Two in a Train

by Warwick Deeping

  “I am at your service always, sir. Just a message on the telephone.”

  “It will be you and no one else, Siegl. I may feel moved to go to Salzburg. You drive like an artist. Good-bye.”

  In the office of Parker’s Hotel a big, bland frau smiled upon Ferrers. She, too, spoke English.

  “You would prefer a room over the lake.”

  “Can I have Number Eleven?”

  She looked surprised.

  “Number Eleven? Why, certainly; but it is a double room.”

  “I should like it, if it will not interfere with your arrangements. Of course, you will charge me correspondingly.”

  So he had been here before, but it must have been long ago, for Frau Blick and her husband had been in charge of the hotel since the war, and Mr. Ferrers was a stranger to her. There was a letter lying on her desk, and she glanced at it, and seemed to be about to make some reference to the letter and then she changed her mind. An English agency had written to reserve a room for a client, and they asked that the room might be Number Eleven.

  “Will you be staying long?”

  “Oh, possibly a week.”

  She put up a hand and smoothed her hair. Well, if that was so, room Number Eleven would be in a position to oblige both parties, for the other client would not be arriving for a fortnight.

  “Shall I show you the room?”

  “Please don’t trouble. I think I know the way. Nothing seems to have changed.”

  “Then I will have your luggage sent up.”

  “Thank you. Can one still lunch on the terrace?”

  “Why—yes.”

  Ferrers did not go directly to his room. He wandered out through the door of the sunny corridor on to the terrace with its pollarded lime trees and its array of chairs and tables, and crossing to the balustrade he leaned against it. He seemed to dream. The little white hotel with its woods and sloping meadows was just the same, poignantly the same, and in recovering a memory he re-experienced moments of passion and regret. The Wurm See glimmered beyond the trees, just as he and she had seen it eighteen years ago on just such a day in June. They had come here for their honeymoon, two romantic and live young things who had been very much in love with each other.

  Love!

  He closed his eyes for a moment, and the face of the man of five and forty became almost the face of a boy. But there were ironic shadows about the mouth and eyes. How much of life was an illusion! How was it that one came to kill the thing one loved? And this whim of his, to return in the month of June, and to look again upon the landscape of a memory! As though life could repeat itself! As though that which was dead could live!

  He turned away, and re-entering the hotel climbed the stairs to the broad, white corridor. He noticed the same clock at the head of the stairs, and as he was about to pass it the clock began to strike the hour of noon. Its deep notes startled him, and he supposed that this clock had been striking the hours all through those eighteen years.

  He opened the door of Number Eleven, and as he did so he thought: “Nothing matters but youth. If one could put back the clock——”

  The very room had not changed. The furniture was the same. He remembered the big wardrobe made of some very dark wood. He remembered her opening the door of the wardrobe and turning to him with a question, “Which dress shall I wear to-night?” He was conscious of a pang of bitterness and of self-accusation. What a damned fool he had been! Yes, he supposed that in the eyes of the world he must appear as one of the favourites of fortune, and yet he was unhappy. The fire of his youth was dying, and he was beginning to grope among the ashes.

  His luggage had been carried up. A big brown suit-case had been placed on the luggage stand at the foot of the bed, and he was about to unlock it when an unexpected sound startled him. Someone was singing, and the sound was as strange to him as the song of some bird in the depths of winter. A shadow seemed to pass across his face. He left the suit-case and went to the window.

  The voice of youth!

  It was singing a song of Noel Coward’s, from “Bitter-Sweet,” and it seemed to suggest abandonment, joy, youth in the spring of the year, full-throated, exultant. Bitter-sweet! The sound appeared to come from the direction of the lake, and to tremble above the flowery grasses, and to rise and fall in the sunlight. It was a voice to which poor Mad Ludwig might have listened while drifting and dreaming in his Swan Boat.

