The Strand Magazine/Volume 24/Issue 139/The Ipswich Express

by Ella D'Arcy

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The Ipswich Express

By G. H. Page

" OULDN'T you find me a carriage with a lady in it?" said Lily Freeston, a little doubtfully, as the porter opened the door of a first-class carriage which was quite empty, and began to pack her dressing-bag and roll of rugs into the rack.

"Well, miss," said he, apologetically, "though there are a good many people going by this train, there are not many going first-class. But very likely some may come yet, for there's still twenty minutes before you're off, and I'll look out for any ladies, and if I can manage it I'll put them in here."

He spoke with an eye to his tip, and the grateful Lily at once gave him a shilling. Then he went off and forgot all about her in the doing of other jobs, and the carriage remained empty.

In a way Lily found it pleasant to be alone, and could she have felt certain of remaining alone during the whole two hours of her journey she would have been quite happy. But it was the uncertainty, the possibility of having to travel with some objectionable companion, which gave her a slight sense of uneasiness.

She chose her seat in the corner facing the engine, but she did not sit down at once. She stood instead at the open door, watching the crowd hurrying about the platform. There were plenty of people, as the porter had said, but all, obviously, were going second or third class. There were mothers with large families of children, there were schoolboys and young people, there was a group of Salvation lasses, a clergyman, and a much-flustered old lady, carrying a bird-cage in one hand and a band-box in the other. Her perturbation arose from the fact that she had not seen her trunk put into the luggage-van with her own eyes, and it was in vain that an irascible porter insisted that he, at least, knew he had done so with his own hands. The old lady was neither to be soothed nor to be intimidated. She appealed volubly to the station-master, who happened to be standing at hand.

Lily could see her action, could see her gesticulation, while not hearing what she said. And the girl couldn't help smiling at the way in which the old lady waved the band-box and the bird-cage about, couldn't help wondering how the bird, beneath the green-baize cover, was enjoying his tempestuous experiences. Finally, it seemed to Lily that the station-master invited the old lady to accompany him to the luggage-van and verify the whereabouts of the box herself, for he walked off towards the rear of the train and the old lady trotted after him.

By this time most of the other passengers had taken their places and the platform was nearly empty. Only a nice-looking young man in a grey summer suit remained, and he kept looking now at his watch and now through each of the station entrances as he sauntered by them, as if he were awaiting the arrival of a friend.

"No, she won't come," said Lily to herself as she watched him. "I'm afraid she was so long doing her hair—and of course she wanted to do it extra well to-day—that she missed the train. You will have to go without her or to wait for the next. But you look much too nice to go without her. I'm sure you'll wait for the next."

A guard carrying a green flag came along banging to the carriage-doors, and Lily sat down satisfied at last that she was going to make the journey alone: for after leaving Liverpool Street the train did not stop again until it reached Ipswich.

"SHE WENT ON WITH THE NARRATIVE."

"SHE WENT ON WITH THE NARRATIVE."

She did not anticipate being dull. First of all, the mere sensation of being carried along at the rate of sixty miles an hour was an amusement to her; then she liked looking out of the window at the hamlets and country houses flying past her and imagining little stories about the people who lived in them; and finally, when she should tire of this, she had plenty of magazines and papers with which to beguile the time.

She had also the letter home to her aunt which she had begin in the train coming up from Tunbridge, and she thought she would first go on with that. So she took her bag down from the rack, found her little writing-pad and pencil, and putting the point of the latter between her pretty lips to darken it went on with the narrative of her travel adventures where she had broken off:—

"I got across London from Charing Cross to Liverpool Street all right, and the cabman was very nice; and when I asked him 'How much?' he said: 'Well, since it's you, miss, we'll say five shillings,' which was very kind of him, wasn't it? and not a bit extortionate, as Jack said he would be, for it was really an immense way here, and through such crowded, horrid streets that it must have been most difficult to drive. Now I am in the Ipswich train in a carriage all to myself, for I couldn't find any other ladies to travel with, as you wished; but it doesn't really matter, for I don't feel a bit lonely or fright——"

"HE PRECIPITATED HIMSELF INTO THE FARTHEST OPPOSITE CORNER."

"HE PRECIPITATED HIMSELF INTO THE FARTHEST OPPOSITE CORNER."

