Fourth February
Drive over to Nearhampton to take Bryan out to lunch, this being one of the days appointed by the Parkers for that tantalising performance. (Tantalising both to parents and offspring to meet for a few hours with the shadow of an imminent parting lurking grimly in the background.) As we near the school we see other cars with other parents bent on the same errand (mostly large and expensive cars beside which Cassandra looks like a battered sparrow).
Bryan is at first shy and constrained. Conversation consists of Tim and self asking questions to which Bryan replies in a minimum of words.
We drive to Holehogger’s Hotel where we lunch expensively, Bryan choosing the most indigestible dishes offered on the menu. My son is such a stranger to me I quite unable to suggest that he would be wise to content himself with plainer fare. After lunch Bryan becomes more like himself and volunteers scraps of information which are avidly swallowed by Tim and self. I ask after the eldest Carter boy, who has been sent to Nearhampton this term on our recommendation. Bryan replies with relish that ‘Carter gets kicked all right.’ Feel rather worried about this revelation, as I have assured Mamie that Bryan will ‘be kind to Edward’.
Several other Nearhampton boys are lunching in the hotel with relatives and friends. Bryan takes no notice of them, nor they of Bryan, and, when asked whether he does not know these boys, Bryan replies, ‘Of course I know them – Paterson is in my dorm,’ but vouchsafes no reason as to why they should ignore each other.
It has now started to rain, and neither Tim nor self views with enthusiasm ‘A long drive’, which is Bryan’s idea of spending the afternoon. We repair to the large billiard room upstairs, where we find the Anstruthers in the same circumstances as ourselves, complete with Nearhampton schoolboy son. Major Anstruther is in the Gunners and is an old crony of Tim’s. They are delighted to meet.
Major Anstruther suggests a game of cockfighting (which is played on Mess Guest Nights) to amuse the boys. Tim agrees, and he and Major A. proceed to play at cockfighting with great vigour. They squat on the floor with billiard cues beneath their knees and their arms hooked under the ends and try to knock each other over. The boys look on, Bryan with the mulish look upon his face peculiar to sons whose fathers are behaving in too juvenile a manner.
Sylvia Anstruther and I sit on a sofa near the fire and discuss clothes, servants, the enormities of landladies, and whether it is really worth while preserving eggs when you are liable to be moved before you can use them.
Afternoon seems extremely long and we decide to have tea at four o’clock. The boys eat enormously of bacon and eggs (an amazing feat so soon after lunch).
We then drive Bryan back to Nearhampton and deposit him there.
Sixth February
Tim having got leave, we start off to Westburgh to look for a house. Funds are low – as usual – so we have decided to go in the car as this is cheaper (on paper) than our combined railway fares.
It is a fine morning, frosty and bright.
Cassandra at first refuses to start (she evidently has got wind of the long road before her and does not like the idea at all) but at last, for no apparent reason, she thinks better of it and does start, and we are off, somewhat exhausted with long drawn-out farewells to Betty and Miss Hardcastle.
Cassandra races along nobly with only an occasional backfire as a reminder of her incomprehensible behaviour. At one o’clock we begin to look for a suitable spot to eat our picnic lunch. Pass several likely-looking spots because Cassandra is going too fast to stop and Tim says it is not worth while backing as we shall find something just as good farther on. We go on slowly and stop near a wood which proves to be ankle-deep in mud. Go on again and stop near a hillside which is cold and windy. A straggling town intervenes, and when we have run through it we see a gate leading into a field this is obviously ideal were it not for a large manure heap close by.
We are now both hungry and cross. Tim says he does not know why on earth I can’t pick out a decent place for lunch, as I have nothing else to do but keep my eyes open. Offer to take the wheel for a bit so as to enable Tim to pick out a decent place for lunch, but the offer is not accepted. Stop again near a wood which combines all the drawbacks possible and decide to eat our lunch in the car.
Tim much soothed by sandwiches and a cup of coffee out of a Thermos. Self rather annoyed because Thermos with hot milk has been leaking and there is none left. (Fortunately this catastrophe does not affect Tim, who likes his coffee black.) We fill Cassandra’s water jacket which leaks from a horse-trough and push on.
