by Molly Thynne
“Turn ’er into the ditch there, just ahead o’ tha’ lurry, I tell ’ee. Turn ’er in, or you’ll smash, for sure. Turn ’er in, I tell ’ee!” he piped vociferously.
And the chauffeur, seeing nothing else for it, turned her in. There was a thud as the luggage carrier met the bonnet of the Rolls, then the two cars settled down side by side in the snow, and the tension was over.
The chauffeur climbed out and opened the door of the car. After a short and apparently animated discussion he carefully handed out an old lady.
She was short and plump and evidently badly shaken. The chauffeur, who looked himself as if a stiff drink would do him no harm, was obviously at a loss as to what to do with her now that he had got her out into the snow. She was clinging to him with both hands, staring helplessly in the direction of Stuart and the aged yokel, and looked as if at any moment she might collapse in a heap at his feet.
Stuart, remembering the flask he had thrust into his pocket just before leaving, got out of his car and started up the hill towards them. He arrived just as the head of another, rather younger, lady was thrust through the still open door.
“Pull yourself together, Connie!” said the owner sharply. “By the mercy of Providence we are none of us any the worse. Let us be thankful!”
The first old lady continued to stare helplessly at Stuart.
“Eh?” she queried vaguely.
“Trumpet!” ejaculated her companion, with almost vicious intensity.
Stuart, not unreasonably mistaking the word for one not usually employed by old ladies in polite society, stood aghast, his offer of assistance frozen on his lips. Then his eyes fell on the black satin cornucopia dangling from the plump lady’s wrist, and he understood.
At the same moment the chauffeur, rising to the occasion, gently disengaged the hand that was clutching his shoulder and placed the ear-trumpet in it. Mechanically the old lady raised it to her ear.
“Eh?” she repeated.
Her companion bent forward.
“Move away, Connie, and let me get out,” she exclaimed, her voice shrill with suppressed exasperation. “I can’t do anything while you stand there!”
“Move? Where?” murmured the owner of the ear-trumpet helplessly.
Stuart stepped forward and took her gently by the arm. With a start the old lady swung the trumpet violently in his direction, hitting him hard on the mouth.
“If you’ll let me help you,” he shouted valiantly down the orifice, his eyes watering with the pain of the impact. “We’ll try to get a little farther away from the door.”
She allowed him to support her for a few steps, while the other old lady climbed nimbly down into the snow and immediately took charge of the situation.
“Sit here,” she said briskly, brushing the snow off the running board of the car. “This gentleman will help you, I’m sure, and you’ll feel quite all right in a minute. My sister is a little shaken,” she explained to Stuart as, between them, they managed to get her seated. “But she’ll be quite herself after a short rest. She’s not so young as she was, and I must say it was an alarming experience.”
Fortunately the snow had almost ceased, though there was obviously more to come in the near future.
Stuart proffered his flask.
“If she’s feeling faint—” he suggested awkwardly.
“Most kind of you, if I can only persuade her to touch it. Connie, this gentleman is offering you some brandy,” she shouted into the wavering ear-trumpet. “Take a little drop—it will do you good.”
“Eh?”
“A little drop of brandy—it will do you good!” reiterated the younger lady.
Then, in despair—
“I think if you would pour it out I might get her to drink it.”
Stuart poured a stiff dose into the metal cup. Even if it did go to her head, he felt it could hardly make her more helpless.
“Now, drink it, dear, and sit quiet for a moment. Then you’ll feel better,” said her sister, bending over her.
Stuart tactfully withdrew and joined the chauffeur, who was investigating the damage to the back of the car.
“You wouldn’t be any the worse for a drink yourself, I expect,” he said, by way of an opening. “You’ll have to take it straight from the flask, however.”
The man accepted the offer gratefully.
“It did give me a bit of a turn when she began to skid,” he admitted. “With the two old ladies inside and all.”
“Lucky it wasn’t worse,” agreed Stuart. “I’m going to have a try at it all the same. I don’t see the fun of staying here all night.”
The chauffeur cocked an eye in the direction of Stuart’s car.