  And then Ferrers saw the singer. It was a girl. She came out from the shadows of the spruce trees, a dark young creature in a yellow knitted coat, and a sage-green skirt. She was bare-legged, bare-headed, and she seemed to move up the flowery slope with a lightness and a fluidity that matched her singing. She was English.

  He stood and watched her, and suddenly he was smitten by a sense of infinite sadness. Youth—youth!

  She was coming to the hotel. He saw her climb the flight of steps to the terrace and stand there looking towards the lake. Her singing ceased. She put her hands behind her head and clasped them, and stood at gaze. He supposed that the world seemed fresh and exquisite to her.

  He watched her turn and walk across the terrace. She was dark and slim, with one of those very white skins, a vivid, lissome creature. All her movements were beautiful. And suddenly her eyes lifted to his window. She saw him there. She seemed amused, and her glance was frank and jocund. Almost it said, “Hallo, old thing! What a solemn face we’ve got! I’m jolly hungry.”

  They met at lunch. That is to say they found themselves at neighbouring tables under the lime trees. She was alone, but quite obviously ready to renounce that state. The season was young, and the whole terrace theirs, save for two elderly women with cameras and Baedekers. Franz the head waiter, and a youth in a white apron, seemed to regard her table as particularly important.

  It was Fritz who introduced them, Fritz the hotel dachshund, waddling out to share in possible luncheon dainties. He, too, seemed attracted to the young thing’s table, but he did not forget to turn interested brown eyes on Ferrers.

  He sat up to beg.

  “Oh, you greedy old darling.”

  Ferrers was preparing to tempt him with a fragment of pork chop. His eyes met the girl’s, and they smiled at each other.

  “No affectation about Fritz.”

  “Yes, rather refreshing, isn’t it? No troublesome inhibitions.”

  Her smile became challenging.

  “That’s an outside size word.”

  “Just how?”

  “Oh, number seven shoe, and the London school of economics, and high, bald foreheads!”

  He laughed.

  “You prefer spontaneity?”

  “Well—rather! Did you ever taste a more eugenic pork chop? What’s Fritz think about it? Bow-wow. This place makes one feel so gloriously irresponsible.”

  She was a most attractive creature, vivid and vital, if a little restless. Her red lips seemed to open at life like a cherry.

  He said, “It’s a wonderful spot. It makes you feel that you have got mixed up in the prelude to ‘Tristan and Isolde.’ I think I heard you singing.”

  Her glance was mischievous.

  “Probably. It was most disgracefully naked.”

  “I rather thought we had outgrown—such——”

  “Isn’t ‘Bitter-Sweet’ absolute petticoat? ‘Blue Danube’ and all that? Yes, I like it. Oh, yes, Franz, I’ll have a jam omelette.”

  Fritz, feeling himself just a little out of the picture, put his paws on her knees.

  “Darling, aren’t we paying you ’nuff ’tention?—By the way, don’t think me awfully forward, but I’m sure I have seen you before.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh, yes, I have, on a platform and in the papers. You made quite a nice little speech at the last femina show.”

  His face grew serious.

  “Well, put a name to it.”

  “What about ‘Morals and Mayfair’? I have got the German edition upstairs.”

  He laughed; he was please
d.

  “You read it in German?”

  “Yes.”

  “It is a bad book. It must be even worse in German. Why do you read it in German?”

  “Why? Saw it in a Munich bookshop. Yes, it’s not one of your best.”

  He knew that she was right, for it was the book of a tired man, a man who was growing old.

  He said, “Well, you have me labelled. And here’s your jam omelette. What about it?”

  She smiled at the stolid Franz.

  “Oh—I paint pictures, or try to. Lola Lingerman. My grandfather was a Hun. Yes, I had a thing in the Academy last year. That’s supposed to be disgusting, isn’t it? What was more disgusting—no one bought it. But this omelette—is—marvellous.”

  That was the beginning of it, and perhaps Ferrers’ impression of her was like a first glimpse of some audacious picture that provoked his more sober sense impressions. It may be that she tantalized him, challenged the remnants of his youth, and dared him to desire all the colour and the chaos of her. Her voice and her glances stung him, and during those early days she was like a wind blowing upon the embers of his manhood.

