Appleby's End (3 page)

“I beg your pardon?”

“Yatter. A ghastly little place. Yatter, Abbot's Yatter and King's Yatter. Then we come to Drool… I think you said you hoped to change at Linger?”

“Yes.”

“Um.” Mr Raven peered into the darkness which was again jolting leisurely by. “Inclement,” he said gloomily; “really very inclement indeed.”

“You think there may be some difficulty about changing at Linger?”

“But presently” – Mr Raven spoke briskly and inconsequently, as one who avoids the premature disclosure of discomfiting intelligence – “but presently we shall be filling up.” He closed Stuttaford and began to sweep crumbs, papers and peanut shells from the empty seats. “I suppose it was your aim to get to Sneak or Snarl?”

“I've booked a room at the inn at Snarl. And I certainly hope to get there tonight.”

Mr Raven shook his bead. “I am very sorry to have to tell you that it can't be done. The train for Snarl never waits to make this connection.”

Appleby stared at his companion aghast. “But,” he said feebly, “the timetable–”

Again Mr Raven shook his head – in commiseration, and also perhaps in some amusement at the extravagant expectations of the urban mind. “My dear sir, the timetable was printed long before Gregory Grope's grandmother fell down the well.”

“I hardly see–”

“For a long time she was just missing, and her house at Sneak – a very nice house – stood empty. But when she came up with the bucket one day” – Mr Raven was methodically stowing the Scholars and Men of Science in his suitcase – “and it was quite clear that she was dead, Gregory Grope's mother moved to Sneak from Snarl.”

“Do I understand,” asked Appleby resignedly, “that Gregory Grope is an engine-driver?”

“Exactly so. If I may say so, Mr Appleby, you possess a keen power of inference. Gregory Grope drives the Snarl train, and the train, of course, spends the night at Snarl. But Gregory has to get home on his motor bicycle to Sneak, and his mother is decidedly strict about late hours. It appears that it was as the consequence of a nocturnal diversion, somewhat surprising in a woman of her years, that old Mrs Grope came to her unfortunate end. But I digress. The point is that Gregory and his train now leave Linger somewhat earlier than before. Of course you could complain to the district superintendent and I dare say something might be done about it in time.”

“No doubt.” The train had stopped and Appleby opened the window and looked out. Abbot's Yatter, in its aspect as a railway station, appeared to consist of an exiguous wooden scaffolding now rapidly disappearing beneath drifts of snow. As the locality was not one that he hoped to visit again the prospect of the district superintendent's eventual curbing of Mrs Grope's matriarchal power had uncommonly small appeal. “No doubt. But perhaps you can tell me if there is an inn at Linger?”

“An inn? Dear me, no. Of course, there is a waiting-room. But I think I am right in saying that it is used at present for Brettingham Scurl's Gloucester Old Spots.”

“Brettingham Scurl?” said Appleby dully.

“The porter at Linger.”

“Gloucester Old Spots?”

“Gloucester Old Spots. Quite a cleanly variety of pig, I have been told. Nevertheless–”

“What about King's Yatter – or Drool? Is there a pub, or somebody who might let a room?”

“Let me see.” Mr Raven frowned thoughtfully. “There is old Mrs Ulstrup at Drool. She used to let a room. But I doubt if she does now. Not since she went out of her mind, poor old soul. Though, of course, you might try.” Mr Raven peered out into the darkness. “Here is King's Yatter already. Do you know the George at King's Yatter?”

“The George?” asked Appleby hopefully.

“Fine little hotel. Incomparable Stilton and very good draught beer.”

“Then I think–” said Appleby, and grabbed at his suitcase.

“My dear sir, I am sorry to say it was burnt down last year. By Hannah Hoobin's boy.”

“Oh,” said Appleby.

“I was on the Bench at the time. It seems that Hannah Hoobin's boy gets a great deal of erotic satisfaction from that sort of thing. I am glad to say that I was instrumental in persuading my fellow magistrates to take an enlightened view of the case.”

“Oh,” said Appleby again. His disinterest in the recondite pleasures of Hannah Hoobin's boy was extreme. “I suppose it's snowing still?”

“Heavily. Ah, I told you we should be beginning to fill up.” And Mr Raven stepped back from the window to allow a newcomer to enter the compartment.

