She kissed us, and said I was more like my mother. And were our boxes labelled?
She hardly waited for us to answer. She did not wait at all for our little trunk.
"A footman will attend to the luggage," she said. As she led us down the platform, her eyes kept darting about in a way that made me think she must be expecting someone else by that train. I looked round, too. But nobody else seemed to be expecting Aunt Josephine, though a woman towards the end of the platform looked very searchingly at our party as we passed. Aunt Josephine did not seem to notice. She was busy putting on a thick motor-veil over the lace one that was tied round her hat—her lovely hat, that, as Betty said afterwards, was "boiling over with black ostrich-feathers."
A wonderful scent had come towards us with Aunt Josephine—nothing the least like that faint garden-smell that clung to our linen, from the sprays of lavender and dried verbena our mother put newly each year under the white paper of our wardrobe-shelves. Such a ghost of fragrance could never have survived here. This perfume of Aunt Josephine's—not so much strong as dominant—routed the sooty, acrid smell of the station. When she lifted her arms to put the chiffon over her face, fresh waves of the rich, mysterious scent came towards us.
She seemed in haste to leave so mean a place as Victoria. She spoke a little sharply to the footman. He explained—and, indeed, we could see—that a great, shining motor-car was threading its way as well as it could through a tangle of taxi-cabs and inferior cars. Aunt Josephine stood frowning under her double veil, and once I saw her eyes go towards the woman who had noticed us. The woman was speaking to one of the porters. The porter, too, looked at Aunt Josephine and nodded. The dowdy woman gave the porter a tip, and sent him on an errand. I was far too excited to notice such uninteresting people, but for the curious personal kind of detestation in the look the dowdy woman fixed upon Aunt Josephine.
"We won't wait," said our aunt. "We'll take this taxi."
But just then the beautiful shining car swerved free, and we were hurried in. The footman spread a rug over our knees. As we glided out of the station I noticed the dowdy woman asking her way of a policeman.
And the policeman didn't know the way. He shook his head. And both of them looked after us.
As we whirled through the crowded streets I felt how everyone must be envying Bettina and me.
Presently we came to a quiet corner. The houses stood back from the street, in gardens. Our aunt's was one of these.