Ngaio Marsh - Dead Water

Miss Emily, when she had lunched, took her customary siesta. She removed her dress and shoes, loosened her stays, put on a grey cotton peignoir and lay on the bed. There were several illustrated brochures to hand and she examined them. One contained a rather elaborate account of the original cure. It displayed a-fanciful drawing of the Green Lady, photographs of the spring, of Wally Trehern and of a number of people passing through a sort of turnpike. A second gave a long list of subsequent healings, with names and personal tributes. Miss Emily counted them up. Nine warts, five asthmas (including Miss Cost), three arthritics, two migraines and two chronic diarrheas (anonymous). “And many many more who have experienced relief and improvement,” the brochure added. A folder advertised the coming Festival and, inset, Elspeth Cost’s Gifte Shoppe. A more businesslike leaflet caught her attention.

The Tides at Portcarrow

The tides running between the village and the Island show considerable variation in clock times. Roughly speaking, the water reaches its peak level twice in 24 hours and its lowest level at times which are about midway between those of high water. High and dead water times may vary from day to day with a lag of about 1–1 3/4 hours in 24. Thus, if high water falls at noon on Sunday it may occur somewhere between I and 1:45 p.m. on Monday afternoon. About a fortnight may elapse before the cycle is completed and high water again falls between noon and 1:45 on Sunday.

Visitors will usually find the causeway is negotiable for 2 hours before and after low water. The hotel launch and dinghies are always available and all the jetties reach into deep water at low tide.

Expected times for high tide and dead water will be posted up daily at the Reception Desk in the main entrance.

Miss Emily studied this information for some minutes. She then consulted a whimsical map of the island, with boats, fish, nets and pixies; and, of course, a Green Lady. She noted that it showed a direct route from the Boy-and-Lobster to the spring.

At five o’clock she had tea brought to her. Half an hour later, she dressed and descended, umbrella in hand, to the vestibule.

The hall porter was on duty. When he saw Miss Emily he pressed a bellpush on his desk and rose with a serviceable smirk. “Can I help you, madam?” he asked.

“Insofar as I require admission to the enclosure, I believe you may. I understand that entry is effected by means of some plaque or token,” said Miss Emily.

He opened a drawer and extracted a metal disk. “I shall require,” she said, “seven,” and laid two half-crowns and a florin on the desk. The hall porter completed the number.

“No, no, no!” Major Barrimore expostulated, bouncing out from the interior. “We can’t allow this. Nonsense!” He waved the hall porter aside. “See that a dozen of these things are sent up to Miss Pride’s suite,” he said and bent gallantly over his guest. “I’m so sorry! Ridiculous!”

“You are very good,” she rejoined, “but I prefer to pay.” She opened her reticule, swept the disks into it and shut it with a formidable snap. “Thank you,” she said to the hall porter, and prepared to leave.

“I don’t approve,” Major Barrimore began, “I — really, it’s very naughty of you. Now, may I — as it’s your first visit since — may I just show you the easiest way?”

“I have, I think, discovered it from the literature provided, and need not trespass upon your time, Major Barrimore. I am very much obliged to you.”

Something in her manner, or perhaps a covert glance from his employer, had caused the hall porter to disappear.

“In respect of my letter,” Miss Emily said, with a direct look at the Major, “I would suggest that we postpone any discussion until I have made myself fully conversant with prevailing conditions on my property. I hope this arrangement is convenient?”

“Anything!” he cried. “Naturally. Anything! But I do hope—”

“Thank you,” said Miss Emily, and left him.

The footpath from the hotel to the spring followed, at an even level, the contour of an intervening slope. It was wide and well-surfaced, and, as she had read in one of the brochures, amply provided for the passage of a wheeled chair. She walked along it at a steady pace, looking down, as she did so, at Fisherman’s Bay, the cottages, the narrow strip of water and a not very distant prospect of the village. A mellow light lay across the hillside; there was a prevailing scent of sea and of bracken. A lark sang overhead. It was very much the same sort of afternoon as that upon which, two years ago, Wally Trehern had blundered up the hillside to the spring. Over the course he had so blindly taken there was now a well-defined, tar-sealed and tactfully graded route, which converged with Miss Emily’s footpath at the entrance to the spring.

The spring itself, its pool, its modest waterfall and the bouldered slope above it, were now enclosed by a high wire-netting fence. There were one or two rustic benches outside this barricade. Entrance was effected through a turnpike of tall netted flanges, which could be operated by the insertion into a slot machine of one of the disks with which Miss Emily was provided.

She did not immediately make use of it. There were people at the spring: an emaciated man whose tragic face had arrested Jenny Williams’s attention at the bus stop, and a young woman with a baby. The man knelt by the fall and seemed only by an effort to sustain his thin hands against the pressure of the water. His head was downbent. He rose, and, without looking at them, walked by the mother and child to a one-way exit from the enclosure. As he passed Miss Emily his gaze met hers, and his mouth hesitated in a smile. Miss Emily inclined her head and they said “Good evening” simultaneously. “I have great hopes,” the man said rather faintly. He lifted his hat and moved away downhill.

The young woman, in her turn, had knelt by the fall. She had bared the head of her baby and held her cupped hand above it. A trickle of water glittered briefly. Miss Emily sat down abruptly on a bench and shut her eyes.

When she opened them again, the young woman with the baby was coming towards her.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “Can I help you? Do you want to go in?”

“I am not ill,” Miss Emily said, and added, “Thank you, my dear.”

“Oh, excuse me. I’m sorry. That’s all right, then.”

“Your baby. Has your baby…?”

“Well, yes. It’s sort of a deficiency, the doctor says. He just doesn’t seem to thrive. But there’ve been such wonderful reports — you can’t get away from it, can you? So I’ve got great hopes.”

She lingered on for a moment and then smiled and nodded and went away.

“Great hopes!” Miss Emily muttered. “ Ah, mon Dieu ! Great hopes indeed.”

She pulled herself together and extracted a nickel disk from her bag. There was a notice by the turnstile saying that arrangements could be made at the hotel for stretcher cases to be admitted. Miss Emily let herself in and inspected the terrain. The freshet gurgled in and out of its pool. The waterfall prattled. She looked towards the brow of the hill. The sun shone full in her eyes and dazzled them. She walked round to a ledge above the spring, and found a flat rock upon which she seated herself. Behind her was a bank and, above that, the boulder and bracken where Wally’s Green Lady was generally supposed to have appeared. Miss Emily opened her umbrella and composed herself.

She presented a curious figure, motionless, canopied and black, and did indeed resemble, as Patrick had suggested, some outlandish presiding deity, whether benign or inimical must be a matter of conjecture. During her vigil seven persons visited the spring and were evidently much taken aback by Miss Emily.