  Besides, there was no interference. But for the two serious women with cameras they had this little world within a world to themselves, and to Ferrers she was more than a coincidence. She had rushed into the recrudescence of a memory.

  Her bare legs and arms growing brown in the sun made him feel that he had been sitting in a chair for years like some peevish valetudinarian.

  She went about singing.

  She would provoke the sober Fritz to run races on the terrace, and his short and grotesque legs were not equal to her swiftness.

  It did not occur to Ferrers that he was rather like the dog, a creature to be played with simply because there was no one else for her to play with.

  She called him “Lion,” for his Christian name was Lionel.

  “Hallo—hallo, show a leg.”

  Her vitality was exultant. He felt that he had to match it somehow, though the effort did not distress him to begin with.

  “Come on, race you.”

  She had him out at seven in the morning. She headed him down the terrace steps in her light-blue bathing dress and white canvas shoes. They raced down the meadow to the spruce wood, and half-way through the wood she still led him by two strides. He laboured, and was suddenly wrath with those five and forty years. He managed to pass her on the grassy path going down to the water, but he was a little pinched about the nostrils, and his breath came harshly.

  She flung herself on the grass and laughed. She was panting a little.

  “I’ll beat you to-morrow. I’ll knock off five cigarettes.”

  He lay on the grass beside her, conscious of physical distress. He had not done this sort of thing for years.

  “Right. We’ll go into training.”

  He was glad of the grass and of the imagined respite, but her restlessness was not a thing that nested. She was up again and making for the diving-board.

  “Come on. No slacking.”

  He watched her go in like an arrow. He realized that he had never been much of a diver, but he got up and walked to the board. She was shaking her wet head and laughing.

  “Come on. It’s marvellous.”

  His header wasn’t quite of that order. He went in with a flop and a splash, and came up to the sound of her laughter.

  “Oh, what a flat one!”

  She splashed a handful of water into his face.

  She outswam him, and next morning she outraced him, and he was conscious of more than the physical soreness of heart and muscles. He told himself that he was flabby, and that he had not walked ten miles at a stretch since the war, and Bavaria was a land of walkers and mountaineers. Damn it, he would match her youth, even if he didn’t visualize her as mischief.

  “Look here, we ought to tramp, you know.”

  “Oh, rather. Are you going to dress the part, nice charming shorts and a purple shirt?”

  “Not quite that, but I’ll carry the lunch.”

  They walked. His marching orders were for the Oster See, and the day was hot, and five miles out a shoe began to chafe him. She sang; she challenged him to sing, but he made a very bad second. He had set out very much Lion, but before they reached the Oster See he was more nearly related to an overladen ass.

  Lunch. They sat down on a grassy slope that was incredibly gay with flowers, and he had brought a bottle of red wine with him, and he was glad of that wine. She might send the blood to his head, but he had a sore foot and had been concealing a limp.

  She ate sandwiches and drank red wine.

  “Simply marvellous, isn’t it? All these flowers.”

  He asked her the names of them. It was part of his ritual that a woman should know the names of flowers, but she didn’t know them.

  “Does it matter?”

  “But I thought you painted flowers.”

  “So I do, but I don’t know the names of the damned things.”

  He was vaguely shocked. Well, anyway he could lie on the grass and smoke a pipe and rest. She sprawled on her tummy, and lit a cigarette, and, unfolding a map, made a sudden disturbing suggestion.

  “Say, Great Man, let’s make a real posh day of it, and walk home round the lake.”

  He frowned.

  “Which lake?”

  “Why, the Old Wurmsee. It will be some hike.”

  He bit hard at the stem of his pipe.

  “Good God, it must be twenty miles!”

  “I did thirty last year with a lad from Oxford.”

  He looked at her as she lay making little restless movements with her feet. Almost he said to her, “You young devil!” But was he going to confess that he was not a lad from Oxford, and that he couldn’t do it?

