Lucy insisted upon carrying her schoolbooks.
Annie refused to leave without a little wooden horse her father had carved.
Clara found it beneath the bed.
She placed it in the child's hands.
“Now we may go.”
Mrs. Beale looked toward the river.
“Will the house be lost?”
Clara hesitated.
She could not promise otherwise.
“I do not know,” she answered gently. “But you and your daughters will be safe.”
They hurried toward the school.
By late afternoon, forty-three people had gathered inside.
The classrooms that had stood empty for weeks were suddenly filled with voices.
Children huddled beneath blankets.
Women prepared bread and warm drinks.
An elderly man sat beside the stove, muttering prayers.
Clara moved among them, reassuring those she could and arranging assistance for those she could not.
She was frightened.
More frightened than she cared to admit.
But there was work to be done.
And as her mother had once told her, fear became more manageable when it was given a useful task.
At the river, Julian discovered the situation was worse than he had imagined.
The temporary embankment had diverted water against the old weir, increasing the pressure upon masonry already weakened by years of neglect.
Mr. Grady, the dismissed mill foreman, had arrived leaning upon a stick.
He was sixty-eight and walked with difficulty, but his knowledge of the river exceeded that of anyone present.
“Your Grace,” he said, “the old relief channel must be opened.”
Julian looked toward the meadow.
“Where?”
“Behind the orchard. There used to be a sluice there before your father's improvements.”
Julian remembered the narrow line marked upon one of the older maps.
“The channel through Langley Meadow?”
“Aye.”
“It was closed?”
“Mr. Vane had the gate boarded up last spring.”
Julian stared.
“Why?”
“Can't say, Your Grace.”
The old man looked toward the swollen river.
“But if we don't open it, the water will find another way.”
Julian understood.
The relief channel crossed land belonging to Clara's trust.
Opening it would flood part of her meadow and orchard.
Under ordinary circumstances, he would need her authority.
He could not simply destroy another person's property because it was convenient.
Yet the river was rising.
He looked toward the schoolhouse.
Then at Mr. Grady.
“Can the old gate still be reached?”
“Just about.”
“Then gather the men.”
Julian began moving toward the meadow.
Behind him, a laborer shouted.
“Your Grace! The western wall!”
A low cracking sound came from the weir.
Then a section of stone broke away.
Water burst through the opening.
Men scattered.
Julian turned.
The river surged toward the temporary bank.
The foreman stumbled backward, shouting for his workers to retreat.
For one terrible instant, Julian saw the entire line of earth begin to collapse.
Then the water struck it.
The bank gave way.
A dark wave rushed across the lower fields toward the village.
Julian felt his blood turn cold.
“Open the relief channel!” he shouted.
The men ran.
Clara heard the first warning from a boy who came racing up the schoolhouse path.
“The bank's gone!”
She hurried outside.
Beyond the chestnut trees, a great sheet of muddy water was spreading across the lower meadow.
The river had escaped its course.
She could hear shouting.
Then the distant crash of something wooden breaking.