Two in a Train

by Warwick Deeping

  To the most perspicacious of Critics—from Richard Clarendon. (Joanna Hyde).

  Mr. Verulam was so disturbed that he spilt tea upon the sheets.

  His appearance in the dining-room was both tardy and tentative. The Duchess and the two gentlemen were eating bacon and eggs. Miss Hyde’s chair was unoccupied. There was a sardonic silence, and Mr. Verulam was the colour of underdone meat.

  “Good morning, everybody.”

  Mr. Byng grinned. The Major grunted—“Morning.” The Duchess smiled over the morning paper.

  “Porridge, Mr. Verulam. It’s on the sideboard.”

  They watched the bulk of him spooning porridge. He looked overheated; he perspired. He glanced at the vacant chair.

  His hostess spoke.

  “Oh, Mr. Verulam, Joan asked me to say good-bye to you. Yes, she went off early. She has to lunch with her publisher.”

  Mr. Verulam emitted a sound that was like a grunt extracted from him by a body-blow.

  Mr. Byng seemed to be simmering over his coffee-cup. He was constrained to get up and go to the window and blow his nose. He surveyed the landscape.

  “Wonderful day, Verulam. Hope you won’t get punctured going home.”

  And again he blew his nose, and made moist noises.

  Mr. Verulam was still perspiring. The porridge was very hot. He managed to say something to his hostess.

  “I hope you won’t mind me leaving early. I have to——”

  She beamed upon him.

  “Of course not. Charming of you to come. Such a busy man——”

  It was Mr. Byng who planted the last barb.

  “I expect Mr. Verulam has to hurry back to review a book.”

  THE WOOD

  He was a bachelor aged forty-seven, and he lodged at No. 47, Oxford Terrace, Barnes, and was the owner of a dog named Bob. During twenty-five years or so he had been a clerk in a stockbroker’s office, and he was still a clerk. For a man who had spent his life in the city he was most extraordinarily innocent, a gentle, bookish creature with peculiar ideas about women and the ways of nature. His name was Aubrey, James Aubrey, and he liked to think of himself as a descendant of the famous antiquary.

  The office called him Aunt Jemima.

  “Hallo. Have you heard that old Aunt Jemima’s been left a legacy?”

  “How much?”

  “Don’t know. Wonder what he’ll do with it.”

  “Buy a ton of books. I know what I’d do with it. Buy the breeziest car and the brightest young thing on the market.”

  “A gamble in hot stuff, what!”

  The office was not æsthetic. In fact it was rather vulgarly male, and had it been given twenty chances it would not have guessed what James Aubrey would do with the five hundred pounds left him by his Aunt Guye. He was one of those very innocent and refined creatures who labour under the illusion that society can be uplifted by nice essays and letters to The Times. Aubrey himself had written occasional letters to The Times or the Daily Telegraph. He had sundry soft spots in his consciousness. He became quite excited when corporal punishment for violent criminals was under discussion. He would protest against the brutalising influence of the “cat.” He was an anti-vivisectionist. He believed in the abolition of the death sentence.

  James Aubrey had possessed one ambition, and that a most strange one, to be the owner of a wood.

  He was an Arcadian. He spent his week-ends tramping with a pack, a pair of binoculars, and a book of poetry. He knew his Surrey and Sussex as well as any Londoner could know them, but he knew them as a Londoner, a creature who took his dog for a run on Barnes Common, and was Wordsworthian in his attitude to the first primrose, and who painted impossible mind-pictures of the shepherd and the ploughman and the farmer’s boy. He had a liking for such words as lush, and sweet, and aftermath, and glimmering. He was a nice, innocent soul, and he loved his dog.

  He loved his dog very dearly, and his dog loved him.

  James Aubrey bought his wood. He discovered it where the chalk meets the greensand on a semi-derelict estate that was up for sale. The place was as wild as any nature lover could desire, and the wood was a lot by itself. It was marked on the Ordnance Map as “Lady Wood.” The plot contained fifteen acres of woodland and three of rough grass and scrub.

