The Truant Spirit (2 page)

The rhythm of the train became more hypnotic ...
Seven are the Seven who dwell in Heaven ... six are the Six Proud Walkers ... five are the Flamboys under the boat... four are the Gospel Makers ...

She had slipped into a dream which made no sense long before the train stopped with a jerk which threw her across the seat of the empty carriage. She awoke with a start and wondered for the moment where she was. No passengers left the train, and Sabina, hanging out of the window to see where she was, shivered in the cold night air and wished she had not given way to that unusual impulse for self-expression.

The train was about to leave when she saw the name of the station, Kairy, painted on a seat, and, wrenching at the door in panic as she remembered that here she must change, she fell on to the platform as the train began to move. She felt very much alone as she watched the last carriage disappear round a bend in the line. The station seemed deserted and rain was dripping off the glass roof on to her bare head. She had never travelled without Tante or Marthe, and she looked timidly for someone to direct her as to the next procedure. The platforms were devoid of porters; indeed the whole station seemed bereft of life. Ill-lit and ominously quiet except for the wind which whistled in from the outer darkness, it seemed to Sabina a place from which there could be no departure.

She crossed the bridge to the exit and found the ticket-collector already shutting the gates.

“Thought no one got off her tonight,” he remarked crossly. “Ticket, please.”

It was only then that Sabina realised that in her hurry she had left both her handbag and her suitcase in the train. She tried to explain, wondering miserably how she would manage for the night with nothing but the clothes in which she stood up, but the man merely kept repeating: “If you’m lost ticket you have to pay again.”

“But I can’t,” said Sabina, almost in tears. “I keep telling you I’ve left everything in the train—my money as well.”

He regarded her sourly.

“You’m proper mazed. Where be to?” he said at last. She was unfamiliar with west-country phraseology, and looked at him blankly.

“Where be going?” he translated more simply. “The folks’ll mebbe pay for ’e.”

“I’m not staying here,” Sabina said. “I’m going to Truan, and I wanted to know which platform the train goes from.”

“Not without ticket you don’t,” the man replied, “That’s cheating railways to travel without ticket. They could put ’e in gaol, m’dear.”

“But I’ve told you—can’t you ring up the next station and get them to look?”

“Don’t stop afore Bodmin, and that’s another hour. Last train to Truan will have gone by then.”

They stared at each other with dislike; then the ticket-collector made an effort.

“Where be to in Truan?” he asked. “Mebbe you could telephone ’e.”

“I—I’m not expected,” faltered Sabina. “I thought perhaps there would be an inn—there are always inns in villages, aren’t there—somewhere you can stay, I mean?” He spat over his shoulder and became very official. “Now that don’t sound right to me—it don’t sound right at all,” he said, and his eyes beneath the peaked cap seemed suddenly menacing. “It’s my belief you’m just diddling the railways and haven’t no place to go at all. You’d best come with me and see the constable over to police-station. If you’m not diddling railways, then you’m up to no good no ways. You come along o’ me.”

It did not occur to Sabina in her panic that at the police-station she might have explained her position more satisfactorily; she only thought they would send her back to London, to Marthe and the loss of her first precious freedom.

“No ... no ... ” she cried, and before he could stop her she was through the little wicket gate in a flash and swallowed up in the darkness beyond.

She ran down a street between huddled cottages, the rain driving in her face. Presently the houses ended and the road stretched dark and lonely into the unknown country. Her steps slowed to a walk and she went forward with hesitancy, wondering where, in all this confusing blackness, she could find refuge when, at a turn in the road, she came suddenly upon a small public-house, its painted sign swinging disconsolately in the wind, one naked light showing above the shabby saloon door. Sabina knew little of public-houses, but she imagined that all and every one of them must have rooms to let. If the landlady was kind ... if they would trust her until tomorrow ... The ticket-collector’s reaction had not been encouraging, but perhaps he had been slow to understand; in any case it was no fit night to wander aimlessly in a strange countryside. Sabina walked round the solitary car which stood outside and, gathering her courage together, pushed open the saloon door.

It was a quiet little bar and rather shabby. A man stood behind the counter in his shirtsleeves staring morosely into a glass of bitter; the only customer sat on a stool in the corner, his hat pulled down over his eyes to meet the upturned collar of his raincoat.

“Yes, miss?” the landlord said without enthusiasm.

“I—I want a room for the night,” Sabina said, approaching the bar uncertainly.

“Don’t let rooms,” the man said laconically. “What’ll you have?”

“I don’t want anything to drink, thank you. I just wanted a room,” Sabina said a little desperately.

The landlord finished his beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I’ve told you, we don’t let rooms,” he said and added, eyeing her suspiciously, “You got a car?”

“No,” said Sabina, surprised.

“Then where’s your luggage?”

She began to tell him, but at the expression in his eyes she faltered and came to a stop.

“Is there anyone else round here who would take me in?” she ventured at last.

“No,” he replied, “and if you take my tip you won’t try that hard-luck story in these parts. Cornish folk are suspicious of foreigners—specially them without luggage
or
money at this time of night.”

Sabina bit her lip, trying to keep back the tears.

“I’m not a foreigner,” she said, defending the only item in his accusations which she felt to be unjustified.

The stranger at the other end of the bar spoke for the first time. “The term doesn’t imply what you think. It simply means you are not a native of these parts. You might at least serve the young lady with a drink on this filthy night, landlord, even if she hasn’t any money. I’ll pay.”

