The Lamp of Fate Part 30

"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 amus.e.m.e.nt.

"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 c.o.c.kney tw.a.n.g 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 gra.s.s leaned down from close-set hedges to brush the wheels of the carriage as it pa.s.sed. 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 cas.e.m.e.nt 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 a.s.surance 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 pa.s.sage-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 coa.r.s.e 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 rea.s.sured 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 circ.u.mstances.

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 b.a.l.l.s Mrs. Storran calls chickens, and churning b.u.t.ter and--"

Gillian's ringing, whole-hearted laughter checked this enthusiastic epitome of the simple life.

"Never, Magda!" she a.s.serted, 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!"