Soon after this it begins to rain. Tim says the weather forecast was Some Showers Locally and this is one of them, so it is not worth while putting up the hood, as we shall be clear of it in a few minutes. But it is evidently not One of Them because it goes on and on and eventually proves itself to be a Wet Afternoon. Wait until we are quite sure of this and then put up the hood, by which time we are exceedingly cold and wet.
Rain comes down faster. Cassandra surges through the water like a miniature destroyer in a heavy sea. We stop at an inn for tea, by which time it is dark. Continue through wind and water with our lights streaming out before us and cutting through the gloom like steel. The whole thing becomes dreamlike; I feel as if we had been travelling for days with Cassandra’s roar in our ears and the water splashing on the mudguards, and would go on for ever and ever.
Tim remarks that he is feeling sleepy, which brings me back to earth with a bump and I start talking of everything that I can think of in a feverish manner to keep him awake.
We run down a steep hill into a village where a small inn stands by the bridge on the banks of a stream. Lights in the window behind red curtains give the place a cosy appearance and we decide to stop here for the night. Fat, pleasant landlady provides a large meal of bacon and eggs and tea, after which I retire thankfully to a large room with a brass bedstead.
The rain has now lessened in violence, and Tim says he ‘must have some exercise after sitting still all day’, so he departs to walk round the village with the landlady’s son.
Landlady follows me upstairs with small jug of hot water and remains for sometime talking to me. I learn that she has been a widow for twenty years – through no fault of the gentlemen, as she could have her pick of the village. But she does not care for matrimony and likes her bed to herself.
At this point I start undressing, as I feel it is the only way to get rid of her. She goes at last, but not until she has seen and admired my most intimate celanese underwear.
Discover that the mattress of the brass bedstead is evidently stuffed with stones, but am too tired and sleepy to care.
Seventh February
Waken early to hear the river splashing outside my window. Tim still asleep. The sun is shining as if rain were unknown – church bell is ringing in the distance and the birds are twittering on the bare trees. All is very peaceful and Sundayish. It seems an age since last Sunday. Is it really only a week since we were living in the lap of luxury at Charters Towers, with footmen dancing attendance on us, fires lighted in our bedrooms, and baths full of scented water all ready and waiting for our convenience? Last but not least, the difference in the beds is beyond belief, for whereas the bed at Charters Towers seemed to be made of clouds, that on which I am now reposing is – as I suspected last night – stuffed with stones. Decide that this must be one of the incongruous memories Mrs. Parsons spoke of, which light up the contrasts of the earth.
We push off early and find the road smooth as glass. Cassandra is unrecognisable beneath her coating of mud, but going bravely. There is something very beautiful in the tracery of the bare black branches of the trees against the pale blue sky. As we go northward it becomes much colder; we see patches of snow on the fields, ugly, forsaken-looking patches, which look for all the world like heaps of dirty washing left out overnight.
We stop for lunch at a small town, after which the road becomes snowy and yet more snowy. Here and there it is frozen into
ruts and we skid in and out of them in a manner which reminds me forcibly of the bygone cab when its wheels stuck in the tram lines. Snow begins to fall in thick flakes and Cassandra’s windshield wiper sticks. We stop to clear the glass, as Tim cannot see to drive. While we are doing so a car comes in opposite direction and slows down; voice asks cheerfully if we have chains, as otherwise we shall not get through. Tim replies that we have no chains, but we must get through somehow. Voice says facetiously, ‘Eh, well, if the worst comes to the worst I suppose you can put the thing in your pocket and walk.’ We are so tired of this kind of joke about Cassandra that it has ceased to enrage us.
We drive on through a deep cutting of snow, crawl up a hill with skidding wheels, slither into a small and deserted town, and breast a steep slope on the other side. Here the car hesitates for a moment (while the back wheels churn the snow impotently) and then slides backwards into a ditch. There is nothing to be done save to open the door and climb out. Cassandra looks small and rather pathetic, leaning drunkenly to one side. Darkness is falling.
