Appleby's End (4 page)

“Not more than three miles,” Mr Raven was saying cheerfully. “Unless, of course, anything has gone wrong at the ford. Or there are snowdrifts in Noblet's Lane. Or the axle really goes this time, or our man has been drinking again at the Arms, or Spot casts a shoe.”

It sounded bad. Some sort of answering cheerfulness, however, it would be indecent not to attempt. “One can't ever bar accidents,” Appleby said. “And I must repeat that it's uncommonly kind of you to ask me to stop the night.”

The effect of this was notable. The cypress-suited man uttered a low moan, the girl looked startled, the simian person ground his teeth and the yellow-haired youth gave such a harsh, short laugh as might be evoked in a theatre by some unexpected stroke of savage farce. At the same moment the brakes went on and everybody was on his feet in a movement so simultaneous as to be less disconcerting than irrationally terrifying. The three waitresses disappeared behind lurching and untidy tweeds; the flowing cloak of the melancholy man heaved itself like a universal darkness over the teeming holiday-makers on the beach; between Appleby and Chirico's hotel, like the foul fiend barring the way to sanctuary, was the heavily breathing visage of the higher anthropoid. Appleby, amid a feeling of sudden obliteration beneath this long-nosed avalanche, heard Mr Raven's voice raised in rapid introductions.

“Mr Appleby,” Mr Raven was saying. “Mr Appleby – whose acquaintance I have only just had the happiness of making. Mr Appleby, this is my brother Luke, my brother Robert, my cousin Mark, my cousin Judith. Dear me, here we are.”

“Appleby, did you say?” asked the melancholy man.

“Appleby?” said the girl. Her accent was wholly incredulous – as if it were self-evident that Appleby ought to be called Dobbin or Fido.

“Appleby?” said the simian man. “Well, that's very odd.”

“Appleby!” exclaimed the yellow-haired youth, and gave a laugh harsher and shorter than before.

The door of the compartment was thrown open and there came a whip and howl of wind. Suddenly from the trampled floor and from beneath the seats arson and rape, thin-lipped women and blurry-faced judges, furtive amorists and Edwardian homicides spiralled upward in a crazy resurrection, flapping at the faces and curling round the limbs of the Ravens. The flurry of papers sank again; the Ravens were knee-deep in crime, were free of it, were tumbling on the platform with Appleby following.

It had been a moment of strangeness and obscure alarm. Now there was the dark, and driving snow and the rattle of the departing train.

“By the way,” said Appleby, “what is the name of this sta–”

He stopped, his question already answered. Straight before him, sufficiently lit by the yellow rays of a hanging lantern, was a boldly lettered board. He read the inscription: APPLEBY'S END

 

 

The inky cloak of Luke Raven flapped in the gale like a backcloth to chaos; snowflakes in epicycle and nutation, in precession and varying ellipse, played a mad astronomy about him; he grabbed his hat, raised his melancholy face and yelled to the welkin. “Heyhoe!” yelled Luke Raven.

“Heyhoe! Heyhoe!” Mark Raven, his yellow hair streaming like a bright exhalation in the night, joined in the call. “Hey-hoe-oh!”

“Heyhoe,
Hey
-hoe,
HEY
-hoe, Hey-
HOE
-OH!” Robert Raven, who was rotating warily on his heel much as if he expected the whirling snowflakes to stab him in the back, joined with a positively Bacchic frenzy in the chorus. And even Everard Raven, that mild-mannered and learnedly preoccupied man, was calling “Heyhoe!” into the darkness with surprising vigour. Only the girl Judith remained silent; after a minute's pause she plodded some paces down the platform, up-ended a suitcase, sat on it, and contemplated her family and their chance companion in a gloomy repose. Appleby, who found himself watching this young person with a good deal of attention, stamped his feet – or rather attempted to, with a soft crunch of snow as the only result. Was it the proper thing for all passengers to join in this queer ululation upon reaching Appleby's End – or was it a rite peculiar to Ravens? And what about an Appleby – was he not in something of a special case? These reflections were interrupted by the arrival on the platform of a creature having much the appearance of a giant, weather-bound tortoise. Judith was the first of the Ravens to see the new arrival. “Heyhoe,” she said, “where the deuce have you been?”

