|HAROLD was out of the compartment in a moment. Did the guard mean that
the train had actually left for Abbeylands? It had left six minutes
before, the guard explained, and the station-master added his guarantee
to the statement.
Harold looked around--from platform to platform--as if he fancied that
there was a conspiracy between the officials to conceal the train.
How could the train leave without taking all its carriages with it?
It did nothing of the kind, the station-master said, firmly but
respectfully.
The guard went on with his business of cutting neat triangles out of
the tickets of the passengers in the carriages that were alongside the
platform--passengers bound for Ashmead.
“But I--we--my--my wife and I got into one of the carriages of the
Abbeylands train,” said Harold, becoming indignant, after the fashion
of his countrymen, when they have made a mistake either on a home or
foreign railway. “What sort of management is it that allows one
portion of a train to go in one direction and another part in another
direction?”
“It’s our system, sir,” said the official. “You see, sir, there’re never
many passengers for either the Abbeyl’n’s”--being a station-master he
did not do an unreasonable amount of clipping in regard to the
names--“or the Ashm’d branch, so the Staplehurst train is divided--only
we don’t light the lamps in the Ashm’d portion until we’re ready to
start it. Did you get into a carriage that had a lamp, sir?”
“I’ve seen some bungling at railway stations before now,” said Harold,
“but bang me if I ever met the equal of this.”
“This isn’t properly speaking a station, sir, it’s a junction,” said
the official, mildly, but with the force of a man who has said the last
word.
“That simply means that greater bungling may be found at a junction than
at a station,” said Harold. “Is it not customary to give some notice
of the departure of a train at a junction as well as a station, my good
man?”
The official became reasonably irritated at being called a good man.
“The train left for Abbeyl’n’s according to reg’lation, sir,” said he.
“If you got into a compartment that had no lamp----”
“Oh, I’ve no time for trifling,” said Harold. “When does the next train
leave for Abbey-lands?”
“At eight-sixteen in the morning,” said the official.
“Great heavens! You mean to say that there’s no train to-night?”
“You see, if a carriage isn’t lighted, sir, we----”
The man perceived the weakness of Harold’s case--from the standpoint
of a railway official--and seemed determined not to lose sight of it.
“Contributory negligence” he knew to be the most valuable phrase that a
railway official could have at hand upon any occasion.
“And how do you expect us to go on to Abbeylands to-night?” asked
Harold.
“There’s a very respectable hotel a mile from the junction, sir,” said
the man. “Ruins of the Priory, sir--dates back to King John, page 84
_Tourist’s Guide to Brackenshire_.”
“Oh,” said Harold, “this is quite preposterous.” He went to where
Beatrice was seated watching, with only a moderate amount of interest,
the departure of five passengers for Ashmead.
“Well, dear?” said she, as Harold came up.
“For straightforward, pig-headed stupidity I’ll back a railway company
against any institution in the world,” said he. “The last train has
left for Abbeylands. Did you ever know of such stupidity? And yet the
shareholders look for six per cent, out of such a system.”
“Perhaps,” said she timidly--“perhaps we were in some degree to blame.”
He laughed. It was so like a woman to suggest the possibility of some
blame attaching to the passengers when a railway company could be
indicted. To the average man such an idea is as absurd as beginning to
argue with a person at whom one is at liberty to swear.
“It seems that there is a sort of hotel a mile away,” said he. “We
cannot be starved, at any rate.”
“And I--you--we shall have to stay there?” said she.
He gave a sort of shrug--an Englishman’s shrug--about as like the real
thing as an Englishman’s bow, or a Chinaman’s cheer.
“What can we do?” said he. “When a railway company such as this--oh,
come along, Beatrice. I am hungry--hungry--hungry!”
He caught her by the arm.
“Yes, Harold--husband,” said she.
He started.
“Husband! Husband!” he said. “I never thought of that. Oh, my
beloved--my beloved!”
He stood irresolute for a moment.
Then he gave a curious laugh, and she felt his hand tighten upon her arm
for a moment.
“Yes,” he whispered. “You heard the words that--that man said while our
hands were together? ‘Whom God hath joined’--God--that is Love. Love
is the bond that binds us together. Every union founded on Love is
sacred--and none other is sacred--in the sight of heaven.”
“And you do not doubt my love,” she said.
“Doubt it? oh, my Beatrice, I never knew what it was before now.” They
left the station together, after he had written and despatched in her
name a telegram to her maid, directing her to explain to Mrs. Lampson
that her mistress had unfortunately missed the train, but meant to go by
the first one in the morning.
By chance a conveyance was found outside, and in it they drove to the
Priory Hotel which, they were amazed to find, promised comfort as well
as picturesqueness.
It was a long ivy-covered house, and bore every token of being a portion
of the ancient Priory among the ruins of which it was standing. Great
elms were in front of the house, and on one side there were apple trees,
and at the other there was a garden reaching almost to where a ruined
arch was held together by its own ivy.
As they were in the act of entering the porch, a ray of moonlight
gleamed upon the ruins, and showed the trimmed grass plots and neat
gravel walks among the cloisters.
Harold pointed out the picturesque effect to Beatrice, and they stood
for some moments before entering the house.
The old waiter, whose moderately white shirt front constituted a very
distinctive element of the hall with its polished panels of old oak, did
not bustle forward when he saw them admiring the ruins.
“Upon my word,” said Harold, entering, “this is a place worth seeing.
That touch of moonlight was very effective.”
“Yes, sir,” said the waiter; “I’m glad you’re pleased with it. We try to
do our best in this way for our patrons. Mrs. Mark will be glad to know
that you thought highly of our moonlight, sir.”
The man was only a waiter, but he was as solemn as a butler, as he
opened the door of a room that seemed ready to do duty as a coffee-room.
It had a low groined ceiling, and long narrow windows.
An elderly maid was lighting candles in sconces round the walls.
“Really,” said Harold, “we may be glad that the bungling at the junction
brought us here.”
“Yes, sir,” said the man with waiter-like acquiescence; “they do bungle
things sometimes at that junction.”
“We were on our way to Abbeylands,” said Harold, “but those idiots on
the platform allowed us to get into the wrong carriages--the carriages
that were going to Ashmead. We shall stay here for the night. The
station-master recommended us to go here, and I’m much obliged to him.
It’s the only sensible--”
“Yes, sir: he’s a brother to Mrs. Mark--Mrs. Mark is our proprietor,”
said the waiter.
“_Mrs_. Mark,” said Harold.
“Yes, sir: she’s our proprietor.”
Harold thought that, perhaps, when the owner of an hotel was a woman,
she might reasonably be called the proprietor.
“Oh, well, perhaps a maid might show my--my wife to a room, while I see
what we can get for dinner--supper, I suppose we should call it.”
The middle-aged woman who was lighting the candles came forward smiling,
as she adroitly extinguished the wax taper by the application of her
finger and thumb. With her Beatrice disappeared.
Harold quite expected that he was about to come upon the weak element
in the management of this picturesque inn. But when he found that a cold
pheasant as well as some hot fish was available for supper, he admitted
that the place was perfect. There was no wine card, but the old waiter
promised a Champagne for which, he said, Mr. Lampson, of Abbeylands, had
once made an offer.
“That will do for us very well,” said Harold. “Mr. Lampson would
not make an offer for anything--wine least of all--of which he was
uncertain.”
The waiter went off in the leisurely style that was only consistent with
the management of an establishment that dated back to King John; and in
a few minutes Beatrice appeared, having laid aside her sealskin coat,
and her hat.
How exquisite she seemed as she stood for an instant in the subdued
light at the door!
And she was his.