The Wheel Spins (8 page)

Although she was not implicated, Iris felt ashamed of the incident; but Miss Froy only bubbled with amusement.

“He’ll know me again,” she said. “He looked at me as if he’d like to annihilate me. Quite natural. I was the World—and he wants to forget the World, because he’s in paradise. It must be wonderful to be exclusively in love.”

“They may not be married,” remarked Iris. “Any one can buy a wedding-ring.”

“You mean—guilty love? Oh, no, they’re too glorious. What name did they register under?”

“Todhunter.”

“Then they
are
married. I’m so glad. If it was an irregular affair, they would have signed ‘Brown,’ or ‘Smith.’ It’s always done.”

As she listened to the gush of words behind her, Iris was again perplexed by the discrepancy between Miss Froy’s personality and her appearance. It was as though a dryad were imprisoned within the tree-trunk of a withered spinster.

When they reached the end of the corridor, a morbid impulse made her glance towards the carriage which held the invalid. She caught a glimpse of a rigid form and a face hidden by its mass of adhesions, before she looked quickly away, to avoid the eyes of the doctor.

They frightened her, because of their suggestion of baleful hypnotic force. She knew that they would be powerless to affect her in ordinary circumstances; but she was beginning to feel heady and unreal, as though she were in a dream, where every emotion is intensified.

In all probability this condition was a consequent symptom of her sunstroke, and was due, partly, to her struggle to hold out, until she could collapse safely at her journey’s end. She was directing her will-power towards one aim only, and therefore draining herself of energy.

As a result she was susceptible to imaginary antagonism. When she caught sight of a blur of faces inside the gloom of her carriage, she shrank back, unwilling to enter.

She received unexpected support from Miss Froy, who seemed to divine her reluctance.

“Don’t let’s sit mum like charity-children any longer,” she whispered. “Even if I
am
under an obligation to the baroness, I am going to remember that these people are only foreigners. They shan’t impress me.
We
’re English.”

Although the reminder was patriotism reduced to its lowest term of Jingoism, it braced Iris to enter the compartment with a touch of her old abandon. Precaution forgotten, she lit a cigarette without a glance at the other passengers.

“Have you travelled much?” she asked Miss Froy.

“Only in Europe,” was the regretful reply. “Mater doesn’t really like me going so far from home, but she holds the theory that the younger generation must not be denied their freedom. Still, I’ve promised to stick to Europe, although, whenever I’m near a boundary, I just ache to hop over the line to Asia.”

“Is your mother very old?”

“No, she’s eighty years young. A real sport, with the spirit of the modern girl. Pater is seventy-seven. He never let her know he was younger than she, but it leaked out when he had to retire at sixty-five. Poor Mater was terribly upset. She said, ‘You have made me feel a cradle-snatcher.’ Oh, I can’t believe I’m really going to see them again soon.”

As she listened, Iris watched the smoke curling up from her cigarette. Occasionally she saw a vague little puckered face swaying amid the haze, like an unsuccessful attempt at television. Out of gratitude for services rendered—and still to come—she tried to
appreciate
the old parents, but she grew very bored by the family saga.

She learned that Pater was tall and thin, and looked classical, while Mater was short and stout, but dignified. Apparently Pater had unquenchable ardour and energy, for at the age of seventy he began to learn Hebrew.

“He’s made a detailed time-table for every month of his life, up to ninety,” explained Miss Froy. “That’s what comes of being a schoolmaster. Now, Mater is passionately fond of novels. Love ones, you know. She makes a long bus journey every week to change her library book. But she says she can’t imagine them properly unless she makes
me
the heroine.”

“I’m sure you had a marvellous time,” said Iris.

Miss Froy resented the attempt to be tactful.

“Have, and had,” she declared. “Pater was a parson before he kept a school, and his curates always proposed to me. I expect it is because I have fair curly hair. And I still have the excitement and hope of the eternal quest. I never forget that a little boy is born for every little girl. And even if we haven’t met yet, we are both growing old together, and if we’re fated to meet, we
shall
.”