Heyhoe came to a halt – a process involving so slight a loss of momentum as hardly to be perceptible to the naked eye. It was to be hoped, Appleby felt, that Spot – the quadruped upon whom all now depended – had notions of locomotion somewhat more vigorous than his driver.

“Been?” said Heyhoe. “I mun eat my dinner.”

Heyhoe was so strikingly reminiscent of Caliban that this was an altogether appropriate opening line. The forehead was low and receding; the eyes were small, feral and deep-set beneath beetling brows; the mouth hung open in a species of rictus or fixed grimace. Heyhoe, in fact, was remarkably like Robert Raven – without the nose. He was further distinguished by being to an incredible degree stooped and bowed to earth; it was this, together with a long, scrawny neck emerging from a multiple series of cloaks like Mr Tony Weller's in the old prints, that gave the tortoise-like effect. “I mun eat my dinner,” Heyhoe repeated with finality, and began to circle slowly round the platform collecting bags and suitcases. Of these he presently bestowed such an astonishing number about his person that when he finally crawled off down the platform the appearance presented was very much that of a pile of inanimate objects mysteriously endowed with spontaneous if microscopic locomotion. The rest of the party – it might have been more natural to say of the cortège – followed. Snow was coming down in an obliterating way. It was colder than it commonly is when snow is falling.

Even at Heyhoe's pace, they were soon out of the station – which appeared to consist, indeed, of a few planks by way of platform and of a shelter which might have afforded adequate cover to the hardier type of Great St Bernard dog. The railway company, it would appear, long before opening up this district to the advances of civilisation, had altogether lost confidence in its task.

They passed through a wicket and now seemed to be standing nowhere in particular, except that before them loomed a vague dark mass, somewhat taller than it was broad, uncertainly elevated upon wheels, and approximately answering – though on a somewhat smaller scale – to Appleby's notion of a stagecoach. It seemed hardly possible that any single quadruped could budge it under the best conditions, let alone on country lanes some six inches deep in snow. The Ravens, however, viewed what was plainly their family conveyance without apprehension, and Everard Raven bustled forward in the most cheerful way. “Heyhoe,” he said, “did you remember the footwarmer? There ought to be just room inside for all.”

Heyhoe shook his head. “You mun have potatoes,” he said with satisfaction.

“Potatoes, Heyhoe? What d'you mean by that?”

Very deliberately Heyhoe took, an ancient carriage-lamp from its socket, opened a creaking door and shone the dull light into the interior. “You mun have potatoes,” he repeated. “And the hens mun have corn and the cow mun have cake. And Spot mun have his bottle of hay.”

They all peered inside, aghast. A superabundance of sacks, each heavy and unwieldy to an extreme, gave the interior more the appearance of a market wain than of a carriage suitable for the reception of six fatigued gentlefolk. Everard Raven shook his head. “Room for Judith,” he said. “But for the rest of us it looks like the box.”

“And the boot.” The ferocious Robert was patting Spot amiably on the haunches, and in the light of the remaining lamp Appleby discerned with some relief that this vital factor in the evening's proceedings was a brute of enormous proportions. “Perhaps some of us had better walk.” Robert as he made this reasonable proposal turned round with a gesture infinitely threatening and violent. He glared at Appleby with spine-chilling ferocity. “But it would be a shame if we didn't manage to get Mr Appleby inside too.”

A man of weaker nerve might have suspected the Ravens' carriage of being an ingenious lethal contrivance – so incongruous were Robert's speech and demeanour. Appleby's protestations, however, were made solely on the score of politeness, and they were overborne by enthusiastic commands and injunctions from which only Heyhoe abstained.

“Quite right,” said Judith. “Plenty of room for Mr Appleby. Push him in.”

“Certainly,” said Luke. “Everard's friend must unquestionably have the advantage of the conveyance. Heyhoe, assist the gentleman to a seat.”

“Push them in,” shouted Mark. “Push in Judith, push in the befriended stranger.” He gave a shove at one of the sacks. “Potato pie. Cattle cake collops. Down with the lid.”

