She drifted away followed by Mr Cameron.
‘That’s all right,’ said Daphne, as she got in under her step-uncle’s guard and banged her face against his cheek.
‘Wait a moment,’ said Mr Middleton, slightly annoyed. ‘I will give the stick to Flora. She loves to carry it for me. Flora! Flora! Where are you?’
A stout brown spaniel who had been sending a crate of hens into hysterics by sniffing at the wooden bars, looked with kindly contempt at Mr Middleton, wagged her tail and sat down. Daphne laughed a hearty laugh and said Flora was too fat to move.
‘She is not fat,’ said Mr Middleton indignantly. ‘She is twelve years old and needs her food. Flora! Come and take stick. Take stick for master.’
Flora slapped the platform with her tail and smiled tolerantly.
‘Dog won’t bite pig, pig won’t get over the stile,’ murmured Denis. ‘How do you do, sir.’
Mr Middleton looked coldly at his step-nephew, but could not ignore Denis’s outstretched hand and had to shake it. Mrs Stonor with Mr Cameron in attendance was still fussing over her trunks outside the luggage van and Mr Middleton had leisure to inspect the young Stonors whom he had not seen for two or three years. They were much as he remembered them and his memories were unsympathetic. Daphne was certainly a very handsome girl but had what appeared to him a terrifying air of good-humour and determination. Besides, she had called Flora fat. As for Denis, he was even taller and thinner than in Mr Middleton’s recollection. Huddled in a long coat on a balmy June day, his large dark eyes ringed with the marks of suffering, he reminded his step-uncle too much of an organ-grinder’s monkey. When Flora waddled up and inspected the newcomer’s legs and Denis, stooping, took off his glove and patted her, his long bony hand seemed to Mr Middleton to increase the resemblance, and he felt the vague unreasonable distaste that always overcame him at the sight of illness. To make up for this uncharitable feeling he informed Denis that Flora liked him.
‘I wish I could think so,’ said Denis, slowly straightening himself and putting his glove on again. ‘I am afraid she knows I don’t like her. Dogs always come to me because they know I see through them and they enjoy it. They are such masochists. I am always polite to them, but I wouldn’t care if I never saw another one again. What a charming station you have, sir.’
Mr Middleton became a prey to mingled emotions. To his mind, quick to grasp essentials, it was clear that Lilian’s stepson was going to be a perpetual annoyance to him. He didn’t like young men who wore gloves in the country and camel hair coats; people who didn’t like Flora he could not abide. That a good many of his friends had no particular affection for her he was not unaware, but so long as they veiled their true sentiments under a decent veil of hypocrisy he was willing to take a surface value. Young Stonor’s analysis of his and Flora’s reactions he found almost indecent. Nor did he at all like the easy way in which the boy had dismissed Flora and condescended about the station. He looked angrily round. Charming appeared to him the last word one would choose for Skeynes station. It represented what might be called Mid-Victorian functional railway architecture, as far removed from the Gothic romanticism of Shrewsbury on the one hand as it was from the modern station with circular booking office, elliptical signal boxes and stepped-back waiting-rooms on the other. There was a decent squat row of grey brick offices with wooden floors which were watered from time to time during the hot weather to lay the dust that they engendered; the booking office and entrance hall still contained one of those advertisements, now much valued by connoisseurs, of a storage and removal firm whose vans had the peculiar property of exhibiting one side and one end simultaneously; the station-master had a little office chokingly heated by a stove with a red-hot iron chimney and furnished with yellowing crackling documents impaled on spikes; there was a waiting-room containing a bench, a table, an empty carafe of incredible thickness and weight, two chairs and a rusty grate full of smouldering slack; the porters had a room called Lamps which was always locked; and at the end of the down platform was a tank on four legs from which local engines still obtained their water supply through a leathern hose pipe. There were a few little flower beds, edged with whitewashed stones and containing varieties of flowers from penny packets of mixed seeds. On the wooden fence that separated the platform from the station yard was another prize for the amateur of railway art, enamelled on tin, a fine original example of the distich about the Pickwick, Owl and Waverley pens. The platform was sheltered by a corrugated iron roof with a wooden frill along its front and all the paint was an uncompromising chocolate colour.
