The Uninvited Guests (11 page)

‘Yes, we’ve a crowd of you around here somewhere …’ Clovis glanced about, as if to catch them lurking in the shadows. ‘We didn’t expect any more.’

‘Do you have a telephone? Have the Railway contacted you at all?’

‘Yes, there,’ Clovis indicated the device. ‘We haven’t heard a thing. I’m so sorry, you must think me a terrible turnip, do come in. I—’ He broke off, glancing about him and wondering suddenly what Emerald and his mother would have him do with the stranger, so as not to interfere with their precious dinner arrangements. ‘I wonder where old Mrs Trieves can have got to …’ He lit upon an idea. ‘I say, I suppose I ought to introduce you to the other survivors.’

‘I suppose you ought. Thanks,’ said the displaced person, and the two of them went off towards the morning room, leaving Smudge alone once more.

Tremendously relieved. She contemplated the empty hall for some seconds before recalling her original timetable. She must not be distracted from her plan. She shrugged, shook herself and scampered off towards the back of the house.

Clovis led the new arrival briskly down the corridor and opened the door to the morning room to find the guests – the
survivors
, that is – hunched around the fire as if they were trying to discover something in the hearth. On his entrance they turned, in attitudes of outrage and distress, and several voices burst out:

‘There’s no more coal!’

‘No more fuel!’

‘No more fuel at all!’

Clovis was taken aback. All of them – there appeared to be twenty or more – were surging towards him, crossly, and the complaints piling upon one another were almost a chant: ‘We’re cold!’ ‘We’re hungry!’

To make matters worse, the new arrival, Charlie Treverish-Beacon or Haversham-Trevor – Clovis was dashed if he could remember his name – turned to him in some astonishment and cried accusingly, ‘D’you mean to say these poor blighters have all been crowded in here like this ever since the accident?’ And with this startling shift in attitude, he stepped away and into the body of passengers, glowering.

Clovis was amazed and knew not what to say. Traversham-Beechers faced him down. He wore a red waistcoat, of a very rich colour, somewhere between plum and wine; a ruby portcoloured waistcoat, and yet, alarmingly no tie, the absence lending a wildness to his appearance.

‘There are women and children here; d’you want them fainting?’ he demanded.

Having gained a champion and spokesperson, the little crowd had fallen quiet again, and watched the two men calmly to see what the outcome would be.

‘Haven’t they had tea?’ queried a nervous Clovis, at last glancing about the pallid faces. They consented, grudgingly, that they had and there was an unspoken acquiescence in admitting it; nobody who’s been given tea has truly any cause for serious complaint.

The gentleman stepped towards him, neatly, and leaned closer. ‘May I have a word?’ Clovis, wrong-footed again, restrained himself from backing off. This was all too disconcerting. But the stranger smiled keenly.

‘Could we step out for a moment?’

‘Of course.’ Clovis could think of nothing he’d rather do than get out of that room, which had acquired the fug of a railway station waiting room, of sweating coats and slippery oil-skin, the wet-dog smell of damp wool and old carpet. He would rather have shut the door on the changeable Mr Whoever-he-was along with the rest of them, but hadn’t the nerve to do it and feared they’d all come after him if he tried.

‘This way,’ he said, in a pale voice.

Watched suspiciously by the disgruntled passengers, the young man and the visitor stepped out into the cool air of the corridor, but to Clovis’s surprise, once the door was closed behind them, the gentleman let out a big, infectious laugh.

Clovis found himself smiling along with him as he waited to be enlightened as to the joke, and Trevorish-Charlson obliged.

‘Let them think somebody’s fighting their cause!’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Mollification! They’ll leave you alone for hours now!’

‘Ah,’ said Clovis. The gentleman smiled again, and tapped his nose.

Clovis had quite misjudged this man, he was charm personified.

‘They are obviously mostly second- and third-class passengers,’ went on the gentleman urbanely. ‘They often don’t think to ask, the way
we
might. They don’t have the same expectations. Haven’t they been perfect lambs about waiting all this time?’

‘I suppose …’ said Clovis, admitting to himself that he hadn’t taken very much notice of them. Then, casting around for something to say, ‘Did anybody give you an idea when they might come for you all?’

‘None at all!’ said the other, gaily.