The stranger had not the appearance of one who was likely to bring gaiety to the tail-end of a Sabbath railway journey. He wore a somewhat threadbare suit of cypress green, a flowing and inky cloak, and a large black hat of the kind which popular illustrators used to associate with Anarchy or the Arts. His face was disposed in lines of noble melancholy on each side of a long nose. He looked abstractedly at Appleby, abstractedly at Mr Raven, and then sat down in a corner and curved a long white hand over his eyes. The engine hooted on a rising note and the train, which appeared now to consist of one carriage only, set off at a comparatively brisk pace for Drool. It was when they had passed this station that Mr Raven made his notable offer.

“I really think, Mr – um – Appleby, that your best plan will be to spend the night with me. I should be extremely happy if you would do so. My place is three stops beyond Linger: Sleeps Hill, Boxer's Bottom, and then my own station, at which a conveyance will be waiting. And in the morning I think we can promise to get you across to Snarl.”

This, Appleby felt, was an offer not lightly to be turned down. Whatever the domestic circumstances of the compiler of the
New Millennium
might be, they could scarcely promise less in the way of hospitality than the demented Mrs Ulstrup or Brettingham Scurl's pigs. He was about to announce his grateful acceptance when the train, which appeared to have to cope in this latter end of its journey only with the shortest laps, drew up in Linger Junction, and Mr Raven once more popped out his head. “Not a doubt of it,” he called back over his shoulder. “Gregory has gone. Ah, filling up still.” And once more he stepped back to let a new passenger enter.

It was a girl this time. She had long haunches and slender flanks – she was, in fact, what old-fashioned writers would call tall and slim – and she had long eyelashes and what it was possible to think of as a long nose. Her manner was severe and composed. She sat down without glancing at her fellow travellers, put her toes together, smoothed her skirt and brought out a book. The train was going forward slowly again – presumably as addressing itself to whatever acclivity led to Sleeps Hill – and to its regular and soporific jolting there was now added an intermittent sideways lurch and shudder. This was accompanied by rattlings, clankings, whistlings and wailings. Upon the snowstorm there had been superimposed something between a high wind and a gale.

Appleby turned to his prospective host. “Your invitation is very kind. But I would be sorry to put you–”

“Then that's settled,” said Mr Raven cheerfully. And Mr Raven, it occurred to Appleby, was on the whole steadily cheerful. Or if he would not show up in normal surroundings as absolutely cheerful in himself, yet he had, in this present melancholy setting, a large share of the quality relatively regarded. Appleby frowned at this dubiously philosophical speculation. But the gloom of all else surrounding him was indisputable. Chirico's hotel, the ranked waitresses, the holiday-makers in their overwhelming mourning: all these were becoming more sinister station by station. Nor were the new passengers at all out of key. The man with the inky cloak was staring at Appleby at once fixedly and with a vast inattention – much, Appleby thought, as one stares through a window at some distant and displeasing scene. And the girl had laid down her book and was looking at him too. The girl was really looking at
him
, but rather – surely – as if he were an oddly eroded garden ornament or a freak potato in a horticultural show… “Sleeps Hill,” said Mr Raven comfortably. “And filling up.”

Something long, pale and flattened had appeared against the window, like the under-belly of a sea-slug sucked hard against the side of an aquarium. Slightly above and to either side of this were what might have been two writhing caterpillars of the furry sort, and below each of these was a faint but baleful gleam of fire. The whole, in fact, was a human face engaged in some act of reconnaissance, and a moment later the door was thrown open and its owner heaved himself violently into the compartment.

It was odd, thought Appleby, that here should be another passenger with a notably long nose. And whereas the girl's nose was definitely attractive, the melancholy man's nose at least congruous with his features as a whole, and Mr Raven's nose indisputably utilitarian in that it afforded a number of alternative resting-places for his gold-rimmed glasses, the newcomer's nose was entirely disconcerting. For the eyes, which were small and feral, were deep-set beneath beetling brows after the manner of the higher anthropoids; the forehead was low and receding; the mouth, which was large and thick-lipped, hung open in a species of rictus or fixed grimace; the figure was massive, stooped and lurching. It thus came about that the stranger's long nose achieved a sort of perpetually surprising
tour de force
in asserting a decisively human influence over what would otherwise have been an uncompromisingly simian whole.