“You’ll likely do it all right in a light car,” he said. “Another few yards and I’d have got her over the top. We’d never have made Redsands, though. There’s two hills worse than this, and I’ll bet there’s not a car got up them to-day.”
“There’s one thing,” he went on, as he handed back the flask to Stuart, “the luggage ain’t damaged, and I can get it off all right. I’ll have to cart it up to the inn and then get on to my owners.”
“Hired, eh?”
“That’s right, sir. The boss didn’t want to let her out, seeing what the roads were like, but the old ladies had taken their rooms at Redsands for Christmas, and were so set on getting there that he gave in to them; but I’ll lay he won’t be surprised when I get through to him. Lucky for them that the old ‘Noah’s Ark’ is close and handy.”
“What’s that? An inn?” asked Stuart.
The chauffeur nodded.
“If you turn up the lane at the top of the hill you’ll come to it. It used to be one of them coaching inns, but it caters mostly for hunting gentlemen nowadays. Even now, the landlord was telling me, they get a bit of custom. Mostly cyclists and that. It’s not new-fangled enough for motorists, but there was a party I was driving a couple of months ago stayed the night there, and I hadn’t got no fault to find with the way they treated me.”
How far on is it? It looks as if I’d better put up there myself, if what you say about the Redsands road is true.”
“You can take my word for it, sir, you won’t make it to-night. The snow’s stopped, but by the look of things there’s plenty more to come. You’ll find the inn about three-quarters of a mile up the lane, and pretty bad going at that, I expect. How the old ladies are to get there, beats me. They’ll find it a stiff walk, I’m thinking.”
Stuart cast a calculating eye over the luggage.
“If I can make the hill I’ll take them on,” he said. “I can manage this stuff as well, I think, if you’ll cart it to the top. Meanwhile, I’d better go and see about having a shot at it.”
He returned to the two old ladies. The elder had apparently recovered herself, and they now stood, forlorn and utterly at a loss, gazing pathetically at their derelict hireling.
“Your chauffeur tells me that there’s quite a good inn just round the corner,” he said. “I’m going to try to get my car up the hill, and, if I succeed, I can give you a lift. It’ll be rather a crush, I’m afraid, with the luggage, but better than a walk in this snow.”
He waited while his proposal was conveyed to the elder of the two ladies through the medium of the ear-trumpet, and then, having received their almost tearful thanks, returned to his car.
His faith in her was justified, and he reached the top of the hill without mishap, to find the old ladies pluckily following in his wake, clinging to each other and giving little breathless cries of alternate warning and encouragement. The chauffeur followed, carrying their smaller luggage.
“There’s a party down there that’s turning back to Rushton,” he said. “They’ll give me a lift, and I can get on to my owners and send some one to salvage the car. They’ll have to send down from the ‘Noah’s Ark’ for the trunk.”
“And we must stay on at this inn until he can come and fetch us,” said the younger of the two ladies. “There’s nothing
else for us to do, I’m afraid, though it is annoying to feel that our rooms are waiting for us at Redsands all the time. However, we’re very lucky to have fallen in with such a kind Samaritan,” she finished gratefully.
“I feel for you,” answered Stuart, who was busy making room for their luggage. “I’ve got a room at Redsands eating its head off, too. We’ll hope that, with luck, we shall get there before Christmas, however.”
“Surely we shall not have to stay long at this dreadful inn,” whispered a husky voice at his elbow.
He turned, with a start, and realized that this was the first coherent sentence that had emanated from the sister with the ear-trumpet. Her little round face, blue and streaked with cold, was upturned to his, the trumpet inclined at an inviting angle in the direction of his mouth. He thought he had never seen anything so pathetically helpless.
“Not more than a night or two, I expect,” he assured her, his habitual shyness forgotten. “And it will probably turn out to be quite comfortable. Things will look more hopeful, you know, when you’ve had a good warm and some food. If you can manage to squeeze in here beside the luggage, I’ll run you and your sister up to the inn in no time.”
He helped her in and tucked a spare rug round her. When he had finished, she peered over the top of it at him with the confiding trustfulness of a child.
