Dead Man's Quarry (3 page)

Recalling the phrases of this letter, which now lay in his pocket-book, Felix smiled to himself, half ruefully, half with amusement. His father had evidently written in a white heat of anger, and was probably by now regretting his strong language. A man of wrath, his father, but too impulsive and generous to make a good hater. Felix, who had been observing his new cousin closely for three days, could not see cause for quite such a bitter jeremiad. Charles was not the traditional young English squire, but one could scarcely expect a Colonial to take up such a position gracefully. He would learn in time what he could and could not do in his new state of life; probably his baronetcy had gone temporarily to his head. Certainly he seemed a friendly, an almost embarrassingly friendly, soul.

Thus Felix Price, trying conscientiously to be just to the cousin he instinctively disliked; wincing at the close proximity of that cousin's close-cropped head to Isabel's silky red-gold hair.

“Could we have some more hot water, please?”

The pale, colourless girl took the jug from the tray and asked anxiously:

“Was the eggs boiled all right?”

“Oh, yes, quite,” said Nora with amiable mendacity. Meeting her brother's astounded and reproachful eye, she added sweetly:“A tiny bit hard, perhaps. But it didn't matter.”

The girl looked relieved.

“I was so afraid they'd be hard as rocks, and after you asking for them soft-boiled, I didn't hardly like to bring them in. I'd just put them on to boil and taken a look at the clock, when I saw a man in the yard, going towards the orchard.” She paused, caressing the warm jug and looking at Nora with large, worried eyes. “He had a look as if he didn't ought to be there. And we gets so many apples stolen, the orchard being a bit out of the way from the house, I thought I'd just run out and see as he was up to no harm. I couldn't see him in the yard, and when I went to the orchard gate and looked over, he weren't there, so I had just a look round, forgetting about the eggs, and then I thought: He'll have gone round the house to the front, I expect. So I goes round the house, but I couldn't see him nowhere, and then I remembers the eggs and runs in. And when I looks at the clock and sees the eggs've bin on nine minutes, I thinks: They'll be hard-boiled, I expect.”

“You were right,” said Lion solemnly. “An egg should be boiled three and a quarter minutes. But never mind. We'll say no more about it.”

“Thank you, sir,” murmured the girl, looking apprehensively at what she afterwards described to her father as “the most old-fashionedest young boy ever I saw.” She was about to depart when Lion added:

“Could you tell me something? I do so want to know why this place is called the Tram Inn. Is Tram a Welsh word or something?”

“Welsh?” repeated the girl, staring at him. “Not as I know, sir. I expect it's called the Tram because it used to be called the Crown a long while ago, only the licence was took away, but that was long afore we come here. And then when old Mr. Lloyd, that was here before us and died in the place, took out a licence again, I expect it was called the Tram owing to there being a Crown at Rodland, a mile away on the main road.”

“I see,” said Lion, adopting the kind, brisk manner of an examiner with a well-meaning but rather backward pupil. “That's why it isn't called the Crown. Now could you tell me why it
is
called the Tram, instead of the Pig and Whistle, or the Fox and Geese, or the Rumtifoo Arms?”

“I never heard of an inn with a name like that last, sir,” murmured the girl with a puzzled air. She added pensively: “I expect it's called the Tram because of the quarry.”

There was a dazed pause.

“I see,” said Lion after a moment, his face clearing. “There's a tramway somewhere about to fetch the slate from the quarry. Oh, yes! I see, thank you very much. I was thinking of those large, top-heavy things that go shrieking about the towns. Is the quarry near here?”

“Just across those fields,” said the girl, pointing through the front window. “But it isn't used now, nor hasn't been since I dunno when. Some of the lines from the quarry to where the slate-house used to be is still there. . .”

“How near is this quarry? I think I'll stroll over and have a look at it after tea. Then I can put it on my map to explain the inn.”

“Not more than seven minutes' walk, sir. Just across the field over the road and a bit of common ground. You can see the fence around the top as soon's you get into the field. They're talking of putting up a new one, for, a great piece of the old was blown down in the storms last spring, and it isn't really safe, with children about on the common. But you'll be wanting your hot water, miss.”

