To Say Nothing of the Dog (25 page)

A rower from one of the colleges, in a striped cap and jersey, cracked oars with a pleasure party’s paddles and stopped to apologize, and a sailboat nearly crashed into them from behind. I yanked on the lines and nearly crashed into all three.

“I’d best steer,” Terence said, scrambling up to change places when our boat hit an empty slot between a four-oared outrigger and a dinghy.

“Excellent idea,” I said, but rowing was worse. Facing backward, I couldn’t see anything and had the feeling I was going to run into the Upper Slaughter Ironmongers’ River Excursion at any moment.

“This is worse than the Henley Regatta,” Terence said, pulling on the lines. He maneuvered the boat out of the main current and off to the side, but that was even worse. It brought us into the midst of the punts and houseboats that were being towed, their towlines stretched across our path like so many tripwires.

The people towing weren’t in any hurry, either. Girls pulled a few feet and then paused to look laughingly back at the boat. Couples stopped to look longingly into each other’s eyes, letting the towline go limp in the water, and then remembered what they were supposed to be doing and yanked it up sharply. Jerome K. Jerome had written about a couple who’d lost their boat and gone on, talking and towing the frayed rope, but it seemed to me a greater danger was decapitation, and I kept glancing anxiously behind me like Catherine Howard.

There was a sudden flurry of activity upriver. A whistle shrieked and someone cried, “Look out!”

“What is it?” I said.

“A bloody teakettle,” Terence said, and a steam launch puffed through the crowd, scattering the boats and sending up a tremendous wash.

The boat rocked, and one of the oars unshipped. I made a grab for it and the carpetbag, and Terence raised his fist and cursed at the steam launch’s vanishing wake.

“They remind one of Hannibal’s elephants at the Battle of the Ticinus River,” Professor Peddick, who had just awakened, said, and launched into a description of Hannibal’s Italian campaign.

We were in the Alps and in traffic all the way to Wallingford. We sat in line for Benson’s Lock for over an hour, with Terence taking out his pocket watch and announcing the time every three minutes.

“Three o’clock,” he said. Or “A quarter past three.” Or “Nearly half past. We’ll never make it in time for tea.”

I shared his sentiment. The last time I’d opened the carpetbag, Princess Arjumand had stirred ominously, and as we pulled into the lock I could hear faint meowings, which luckily were drowned out by the crowd noise and professor Peddick’s lecturing.

“Traffic was responsible for Napoleon’s losing the battle of Waterloo,” he said. “The artillery wagons became stuck in the mud, blocking the roads, and the infantry could not make its way past them. How often history turns on such trivial things, a blocked road, a delayed corps of infantry, orders gone astray.”

At Wallingford the traffic abruptly disappeared, the punts stopping to camp and start supper, the Musical Society disembarking and heading for the railway station and home, and the river was suddenly empty.

But we were still six miles and another lock from Muchings End.

“It’ll be nine o’clock before we get there,” Terence said despairingly.

“We can camp near Moulsford,” Professor Peddick said. “There are excellent perch above the weir there.”

“I think we should stay at an inn,” I said. “You’ll want a chance to clean up. You’ll want to look your best for Miss Mering. You can shave and have your flannels pressed and your shoes shined, and we can go to Muchings End first thing in the morning.”

And I can sneak out with the carpetbag after everyone’s gone to bed, and return the cat without being seen, so that by the time Terence gets there tomorrow morning the incongruity will already be correcting itself. And he’ll find Tossie holding hands with Mr Cabbagesoup or Coalscuttle or whatever his name is.

“There are two inns in Streatley,” Terence said, consulting the map. “The Bull and The Swan. The Swan. Trotters says it brews an excellent ale.”

“It hasn’t any swans, has it?” I said, glancing warily at Cyril, who had awakened and was looking nervous.

“I shouldn’t think so,” Terence said. “The George and Dragon doesn’t have a dragon.”

We rowed on. The sky turned the same blue as my hatband and then a pale lavender, and several stars came out. The frogs and crickets started up, and more faint mewings from the carpetbag.

I pulled up sharply on the oars, making a good deal of splashing, and asked Professor Peddick exactly where his and Professor Overforce’s theories differed, which got us to Cleve Lock, where I jumped out, fed the cat some milk, and then set the carpetbag in the bow on top of the luggage as far from Terence and Professor Peddick as possible.

