Two in a Train

by Warwick Deeping

  “To see you, miss.”

  Miss Telford appeared to hesitate. Then she asked for her hand-mirror, and the lace cap with pink ribbons in it, and her Japanese dressing-jacket. Miss Telford’s appearance had improved under the pleasant person’s influence; she looked less gaunt and bearded.

  “He may be an impostor, Mary, a young swindler.”

  “Oh, miss, I’m sure he isn’t.”

  Roy was shown up. He entered Miss Caroline’s room carrying his opera hat and coat, and looking the young exquisite. He had an air; he could carry his clothes; he was a remarkably good-looking lad, clear cut and tallish, with a blue eye that was both jocund and innocent. He stood at the bottom of Miss Caroline’s bed and smiled at her.

  “Awfully good of you to see me, Miss Telford. I ought to have been here before. I’ve wanted to come.”

  Miss Telford’s large, dark eyes absorbed him, and the unexpectedness of him.

  “Are you Sam’s son?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not a bit like him.”

  “No.”

  He was looking at her with interest. A few nights ago he had been shown a portrait of Caroline Telford as she had been in the old days. He told her so. He added: “Please don’t think it cheek, but someone said that I resembled the other branch—yours.”

  Miss Caroline laughed and in a way that she had not laughed for years.

  “Then—you must be a young rascal. Sit down, my dear.”

  They got on amazingly well together, for—somehow—this pretty lad in black and white brought back to Caroline Telford a perfume of other days. She was quite sure that he was a charming young rascal, and in those old Victorian days she had sometimes been glad of the rebel youth. For youth asks for life, and the joy and the swagger of it, and presents to love a bunch of roses and not a Calvinistic cabbage.

  “So you are with Spiffin & Winkworth?”

  “For my sins—yes. Or do you think it is for the sins of my fathers?”

  Her old eyes grew arch.

  “Tush! How can you connect sin and Mr. Samuel? I am afraid you lack reverence.”

  “Do I? But really—Aunt Caroline, one can’t help being young.”

  She liked his candour, and his coining of the “Aunt Caroline.” Of course he could not help being young. Samuel had never been young. But she was wondering how Samuel’s son contrived to pay for clothes that most obviously did not come out of Holborn. And he could talk about the theatre, and places where golden youth disported itself. And quite right, too. He had the figure and the face and the air. In the old days he would have been both a wit and a dandy.

  She said: “My dear, I expect Spiffin & Winkworth prefer to employ gentlemen, but in these days—a gentleman does not command full value.”

  He looked at her.

  “That’s so.”

  And suddenly he grew shy. He was a nice lad, and at the back of his mind had flickered the hope that something might be procured from Miss Telford. It had been a rather desperate hope, and he was in a rather desperate mess, but now that the vulgar occasion confronted him he could not begin to make use of it. Yes, it was too damned smeary to come up and see this old woman and ask her for money.

  He said: “Aunt Caroline, I wish you would tell me about the times you knew. It must have been marvellous——”

  “Just what, my dear?”

  “Being the rage, and a reigning beauty. You know, I’m an awfully romantic sort of fool. I’m afraid I’m a swaggerer. I should like to have been a little Beau Brummell. Swish—you know.”

  “Swish! That’s a new word.”

  “Is it? It means—‘it.’ The perfect peacock. So you see—I’m a bit of a rotter.”

  She laughed.

  “How nice to be like that. Apple blossom, my dear. Something to be experienced. Your father never wore vine leaves.”

  Their eyes met.

  “Priceless! The pater wearing a wreath of vine leaves. I say, Aunt Caroline, aren’t you a bit of a wag!”

  “I used to be, my dear. One likes to wag a tail.”

  He remained with her for an hour, and went away without having breathed a word about his desperate situation, and Miss Telford did not ask him to come again. All she said was: “The old image is always propped up in bed. Most people throw sticks at it.” Roy walked all the way back to his digs in Cator Street. He had one and twopence in his pocket, and a queer feeling of satisfaction inside him. Aunt Caroline was a sport. You couldn’t exhibit a sponge to an old woman like that.

