THE BACK OF BEYOND
The season was drawing to its close. London lay sweltering under a
heat-wave which had robbed the trees in the Park of their fresh June
greenness and converted the progress of foot-passengers along its sultry
pavements into something which called to mind the mediaeval ordeal of
walking over hot ploughshares.
Even the garden at Friars’ Holm, usually a coolly green oasis in the
midst of the surrounding streets, seemed as airless as any back court or
alley, and Coppertop, who had been romping ever more and more flaggingly
with a fox-terrier puppy he had recently acquired, finally gave up the
effort and flung himself down, red-faced and panting, on the lawn where
his mother and Magda were sitting.
“Isn’t it nearly time for us to go to the seaside, mummie?” he inquired
plaintively.
Magda smiled down at the small wistful face.
“How would you like to go to the country instead, Topkins?” she asked.
“To a farm where they have pigs and horses and cows, and heaps of
cream--”
“And strawberries?” interpolated Coppertop pertinently.
“Oh, of course. Or, no--they’ll be over by the time we get there. But
there’ll be raspberries. That’s just as good, isn’t it?”
Gillian looked up, smiling a little.
“It’s settled we’re going ‘there,’ then--wherever it is?” she said.
“Do you think you’d like it, Gillyflower?” asked Magda. “It’s a farm
I’ve heard of in Devonshire, where they want to take paying-guests for
the summer.”
Gillian, guessing from Magda’s manner that the whole matter was
practically arranged, nodded acquiescence.
“I’m sure I should. But will _you_?”--whimsically. She glanced at the
sophisticated simplicity of Magda’s white gown, at the narrow suede
shoes and filmy stockings--every detail of her dress and person
breathing the expensiveness and luxury and highly specialised
civilisation of the city. “Somehow I can’t imagine you--on a farm in the
depths of the country! I believe you’ll hate it.”
“I shall like it.” Magda got up restlessly. “I’m sick of society and the
theatre and the eternal gossip that goes on in London. I--I want to get
away from it all!”
Gillian’s thoughts turned back to the happenings of the last few months.
She thought she understood what lay behind Magda’s sudden decision to
bury herself in the country.
“Have you taken rooms at this farm?” she asked.
“Yes, I have”--shortly. Then, with one of those sudden flashes of
affectionate insight which were part of her essential lovableness, she
went on: “Gilly, are you sure you don’t mind? I ought to have asked you
first”--remorsefully. “I expect you’ll be bored to death. Perhaps you’d
rather not come?”
Gillian’s quiet brown eyes smiled at her reassuringly.
“‘Where thou goest--’” she quoted. “Of course I want to come. I’ve never
been to Devonshire. And I know Coppertop will adore the pigs and cows--”
“And cream,” put in Coppertop ruminatively.
“Tell me about the place,” said Gillian. “How did you hear of it?”
“Through the prosaic columns of the _Daily Post_,” replied Magda. “I
didn’t want a place recommended by anyone I knew. That doesn’t cut the
connecting line one bit. Probably the people who’ve recommended it
to you decide to look you up in their car, just when you think you’re
safely buried, and disinter you. I don’t _want_ to be disinterred. I
propose to get right away into the country, out of reach of everybody
we know, for two months. I shan’t give our address to anyone except
Melrose, and he can forward on all letters.” A small amused smile
crossed her lips. “Then we can answer them or not, exactly as we feel
disposed. It will be heavenly.”
“Still I don’t know where this particular paradise is which you’ve
selected,” returned Gillian patiently.
“It’s at the back of beyond--a tiny village in Devonshire called
Ashencombe. I just managed to find it on the Ordnance map with a
magnifying glass! The farm itself is called Stockleigh and is owned and
farmed by some people named Storran. The answer to my letter was signed
Dan Storran. Hasn’t it a nice sound--Storran of Stockleigh?”
“And did you engage the rooms on those grounds, may I ask? Because the
proprietor’s name ‘had a nice sound’?”
Magda regarded her seriously.
“Do you know, I really believe that had a lot to do with it,” she
acknowledged.
Gillian went off into a little gale of laughter.
“How like you!” she exclaimed.
The train steamed fussily out of Ashencombe station, leaving Magda,
Gillian, and Coppertop, together with sundry trunks and suitcases, in
undisputed possession of the extremely amateurish-looking platform.
Magda glanced about her with amusement.
“What a ridiculous little wayside place!” she exclaimed. “It has a kind
of ‘home-made’ appearance, hasn’t it? You’d hardly expect a real bona
fide train to stop here!”
“This your luggage, miss?”
A porter--or, to be accurate, _the_ porter, since Ashencombe boasted but
one--addressed her abruptly. From a certain inimical gleam in his eye
Magda surmised that he had overheard her criticism.
“Yes.” She nodded smilingly. “Is there a trap of any kind to meet us?”
Being a man as well as a porter he melted at once under Magda’s
disarming smile, and replied with a sudden accession of amiability.
“Be you going to Stockleigh?” he asked. The soft sing-song intonation
common to all Devon voices fell very pleasantly on ears accustomed to
the Cockney twang of London streets.