Her sister was of stouter fibre, and as she climbed into the front seat beside him, with an agility that belied her years, her tongue wagged unceasingly.
“Most kind of you, I’m sure. In fact, I do not know what would have become of us if you had not taken compassion on us. Still, it is all in the nature of an adventure, isn’t it? And we lead such quiet, uneventful lives at Tunbridge Wells, that when something unusual does happen, it’s almost a relief. My sister, of course, doesn’t feel like that, but one can hardly expect it, what with her deafness and everything. Such a trial to her—”
And so she prattled on, until Stuart found himself hoping that, if he ever did reach Redsands, it would not be to discover the two ladies established at the same hotel as himself.
He found the lane and turned into it. The snow had been cleared the day before, but it was, as the chauffeur had predicted, bad going, and his attention was fully occupied with the car. When he was able to attend to his passenger once more, he discovered that she was introducing herself.
“The least we can do is to tell you our names, after all your kindness,” she was saying, in her bright little voice. “I am Miss Amy Adderley, and my sister is Miss Adderley. If you are ever in Tunbridge Wells, I hope you will call on us. What did you say, Connie dear?”
Miss Connie’s husky whisper had barely made itself heard behind her. It reached Stuart, though, as she leaned forward and, with an effort, raised her voice.
“Leave him to his driving, Amy, and don’t talk so much!”
There ensued an embarrassing silence, during which Stuart gazed ahead with a face of preternatural seriousness. But Miss Amy Adderley did not open her lips again till a bend in the lane brought them within sight of a scattered village.
“At least there will be a post office,” she exclaimed. “We can get in touch with somebody. We must send a telegram to Agnes, Connie, and tell her not to forward any letters till she hears from us. Such a nuisance when one’s letters go astray, isn’t it?”
Stuart agreed with her.
“I’m afraid I never introduced myself,” he went on shyly. “My name is Stuart, and I’m most awfully glad to have been of service to you. Anyway, we can make sure of having a roof over our heads to-night. There’s the inn.”
It stood four-square to the village street, reassuring in its rambling spaciousness. Unless half the rooms had fallen into disuse, there should be more than enough space for unexpected guests. The flickering light of a heaped-up fire shone on the uncurtained windows of the taproom, and a wide arch, to the right of the main building, led into a yard that, so far as Stuart could see, was large enough to house a dozen cars. It was easy to picture the cheerful bustle that must have prevailed when the mail arrived in the old coaching days. A signboard hung from the old-fashioned porch, and Stuart glanced at it as he climbed stiffly from the car.
“The ‘Noah’s Ark,’” he said, extending a helpful hand to Miss Amy. “It sounds a bit antediluvian, but there’s something cheery about the place all the same.”
The landlord himself came out to meet them. He was a spare, elderly man, whose face showed the rather wizened shrewdness of one who has dealt with horses all his life. Stuart was to discover later that he had been coachman to the family that owned most of the property in that part of the world, and that the old inn had been left to him by his late master as a tribute to long and faithful service. Also that the “Noah’s Ark” was not quite such a back number as it seemed. It was well known to hunting men, and, but for the heavy fall of snow, would have been filled to capacity at this time of year.
As it was, he could accommodate them easily, the landlord assured them, and would have fires burning in their rooms by the time they had warmed themselves and finished the lunch which was just being served in the coffee-room. He turned the old ladies over to a capable-looking maid, while Stuart established good relations over a drink in the bar.
“I can put up your machine all right, sir,” said the landlord. “We’ve a good-sized barn back of the stables there, though it’s ’orses I cater for mostly, even in these days.”
“It’s been a bad season for you so far, I’m afraid,” sympathized Stuart.
“And looked as if it was goin’ to get worse. But there’s some good in all things evil, as they say, and it seems as if this ’ere snow was goin’ to bring custom, instead of drivin’ it away. If it had been a frost now, I should have had the place empty on my hands.”
“Well, I hope we bring you luck,” said Stuart pleasantly.
The landlord laughed.
“Oh, you’re not the first by any means, sir! That hill’s fair put the fear o’ God into the motorists. There’s three lots turned up before you, and I’m thinking there’ll be more before nightfall. If I’ve read the signs right, there’s another heavy fall to come.”
