Mrs. Martell by Elizabeth Eliot

Author:Elizabeth Eliot [Eliot, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2019-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

9

Euston Station on the eleventh of August was no longer the glorious spectacle that it had been before the war. Then the night train to Inverness had been run in seven parts. Line after line of sleeping cars with their attendants in the plum-coloured uniforms and little plum-coloured caps, a modification of the caps which had been worn by firing parties in the Franco-Prussian war. Rich and harassed travellers sweltering in the tweeds which would be so appropriate the following morning. Retrievers with their tongues hanging out, rolled tartan rugs, gun-cases, fishing-rods and bags of golf-clubs.—‘You wait here and I will go and see about the tickets, the retrievers, the dining-car reservations.—There is Eloise, there are the Underwaters, there are the Remington-Rands.’

Americans seem to make up the majority of the travellers, but many of them will have English guests who will be staying with them. There are a few Scots, less betweeded, with, on average, fewer tartan rugs than the Americans.—‘There are the Underwaters again, there is a girl wearing pale blue brogues.’

Today the night train is run in one part only, a few sleeping coaches have been added, but that is all. The travellers are still harassed, but there are fewer of them. ‘What fun it used to be in the old days, when the Underwaters, the Remington-Rands and Eloise all had shooting lodges.’ ‘You wait here, and I will go and see about the dining-car reservations and the tickets.’

The porter has gone to look for a barrow, he has been gone for a quarter of an hour. Barrows are scarce round here, the porter said so; there do not seem to be any left over from the days when the night train ran in seven parts. Perhaps they were requisitioned during the war. Edward is very angry with the porter. It is to this that the nationalisation of the railways has brought us.

Laura sat on the pile of suitcases and waited. She agreed with Edward about the incompetence of British Railways. It wasn’t worth arguing about. It seemed that it was a general rule of life that things deteriorated after a war.

‘Oh, aren’t they sweet’—the fat mother of two small children had stopped to admire Constantia and Augustus sitting defiantly in their travelling baskets.

Constantia immediately rose to her hind legs and let out a high falsetto bark.

The fat mother giggled shrilly, calling to her young to share her enjoyment. Edward glared at her. He did not care to be treated as part of a free side-show, a foretaste of the delights that she would find on the beach at Blackpool. Laura called upon Constantia to hush, and at that moment their porter reappeared with a very small barrow.

They walked for nearly a quarter of a mile. Their train, with its extra coaches, was drawn up at one of the farthest platforms. Edward repeated his remarks about the awfulness of British Railways. The porter was too busy pushing the barrow, and, at the same time, trying to prevent Constantia

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