Three Houses by Angela Thirkell Read Free Book Online

open setting in claws of gold, with black enamel and gold chasing on each side. ‘Aunt Catherwood’ died in 1872, and the name of the friend or relation for whom she had worn the ring was obliterated by time. Otherwise my grandmother wore hardly any jewellery.
    Meanwhile our luggage was being unloaded from the omnibus that had brought us fromBrighton station. It must have been a relic of early omnibus days in London, with seats beside the driver and a knifeboard on the top where one sat back to back just like Leech drawings in old copies of Punch . There were other buses running between Rottingdean and Brighton, but they were vastly inferior. Those from the Royal Oak were indeed drawn by four horses, but they were such thin and jaded wisps that to drive behind them was misery, and one found oneself wondering whether their bones would come right through their wretched starved-looking bodies before the journey’s end, or if they wouldn’t choose this journey to lie down at the bottom of the long hill and die. But though the other bus was only drawn by two horses, they were so white and so stout and competent that it was always, if possible, arranged for us to come by the train that was met by the bus from the White Horse. It came right up the steep hill into the station yard and was waiting for us at the end of our journey. We would willingly have clambered up to the seats beside the driver, but they were usually reserved for lucky grown-ups and the mostwe could expect was occasionally to be jammed in, between a grown-up passenger and the driver, and allowed to hold the reins when he had gathered them up. Our Nanny had strong objections to our going outside, which were partly in the general scheme of repression and partly, I must now admit, a not unnatural avoidance of the responsibility of a child with quicksilver in its legs and sea-air in its brain being loose on the roof. So as a rule we had to ride inside with Nanny and the baby, though even here were compensations, for the bus actually had a door that was shut in cold weather and straw on the floor in winter, so that it was not difficult to find romance.
    The family luggage had been piled on to the roof: large black shiny dress trunks with round tops, heavy leather trunks, massive Gladstone bags, Nanny’s tin box locked and corded, and, neady sewn up in hessian and mackintosh, the baby’s bath containing all her belongings. Fashions in luggage have changed as completely as everything else since those days, and I suppose Nannies and housemaids all have suit cases now and what has happened tothe tin trunks I cannot say. I was walking not long ago in a quiet street in Mayfair when a very old four-wheeler came round the corner and drew up at a large house. Like John Gilpin’s chaise it did not drive up to the front door, but stopped at the area gate. There got out of it a very respectable man in overcoat and bowler and to him the driver handed down a small tin trunk neatly corded which he took on his shoulders and conveyed down the area steps. I felt that I was seeing a ghost of other times, the gentleman’s gentleman with his tin trunk going down the area steps and in at the servants’ entrance. As the cab turned round and made for a very discreet public-house with green blinds in the windows a few doors off, the shade of Thackeray seemed to be hanging over it.
    By now perhaps I had been lucky enough to be perched up in front between the driver and some friendly grownup, with a broad leather strap across us both, much needed when the driver turned the horses’ heads, and we drove down the long steep hill from the station, the bus almost pressing the horses’ hindquarters. The driver held them well up, bracinghis feet against the board in front, and we held on to the seat and were thankful for the strap which kept us from slithering down, especially when our legs were too short to reach the floor. Our bus had special privileges and was allowed to go along the sea