At that instant the door was snatched open, a bag was flung in, and a tall, black-bearded man, with a big cigar in his mouth, dashed in after it. He stumbled over Lily's feet without a word of apology, shut the door behind him with a furious slam, and precipitated himself into the farthest opposite corner of the carriage. Lily looked at him in amazement and dismay. Really this was worse than anything she could have possibly foreseen. It was simply impossible for her to travel in a carriage with a man who smoked, for the smell of smoke always made her ill, always gave her a bad headache. She could not sit ten minutes in her cousin Jack's smoking-room without the atmosphere affecting her. To be shut up for two hours in the company of that big cigar was absolutely out of the question. Yet what was she to do? Was it possible for her to change carriages? She gave a despairing glance at her various possessions scattered over the seats, at her heavy dressing-bag, at her big bundle of wraps and rugs up in the rack opposite her, and which she could not even lift down herself. No, it was impossible that she could change carriages in time, and yet what on earth was she to do?

She could think of nothing better than an appeal to the stranger's good feeling, since he, at least, could get into another carriage without any difficulty. And, no doubt, he had made a mistake in entering this carriage instead of the next one. She remembered now to have noticed that the next compartment was a smoking-compartment, and probably in his hurry he had mistaken the doors.

He looked a gentleman, Lily decided, although she immediately discovered that he was a very odd-looking man, too: while certainly his mode of entrance had not been over-courteous. Still, she felt perfectly sure that he would be willing to move himself rather than put her to such inconvenience and discomfort.

"Pardon me," she said, with timid courage, "but I think you have made a mistake? This is not a smoking-carriage."

There was something really extremely old in the appearance of this foreign-looking man, who might be French, who might be Italian; who wore a soft hat, a voluminous "bat's-wing" cape, and a sparse, stubbly black beard. There was something odd and repellent, too, in the damp white skin, the thick black eyebrows, the black, flickering, staring eyes, which were now fixed upon her, and which filled her with nervous trepidations.

He took his cigar from his mouth when she had begun to speak, and one corner of his upper lip drew back in an ugly way, reminding her of some ill-tempered dog.

"You object to me smoking?" he asked, speaking with a strong foreign accent, in a hard, curious, unmodulated voice.

"Well—yes, I do," said Lily, bravely. "It makes me feel ill, and that is why I came into this carriage, which is not a smoking-carriage. But there is a smoking compartment on that side, next door. You will have time to change, if you are quick. Please, please, be quick, and change!"

But the stranger merely put back his cigar between his teeth, and continued to turn on her a fierce and flickering gaze.

"You object to me smoking?" he repeated, just as before. "You make me observations? You tell me go into anuzzer carriage? Now, look he-aire."

He slipped a hand into a pocket beneath his cloak and produced a tiny revolver, which he laid beside him on the arm of the seat, keeping his hand upon it.

"I allow no one in ze world to interfere wiz me, to make me remarks, and I carry this about wiz me," he pointed the weapon straight at Lily's face, "to give a lesson to those peoples who do not let me alone."

"HE POINTED THE WEAPON STRAIGHT AT LILY'S FACE."

"HE POINTED THE WEAPON STRAIGHT AT LILY'S FACE."

At first Lily had gone crimson with surprise at being spoken to in such a manner. Never in the world had any man answered her with such rudeness before. But when he produced the pistol, then she had felt the warm blood rush back from her beating head to her heart. She grew pale, she grew cold, she grew paler still. For suddenly she understood the awful truth. The man was mad! She was shut up alone in a carriage with a madman!

And at the very instant that she realized the full horror of the situation the train began to move slowly and smoothly out of the station.

Terror kept her rigid as a figure of stone, and it was well for her that it was so. For though the madman's eye was unsteady, though it flickered the whole time, still he never removed it from her; he kept his hand always on the handle of the little pistol by his side.

She understood, intuitively, that were she to scream, were she to open the door, were she to try to pull the cord of communication with the guard—were she, in fact, to make any attempt to obtain help, he would fire at once. The desire for violence was clearly expressed in his glance.

And probably, even though she sat perfectly quiet, he would kill her all the same. And she looked at the glittering muzzle of the tiny weapon, and wondered how soon her death-blow would spring out from it. Heavens! It was too horrible, too impossible, that she, Lily Freeston, so young and so happy, with so many people who were fond of her, with Aunt Mary thinking about her probably at that very moment, with her friend Maggie Parker expecting her at Ipswich, with so many pretty frocks in her trunk to be worn during her visit, that she should find herself in imminent peril of her life, shut up alone in a railway carriage with a madman.

