There was nothing to be gained by staring out of the window. The street was still deserted and the inn, she was now aware, stood opposite a row of dilapidated, unoccupied cottages which looked on the point of crumbling into ruins. Some of their windows were boarded up and one cottage had no front door. She turned to the room and studied the backs of the books in a glass-fronted, fly-blown cupboard. They offered little prospect of entertainment until she spotted a copy of The Swiss Family Robinson. The bookcase was not locked. She took out the preposterous volume, a love of her very early years, and, seating herself in an ancient but stable armchair at a large table near the window, she settled down to pass the time as best she might until the landlord returned to the inn.
He was back much sooner than, in her jaundiced frame of mind, she had anticipated. He walked into the lounge and announced unconcernedly.
‘Struck me I might as well go over to Croyton myself. Save you the trouble, like. Brought a bloke back with me. He’s having a look at your car. Care to come down, love?’
‘Oh, that was good of you!’ said Fenella, regretting any hard thoughts she might have entertained towards him. ‘I’m very much obliged.’
‘My pleasure. Be my guest, love,’ he said automatically. He led the way downstairs and out into the yard. The mechanic straightened up as they approached the car.
‘Can’t do nothing here,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Fenella, with a sinking heart as she looked at his grimy, implacable face.
‘What I mean, you won’t get this little bus to start until I gets her put right, and that’s a garage job. Have to give you a tow into Croyton and look her over there where we got the wherewithal,’ said the man.
‘But there can’t be anything seriously wrong, surely? The car was completely serviced only a few days ago. I’m in an awful hurry to get to Douston. Can’t you just patch things up sufficiently for the time being?’
‘I could if I wanted your death on my conscience, but I don’t, miss. How’s about it, gov’nor? Are you willing to tow this little job as far as my garage?’
‘Nothing else for it,’ said the landlord, ‘but I’ve got to get back in good time. What do you say, love? Shall us give it a go?’
‘Well, if it has to be Croyton, I suppose I’ve no choice,’ said Fenella. ‘How long is the job going to take?’ she asked, turning to the mechanic.
‘Ah, that’s what I can’t tell you off-hand, miss. Depends what spares we got in stock, I reckon, if anything needs to be replaced, and well it might. Any road, I’m bound to tell you – warn you, that’s to say – as I’m single-handed at the garage – ’cept for the petrol-pump girl – till my boy gets back, and I’ll be lucky to see him any time short of midnight. He was sent for over to the manor, and they won’t let him go till they’re satisfied, it bein’ the family hearse as they’ll need to get using tomorrer.’
‘Oh, but, look here, I’ve told you I have to get to Douston tonight,’ protested Fenella. ‘You really must get the job done.’
The mechanic shrugged his shoulders.
‘I’m no magician, miss,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t be no good for me to make promises I mightn’t be able to keep. If you ask me, I reckon this job’s a day and a nighter, as you might say.’
‘Well, when we get to Croyton, you can drive me to the station, I suppose? I shall have to go by train,’ said Fenella. ‘Oh, what a nuisance it all is!’
‘Nothing doing with me. There ain’t no station at Croyton and I’ve told you I’m single-handed. I can’t drive nobody to no stations today, miss. It’s only to oblige the gov’nor here as I’ve come out this far. There’s nobody, I just told you, but a bit of a gal to work the petrol pumps back home, and I’m in a fair lather to get back there and see as everything is all right. Best make your mind up quick. Is it Croyton or not?’
‘Oh, well, then, I suppose Croyton it is,’ said Fenella. ‘I can telephone my friends from your garage, I suppose? And then I shall have to find somewhere to stay the night.’
‘That’s right, love,’ said the landlord. ‘You telephone them as you may be stopping along of us at the More to Come. And perhaps there is more to come, at that,’ he added cryptically, with a sly glance and a wink at the mechanic.
‘Oh, ah,’ said the latter, grinning. ‘Mayerin’ Eve. So it is! And Mayerin’ Day tomorrer.’
‘Where is the nearest station?’ asked Fenella, when they were on their way to Croyton. She was seated beside the landlord, who was driving his own car, and the mechanic was steering hers, which was on tow.
‘Cridley,’ the landlord replied. ‘There did used to be one at Croyton, but they closed it down.’
‘If we have to leave my car at the garage – if it can’t be repaired tonight – couldn’t you drive me to Cridley, then? I’d make it well worth your while. I really ought to get to Douston tonight if I possibly can.’
‘Me take you to Cridley? Couldn’t be done, love. I might, at that, if it wasn’t Mayerin’ Eve, but I can’t leave the women to cope tonight, and I open at six. I couldn’t take you to Cridley and get back by then, you see. You phone your friends and tell ’em not to expect you. That’s the best way out of it, I reckon.’
CHAPTER TWO
Rumours of Mayering
‘The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to