  Aubrey was greatly excited. He talked to his mongrel rough-haired terrier about the wood and their mutual plans.

  “Bunnies, Bob, hundreds of bunnies.”

  But being a dreamy humanitarian he had to harmonise his belief that wild things should not be slaughtered with Bob’s natural urge to chase and kill rabbits.

  The month was March, and Aubrey’s solicitors were busy with the conveyancing of Lady Wood. Spring was in the air, and Aubrey bought a little second-hand car and was taught to drive it. He purchased also some camping equipment that included a small tent and a camp bed. His plans were taking shape. He was going to make of Lady Wood a delightful week-end retreat, and more than that. He would erect a small and inoffensive bungalow in the centre of the wood, and create a refuge to which he could retreat when the Stock Exchange should know him no more. He had saved a little money and he supposed that a man could live on a few shillings a week in a wilderness like Lady Wood. He could make a garden, turn a part of the rough pasture into a vegetable plot, and keep a few chickens. He would have wood to burn, and old clothes would suffice him.

  Aubrey dreamed dreams and he translated them to Bob in front of his sitting-room fire.

  “Beech trees, Bobbo, beautiful dreaming beeches, and old yews, and thorns and oaks. Not a sound, my lad. A deep, deep stillness. Birds to watch. We’ll have a wonderful time, old lad.”

  Bob whimpered, and wagged a stubby tail.

  “You’re a wonderful man, my master. Let’s get out the car and go down there at once.”

  Bob became a car-fan. He stood perched with his fore paws on the dash, and his nose thrust out and sniffing the air. So far as camping was concerned Aubrey had to possess his soul in patience, for April was proving itself truculent, and a flimsy tent was not a hut. He had arranged for the purchase of a very small sectional bungalow, and had interviewed a jobbing carpenter in Tillworth village. The carpenter had agreed to erect the building for him.

  The great day arrived. Aubrey obtained the whole of Saturday, and he and Bob set forth at six in the morning with a marvellous assortment of stores piled in the car. It was a Robinson Crusoe affair. A rough lane led from the high road to the black gate of Lady Wood, and in the wood itself an ancient track climbed to an abandoned chalk pit and the ruins of a kiln. These interesting relics were part of Aubrey’s property. He got the car up as far as the chalk pit and parked it there. He had chosen for his home a glade among the beech trees where a stretch of rabbit-sleeked turf lay under the open sky. It was an adorable spot, with the great grey trunks ascending and spreading into a network of bronze gold buds.

  Aubrey and Bob unpacked. It was a lengthy business. There was the tent, and a camp bed, a primus stove, four petrol tins full of water, a canvas washing basin, rations, crockery, blankets, towels, a certain white enamelled toilet article into which Bob poked his nose, a suit-case with pyjamas and spare clothes, three books, a pair of binoculars, methylated spirit, a waterproof sheet.

  Aubrey had arranged to interview the carpenter from Tillworth at three o’clock that afternoon with regard to the siting of the hut, and shortly after three the man arrived, wheeling his bike up the track to the chalk pit. Aubrey happened to be covering up the car for the night with a small rick-cover that he had bought for the purpose, and the man placed his bicycle against a tree and helped him. He was a fellow with a long, narrow face, and the eyes of a gipsy, and thin lips that were laconic.

  They walked up the hill to the glade, and Aubrey made conversation.

  “I suppose you know this wood pretty well.”

  “Never been in it before, sir.”

  “It’s a lovely spot.”

  The man had no opinion in the matter. Aubrey notic
ed that he turned his head and glanced back in the direction of the ruined kiln.

  “Can you tell me why it is called Lady Wood?”

  “We don’t call it that.”

  “What do you call it?”

  “Bloody Wood.”

  Aubrey paused in his stride. Was the fellow using the word in the vulgar sense, or was the adjective historical.

  “Why—bloody?”

  “A woman was murdered here—a lady—I should say.”

  “Not recently?”

  “Oh, no, a hundred years or more ago. It’s an old tale in the village.”

  The sun had been shining, but a passing cloud cut off the sunlight. Aubrey noticed it; so did the man.

