CHAPTER XLIV.—ON THE SHORTCOMINGS OF A SYSTEM.

HAROLD was out of the compartment in a moment. Did the guard mean that the train had actually left for Abbeylands? It had left six minutes before, the guard explained, and the station-master added his guarantee to the statement.

Harold looked around—from platform to platform—as if he fancied that there was a conspiracy between the officials to conceal the train.

How could the train leave without taking all its carriages with it?

It did nothing of the kind, the station-master said, firmly but respectfully.

The guard went on with his business of cutting neat triangles out of the tickets of the passengers in the carriages that were alongside the platform—passengers bound for Ashmead.

“But I—we—my—my wife and I got into one of the carriages of the Abbeylands train,” said Harold, becoming indignant, after the fashion of his countrymen, when they have made a mistake either on a home or foreign railway. “What sort of management is it that allows one portion of a train to go in one direction and another part in another direction?”

“It’s our system, sir,” said the official. “You see, sir, there’re never many passengers for either the Abbeyl’n’s”—being a station-master he did not do an unreasonable amount of clipping in regard to the names—“or the Ashm’d branch, so the Staplehurst train is divided—only we don’t light the lamps in the Ashm’d portion until we’re ready to start it. Did you get into a carriage that had a lamp, sir?”

“I’ve seen some bungling at railway stations before now,” said Harold, “but bang me if I ever met the equal of this.”

“This isn’t properly speaking a station, sir, it’s a junction,” said the official, mildly, but with the force of a man who has said the last word.

“That simply means that greater bungling may be found at a junction than at a station,” said Harold. “Is it not customary to give some notice of the departure of a train at a junction as well as a station, my good man?”

The official became reasonably irritated at being called a good man.

“The train left for Abbeyl’n’s according to reg’lation, sir,” said he. “If you got into a compartment that had no lamp——”

“Oh, I’ve no time for trifling,” said Harold. “When does the next train leave for Abbey-lands?”

“At eight-sixteen in the morning,” said the official.

“Great heavens! You mean to say that there’s no train to-night?”

“You see, if a carriage isn’t lighted, sir, we——”

The man perceived the weakness of Harold’s case—from the standpoint of a railway official—and seemed determined not to lose sight of it. “Contributory negligence” he knew to be the most valuable phrase that a railway official could have at hand upon any occasion.

“And how do you expect us to go on to Abbeylands to-night?” asked Harold.

“There’s a very respectable hotel a mile from the junction, sir,” said the man. “Ruins of the Priory, sir—dates back to King John, page 84 Tourist’s Guide to Brackenshire.”

“Oh,” said Harold, “this is quite preposterous.” He went to where Beatrice was seated watching, with only a moderate amount of interest, the departure of five passengers for Ashmead.

“Well, dear?” said she, as Harold came up.

“For straightforward, pig-headed stupidity I’ll back a railway company against any institution in the world,” said he. “The last train has left for Abbeylands. Did you ever know of such stupidity? And yet the shareholders look for six per cent, out of such a system.”

“Perhaps,” said she timidly—“perhaps we were in some degree to blame.”

He laughed. It was so like a woman to suggest the possibility of some blame attaching to the passengers when a railway company could be indicted. To the average man such an idea is as absurd as beginning to argue with a person at whom one is at liberty to swear.

“It seems that there is a sort of hotel a mile away,” said he. “We cannot be starved, at any rate.”

“And I—you—we shall have to stay there?” said she.

He gave a sort of shrug—an Englishman’s shrug—about as like the real thing as an Englishman’s bow, or a Chinaman’s cheer.

“What can we do?” said he. “When a railway company such as this—oh, come along, Beatrice. I am hungry—hungry—hungry!”

He caught her by the arm.

“Yes, Harold—husband,” said she.

He started.

“Husband! Husband!” he said. “I never thought of that. Oh, my beloved—my beloved!”

He stood irresolute for a moment.

Then he gave a curious laugh, and she felt his hand tighten upon her arm for a moment.

“Yes,” he whispered. “You heard the words that—that man said while our hands were together? ‘Whom God hath joined’—God—that is Love. Love is the bond that binds us together. Every union founded on Love is sacred—and none other is sacred—in the sight of heaven.”

“And you do not doubt my love,” she said.

“Doubt it? oh, my Beatrice, I never knew what it was before now.” They left the station together, after he had written and despatched in her name a telegram to her maid, directing her to explain to Mrs. Lampson that her mistress had unfortunately missed the train, but meant to go by the first one in the morning.

By chance a conveyance was found outside, and in it they drove to the Priory Hotel which, they were amazed to find, promised comfort as well as picturesqueness.

It was a long ivy-covered house, and bore every token of being a portion of the ancient Priory among the ruins of which it was standing. Great elms were in front of the house, and on one side there were apple trees, and at the other there was a garden reaching almost to where a ruined arch was held together by its own ivy.

As they were in the act of entering the porch, a ray of moonlight gleamed upon the ruins, and showed the trimmed grass plots and neat gravel walks among the cloisters.

Harold pointed out the picturesque effect to Beatrice, and they stood for some moments before entering the house.

The old waiter, whose moderately white shirt front constituted a very distinctive element of the hall with its polished panels of old oak, did not bustle forward when he saw them admiring the ruins.

“Upon my word,” said Harold, entering, “this is a place worth seeing. That touch of moonlight was very effective.”

“Yes, sir,” said the waiter; “I’m glad you’re pleased with it. We try to do our best in this way for our patrons. Mrs. Mark will be glad to know that you thought highly of our moonlight, sir.”

The man was only a waiter, but he was as solemn as a butler, as he opened the door of a room that seemed ready to do duty as a coffee-room. It had a low groined ceiling, and long narrow windows.

An elderly maid was lighting candles in sconces round the walls.

“Really,” said Harold, “we may be glad that the bungling at the junction brought us here.”

“Yes, sir,” said the man with waiter-like acquiescence; “they do bungle things sometimes at that junction.”

“We were on our way to Abbeylands,” said Harold, “but those idiots on the platform allowed us to get into the wrong carriages—the carriages that were going to Ashmead. We shall stay here for the night. The station-master recommended us to go here, and I’m much obliged to him. It’s the only sensible—”

“Yes, sir: he’s a brother to Mrs. Mark—Mrs. Mark is our proprietor,” said the waiter.

“Mrs. Mark,” said Harold.

“Yes, sir: she’s our proprietor.”

Harold thought that, perhaps, when the owner of an hotel was a woman, she might reasonably be called the proprietor.

“Oh, well, perhaps a maid might show my—my wife to a room, while I see what we can get for dinner—supper, I suppose we should call it.”

The middle-aged woman who was lighting the candles came forward smiling, as she adroitly extinguished the wax taper by the application of her finger and thumb. With her Beatrice disappeared.

Harold quite expected that he was about to come upon the weak element in the management of this picturesque inn. But when he found that a cold pheasant as well as some hot fish was available for supper, he admitted that the place was perfect. There was no wine card, but the old waiter promised a Champagne for which, he said, Mr. Lampson, of Abbeylands, had once made an offer.

“That will do for us very well,” said Harold. “Mr. Lampson would not make an offer for anything—wine least of all—of which he was uncertain.”

The waiter went off in the leisurely style that was only consistent with the management of an establishment that dated back to King John; and in a few minutes Beatrice appeared, having laid aside her sealskin coat, and her hat.

How exquisite she seemed as she stood for an instant in the subdued light at the door!

And she was his.