The Lady Vanishes by Ethel Lina White

Author:Ethel Lina White
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2024-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

17

There was No Miss Froy

The immediate effect of Iris’s faint was to steady her nerves. When she recovered consciousness, to find someone forcing her head down below the level of her knees, she felt thoroughly ashamed of her weakness. There was not a trace of hysteria in her voice as she apologised.

‘Sorry to be such a crashing bore. I’m quite all right now.’

‘Don’t you think you had better lie down?’ asked Mr Barnes. ‘I’m sure the Miss Flood-Porters would be only too glad to lend you their reserved compartment.’

Iris was by no means so sure that the ladies measured up to the vicar’s own standard of charity; yet she felt a great need of some quiet place, where she could straighten out the tangle in her brain.

‘I want to talk to you,’ she said to Hare, leaving him to do the rest.

As she anticipated, he jumped at the opportunity. ‘Sorry to eject you, professor,’ he said, ‘but our bunny-hutch is booked for the next half-hour.’

‘Delighted,’ murmured the professor grimly.

After swallowing some brandy from the vicar’s flask, Iris staggered up from her seat. Her knees felt shaky and her temples were still cold; but the brief period of unconsciousness had relieved the pressure on her heart, so that she was actually better.

As she and Hare – linked together, to the general inconvenience – lurched down the corridor, she noticed that the lights were now turned on. This arbitrary change from day to night, seemed to mark a distinct stage in the journey. Time was speeding up with the train. The rushing landscape was dark as a blurred charcoal-drawing, while a sprinkle of lights showed that they had reached a civilised zone, of which the wretched little town was the first outpost.

Now that the outside world was shut out, the express seemed hotter and smokier. At first the confined space of the coupé affected Iris with a sense of claustrophobia.

‘Open the window wide,’ she gasped.

‘There’s plenty of air coming in through the top,’ grumbled Hare, as he obeyed. ‘You’ll be so smothered in smuts that your own mother wouldn’t know you.’

‘I haven’t one,’ said Iris, suddenly feeling very sorry for herself. ‘But I’m not here to be pathetic. There’s something too real and serious at stake … I want to remind you of something you said this morning at the railway station. You were having an argument with the professor, and I overheard it. You said trial by jury was unfair, because it depended on the evidence of witnesses.’

‘I did,’ said Hare. ‘And I stick to every word.’

‘And then,’ went on Iris, ‘the professor talked about reliable evidence, and he compared two women. One was English and county – the sort that collects fir-cones and things when she goes for a walk. The other had bought her eyelashes and was dark.’

‘I remember her. Pretty woman, like a juicy black cherry.’

‘But the professor damned her … And that’s exactly what has happened now. I’d damned as a tainted witness, while he is prejudiced in favour of all those British matrons and Sunday-school teachers.

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