MY name is Catherine Fraser. I am twenty-five years of age. And when I say that I have never been farther from London than Hampton Court Palace on one side and Southend on the other, and that all my life I have longed with a longing which cannot be put into words to see the world, all its great cities and queer places, and to start off on all sorts of splendid adventures, and to do things which no one has ever done before, you will understand what it meant to me to have a chance coining to me so suddenly that it might have dropped from the skies to go off to America all by myself on the most mysterious errand I had ever heard of. Not only was I to travel free, all my expenses of every kind were to be paid if they had not been paid I should never have been able to go but also I was
actually paid for going, a sum of money of which I had never dreamed that I should become possessed. Five hundred pounds! Think of it! for doing one of the things in the world which I most wanted to do. The start was splendid. I did not catch the train in London, but at Bedford, and Mr. Stewart drove me down to Bedford in his motor. Lots of people would think nothing of that. They drive in motor cars every day all day long if they like. But I had never been in a motor car before not even in a taxicab. You cannot call a motor ‘bus a motor car.
And to make it more splendid we drove at night Mr. Stewart, Miss Galstin, and I.
It was an extraordinary sensation. I don’t know which way we went, but in less than no time we seemed to have left the lights of London behind, and were out in the country real country! in the darkness. How we did rush along! I did not
choose to let Mr. Stewart guess it, or Miss Galstin, but I was excited. When we got to Bedford, which is quite a town, I knew that I was then entering that land of romance which I had often feared I should never see.
I was left to find my own way to the train. There were reasons why Mr. Stewart and Miss Galstin did not wish to be seen in my society. It was quite a big station, and there were lots of people. When my train came in it was an enormous train, I could not see the end of it I got into a third-class carriage. As I opened the door I noticed a girl with very fair hair, dressed in a long travelling coat, move to where I was and stand and stare as if she had a mind to speak to me. If she had she changed it, and walked on. She got into a first-class compartment farther down
the train. I wondered why she had stared at me. When Mr. Stewart had put me down just outside the station, as I was walking away from him she was on the pavement. Then she had looked at me as if she were disposed to speak.
The girl’s peculiar manner rather worried me. It was silly, but I hoped she had not seen me speak to Mr. Stewart there were particular reasons why I did not want anyone to do that. Perhaps it was because of the little fluster I was in that I did not observe that there was anyone else in the compartment I had chosen.
The fact is that there was no one exactly in it, but just as the train was starting I perceived that there were some things on the opposite seat which obviously belonged to someone else. My inclination was to jump out and find an empty compartment. But there was not time; I should only have stopped behind if I had tried. The train was off. We had gone some little distance when the other
passenger came through the door at the other end. It was a corridor train. I had not seen one before, but of course I had heard of them, and I wished there had not been such things. The man it was a man had evidently walked from goodness knew where, just as if the train had been standing still, and was returning to his seat.
Directly he appeared I caught up the book which I had brought with me and began to read; but I believe he noticed that I had not started reading till he did appear, and I daresay he formed his own conclusions. He placed himself in the corner opposite me. I did not look at him, but I knew that he was a big, weedy man, with dark hair and a long, hatchet-like face. If I dared not look at him, he did at me; it was not pleasant. Then in about ten minutes he spoke to me quite civilly, in a voice which somehow reminded me of Mr. Stewart.
“If you would like to see a picture paper I have some.”
That is what he said. He did have some, I should say about a dozen. But
although I like picture papers I was not going to take one from a stranger. I was as civil to him as he was to me.
“Thank you,” I said. “I have a book.”
“Is it a live book?” he asked. “Some books are awful dry reading.”
He had no right to speak to me after I had given him to understand that I would rather he did not. Besides, how could I tell if it was a “live” book when I had not
finished the first page? I told him so.
“When I have read more I may be able to give you the information you require;
at present I have read none of it.”
I was barely civil to him, but he did not seem to mind in the least. He immediately told me a story.
“When I was travelling from Naples to Rome the other day I hadn’t so much to read as a patent medicine throwaway. So I went to the stall and I explained how it was. I said to the woman who was looking after it there’s more employment for women in Europe than in the country I come from; I saw a woman harnessed with a cow to a plough not so very long ago that I wanted some kind of a book that I’d have to read till sleep took me. She couldn’t speak any civilised
language, and I am no Dago, but she gave me a book. I didn’t look at it, because by the time I’d paid for it my train was slipping out of the station; as there’s only about one every other week I couldn’t stop to chatter. When I had planked
myself down I looked to see what book she had given me. It was one of those interesting works in which they tell you how to swear at your hotel bill in twelve languages. Now that was a live book, because that’s a handy thing to know. I have seen hotel bills which I should have liked to swear at in forty languages.
Still that was not the kind of work I wanted, and I was alone with that book for the better part of that live-long day. I gave it to the conductor of that train the first chance I had. I believe he gave himself a crick in the jaw trying to ask me what I meant. I should have liked to look into that book to see if it told me how to explain, but it was no longer mine, and I didn’t want to ask a favour of a man I didn’t know.”
That was the story he told me. It reads pretty flat when you have got it down, but I thought it rather funny perhaps it was the way he told it. But I did not dare to smile for fear he should tell me another, and I did not want to have a perfect stranger telling me stories all the way to Liverpool. I told him quite plainly that I would rather not talk, and he pointed out to me what a nuisance the stranger you meet in the train is who likes the sound of his own voice and thinks you must too. It seemed to me that that remark told rather against himself, but somehow I did not feel as if I could say so.
I did get to Liverpool, and I got on board the steamer, and when they showed me to my cabin I could just have hugged myself. There was an air of adventure
about everyone and everything which made me want to dance the hornpipe. But I did not. I merely told myself that this really was a much better world than I had ever supposed it to be. I have not a word to say against the Fulham Palace Road, but at that moment I had a kind of notion that there were better places even than that, especially when you have lived in Grove Gardens for eight years without ever going ten miles away from home. Then I knew that I was going to get some practical idea of low big the world really is.
CHAPTER XIV