  A week or so later Roy went again to No. 7, Vigo Place. He might have been expected, for the pleasant person was able to carry up some cold supper on a tray, nor on this occasion, nor on any subsequent occasion did he ask Miss Telford for money. She was supposed to be very poor, and certainly the house looked sufficiently shabby, and Roy was deciding within himself that if you had poured out your own medicine, the only decent thing was to drink it. He would not squeal. He would go up and see old Spiffin in his private room, and confess to the pawning of sundry articles. It would have to be done very soon, for the monthly checking of stock was imminent, and the lapse would come to light.

  Yes, he would take his medicine.

  But on the evening before the day of doom he went to see Aunt Caroline, and as he was leaving her she produced an envelope from under her pillow.

  “My dear—I’m sure Spiffin & Winkworth don’t pay you as they should do for wearing such beautiful clothes. I want you to let me make you a little allowance. After all, one is only young once.”

  “Aunt Caroline!”

  “No, don’t open it now. When you get home.”

  He kissed her, and to him her gaunt old face had the beauty of kindness, of salvation. At the corner of Vigo Place he stopped to open the envelope, for he could not wait. How much had she given him? A five-pound note? The envelope felt rather fat. It disclosed to his trembling fingers five ten-pound notes.

  He was saved.

  On the following evening he called again on Aunt Caroline. He had an air of having grown up. Almost, he spoke to her like a father.

  “You know, it was topping of you, Aunt Carry, and I’ll take it just this once, and I’m most awfully grateful, but you mustn’t do it again, you know.”

  “And why not, my dear?”

  “Well, Aunt Carry, I don’t want you to feel I’m a sponger. There are certain things a fellow oughtn’t to do.”

  “My dear,” said she, “I’m very old, so we won’t argue. I like to do what I like—which—of course—according to your dear father—is quite sinful. When I was young I used to love fine clothes. And why not? It is good to feel debonair.”

  That same evening she wrote to Mr. Verreker and asked him to call on her immediately, as she wished to make some alterations in her will, and when Mr. Verreker arrived she asked him sundry questions.

  “Samuel is down for a hundred? Isn’t that so?”

  Mr. Verreker consulted the document.

  “Correct.”

  “Leave it at that figure. And the rest of my estate——?”

  “Fifty pounds to each executor. The residuum is left to charities, as you know.”

  Miss Telford appeared to reflect.

  “You can put down the Pleasant Person for two hundred pounds.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I bequeath my bed to Sam’s eldest son, Roy Telford.”

  Mr. Verreker looked at her shrewdly.

  “Your bed?”

  “Yes, bed and bedding. I presume the words are adequate—and cover the case.”

  “You mean——?”

  She nodded, and he smiled.

  “I’ll so word it that the terms are comprehensive.”

  On the third of September Miss Telford passed away in her sleep, and Mr. Verreker, who could be as mischievous as the old lady, dispatched the necessary letters, and made the necessary arrangements. Mr. Samuel received a letter, and in a moment of presumption saw golden possibilities and posted up to town with h
is wife. Of course he would conduct the funeral, and Mr. Verreker had to chasten his enthusiasm. Miss Telford had expressly stated that all such formalities were to be dispensed with. And she was to be cremated.

  She was cremated, and when all that was flesh had become ash, Mr. Verreker and the various Telfords gathered at No. 7, Vigo Place. Two more children had come up from the country to reinforce Mr. Samuel and his wife. Edith was there, suspicious and sceptical, and prepared to be disappointed. Roy did not turn up. He had a certain feeling about things. He was less of a commercialist than he had believed himself to be.

  The contents of Miss Telford’s will shocked the family. It was a malicious will. When Mr. Verreker read the clause in which Miss Caroline bequeathed her bed and all that it represented to poor Roy, even his mother exclaimed:

  “Well—really!”

  Yes, really! Leaving the boy her bed, that very disgusting bed in which her old body had wallowed for so many years.

  Mr. Verreker looked down his nose, and spoke to his confidential clerk.

  “I think we had better examine that bed, Sims. Borrow a pair of scissors from Mrs. Luker.”