She vanished, and Lion rose from the table and strapped his pedometer on to his ankle.

“I think I'll just go across to the quarry while you people finish drinking and smoking,” announced this enthusiast. “Anybody coming with me?”

“Oh, Lion!” protested Nora. “You aren't really going to look at this silly old quarry? You are the most restless kid. Do sit down and be peaceful for half an hour.”

“No, thanks,” said her young brother with a grin. “I'll leave that to you elderly creatures. I want to put the quarry and tram-lines on my map, to show how this inn got its ridiculous name.”

“Can't you put them in the map without seeing them?”

“Certainly not,” replied Lion, scandalized, and departed.

“That young man'll sure go far,” remarked Sir Charles, producing a gold cigarette-case and offering it to Isabel. “He wastes neither words nor time.”

“Could I have another cup of tea, my dear?” asked Dr. Browning. “The schoolboy in pursuit of his hobby is the most earnest and hard-working creature in existence, and an example to us all.”

“At his age,” said Charles, “there was nothing hardworking or earnest about me. My only hobby was to avoid anything that looked like work, and have a good time. What do you say, Felix?”

Filling his pipe, Felix answered thoughtfully:

“At fifteen? Oh, I think I took life fairly seriously. But I wasn't as practical as young Lion, nor as original. I was a bit of a day-dreamer, and saw myself as a second Michael Angelo. Now I'm a photographer, and haven't time for day-dreams. There's a moral, I'm sure. Have you any matches?”

“The moral,” said Isabel, smiling at him, “is obvious. If you hadn't wasted your young years in idle dreams you might have been—”

“A second Michael Angelo?”

“A better photographer,” said Isabel gravely.

“Bravo,” remarked Dr. Browning. “Isabel, you're a girl of sense. No, thank you, Sir Charles. I prefer Egyptian.”

When the six cyclists, refreshed and merry, left the Tram Inn on the last stage of their homeward journey, the sky was filled with the subdued golden light of a fine, windless August evening. The long grey tree-shadows lay perfectly still over the road, and the Welsh hills on the far horizon lying in the sun had a look of glassy fragility, as if they belonged to a distant fairy world.

The travellers all enjoyed that feeling of serenity and well-being that only a large, satisfying tea after a day spent in the open can give. Isabel declared herself ready to cycle another thirty miles, and deplored the fact that Penlow and the end of their journey were only nine miles away.

“I suppose,” said Dr. Browning to Felix, “that you and Charles have a longer journey in front of you. Or don't you intend to make Rhyllan to-night?”

“Not to-night,” replied Felix, focussing his camera on the picturesque, half-timbered little inn they had just left. “We're staying at the Feathers in Penlow to-night and going on to Rhyllan to-morrow. So we shall see you to-morrow morning, and often again, I hope, before we have to be back in London. . . Hullo, Charles! Not a puncture, I hope?”

“Back tyre seems beastly flat,” said Charles, ruefully pinching it. “It was perfectly all right when we arrived here. I think it'll hold, though, if I give it a good pump up. Lend me your pump, Lion, there's a good chap.”

“Certainly,” said Lion, detaching his immaculate pump from his immaculate bicycle; it was a new bicycle, and his own property, and he cleaned it carefully before every journey. “Those people in Worcester are absolute swindlers, hiring out a bike without a pump or mending outfit. I shouldn't pay them, if I were you.”

“As long as I can borrow yours,” replied Charles easily, “I don't mind.”

“That doesn't alter the matter,” said Lion severely, pursuing the ethics of the case. “They didn't know I had a pump. For all they knew, you might have been going to cycle a thousand miles all on your own.”

“Come on, you two,” called Isabel. “We're all going to coast down this hill, and see who goes the farthest along the flat at the bottom. Anybody using either pedals or brakes will be disqualified.”

I beg to be disqualified in advance,” said Dr. Browning, eyeing the long, steep slope that stretched away in front of them. “My brake is my best friend. I suppose it's no use asking you children not to be foolhardy. But for heaven's sake don't start racing down that hill all in a bunch. Go one at a time. Then only the first one will break his neck, and the others'll take warning.”

Felix laughed.