From the foregoing description it will be easy to see how to Mr Middleton and most of the inhabitants Skeynes was simply a station, while to Denis and some of his generation it was a period piece to be treated with protective reverence. When Denis, having done his duty by Flora and his step-uncle, strolled up to a chocolate machine and actually obtained a small slab of very nasty pink chocolate cream, he felt that a summer at Skeynes would not be unbearable.
By this time the luggage had all been put on a trolley and was on its way by the side gate into the station yard, where the Laverings car was in waiting.
‘Oh dear,’ said Mrs Stonor, giving way to despair. ‘Your car can never take all our luggage, Jack. Is there a station taxi, or could the station-master ring up something? We seem to have a frightful amount, but really for three months one does want everything one has in the English climate. I did think of not bringing my tweeds, but one never knows and it is such a nuisance if you haven’t got your things when you want them. I always say if you are taking any luggage you might as well take what you need.’
‘It’s only thirteen things,’ said Daphne, ‘besides the things we had in the carriage with us. The car could easily come back for the rest. I say, Uncle Jack, you’ve still got that nice chauffeur you had last time I was here. Hullo, Pollett, how are you? You could easily get our things up to the White House, couldn’t you?’
Pollett touched his cap to Daphne and without making any verbal reply, for he was a man of few words, favoured her with an expressive glance in the direction of his employer.
‘Oh, I suppose Uncle Jack’s one of those people that don’t like luggage on their seats,’ said Daphne, accepting this curious attitude towards the leatherwork of an expensive car as one of the inexplicable facts of life.
‘Perhaps some of it could go up on the porter’s trolley,’ said Mrs Stonor, talking aloud to herself and anyone who was unable to avoid hearing her. ‘It’s only a mile to the White House and not very much uphill and if I said which things we don’t need so much as the others, it would do quite well if we didn’t get them till after tea, or even by dinner-time.’
‘I’d love to go up on this,’ said Denis, who was sitting on a suitcase on the trolley with his long legs dangling over the side. ‘Yes, Lilian, I know I should get axle grease on my trousers, but it is too late, I got it as soon as I came near the thing. It exudes death-rays of grease, yards away. I’ll have to take them into Winter Overcotes and get them cleaned. I can’t think why we haven’t a car of our own. No, darling, I beg your pardon,’ he exclaimed, getting off the trolley and putting his arm round his stepmother. ‘I know it’s because I’m such a damned expense with my foul diseases.’
Mrs Stonor gave him a glance in which some anxiety mingled with a good deal of affection, pressed his arm, released herself and went over to her brother who was now talking to Mr Cameron. But hardly had she begun to expound her plans for the luggage when a trampling, creaking noise came round the bend of the road, resolving itself as it approached into the blue farm waggon with red wheels, drawn by the shining monster with hairy trousers. Mr Pucken, who was as usual seated sideways just behind the horse, addressed a few words to his charge who pulled up and stood quietly waiting for the next job.
‘There, my dear Lilian, is the answer to your questions,’ said Mr Middleton. ‘Tom Pucken will take your luggage up in the cart and I will take you all in the car, for it i
s already past lunch time.’
‘Never mind lunch,’ cried Mrs Stonor. ‘We lunch at any time. I must look at your cart.’
Mr Middleton, who lunched at half-past one and was already annoyed at being late, herded his sister towards the car. Pollett opened the door and Flora, bursting through among everyone’s feet, hurled herself into the car and sat panting on the seat.
‘Here, come out of that,’ said Daphne, hauling Flora’s unwilling dead weight out by a handful of her back. ‘She needs training, Uncle Jack.’
‘She doesn’t,’ said her owner indignantly, answering Daphne back as if they were children of the same age. ‘Come to master, Flora, and sit on master’s knees.’
