CHAPTER XXXI

MRS. LAMB RETURNS TO PITMUIR

When Mr. Isaac Luker and his client, Mrs. Gregory Lamb, arrived at the small roadside station, in the county of Forfar, towards which they had been journeying throughout the day, they were neither of them in the best of tempers. It had been a long day's journey. There had been some misunderstanding about the connection of the trains at Dundee. They had missed the one by which they had meant to travel; there had been a dreary wait for the next. When at last they started on the last stage of their journey the engine went dawdling along the branch line in a style which both, in their then frame of mind, found equally trying. They would hardly, at any time, have been called a sympathetic couple. Neither, for instance, would have selected the other as an only companion on a desert island. By the time the train paused for, so far as they were concerned, its final stoppage, either would have been almost willing to fly to a desert island to escape the other's society.

It was between nine and ten at night--a misty night. The damp seemed to be rising out of the ground, and to be covering the country with a corpse-like pallor. There was a faint movement in the air, which it did not need a very imaginative mind to compare to a whisper of death. They were the only passengers who alighted at the station, which seemed to consist of but a narrow strip of bare earth, about the centre of which was constructed what looked like a ramshackle shed. Illumination was given by two or three oil lamps, and by a lantern which the only visible official carried in his hand. To this personage Mrs. Lamb addressed herself.

"Is any one waiting for me?"

The official proved to be a Scotsman of a peculiarly Scotch type; his manners and his temper were both his own. No attempt is made to reproduce the dialect in which he spoke.

"And who might you happen to be?"

"I'm Mrs. Gregory Lamb."

"Never heard the name. Pass out! Tickets!"

Mr. Luker nudged the lady's arm.

"I thought you telegraphed under the name of Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame?"

She made a somewhat ill-considered attempt to correct the error she had made.

"I mean that I'm Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame."

"Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame? You said just now that you were Mrs. Gregory Lamb."

"I spoke without thinking. I telegraphed some instructions to the station-master in the name of Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame."

"In the name of Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame? A body can't have two names."

"I ordered a close carriage to meet Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame by the train before this, then, when I found I'd missed it, I sent a wire from Dundee to order the carriage to wait for the next."

"There's no carriage within miles."

"No carriage? Then what is there?"

"There's what they call a fly."

"And is the fly here?"

"Sam Harris wouldn't let it come."

"Who's Sam Harris?"

"He's the man that owns it."

"And pray why wouldn't Mr. Harris let it come?"

"You'd better be asking him instead of me. He lives about two miles from here--perhaps a trifle over."

"Two miles! Then is there nothing here to meet us?"

"There's a cart."

"A cart!--an open cart!--in this weather! What kind of cart?"

"He was outside the gate when I saw him last, but maybe by now he's grown tired of waiting, and he's gone. If you go outside you'll be able to see for yourself what kind of cart it is better than I can tell you. Any way, you can't stop here; I'm off home. Tickets!--and if you haven't your tickets you'll have to pay your fare--that's all."

The two passengers surrendered their tickets. With such dignity as she could muster the lady strode towards the little wooden gate, Mr. Luker following limply behind. He made no attempt to feign a sense of dignity which he did not possess. To judge from his appearance and his attitude he had not only sunk into the lowest stage of depression, but he was willing that all the world should know it. A very woebegone figure he looked: so tall and so thin, with the pronounced stoop; in the old familiar garments which he had worn for so many years in town, a costume which seemed singularly out of place on that spot just then; the frayed, shabby frock-coat, tightly buttoned up the front, the collar of which he now wore turned up about his chin; the trousers which were at once too baggy and too short; the ancient top-hat, which had seen so many better days.

Outside the gate was what, in the semi-darkness, looked uncommonly like an ordinary farmer's cart, and not too comfortable, or cleanly, an example of its class. Mrs. Lamb stared at it in disgust.

"Have you brought that thing for me?"

As regards manners the driver seemed to be a near relation of the railway official's, if anything his were more pronounced.

"I don't know who you are. How am I to know?"

"I'm Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame of Pitmuir."

"Oh; that's what you call yourself--ah!"

"You appear to be an impudent fellow."

"And you appear to be a free-spoken woman."

"How dare you talk to me like that? I ask you again, have you brought this thing for me?"

"I've brought this thing, as you call it, which is as decent a cart as ever you saw, and more decent maybe than you deserve to sit in, to carry the person as calls herself Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame to Pitmuir, and I'm beginning to wish I hadn't."

"Why is there no fly here?"

"Because Sam Harris wouldn't let his come."

"Why not? I ordered it."

"You ordered it! Mr. Harris said that he wasn't going to have the likes of you sitting in a fly of his--that's why. So he sent this cart instead. If this cart isn't good enough, I'll take it back at once. I'll take it back anyhow if there's much more talking."

The lady and her solicitor exchanged glances. While they were apparently seeking for words the driver volunteered another remark, in keeping with those which had gone before.

"There's another thing. I'm to be paid before I started; Mr. Harris said I was."

"You'll be paid when you reach Pitmuir."

"Shall I? Then I'll say good-night."

The man gathered up his reins as if about to depart.