  “Your village must have a good memory. I suppose when something happened in those days, people made a lot of it.”

  “Maybe they did. The body was burned in that there kiln.”

  Aubrey frowned protestingly. Really, these foolish old horrors were rather superfluous! And, after all, these trees were innocent and peaceful, and no trace of the tragedy could linger here.

  “So—I see—Lady Wood got its name from that unfortunate woman.”

  The man glanced at him queerly.

  “You don’t believe in none of them things.”

  “What things?”

  “Ghosts, and such like.”

  “No, of course not. But—why a ghost?”

  “It’s the lady’s ghost.”

  “What, here?”

  “Yes. She walks in the wood with her head hanging down her back. Just a bit of skin holding it.”

  How very gross and realistic! Aubrey was conscious of slight, emotional nausea. This fellow was an unpleasant brute, and a silly brute. Why tarnish all this beauty with some sordid and ghoulish legend?

  “What a nice story. Well, we’ll forget the poor woman. Here’s the place where I think of having my bungalow.”

  Bob had joined them, a Bob who sniffed at the strange man’s trousers.

  “Never mind the dog. He’s quite gentle. I suppose you can’t put the hut up here?”

  “We could.”

  “What’s the objection?”

  “It’s a long carry from the end of the track. Some of the sections will be all there.”

  “You need help?”

  “Yes, to get the stuff up here.”

  Aubrey was growing a little tired of the fellow. He did not like him, but he had set his heart on having the hut in this glade.

  “All right, arrange for help.”

  “What about water?”

  “You won’t want water, will you?”

  “I was meaning you, sir.”

  “I bring my water with me in cans.”

  “Just a camping hut, a sort of week-end place. Is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe—then—there won’t be any trouble made about that.”

  The fellow could not conceive that the gentleman could be so ignorant of the ways of the official world as not to know that there were certain formalities to be considered. Besides, it was no business of his. He was to be paid for erecting a sectional building, and that was the end of it so far as he was concerned. He cut a couple of hazel sticks with a clasp knife, shaped four pegs from them, and inserted the pegs under Aubrey’s direction.

  “That’s the place then, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “When do you expect the stuff?”

  “It should be on rail now. I suppose you could arrange transport from Tillworth station?”

  “I could do that, sir. I know a chap with a Ford lorry.”

  “Then—I’ll leave it to you.”

  Aubrey and the dog shared a supper-tea in the tent, and while the man was lighting his pipe the dog disappeared upon adventures of his own. Aubrey was conscious of a feeling of vague unrest. The evening became grey and overcast. Was he imagining things, or had the wood suddenly changed its atmosphere and become strange and sinister? He recalled a fantastic picture of a wood in which each tree showed a grotesque face peering from its trunk. Ghosts! How absurd! But he did wish that fellow had not blurted out the details of that ancient and nasty story. Nature was so clean. Hearing distant barkings in the wood, and realizing that Bob had disappeared, he got up and walked in the direction of the sound. He whistled and shouted.

  “Bob—come here, heel.”

  A Bob with a very earthy nose returned to him out of the grey-green gloom. Bob had been down a rabbit hole, and rabbits were real live furry things and not ghosts.

  Aubrey turned in about ten. He left the flap of the tent open for air, and because he liked to look at the dim shapes of his trees. Bob lay on an old cushion beside the bed. The wood was infinitely still, and its stillness seemed deep and reassuring. His camp bed was comfortable and warm. He dozed off, and then woke with a start. The dog was growling.

  “What’s the matter, Bob?”

  He could hear nothing, not the crack of a twig or the stirring of a light breeze in the branches, but the dog still growled.

  “Don’t be silly, Bob.”

  He could suppose that a wood at night was so new to an urban dog that Bob imagined all sorts of canine terrors. At all events, he himself could distinguish no sound in the deep silence, and presently the dog curled himself up again, and Aubrey fell asleep.

  Sunday proved itself an exquisite day, and when Aubrey packed up his gear and climbed into the car on Sunday evening Lady Wood had regained all its reassuring beauty. He thought of its yews and beeches all the week, and on the Saturday he and Bob shared the tumult of the week-end road, but the lane from the Tillworth road brought peace.