But Flora, recognizing in Daphne a natural dog-ruler, was crouching slavishly at her feet with worship in her eyes and turned a deliberately deaf and disobedient ear to her master’s invitation.
‘Get in, Lilian,’ said Daphne. ‘I say, Uncle Jack, that’s the best cart I’ve ever seen. I always wanted to know someone who had their name on a cart. “J. Middleton, Esquire, Laverings Farm.” It looks simply marvellous. Could I go up in it, with the luggage? Come along, Denis.’
Denis made a step towards his sister, but was stopped by Mrs Stonor, who begged him to be sensible and come in the car. Denis, who was already feeling the effects of the heat and the wait in the station yard, was secretly glad of an excuse not to accompany his sister and obediently got into the car, looking extremely green in the face.
‘I shall go in front with Pollett,’ said Mr Middleton hastily, not so much from unselfishness as from a wish not to be in the back of the car if young Stonor was going to faint or die in it. ‘Come up, Flora. Come up with master.’
Flora bundled herself into the back of the car, and busied herself in guarding Denis’s feet from possible enemies. Mrs Stonor lingered for a moment to collect Daphne, but her step-daughter was standing in the farm cart like Boadicea while Mr Pucken put the luggage on board.
‘I say, Mr Cameron, it is Mr Cameron, isn’t it, your name I mean,’ Daphne shouted, ‘come up in the cart.’
Mr Cameron looked from Miss Stonor to Mrs Stonor in some perplexity.
‘Yes, do,’ said Mrs Stonor in answer to his look. ‘My brother will go mad if we wait any longer and I must get Denis back as quickly as possible. Please don’t let Daphne drive the cart or ride the horse or go the long way round, and could you make sure that there are three blue suitcases, because if one is missing it is sure to be the one that is wanted, and could you see that the brown hat box is the right way up because I think some of Denis’s medicine is in it and one of the corks isn’t a very good fit and if the cork comes out —’
But Mr Middleton, angrily saying a quarter to two already, snapped his watch to in a terrifying manner and told Pollett to start, so Mr Cameron never knew what would happen if the cork came out of the medicine bottle and he found himself deserted in the station yard with the masterful Miss Stonor. How he was to stop her driving the cart or riding the horse or going the long way round he couldn’t conceive, and could only hope that his interference would not be needed. So he went over to the cart and told Daphne that her stepmother wanted to know if there were three blue suitcases.
‘I expect so,’ said Daphne indifferently. ‘Come up and we’ll get going. You’ll get a lot of hay on your clothes because Pucken was carting hay this morning, but he gave it a good sweep out he says.’
Mr Cameron in a cowardly way gave up the question of the blue suitcases, and climbed into the cart where he sat on a holdall, feeling that Miss Stonor could deal with the situation far better than he could. Mr Pucken was settling himself in his usual place on the shaft, when Daphne called down to him that she wanted to drive and would he chuck the reins up.
‘All right, miss,’ said Mr Pucken, ‘but mind you don’t pull on them or he’ll pull up. Just let them lay on his back, miss. He knows the way home.’
Daphne caught the reins and flapped them on the monster’s back. Mr Pucken rammed the remains of his tobacco farther into his pipe, lit it and prepared to tolerate the gentry enjoying themselves. Daphne, taking his advice, perched herself on the front of the cart and let the reins lie slack, while Mr Cameron wondered what subjects, if any, would interest her. Suddenly he remembered Mrs Stonor’s second request. Looking round he saw two brown hat boxes. They were shaped like drums and to the lay mind there appeared to be no reason why one way up should be more the right way up than another.
‘Oh, Miss Stonor,’ he said, ‘Mrs Stonor said there was some of your brother’s medicine in one of the hat boxes and she wanted to be sure if the bottle was properly corked. Do you know which it would be?’
Daphne, who had been holding the reins with the air of one guiding the whirlwind and directing the storm, pulled them violently. The monster stopped. Daphne quickly opened one of the hat boxes, rummaged among a confused heap of scarves, woollies, gloves, silk underclothes, powder puffs, anything in fact but the hats for which the box was intended, and at last produced a small pink bundle with a brown stain on it. This she unwrapped and held up a bottle.
