Once Upon a River

Rita Sunday, the local nurse, arrives to examine the unconscious stranger. She recognizes silver nitrate stains on his fingers and identifies him as a photographer. She treats his injuries, and as the others take the stranger to bed, Rita takes a lantern to the outbuilding to look at The Child’s corpse. As Rita walks, she reflects on her own life: She was born in a nunnery via Cesarian section after her mother died by suicide and ended up helping in the nunnery’s hospital. She devoted herself to nursing, in part because of her talent for healing and in part because of her fear of dying during childbirth. She almost married a doctor she worked with to help him hide his homosexuality, but he died during their engagement. He left her money and his library, allowing her to settle in Radcot and start her own nursing practice.

At the outbuilding, Rita approaches the body, which has an unearthly quality. She assesses The Child, who she believes to be four years old, for signs of life and signs of drowning. Rita is briefly overwhelmed by the desire for a connection with God and holds The Child’s hand.

At the inn, Jonathan goes through the stranger’s pockets and finds a tin of business cards. The man is identified as the photographer Henry Daunt of Oxford. The regulars gradually settle back down and talk about the night’s events until the boat mender arrives, describing the damaged boat he found in the water. He claims it had to have been destroyed from above, and everyone wonders how the boat was damaged, as each possible solution raises more questions. Joe suggests that it was Quietly the ferryman, a mythological figure who guides people to safety or takes them to the afterlife. The conversation turns to The Child before Rita enters the room, holding the dead girl in her arms. The Child opens her eyes, shocking everyone. The regulars watch her breathe, commenting on her every movement. Jonathan asks Rita, “What made her come alive again? […] Is it a miracle?” (37), but Margot interrupts and has Jonathan serve everyone shots of liquor. After another hour, Margot sends everyone home, claiming there is no more they can do that night.

Margot and Rita clean The Child as Jonathan and Joe clean the inn. Joe and Margot discuss the events of the night before falling asleep. Rita watches over the stranger and The Child, trying to pinpoint the moment that she initially failed to realize The Child was alive, because “what she had experienced could not happen” (41). She briefly goes to the riverbank, taking the water’s temperature as a start to her investigation. She has the thought that she could adopt The Child before falling asleep.

The witnesses to the night’s events leave the Swan and start spreading the story. A farmer tells his neighbors and speculates whether the girl is a child he knows. Albright tells his partner, then asks her to marry him. Jonathan leaves the inn to seek out the parson (a member of the church clergy). The parson initially disbelieves his claims, but when he learns that Rita was present, he sends Jonathan home and resolves to go to the Swan the following morning. An unhoused man travels to an illegal distillery on Brandy Island, where he tells the brewer about The Child in exchange for alcohol. Back at the Swan, a figure in a long coat fails to break in.

The narrator engages directly with the reader as they describe the passage of the Thames River and how it enriches the lives of those who are near it. They detail the complexities of tracing a river’s origins, alluding to the similarities between rivers and stories. The narrator hints that the book is moving to the past by describing the tributaries of the Thames, stating that it is time to see “not their beginnings—mysterious unknowable things—but, more simply, what they were doing yesterday” (59).

On a farm in Kelmscott, a woman named Bess who “[has] a swaying gait” and wears a “patch that [covers] her right eye” goes to her husband, Robert Armstrong, in the barn (60). She hands him the torn fragments of a letter their daughter found when mending the jacket of their eldest son, Robin. The two try to put the fragments together and make sense of their meaning, eventually supposing that Robin has had a child with the woman who wrote the letter. Armstrong resolves to go to Bampton, the town listed in the letter, the next morning. Bess returns to the farmhouse and reflects on the time Robin broke into her desk drawer. She had looked at Robin with her Seeing eye which “Saw things an ordinary eye didn’t” and caught him lying (64). As she puts the pieces of the letter into an envelope, she is overwhelmed by the feeling that something is going to happen. Armstrong finishes butchering and asks his younger sons to clean. He then goes to feed the pigs and talk to them about his concerns. He also reflects on Robin’s lie about the desk incident, noting that although Robin is not his biological son, he loves him deeply. He talks to Martha, the offspring of his favorite-but-missing pig Maud and is struck by the same feeling as his wife.

Helena Vaughan cries as she drifts across a river in a rowboat. Someone hidden by the fog addresses her as Mrs. Vaughan but she does not answer. She is not dressed for the cold weather and lies down in the bottom of the boat as the person continues to call for her. She thinks about her earlier life with her father and aunt, which changed when she agreed to marry Anthony Vaughan after he replaced her old boat. She remembers how her aunt tried to scare her by talking about “river goblins.” She hallucinates the voice of a child calling and whispers, “Mummy’s coming” (76), almost tipping the boat over in her haste. She is caught by “an indistinct grey figure” with a pole who pulls her to shore (76), where she is found by the gardener and housekeeper. They take Helena to the house; as they walk through the front door, they’re all struck with the feeling that something is going to happen. 

