The Uninvited Guests (7 page)

‘No, Mother, it wasn’t
George –
I know
George –
it was another man, an older man. He said the best thing is to—’

‘Do you mean older than that fellow who helped us at the station?’ enquired Patience, arranging her mother-of-pearl cuff-buttons one by one. ‘Oh no, I don’t think he was. Was that George? If it was, I rather think this man was very much younger.’

Emerald was distracted from the exchange by the drama taking place behind them. Ernest and the grooms were grappling with horses and vehicles. She couldn’t see Ernest’s face but watched him place a hand firmly on Ferryman’s neck while the other gripped his bridle. The hunter Ferryman wasn’t used to being in harness and was plunging about in the traces, kicking up the gravel.

‘I tell you he was grey-haired! But do you think it
matters
what age the fellow was?’ Clovis was saying to Patience.

‘Clovis,’ said Emerald, not taking her eyes from the scene, ‘stop squabbling and see to the horse.’

He obeyed her, gratefully, just as Florence Trieves entered the hall behind Smudge, and laid her hands on the child’s bony shoulders.

‘What’s happened?’

‘There’s been a train accident,’ said Charlotte.

‘On a branch line somewhere,’ put in Emerald.

‘And we are to take care of the passengers. Nobody seems to be able to agree on what has happened,’ said Charlotte, much perturbed, ‘but Sterne is to be some sort of stopping place for the survivors, it seems, while the Railway comes to some arrangement.’

‘Great heavens,’ said Florence Trieves, her fingers flying up and working the watch on her breast tensely. Then, ‘God!’ she cried, seeing the men, outside, preoccupied with fighting Ferryman, who was taking ever more serious exception to being walked backwards, and shrieking in a very high-pitched voice for so large a horse.

The women all emerged from the house to watch, Smudge clinging to Florence’s skirts in delighted horror.

‘Whoa!’ cried Robert, as the animal stormed forward.

Clovis was thrown back by Ferryman’s great head, and stepped on Ernest’s jacket on the gravel. Bending, he picked it up, shook it out, and put it over the horse’s head as a blindfold.

‘That’s Ernest’s jacket!’ squeaked Patience, but the horse, in darkness now, was disorientated and in another moment between the shafts of the cart at last.

Ernest and Robert set about buckling the straps. Emerald couldn’t help noticing that Ernest, although she could still only see the back of him, had broad and straight shoulders, and stood half a head taller than Robert.

‘Now, look here, Emerald,’ said Clovis, ‘we don’t need you. I’ll go in the cart with Stanley, Robert can drive the brougham; the rest of you can stay here.’

‘I don’t see why!’ Emerald was indignant.

‘If you don’t mind my saying, Miss Em,’ said Robert, turning to her, ‘there’s no need of either of you. We shall have more room for the passengers if you’ll stay put. And we’d best be off, like the porter said.’

Emerald made a noise that wasn’t quite, but amounted to ‘Hmph!’ and Charlotte, mistress of the house, spoke at last.

‘Yes, Robert, quite right; you and Stanley can manage. Emerald and Clovis, stay here. Off you go.’

Clovis heaved a violent sigh and turned his back on them all.

‘Right then,’ said Robert firmly, and touching his cap, jumped up into the cart, hauling Ferryman neatly around into a semicircle so as to face the yews, and slapping the reins on his recalcitrant rump.

Soon both vehicles, cart and carriage, pulled away from the house on their mission at an unprecedented trot. Those who remained, stood in the porch and watched them drive away. The avenue muffled their wheels. The sound of hooves grew fainter. They were gone.

The little group turned to go inside.

‘Lord!’ said Patience, pinkly. She was cheerfulness personified. ‘Rather an unconventional sort of arrival! Hello, Mrs Swift. What a to-do!’

‘Hello, Patience dear,’ said Charlotte wanly, directing her nose towards Patience momentarily, and delicately lifting her skirts as she re-entered the hall.

‘And here’s Ernest,’ announced Patience.

‘Hello,’ said that young man, joining them, in his shirtsleeves and slightly out of breath.

‘Yes …’ Charlotte blinked towards him and her eyes widened. The coquette within, unvanquished by her approaching fiftieth birthday, shook out her feathers. ‘
Mr
Sutton now, I suppose?’ she enquired. ‘Or should I call you Doctor?’