It was like some horrible nightmare, and yet it was worse than any nightmare she had ever suffered from, for it was actual fact, it was actually true.

What could she do?

The advertisements on the walls of the station began to slide past her, those advertisements of soap, of blacking, of beer, which she knew so well, which she had read hundreds of times in hundreds of idle, empty moments, and amidst all the confused, troubled, agonized thoughts which seemed to struggle and shout together in her brain came the ridiculous little regret that this was the last time she would ever read these familiar advertisements, ever be bored by their monotonous reiterations. For in another minute she would be carried away from all aid, from all human proximity, out into the open country, alone with this madman, and whatever then happened her cries would be lost in the noise of the rushing train, which would not again stop until it reached Ipswich.

Her fingers trembled on the pencil which she still held poised over her unfinished letter, and suddenly an inspiration came to her—a Heaven-sent inspiration which thrilled her with a last faint hope of help, which comforted her with the idea of, at least, making her desperate circumstances known to some fellow-being.

She carried this idea out with a coolness and courage which were Heaven-sent too.

All this while, and it appears to be a certain while in the reading, although in point of time it passed in a very few seconds, she had her eyes raised to the madman's, who watched her interrogatively, expecting an answer to his information. Now she gave one.

"Very well," she said, gently, and she was astonished to detect no alteration in her voice, it sounded just as usual. "You shall go on smoking and I will go on with my letter."

Now the writing-pad consisted of detachable sheets, which could be turned back as each page was finished and all held together, or any separate page could be easily pulled out. Lily turned a page now, and wrote on the next one: "Pray help me, I am so frightened" (an unexpected termination this to the gay courage of her unfinished sentence to her aunt), and then added another couple of words, any words, nonsense words, and promptly scratched them through, as if she had made a mistake. Immediately, with a well-assumed little frown of vexation, she tore out the page and crumpled it up in her hand.

Now she rose with an air of indifference and let her glance fall out of the window. There were the long boards of the platform slipping by her, running away to converge in a single point in the distance; there was a porter—the very porter to whom she had given the shilling—rolling and rattling milk-cans from one part of the station to the other; there stood the young man in grey, still waiting, and talking now with the station-master. Everything was calm, placid, ordinary; everyone was absolutely indifferent to her peril. And yet she was being carried away from all security, from all calmness, to a horrible uncertainty, most likely to a violent death.

The young man in grey happened to raise his eyes to hers, although he was a long way from her, far down the moving platform.

With apparent carelessness she threw the little ball of paper out and sat down again to write. But she had thrown it with a definite aim, she had seen it roll to the feet of the two men, she had seen the young man pick it up. He was smoothing it out in his fingers when the station passed out of sight.

"SHE HAD SEEN THE YOUNG MAN PICK IT UP."

"SHE HAD SEEN THE YOUNG MAN PICK IT UP."

So far her scheme had worked successfully. But what result would it have? Could it have any result? What would the young man do? What would the station-master do? Was it possible for them to do anything at all? They would probably think it some silly girl's joke.

Yet even if they believed her to be in need of help, what could they do?

And she sat pretending to continue her letter, while asking herself with anguish whether there were really any means of overtaking an express train, of stopping her? Perhaps they would telegraph on to the next station and have her stopped by signal, but perhaps the next station was ever so far off, and before they reached it she might be already dead.

An unconquerable fascination made her look up, to see the man in the corner watching her with a cruel malignancy while his fingers caressed the handle of the revolver; and she bent again over her writing-pad, on which she traced mechanically nonsense words, while she said to herself: "Now he will fire. Before I get to the end of the next line he will fire. How unhappy poor auntie will be when she hears the news! I suppose she will read of it in to-morrow's paper." And the girl felt her eyes fill with tears as she imagined her Aunt Mary's grief.

A shadow fell across the paper. The window was suddenly darkened. Someone was standing outside the carriage on the footboard looking in over the door.

