobs of dirty scum whip- willing sacrifice what remained of it, sider it in any other way only in- bishop as not less than 825 year. ped from the river. There was a be quit of its sufferings, and know her tensified the bleak agony of the pre- clump of trees by the inn which life avenged.
sent, and the horror of the empty whined a tuneless accompaniment to She laid out the food he had de- future. the creaking of the sign and the manded on the trestle table of the And the boat grounded. She shivering of the old building. The taproom and returned with a cloth in shipped the oars, turned and clam- sheep were huddled in plaintive sil- her hand to wipe down the spillings bered to the bow to make fast and once in the slight dips which gave of the bar-counter. She reached for take aboard the unexpected way- shelter, but the nightbirds' questing his empty glass.
farer. He was standing, very still, added shrill misery from time to time "Leave that be," he said and drove awaiting her. as their abrupt calls blew through at her with his fist. the eeriness of the darkness.
The blow was so sudden that The last customer had left, and her outstretched hand caught the Roger Pooley leaned across the bar- glass and it rolled, falling with her, I'd come back for you."! counter of his taproom, am empty to break into glittering fragments on Had she heard him or was it a flash glass at his elbow and a morose ex- the flagstones. She knew a sharp of crazed imagination? She did not. pression upon his heavy-jowled face. piercing pang which was more than know. She was staring at him, lost in That night he had been drinking the hurt of her fall. It was so severe a surge of bewilderment. whisky alternately with the heavy that the pain of it was swamped by knew as he smiled at her that the But she
beer which was his customary plea- a sudden dizziness.
years had not changed him. Puzzled, sure, and he was very drunk.
you but docile, she responded to his move-
"I'll drink as I want
She gasped. "Jem!"
"You knew-you always knew that
In a dulled way he eyed Beth should know that by now," she heard ment. She put her hand in his and sweeping up the nightly litter, wiping him say, and opening hor eyes with let him help her ashore; she saw the the spittle from the worn stone of the difficulty she saw him reach for an- white road of the mainland stretch- floor, straightening benches and set- other glass, and fill it and drain it. ing ahead of her. tles.
In those seconds she felt incapable of The midday sun was streaming in Deep in his mind was a dissatisfac- movement and she lay there as he through the wooden shutters, when tion with her. It was as if he had not picked up the breadknife, hacking at Roger Pooley opened his eyes. But it looked at her for a long time, Sud- the loaf, without another look af was not the sun which awakened him denly she seemed to him so poor a her.
from his drunken sleep. He was coll thing.
·
I MEAN IT! I WANT
THE BABY POWDER THAT FIGHTS GERMS.
MENNEN
BOERTED POWDER
Glad of the respite, she was con- sclous of rough shaking and a harsh As the wind moaned and whim- scious of the passing of her dizziness. voice commanding. pered, recollection came to him' of a It was succeeded by lethargy, Through "Come on, now night similar in its wild misery and it she felt more than saw him sag-. discomfort. He felt again the sog- ging to sit, missing the bench and Dazed, he sat up. He saw the badge.
Boothing, cooling and refreshlag- Kalieves prickly best and chalings
rouse
up
BAPRIS