Iris thought sceptically of the mature men who refuse to adhere to the calendar, as she listened with rising resentment. She wanted quiet—but Miss Froy’s voice went on and on, like the unreeling of an endless talking-picture.

Presently, however, Miss Foy recaptured her interest, for she began to talk of languages.

“I speak ten, including English,” she said. “At first, when you’re in a strange country, you can’t understand one word, and you feel like a puppy thrown into a pond. You flounder and struggle, so unless you want to drown you’ve simply got to pick it up. By the end of a year you’re as fluent as a native. But I always insist on staying a second year, for the sake of idiomatic polish.”

“
I
expect foreigners to speak English,” declared Iris.

“When you’re off the map they may not, and then you might find yourself in a terrible fix. Shall I tell you a true story?”

Without waiting for encouragement, Miss Froy spun a yarn which was not calculated to cool Iris’ inflamed nerves. It was all very vague and anonymous, but the actual horror was stark.

A certain woman had been certified as insane, but owing to a blunder the ambulance went to the wrong house and forcibly took away an Englishwoman, who did not understand a word of the language, or of her destination. In her indignation and horror at finding herself in a private asylum, she became so vehement and violent that she was kept, at first, under the influence of drugs.

When the mistake was found out, the doctor—who was a most unscrupulous character, was afraid to admit it. At the time he was in financial difficulties, and he feared it might ruin his reputation. So he planned to detain the Englishwoman until he could release her as officially cured.

“But she couldn’t know she wasn’t in for life,” explained Miss Froy, working up the agony. “The horror of it would probably have driven her really insane, only a nurse exposed the doctor’s plot, out of revenge. But can you imagine the awful position of that poor Englishwoman? Trapped, with no one to make inquiries about her, or even to know she had disappeared, for she was merely a friendless foreigner, staying a night here and a night there, at some Pension. She didn’t understand a word—she couldn’t explain—”

“Please
stop
,” broke in Iris. “I can imagine it all. Vividly. But would you mind if we stopped talking?”

“Oh, certainly. Aren’t you well? It’s difficult to be sure, with your sunburn, but I thought you looked green, once or twice.”

“I’m very fit, thanks. But my head aches a bit. I’ve just had a touch of sunstroke.”

“Sunstroke? When?”

Knowing that Miss Froy’s curiosity had to be appeased, Iris gave a brief account of her attack. As she did so, she glanced round the carriage. It was evident, from the blank faces, that—with one exception—the passengers did not understand English.

Iris could not be certain about the baroness. She had the slightly stupid expression of an autocrat who has acquired power through birth, and not enterprise; yet there was a gleam of intelligence in her eyes that betrayed secret interest in the story.

“Oh, you poor soul,” cried Miss Froy, who overflowed with sympathy. “Why didn’t you stop me chattering before? I’ll give you some aspirin.”

Although she hated any fuss, it was a relief to Iris when she was able to sit back in her corner, while Miss Froy hunted the contents of her bag.

“I don’t think you had better have dinner in the restaurant-car,” she decided. “I’ll bring you something here, later. Now, swallow these tablets, and then try to get a little nap.”

After Iris had closed her eyes, she could still hear Miss Froy fluttering about her, like a fussy little bird, on guard. It gave her a curious sense of protection, while the carriage was so warm that she soon became pleasantly drowsy.

As the drug began to take effect, her thoughts grew jumbled, while her head kept jerking forward. Presently she lost consciousness of place, as she felt herself moving onwards with the motion of the train, as though she were riding. Sometimes she took a fence, when the seat seemed to leap under her, leaving her suspended in the air.

Clankety-clankety-
clank
. On and on. She kept moving steadily upwards. Clankety-clankety-
clank
. Then the rhythm of the train changed, and she seemed to be sliding backwards down a long slope. Click-click-click-click. The wheels rattled over the rails, with a sound of castanets.

She was sinking deeper and deeper, while the carriage vibrated like the throbbing of an airplane. It was bearing her away—sweeping her outside the carriage—to the edge of a drop.

With a violent start she opened her eyes. Her heart was leaping, as though she had actually fallen from a height. At first she wondered where she was; then as she gradually recognised her surroundings, she found that she was staring at the baroness.