Tim suggests that I shall walk back to the small town which we have just passed and send help from a garage. We agree to meet at an inn called the ‘Black Swan’ which we noticed in passing. Discover a garage and send a rescue party to Tim and Cassandra and then make my way to the inn. It is an old-fashioned place brought up to date with electric light and other amenities of civilisation while yet retaining many of the old-time charms. After the cold and dreariness of the outside world, the large hall with its round table and comfortable chairs seems the acme of comfort. I cross over to the fire blazing in the huge old-fashioned hearth and try to warm my chilled fingers and frosted toes. Luckily I am wearing a pair of Russian boots which I always keep for motoring in winter, so my feet are dry; but the hem of my coat although a good twelve inches from the ground is crusted with snow. I am busy melting myself when a door opens and an old man in a black alpaca coat comes into the room. He starts when he sees me and then comes forward with old-fashioned courtesy to take my coat.
‘You’re not all alone,’ he says, with comical surprise, raising his eyebrows. I reply by telling him of our adventures in the snow. He holds up his hands in horror at the idea of a ‘lady’ being treated in such a cavalier fashion by the weather (it is quite refreshing to meet someone to whom ‘ladies’ are still sacrosanct).
I draw him out while I warm myself at the fire and wonder vaguely how Tim is getting on, and whether the ‘breakdown gang’ has managed to rescue Cassandra from the ditch. Old Thomas is delighted to chat and tells me that this small town used to be the scene of border raids a stronghold of the Percies. The inn itself flourished in the coaching days before the railways took the coaching traffic off the roads. Situated on the Great North Road and equipped with good stabling and cheer for man and beast, it boasted a well-deserved popularity. The hundred years of railway travel degraded it to the usual inn of a country town, asleep and dreaming, only awake on market days, when the jovial farmers filled its hospitable rooms to overflowing. But now once more the road has come into favour; motorists stop to lunch or tea, or stay the night in capacious bedrooms on their way south or north, as the case may be. ‘Things is waking up now,’ Thomas adds, rubbing his hands together cheerfully.
The place is full of good old furniture – relics of former days – oak and mahogany, well-polished and seasoned. Pewter and copper, battered and shining with elbow grease, have their place on chests and sideboards. In the corner is an old blunderbuss with a ramrod. The very atmosphere is eighteenth century.
Over the mantelpiece is a picture of a post chaise with three horses, and poised on the step, a girl, swathed in what I suppose she would have called ‘wraps’. Her poke bonnet frames a rosebud face. A young gentleman (perish the term) is handing her out of a conveyance in a gallant manner. After a bit Old Thomas seems to recede into the distance, the room swims before my eyes and I am glad to sink into a comfortable (modern) armchair which stands beside the fire.
Old Thomas goes away to prepare tea, and the big room is very quiet, only the ticking of the old clock which hangs on the wall is audible in the stillness. I realise that I am very tired. I take off my small felt hat and rumple my hair into comfortable disorder.
Suddenly there is a clatter of horses’ hoofs outside in the street; it breaks the silence like a bubble. I hear men shouting and running – and then the door opens and a girl stands in the doorway. She is wrapped up to the eyes in scarves and shawls – a small poke bonnet frames her rosy face, her eyes are like stars. She comes forward to the fire with a little run and begins to divest herself of some of her shawls – holding out her slim hands to the warmth of the fire with little noises of pleasure and contentment.
She has not seen me as yet, for the room is dark save for the glow of the fire; I can therefore observe her at my leisure. Small feet in black sandals appear from beneath a dress of russet red, very full and frilled from waist to hem. The bodice is tight-fitting, rather becoming to the girl’s rounded and graceful figure. I suppose I must have moved, for she looks round quickly and our eyes meet. ‘Lud, how you startled me!’ she whispers, with one hand on her heart to still its beating. I reply quickly that I did not mean to do so. I was sitting here before she came in, very nearly asleep with the warmth and comfort.
She nods. ‘It is indeed comfortable – we were fortunate to reach this place before nightfall. I have heard that there are highwaymen about on the moor tonight.’
