“How like you!” she exclaimed.
The train steamed fussily out of Ashencombe station, leaving Magda, Gillian, and Coppertop, together with sundry trunks and suitcases, in undisputed possession of the extremely amateurish-looking platform. Magda glanced about her with amusement.
“What a ridiculous little wayside place!” she exclaimed. “It has a kind of ‘home-made’ appearance, hasn’t it? You’d hardly expect a real bona fide train to stop here!”
“This your luggage, miss?”
A porter—or, to be accurate, the porter, since Ashencombe boasted but one—addressed her abruptly. From a certain inimical gleam in his eye Magda surmised that he had overheard her criticism.
“Yes.” She nodded smilingly. “Is there a trap of any kind to meet us?”
Being a man as well as a porter he melted at once under Magda’s disarming smile, and replied with a sudden accession of amiability.
“Be you going to Stockleigh?” he asked. The soft sing-song intonation common to all Devon voices fell very pleasantly on ears accustomed to the Cockney twang of London streets.
“Yes, to Storran of Stockleigh,” announced Coppertop importantly.
The porter’s mouth widened into an appreciative grin.