Helen with the High Hand Part 20

"I shouldna' be surprised," said he.

"I wish you'd lend it me."

"What for?"

"I want to go over to Hanbridge and book my berth, definitely, and I've no loose cash."

Now here was a chance to yield. But no.

"Dost mean to say," he exclaimed, "as ye havena' booked your berth? When does th' steamer sail?"

"There's one from Glasgow next Sat.u.r.day," said she--"the _Saskatchewan_.

I secured the berth, but I didn't pay for it."

"It's a rare lot of money," he observed.

"Oh," she said, "I didn't want all that for the fare. I've other things to pay for--railway to Glasgow, etc. You will lend it me, won't you?"

Her fingers were already in the cashbox. She was behaving just like a little girl, like a spoilt child. It was remarkable, he considered, how old and mature Helen could be when she chose, and how kittenish when she chose.

She went off with four five-pound notes and five sovereigns. "Will you ask me to come back and cook the dinner?" she smiled, ironically, enchantingly.

"Ay!" he said. He was bound to smile also.

She returned in something over two hours.

"There you are!" she said, putting a blue-green paper into his hand.

"Ever seen one of these before?"

It was the ticket for the steamer.

This staggered him. A sensible, determined woman, who disappears to buy a steamer-ticket, may be expected to reappear with a steamer-ticket. And yet it staggered him. He could scarcely believe it. She was going, then!

She was going! It was inevitable now.

"The boat leaves the Clyde at ten in the morning," she said, resuming possession of the paper, "so we must go to Glasgow on Friday, and stop the night at an hotel."

"We?" he murmured, aghast.

"Well," she said, "you surely won't let me travel to Glasgow all alone, will you?"

"Her's a caution, her is!" he privately reflected.

"You can come back on Sat.u.r.day," she said; "so that you'll be in time to collect your rents. There's an express to Glasgow from Crewe at 1.15, and to catch that we must take the 12.20 at Shawport."

She had settled every detail.

"And what about my dinner?" he inquired.

"I'm going to set about it instantly," laughed she.

"I mean my dinner on Friday?" he said.

"Oh, _that_!" she replied. "There's a restaurant-car from Crewe. So we can lunch on the train."

This idea of accompanying her to Glasgow pleased him intensely.

"Glasgow isna' much i' my line," he said. "But you wenches do as ye like, seemingly."

Thus, on the Friday morning, he met her down at Shawport Station. He was in his best clothes, but he had walked. She arrived in a cab, that carried a paG.o.da of trunks on its fragile roof; she had come straight from her lodgings. There was a quarter of an hour before train-time. He paid for the cab. He also bought one second-cla.s.s single and one second-cla.s.s return to Glasgow, while she followed the porter who trundled her luggage. When he came out of the booking-office (minus several gold pieces), she was purchasing papers at the bookstall, and farther up the platform the porter had seized a paste-brush, and was opening a cupboard of labels. An extraordinary scheme presented itself to James Ollerenshaw's mind, and he trotted up to the porter.

"I've seen to the baggage myself," said Helen, without looking at him.

"All right," he said.

The porter touched his cap.

"Label that luggage for Crewe," he whispered to the porter, and pa.s.sed straight on, as if taking exercise on the platform.

"Yes, sir," said the porter.

When he got back to Helen of course he had to make conversation with a nonchalant air, in order to hide his guilty feelings.

"So none of 'em has come to see you off!" he observed.

"None of whom?"

"None o' yer friends."

"No fear!" she said. "I wouldn't have it for anything. I do hate and loathe good-byes at a railway station. Don't you?"

"Never had any," he said.

The train was prompt, but between Shawport and Crewe it suffered delays, so that there was not an inordinate amount of time to spare at the majestic junction.

Heedless, fly-away creature that she was, Helen scurried from the North Stafford platform to the main-line platform without a thought as to her luggage. She was apparently so preoccupied with her handbag, which contained her purse, that she had no anxiety left over for her heavy belongings.

As they hastened forward, he saw the luggage being tumbled out on to the platform.

The Glasgow train rolled grandiosely in, and the restaurant-car came to a standstill almost exactly opposite the end of the North Stafford platform. They obtained two seats with difficulty. Then, as there was five minutes to wait, Jimmy descended from the car to the asphalte and peeped down the North Stafford platform. Yes, her luggage was lying there, deserted, in a pile. He regained the carriage.

"I suppose the luggage will be all right?" Helen said, calmly, just as the guard whistled.

"Ay!" said he, with the mien of a traveller of vast experience. "I saw 'em bringing all th' N.S. luggage over. It were th' fust thing I thought of."

As a liar he reckoned he was pretty good.

He glanced from the window as the train slid away from Crewe, and out of the tail of his eye, in the distance, over the heads of people, he had a momentary glimpse of the topmost of Helen's trunks safely at rest on the North Stafford platform.

He felt safe. He felt strangely joyous. He ate largely, and made very dry, humorous remarks about the novelty of a restaurant on wheels.