Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons Read Free Book Online Page B

the evenings they went to parties; that is, Mrs Smiling and the two Pioneers-O went to parties, where yet more young men fell in love with Mrs Smiling, and Flora who, as we know, loathed parties, dined quietly with intelligent men: a way of passing the evening which she adored, because then she could show-off a lot and talk about herself.
    No letter had come by Monday evening at tea-time; and Flora thought that her departure would probably have to be postponed until Wednesday. But the last post brought her a limp postcard; and she was reading it at half-past ten on her return from one of the showing-off dinners when Mrs Smilingcame in, having wearied of a nasty party she had been attending.
    ‘Does it give the times of the trains, my dove?’ asked Mrs Smiling. ‘It
is
dirty, isn’t it? I can’t help rather wishing it were possible for the Starkadders to send a clean letter.’
    ‘It says nothing about trains,’ replied Flora, with reserve. ‘So far as I can make out, it appears to be some verses, with which I must confess I am not familiar, from the Old Testament. There is also a repetition of the assurance that there have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort, though why it should be necessary to impress this upon me I am at a loss to imagine.’
    ‘Oh, do not say it is signed Seth or Reuben,’ cried Mrs Smiling, fearfully.
    ‘It is not signed at all. I gather that it is from some member of the family who does not welcome the prospect of my visit. I can distinguish a reference, among other things, to vipers. I must say that I think it would have been more to the point to give a list of the trains; but I suppose it is a little illogical to expect such attention to petty details from a doomed family living in Sussex. Well, Mary, I shall go down tomorrow, after lunch, as I planned. I will wire them in the morning to say I am coming.’
    ‘Shall you fly?’
    ‘No. There is no landing-stage nearer than Brighton. Besides, I must save money. You and Sneller can work out a route for me; you will enjoy fussing over that.’
    ‘Of course, darling,’ said Mrs Smiling, who was by now beginning to feel a little unhappy at the prospect of losing her friend. ‘But I wish you would not go.’
    Flora put the postcard in the fire; her determination remained unmoved.
    The next morning Mrs Smiling looked up trains to Howling, while Flora superintended the packing of her trunks by Riante, Mrs Smiling’s maid.
    Even Mrs Smiling could not find much comfort in the timetable. It seemed to her even more confused than usual. Indeed, since the aerial routes and the well-organized road routes had appropriated three-quarters of the passengers who used to make their journeys by train, the remaining railway companieshad fallen into a settled melancholy; an idle and repining despair invaded their literature, and its influence was noticeable even in their time-tables.
    There was a train which left London Bridge at half-past one for Howling. It was a slow train. It reached Godmere at three o’clock. At Godmere the traveller changed into another train. It was a slow train. It reached Beershorn at six o’clock. At Beershorn this train stopped; and there was no more idle chatter of the arrival and departure of trains. Only the simple sentence ‘Howling (see Beershorn)’ mocked, in its self-sufficing entity, the traveller.
    So Flora decided to go to Beershorn, and try her luck.
    ‘I expect Seth will meet you in a jaunting-car,’ said Mrs Smiling, as they sat at an early lunch.
    Their spirits were rather low by this time; and to look out of the window at Lambeth, where the gay little houses were washed by pale sunshine, and to think that she was to exchange the company of Mrs Smiling, and flying and showing-off dinners, for the rigours of Cold Comfort and the grossnesses of the Starkadders did not make Flora more cheerful.
    She snapped at poor Mrs Smiling.
    ‘One does not have jaunting-cars in England, Mary. Do you never read
anything
but