“Yes, to Storran of Stockleigh,” announced Coppertop importantly.
The porter’s mouth widened into an appreciative grin.
“That’s right, young master, and there’s the wagonette from the Crown
and Bells waiting to take you there.”
A few minutes later, the luggage precariously piled up on the box-seat
beside the driver, they were ambling through the leafy Devon lanes at
an unhurried pace apparently dictated by the somewhat ancient quadruped
between the shafts. The driver swished his whip negligently above the
animal’s broad back, but presumably more with the idea of keeping off
the flies than with any hope of accelerating his speed. There would be
no other train to meet at Ashencombe until the down mail, due four
hours later, so why hurry? No one ever appears to be in a hurry in the
leisurely West Country--a refreshing characteristic in a world elsewhere
so perforated by tubes and shaken by the ubiquitous motor-bus.
Magda leaned back in the wagonette with a sigh of pleasure. The drowsy,
sunshiny peace of the July afternoon seemed very far removed from the
torrid rush and roar of the previous day in London.
It was almost like entering another world. Instead of the crowded,
wood-paved streets, redolent of petrol, this winding ribbon of a lane
where the brambles and tufted grass leaned down from close-set hedges to
brush the wheels of the carriage as it passed. Overhead, a restful sky
of misty blue flecked with wisps of white cloud, while each inconsequent
turn of the narrow twisting road revealed a sudden glimpse of distant
purple hills, or a small friendly cottage built of cob and crowned with
yellow thatch, or high-hedged fields of standing corn, deepening to gold
and quiveringly still as the sea on a windless afternoon.
At last the wagonette swung round an incredibly sharp turn and rumbled
between two granite posts--long since denuded of the gate which had once
swung between them--pulling up in front of a low, two-storied house,
which seemed to convey a pleasant sense of welcome, as some houses do.
The casement windows stood wide open and through them you caught
glimpses of white curtains looped back with lavender ribbons. Roses,
pink and white and red, nodded their heads to you from the walls, even
peering out impertinently to catch the sun from beneath the eaves of the
roof, whose thatch had mellowed to a somber brown with wind and weather.
Above the doorway trails of budding honeysuckle challenged the supremacy
of more roses in their summer prime, and just within, in the cool shadow
of the porch, stood a woman’s slender figure.
Gillian never forgot that first glimpse of June Storran. She looked
very simple and girlish as she stood there, framed in the rose-covered
trellis of the porch, waiting with a slight stir of nervousness to
receive the travellers. The sunlight, filtering between the leaves of
the honeysuckle, dappled her ash-blond hair with hovering flecks of
gold, and a faint, shy smile curved her lips as she came forward, a
little hesitatingly, to greet them.
“I am so glad to see you,” she said. “Dan--my husband had to go to
Exeter to-day. He was sorry he could not meet you himself at the
station.”
As she and Magda stood side by side the contrast between them was
curiously marked--the one in her obviously homemade cotton frock, with
her total absence of poise and her look of extreme youth hardly seeming
the married woman that she was, the other gowned with the simplicity of
line and detailed finish achieved only by a great dressmaker, her quiet
assurance and distinctive little air of _savoir vivre_ setting her
worlds apart from Dan Storran’s young wife.
“Will you come in? The man will see to your luggage.”
June was speaking again, still shyly but with her shyness tempered by
a sensitive instinct of hospitality. She led the way into the house
and they followed her through a big, low-raftered living-room and up a
flight of slippery oak stairs.
“These are your rooms,” said June, pausing at last at the end of a
rambling passage-way. “I hope”--she flushed a little anxiously--“I do
hope you will like them. I’ve made them as nice as I could. But, of
course”--she glanced at Magda deprecatingly--“you will find them very
different from London rooms.”
Magda flashed her a charming smile.
“I’m sure we shall love them,” she answered, glancing about her with
genuine appreciation.
The rooms were very simply furnished, but sweet and fresh with chintz
and flowers, and the whitewashed ceilings, sloping at odd, unexpected
angles, gave them a quaint attractiveness. The somewhat coarse but
spotless bed-linen exhaled a faint fragrance of lavender.
“You ought to charge extra for the view alone,” observed Gillian, going
to one of the open lattice windows and looking across the rise and fall
of hill and valley to where the distant slopes of Dartmoor, its craggy
tors veiled in a grey-blue haze, rimmed the horizon.
“I hope you didn’t think the terms too high?” said June. “You see, I--we
never had paying-guests before, and I really didn’t know what would be
considered fair. I do hope you’ll be happy and comfortable here,” she
added timidly.
There was something very appealing in her ingenuousness and wistful
desire to please, and Magda reassured her quickly.
“I haven’t any doubt about it,” she said, smiling. “This is such a
charming house”--glancing about her--“so dear and old-fashioned. I think
it’s very good of you to let us share your home for a little while. It
will be a lovely holiday for us.”
June Storran had no possibility of knowing that this dark, slender woman
to whom she had let her rooms was the famous dancer, Magda Wielitzska,
since the rooms had been engaged in the name of Miss Vallincourt, but
she responded to Magda’s unfailing charm as a flower to the sun.
