“You mustn’t forget your part in the play. For any one with a good memory it will be quite easy to learn. And you’ll find the acting rather fun, I think.”
Miss Cass was living in a dream which could not envisage details, but she submitted to the play being pressed into her hand. Without so much as a glance at the brown paper cover she placed it mechanically in the pocket of the fur coat.
The next thing to happen in the bewildered consciousness of Miss Cass was the stopping of the train. Lady Elfreda let down the window to disclose a lighted station lamp with the name “Clavering St. Mary’s” painted thereon. Somehow at the moment this legend meant nothing to Miss Cass; the land she was living in now was east of the sun, west of the moon. But a voice amazingly dominant said: “Here we are. Pikey, wake up.” And then the owner of the voice put her head out of the window and summoned a porter.
A leisurely functionary came up to the carriage door and opened it. As he did so the lady of the green ulster said with an air of quiet competence which in the circumstances was almost uncanny, “There are two trunks in the luggage van. Or is it three, Pikey? Do wake up.”
Pikey somnolently grunted the word “three” and then with a supreme effort stepped, or rather lurched, out onto the platform, while the porter collected the flotsam of the compartment and bore them to an adjacent trolley.
“Three trunks in the luggage van, porter.”
“Very good, miss.
“They are labeled ‘Clavering Park’—aren’t they, Pikey?”
The reply was a drowsy affirmative.
“You have one, too, haven’t you?” said Elfreda in a bold aside, with one eye upon her maid.