The train had started again and was gaining speed; indeed, it was going at least twice as fast as it had ever gone before. The new arrival sat in the middle of the compartment with his knees apart and his hands hanging over them in the manner of a pugilist waiting in his corner. He was breathing stertorously as if he had already fought a gruelling ten rounds. And – what was mildly disconcerting – he was glaring at Appleby with what had every appearance of being the most unbridled ferocity.

The girl was looking at Appleby too. She seemed rather taken with him. But in the most peculiar way. There was a sort of latent or smouldering passion in her glance. At the same time it was extremely impersonal. Appleby had an obscure feeling that she would not be nearly so interested in him if he were not sitting precisely as he was under the rays of a gas mantle invented in 1851. There was something unflattering about this. Appleby had a look at the cypress-suited man in the corner.

The cypress-suited man too was still staring. Not exactly through Appleby this time, but rather as if he were something phenomenal and essentially trivial with which the speculative mind must nevertheless of necessity concern itself in the effort to penetrate to a more substantial significance beyond. From under the penthouse of his large black hat the cypress-suited man was looking at Appleby like this. Appleby felt that, on the whole, he preferred the girl. It was somehow less uncomfortable to be of immediate interest in terms of optical science than to serve as a mere starting-point for some voyage into a metaphysical inane. And, of course, altogether preferable to either was being regarded mildly by Mr Raven, who perceived one to be a student with a keen power of inference.

Appleby buried his chin deeper in the collar of his coat and upbraided himself for these self-conscious musings. The sight of the truculent young Appleby in the bowler hat standing outside Gaffer Odgers' cindery hovel had begun it. After some years of being photographed in the society or close vicinity of charred bodies, driven women, blunt instruments, love nests, park benches, furtive amorists and packets of weed-killer one ought to be decidedly hardened to scrutiny. Appleby, on the contrary, was coming to feel rather morbid about it. Sometimes he wondered if it would help to grow a beard.

Rattling and clanking, buffeted by a great wind, bucketing and unbearably jolting, perpetually howling into the night, the train was now rushing dementedly down a gradient that led presumably to the abyss of Boxer's Bottom. The holiday-makers joggled on their beach, Chirico's hotel rocked as if to an earthquake, the faintly hissing light from the gas mantle flickered and flared. Conversation would scarcely have been possible, nor did any of the passengers seem inclined to communication other than by speaking looks and – in the case of the simian man – continued threatening breathings. Mr Raven had tucked away his glasses and was swathing himself in several yards of grey woollen scarf – so carefully as to make Appleby feel a little apprehensive about the nature of the conveyance promised for the next stage of the journey. And now, with a scream of brakes and an alarming hiss of escaping steam, the train jolted to a halt. There was only one more stage to go.

Once more Mr Raven put his head out, and once more withdrew it to admit a fresh passenger. This was a young man dressed in tweeds which were plainly shapeless even under an almost obliterating layer of snow. His mouth was shapeless too and held open in a twisted grin; his hair was a chaos of wavy yellow locks; his features were rugged and extremely asymmetrical; his eyes, which showed wide and amused beneath heavy brows, glinted with what was either extreme vivacity or a mild madness. And he had a long nose.

The young man shook himself like a bear, so that snow flew about the compartment. He then took a survey of those whom he had bespattered, beginning with Mr Raven and ending with Appleby. On Appleby his glance paused; his mouth opened wider and twisted further; he appeared to be on the verge of some malicious and disconcerting announcement. Then he threw himself down on a seat, folded his arms, tossed his head backwards so that his yellow locks flew in air, and finally settled into an attitude of sardonic watchfulness such as one might mark in a man who both expects and welcomes immediate catastrophe. The train, now climbing once more, rumbled through the night with very little promise of anything of the sort.

It was odd about these people, Appleby thought. But for the fact that not one of them had uttered a word to any other, he would have supposed that there must be some degree of kinship between them. Perhaps the long nose was a consequence of the sustained inbreeding that sometimes distinguishes remote and isolated districts. Perhaps from Yatter to Linger and from Snarl to Drool this nose was the rule among people unconscious of any tie of blood. Perhaps Brettingham Scurl and Gregory Grope had it too; perhaps it was a feature still distinguishable in the unfortunate old person who came up with the bucket out of the well… Appleby was aware that things were now considerably quieter in the compartment and that Mr Raven was taking advantage of this to address him once more.