Mrs. Tim of the Regiment (10 page)

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 would 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.

‘All in the dark!' he exclaims, and switches on the electric light, which makes me blink like an owl. ‘I comed in a few minutes ago and you was asleep, Miss,' he continues. ‘The landlord 'as word that the road is open to Berwick.'

‘Yes, I know,' I reply. ‘The gentleman said so.'

‘The gentleman? There 'asn't bin no gentleman 'ere as I know of,' Thomas says, as he arranges the table for tea and puts the muffins on a trivet near the fire. ‘What kind of a gentleman would he be, Miss?' He looks round at me with a curious expression on his smooth face. ‘It wasn't by any chance a lady now was it? A young lady in a red dress.'

‘What do you know of a lady in a red dress?' I ask quickly.

‘Nothing, Miss. Nothing.'

‘What a pity!' I reply, watching his face closely. ‘I am anxious to know what happened.'

‘How should I know what 'appened?' he says, looking down at his feet and shuffling them in an embarrassed way. ‘You was dreaming, Miss – just dreaming. I come in and found you fast asleep.'

‘It was a queer dream,' I reply.

‘Ah, folks often 'as queer dreams.'

Once more the door opens, but this time it is the twentieth-century figure of Tim.

He stamps his feet and claps his hands and the wraiths of Edward and Angelina have vanished. ‘Tea,' he says cheerfully. ‘
And
muffins – that's good.'

I ask after Cassandra and am told that she is none the worse for her adventure and that she will be ready to start tomorrow morning. We doze and dream in the firelight and presently make our way up the shiny oak staircase to bed.

Eighth February

I sleep dreamlessly and waken early, and soon the events of yesterday come crowding into my mind. I switch on the light beside my bed and the old, beautiful room takes shape – the four-poster with its carved oak pillars, the dark oak chest, the dressing table with its prude petticoat of spotted muslin, the low, uneven ceiling, the wavy oak floor. How many hundreds and thousands of people have awakened in this room; awakened to their sorrows and their joys, their hopes and their fears? Strange that I should have slept so well, untroubled by the haunting of their thoughts!

Soon the old house stirs, and I hear the usual domestic sounds of cleaning and cooking. A bright young chambermaid brings us hot water and morning tea, and asks if she shall turn on the bath which is next door. The ‘Black Swan' has evidently swum with the times.

Tim is shaving when I return from my bath; he is not impressed with the age of the place, but is delighted with the modern improvements. ‘All the same,' he says as he screws his face into terrifying contortions to reach a difficult corner of his chin, ‘all the same, Hester, I don't care for these old houses – the drains are apt to be unhealthy. When we retire we'll have an absolutely modern house with all the latest improvements. . . . Sickening, isn't it?' he adds grumblingly. ‘This trip is going to cost us a damn sight more than our railway fares would have been. An extra night on the road – and heaven knows how much this chap will rook us – and the garage charges for rescuing Cassandra, etc.'

I reply with soothing noises. Personally I think it has been a lovely adventure and well worth the money.

We eat our breakfast, pay our bill, and take the road for Berwick which Edward and Angelina travelled last night or two hundred years ago – I really don't know which. As we fly along I can't help watching for a lumbering post chaise which may so easily have skidded off the road and overturned in a ditch.

We have engaged rooms in Westburgh at a certain ‘Brown's Hotel', and here we arrive without further adventure – cold and tired and very late. So late that I ask for a glass of hot milk and tumble sleepily into bed.