Читать книгу Bracken Turning Brown - Pamela Wynne - Страница 10

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But by the time she had arrived at Keswick she had revived again. Millicent was essentially volatile. Canon Maitland had often marvelled at the miracle that set children in families as diverse in disposition as the poles. Susan and Millicent—the elder so prone to miseries and despairs; the younger so utterly different.

So Millicent stared cheerfully about the wide platform. Instantly intrigued by the station-master she stood and watched him marching up and down by the emptying train. He wore a top hat. How marvellous!

“Keswick Hotel, Miss,” it was the pleasant North-country burr of a porter in Millicent’s ears. He was beaming as he prepared to haul down Millicent’s two suitcases from the rack.

“Oh, no, nothing half so grand as that. It’s a Rectory, miles away in the Vale of Castlemere,” said Millicent. “I never thought about that. How on earth am I to get there?”

“Plenty of motors, Miss,” said the porter hopefully. A young lady alighting from a first-class compartment would be certain to take a motor, thought the porter, visualising the many pairs of eager eyes now riveted on the exit from the station.

“A motor will cost too much,” said Millicent decidedly. Her suitcases now deposited on the platform she felt more uncertain. There had been something in the padded security of the first-class compartment that had given her confidence. Money did not matter when you were with a person like Sir Pelham Brooke. “Some gentleman has dropped his glove in here,” said the porter. He held it out in one hand and slammed the door with the other as the station-master, standing majestically a little higher up the train, raised his whistle to his lips.

“Ah! that must belong to my friend who got out at Troutbeck,” said Millicent calmly. Taking it from the porter she thrust it into her flat coat pocket. Complete and utter rapture, she would now have an excuse to write to him. She would send it back instantly, with a letter.

“A gentleman who got out at Troutbeck?” said the porter unbelievingly.

“Yes,” said Millicent, knowing perfectly well that the porter did not believe her. But that did not matter; she had got the glove. “Now, then, what shall we do?” she said. “I will give you a shilling if you can think of a way for me to get out to the Rectory cheaper than in a motor.”

“Well ...” the porter was amused. The young lady had a way with her, he decided. Something like his Annie who had taken service in London. He pushed back his peaked cap and stared as the long train wound its way out of the station. “Nothing in the van?” he inquired.

“No, only these two suitcases.”

“Then I think I might be able to fix you up with the carter who’s going out to the Guest House with a couple of sacks of flour,” said the porter. “T’ Rectory’s not much farther on.”

“How much will he charge?” inquired Millicent carefully.

“A couple of shillings.”

“Then you’ll get one and six,” said Millicent grandly. She followed the porter out of the station. “Heh!” the porter was shouting across the yard to a young man who stood there in gaiters close up to a motor van.

And the young man once invoked, the bargain was soon concluded. Pocketing his two coins the porter indulged in a loud guffaw. “Left a gentleman at Troutbeck, did she?” he chuckled. “Well, and I wouldn’t be surprised. A taking little thing and not a doubt about it,” and the porter, still chuckling, went stumping back into the station.

Meanwhile Millicent, sitting up close to the driver of the motor van, went steering down the station road into Keswick. Round the dangerous corner into the market place. Cobbles and queer many-cornered shops and the old white-faced clock over the market-hall. And then down past the pencil mill and over the bridge and the brown hurrying river Greta. And then to the left; and in the soft spring evening light Millicent saw for the first time the exquisite enchantment of the closer mountain ranges. Tiny little white cottages like forgotten patches of snow lay along the lower ledges of them. They seemed to be rushing right away into the heart of all the stillness and beauty and majesty of it all.

“Do you know this district, Miss?” The young man had originally come from Carlisle and rather fancied himself.

“No,” said Millicent politely. And then she smiled. “It’s too beautiful for me to take in all at once,” she said. “Please don’t talk as it distracts me.”

So the young man fell silent. The young lady was a lady, he decided. Not like the bare-legged, knock-kneed hussies who made the valleys a sight with their round shoulders and khaki shorts. But all the same ... the young man extracted a cigarette case from his coat pocket with great skill, and with amazing dexterity proceded to light one as the van slid past the Derwentwater Hotel and round the steep lake road that leads into the heart of the beautiful waterway of Cumberland.

While Millicent sat and only gazed. Her whole being was shaken. Susan surely must be happy when she lived in this divine place. Why, it was more beautiful than anything she had ever imagined. Beginning to get dark and a pale star trembling over that great rolling shoulder of mountain ahead of them.

“We turn off here,” said the young man amiably. “I’ll take you to the Rectory first and drop the flour afterwards,” and now they began to steal along a little narrow lane. High hedges on either side of it. And the sound of falling water below them. Meadows stretching down to a little brook, thought Millicent, drinking in the cold evening air and shivering a little from sheer delight in it all.

“That’s the Rectory, yonder,” the young man was jerking his chin upwards.

“There’s a sharp corner here as we cross the bridge. Ought to have been altered years ago, but there’s no traffic this way and they don’t think it’s worth while.”

“Let’s stop at the corner and I’ll pay you,” said Millicent. “Don’t you know when you arrive after not having seen a person for ages it’s rather awkward to have to begin getting out money and things? Also they might think they ought to pay. I’ll give you two shillings, and an extra sixpence if you will very kindly carry in my suitcases for me.”

“With pleasure,” said the young man gallantly. He drew up by the low stone parapet. “A good drop there,” he said. “And when that beck’s in spate it’s a rare sight.”

“I should think it was,” said Millicent. The small transaction concluded she leaned out and took a long breath. And then she gazed down at the rushing torrent. “I shouldn’t like to fall over,” she said.

“Nor I,” said the young man grimly. And then as Millicent lifted her head he spoke again, and this time confidentially. “There’s something rather gloomy about that Rectory, Miss,” he said. “Don’t you agree with me?”

“I do,” said Millicent slowly. Through the dim light she sat there and stared at it. Grey and solitary and unwinking. Only a vague light in an upper window. And then the light suddenly extinguished. The person, whoever it was, was bringing the light downstairs.

But in a few moments she forgot about everything but her sister. Her sister looking hundreds of years ... thousands of years older. And her brother-in-law, trying not to stoop and kiss her too, only having to because in her excitement Millicent hardly knew what she was doing. And as he kissed her the vague faint smell of spirits stabbed Millicent’s brain into an instant alacrity. He drank—of course that was it. What a fool she had been not to think of that before.

But her eyes were laughing and her voice was jubilant as she stood there under the feeble light of the hall lamp. And Susan, seeing her standing there, felt a wave of intense joy and relief flood over her.

“Oh, Millicent, I am glad to see you!” There was something sudden and frantic in the clutch of Susan’s hands on Millicent’s arm.

“So am I glad. And I only hope Arthur is too. It’s rather a shame of a sister-in-law to force her way in like this. Do you mind, Arthur?”

But the Rector was already turning away towards his room. Something terribly pathetic about his back view, thought Millicent, standing and watching him and then seizing her sister again by both hands.

“Are you glad, Susan?” she chattered.

“Desperately, madly glad,” said Susan slowly. And then, as the tears welled slowly up into her eyes, she fumbled helplessly for her handkerchief.

“Don’t take any notice of me,” she said huskily. “But it’s seeing someone of one’s own family. Don’t you know?”

“Of course I know,” responded Millicent sturdily.