Читать книгу Danger Calling - Dora Amy Elles - Страница 3

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It has been said that life would be intolerable if we could know what was waiting for us round the next corner. Sometimes, of course, one is sure that one does know. On that Monday morning, coming back from a last bachelor week-end with the Raynes, Lindsay Trevor was sure.

This was Monday, and on Saturday he was going to be married to Marian Rayne. They would spend a honeymoon month in Italy, and when they returned they would have a flat in town and live happily ever after. He had not the least idea when he got into the train at Guildford that he was stepping off the path that he had so pleasantly mapped out. He bought a paper, closed the carriage door, and settled himself into a corner seat.

He was still unfolding his paper, when the door was wrenched nervously open and Miss Alethea Witherington got in with two bags, a basket, and a dog, and an attaché case, and some parcels. The parcels dropped, the basket caught Lindsay on the ankle, and the dog yapped. Lindsay supposed that it was a dog. It was very small and fluffy, and it wore a pale blue collar with three gilt bells, and was attached by a blue lead to a bony middle-aged lady with an enthusiastic eye and odd clothes. She settled herself in the opposite corner, and just before the train started a tall man with a stoop drifted in and sat down with his back to the engine. He at once produced a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles and began to read a shabby book which he pulled out of his pocket.

The train moved out of Guildford station, and Miss Alethea Witherington began to talk cooingly to the little fluffy creature on her lap.

“Didums like a puff-puff—didums then? Didums like to travel with ’ums mother, a precious?”

Lindsay looked over the top of his paper and caught her eye.

“I hope you don’t object to dogs,” she said at once.

He murmured something polite and went back to the golfing news.

Miss Witherington continued to talk to Didums. Perhaps if she went on talking, the young man would put down his paper and see what an exceptionally beautiful and intelligent creature Didums was. It was the chief object of her life to collect admirers, not for herself, but for Didums. The old gentleman was no good at all. Old gentlemen hardly ever liked animals—in railway carriages they sometimes approached rudeness; but young men liked dogs. This was a pleasant-looking young man, quite a gentleman—such a nice grey suit, and really pleasant features, without being handsome. Everyone couldn’t be handsome, but this young man was decidedly pleasant looking and quite a gentleman.

She talked on. Was Didums warm? Was Didums cold? Was Didums hungry? Was he a clever, clever, clever boy? She had the sort of penetrating whisper which comes through everything.

Lindsay gave up trying to read, and merely kept the paper up because he felt certain that if he lowered it, he would be inveigled into a conversation about Didums. He envied the man in the far corner, who read his book with an air of classic calm. He himself was naturally impatient, and the woman was getting on his nerves. She was asking Didums again if he was hungry, after which there was a storm of yaps and an overpowering smell of banana. A paper bag crackled, and Didums was seized with a joyous frenzy.

“Sit then!” said Miss Witherington. “Sit up! No—not on Mother’s knee! Oh, no, a precious—sitting up good and clever on the seat like a grown-up boy!”

Lindsay took another look round the paper. The creature was balancing its inches of fluff, waving its minute paws, and goggling brightly at the banana which Mother was peeling.

“Trust now!” she said. She pinched off a bit in her fingers and stuck it on the fluffy nose. “Trust!”

Lindsay withdrew. He could see that she was simply dying to gather an audience. There was an Ancient Mariner look about that enthusiastic eye, and quite definitely he declined the part of the wedding guest.

Miss Witherington continued to hope. After all, he had glanced once—and was it possible to glance at Didums once and not wish to glance again? Miss Witherington did not think so—not in the case of a young man who was quite a gentleman and so pleasant looking. Now that she had had another peep at him, he had quite a look of Lady Lorrimer’s grandson—the one who had taken a scholarship and was such a comfort to her; not the one who got into debt at Oxford and so very nearly made a most unfortunate marriage.

Didums performed his whole repertory of tricks to the back of The Times. Miss Witherington no longer whispered, but the same penetrating quality informed her louder tones. The last trick was the best. Surely no one could be unmoved by the sight of Didums dying for his country.

“Die for your country, a precious! Die for your country, a clever, clever, clever boy!”

Didums died very realistically with one glistening eye on the last bit of banana. The Times was not lowered. No applause came from behind it. And then the train ran into Woking station and stopped.

Miss Witherington’s colour had risen. She was revising her opinion of the young man opposite—an insensible person, and not really like that charming Mr Lorrimer at all. She gathered up the slighted Didums, and his basket with the pale blue lining, and the attaché case, and the paper bag full of bananas, and another bag full of biscuits, and precipitated herself out of the train and on to the neck of the stout red-faced woman, who was Ida Clement and her dearest friend. Ida loved Didums and had invited him specially to spend the day.

She embraced Mrs Clement more warmly than usual, and did not notice that she had dropped her paper bags until Lindsay picked them up for her. He picked up the basket too, and retrieved the parcels, which she had forgotten, and was snapped at by Didums for his pains. Ultimately he got back into his seat, a porter slammed the door, and the train began to move.

The train drew out of the station. The man in the corner turned a page and read on with that air of being in another century. Lindsay was wondering whether he so much as knew that there had been a dog in the carriage, when he laid his book down upon his knee, pushed up his spectacles till they rested on his forehead, and said, in a gentle cultured voice,

“How would you like to die for your country?”