He paused to yawn and at the end of the yawn they suddenly saw how dazed his eyes were and that he was on the verge of sleep.
Mr Armstrong wiped a tear from his eye.
‘You have done well, Ben. You couldn’t have done better.’
‘Thank you, Sir, and thank you for the soup and the cheese and the apple pie, it was most excellent.’ He slipped from his chair and saluted the family. ‘Now I had better be getting along.’
‘But where will you go?’ asked Mrs Armstrong. ‘Where is your home?’
‘I set out to run away, and run away I must.’
Robert put both hands on the table. ‘We can’t have that, Ben. You must stay here and be one of the family.’
Ben looked at the girls and boys around the hearth. ‘But you have plenty here eating your profits already, Sir. And now Alice too. Profits don’t grow on trees, you know.’
‘I know. But if we all work together we make extra profit, and I can see you are a hardworking boy who will pull his weight. Bess, is there a bed for the child?’
‘He will sleep with the middle boys. He looks about the same age as Joe and Nelson.’
‘There, you see? And you will help with the pigs. All right?’
And so it was settled.
Once Upon a Time, a Long Time Ago
AFTERWARDS, BUT BEFORE the flood had entirely retreated, Daunt took Rita on Collodion back to her flooded cottage. They used the little row boat to get to the door, and when Daunt stepped out of it to push the warped door with all his might, the water was up to his knees. Inside there was a line around the walls that showed the water had been three feet high here. All around the room the paint was peeling away from the walls. The receding water had left on the seat of Rita’s writing chair, as if there were some meaning in it, an arrangement of twigs, pebbles and other less identifiable matter. She had had the forethought to raise the blue armchair on boxes; its feet had been in water, but the cushions were sound. The red rug could not make up its mind whether to float or sink; every motion of the water caused it to shift with weighty indecision. A dank and unpleasant smell was everywhere.
Daunt stepped aside to let Rita see in. She waded through her front door and into the living room. He watched her face as she surveyed her home, admiring her impassivity as she contemplated the damage.
‘It will take weeks to dry out. Months, even,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Where will you go? To the Swan? Margot and Jonathan might be glad of your company when the girls go home. Or the Vaughans? They would be pleased to have you.’
She shrugged. Her thoughts were on other more fundamental matters. This devastation of her home was a trivial detail.
‘The books first,’ she said.
He waded to the bookcase and saw that the lower shelves were empty. Above the water line the upper shelves were double-stacked.
‘You were prepared.’
She shrugged. ‘When you live by the river …’
He handed her the books a few at a time; she passed them out of the window and placed them in the boat that bobbed just below the level of the sill. They worked in silence. One volume she put aside, on the cushion of the blue armchair.
When the first bookcase was empty and the boat was low in the water, Daunt rowed it back to Collodion and unloaded there. On his return to the cottage, he found Rita in the blue chair, still on its boxes. The water from her skirt was darkening the fabric.
‘I always wanted to photograph you in that chair.’
She lifted her eyes from the book. ‘They’ve called off the search, haven’t they?’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s not coming back.’
‘No.’ He knew it was true. He had the feeling that the world might easily stop turning without the girl in it. Every hour was arduous, and when it was over, you had to start again with a new one, no better. He wondered how long he would be able to keep going.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘you went to all that trouble to save the blue chair and now your dress is making it wet.’
‘It doesn’t matter. The thing is, the world seemed complete before she came. And then she was here. And now she’s gone, there’s something missing.’
‘I found her in the river. I feel as if I should be able to find her again.’
Rita nodded. ‘When I thought she was dead, I wanted so much for her to live. Instead of leaving her alone there, I stayed. I held her wrist. And she lived. I want to do the same now. I keep thinking about the story of Quietly and what he did to save his child. I understand it now. I would go anywhere, Daunt, I would suffer any pain, to have my child in my arms again.’
She sat in her wet skirt on the blue chair over the water, and he stood motionless in the water. They did not know what to do with their grief. Then wordlessly they set to packing books again.