She came back to earth, however, at our question, and said she was absolutely sure the moment of her great transformation was when she got hold of a cup of proper domestic tea, as distinct from the indigestive railway variety. Indeed, for the past few minutes she had been entirely absorbed in the mental contemplation of the meal she hoped Abigail would soon be preparing. Even then she could smell the sizzling ham and the frying eggs and the buttered toast we should have on arrival.
We were in the sulphurous depths of the tunnel at the moment. Naturally I was hurt. As I said to her, I knew my board was frugal, and my viands simple, modest, unaffected and unassuming, but at least they didn’t smell like that!
Fortunately she hadn’t much time to explain what she did and what she didn’t mean, for we came out of the tunnel into the panorama of hills and silence; no one ever talks much just here, save the braying type of tourist.
Besides, there is the “Abbey” to watch for. No matter how many times you may see that, you always wait expectantly for the moment when you catch the first glimpse of the wonderful grey ruin.
The abbey-makers of the olden days not only knew how to build, but they also knew how to “place” their beautiful structures. And the setting of our Abbey is as nearly perfect as anything can be in this world.
The steep hills recede a little bit just at one bend of the river, leaving room for a broad green meadow between the water and the uprising steeps. Here the Abbey was placed: a babbling river in the foreground, dark larch-covered hills in the background. Surely it is no fanciful exaggeration to think that the beauty all around them must have influenced the men who raised that wonderful poem in stone!
I would like to take you into the Abbey and show you the beautiful views that can be seen from every ruined window, each one a framed picture in itself; the spray of oak-leaves carved on one piece of stone, the live snapdragons growing out of buttresses, the graceful spring of each slender arch, the perfect proportions of the whole building, for, despite the cruel wreckage it suffered in the past, it is still the most lovely Gothic ruin in England.
But to-day we can’t stay.
The train hurries on, through another short tunnel, over a bridge spanning the river and a talkative weir, and then into our station.
In the summer there is a good deal of bustle in this station, which is the haunt of many tourists. I am told that five out of every ten visitors are from the United States. No American thinks of “doing” England without seeing our valley, which is famous for its scenery and its ruins. Thus you always find a number of women in trim “shirt-waists,” and wearing large chiffon veils on the top of their hats at angles quite unknown to the English woman, sitting on the platform about train time, writing the usual budget of picture postcards.
But we aren’t “foreigners” (as the natives style everyone who doesn’t belong to their village). That is one of the many charms of arriving at this station. Here no one regards us merely as passengers who can’t find their luggage; or, passengers who have changed where they had no business to; or, passengers who expect the local porter to know by heart all the railway connections and times of return trains throughout the British Isles. Neither are we among the people who look suspiciously at every wagonette driver, certain that he is going to overcharge, and uncertain as to which is likely to overcharge the least. We have no anxieties concerning the truth of the advertised merits of the various hotels, and apartments to let, in the village.
We “belong.”
There is a sense of home-coming in our arrival. The porters actually rush forward to help with our luggage, and the station-master raises his cap.
Old Bob—who occupies the doubly proud position of being the only one among the fly proprietors who displays a pair of steeds attached to his vehicle, while he is also the one who usually drives what he describes as “the e-light-y”—is waiting with his wagonette (and pair, don’t forget) and a cart for the luggage.
It really is comforting to be claimed by someone at the end of a journey, if it be but the wagonette driver. I feel so solitary, such an orphan, when I chance to arrive alone at some strange place in quest of a holiday, possibly unknown to a single person but the landlady-to-be. Don’t you know the sinking feeling that comes over you as you look round upon the crowds of people, some scrambling in, and some scrambling out of the train; every face a blank so far as you are concerned? No one to trouble whether you ever get any further, or whether you remain in that jostling turmoil for ever.
You almost wish you could get into the train and go back to town again; you reflect that there at least the butcher knows you, and the people next door, and the crossing-sweeper at the corner.
You revive after having some tea, but it is possible to spend a very doleful, homesick quarter of an hour between the time you get out of the train and the time you sit down to a meal in some strange room, whose painful unlikeness to the ones you live in accentuates your loneliness.
But that never happens to us in our Valley. Before we have got out of our compartment, Abigail is already on the platform and holding a levee consisting of two porters, the signalman, the assistant engine-driver from a goods train in the siding, and old Bob’s nephew, who drives the cart. All lend a hand as she proceeds to marshal the luggage, and with a peremptory wave of her umbrella, directs its disposal.
Of course there really isn’t much luggage. That is one of the advantages of retreating to your own secluded cottage; being off the beaten track as we are, there is no necessity to take many “toilettes”—either demi or semi—or a large variety of lounge robes, or matinées, or boudoir negligées, or rest frocks, or tea-gowns, or cocoa-coats, or evening wraps built of chiffon, and really necessary, handy things of that sort. All we take with us is just a few clothes to wear.
On one occasion Virginia did bring down a long “article” (I don’t know what else to call it) composed of about ten yards of white net, embroidered here and there with large beads, an artificial rose sewn on to one corner of the curtain-like thing, a gilt-metal fringe suggestive of shoelace tags all around the edges. She couldn’t quite understand how she came by it, she said. She remembered an energetic ultra-elegant shop-assistant, somewhere, displaying it before her, with the information that it was a “slumber swirl,” and assuring her, condescendingly, that it was the very latest, and absolutely sweet, and just the thing for outdoors in the summer. Virginia said she agreed with her, she was sure; knowing her own sweet and plastic disposition, she would certainly have agreed with her; she was thankful to say she wasn’t one of those people who perpetually disagree with other people. But—she had no recollection of having attached her name and address to the wisp, much less of having paid for it! Still, the energetic damsel had sent it home—and here it was!
Ursula, after one glance at the confection, hastily turned her eyes away and announced that, for her part, she didn’t consider it—well, quite adequate!
Her sister explained that it wasn’t supposed to be worn that way; and she arranged herself with closed eyes on the sofa to show us how it would look when draped over her—head and all—as she rested in the hammock. It took a lot of adjusting so as to avoid getting some knobbly bead motif just under her ear, and to prevent the shoe-lace tags attacking the under-side of the face. And when she had at last found a spot of unembellished net on which to lay her rose-leaf cheek, she was afraid to move for fear of splitting the frail net.
Ursula merely snorted.
When next I saw the “slumber swirl,” part of it had been converted into a meat-safe of irreproachable moral character, Ursula having utilised the frame of our getting-worn-out one for the purpose.
No; our luggage is only trifling, and only consists of just what we need. Abigail takes mine and her own to Paddington in a bus, which also picks up the luggage of the other two girls en route. Individually, the details do not seem much, but I confess, when I see it dumped all together on the