by Forrest Reid
‘Tom dear, it’s lovely to have you back again,’ she murmured, sitting down beside him on the edge of the bed. ‘And it’s nice to have Stephen too… . Will that can of hot water be enough for both of you, because if it isn’t I’ll get another.’
‘Heaps,’ said Tom. Stephen can wash first. I’ll tell you what you might do though. You might get him one of Leonard’s collars.’
‘And a shirt, said Stephen, taking off his jacket.
‘And a shirt,’ Tom repeated.
Jane looked a little surprised, but she departed without a word. When she returned Stephen was splashing at the wash-basin, so she sat down once more beside Tom.
‘Yom needn’t say anything downstairs about borrowing Leonard’s things,’ Tom warned her. ‘You see, we had to leave in a hurry. I’ll send them back, and Stephen can wear one of my ties: then he’ll be all right.’
Jane still seemed slightly puzzled, so Tom continued diplomatically: ‘You didn’t know I had a cousin, did you?’
‘No; I don’t think anybody knew you had a cousin. I must say he’s not a bit like you.’
‘Why should he be like me?’ Tom replied. ‘Cousins aren’t often like one another.’
Jane did not dispute this, but while she watched Stephen drying himself an increasing curiosity grew more and more visible in her face. At last she gave utterance to it. ‘What has happened? Why have you come back? Have you left Uncle Stephen?’
Tom frowned. ‘No, of course not. Uncle Stephen is away on business, and Stephen and I came up because we’re going to Coombe Bridge to-morrow. We’re only going for the day, however; we’ll be back here to-morrow night.’
‘To stay?’ Jane asked.
Tom hesitated. ‘ Well, not exactly to stay. We’ll have to leave the next morning.’
Jane looked at him. ‘Then I’ll hardly see you at all,’ she said.
‘Of course you’ll see me. I’ll be here all this evening and part of to-morrow evening.’
Jane’s face had clouded. That’s not very long. Besides, the others will be there: I won’t see you by yourself.’
‘You must come and pay us a visit at the Manor.’
‘I can’t help it,’ he went on, as Jane failed to respond to this not very heartfelt invitation. ‘We must go back the day after tomorrow.’
‘Then I’ll come to-night and talk.’
‘Come where?’
‘Come here. To you.’
‘You can’t. Stephen will be here.’
‘Stephen won’t mind.’
Tom began to lose patience. ‘Don’t be silly! How can you go rushing about boys’ rooms? You know what happened last time. Anyway, I’ll lock the door, so if you like to kick up a row and get caught it will be your own fault.’
Jane drew away from him. ‘I think you’ve altered,’ she said coldly.
Tom stared gloomily down at the carpet. He might have guessed how it would be! ‘I dare say I have altered,’ he muttered. There’s been plenty to—’
‘Tom dear, I’m sorry,’ Jane interrupted impulsively. She clasped her arms round his neck and gave him a hug. ‘I won’t ask any more questions and you needn’t tell me anything you don’t want to. And I won’t come to your room. I wouldn’t have come anyway: I only said that to tease you. But it was horrid of me to say you’d changed, because you haven’t, not a scrap. At least, not to look at—I’ve just counted your freckles.’
The first notes of a gong rose from the hall, and Tom got up to take Stephen’s place at the washstand.
‘I suppose I’d better go down,’ Jane said, ‘but there’s plenty of time for Stephen to change his clothes: that was only a warning. I’ll tell them you won’t be long.’
The door closed behind her, and Stephen remarked, ‘She seems quite a decent kid.’ He began to undress, and presently made a second remark. In fact, I don’t see anything the matter with any of them, in spite of all you told me.’
Tom wheeled round, the water dripping from his hair, his cheeks hot, and his eyes flashing. ‘No,’ he answered with a sudden bitterness. ‘I expect you’ll be bosom friends with the whole family.’
Stephen gave him a sidelong look. ‘Is there any harm in my saying they seem decent?’
‘You know very well I always told you Jane was decent.’
‘Well, what’s the trouble then?’