‘Not yet, I’m afraid.’

‘Weren’t you needed at the scene of this ghastly event?’

‘Apparently not. I offered.’

‘Of course you did.’

Ernest seemed not to know how to take this last, and kept silent.

They were all safely inside.

Emerald closed the door firmly.

‘They won’t return with these survivors in less than an hour,’ she said, gathering her thoughts, or trying to.

‘I wonder how many people they’ll find down there and what state they’ll be in,’ put in Patience, with enthusiasm.

‘Did this railway person say any more than “survivors”?’

‘Nothing helpful,’ said Clovis. ‘It was all rather … rushed.’

‘Wasn’t it?’ agreed Patience, and then stopped in her tracks. ‘Little Imogen?’ she said warmly, noticing the child for the first time. ‘I haven’t seen you since you were seven years old! I remember you when you were the smudge-in-a-cot!’

Her voice tumbled over Smudge like the shivering glassy fringes on a chandelier. Smudge smiled up at her.

‘I like your dress,’ she said obsequiously.

The dress was of primrose-coloured muslin, with clinging lace cuffs half-covering her hand; no trace of the faddish orient for Patience.

‘Thank you very much. I like your nightie.’

The family, all at once, noticed Smudge’s grubby nightdress and bare feet.

‘Heavens, Smudge!’ said Charlotte, pink blooms of embarrassment appearing on her neck. ‘You can’t go about like that!’

‘It was the dreadful accident! I had to come down!’

‘She did, Mother; don’t be cross with her.’ Emerald was conciliatory, seeing rage flare in Charlotte against her youngest child.

‘Imogen! Go!’

Patience and Ernest affected deafness while Smudge, chastened, began to slink away. An uncomfortable silence ensued.

All their preparations had been in vain. Emerald’s birthday celebrations had begun in confusion and disarray. She cast about for something sensible to say, something that would reassure her mother and friends that an hospitable timetable would be re-established, and was about to suggest the library, and tea, when she halted, arrested in movement like a musical statue.

She was obeying a prompt, an instinct left over, perhaps, from an earlier time; the instinct that stops a mouse in its short-sighted tracks when a cat is watching it from a chair; that makes a dog lying by the fire tremble, and whimper, when there is no one near to see.

And as she stopped, there came, of a sudden, a hard gust of wind behind her, striking her through her dress, forcefully, blowing all thoughts of convention from her mind. The heavy front door was closed, but the chill struck Emerald’s back, finding its way through the jamb and hinges – through the solid wood itself, it seemed, as a cold wave will sometimes catch one as one leaves the sea and knock the breath from the body.

Halted, she looked around the faces of her friends and family, who, all unnoticing, stood about awaiting the offers of sustenance or rest they had every reason to expect. But the breeze had caused the air to whisper and creak loudly all around and she was compelled to investigate it.

‘What is it?’ said Clovis as Emerald turned her head to look over her shoulder.

She walked to the door, opened it and looked out into the squally air. Shivering, looking away to her right, far down the drive, she strained her eyes at the emerging vision.

Clovis arrived at her side and followed the direction of her gaze. He gave a low whistle.

‘My word,’ he said, ‘they’re here.’

They all hurried to the door, Smudge peering around Florence’s skirt.

It was true: a small group of people was emerging from the gloom of the drive onto the gravel, slowly and all together. It was difficult to see how many of them there were.

‘They must have missed Robert… How queer!’ cried Emerald. ‘Quick, Mother!’

Florence Trieves and Smudge stayed in the doorway, as Emerald, Charlotte, Clovis, Patience and Ernest moved forward to greet the survivors.

It did make for an odd-looking meeting: the many vibrant colours of the household – party-peacock blues and greens, bright copper – approaching the travelling drabness of the shocked and drifting passengers.

‘Can you see the porter?’ said Patience, craning, her view obscured by other people’s shoulders.

‘No,’ said Clovis, as Emerald, ahead, neared the first of them.

‘Didn’t you see the carriage and cart?’ she asked them. ‘Did the Railway send you up? Are you hurt?’

But none of them answered.

‘Have you come from the accident?’ asked Clovis. ‘We were told to expect you.’

They lifted their faces as one, like a herd of cattle turning their heads in a field to watch one pass by. Shock had brought the group into a mass, as if the experience they had endured had bonded them in strange and bloodless numbness.

