FullReads

”Tisn’t the water, it’s the mud on the skirting-board after it goes down that I mind,’ Rhoda whispered. ‘The last time Coxen’s mill broke, I remember it came up to the second–no, third–step o’ Mr. Sidney’s stairs.’

‘What did Sidney do about it?’

‘He made a notch on the step. ‘E said it was a record. Just like ‘im.’

‘It’s up to the drive now,’ said Midmore after another long wait. ‘And the rain stopped before eight, you know.’

‘Then Coxen’s dam ‘as broke, and that’s the first of the flood-water.’ She stared out beside him. The water was rising in sudden pulses–an inch or two at a time, with great sweeps and lagoons and a sudden increase of the brook’s proper thunder.

‘You can’t stand all the time. Take a chair,’ Midmore said presently.

Rhoda looked back into the bare room. ‘The carpet bein’ up does make a difference. Thank you, sir, I will ‘ave a set-down.’

”Right over the drive now,’ said Midmore. He opened the window and leaned out. ‘Is that wind up the valley, Rhoda?’

‘No, that’s it! But I’ve seen it before.’

There was not so much a roar as the purposeful drive of a tide across a jagged reef, which put down every other sound for twenty minutes. A wide sheet of water hurried up to the little terrace on which the house stood, pushed round either corner, rose again and stretched, as it were, yawning beneath the moonlight, joined other sheets waiting for them in unsuspected hollows, and lay out all in one. A puff of wind followed.

‘It’s right up to the wall now. I can touch it with my finger.’ Midmore bent over the window-sill.

‘I can ‘ear it in the cellars,’ said Rhoda dolefully. ‘Well, we’ve done what we can! I think I’ll ‘ave a look.’ She left the room and was absent half an hour or more, during which time he saw a full-grown tree hauling itself across the lawn by its naked roots. Then a hurdle knocked against the wall, caught on an iron foot-scraper just outside, and made a square-headed ripple. The cascade through the cellar-windows diminished.

‘It’s dropping,’ Rhoda cried, as she returned. ‘It’s only tricklin’ into my cellars now.’

‘Wait a minute. I believe–I believe I can see the scraper on the edge of the drive just showing!’

In another ten minutes the drive itself roughened and became gravel again, tilting all its water towards the shrubbery.

‘The pond’s gone past,’ Rhoda announced. ‘We shall only ‘ave the common flood to contend with now. You’d better go to bed.’

‘I ought to go down and have another look at Sidney before daylight.’

‘No need. You can see ‘is light burnin’ from all the upstairs windows.’

‘By the way. I forgot about her. Where’ve you put her?’

‘In my bed.’ Rhoda’s tone was ice. ‘I wasn’t going to undo a room for that stuff.’

‘But it–it couldn’t be helped,’ said Midmore. ‘She was half drowned. One mustn’t be narrow-minded, Rhoda, even if her position isn’t quite–er–regular.’

‘Pfff! I wasn’t worryin’ about that.’ She leaned forward to the window. ‘There’s the edge of the lawn showin’ now. It falls as fast as it rises. Dearie’–the change of tone made Midmore jump–‘didn’t you know that I was ‘is first? That’s what makes it so hard to bear.’ Midmore looked at the long lizard-like back and had no words.

She went on, still talking through the black window-pane:

‘Your pore dear auntie was very kind about it. She said she’d make all allowances for one, but no more. Never any more…. Then, you didn’t know ‘oo Charlie was all this time?’

‘Your nephew, I always thought.’

‘Well, well,’ she spoke pityingly. ‘Everybody’s business being nobody’s business, I suppose no one thought to tell you. But Charlie made ‘is own way for ‘imself from the beginnin’!… But her upstairs, she never produced anything. Just an ‘ousekeeper, as you might say. ‘Turned over an’ went to sleep straight off. She ‘ad the impudence to ask me for ‘ot sherry-gruel.’