‘I believe my sister was going to telephone. You might want to wait in the library; why don’t we go along? Can I offer you some refreshment?’ (He immediately regretted this last, as seeking out the frenzied Myrtle or Mrs Trieves, in all her subdued distress, for crumpets, or similar stop-gaps didn’t remotely appeal.)

‘Refreshed simply by being here, old man,’ was his new friend’s soothing rejoinder and Clovis found he liked him more and more.

He started along the corridor, followed closely by his smiling companion, and there was silence again behind the morning-room door, as the passengers patiently awaited fresh developments.

Emerald had struggled into her evening gown and its various supports and additions with only brief visits from the supremely harassed Myrtle. The dress, of springtime colours, misted green and early rose, fell from two pearled clasps at the shoulder; it was tight under the bust, barely decent above it, and dropped away into the draped silk and embroidered flowers of a long and very narrow skirt, the bottom half of which emerged from a tulip-shaped over-skirt like the clean stem of a flower.

Her toes peeked out beneath, in buckled shoes, dyed to match by gypsies. (They very often camped nearby and specialised in knives, pans and the dyeing of things.) The buttons down the back had taken Myrtle fifteen minutes to fasten. The dress was quite the most beautiful and infuriating thing Emerald had ever had anything to do with.

‘If I didn’t like it so much I should burn it,’ she said. ‘I must stop talking to myself.’ And she went down to try the Railway again before the guests assembled in the drawing room.

The air of the hall was cold and as she reached for the telephone, goose pimples raised along her bare arms, furring the down upon them in futile defence.

This time, Elsie Goodwin’s voice came hurtling down the line like a corncrake shot from a cannon.

‘
Exchange!
’

‘Yes, Elsie, this is Emerald Torrington, at Sterne.’

‘
Up at Sterne!
’ shrieked Elsie, for whom repetition was both habit and delight.

‘I should like to be put through to the Great Central Railway, please.’

And then, suddenly, the line went quiet. It was as silent as a black pond on a still night as one looks across the water wondering what lies beneath the inky flatness. That is to say, Elsie’s voice was no more and there were no crackles, either. Instead, there came a high and carrying gentleman’s laugh, issuing not from the telephone, but from the library. A strange gentleman? Emerald, still holding the telephone, leaned out from the shelter of the stairs towards the library door, which, standing partially open, afforded a broad glimpse of the room within.

She could see Clovis’s legs and feet sticking out near the hearth. He had his dress shoes on, at least, so she wouldn’t have to slaughter him. There, the laugh came again, a big, tenor,
ha ha HA-HA!

Straining further, pulling the telephone cord taut in her efforts, whilst vainly attempting to keep the receiver clamped to her ear, she managed to see the other pair of legs in the room, those belonging to the owner of the laugh. Then, as if to oblige her, both men stood up. Her view of the two of them, across the hall and through the partially closed door of the fairly generous room, was not perfect, but still, the sight of this stranger made her forget Elsie and the Railway.

He was in profile; taller than Clovis and thrusting his long chin out and up to emit the laugh, with the firelight catching the bottom of his face and gleaming onto the deep red silk of his waistcoat.

A red silk waistcoat? For travelling?

His skin looked yellowish in that light, and his fingers long and of the same oily hue. Emerald, startled by the air of hysteria and secrecy that emanated from both this mysterious stranger and Clovis, found herself recoiling inwardly, whilst at the same time strongly intrigued, compelled, in fact, to know more.

She put the telephone on the table with a light thud and laid the receiver next to it. She found herself tiptoeing towards them. The rest of the house was silent all around her as she approached the door.

‘What’s the joke?’ she asked, at the threshold.

Clovis glanced at her. He was holding a lit cigar; where had he got it?

‘This is my sister, Emerald,’ he said casually, gesturing her. Even for him these manners were excessively rude.

The stranger looked over his shoulder; his eyes were deeply disconcerting to her.

‘It’s an absolute pleasure, Miss Torrington.’ He approached her with a half bow but his own name was lost in the wet stub of cigar that he put in his mouth in order to hold out his hand, to shake hers.

He took the cigar from his lips and a heavy curl of smoke stretched, thinning, between his mouth and the cut end, before falling, slowly, down the skin of his chin. Emerald was mesmerised. At a loss, she tore her eyes from him and looked imploringly at Clovis.

‘Cigars before supper?’ she found herself saying and he let out a little yelp, mocking her. ‘Are you one of the passengers?’ she asked, turning back to the stranger, who licked his lower lip as if to catch the escaping smoke and eat it.

