At the present moment Jane was undergoing the usual preliminary phase with regard to Albert. She had met him several times in London and thought him easily the most attractive person of her acquaintance. As she gazed out of the corridor window it occurred to her that here, most probably, was the genius for whom she had been searching for such a long time; her brain circled, as it were, round and round the subject, but she sought no conclusion and arrived at none. Presently the long thin woman passed by on her way to the first-class sleepers, followed by her husband. In motion she looked more than ever like a horse.
Jane climbed into her sleeper and lay down. She was sharing the carriage with three other women, all, luckily, unknown to each other, so there was no conversation. They looked at her with some disapproval as, contrary to third-class convention, she undressed completely and put on a pair of pyjamas. She greased her face, brushed her hair and settled down for a horrible night of banging, jolting and waking up at countless stations. All the time she half thought, half dreamed of Albert, wondering if he would have arrived yet at Dalloch Castle, how long he intended to stay, and whether he was at all excited at the prospect of their meeting. Towards the morning she fell into a profound sleep.
When she woke up the train was passing through Highland scenery. Purple hills kept rising outside the carriage window and obscuring the sky. They were covered with little streams and sheep. Everything was very quiet, even the train seemed to make less noise than it had done the previous evening; the air had a peculiar quality of extreme clearness like cold water.
Jane felt, but quickly checked, a romantic tremor. She removed her gaze from the moors and began to dress. The other women were still asleep, looking like modern German pictures.
At Inverness, Jane had to change into a local train, which ambled for about an hour in rather an intimate sort of way over moors and through pine woods, stopping here and there at little toy stations. When she alighted at Dalloch Station she noticed the long thin woman of the previous night standing by the guard’s van with her husband, and presumed that they must be going to the castle. Sure enough, when they had collected their luggage, which took some time because there was a great deal of it as well as two spaniels, they climbed into the motor car where Jane was already installed and introduced themselves as the Chadlingtons. She gathered from labels on their hand luggage that they were Captain and Lady Brenda Chadlington, a name she seemed vaguely to know.
‘Have you stayed at Dalloch before?’ asked Lady Brenda as they drove out of the station yard.
‘No; you see, I don’t know the Craigdallochs. Sally Monteath asked me. Have you been here before?’
‘Oh, yes! Every year since I can remember. Madge Craigdalloch is my mother’s greatest friend and my godmother. I can’t imagine what it will be like without her and Craig, although I’m told the Monteaths are charming. What bad luck for poor Craig having to go off like that, wasn’t it … ?’
She rambled on in the bored, uninterested voice of one who has been taught to think that any conversation is better than none. Her husband looked out of the window in silence.
6
Sally greeted them in the hall of Dalloch Castle on their arrival. She was looking lovelier than usual in a pair of pink satin pyjamas.
‘Please excuse these clothes. I’ve just this moment woken up. We only got here last night after a most fiendish journey in the car. How tired you must all be. I’ve had hot-water bottles put in your beds and breakfast will be sent up at once. Shall we go upstairs?’
The Chadlingtons glanced at each other in a startled kind of way.
General Murgatroyd now appeared and was introduced to Jane. He evidently knew the Chadlingtons very well and offered to show them their rooms, while Sally, relieved to have got rid of them, carried off Jane to have breakfast with herself and Walter, who was still in bed.
‘Let’s fetch old Gates,’ said Walter, ‘and have a party in here.’
Sally turned on the gramophone while he went along the passage, soon to return with Albert, who looked sleepy but cheerful in a pair of orange pyjamas. Jane thought him more attractive even than in London.
Presently trays of delicious breakfast appeared and they all sat on the bed munching happily, except Albert who announced that he was unable to touch food in the morning and asked the slightly astonished housemaid for a glass of Maraschino.
Jane asked if he had also travelled up in the Craigdallochs’ car.
‘Indeed, yes,’ he replied. ‘What a journey, too; all through England’s green unpleasant land, as Blake so truly calls it. My one happy moment was at Carlisle, where we spent a night. When I opened what I supposed to be a cupboard door in my room, I was greeted by inky blackness, through which was just visible a pile of sordid clothes and cries of: “Well, I’m damned!” and “What impertinence!” It was a conjugal bedroom!’
Jane laughed.
‘I expect if you knew the truth it was no such thing.’
‘Well, I thought of that myself, but came to the conclusion that people who were indulging in a little enjoyable sin would probably be in better tempers. They actually rang the bell and said very loudly to the maid so that I couldn’t fail to hear: “The person next door keeps coming in. Will you please lock it on this side so that we can have some peace?” Keeps coming