‘It’s just that you take a delight in siding against me. I’m not talking about Jane. But because I told you the others hated me you at once begin to like them, though you’ve barely spoken to them. If it was somebody who did care for me—’
‘Your gamekeeper?’ Stephen suggested.
‘Yes; you can sneer! But he was a jolly lot more—’
‘Here, said Stephen, gripping him by the shoulders—‘don’t be a young ass. To begin with, you know I don’t care a fig for the whole jing-bang of your relations.’
‘They’re not my relations.’
‘Well, whatever they are.’
Yes, I do know it; and that’s why you needn’t have said—’ He stopped. ‘I’m sorry, Stephen. It was stupid. I don’t think I’m fit to be in decent company at present.’
‘That’s rot, too,’ said Stephen. You’re much the decentest person here.’
Once again the deep notes of the gong floated up to them. ‘We’d better hurry,’ said Tom. ‘I suppose they don’t know you’re changing.’
Uncle Horace was still there when they entered the dining-room, but he did not join in the meal. Tom was glad to see him. It was perhaps the first time he had ever known the presence of Uncle Horace to ease off a situation, but it certainly had—for him at least—this effect now. Only, when he had waited, he might for once have sacrificed his dinner and eaten with them. His refusal to do so struck Tom as shockingly bad manners.
It was a curious repast. Not the food, bur the demeanour of the eaters of the food. He could see that Eric and Leonard, especially, were puzzled by Stephen—that they were inclined to form a favourable impression of him, and were at the same time held back by the fact of his relationship to their step-brother and to the unknown and mysterious Uncle Stephen. He could follow exactly the logical procession of their thoughts. Anybody who was friends with Tom! But possibly he really wasn’t friends, and he couldn’t help being a cousin—it was a misfortune rather than a fault… . If only they knew how obvious all their ideas and feelings were, they wouldn’t take even the little trouble they did to disguise them. He could tell, as surely as if they had whispered it in his ear, that on the very first opportunity they would try to draw Stephen away from him and into their private camp. They wouldn’t succeed, however: he knew that now… .
And Stephen had begun to talk to Mrs. Barber. He was talking of his plan to visit Coombe Bridge. Mrs. Barber wanted to know what time they would like to start. ‘They’ll have to start early,’ Uncle Horace said. ‘It will take a couple of hours to get there.’
‘Are there any Collets at Coombe Bridge now?’ Mrs. Barber asked, and Stephen replied that he didn’t think so.
‘It’s most remarkable how families die out!’ But after a pensive moment she abandoned this line of reflection and asked instead if Stephen had liked living abroad. She herself had never been in Italy, but she had been in France and Switzerland, and neither country had appealed to her as a permanent home.
‘Don’t you sometimes find yourself talking Italian by mistake, Stephen?’ Jane asked.
‘Never,’ said Stephen, and winked at Tom.
It was an outrageous thing to do: anybody might have seen him! Tom’s face was crimson. As if things weren’t bad enough without starting to play the fool! ‘I suppose there’s a railway guide in the house,’ he mumbled. At the same time he frowned at Stephen and received a broad grin in return.
‘There should be a guide somewhere’, Mrs. Barber thought, and Jane said, ‘It’s in the drawer of the hat-stand.’
‘At least it was there,’ she added, jumping up from the table.
Tom stared down at hi
s plate. He wasn’t going to look at Stephen again. He wished he wasn’t sitting opposite him.
Jane returned with the guide. ‘Rather ancient. The year before last. And a Christmas number, too.’
‘It doesn’t matter, dear, the trains won’t have altered,’ said her mother—‘not in a little place like Coombe Bridge.’
‘Those are just the trains that are altered,’ Leonard contradicted. ‘They alter them every month or two.’
‘Ten-forty. Twelve-fifty-five,’ Jane read aloud, as she resumed her seat beside Tom.
‘The ten-forty will do,’ said Tom.
‘Ten-forty—ten-forty—ten-forty—arrives three-twenty-nine.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly. Here—show it to me.’
‘Don’t you be silly,’ returned Jane, gripping the book more firmly as he attempted to take it from her. ‘No, that’s wrong. Ten-forty—Stop, Tom! How can I see if you keep pulling at it! Ten-forty arrives at twelve-twenty… . That’s right,’ she declared, still clinging tenaciously to the guide, which Tom also grasped.