‘Yes, Em, obviously!’ said Clovis and Emerald fought the desire to slap him.

She was torn between hauling Clovis from the room to quiz him and her fear that this odious person might pilfer something while they were gone. In the end she did nothing but gaze in confusion at her brother.

‘I think we’ve got off to a bad start, Miss Torrington. I do apologise and take the blame wholeheartedly. Where are my manners?’

He threw his cigar into the fire and Clovis followed suit, straightening his face manfully.

‘Your brother and I were having a dashed silly conversation – wasn’t it, Clovis? Dashed silly.’

‘Beyond it.’

‘And you came in as I’m afraid one of us had made a
rather off-colour remark.
’ He said this last mockingly.

‘Not about a lady,’ put in Clovis. They were for all the world like a practised music hall double act.

‘Oh Lord, no! Nothing like that. Dash it, Clo, we’re digging a worse hole for ourselves!’

Clo?

‘I see,’ said Emerald. ‘I don’t want to appear rude, but I couldn’t be less interested. I was just telephoning the Railway, to see if they’ve made some arrangements to collect you all, so that you might be on your way.’

‘I hope,’ he murmured, suddenly serious, ‘
for your sake
, that they have made some arrangements to collect us all, too, Miss Torrington.’ Then, amending what might have sounded like a threat – did, frankly, sound like a threat – he added, ‘What a thing to happen on a young lady’s birthday.’

He said it so smoothly that the word
birthday
seemed to hold a world of unlooked-for intimacy, and Emerald was appalled afresh.

‘Oh, come on, though, Em.’ Clovis was determined. ‘I’ve already invited our friend to supper, so he won’t be going off in any railway wagon tonight. Not tonight, Em; he’s dining with us.’ And then, with some tiny glimmer of his normal self, he added sweetly, ‘If that’s all right, Birthday Girl?’

It was, of course, very far from
all right
, but Emerald had been put on the spot and failed utterly to see a way off it. Divided from Clovis she was lost, she hadn’t realised how united they were, even in their squabbling, and she felt quite enfeebled without him.

The new friend leaned towards her as he waited for her answer. He teetered forward on his shiny, narrow shoes – although shockingly tie-less, he was very elegantly dressed, as if he’d been on the way to a dinner already – and his face, dropping the sneer she so disliked, was quite charming and open, like a child. She looked from one to the other.

‘You look absolutely splendid, by the way,’ said Clovis. ‘Nice frock.’

‘Yes,’ echoed the gentleman, ‘splendid.’

‘All right,’ she heard herself say weakly. ‘I mean, of course, we’d be very glad to have you.’ And she left them.

‘Topping! Delightful!’ cried one of them behind her, but she was dashed if she could tell which it was.

She collected the telephone again, without much hope of achieving contact with Elsie Goodwin that night, and clicked the loose-hinged cradle several times.

‘
Miss Torrington! Sterne!
’ came the hoarse shriek, making her jump. ‘I have Mr William Flockhart of the Great Central Railway for you. Will you wait?’

‘Yes. Thank you—’

‘Thank YOU!’

Clovis and his friend had drifted into the hall after her as Elsie Goodwin, unseen in her parlour, went clumsily about the business of making the necessary connections. Behind her, the gentleman said, ‘Torrington? Did you say,
Torrington?
’

‘Yes,’ said Emerald, frowning.

‘I didn’t take it in before. Extraordinary.’ Their guest burst out into delighted, warm laughter. ‘I thought so a moment ago but then – oh, it couldn’t be!’ he exclaimed, and again, ‘No, no, surely not! But you are both so like her! Not the colouring, of course, but the chin, the cheek, the brow, the – oh my word, are you the daughter and son of Charlotte Thompson as was – now Torrington?’

‘Now Swift,’ put in Clovis tightly.

‘Yes, we are. You know my mother?’ asked Emerald, forgetting the telephone a moment, trying to pin him down.

‘Coincidence, eh?’ he said, and seemed to search her face minutely, his lips parted breathlessly as he drank her in.

Then, on hearing some sharp sound emanate from the rounded earpiece in her right hand, she put it to her ear again. ‘Hello?’ she said, releasing the mouthpiece from her breast. ‘Hello?’ She rattled the telephone again, but to no avail. ‘Oh dear,’ she said, ‘I believe we’ve been cut off. And it took me so long to get through in the first place.’