Anthony Vaughan arrives in Oxford and surveys the home of a supposed psychic. He has “no belief in psychics” (79), but the door opens before he can leave. A maid asks if he is there to see Mrs. Constantine, and he is shown to a sitting room. Mrs. Constantine arrives, and Vaughan, embarrassed, explains he had not intended to meet with her. She invites him to sit and offers him a drink. Vaughan explains that two years prior, his daughter Amelia was kidnapped. Even when he paid the ransom, she was not returned. Mrs. Constantine prompts him to talk about his wife, and he details her ongoing distress and strange behaviors. Vaughan asks Mrs. Constantine to tell Helena that their daughter is dead so that she may mourn properly, but Mrs. Constantine refuses and claims it would do no good. He leaves for the train station, where he inwardly berates himself for his attempted ploy. He boards the train and, as he departs Oxford, gets the feeling that something is going to happen.

Downstream of the Vaughan residence, a small cottage sits on a damp piece of land. The narrator provides the history of the cottage, then describes an older woman studying a post used to gauge flood heights. She is filled with dread before returning to the cottage. She is Mrs. Lily White, a woman who, despite her strange behaviors, is respected by the locals. One of these strange behaviors is that she lives at the cottage even though she housekeeps for the parsonage, which entitles her to rooms there. The man she lived with prior had been abusive, but after his disappearance she took his last name and started her life as a widow even though they were not married. Lily feeds the animals, including one sow Lily believes capable of memory and sorrow. Lily mourns her childhood, when she and her mother lived in squalor after her father’s death. She returns to the cottage and, although initially alert for a potential intruder, falls asleep in her chair. She dreams a thin, pale child emerges from the river and enters the cottage, but she wakes before the dream is resolved. This happens often; Lily wishes she could apologize to the child but is never able to do so in time. She sees dark spots and finds that the floor is wet where the child stood. She prays, then checks the river and worries if “he” is coming. She gets the feeling that something is going to happen.

The next day, Armstrong arrives in Bampton to search for Robin’s wife and daughter, Alice. He watches as people move away from him and reflects on how his Blackness causes people to distrust him, even though animals adore him. He finds a young boy named Benjamin (“Ben”) playing with marbles and approaches with a marble of his own. The two play a game that Armstrong intentionally loses, securing the boy’s trust enough to get directions to Mrs. Eavis’s house, where Alice and her mother live. Armstrong notices signs of abuse on Ben. The boy warns him that the house is not good. At Mrs. Eavis’s, Armstrong leaves Ben to hold his horse. When he knocks, Mrs. Eavis tries to close the door on him, but he is so polite that she pauses. He asks after “Mrs. Armstrong” and realizes that the house is a brothel when Mrs. Eavis mentions charging extra. Still, he insists on seeing her.

They reach the top of the house but Robin’s wife doesn’t answer. Mrs. Eavis opens the door and Armstrong finds that Robin’s wife has died by suicide. Mrs. Eavis complains coldly about owed rent. Robert pockets an apothecary bottle, then prays over her corpse. He pays Mrs. Eavis and asks after Alice, but Mrs. Eavis speculates that the woman drowned her. Outside, Ben watches Armstrong’s subdued demeanor. Armstrong asks if Ben knew a little girl from the house, and Ben recalls seeing Mrs. Armstrong and Alice leave the apothecary and walk to the river. Ben wants to help Armstrong and escorts him to the apothecary. The man running it dodges Armstrong’s questions, forcing Armstrong to intimidate him into answering. The apothecary confirms Ben’s story and Armstrong and Ben walk to the river. Ben becomes ill; hungry, he’d eaten some of the horse’s apple, which was sour and nauseated him. Armstrong buys them some buns from the bakery and the two watch the river as Armstrong imagines what may have happened to Alice. Armstrong asks Ben about his plans and learns that the boy intends to run away when the weather is better; he offers the boy a place on his farm. The two part ways and Armstrong cries as he travels, first for the missing Alice, then for Maud the pig, who went missing several years prior. He speculates what he did wrong in raising Robin, then thinks again about Alice.

Armstrong sees an old man on the road and collects himself, asking the old man to spread the word that a four-year-old girl has gone missing from Bampton. The old man relays that a drowned girl was discovered and is at the Swan.

Early the next morning, Lily runs to the Swan. She wakes Margot and Rita. They let her in, and Lily sees The Child. Lily calls her “Ann” and “sister” and begs her forgiveness, but The Child does not react even as Lily starts weeping. Lily leaves and prays in front of the inn while Rita and Margot wonder how a four-year-old girl, much younger than Lily, could be Lily’s sister. Rita and Margot tend to Daunt and The Child, talking about why The Child will not respond to them. They wonder if she has an intellectual disability. Margot tells Rita how, because of Jonathan’s “different” appearance, the midwife thought he was a changeling and was about to heat him over the fire to draw the faeries. Rita dismisses the midwife’s claims, saying that she has delivered children like Jonathan before. When Margot carries The Child to the window to look for Lily, the girl becomes alert for the first time, staring at the river.