“A rug,” said Everard. “Only three miles – if we have luck at the ford. Heyhoe reasonably sober, I should say. Noblet's Lane, though. Mustn't mind the bumps. Worry about the axle. But soft fall in the snow.”

There was a moment of much confusion, at the end of which Appleby found himself in darkness, in a confined space, and in some doubt as to which adjacent protuberances were potatoes and cattle cake and which Judith Raven. These difficulties, sufficiently harassing under conditions of relative stability, were presently increased by the carriage's giving a violent lurch and then settling down into a wobbling motion discomposing to the stomach and centripetal in mechanical effect. Appleby felt something pressing heavily on his head. This proved to be the roof. He was, in fact, perched up on the bottle of hay.

“If you remain up there when we get in the lane you will break your neck.” Miss Raven offered this information in the most impersonal way. “And if you come down you will find some six inches of seat between me and that sack. You will probably judge social embarrassment preferable to a dislocated cervical vertebra.”

This was scarcely what could be called a come-hither attitude; nor on the other hand was it positively frosty. Appleby made a noise which he hoped was indicative of mild jollity and easy good fellowship. “I'll see what can be done,” he said, and slid cautiously down the side of the bottle. Judith gave a little on the one side and the hay gave a little more on the other. But it was an extremely tight fit. The carriage began to wobble in a particularly agonising way, and it was just possible to hear Heyhoe cursing on the box. “I believe,” said Appleby, “that it was Dr Johnson who held few pleasures to exceed that of driving through the country in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.”

There was a moment's silence. “I should say,” said Judith, “that you weigh about eleven stone six.”

“Well, yes – I do.”

“And you must be just on five foot eleven. Which suggests you are in pretty good condition – for a don.”

“A don!” Whether because of this arbitrary attribution to the academic profession or because of Miss Raven's concentration upon the appraisal of the mere physical and ponderable man, Appleby felt distinctly offended.

“Only a don would bring out a pedantic thing like that about Dr Johnson. Besides, cousin Everard is always picking up dons. Not, of course” – Judith was suddenly polite – “that we're not very pleased that he should have picked up you.”

“Thank you. But I'm not a don. I'm a policeman.”

“A policeman? Do you mean a
detective
?” There was a silence during which Appleby received the impression that his companion was rapidly thinking. “Shades of Great-uncle Ranulph! No wonder Everard nobbled you. He's always harking back to the disreputable family past.”

“He hasn't mentioned your Great-uncle Ranulph. Was he someone who had to be – well – detected by a detective?”

“Certainly not.” It was Judith who was offended now. “Do you mean to say you've never heard of Ranulph Raven?”

Appleby, who had been considerately supporting some of his eleven stone six on his toes, shifted his position and found that he was now quite frankly sitting on his companion. “Ranulph Raven?” he said, a shade wildly. “I seem to remember a Pre-Raphaelite painter–”

“That was his cousin.”

“And a bishop who said something witty about Matthew Arnold–”

“Ranulph's younger brother.”

Appleby made some attempt to change his posture anew. The attempt, being something like that of a small boy who makes an abortive effort to wriggle from the lap of a displeasing relative, merely made things additionally awkward. “A poet,” he suggested hopefully. “Who was in the Foreign Office and wrote triolets and madrigals.”

“Another brother – and the grandfather of Mark and myself. Ranulph Raven had any number of younger brothers. He also had three sons, all of whom you've met: Everard, Luke and Robert. Mark and I are the children of their first cousin: what are called first cousins once removed. That's why we say ‘cousin' to them, although they're enormously older. Are you uncomfortable, or just restless?”

“No, I'm not uncomfortable.” Appleby found himself choosing his words with care. “But as it does appear to be necessary that one of us should sit on the other, I think it might be better–”

“Ranulph was a novelist.”

“Good lord! Yes. Stupid of me. And enormously prolific. A sort of second Wilkie Collins. But, as I was saying–”

“Mr Appleby, if I saw any prospect of sitting on your knee I would certainly prefer it to your sitting on mine. But it's too late for such a major upheaval. Unless we shout to Heyhoe and make him stop.”

“I think perhaps we'd better do that. I'd be quite pleased to get out and walk.” Appleby paused on this, conscious that it was not the happiest of remarks. “I mean–”