  “Much too hot, my dear. Can’t you enjoy a slack?”

  She gave him an oblique and considering glance.

  “Poor old Lion’s got a sore paw. Righty-right. Una won’t be hard on him.”

  His sudden passion to possess her youth took on a flush of anger. It was very near to hate, and being an interpreter of other people’s lives he should have been forewarned. They returned by the way they had come, and she did not sing, and he was unable to conceal a limp, and the hot pride in him raged.

  “Poor old Lion. I’ll take you for a ride to-morrow.”

  He said, “I was laid up for a month before coming out here; that’s why I’m a little out of training. You’ll find me as hard as nails in a week. It’s not so very long ago since I did my twenty miles in marching order on French pavé.”

  “Oh, the war.”

  “Yes, the war.”

  “Ten years ago—nearly. When did the war stop?”

  “Don’t you remember?”

  “I remember—we were beastly short of butter—and sugar. I was just a kid.”

  “And the war was nothing to you?”

  “Don’t be boring. Where was Blenheim fought? Somewhere down this part of the world, wasn’t it? In A.D. 10. We’ll do stunts to-morrow.”

  “You mean—you want to hire a car. I know a little fellow in Munich.”

  She laughed.

  “My dear, I have a car. Yes, what you old warriors would call a Ruddy Bentley. Me—driven! I chaufe myself—rather.”

  His voice sounded slightly sullen.

  “Yes, I suppose you would. There are times when I loathe cars.”

  She said, “Really! I’ll rush you over to Oberammergau to-morrow, yes, the place where they have that funny old play. We’ll go there in a fiery chariot.”

  At Parker’s Hotel Frau Blick discussed domestic details and her clients with her husband.

  “I rather wish that girl would go, Heinrich. She’s a little too young for this place.”

  Herr Blick stroked his big nose.

  “The gentleman—I think——”

  “She’s making a fool of him. He told me he came here to be quiet.”

  “So—he thought, my dear.”

>   Next day she showed her husband a letter. She dealt with the correspondence and the accounts.

  “Read that, Heinrich.”

  He read it.

  “The lady arrives on Thursday. Well, that’s all right, isn’t it?”

  “But haven’t you noticed the name?”

  “Ferrers.”

  “Yes, the same name as his. She was the one who asked for Number Eleven. He—wanted Number Eleven.”

  Herr Blick stroked his nose.

  “You are putting her in twelve.”

  “Yes, but don’t you see the coincidence? Supposing——?”

  Herr Blick did see it.

  “Well, it’s no affair of ours, my dear.”

  “Do you think I ought to tell Mr. Ferrers?”

  “Certainly not. Besides, he may know. It is no business of ours.”

  Next day Ferrers woke up feeling stiff and out of temper and resenting the suspicion that youth might be mocking him. Damn her, a little touch of the cave-man might be indicated. Was he not very much a lion in the eyes of the world? She was going to drive him to Oberammergau, and he rather thought that he might possess himself of the wheel and show her a thing or two. Yes, he could handle a high-powered car.

  And so he could—with limitations, limitations that were yet unrealized, but Lola Lingerman was to educate him. They set out at ten, and for the first mile or two she drove like Herr Siegl. She was douce and demure, but she had an eye on her passenger.

  If Ferrers thought he knew a little about speed, he was accustomed to the controlled and balanced speed of a man who adapted his driving to the road. In touring at home the pace at which he travelled might gradually increase, and in the second hour he would be averaging ten miles an hour more than during the first. Not so Miss Lingerman. When she let go it was with a crash, and at the end of two minutes’ speeding along a winding road Ferrers’ feet were pressing hard against the floor-board.

  “She can move a bit, can’t she?”

  “Yes, it’s some car.”

  She laughed and cut a corner fine.

  “And I’m some driver, what?”

  He was feeling very uncomfortable and angry because of it.

  “You’re taking risks, my dear.”