“The action of the individual, that’s the force driving history,” Professor Peddick was saying. “Not Overforce’s blind, impersonal forces. ‘The history of the world is but the biography of great men,’ Carlyle writes, and so it is. Copernicus’s genius, Cincinnatus’s ambition, St. Francis of Assisi’s faith: It is character that shapes history.”

It was fully dark, and the houses were lit by the time we reached Streatley.

“At last,” I said as we sighted the quay, “a soft bed, a hot meal, a good night’s sleep,” but Terence was rowing straight past it.

“Where are you going?” I said.

“To Muchings End,” he said, pulling hard on the oars.

“But you said yourself it’s too late to call,” I said, glancing yearningly back at the quay.

“I know,” he said. “I only want a glimpse of where she lives. I won’t be able to sleep, knowing she’s so close, until I’ve seen her.”

“But it’s dangerous to be on the river at night,” I said. “There are shoals and eddies and things.”

“It’s only a short way,” Terence said, rowing determinedly. “She said it was just past the third island.”

“But we won’t be able to see it at night,” I said. “We’ll get lost and go over a weir and be drowned.”

“There it is,” Terence said, pointing at the shore. “She told me I’d know it by the gazebo.”

The white gazebo gleamed faintly in the starlight, and beyond it, across a sloping lawn, was the house. It was enormous and extremely Victorian, with gables and towers and all sorts of neo-Gothic gingerbread. It looked like a slightly smaller version of Victoria Station.

Its windows were all dark. Good, I thought, they’ve gone to Hampton Court to raise Catherine Howard’s ghost or off to Coventry. I’ll be able to return the cat easily.

“There’s no one there,” I said. “We’d best start back to Streatley. The Swan will be all booked up.”

“No, not yet,” Terence said, gazing at the house. “Let me gaze a moment longer on the hallowed ground whereon she walks, the sacred bower wherein she rests.”

“It does look as though the family has retired for the evening,” Professor Peddick said.

“Perhaps they’ve only got the curtains drawn,” Terence said. “Shh.”

That seemed unlikely, given the pleasantness of the evening, but we obediently listened. There was no sound at all from the shore, only the gentle lap of water, the murmur of a breeze through the rushes, the soft chirrup of frogs croaking. A meowing sound from the bow of the boat.

“There,” Terence said. “Did you hear that?”

“What?” said Professor Peddick.

“Voices,” Terence said, leaning out over the gunwale.

“Crickets,” I said, edging toward the bow.

The cat meowed again. “There!” Terence said. “Did you hear that? It’s someone calling us.”

Cyril sniffed.

“It’s a bird,” I said. I pointed at a tree by the gazebo. “In that willow. A nightingale.”

“It didn’t sound like a nightingale,” Terence said. “Nightingales sing of summer ‘in full-throated ease and pour their souls abroad in ecstasy.’ This didn’t sound like that. Listen.”

There was a snuffling sound in the front of the boat. I whirled round. Cyril was standing on his hind legs, his front paws on the stack of luggage, sniffing at the carpetbag and nudging it with his flat muzzle toward the edge.

“Cyril! Don’t!” I shouted, and four things happened at once. I dived forward to grab the carpetbag, Cyril started guiltily and backed against the wicker basket, Professor Peddick said, “Take care you do not step on the
Ugubio fluviatilis,”
and leaned sideways to pick the kettle up, and Terence turned round, saw the carpetbag toppling, and dropped the oars.

I tried, in mid-lunge, to avoid the oar and the professor’s hand, and fell flat, Terence intercepted the basket, the professor clutched his kettle of fish to his breast, and I caught the carpetbag by a corner just as it toppled over. The boat rocked dangerously. Water slopped over the bows. I got a better grip on the carpetbag, set it on the stern seat, and pulled myself to a sitting position.

There was a splash. I grabbed for the carpetbag again, but it was still there, and I peered at the bow, wondering if the oar had gone in.

“Cyril!” Terence shouted. “Man overboard!” He began stripping off his jacket. “Professor Peddick, take the oars. Ned, get the life preserver.”

I leaned over the side of the boat, trying to see where he’d gone in.

“Hurry!” Terence said, pulling off his shoes. “Cyril can’t swim.”

“He can’t swim?” I said, bewildered. “I thought all dogs could swim.”

“Indeed. The term ‘dog paddle’ is derived from the instinctive knowledge of swimming
Canis familiaris
possesses,” Professor Peddick said.

“He
knows
how to swim,” Terence said, stripping off his socks, “but he can’t. He’s a
bull
dog.”

