Part 16 (1/2)

She knew that her husband was away from home, and her intention had been to sleep there that night, and go on to Lorrimer the next morning; but she had been misinformed about the trains, and after many changes and tedious waits, she found herself alone in the middle of the night at a little railway junction, with no chance of a train to take her on for several hours; and what was worse, without money enough in her purse to pay her bill if she went to an hotel. The waiting-rooms were all closed for the night, and there seemed nothing for it but to wander about the station till the train came and released her. She told her dilemma to an old Scotch inspector who was waiting to see what she meant to do. He gave the matter his best consideration, but it evidently perplexed him.

”If you was a box,” he said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, ”we could put you in the left-luggage office.”

”But I am not a box,” Ideala answered, as if only the most positive denial would prevent mistake on the subject.

It was raining hard, and bitterly cold. Only part of the platform was roofed in, and every now and then a gust of wind splashed the raindrops into their faces as they stood beside Ideala's luggage in a circle of yellow light cast upwards by a lantern which the inspector had put on the ground at their feet.

”There's me and Tom, the porter,” he said at last; ”we've got to wait for the two o'clock down and the four o'clock up. Tom, he'll come 'ome and sit over the kitchen fire with me. I suppose, now, you wouldn't like to do that?”

”Indeed I should be very glad to,” Ideala answered; ”that is,” she added quickly, ”if it would not inconvenience you.”

He made an inexplicable gesture, and seemed to consider the matter settled.

”I'll just put this here luggage in the office,” he said, shouldering a box and taking up a portmanteau; but he muttered as he went: ”It's a pity, now, you wasn't luggage.”

Ideala followed him meekly from the luggage-office out into the lane, and down a country path to a little cottage. The door opened into the kitchen, and a young man in a porter's uniform was sitting over a cheery fire reading a newspaper by the light of a tallow candle. The kitchen was large for the size of the house. Besides the door they had entered by there were two others, both closed. The walls were panelled from floor to ceiling with wood darkened by age. Several of the panels were doors of cupboards that projected slightly from the wall, and shelves had been sunk in flush with it, and placed angle-wise in the corners. The shelves were covered with old china. There was a row of bra.s.s candlesticks of good design on the high mantelpiece, and more china stood behind them. On a panel above the mantelpiece a curious design of dogs and horses in a wood had been carved with much patience and some skill. The furniture of the place was an old oak table standing in the window--the window itself had a deep sill, on which was arranged a row of flower-pots, from which a faint perfume came at intervals--a long narrow oak chest, carved and polished, with the date, 1700, on the side of it, a settle, and a dresser covered with the ordinary crockery used by poor people. The brick floor was _rudded_ and sanded, the hearthstone was yellow, and the part under the grate was white. One high-backed old-fas.h.i.+oned chair stood on each side of the hearth. Tom the Porter was sitting in one of them, and at his elbow was a small round table with a pipe, tobacco jar, and two or three books upon it. A square table in the middle of the room was laid out for supper, with a dish, two plates, a beer mug, and half a loaf of bread. Some potatoes were roasting on the hob.

”The old woman's asleep, I expects. You'll mind and not make a noise,”

the inspector said to Ideala, as if he were warning a child to be good.

Tom the Porter rose, and gazed at the lady with his mouth open in a state of astonishment that was justified by the time and place of her advent; but he offered her his chair with the courtesy of a gentleman, and the old inspector bade her make herself at home, which she did by removing her hat and wraps and taking off her gloves. In a higher sphere of life those two men would have stared her out of countenance, but Tom the Porter and the old inspector, not from want of appreciation, but from the refinement that seems natural to people who come of an old stock, whatever their station, and have had china and carved oak in their possession from one generation to another--forebore even to look at her lest she should be embarra.s.sed by their curiosity.

They did the honours of the house with dignity, and without vulgar apology for a state of things that was natural to them, and Ideala at once adapted herself to the circ.u.mstances, and burnt her fingers while attending to the baked potatoes, which Tom had somewhat neglected.

She always declared afterwards that there was nothing so good in the world as baked potatoes and salt, provided the company was agreeable; and now and then she would thrill us with reminiscences of that evening's entertainment--with wonderful accounts of railway accidents-- and of one in particular that happened on a pitch-dark night when fires had to be made to light the workers as they toiled fearfully amongst the wreck of the trains, searching for the mangled and mutilated, the dying and the dead, while the air was filled with horrid shrieks and groans.

For it seems these three, when they had finished the baked potatoes, drew their chairs to the fire and talked. And one can well imagine what Ideala's stories were--her tales of the j.a.panese with whom she had lived; of Chinese prisons into which she had peeped; of earthquakes, tornadoes and s.h.i.+pwrecks, and other perils by land and sea, all told in a voice that thrilled you, whatever it said. Tom the Porter and the old Scotch inspector were in luck that night, and they knew it. When at last it was time for Ideala to go, and in return for her thanks for his kind hospitality, and the contents of her purse, which had rather more in it than she had fancied, the inspector expressed his appreciation with an earnest smack.

”Well,” he said, ”you're rare good company. I shan't mind when you come along this way again.”

The train was late in arriving, and she had only time to rush up to the house, change her dress, and return to the station to catch the one by which she had asked Lorrimer to meet her. Perhaps it was the thought of what she had come to tell him that made her heart beat nervously as the train drew up at her destination, and she leant forward to look for him among the people on the platform. She looked in vain--he was not there.

Something, of course, had happened to detain him; doubtless he had sent a message to explain. She waited a little, but n.o.body appeared to be looking for her. Then she left the station and walked in the direction of the Hospital, thinking he had missed the train, and she should probably meet him on the way. Her nervousness increased as she went.

She was not used to be alone in crowded streets, and she began to feel faint and bewildered. Her heart seemed to stop whenever she saw a fair- headed man, but she reached the Hospital at last, and no Lorrimer had met her.

Then a new fear disturbed her. Perhaps he was ill. She went up to the door, and there, just coming out, Lorrimer's secretary met her.

”I was just coming to meet you, madam,” he said; ”I am sorry I am too late. Mr. Lorrimer has been detained by visitors, and sent me to apologise for his absence. If you will be so good as to come to the library, he will join you there as soon as he is disengaged.”

When she was settled in the library a servant brought her books to her.

She had not come to read, but work was the daily habit of her life, and she went on now, mechanically, but carefully as usual, though with a curious sinking of the heart, and benumbing sense of loss and pain. As she came along in the train she had been thinking how it would amuse Lorrimer to hear of her night's adventure, and of the relief it would be to tell him of all the other things she had come to tell; but now she felt like one bidden to a bridal, and brought to a burial. People were going and coming continually in the library. A gentleman sat at a table near her, busily writing. Servants went backwards and forwards with books. Another gentleman came in and looked at her curiously, and then went away. She began to feel uncomfortable, and wondered what was keeping Lorrimer so long. She thought, too, of leaving the place at once, and going back by an earlier train than she had intended, but it would hardly have been polite. A servant came and told her the library was closed to visitors at two.

”I am waiting for Mr. Lorrimer,” she said.

”Oh, in that case----” and the man withdrew. The name was an open sesame to all parts of the building.

At last he came. She rose with a great sense of relief.

”Let me take your books,” he said.

”I have done with them,” she answered.

And without another word he led the way to his own room.