‘Give it to me,’ he said impatiently. ‘I want to find out about coming home.’
Jane still held on. ‘Trains coming home,’ she chanted. ‘Let me see. There’s one at—’
Tom turned away, putting his fingers in his ears.
‘Oh, all right! There—take the old thing! Baby!’ She dropped it in the middle of his jam.
‘Jane!’ Mrs. Barber said sharply.
‘Well, he thinks nobody can do anything except himself, and he’s the very one to get it all wrong.’
Tom, having gained his point, was indifferent to criticism.
‘There may be a bus,’ Uncle Horace suggested from his armchair, and Tom turned the pages to see—very much as Jane had turned them, but with the satisfaction of doing it for himself.
Uncle Horace, leaving the family group in one of its more characteristic moments, rose from his chair. ‘Well, it’s time I was moving on. I may possibly drop round again later, and if not I’ll look in to-morrow evening and hear the Coombe Bridge news.
Good-bye, everybody, for the present. Don’t get up: I can find my own way out.’
But Tom did get up. He was aware that all eyes were turned upon him, and those of his step-brothers with contemptuous dislike. Sucking up to Uncle Horace, they would call it. He didn’t care. He followed Uncle Horace into the hall and helped him on with his coat. Uncle Horace accepted the help. He accepted it, too, without impatience, though Tom got the sleeves mixed up and was not tall enough to be of much assistance. Uncle Horace, having disentangled himself, put on his hat, and Tom opened the hall-door.
On the threshold Uncle Horace turned to his nephew and held out his hand. ‘I don’t fancy I will be back,’ he said, ‘so I’ll say good-night to you.’
‘Good-night, Uncle Horace. And—thank you ever so much—for everything.’
Uncle Horace, on the point of stepping out into the street, suddenly paused. ‘Look here, Tom,’ he began, and paused again. Tom looked up at him expectantly.
But Uncle Horace, after a moment, merely flashed his most brilliant smile. ‘All I was going to tell you is, not to worry. Good-night.’
CHAPTER XXV
Stephen at the last minute had bought a newspaper, but, to Tom’s surprise, he had not read it. He had rustled in leaves, glanced at a few headlines, looked at the photographs on the back page, and offered it to Tom. It now lay on the floor between them.
The train was slowing down. So far it had stopped at nearly every station, and Tom had begun to feel oddly restless, almost excited, though he could not have told what he looked forward to. Coombe Bridge meant nothing to him, nor even so far as Stephen was concerned did he see what benefit could come of their visit. There was nothing to be learned at Coombe Bridge that they did not know already.
The train drew up, and their carriage came to rest directly in front of a group of market-women. Tom guessed what would happen, and got up to help with the baskets. There were plenty of half-filled coaches on the train; most of the women were stout, and all of them were hot; but where one entered the rest followed, and soon they were packed so tightly that for Tom and Stephen only standing-room was left. Stephen let down the other window with a bang.
‘Well; if that isn’t too bad now! We’ve been and taken their seats. It’s them baskets that takes up all the room.’
‘Ah sure, they won’t mind for all the distance we’re going: it’s not worth changing now.’
‘Indeed I never looked whether there was room or not: they’re always in that big a hurry they wouldn’t give you time to look round.’
The glowing matron who had last spoken, and who had plopped herself down in a comer seat, suddenly pulled Tom on to her lap. She did it without a word, and so unexpectedly that he was there and her stout arms about him before he knew what had happened.
He struggled indignantly away from her and took up a position at the door, very red in the face, while the others laughed.
‘My, but he’s proud!’ exclaimed the forsaken lady. ‘I suppose even his own ma’s not allowed to touch him!’
‘I’m too hot,’ Tom answered through his confusion. ‘I’d rather stand.’
‘What’ll he do when he’s married? He must be one of them that has to have a separate bed.’
Another laugh greeted this sally, and Tom, after a moment, smiled himself.
‘I’ll sit on your knee if you like,’ he said, ‘but you won’t find it comfortable, because I’m a good deal heavier than you think.’