‘Welcome to Sterne,’ Emerald tried again, briskly. ‘I’m Emerald Torrington. You must have had the most distressing time.’

Clovis, at her side, glanced down at her and she met his eyes briefly, reassured, and looked back to the shifting passengers. They gazed on her in dazed bedazzlement.

Now that she was nearer to them, she saw that they were not particularly dressed alike, as she had first thought, but only made uniform by dint of their overcoats, scarves, hats and all the other monochrome garb of the journeying. Now she could see them more clearly, snatches of red from a dress, ivy-green on a man’s waistcoat – other colours – gradually began to show themselves.

And then, quietly, one of them spoke. She was a pale young woman, ash-blonde hair drawn back from a homely, round face, the skin of which had the same sallow hue as her hair, and there was a gappy, lumped, black woollen muffler bound thickly about her throat, as if to keep her head on her shoulders.

‘We’ve been sent here first,’ she said. ‘We are ever so grateful you’ll have us… Will you?’

Her eyes met Emerald’s pleadingly, so that Emerald was embarrassed all at once – simply by being Emerald, in all her vigour, standing before this creature.

‘Of course,’ she said, adding lamely, ‘You poor things. Do follow us.’ And she turned smartly, took Clovis’s warm hand in hers and led the procession back to the house.

The feeble crowd trailed after them as the whole group made their way towards Florence and Smudge in the doorway.

And so, with many exclamations of welcome and comfort, the slow survivors were guided into Sterne.

With Clovis dispatched on Levi to fetch back Robert and Stanley, the women were grouped around the butcher’s block in the pantry. It had seemed the best place to have a private discussion.

‘Perhaps the wounded were taken off by ambulance,’ suggested Emerald.

Fresh blood, pink with rinsing, ran from the block between the women. There were shelves on all four sides, crammed with jars, meats, labelled tins, jugs (covered), terrines and all manner of delicious-smelling foodstuffs.

‘It’s almost six already! Did anybody say when the people from the Railway might arrive and relieve us of them?’ asked Charlotte.

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Will they be taken to another train?’

‘I don’t know, Mother! Ask Clovis when he gets back; he was the one who spoke to the porter.’

‘I thought he was a guard.’

‘Whatever he was, he was the one who sent them all here,’ said Emerald firmly; ‘and he, presumably, had some plan as to their removal. We can’t leave them in the morning room forever.’

The passengers had been deposited in the morning room with Myrtle, who was under instructions to light the fire – an inconvenience, as the morning room’s was the one fire in the house unlaid, it being the afternoon.

(‘The morning room indeed,’ she’d said. ‘Why can’t they all be put in the barn until the Railway sort out their own difficulties? Don’t see why the family has to be burdened, not with them all so muddled and wandering; it’s not reasonable. And me all on my own. I’ll wring Pearl’s neck on Monday.’

But still, she had heaved the ash
out
and the coal
in
, and lit the slender kindling once more, watched all the while by the gloomy passengers, who stood about her in their overcoats, whispering to one another.

‘Have they never seen a housemaid before?
Wallpaper
a shock to them?’ raged Myrtle to herself, toiling. But her rage had subsided directly upon leaving the room. In fact, as she attended to her usual, very pressing duties, she found she forgot about the uninvited guests in the morning room altogether.

The Suttons, likewise, had been deposited at the other end of the house – once, that is, Ernest had been dissuaded from examining each and every passenger for injuries. Having not spoken more than a word or two to any one of the family, he was a fountain of verbiage when offered the possibility of in-the-field medical rehearsals. Herded away by Charlotte, he had been forced to content himself with passing between them asking, ‘Any faintness? Any pain? Sir? Madam? Light-headedness?’, before at last accompanying his sister to the library, at which point Emerald and Charlotte had made their excuses and escaped to the pantry to discuss necessities.

‘If we can just give some
appearance
of normality,’ fretted Charlotte, twisting her handkerchief, ‘until the Railway come.’

‘I just wish it hadn’t happened on your birthday,’ said Florence.

‘Tosh.’ Emerald picked up a small china jug and sniffed it.

‘Lemon cream,’ said Florence, with satisfaction.

Emerald lifted the tiny cloth and dipped her little finger into the jug. ‘Oh lovely,’ she uttered, sucking it.

Florence was smug. ‘People don’t always think of cloves for lemons.’