  Aubrey ran the car up to the chalk pit. He heard voices in the wood, and a sound of hammering. He was vaguely displeased. He had not imagined that the fellow from Tillworth would work on a Saturday afternoon. Walking up hill to the glade he saw the raw white sections of his hut partly erected. It looked very crude and new among the tall trees.

  The carpenter gave him a laconic nod.

  “Good day, sir.”

  “Getting on all right?”

  “We had a tidy business humping the stuff up here.”

  “Is the hut satisfactory?”

  “Bit flimsy. I suppose you put in plans, sir?”

  “Plans? What plans?”

  “To the U.D.C. at Gayford.”

  “Who are they?”

  The man looked a little contemptuous.

  “The Urban District Council. The surveyor has to pass all plans. You’ll be in trouble—if you don’t.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “Why—I thought everybody knew.”

  “Could you do it?”

  “Yes, I could. But I shall have to charge you.”

  “All right.”

  Since the glade promised to be full of activity till dusk, for the man confessed that he would be working late at the job, Aubrey pitched his tent by the chalk pit and within twenty yards of the ruined kiln, and that night Bob was most unaccountably restless. He woke Aubery up no less than five times during the night, and just before dawn he rushed out of the tent barking savagely. Well—really! Aubrey got up and putting on a raincoat and slipping his feet into his shoes, went out to see if any tangible cause could be discovered. He neither saw nor heard anything. The wood was steeped in grey and mysterious gloom.

  The dog stood on the edge of the glade, barking, and Aubrey lost his temper with Bob.

  “Come here, you fool. Stop it. Lie down.”

  Bob slunk back to him apologetically. There really was something over there in the wood, but apparently the great man his master either could not hear it, or attached no importance to it. Well, well, even the best of masters had to be humoured.

  Dogs are wise creatures, and Bob refrained for the time being from raising alarms, but not so the guardians of civilization. Aubrey had proposed to be at peace and apart in the solitude of his wilderness, but the minions of local government do not permit man to live as he pleases. D
uring the week Aubrey had a letter forwarded to him by the Tillworth carpenter, an official and peremptory letter.

  Dear Sir,

  It has been brought to our notice that you are erecting a dwelling-house in Lady Wood. No plans have been submitted and no permission has been obtained to erect any such building. The work must cease at once pending the submission of plans.

  That was but the beginning of much tribulation. Aubrey wrote to the official, explaining the case, and apologizing for his own ignorance. The building was only a week-end hut, not much larger than a good-sized fowl house. Was it still necessary for him to submit plans? It was necessary. He drew them himself, since the Tillworth man had been rebuffed, and posted them to the surveyor’s office. Nothing happened for three weeks, and the hut remained a half-completed shell.

  A further communication reached him.

  “Please state what system of sanitation is to be installed.”

  Aubrey replied, “I propose to instal an earth closet.”

  Officialdom went one better—“Please state how you propose to deal with sullage water.”

  What was sullage water? He consulted Tillworth. Oh, slops, the contents of sink and bath. He was told that he would have to instal a brick pit. No, seepage down the hill-side could not be permitted.

  Yet another letter arrived. “Please state how you propose to obtain your water supply.”

  Aubrey, mild creature, was growing a little impatient. Why hadn’t they thought of this before? Why fuss about sullage pits before posing him with the problem of water? Was this a sort of game? It might be amusing to the official mind and it might help to justify the official existence, but all this interference threatened to cost him much money. He consulted someone at the office, and that someone tipped him the wink.

  “Dish ’em, old lad. Buy a trailer, and tell ’em you have changed your mind, and that the hut’s to be for tools and potatoes.”

  This was an inspiration. A tiny caravan on wheels would solve the problem, and Aubrey wrote a careful and dignified letter to the Gayford U.D.C. He was sarcastic. He said that in view of the official obstructiveness and bureaucratic interference he did not propose to inhabit the hut. He proposed to spend his week-ends in a small caravan on wheels.