It was the young man in grey, and when Lily recognised his fair, strong, and handsome English face, so much passionate relief and gratitude welled up into her wet blue eyes that he instantly saw he had done right in obeying the impulse which told him to spring upon the flying train. He had thrust Lily's paper into the hands of the station-master, had run along the platform, and leaped upon the footboard of one of the rear carriages as it whirled past him. The rest had been a mere matter of agility and nerve. Now, another glance into the carriage revealed to him the state of the case.

He turned the handle, stepped up, and sat down opposite the young girl.

"Well, I very nearly missed the train this time!" said he, with courteous carelessness. "Hadn't you given me up?"

"IT WAS THE YOUNG MAN IN GREY."

"IT WAS THE YOUNG MAN IN GREY."

Lily gave a little gasp, and then understood he was assuming the rôle of brother or friend to give himself the right of protecting her.

"Yes," she told him. "I had given up hope altogether," and there was real truth in the words.

Watching his face intently, she read his wishes.

"Will you not come and sit over here?" she asked him, and began clearing her things away from the place beside her.

He changed places in the most natural way possible, and appeared to pay no attention at all to the traveller in the far corner. But Lily knew that the move had been made for the very purpose of observing him, and by a little sign she indicated to the young man in grey the pistol lying under the Frenchman's hand, and now half hidden by a fold of his cloak.

The man was still smoking, while he stared in front of him with an assumed air of mental preoccupation, although every now and then a glint from his flickering eye fell upon his companions in the carriage.

The train every moment was increasing in speed. The carriage swayed and rattled, the telegraph-posts leaped past in quick succession, an express coming from the other direction seemed one long line of glittering windows, one long, continuous roar.

Had the young man in grey seen the pistol? Lily could not be sure, for he gave no answering sign, and his manner was exceedingly bright and irrelevant.

"By Jove, that was a very close thing," said he. "And if I hadn't come by this train I don't think the girls would ever have forgiven me. They make such a point of it. But now I want you," he continued, "to keep a look-out on the opposite window." We are going to pass directly a very extraordinary sight. We are going to pass a house built without any front to it, by a man who is consumptive, and hopes to cure himself on the open-air system. It looks precisely like a dolls' house with the door open. You can see into all the rooms. There! There it is! Do you see it?" he cried eagerly, getting up to point it out, and Lily jumped up and looked with all her eyes, and the Frenchman half rose and looked too.

Was there such a house as the young man described? Lily could not tell, for the train had reached full speed, and the whole countryside wheeled and curved and spun into view, and reeled away again behind them, before she had time to detect any one particular thing. But in the same instant that her bewildered eyes searched vainly for this house, the young man in grey had sprung across the carriage, had stooped down and seized the pistol, and had flung it far out of the window over the Frenchman's head.

"Oh, take care!" cried Lily, for she saw him turn in a paroxysm of fury upon the young man in grey, and the next moment the two were locked in a fierce struggle on the carriage floor.

The train shrieked, and rattled, and banged, the two men wrestled with clenched teeth one to overpower the other, and Lily, standing as far out of the way as she could, pressed back her cries with trembling little hands.

Everything in the carriage was overset; newspapers, books, and papers were scattered on the floor. The maniac clutching hold of the bar of the net-rack to prevent his opponent from throwing him brought the whole affair down. Down with it came his own bag, insecurely fastened and hurriedly packed. Its mouth opened and it vomited forth a strange flood of heterogeneous contents: pomatum, socks, brushes, soap, medicine bottles full and empty, china dogs and shepherdesses looking like a hasty collection from a mantelpiece or chiffonnier, a large piece of bread, and quantities of fine cigars, which rolled into every corner of the carriage or were trodden under foot. And still the men wrestled, and still the train rushed forward, and Lily, very pale and tremulous, waited for the end. But she never felt one moment's doubt of the strength or capacity of the young man in grey. Nor, embarrassed as the maniac was by the heaving hanging cloak, was there ever any chance of his doing harm.

"STILL THE MEN WRESTLED, AND STILL THE TRAIN RUSHED FORWARD."

"STILL THE MEN WRESTLED, AND STILL THE TRAIN RUSHED FORWARD."

"If I could but manage to tie his legs," said the young man, who had now got him pinioned in a corner by the arms, "I think it would settle him," and he looked about him for some sort of ligature. "Haven't you got some rugs? Then take one of the straps. Now, try to pass it round his ankles here. Yes! Now once more, and pull tight. Tighter still! There, that's right. Give me the other strap, and we'll put it round his arms—so."