“After that,” he remarked, “I feel it's up to me to go first and save the lives of everybody else.”

But Isabel had wheeled her bicycle out into the road and put her foot on the pedal.

“No,” she said firmly, “I'm going first.”

Half teasingly, half in earnest, Felix wheeled his bicycle alongside hers and prepared to start.

“Can't let you sacrifice your valuable life, Isabel,” he said jestingly. “Let me go first and flatten out the bumps.”

Nora, watching the little contest, saw something like a flash of real temper pass over her friend's flushed, piquant face. It was gone in an instant, and she smiled at her devoted slave.

“No, really,” she insisted. “I'm quite determined, Felix. Let everybody have about half a minute's start, and sit and wait for the others wherever their bicycle stops. Good-bye, Felix! You come next. What a gorgeous run it's going to be!”

Felix had no choice but to give way. Isabel mounted her bicycle and started, slowly at first, then gathering speed till her machine was whizzing down the long hill at a breakneck pace. Her hatless red head disappeared behind a clump of trees at the far corner of the downhill road.

“A reckless young woman,” sighed Dr. Browning. “She seems to lose no opportunity of courting a broken neck. However, having come thus far without a disaster, I suppose she can be trusted to look after herself.”

“Isabel will never break her neck,” said Nora comfortably. “Don't you worry, Father. She has no end of presence of mind. As for me, I make no rash promises not to use my brakes. I don't like the look of this hill.”

“Isabel is an idiot,” observed Lion thoughtfully. “If she doesn't look out, she'll smash her bike to pieces. She won't care, because it's only a hired one. But I'm not going to take any risks with mine.”

He looked fondly at his glittering machine.

Felix said nothing, but mounted his bicycle in grim silence. It was plain that he did not mean to descend basely to the use of his brakes. He whizzed down the hill after Isabel and reached the turning-point of the road, at least, in safety. Lion, calling to Sir Charles to be sure and not leave the pump behind, followed more cautiously, and Nora and her father, with a backward glance at Charles, who was screwing the cap on his valve, mounted together and followed, gaining rapidly on the unadventurous Lion. Even with the judicious use of her brakes, Nora found the descent quite exciting enough. From the top of the hill, one could see a wide panorama of distant trees and fields lying below one like an enchanted country, protected by range after range of hills. The long, swirling lines of the nearer hills shone clear in the evening sun, and through their gaps the far Black Mountains showed like dim blue wraiths. One descended, and shot downwards towards this enchantment, knowing all the while that one would never reach it, that as one approached, enchantment would retreat ever farther and farther away, calling one on. Trees and hedges closed in on one, shutting out the wide world.

For sheer delight in the sense of speed and the cool, delicious air flowing past her face, Nora released her brakes, and the bicycle leapt forward like a living thing. She turned the corner, and the road went on and on downhill, varying in steepness, but always taking her down into the valley. The blood flowed warmly through her veins, the air blew cool on her skin, and her brain seemed clear as crystal. She thought happily of the month ahead of her in her old home in Penlow, before the art school opened again; a month that would be spent in sketching, calling on old friends and expeditions with Lion and Isabel to the hills and Radnor Forest. Whizzing down towards the enchanted valley, she counted her blessings and enjoyed a sense of positive, conscious happiness. It was a pity that she had allowed herself to become so fond of old Felix, since he obviously cared more for Isabel's little finger than for a dozen Noras. But few people lived their lives without once suffering at least a faint intimation of unrequited love; and love was not the only spring of happiness in this lovely world.

She had left her father far behind, and just beyond the second turn of the road shot past Lion, with a derisive shout. Not to be outdone by his sister, Lion released his brakes and overtook her.

“Hullo!” he shouted breathlessly, as they sped along side by side.

“Hullo!” she shouted back, and had no breath for more conversation.

They turned another corner, past a small whitewashed cottage where a woman stood watching them with the intent, rapturous expression of one who foresees an accident, and found that the wild descent was over. The road stretched tamely ahead of them, a flat, narrow ribbon between tangled hedges of hawthorn and briar. About a hundred yards farther on, Felix sat on the grass at the side of the road with his hands clasped round his knees, watching their approach. There was no sign of Isabel.