The Boathouse

By breakfast the following morning Mrs Pearce had already heard that Alice would be leaving. She came into the breakfast room before Edwin had finished his coffee.

“She came to me before seven,” the housekeeper said. “Family trouble, apparently. She was rather vague.”

Edwin said Alice had told him as well. Mrs Pearce looked at him then, and he explained that she had happened to find him the previous afternoon.

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Mrs Pearce said. “She’s had notions lately. Young people do.”

“They do indeed.”

Edwin left it at that.

Penelope came down a few minutes later. Edwin sneezed twice into his handkerchief and looked irritated.

“Really,” she said. “You might forgive yourself eventually.”

“I shall consider it.”

Penelope smiled and opened her letters.

Alice spent the day working as usual. After supper she packed her trunk and told Molly, the girl who shared the room beside hers, that there was trouble at home and she had to leave Harcourt. She would send an address for the trunk once she knew where she was staying. None of this reached Edwin. There was no reason it should.

Nor did he know that shortly before nine Alice found Thomas Webb in the motor house and asked whether he would drive her into town the following morning.

Thomas had driven at Harcourt for eleven years. He was forty-three, broad across the shoulders, and possessed the unhurried manner of a man who had spent much of his life waiting outside doors for people richer than himself. He told Alice he could take her in at half past seven if she did not mind the cold.

She thanked him and said she would be ready.

At eleven the household was settling. Edwin put on an old shooting coat and went out by the side door.

He did not go directly to the pond.

For a minute he stood beneath the stone arch beside the kitchen garden and looked back at the house. Most of the lower windows were dark. A light still showed in one of the servants’ rooms beneath the eaves. Another burned behind the curtains of his wife’s dressing room.

Edwin waited.

The upper light went out first. His wife’s remained.

He crossed the open lawn, keeping close to the yews where he could, and stopped once when he thought he heard the side door behind him. Nothing followed. The house stood quiet.

There was nothing remarkable in taking care. He had no intention of being seen walking towards the boathouse at that hour, and still less of being seen with Alice.

Once he reached the trees the house largely disappeared.

Alice had already lit the little paraffin lamp inside the boathouse. Its yellow glow showed through the slats.

Alice wore a cheap brown coat with a velvet collar, probably second-hand, and a woollen hat pulled low over her hair. Her handbag lay beside her on the bench. She complained that he had taken his time. Edwin pointed out that he was precisely when he had said he would be.

“I came early.”

“So I see.”

He shut the door.

Before saying anything else he asked how she had got out. Alice said she had waited until Molly was in bed and used the back stairs. Molly knew she was leaving in the morning, but Alice had said nothing about going out that night. She had been careful.

Edwin asked what exactly she had told Mrs Pearce. Family trouble. She would need to go away. Her trunk could follow. Nothing more. He also asked whether her family knew. They did not. She had not written.

The boathouse had not been properly used since the previous summer. Two rowing boats rested on their runners above the water, fishing rods stood against one wall, and tins of paint and paraffin had accumulated beneath the bench. Alice had cleared herself a place to sit.

She asked what he had decided.

Edwin said she would still leave in the morning. Alice understood that; what she wanted to know was what came afterward. She could not simply go home and wait for everyone to notice. Her father would ask questions. Her mother would know. Perhaps Edwin could find somewhere for her to live. Nothing grand. A cottage would do, and it need not be anywhere near Harcourt. Just somewhere for her and the baby. She would not ask for much.

Edwin laughed before he could stop himself.

Alice reddened.

“I didn’t mean here.”

“I should hope not.”

She began to explain that Lady Harcourt need never know. Edwin allowed her to continue for a little while. A cottage, some money, occasional visits. She had constructed quite a comfortable arrangement.

Edwin had considered much the same possibilities himself and found no reason to reconsider them now. A cottage meant payments. Payments meant records, letters, landlords and neighbours. The doctor remained possible, but Alice plainly would not consent to it. Sending her home merely transferred the difficulty to Shrewsbury.

“I didn’t ask for this,” Alice said when she had finished.

“No.”

“You did the same as me.”

Edwin could not see what that had to do with anything.

She stood. The disappointment in her had become anger now, though not yet fear.

“I thought you’d be decent.”

“That was your mistake.”

Alice stared at him. Then she said she could tell Lady Harcourt.

The remark seemed to surprise her almost as much as it did him. She immediately began retreating from it. She was not saying she would. She did not want trouble. She only meant that he could not simply send her away as if none of it had happened.