Margot gets tea and breakfast ready, only to be interrupted by Armstrong’s arrival. He starts to cry and explains that he is looking for the drowned girl. Margot escorts him into the room. Armstrong does not recognize the injured Daunt. He looks for something familiar in The Child’s face, then briefly explains his situation to the women. He gives The Child a small doll from his pocket and tells the women of Mrs. Armstrong’s suicide. Robert resolves to travel to Oxford and retrieve his son so that The Child can be identified.

Margot prepares the inn, suspecting that they will be busy. The Child reaches for Joe, and he holds her until the arrival of a third person.

Vaughan prepares the distillery on Brandy Island for auction, reflecting on how he lost interest in it after Amelia’s disappearance. He is unsettled this morning after a dream and imagines that he sees her in the corner of the distillery. The gardener, Newman, arrives and tells the story of the drowned girl. Vaughan asks that the news be hidden from his wife, but Newman shares that Helena has already traveled to the inn. Vaughan rushes home for a horse, knowing that as a rower Helena is impossible to catch. As he rides, he reflects on all the things he tried to do to bring Helena away from her desperation. He arrives at the Swan and finds it busy. At the bar, a woman recognizes him and takes him to the sick room. There, he finds a joyous Helena holding The Child.

The narrator describes the strangeness of falling asleep before describing Daunt’s history with sleep. When he wakes, he experiences a rush of emotions and memories, many of them centered on the river and his late wife. When he regains consciousness, his body is aching, and he cannot open his eyes. He is stopped by a woman’s voice; she explains where he is and tells him that his eyes have swollen shut. She helps him drink and tries to question him. He forces his eyelids open with his fingers as someone asks about The Child. Internally, he claims her as his own while outwardly he says she is not his.

In the main rooms, the regulars gossip about the arrival of Armstrong and the Vaughans, building The Child’s story with speculation. By five o’clock that evening, Robin Armstrong arrives at the inn, but no one recognizes him because, due to his light complexion, he doesn’t resemble Armstrong. He approaches Margot and tells her that he should not have come, having passed the parson and learned that another family claimed The Child. Margot ushers him into the room with the others anyway, and he faints when he sees The Child. Helena calls for Rita.

Robin regains consciousness and states that he believes The Child is not his, for the Vaughans have already claimed her. He explains that he has not seen his daughter Alice for a year. He and his wife married in secret because of her family’s disapproval, then had Alice. Disowned from her family, his wife asked him to go to Oxford to find better employment. For six months, they were happy, but he left after discovering she was having an affair. His wife later asked to marry her lover, and Robin agreed. He intended to return for Alice once he had a good home for her, but he’d just learned of his wife’s suicide and Alice’s disappearance. He apologizes for his bluntness and once again reiterates that The Child cannot be his because she does not recognize him, although Alice and this little girl look very similar. He kisses The Child’s cheek and tearfully leaves. Helena prays that Robin finds his daughter. Rita, however, noticed that Robin’s pulse did not change when he fainted and came back to consciousness. She departs to check on Daunt.

Daunt rests with his eyes swollen closed. Rita sits in the room and he wonders what she looks like. She asks about the accident. He tells her that when he reached the Devil’s Weir, a dangerous part of the river, he became distracted by a shape in the water. He ran into the weir and found The Child on the riverbank as he climbed out of the boat. He mistook her for a corpse. Daunt believes there was a punt that helped him; Rita laughingly says that the locals will think Quietly the ferryman rescued him. Daunt asks about Quietly. Rita explains: A family who built punts once lived on the river. The men were all mute, thus “they were called Quietly and nobody remembers their real name” (151). One day, one of their daughters went missing. She was later found drowned and, on the anniversary of her death, the current Quietly stepped off the punt into the river. Three days later, Quietly returned to his wife with their once-dead daughter. The girl entered the house but Quietly did not, returning to the river to act as a spiritual ferryman.

Their conversation turns to The Child. Rita describes the steps she took to verify the girl’s supposed death. They speculate that her heart rate was as low as one beat per minute, which Rita believes is impossible. Daunt compares The Child to Quietly, which makes Rita laugh. Daunt realizes he visualizes her as more attractive than when they first started talking.

The inn is packed with people, who become quiet and shuffle aside at the appearance of Vaughan, Helena, and The Child. They leave; subsequently, the drinkers resume their speculations and storytelling. The inn slowly empties of people and Joe, Jonathan, and Margot set about to cleaning the inn. Jonathan asks his father if it is over, but Joe claims that it is just beginning.