‘One could easily imagine that there might be,’ I reply, falling in with her mood.
‘The postboy was frightened,’ she adds breathlessly. ‘And I too, for the chaise slipped this way and that the drifts were so high. Oh, it was alarming, I assure you I nearly swooned with terror.’
I laugh. The child is evidently on her way to a fancy-dress ball and is acting up to the character of her dress. ‘We are companions in misfortune,’ I tell her.
‘Oh,’ she cries, clasping her hands, ‘are you, too, snowbound and unable to proceed? But it is not so disastrous for you as for me. You are with your father and a day spent here is of small account to you but I ’ She stops a moment and blushes a rosy red. And suddenly it all seems clear to me and quite natural somehow. I know that she is the girl in the picture and she is eloping to Gretna Green with the young gentleman in the highwayman’s coat.
I am wondering what to say, when Old Thomas appears he has changed out of his alpaca coat and is now attired exactly as if he has stepped out of a Dickens novel, with long, tight-fitting trousers to his ankle and a striped waistcoat. He carries in a silver sconce with candles and places it on a table with a low bow. I imagine that the snow must have affected the electric light, so make no remark about it. The poke-bonneted girl now perceives me more closely and holds up her hands with a little cry of horror. ‘You are wearing men’s clothes – yet surely you are a young lady?’
It is years since I have been called a young lady – not since my schooldays has the term been applied to me and it sounds so funny that I cannot help laughing.
‘You are merry,’ she says reproachfully. ‘You find amusement in this intolerable situation?’
It seems to me that her eyes glisten with tears and I feel sorry for her and unaccountably ashamed of laughing at her. She needs little encouragement to tell me her troubles and is soon deep in their recital. What a pretty picture she makes seated on the edge of a high-backed chair with her voluminous red frock spread out and her two little feet in their slim black slippers peeping coyly from beneath it! I watch her dreamily and it seems to me that what we moderns have gained in comfort we have lost in charm – her golden curls dangle in ringlets about her ears – her voice comes from a long way off. It seems a fairy tale that I am listening to; a young and handsome Prince Charming who has nothing more material than his looks, carries off an heiress from under her guardian’s nose. ‘We intended to reach Berwick tonight,’ she says, dabbing her eyes with a tiny square of cambric. ‘My old nurse lives there and w
ould do anything to help me. But we have been delayed by the inclemency of the weather – and now I am afraid – and I misdoubt Edward’s affection. I would that I had never come with him. I told him so and he was so fierce that he alarmed me.’
It seems small wonder that Edward was fierce. I feel sorry for him and decide to try a little guile on his behalf.
‘This Edward of yours – I think I have seen him. He is rather stout, isn’t he?’
‘Stout!’ cries Angelina (for so I have called her in my own mind). ‘He has the figure of a god – supple and graceful – ’
‘Oh, yes! But he has a slight squint in his right eye.’
Angelina leaps to her feet and her eyes blaze. ‘It is obvious, Madame, that you have never seen my Edward.’
‘Has he got sandy hair?’ I enquire blandly.
‘He is the handsomest man in Yorkshire,’ she screams.
At this moment the curtain which screens the door is drawn back and a young man appears. He is dressed in a long fawn coat with capes and high boots, his dark hair is tied back with a black bow. Certainly he is handsome, and I feel glad that I have shot a bolt for him with his faint-hearted lady.
Angelina rushes across the room and flings herself into his arms with little cries and sobs. ‘How dare she say that you are stout and – and have a squint – my handsome Edward! How dearly I love you! How wicked to doubt your affection!’
He soothes her as best he can, completely puzzled by her words but well content to accept her changed attitude without question. ‘Come, my Angelina,’ he says tenderly. ‘If you are sufficiently rested we will pursue our way, for the landlord has had word that the road is now open to Berwick.’
She runs back to the fire to collect her shawls and, without another glance in my direction, the pair go out together and the curtain falls behind them.
Suddenly there is a loud crash. I jump up in terror to find that a coal has fallen out of the fire. I am still laughing at my own alarm when old Thomas comes in.
Mrs. Tim of the Regiment Page 7