"Stop! What are you doing? You appear to be a pleasant character."

"From all accounts, ma'am, that's more than can be said of you."

Under other circumstances the fellow might perhaps have regretted his temerity. Mrs. Lamb was not a lady to quietly endure impertinence from any one. As matters stood she was at his mercy, a fact of which he was evidently aware. She had to choke back her resentment as best she could.

"How much do you mean to charge?"

"There's twelve shillings for driving you; there's three for waiting; there's five for myself--that's a sovereign."

"A sovereign!--monstrous!"

"Very well; there's no call for you to pay it. I tell you again, I'll say good-night."

Mr. Luker interposed.

"How far is it?"

"Better than five miles."

"And how long will it take, in this delectable vehicle of yours, to get us there?"

"An hour or thereabouts. The road's none so good, and it's not easy going on a night like this. It's thicker over yonder."

"And for an hour, or thereabouts, I'm to be jolted, over a bad road, through this death-like mist. Thank you; the prospect is not inviting. I think we had better go over in the morning. Where, in the neighbourhood, can we get a night's lodging?"

"Nowhere."

"Nowhere? Are you sure?"

"If you think you know better than me you'd better go and look for yourself. I tell you there's not a house round here where they'd have you under the roof--nor her either. I wouldn't, nor yet Mr. Harris, nor any one else."

"This is delightful--thoroughly delightful."

Anything less suggestive of delight than his tone could hardly be imagined. The lady spoke.

"I telegraphed to an old servant of mine, Martha Blair, to go up to the house and to take some one with her, or if she couldn't go herself then to get two other girls to go, to light fires and to make things ready for my coming. Do you know who has gone?"

"No one's gone; I do know that. You'd get no woman from round here to go up to Pitmuir at night, especially if it was known that you were coming."

"Prospects grow more and more delightful."

This was a groan from Mr. Luker. The lady, taking him by the coat sleeve, began to talk to him in an undertone. The driver promptly interrupted.

"If you two are going to talk things over between yourselves you can do it after I'm gone. I'm off; I've had enough of waiting, so I'll wish you both good-night."

The lady stopped him; she drew out her purse.

"Here's a sovereign. Now drive us to Pitmuir, and be as quick as you can."

The man examined the coin as well as he could in such a light; he even tested its quality with his teeth. Drawing a bag from some mysterious receptacle inside his waistcoat, he untied a piece of cord which tied it round the neck, placed the coin carefully within, feeling it to make sure that it was, retied the bag, and returned it to its place. These operations took some time; before they were concluded his two passengers were more tired of waiting than he was. Mrs. Lamb mounted to the seat beside the driver. Mr. Luker scrambled into the vehicle itself. There was nothing for him to do but to squat upon the floor, making himself as comfortable as he could by leaning his back against the side. Then the cart started.

The driver had been perfectly correct in stating that it was not a very good road. So far as could be judged in the mist and the darkness, when one had to rely entirely on the sense of feeling, it consisted for the most part of ruts and ditches. The springs upon which the body of the cart was hung were not very resilient, indeed they were rudimentary. Mrs. Lamb had all she could do to keep on the seat; the gentleman behind was shaken in such a style that he had traversed the whole interior of the vehicle before he had gone two miles. Considering all things, it was perhaps as well that the rate of progress was not more rapid, though the driver had a somewhat disconcerting knack when the road was excruciatingly bad of seeming to move faster than was absolutely necessary, and when it was comparatively smooth of going slower than he need. More than once Mrs. Lamb tried to engage him in conversation, putting questions to him on subjects on which she was particularly anxious to obtain information. She desired to know if Nannie Foreshaw was still in the flesh; how Dr. Twelves was getting on; if he yet practised, and so on. But the man either paid no heed at all, or, if he replied, his answers were of such an unsatisfactory nature, conveying such extremely unflattering allusions, that the lady was finally convinced that she had better remain, however unwillingly, in ignorance than attempt to obtain enlightenment from such an impossible quarter. She would have liked to have taken the fellow suddenly by the shoulders and flung him out of the cart. He would possibly have found her capable of doing it. More than once she was on the point of making the effort, only an overwhelming consciousness of the greatness of the issue which was at stake restrained her.

At last, after what seemed very much more than an hour's drive, he brought the vehicle to a sudden stop.

"You'll get out here," he intimated to them curtly.

"Get out?" The lady peered about her through the mist and darkness. "This is not the house."

"Yon's Pitmuir."

"Pitmuir? But I paid you to drive us to the house; I can see no signs of it."

"You did not. I'd not drive you to the house for a pocketful of money."

"What fresh trick are you going to try on now? And what tomfoolery are you talking?"

"It's tomfoolery maybe, and maybe it isn't. You said, carry you to Pitmuir, and I've carried you. Do you know they say that Cuthbert Grahame's walking about among the trees, waiting in the avenue, looking for the woman who called herself his wife. Do you think I'll take you to meet him? Not while I've my senses. If you are set on meeting him, you'll not meet him in my company--that's my last word. Yon's Pitmuir. That's the gate in front, not a dozen yards from where we are--that's nearer than I care for. You'll just both of you get out."