“It will be lovely for us, too,” she replied. “Do you know, we were so
frightened about putting in that advertisement you answered! Dan was
terribly against it.” A troubled little frown knitted her level brows.
“But we’ve had such bad luck on the farm since we were married--the rain
spoilt all our crops last year and we lost several valuable animals--so
I thought it would help a bit if we took paying-guests this summer. But
Dan didn’t really approve.”
“I can quite understand,” said Gillian. “Naturally he wanted to keep
his home to himself--an Englishman’s home is his castle, you know! And I
expect”--smilingly--“you haven’t been married very long.”
Mrs. Storran flushed rosily. She was evidently a sensitive little
person, and the blood came and went quickly under her clear skin at the
least provocation.
“Not very long,” she acknowledged. “But we’ve been very happy--in spite
of our bad luck on the farm! After all, that’s what matters, isn’t it?”
“It’s the only thing that really matters at all,” said Gillian. Her eyes
had grown suddenly soft with some tender recollection of the past. “But
you mustn’t let us give you a lot of trouble while we’re here. You don’t
look over-strong.” Her glance rested kindly on her hostess’s young
face. In spite of its dewy blue eyes and clear skin with the tinge
of wild-rose pink in the cheeks, it conveyed a certain impression of
fragility. She looked almost as though a vigorous puff of wind might
blow her away.
“Oh, I’m quite well. Of course I found looking after a farmhouse rather
heavy work--just at first. I hadn’t been used to it, and we can’t afford
to keep a servant. You see, I married Dan against the wishes of my
people, so of course we couldn’t accept any help from them, though they
have offered it.”
“I don’t see why not,” objected Magda. “They can’t feel very badly about
it if they are willing to help you.”
“Oh, no--they would, gladly. But Dan would hate it in the circumstances.
You can understand that, can’t you?”--appealingly. “He wants to justify
himself--to prove that he can keep his own wife. He’d be too proud to
let me take anything from them.”
“Storran of Stockleigh appears to be considerably less attractive than
his name,” summed up Gillian, as, half an hour later, she and Magda
and Coppertop were seated round a rustic wooden table in the garden
partaking of a typical Devonshire tea with its concomitants of jam and
clotted cream.
“Apparently,” she continued, “he has married ‘above him.’ Little Mrs.
Storran obviously comes of good stock, while I expect he himself is just
an ordinary sort of farmer and doesn’t half appreciate her. Anyway, he
doesn’t seem to consider her much.”
Magda made no answer. Characteristically her interest in June Storran
had evaporated, pushed aside by something of more personal concern.
“This is the most restful, peaceful spot I’ve ever struck,” she said,
leaning back with a sigh of pleasure. “Isn’t it lovely, Gilly? There’s
something homelike and friendly about the whole landscape--a sort of
_intimate_ feeling. I feel as if I’d known it all for years--and should
like to know it for years more! Don’t they say Devon folk always want to
come home to die? I’m not surprised.”
“Yes, it’s very beautiful,” agreed Gillian, her gaze resting contentedly
on the gracious curves of green and golden fields, broken here and there
by stretches of ploughed land glowing warmly red between the ripening
corn and short-cropped pasture.
“I believe I could be quite good here, Gillyflower,” pursued Magda
reflectively. “Just live happily from one day to the next, breathing
this glorious air, and eating plain, simple food, and feeding those
adorable fluffy yellow balls Mrs. Storran calls chickens, and churning
butter and--”
Gillian’s ringing, whole-hearted laughter checked this enthusiastic
epitome of the simple life.
“Never, Magda!” she asserted, shaking her head. “I’m quite expecting
you to get bored in about a week and to rush me off to Deauville or
somewhere of that ilk. And as to being ‘good’--why, it isn’t in you!”
“I’m not so sure.” Magda rose and together they strolled over the grass
towards the house, Coppertop skirmishing happily behind them. “I really
think I might be good here--if only for the sole reason that there’s no
temptation to be anything else”--drily.
As she spoke a gate clicked close at hand. Followed the sound of quick,
striding steps, and the next moment a man’s figure rounded the tall yew
hedge which skirted the foot of the garden and came towards them.
He was a big giant of a man--at least six foot two in his socks, and
proportionately broad and muscular in build. There was something free
and bold in his swinging gait that seemed to challenge the whole world.
It suggested an almost fierce independence of spirit that would give or
take as it chose, but would never brook dictation from any man--or woman
either.
Instinctively Magda and Gillian paused, and Magda held out a slim hand,
smiling, as he overtook them.
“I’m sure you must be Mr. Storran,” she said.
He halted abruptly and snatched off his cap, revealing a crop of crinkly
dark-brown hair thatching a lean sunburnt face, out of which gleamed a
pair of eyes as vividly blue as periwinkles.
“Yes, I’m Dan Storran,” he said simply. “Is it Miss Vallincourt?”
Magda nodded and proceeded to introduce Gillian. But Storran’s glance
only rested cursorily on Gillian’s soft, pretty face, returning at once
to Magda’s as though drawn thither by a magnet.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t meet your train myself to-day,” he said, a note of
eager apology in his voice.
Magda smiled at him.
“So am I,” she answered.