“You’ll have us here over Christmas, if this goes on,” said Stuart rather ruefully.
“And welcome, sir, as far as I’m concerned,” was the landlord’s hearty rejoinder.
As he spoke a dark shadow fell across his face, and Stuart, looking round in surprise, realized that twilight had fallen suddenly on the wide, low-ceilinged room. Then, in a second, the blight was lifted, as the huge motor coach that had caused it ceased to block the long window and drew up in front of the door of the inn.
The landlord hurried to the door.
“What did I say, sir?” he exclaimed over his shoulder. “Here’s another of ’em! Looks to be one of them coaches this time. We shall get a bit of all sorts at this rate.”
With unashamed curiosity, Stuart gulped down what was left of his drink and followed him into the passage. As he did so it occurred to him that, should he be held up indefinitely, the “Noah’s Ark,” with its involuntary and heterogeneous cargo, might prove a more entertaining place in which to spend Christmas than the magnificent hostelry that awaited him at Redsands.
CHAPTER II
Stuart’s sense of well-being increased considerably as he made his first detailed inspection of the interior of the “Noah’s Ark.” He had glanced casually round him on his first arrival, and had decided that the place seemed clean and comfortable; but now he realized how completely even successive generations of local painters and paperers had failed to mar its beauty. The roomy passage, which ran from the front door to the foot of the stairs, and which had been turned into a miniature lounge, was panelled to the height of a man’s shoulder, and the wide staircase possessed an oak balustrade that many a London dealer had tried to buy in vain. Above the panelling was, needless to say, the inevitable, abominable Victorian wall-paper, and the wood itself had been painted and repainted a nauseous
chocolate; but the paper had faded until it had become so neutral as to be hardly noticeable, and nothing could alter the graceful proportions of a house that had been built in less hurried and more spacious days.
At the foot of the staircase was a table littered with newspapers. Stuart seated himself at it and, under cover of a dog’s-eared magazine, settled down to observe the new-comers, realizing with some amusement as he did so that he was already adopting the superior attitude that the established guest invariably takes towards a new arrival.
At the sight of the first person to enter the lounge he decided that his critical attitude was more than justified. Everything about the young man who strolled, with an air of ineffable languor, through the front door, was an offence to one who, with all the care in the world, had never been able to control the crease in his trousers or the vagaries of his ties. For this favoured individual, whose delicately tinted felt hat was just a fraction wider in the brim, his frieze coat a trifle rougher in texture, its upturned collar a shade higher than is usual, had emerged from what must have been a singularly trying journey looking as though he had just stepped out of a Hollywood dressing-room. The bitter cold had failed to do more than add an interesting pallor to features which even Stuart felt bound to admit were faultless in their regularity.
The next arrival offered a distinct relief, for he was as completely undistinguished as his predecessor had been spectacular. A shabby young man this, tightly buttoned into an overcoat manifestly too thin for the time of year. From the folds of a gaudily striped muffler emerged the tip of an upturned nose, blue with cold, and a pair of grey eyes which, as Stuart was to learn later, were capable of an impish humour. At present they were clouded with an anxiety which Stuart, in view of his own recent past, had no difficulty in interpreting. He was probably summoning up his courage to ask for the cheapest room in the inn, and wondering how much even that would cost him.’
Then the third, and last, occupant of the motor coach entered, and Stuart’s interest in the other two passengers evaporated completely. For the old man who stood for a moment in the doorway, his keen eyes taking stock of his surroundings, was endowed with the two subtlest of human qualities—charm and personality. He gave the impression that, in whatever company he might find himself, he would be at his ease, and at the same time, without being in the least incongruous, strike quite a definite note. No longer young, his clothes good but inconspicuous, scrupulously neat, from his little pointed white beard to his brilliantly polished square-toed black shoes, he filled the stage, as it were, from the moment he stepped on to it. He had removed his hat on entering, revealing a magnificent crop of white hair, so thick and virile that it stood up almost en brosse, an effective setting to the observant black eyes and clear olive skin below.