‘Divil a knee! But perhaps you wouldn’t be so backward in other ways.’
She removed the lid from a basket and the other ways were revealed as gooseberries. ‘Here, hold out your cap, and don’t say I’m not a forgiving woman.’
She filled his cap, and Stephen, who had no cap, was allowed to fill his pocket. Then she leaned forward and addressed a friend at the further end of the compartment. ‘Who would you fancy he resembles, Lizzie—the way he wrinkles his nose. He’s the very spit of him.’
Lizzie turned a meditative gaze on Tom. ‘You mean my Jimmie?’ she said dubiously. ‘But it’s nothing barrin’ that trick he has.’
‘It’s the whole look of him—the way his ears sticks out, and the brow—I’ll warrant this one is good at his books too.’
The comparison was pursued by the entire company, while an uneasy suspicion (shortly to become a certainty) grew up in Tom’s mind that Jimmie’s earthly career had ended several months ago. He was glad when a more cheerful topic was started, gladder still when they got out.
Stephen had noticed nothing, nor did he help Tom and an impatient railway porter with the baskets. With his back turned he hung out of the window, seeming to be absorbed in the landscape, slowly and deliberately spitting out gooseberry skins. From his attitude, from his silence, Tom concluded that they must be drawing near their destination. He wondered what Stephen was thinking, but he could not guess. He spat out his gooseberry skins more and more absent-mindedly; he seemed to have become oblivious to Tom’s existence.
‘We’re nearly there, aren’t we?’ Tom asked, but Stephen did not look round. Then presently he muttered over his shoulder, ‘Next station.’
Tom leaned back in his seat. He shut his eyes. There was no use trying to feel sleepy, however, so he opened them again and looked at Stephen.
The engine whistled… . They were approaching their station. Stephen was again hanging out of the window, but he drew in his head as they passed under a bridge. The brake jarred; they glided up to a platform and stopped.
Stephen had already opened the door. He jumped out and Tom followed. Nobody else got out, and there was nobody waiting to get in. The platform looked extraordinarily empty. And whether it was this emptiness or nor, Tom experienced a peculiar sensation, as if the whole adventure had fallen flat.
It was absurd. What had he expected to happen? A porter was at a white wooden gate waiting to take their tickets. He hurried after Stephen. .<
br />
Coombe Bridge itself was nearly as deserted as the station. To Tom it seemed a moribund spot, even when compared with Kilbarron.
‘All these wretched little houses are new,’ said Stephen shortly. They turned a corner and were in the main street. At the end of it was a market square, and behind that a church, with a road branching off on either side of it.
‘They’ve taken away the pump!’ muttered Stephen.
‘Where was it?’ Tom asked gently.
‘There, on the green—where they’ve stuck up that awful thing.
The awful thing Tom recognized as a War Memorial, but he said nothing.
Suddenly Stephen stopped before a shop—a draper’s and clothier’s.
‘I know this place,’ he said.
‘What do you want to do?’ Tom asked, for Stephen had come to a standstill in the middle of the footpath, and was looking back in the direction of the railway station.
‘I don’t know,’ Stephen replied. ‘I wish I hadn’t come.’
But he approached the shop and pushed open the door, which emitted a sharp ping as he did so. Tom followed him inside.
The interior was cool and dusky after the glare of the street: the shop was empty. The sound of the bell, however, brought a middle-aged woman from some hidden region at the back. Stephen had advanced to the counter, and in a low indifferent voice she wished him good-morning. Her whole appearance was curiously lethargic; she had an air of being not in the least interested either in them or in what they might want; she simply stood there as if waiting for them to go.
‘Could you tell me if a Mr. Collet lives here?’ Stephen asked. The woman raised heavy-lidded dull brown eyes. ‘Here? Do you mean in this home?’
‘No: I mean anywhere in Coombe Bridge.’
‘Collet. I don’t remember the name… . Wait a minute.’ She retreated without haste in the direction she had come from, but only as far as a curtained door. Opening this, ‘Pa,’ she called listlessly, ‘you’re wanting a minute.’