The man lay on the floor of the carriage securely bound. He lay quiet and silent, only his eyes gave sign of life. And with these eyes still burning with fury and madness he followed the movements of the young people.

Lily was filled with pity for him.

"Poor creature," she said, "how terrible! How wretched he look! Do you think him in pain? Are those straps hurting him, perhaps? Do put this cushion under his head. But surely we are slowing down? We are going to stop."

And the train really was drawing up at an unimportant little station where perhaps no express train had ever stopped before, and the officials of this station came running along the footboard even before she had stopped, looking into all the carriages. And there was a great commotion when they came to Lily's carriage, which looked almost as if it had been wrecked, and there were hurried questions and explanations, and much commiseration for the young lady.

But the train was bound to reach Ipswich at a fixed hour. There could be no delaying. Two guards were put into the carriage to take care of the unfortunate lunatic, and Lily's property was collected and carried by willing hands to another compartment. In less than five minutes the train was off again, and Lily and the young man in grey, sitting facing one another, were once more rushing through the green open country. But what a difference there was in the girl's feelings! How calm, how relieved, how happy she felt now!

"You must have had an awful moment when you first realized he was mad," said the young man.

"Oh, I felt as though my hair were going grey. Has it gone grey, perhaps?" she asked, anxiously. "For I have heard of such things happening."

"No; it's yellow—the colour of corn in the sun," said the young man, gravely.

"I'm so glad," exclaimed Lily, joyfully, "for I am going to a dance to-night, and it would have been horrid to have looked in the glass and found I had grey hair."

"I, too, to-night am going to a dance," said the young man, "and I was to have escorted some ladies down from town who were going to it too; but as they did not turn up at the station I was going to wait for the next train, which starts twenty minutes later, as I supposed they had missed the express, when your message reached me."

"What made you see at once that it was serious? I was so afraid it might be thought just a joke."

"Oh, I had noticed you on the station long before, and I knew you were not the sort of girl to play that kind of joke," said the young man, gravely, and Lily blushed with a certain pleasure at his words.

"Poor auntie will be so dreadfully upset when she hears of my adventures. She was to have come with me, but I left her in bed this morning with neuralgia. She hated my having to travel alone; although, of course, we never could have imagined anything so dreadful as this."

"Have you friends to meet you at Ipswich?" asked the young man.

"Oh, yes, the Parkers will meet me. Maggie Parker is my greatest friend. And it is at their house that the dance is to be to-night."

"So you know the Parkers? That's splendid! For I, too, know them very well. And I, too, am going down expressly for that dance. It's jolly to think I shall see you again."

The delightful and amazing turn things were taking gave a new lustre to Lily's blue eyes and began to bring back some colour to her pale face. And while she sat in a kind of joy dream, glancing every now and then shyly at the handsome, open, sunburnt face of the young man in grey, Ipswich was reached and her attention was turned to a group of young people on the platform awaiting the arrival of the train.

"Oh, there are the Parkers!" cried Lily. "How nice! There are Maggie, and Ethel, and Joe."

And "Lily, dearest!" cried a girl, running forward as she and the young man in grey got out of the train, "there you are! And where is Mrs. Walters? Neuralgia? Oh, I'm so sorry! And mother will be disappointed. But Frank has managed, I see, to find you out after all. Very clever of him, since we told him to look out for two ladies, one of whom would have white curls. How did you manage, Frank, to recognise Lily Freeston all by herself?"

Lily stared in helpless bewilderment, for the young man in grey was kissing the Parker girls all round in the most brotherly fashion.

"But don't you know it's Frank?" cried Maggie Parker, astonished in her turn. "You must have often heard us speak of Frank, our sailor brother, and he has run up from Portsmouth on purpose to come to our dance. Do you mean to say you have travelled all the way from London together and still require to be introduced?"

"Oh, we have a great deal to tell you," said Lieutenant Parker, "but I suggest that we don't tell it here or now. Miss Freeston is looking pale and tired. Let us take her home and restore her with some tea. After tea you shall hear the whole exciting story."

Lily was very grateful for the suggestion. For now that the danger was over and the reaction had set in, she was really feeling strangely tired and weak. And yet in her heart the sun was shining too, for she knew that for herself another and an exquisite story had begun.