He was apparently right. Cyril was dog-paddling manfully toward the boat, but his mouth and nose were both underwater, and he looked desperate. “I’m coming, Cyril,” Terence said and dived in, sending up a wave that nearly sunk him altogether. Terence started to swim toward him. Cyril continued to paddle and sink. Only the top of his wrinkled brow was still above the water.

“Bring the boat to port, no, starboard. To the left,” I shouted and began rummaging for the life preserver, which we had apparently packed on the bottom. “As bad as the
Titanic,”
I said, and then remembered it hadn’t sunk yet, but no one was listening.

Terence had Cyril by the collar and was holding his head up above the water. “Bring the boat closer,” he shouted, spluttering, and Professor Peddick responded by nearly running him down. “Stop! No!” Terence shouted, waving his arm, and Cyril went under again.

“To port!” I shouted. “The other way!” and leaned over and grabbed Terence by the scruff of
his
neck. “Not me!” Terence gasped. “Cyril!”

Between us we hoisted a very waterlogged Cyril into the boat where he coughed up several gallons of the Thames. “Put a blanket round him,” Terence said, clinging to the bows.

“I will,” I said, extending my hand. “Now you.”

“I’m all right,” he said, shivering. “Get the blanket first. He catches chills easily.”

I got the blanket, wrapping it round the massive shoulders that had proven Cyril’s downfall, and then we set about the tricky business of getting Terence back in the boat.

“Keep low,” Terence ordered, his teeth chattering, “we don’t want anyone else to go in.”

Terence was no better at following directions than Professor Peddick had been. He persisted in trying to get a leg up over the bow, a motion that caused the bow to slant at an angle almost as bad as that of the
Titanic.

“You’ll capsize us,” I said, wedging the carpetbag under the seat. “Hold still and let us haul you in.”

“I’ve done this dozens of times,” Terence said, and swung his leg up.

The gunwale dipped all the way to water level. Cyril, bunched in his blanket, staggered, trying to keep his feet, and the pile of luggage in the bow tilted precariously.

“I’ve never tipped a boat over yet,” Terence said confidently.

“Well, at least wait till I’ve shifted things,” I said, pushing the portmanteau back into place. “Professor Peddick, move all the way to that side,” and to Cyril, who had decided to come over, trailing his blanket, to see how we were doing, “Sit. Stay.”

“It’s all a matter of getting the proper purchase,” Terence said, shifting his grip on the gunwale.

“Wait!” I said. “Careful—”

Terence got his leg into the boat, raised himself on his hands, and pulled his torso up onto the gunwales.

“God himself could not sink this ship,” I murmured, holding the luggage in place.

“All in the balancing.” He hoisted himself into the boat. “There, you see,” he said triumphantly. “Nothing to it,” and the boat went over.

I have no idea how we got to shore. I remember the portmanteau sliding down the deck at me, like the grand piano on the
Titanic,
and then a lot of swallowing of water and clutching at the life preserver, which turned out to be Cyril, sinking like a stone, followed by more swallowing, and the dead man’s carry, and we were all sitting on the shore dripping and gasping for breath.

Cyril was the first to recover. He tottered to his feet and shook himself all over us, and Terence sat up and looked out at the empty water.

“ ‘And fast through the midnight dark and drear,’ ” he quoted, “ ‘Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept/Tow’rds the reef of Norman’s Woe.’ ”

“Naufragium sibi quisque facit,”
Professor Peddick said.

Terence gazed out at the dark water. “She’s gone,” he said, exactly like Lady Astor had, and I stood up, suddenly remembering, and waded into the water, but it was no use. There was no sign of the boat.

An oar lay half on shore, and, out in the middle of the river, the professor’s kettle bobbed past, the only survivors of the shipwreck. There was no sign of the carpetbag anywhere.

“ ‘Down came the storm, and smote amain/The vessel in its strength,’ ” Terence quoted. “ ‘He cut a rope from a broken spar/And bound her to the mast.’ ”

Princess Arjumand hadn’t had a chance, wedged under the seat like that. If I’d let her out when she meowed, if I’d told Terence I’d found her, if I’d come through where I was supposed to and hadn’t been so time-lagged—

“ ‘At day-break, on the bleak sea-beach/A fisherman stood aghast,’ ” Terence recited. “ ‘To see the form of a maiden fair/Lashed close to a drifting mast,’ ” and I turned to tell him to shut up and saw, behind us, white in the starlight, the gazebo where I was to have returned the cat.