The Retrospect

by Ada Cambridge

"You run along as hard as you can run," said he, "and I'll meet you under the big clock."

I did run, although in other circumstances I should have believed it almost impossible to put my left foot to the ground. And I ran the right way too, although I did not know it, and although I have a natural genius for taking wrong ones; up and down stairs and along devious passages, sped by the directing fingers and shouts that answered my gasping query to every railway man I passed; and so I came out on a high gallery in the great arena of Paddington Station—to see my train below me, but still far away, and the big clock that was my rendezvous with the luggage porter (nowhere to be seen) pointing to the very minute that the time-table fixed for its departure!

I flew along that bridge to the end, hurled myself almost headlong down the stairs to the platform, reached my train; and there was still no sign of the luggage porter, far or near, and they were shutting the carriage doors, and the guard was lifting his hand to give the signal to start. He was a fine, big, important-looking man—I shall not forget him—and but for my experience of English railway officers it would not have occurred to me to approach him at such a moment; but I had the happy inspiration to do so, and was thereby saved.

"He will be here directly," said that guard with the manners of a prince. "I will hold the train a moment."

He held it for moments that made two minutes before my laggard henchman came into view, and then helped him to bundle my things into the corridor of my carriage, there being no time to seek the van. Blessings on him! I hope it may be my good fortune to travel in his charge again before I die. And I was only a third-class passenger.

That is another of the pleasures of English railway travel. At home we have no third class, and your own servants do not deign to travel second. I do not myself, except sometimes on a country journey, the long-distance trains having a special character and equipment. But in England the third-class carriage was our only wear; but twice did we put on airs and take a second—a first never. In Australia when you ask for your unspecified ticket, unless you are blatantly horny-handed and begrimed with toil, the young man behind the wicket gives you a first-class as a matter of course; in England he gives you a third, with the same inward knowledge that he is doing the proper thing, no questions asked. And with that evidence in your hand of your lack of social consequence, you are of as much importance as anybody to the English official, who is a gentleman every time. My guard of the Great Western could not have done more for me if I had been the queen.

And so, thanks to him, I was off at last. In a full carriage, of course, where I had to sit in the middle, but still, safely embarked for Devonshire. And when the agitation of my nerves subsided I looked at the passing landscape which I had last seen as a girl and a bride and thought of all that had happened—heavens! what had not happened?—since that far-off day. Its face might have changed—it must have done—but it was the same country, the same towns and villages, and woods and fields. I had seen them for the first time in the twilight of a May evening in 1870—that evening of farewells and heartbreak, of all evenings in my life—and never since till now ...

One advantage of being a third-classer is that you can chat with a neighbour without misgiving, if you feel that way disposed. I could not read in English trains; it would have been a wicked waste of eyesight when there was so much better than books to look at; and if you do not read you either incline to talk or you are supposed to be ready to do so. There was a little lady in the corner next to me whom I liked the look of, and who apparently returned the compliment, and we made one of those little ships-that-pass friendships, which are often as pleasant as they are brief, before she left me at Newton Abbot, to branch off to Cornwall. She had a school in that county, but had been called from it to a sick brother in America—in the Wild West too—a couple of years before we met; and his illness, death, and difficulties resulting from them had only now released her to return to the quiet life which had been so violently interrupted. So she had had her great experiences and was having them now as well as I. She had left a locum tenens in charge of her school, and she did not know how she was going to find things, nor how she was going to settle down into the old narrow groove again.

As in Port Said, I was minded not to dock my trip of any of its charms, and would not bring the customary private sandwich for my midday repast. There was a restaurant car on the train (we have them too, but I have never used them), and I intended to enjoy the novelty of lunching therein. I had seen photographs of the tempting interiors—third class!—in magazines, and from the platforms of great junctions had peeped at them through their own glass windows. It was another bit of experience to be taken in its course and the most infinitesimal bit was valuable.

So at one o'clock I rose and proudly journeyed down the train. But I had not noticed the preliminary boy sent round to collect orders, and the Master of Ceremonies politely informed me that the tables were filled. Another luncheon would be ready in half-an-hour, he said, but now I was "off" lunching that way, and wished I had catered for myself as usual. Returning to my seat I found my neighbour with her little refreshment set out on a napkin spread over her neat lap. She insisted on my sharing it with her, and after decent demur I did. There was a meat-pie and I had half; two cakes and I had one; two bananas and I had one. Later on I returned her hospitality as best I could by inviting her to tea with me, and then I sampled the possibilities of the restaurant car and found them all that I could wish.