‘What a mercy Lilian told you,’ she said. ‘Denis hadn’t room for his medicine, so he gave it to Lilian and she hadn’t room, so I said I’d put it in my hat box and I wrapped it up in my vest, but the cork must have worked a bit loose. Anyway there’s hardly any of it spilt, but it’s made a mess of my vest.’
She drove the cork firmly home, wrapped the bottle up again, thrust it into the pocket of the loose coat she was wearing and flapped the reins. The cart was once more put into action and the monster breasted the hill up to Skeynes village. Mr Cameron then became aware that Miss Stonor was looking at him with what he felt, though he could not account for it, to be disfavour.
‘I suppose,’ she said suddenly and rather defiantly, ‘you don’t think there’s anything wrong with Denis.’
‘Wrong?’ said Mr Cameron, playing for time. ‘Oh no, nothing wrong I’m sure.’
‘Well, you must have noticed,’ said Daphne severely, ‘about his medicine. You’ve just seen it.’
‘Yes, I did see it,’ Mr Cameron admitted, ‘but lots of people have medicine. I have some awful stuff that I take myself sometimes.’
‘Well, Denis is really not well, or he wouldn’t be having medicine at all,’ said Daphne. ‘He’s always been like that and it’s a frightful shame. There’s nothing really wrong with him, he just can’t help it. Sometimes people think he looks like that out of swank, but he loathes it and he can’t bear people to talk about it. So don’t tell him he looks rotten or anything like that because he can’t bear it.’
She ended her explanation with a flushed face and a break in her voice which Mr Cameron found touching though a little unnecessary. She must be very fond of her brother to take him so seriously. He certainly looked pale and weedy, but by no means in mortal danger. However, to be polite he said he was very sorry and he had noticed that Mr Stonor seemed to feel the heat.
‘Mr Stonor?’ said Daphne. ‘Oh, Denis, you mean. Of course he did. That’s why Lilian wanted to get him to the White House as soon as she could. She’s an angel. Not a bit like a step. I really think she married father so that she could look after Denis and take me about a bit, at least I can’t see any other reason. Father found us rather a bore, because he was a Colonel and he wanted army children and I was a girl and Denis was never well, so that was a wash-out. Mother died ages ago in India. Lilian was really our friend first. We warned her what it would be like marrying father, but she seemed to like it all right.’
In face of these interesting family details Mr Cameron felt rather at a loss but luckily the monster turned into the little lane that led to Laverings and the White House, and all the suitcases lurched across the cart. Mr Pucken, knowing that the horse would with Casabianca-like devotion go straight to his stable whatever Miss Daphne tried to do, slipped down from the shaft and went to its head, where he explained to it that a short halt would be necessary to unload the luggage
, after which it would get its dinner. On hearing this the monster stood still, with one hoof delicately poised on the tip of its shoe like a ballerina.
Mrs Stonor’s maid, who had come the day before by motor coach, hurried down the garden path followed by Mrs Pucken. By the greatest piece of good fortune Palfrey, which was the name of the maid, had taken a violent fancy for Mrs Pucken and Mrs Pucken for her. Owing to Mrs Pucken’s favourable introductions Palfrey was already on the best of terms with the village tradesmen and Miss Phipps at the shop, and Mrs Pucken had spent the mornings at Laverings drinking tea and doing a quantity of quite unnecessary cleaning, for the house was already spotless from her ministrations. Lou, to her eternal disgust, had been banished to the scullery to peel potatoes and shell a few peas for lunch, while her mother and Palfrey, whom Lou was instructed to call Miss Palfrey on pain of death, discussed the major mysteries of life, saying what a shame it was Mr and Mrs Middleton hadn’t any children, though Mrs Pucken gave it as her opinion that Mr Middleton was nothing but a big child himself and Mrs Middleton had her hands full.
Before Lunch Page 3