‘You might think that being unable to speak would be a difficulty in the matter of romance, but the Quietlys were dependable, kindly men and there are women who like a peaceful life. It so happened that in every generation some woman was found who was content to live without conversation and bear the next generation of punt-builders, and all the little girls could speak and none of the boys.
‘At the time of this story, the Quietly of the day had a daughter. She was the apple of his eye, and doted upon by her parents and grandparents alike. One day she went missing. They looked everywhere for the child, alerted neighbours, and till night fell the riverbank rang with the sound of her mother and other people calling her name. She was not found – not that day, nor the next. But after three days her poor drowned body was recovered from a spot a little way downstream, and they buried her.
‘Time passed. Through the rest of the winter and the spring and summer and autumn the girl’s father continued building punts as before, ferried people over the river when needed, and in the evenings sat smoking by the fireside, but his muteness altered. The silence that had once been warm, good-humoured and full of companionship grew dark and was filled with grey shadows. The year turned full circle and came to the anniversary of the day when the child had disappeared.
‘On that day, Quietly’s wife returned home from market to find a customer waiting. “If you need to cross the river, it is my husband you want. You will find him in the yard,” she told him. But the customer, whose face she now saw was pale, said, “I have already found him. He took me halfway across the river and when we were at the deepest place he handed me the pole and stepped out of the punt.”’
Rita paused to take a sip of tea.
‘And he haunts the river till this day?’ Daunt asked.
‘The story isn’t over yet. After three days, Quietly’s wife was weeping by the fireside at midnight when there came a knock at the door. She could not think of a single person likely to call on her at such a late hour. Could it be someone wishing to cross the river? She went to the door. Out of fear she did not open it, but only called, “It is too late. Wait till morning and my father-in-law will take you across.”
‘The answer came: “Mama! Let me in! It’s cold outside.”
‘With trembling hands she unlocked the door and in the porch found her own little girl, the one she had buried a year ago, alive and well. Behind the child was her husband, Quietly. She clutched the girl in her arms, wept to have her back, too overjoyed at first to wonder how such a thing had come to pass. Then she thought, It cannot be, and she held the child at arm’s length to stare at her, but it was unmistakeably the very same daughter she had lost twelve months before.
‘“Where did you come from?” she asked in wonderment, and the little girl answered, “From that place on the other side of the river. Daddy came to get me.”
‘The woman turned her eyes to her husband. Quietly stood a little way back from the child, not in the porch, but on the path.
‘“Come in, dear,” she said, and opened the door wide and gestured to the hearth, where the fire was lit and his pipe was still on the mantel. But Quietly did not step forwards. She couldn’t help but notice he was altered, though it was hard to say exactly how. Perhaps he was paler and thinner than he had been before, or perhaps it was his eyes that were a darker version of the colour they had been before.
‘“Come in!” she repeated, and Quietly shook his head.
‘She understood then that he would never be able to come inside again.
‘The good woman drew her daughter inside and closed the door, and since that day any number of people have met Quietly on the river. There was a price to be paid for the return of his daughter and he paid it. For all eternity he must watch over the river, waiting for someone to get into difficulty, and then, if it is not their time, he sees them safely to the bank, and if it is their time, he sees them safely to that other place, the one he went to in search of his child, and there they must remain.’
They gave the story the silent pause it deserved, and when it was over, Daunt spoke again.
‘So it was not my time, and Quietly towed me to Radcot.’
‘If the story is to be believed.’
‘Do you believe it?’
‘Of course not.’
‘It’s a good story, nonetheless. The devoted father rescuing his child at the price of his own life.’
‘It cost him more than that,’ Rita said. ‘It cost him his death too. There is no eternal rest for Quietly, he must exist for ever between the two states, policing its border.’
‘You don’t believe that either,’ he said. ‘Do they believe it here?’
‘Beszant the boat-mender does. He reckons he saw him, when he was a youth and slipped on the jetty. The cressmen think Quietly keeps them safe when the river rises up the fields and turns them marshy. One of the gravel-diggers was a sceptic till the day he got his ankle trapped underwater. He swears blind it was Quietly that reached down and freed him.’
The conversation put Daunt in mind of the child. ‘I thought she was dead,’ he told her. ‘She came drifting into my arms, white and cold and with her eyes closed … I would have sworn she was dead.’
‘They all thought so too.’
‘But not you.’
‘I too. I was certain of it.’ There was a thoughtful silence in the room. He thought of questions he might ask, but stilled his tongue. Something told him there might be more to come if he waited, and he was right.
‘You are a photographer, Mr Daunt, which makes you a scientist. I am a nurse, which makes me a scientist too, but I cannot explain what I witnessed last night.’ She spoke slowly and with great calm, choosing her words carefully. ‘The girl was not breathing. She had no pulse. Her pupils were dilated. The body was cold. The skin was white. According to every rule in the textbook, she was dead. I had no doubt about it. After I had checked for signs of life and found none, I might easily have come away. I don’t know why I stayed, except that I felt uneasy for reasons I could not explain to myself. For a short time – between two minutes and three in my estimation – I continued to stand by the body. Her hand was between my hands; my fingertips were touching her wrist. In that position I felt something flicker between her skin and mine. It felt like a pulse. But I knew it couldn’t be – she was dead.
‘Now, it is actually just possible to mistake your own pulse for the pulse of a patient, because there is a pulse in the fingertips. Let me show you.’ He heard the rustle of her skirts behind her footsteps as she approached the bed. She took his hand, laid it palm up on her own open palm and placed her other palm over it, so that his hand was enclosed in hers and her fingertips rested lightly at the inside of his wrist. ‘There. I can feel your pulse’ (his blood lurched at her touch) ‘and I can also feel mine. It’s a very delicate pulse, but it’s mine.’
He murmured a note of understanding in his throat and his senses jumped to attention to catch a flicker of her blood. It was too faint.
‘So to avoid all uncertainty I did this …’ Her hands slipped briskly away, his own was left abandoned on the counterpane; his swell of disappointment ebbed when her fingertips alighted on the tender spot beneath his ear.