  The company transferred itself to Miss Telford’s bedroom. Edith was heard to titter; she was a young woman with no imagination, and she was thinking of how Roy would look when he heard about his legacy.

  Mr. Sims and Mrs. Luker had laid bare the mattress.

  “Split it open,” said Mr. Verreker.

  It was done, and he groped, rather like an elderly child exploring a bran pie. A kind of twinkle came into his eyes.

  “Ha—I thought so. There is something here.”

  He began to extract packets of papers, things that crackled. He passed them to Mr. Sims, who arranged them on the table.

  Mr. Samuel was moistening dry lips.

  “Presuming, sir, that these packages are of value—are we to understand——?”

  Mr. Verreker smiled at him.

  “Certainly. Your son’s legacy, the bed—bedding and all that it may contain.”

  The packages were examined. They contained some twenty thousand pounds in Gold Bonds and Bank of England notes.

  Mrs. Telford’s voice was heard again:

  “Well—really—really!”

  And Mr. Samuel was remembering that his son had ceased to be a minor.

  OLD MISCHIEF

  Mr. Allard was watching a man fishing for sea-urchins. He had set out to walk to Portofino, and had turned aside to lean over the low stone wall where the coast road ran some twenty feet above the rocks. The sun shone, sea and sky met in an absolute blueness, and Allard was constrained to stand and stare. He preferred to regard life as a picture and not to fret over it as a metaphysical abstraction, and he contemplated the green-blue water with the black patternings of submerged rocks, the white boat gliding, and the Italian standing in it with his pronged stick ready to strike.

  Another man came along the road, paused to stare at the boat, and, glancing at Allard’s figure, looked startled. For a moment he was motionless, and then moved rapidly and almost surreptitiously behind Allard’s back, his string-soled shoes making hardly any sound, but Allard was conscious of his passing presence. He turned an idle head and saw an Italian peasant in blue linen trousers and a faded black coat walking away along the road.

  The man was tall, with well set shoulders and hollowed back, nor did he move like a peasant, and Allard’s stare ceased to be casual. There was something familiar about the figure. The back of the fellow’s neck and the shape of his head made some memory click in Allard’s consciousness.

  “Exactly like Wellsford.”

  The absurdity of the suggestion reproved him. Human contours could not claim an individual uniqueness, and homo sapiens might be somewhat the same in England and Italy. Types persisted and resembled each other. Besides, Wellsford was dead—anyway; he was supposed to have died of drink in a London slum.

  But Allard deserted the hunter of sea-urchins and followed the other man along the road, and then it struck him that this fellow was walking with unnecessary speed. Allard saw him glance back, and then diverge towards a rough path that looped its way up the hill-side. His long blue legs were vividly active before he disappeared amid the maquis and the dwarf pines.

  Allard strolled on. Obviously the thing was a mere coincidence. The fellow had no reason to run away from him; he was in a hurry and had taken a short cut, and Allard’s eyes discovered a white building shining through the trees, the Hotel Bella Vista set on a terrace about a hundred metres above the sea, a little family hotel whose en pension terms were exceedingly sympathetic. Allard knew one or two people who were staying at the Hotel Bella Vista—Edith Morley the novelist, old Trevor Cane who was as poor as a church rat. Allard paused again at the gate of the Bella Vista. A private road zigzagged up the face of the hill.

  Should he climb up and call on old Cane? No, it would be tactless, for old Cane would feel it his duty to give him a drink, and as far as drinks were concerned Cane was not Abel. Mr. Allard winced. What a dickens of a joke! And then it occurred to him to wonder whether the man in the blue trousers was connected with the Hotel Bella Vista. He might be the gardener or something.

  But supposing it had been Wellsford? Mr. Allard resumed his walk, reflecting upon the vagaries of the original Wellsford. Why did a man take to drink, and remain immersed in it to his own undoing? Heredity? But there had been no such taint in Geoffrey Wellsford’s case. The sordid submergence had seemed inexplicable.