Sabina turned to look at him, disturbed by the harshness of his voice and the unexpected intrusion into her affairs. His face was in shadow, but she got the impression of pronounced features and a dark complexion.

“No, thank you,” she said, “I—I don’t drink much.

“Very right and proper. What’ll it be?”

The landlord regarded her with weary resignation.

“Come off it, lady,” he said. “I don’t belong to these parts, neither. I’m familiar with such tales where I come from. Might as well get something for your trouble since you’ve found a gent to oblige.”

Sabina said nothing, hating them both, aware now that she was tired and hungry and that running away had been a mistake from the start.

“Brandy,” the stranger said a little sharply, and when the drink was bought, carried it with his own to the far end of the bar as if to exclude the landlord from further conversation.

“You’d better take the next stool,” he said, and Sabina could do no less than comply.

She sat beside him, twining her legs nervously round the long legs of the stool, and stared down at the small glass of brandy in awkward silence.

“Aren’t you going to drink it?” her companion inquired, and she detected mockery in his voice.

She picked up her glass and took a good gulp, which made her cough. Tante liked her
fine
after dinner, but brandy to Sabina had usually meant hot milk and sickness.

“You’ve been badly brought up, or have you got your eye on the clock for closing time?” the stranger said.

She did not understand him and took another gulp to evade answering.

“Dear me!” he remarked mildly. “You’d better bring another, landlord; your optic must give short measure.”

“And what do you mean by that, sir?” demanded the landlord belligerently.

“It was a jest,” the stranger replied equably. “Never think that we should be questioning your hospitality.”

Sabina giggled with the consoling impression that they were both in league against the disagreeable landlord, but when the second brandy was slapped down in front of her she regarded it dubiously.

“Oh, I don’t think—” she began, but the stranger observed carelessly:

“Two will do you good, but make this one last, please.

Brandy—even the stuff dished out in English pubs—is not meant to be taken at a draught.”

She felt reproved and, glancing at him sideways, relinquished the impression that he was somehow on her side. He had removed his hat, and his face, revealed fully for the first time, was not reassuring. He had a slightly saturnine look, she thought, with black eyebrows that lifted at the corners and a hard, twisted mouth. His hair was black and very thick, and his eyes, when he turned unexpectedly to regard her, were a cold, clear blue, disconcerting and somehow alien in his dark face.

“Well, you’ve had a good look—now it’s my turn,” he said, but she averted her face, embarrassed that he had caught her staring, and was immediately confronted with her own reflection in the fly-blown mirror behind the bar. It was a discouraging face, she reflected mournfully, very conscious of his eyes on her profile. The pointed chin and high, rounded forehead did not seem balanced by eyes that were too large and too widely spaced. The fine, pale hair, still damp from the rain, brushed her shoulders in unfashionable disorder, and her cheek-bones, as Tante had often told her, were too pronounced. She sighed and he said with a sudden disarming warmth: “Tell me how you’ve come to be stranded.”

The brandy had given her the courage to confide.

“I’ve run away,” she said and his eyebrows rose.

“From school?”

“Oh, no, I’ve finished with school. From my aunt and Marthe and from—” She paused.

“And from who else?”

“The man I’m going to marry.”

“Indeed. You are engaged, then?”

“Well, not exactly, but Tante has arranged matters.”

“Tante? But you are not French.”

“Oh, no. Tante is my aunt by marriage, and she prefers to be addressed in the French manner—she
is
French, of course.” “And why do you run away from this man you say you are to marry?”

“Because—well, I don’t know that I can really explain. I’m not running away from
him,
exactly, though I think he’s an elderly
roue,
but—well, I suppose it was what Tante would call a
crise de nerfs,
only I’m not supposed to suffer from that.”

“I see. And your—fiance—does he understand about
crises de
nerfs?”

“I don’t know,” said Sabina simply, “I’ve never met him.”

As soon as she had spoken she realised that she had been misled by a warmth which did not exist. The stranger’s eyes held a chill appraisal and the corner of his mouth had a cynical twist.

“You don’t believe me?” she faltered, and he gave the suspicion of a shrug which reminded her of Tante.

“It doesn’t sound very likely, does it?” he replied. A fiance you have never met and an unknown destination in Cornwall. What are you really running away from, or is our friend the landlord by any chance right and this is just a rather ingenuous story?”

Sabina raised her pointed chin.

“I’ve told you the truth,” she said with dignity, “or at least a part of it. There were other reasons, too, that made me come to Cornwall.”

“I’m sure there were,” he countered dryly. “But I should think up something less dated for your next attempt. ”

“Dated?” she repeated blankly. The brandy and the closeness of the little bar were making her feel sleepy.

“Well, in this year of grace girls are not married off by their relations to unknown suitors. What old-fashioned trash have you been reading?”

“In France they are,” said Sabina, and he frowned.

“But we are not in France. What do you plan as your next move?”

Sabrina felt suddenly isolated. She was conscious of the two men waiting for her reply and of the slow, loud ticking of the clock on the wall. Rain still beat against the windows and somewhere a dog barked once.

When she did not answer the uncomfortable stranger said with a hint of impatience:

“Well, where are you trying to get to? At least you must know that.”

“Oh, yes,” she replied with relief. “I was going to a place called Truan, but the last train will have gone by now.”

“In that case I can give you a lift in my car,” he said smoothly. “It happens that I’m going to Truan myself. Your friends will doubtless straighten out the matter of the lost purse and luggage tomorrow.”

“My friends?”

“If your story is true, presumably someone is expecting you.”