Hope - Lesley Pearse [61]
Once over the paddock fence, Hope picked up her skirts and ran to the woods. On Wednesday Baines had let her go off at eleven in the morning. Matt and Amy had been busy with the harvest so she’d only stayed with them for a couple of hours and met Rufus in the woods much earlier than she normally did. They’d found an old boat among the reeds around the pond, and they’d spent much of the time trying to get it out. Rufus had talked excitedly about bringing some tools down so they could mend it and use it on the pond.
She guessed that was exactly what Rufus was doing now, hoping to surprise her and not noticing how late it was getting.
It was much cooler in the woods, and the paths that had been so well defined earlier in the year were now overgrown with weeds and brambles. Hope knew every inch of the woods, but in places it was hard to get through, and in her haste the brambles caught at her hair and scratched her cheeks and hands.
She called to him as she hurried along, urging him to come out because she guessed Ruth would soon send James or Albert down this way. But Rufus didn’t answer, and when she stood still for a moment to listen, she couldn’t hear anything other than birdsong.
By the time she got to the pond she was out of breath and very hot. Once again she called and listened, but she could hear nothing. Almost the entire surface of the pond was covered with weed and water lilies and teeming with midges which bombarded her as she drew nearer the water. She couldn’t see the boat as it was tucked up in reeds on the far side of the pond, but if Rufus had been there, she surely would have been able to see or hear him.
She stood there for a few moments, undecided what to do next. The voice of reason told her she was mistaken in thinking he’d be here and she should go back to Briargate, but a cold feeling at the pit of her stomach urged her to go round the pond and make absolutely certain.
They had found the boat when they had approached the pond from the other side, but it was very difficult to get round there from where she was now. In winter the stream which fed the pond was often a raging torrent; now it was nothing more than a trickle. But reeds, weeds and brambles had covered the still-damp mud, and she had to pick her way carefully through them. She could hear Albert and James shouting out Rufus’s name in the distance too, coming down towards the wood, so she had to be quick for if they found her here she’d have a lot of explaining to do.
Finally she reached the boat, and saw it was half-turned on its side, the keel towards her. She knew then that Rufus had been here for it had been lying flat on Wednesday.
Fear clutched at her innards, for she sensed that he’d either got into the water to try to move it, or slipped from the reed bed as he worked the boat loose. He couldn’t swim, he’d told her that the first time they’d come here. And even a good swimmer would have difficulty in water choked with reeds.
Hope wrenched off her boots, dress, petticoat and stockings, and wearing just her chemise plunged into the water and went round the prow of the boat.
She saw him then, completely submerged but for his head which appeared to be resting on reeds. There was an angry gash on his forehead.
Panic made her forget she didn’t know how deep the water was and that she couldn’t swim either. Suddenly there was nothing beneath her feet and she sank under the water. She thrashed her arms and legs and managed to get her head above the surface again just long enough to reach out for the side of the boat. Spluttering and spitting out pond water, she managed to work her way along the boat till she reached Rufus.
The way he looked was all too reminiscent of her father when she found him dead. ‘Rufus!’ she pleaded with him, splashing some water on his face. ‘You can’t be dead! Wake up and speak to me!’
But there was no response, and hearing James and Albert calling somewhere nearby, she put back her head and screamed out to them to come to the pond.
As she heard their footsteps thundering towards her,