  That afternoon Allard met Miss Edith Morley at the casino of Santa Maria. Miss Morley was a celebrity of the new school, whose clothes suggested an old-fashioned plush portière. Her dusty meagreness matched her air of negative, pale irony, but Miss Morley was amusing, and Allard had passed beyond the pretty face.

  “May I join you?”

  She wriggled her shoulders, and the eyes that looked up at him through horn-rimmed spectacles were the colour of frosted glass.

  “Does man condescend?”

  Allard sat down and ordered tea with lemon in it. He knew that conversation with Miss Morley proceeded on original lines. It was as jerky and as modern as her prose.

  He said—“Nothing coincidental convinces you.”

  She put her head on one side.

  “Why so Judish? They have brought me two stale éclairs. Why are chocolate éclairs always stale in Italy?”

  “Isn’t that a matter for Mussolini?”

  “Hush, they’ll eject you! But you were suggesting a coincidence.”

  Allard surrendered to a sudden whim.

  “You have a fellow named Wellsford staying at your hotel.”

  “I’m not responsible.”

  “A tallish, finely made man with curious blue eyes—and an air.”

  She put a spoon to her second éclair.

  “Plenty of hair, my dear, but no one with an air. We’re mostly old and obvious.”

  “Then there is no one to whom my description applies?”

  “The only reputable male about the place is the padrona’s husband, and we only see him once a week. A hairy creature who looks after the garden and the vines, and who is stone deaf and never speaks. Yes, now I come to think of it he has lapis lazuli eyes.”

  Mr. Allard chuckled.

  “Another coincidence. You ought to make use of that phrase. How about jacynth locks?”

  Miss Morley said, “Don’t be silly.”

  Now Mr. Allard was not a malicious person, but he was an idle man of mature years who had so little business of his own that he was constrained to dabble in other people’s affairs. He was excessively curious, so much so that some of the younger members of his London club had christened him “Aunty.” He had a nose for anything that was exciting and savoury and a little scandalous, though the excessive candour of the younger generation is eliminating the spinster mind and clarifying muddy waters.

  Mr. Allard discovered a mule-path that climbed through the olive groves behind the Hotel Bella Vista, and Mr. Alla
rd pursued his hypothesis up this path. It was a warm day, with the sea like watered silk and the sky blue crystal, and looking down through the olive trees above the little hotel Mr. Allard saw a man at work, turning over the rich dark soil with the big mattock-like tool used in the south. His blue trousers and white shirt showed up against the vivid green of the herbage which was starred with narcissi and wild tulips.

  Mr. Allard removed his hat and sat down for a moment on a rock. His eyes twinkled, for the fellow at work there was the man he had seen on the road, the Italian ghost of a dead Englishman. Mr. Allard had slipped a small pair of opera glasses into his pocket, and he extracted them and turned them upon the peasant. The man Wellsford had been clean shaven, but this fellow had a tawny beard and moustache, and a face the colour of cedar wood.

  Then Mr. Allard had an inspiration. It did not occur to him that there was anything reprehensible in the trick. It was a perfectly harmless experiment. He put a hand to his mouth and called.

  “Hallo—Wellsford!”

  The reaction was instant. He saw the stooping figure straighten like a spring that had been held flexed. The man stood holding his mattock in two brown hands almost as though he was ready to defend himself. His very blue eyes stared up through the flicker of light and shadow under the olive trees.

  Mr. Allard stood up. The effect of the challenge had surprised him. He smuggled his glasses back into his pocket.

  “Excuse me, you understand English.”

  The blue eyes continued to stare. Almost they were like the eyes of a startled and angry animal. Mr. Allard felt vaguely uncomfortable.

  “Perhaps you can tell me if this is the path to St. Pietro?”

  The man gave a shake of the head and resumed his work on the soil. The mattock rose and fell with a kind of rhythmic ferocity.

  Mr. Allard raised his eyebrows. Had not Miss Morley said that the man was deaf? And the name of Wellsford thrown like a stone into the solitude of his toil under the trees had provoked that sudden, startled lifting of the head and shoulders. Mr. Allard’s curiosity had a bone to play with, and the morning’s bone sufficed him. He carried it off with him down the path.