Edwin listened until she stopped.

Then he asked whether she had spoken to anyone else about the pregnancy. Not whether somebody knew she was leaving; that no longer mattered. Whether anybody knew why.

Alice became angry at the distinction. She had told him already. Nobody knew. Mrs Pearce believed there was trouble at home. Molly knew only that she was going away. Nobody knew about him. Nobody knew about the baby.

There was an iron bar beside the lower door, part of the mechanism for securing the boat cradle. Edwin had known it would be there.

He picked it up.

Alice watched him without understanding.

“What are you doing?”

He crossed the space between them.

The first blow caught her above the left ear and knocked her against the bench. She fell onto her knees. The paraffin lamp rocked and Edwin caught it with his free hand before it could overturn.

Behind him Alice made a noise.

When he turned she was on the floor with one hand pressed against the side of her head. Blood had begun to come through her fingers.

“Edwin.”

He struck her again.

She went down on her side.

There was no need for a third blow.

Edwin waited. Alice breathed twice after he thought she had stopped. The second breath was very small.

Then there was nothing.

He put down the iron bar and moved the lamp closer.

There was less blood than he had expected, though some had spread across one floorboard and spotted the leg of the bench. The boards could be scrubbed. The bench would require more attention.

He rolled Alice onto her back and felt her neck to make certain. Her hat had come off. One eye was closed and the other nearly so, and blood had collected in her hair.

The maintenance shed stood thirty yards away. Edwin extinguished the lamp before going outside and brought back two sash weights, rope and an old piece of canvas. He relit the lamp.

Binding Alice took longer than he had anticipated. A living person assisted in being moved without thinking about it. A dead one did not. Her arms fell where they were not wanted and her head rolled uselessly when he lifted her.

There was nothing about her body to show the pregnancy yet. Had she not told him, Edwin would not have known.

He tied one weight at her ankles and another around her waist, tested the knots and wrapped the canvas around her legs and body so that she would not bleed into the boat. Her right arm would not stay where he put it. After trying twice to work it beneath the canvas, he left it outside the wrapping.

Her hat went into his pocket.

Alice’s handbag still lay beside the bench. Edwin opened it. There was a handkerchief, a small wooden hairbrush, the silver compact he had given her, three pounds in notes and some coins.

He removed the money and put the compact in his pocket. There was no sense throwing good silver into the pond.

The handbag could not be left behind. Edwin passed a turn of rope through its handles and around the canvas at Alice’s right hip. The bag hung outside the wrapping against her side.

He lowered the eastern boat into the water and put Alice in the bottom. Her head struck the gunwale on the way down with a hollow knock.

Edwin winced at the noise and looked towards the house.

Nothing changed. No light appeared between the trees.

He pushed off.

The island hid most of the house once he was halfway across. Beyond it lay the dredged section and the deep black mud Edwin remembered from the work six years before. He rowed there without hurry, rested the oars and listened.

The estate was silent.

He took hold of the canvas and dragged Alice upright.

For a moment she sat opposite him in the boat.

The canvas had slipped away from her face. Moonlight caught one cheek. Edwin pulled the loose fold back over her and pushed her over the side.

The weights took her quickly. There was one heavy splash and several smaller ones as the canvas filled. Edwin watched until the last pale fold disappeared.

A few bubbles reached the surface.

After that the water was smooth again.

Back at the boathouse Edwin hauled the eastern boat onto its runners and relit the lamp. He scrubbed the marked floorboard and bench leg with pond water and an old rag from the maintenance shed. The bench took longer. When he had finished he wiped the iron bar and the gunwale, returned the bar beside the lower door, put the rag in his pocket and extinguished the lamp.

It was nearly one in the morning when Edwin reached the house. Before leaving the trees he stopped once more and examined the windows. His wife’s dressing room was dark now. Nothing moved on the lawn.

He entered through the side door, left his boots in the scullery and washed his hands in hot water. Alice’s hat and the rag went into the kitchen range. The shooting coat was damp at the cuffs, so he hung it beside the boiler. The money went into his wallet. He put the silver compact in the top drawer of his desk.

Before going upstairs he poured himself a whisky, drank half of it and left the rest.

Penelope was asleep. She stirred when he got into bed and asked what time it was.

“Late.”

“Were you working?”

“Yes.”

She turned over.

Edwin was asleep within a few minutes.