In slight confusion she looked away quickly to the opposite seat.

To her surprise, Miss Froy’s place was empty.

Iris was ungratefully glad of Miss Froy’s absence. Her doze had confused rather than refreshed her, and she felt she could not endure another long installment of family history. She wanted peace; and while it was impossible to have quiet, amid the roar and rush of the train, she considered herself entitled, at least, to personal privacy.

As regarded the other passengers, she was free from any risk of contact. Not one of them took the slightest notice of her. The baroness slept in her corner—the others sat motionless and silent. Inside the carriage, the atmosphere was warm and airless as a conservatory.

It soothed Iris to a tranquil torpidity. She felt numbed to thought and feeling, as though she were in a semi-trance and incapable of raising a finger, or framing two consecutive words. Patches of green scenery fluttered past the window, like a flock of emerald birds. The baroness’ heavy breathing rose and fell with the regularity of a tide.

Iris vaguely dreaded Miss Froy’s return, which must destroy the narcotic spell. At any moment, now, she might hear the brisk step in the corridor. Presumably Miss Froy had gone to wash, and had been obliged to wait her turn, owing to the crowd.

Hoping for the best, Iris closed her eyes again. At first she was apprehensive whenever any one passed by the window, but each false alarm increased her sense of security. Miss Froy ceased to be a menace and shrank to a mere name. The octogenarian parents went back to their rightful place inside some old photograph-album. Even Sock—that shaggy absurd mongrel, whom Iris had grown to like—was blurred to an appealing memory.

Clankety-clankety-
clank
. The sound of breathing swelled to the surge of a heavy sea, sucking at the rocks. Muted by the thunder of the train, it boomed in unison with the throb of the engine. Clankety-clankety-
clank
.

Suddenly the baroness’ snores arose to an elephantine trumpet which jerked Iris awake. She started up in her seat—tense with apprehension and with every faculty keyed up. The shock had vibrated some seventh sense which made her expectant of disaster, as she glanced swiftly at Miss Froy’s place.

It was still empty.

She was surprised by her pang of disappointment. Not long ago she had been praying for Miss Froy’s return to be delayed; but now she felt lonely and eager to welcome her.

“I expect I’ll soon be cursing her again,” she admitted to herself. “But, anyway, she is human.”

She glanced at the blonde beauty, who was beginning to remind her of a wax model in a shop window. Not a flat wave of her honey-gold hair was out of place. Even her eyes had the transparency of blue wax.

Chilled by the contrast to the vital little spinster, Iris looked at her watch. The late hour, which told her that she had slept longer than she had suspected, also made her feel rather worried about Miss Froy’s prolonged absence.

“She’s had enough time to take a bath,” she thought. “I—I hope nothing’s wrong.”

The idea was so disturbing that she exerted all her common sense to dislodge it.

“Absurd,” she told herself. “What
could
happen to her? It’s not night, when she might open the wrong door by mistake, and step out of the train in the dark. Besides, she’s an experienced traveller—not a helpless fool like myself. And she knows about a hundred languages.”

A smile flickered over her lips as she remembered one of the little spinster’s confidences.

“Languages give me a sense of power. If an international crisis arose in a railway carriage, and there were no interpreters, I could step into the breach and, perhaps, alter the destinies of the world.”

The recollection suggested an explanation for Miss Froy’s untenanted seat. Probably she was indulging her social instincts by talking to congenial strangers. She was not divided from them by any barrier of language. Moreover, she was in holiday mood and wanted to tell every one that she was going home.

“I’ll give her another half-hour,” decided Iris. “She
must
be back by then.”

As she looked out of the window, the clouded sky of late afternoon filled her with melancholy. The train had been gradually descending from the heights, and was now steaming through a lush green valley. Mauve crocuses cropped up amid thick pastures, which were darkened by moisture. The scene was definitely autumnal and made her realise that summer was over.

The time slipped away too quickly, because she dreaded reaching the limit which she had appointed. If Miss Froy did not return she would have to make a decision, and she did not know what to do. Of course, as she reminded herself, it was not really her business at all; but her uneasiness grew with the passing of each five minutes of grace.