Chapter Three.

A Friend in Need.

It is sometimes almost worse to arrive too soon than too late. In the latter case you have at least the certainty of being expected, and even if people are cross and irritated at having been kept waiting, still your place is there for you; there is no question about it. Above all, if the case be that of arriving on a first visit, I for one should prefer the risk of the disagreeables attending a tardy appearance to the far from improbable humiliations consequent upon turning up prematurely. Not to speak of the positive inconveniences of no carriage at the station, or no room for you in the one that may have come to fetch some other guest by the previous train to your orthodox one, there is the blank look on your hostess’s face—“more for luncheon” it seems to say; and the extraordinarily uncomfortable announcement that your room is not quite ready—will be so directly, but “the So-and-so’s only left this morning, and the house has been so full;” and a sense of outraged and scurrying housemaids when it is suggested that you should just “leave your wraps in the dressing-room till after luncheon.” The visit must develop into something extraordinarily agreeable which succeeds in entirely living down the annoying contrariety of such a début.

It was unfortunate, most unfortunate, that the Wentworths’ visit to Grey Fells Hall should have been inaugurated in this uncomfortable way. They were not expected at Cobbolds, the small station five miles off, but the nearest, nevertheless, till four in the afternoon, whereas it was barely twelve o’clock when they found themselves, their boxes and their bewildered attendant stranded on the platform in a drizzling rain and biting north-country wind, absolutely at a loss what to do and whither to betake themselves. How had they managed it? you may well ask, for the journey from London to Cloughshire is a matter of some six or seven hours even by express train, and the travellers had not started in the middle of the night. This was what had happened. In an evil moment some mischievous imp had suggested to Mrs Wentworth the expediency of “breaking the journey” seven-eighths of the way, or thereabouts, at a country town where a cousin of hers was the wife of the vicar.

“They will be so delighted to see us,” she said to Imogen, when Imogen, not unnaturally, demurred.

“But I don’t want to see them; not the very least bit in the world, mamma,” she said. “It will be such a nuisance to undo our things for one night when they’re all nicely packed, and my new frocks will be so crushed—two days instead of one. And very likely we’ll get into the wrong train or something, the next morning, just when Mrs Helmont has told us exactly what time to leave London, and all about it.”

But in Mrs Wentworth, for all her gentleness—and it was genuine, not superficial—there was a curious touch of obstinacy; obstinacy in this instance grounded on a strong motive which her daughter did not suspect. The truth was she was dying to show off Imogen—Imogen in the freshness of her beauty and her new clothes—to the old school-friend, whose small means and large family prevented from often enjoying such sights. And Mrs Wentworth pleased herself by taking credit for the pleasure she believed she was unselfish in giving; “it will brighten up poor dear Henrietta to hear of all we are doing, as well as to see Imogen,” she thought; not reflecting that the advent of a party of three in an already overcrowded parsonage would entail considerable trouble and, indeed, expense to their entertainers.

She enjoyed it however, whether “Henrietta” and her husband did or not. And Imogen made herself very happy with the children, especially the big boys; though she disappointed her mother by not in the least posing as a “come-out” fashionable young woman, and gave Colman an hour or two’s unnecessary stitching by tearing the skirt of her pretty new travelling dress.

So far, however, no great harm was done. That was reserved for the next morning, when, on consulting the time-table at the early breakfast for his guests’ benefit, worthy Mr Stainer made the appalling discovery that the train by which they were expected at Cobbolds did not stop at Maxton, their present quarters!

What was to be done?

“No matter—stay till the next. It gets to—stay, let us see—yes, it gets there at six. Plenty of time to dress for dinner. I suppose these smart friends of yours don’t dine at soonest till half-past seven,” said the vicar.

“Oh, not till eight, certainly,” said Mrs Wentworth with a faint touch of reproach. “But I don’t know—the evenings are drawing in so, and it is so cold. No, I think we had better go by the earlier train you mentioned, reaching Cobbolds at—when did you say?”

“Somewhere between eleven and twelve,” Mr Stainer replied. “Well, as you like,” for a glance from behind the tea-urn had warned him not to press the guests to stay over another luncheon; “of course you know best. But you will have to hurry. Shall I telegraph them?”

“You are very kind—yes please, at once. It is some miles from the post-office I fancy, but that won’t signify; I can settle about the porterage when I get there,” said Mrs Wentworth airily, though not without some internal tremors. “Mrs Helmont will be all the more pleased to have us sooner than she expects.” Blissful ignorance! The Fells was a good seven miles from the telegraph office, and there was a standing order that unless telegrams were doubly dubbed “immediate,” they were to be confided to the groom who rode over to fetch the afternoon letters—an arrangement known of course to the habitués among the Helmont guests, as belonging to which Mrs Wentworth gave herself out.

Thus and thus did it come to pass that, as already described, a forlorn group of three shivering women was to be seen on the uncovered platform of the little wayside station that dreary, drizzling November morning.

“There must be a carriage for us,” said Mrs Wentworth; “there has been heaps of time for the telegram to reach them. You may be sure they would send a man on horseback with it.”

“All the same there just isn’t a carriage nor the ghost of one. I told you how it would be, mamma,” said Imogen, unsympathisingly.

Mrs Wentworth felt too guilty to resent the reproach. Suddenly came the sound of wheels. “There now!” she exclaimed, “I believe it’s coming. Can you