II

Pilar sat squeezed up against the window and thought how very odd the English smelt¹ .?.?. It waswhat had struck her so far most forcibly about England—the difference of smell. There was nogarlic and no dust and very little perfume. In this carriage now there was a smell of cold stuffiness—the sulphur smell of the trains—the smell of soap and another very unpleasant smell—it came,she thought, from the fur collar of the stout² woman sitting beside her. Pilar sniffed³ delicately,imbibing the odour of mothballs reluctantly. It was a funny scent⁴ to choose to put on yourself, shethought.

A whistle blew, a stentorian⁵ voice cried out something and the train jerked slowly out of thestation. They had started. She was on her way. .?.?.

Her heart beat a little faster. Would it be all right? Would she be able to accomplish what shehad set out to do? Surely—surely—she had thought it all out so carefully .?.?. She was prepared forevery eventuality. Oh, yes, she would succeed—she must succeed. .?.?.

The curve of Pilar’s red mouth curved upwards⁶. It was suddenly cruel, that mouth. Cruel andgreedy—like the mouth of a child or a kitten—a mouth that knew only its own desires and thatwas as yet unaware⁷ of pity.

She looked round her with the frank curiosity of a child. All these people, seven of them—how funny they were, the English! They all seemed so rich, so prosperous—their clothes—theirboots—Oh! undoubtedly⁸ England was a very rich country as she had always heard. But they werenot at all gay—no, decidedly not gay.

That was a handsome man standing¹⁰ in the corridor .?.?. Pilar thought he was very handsome.

She liked his deeply bronzed face and his high-bridged nose and his square shoulders. Morequickly than any English girl, Pilar had seen that the man admired her. She had not looked at himonce directly, but she knew perfectly¹¹ how often he had looked at her and exactly how he hadlooked.

She registered the facts without much interest or emotion. She came from a country wheremen looked at women as a matter of course and did not disguise the fact unduly¹². She wondered ifhe was an Englishman and decided⁹ that he was not.

“He is too alive, too real, to be English,” Pilar decided. “And yet he is fair. He may beperhaps Americano.” He was, she thought, rather like the actors she had seen in Wild West films.

An attendant pushed his way along the corridor.

“First lunch, please. First lunch. Take your seats for first lunch.”

The seven occupants of Pilar’s carriage all held tickets for the first lunch. They rose in a bodyand the carriage was suddenly deserted¹³ and peaceful.

Pilar quickly pulled up the window which had been let down a couple of inches at the top bya militant-looking, grey-haired lady in the opposite corner. Then she sprawled¹⁴ comfortably backon her seat and peered out of the window at the northern suburbs of London. She did not turn herhead at the sound of the door sliding back. It was the man from the corridor, and Pilar knew, ofcourse, that he had entered the carriage on purpose to talk to her.

She continued to look pensively¹⁵ out of the window.

Stephen Farr said:

“Would you like the window down at all?”

Pilar replied demurely¹⁶:

“On the contrary. I have just shut it.”

She spoke¹⁷ English perfectly, but with a slight accent.

During the pause that ensued, Stephen thought:

“A delicious voice. It has the sun in it .?.?. It is warm like a summer night. .?.?.”

Pilar thought:

“I like his voice. It is big and strong. He is attractive—yes, he is attractive.”

Stephen said: “The train is very full.”

“Oh, yes, indeed. The people go away from London, I suppose, because it is so black there.”

Pilar had not been brought up to believe that it was a crime to talk to strange men in trains.

She could take care of herself as well as any girl, but she had no rigid¹⁸ taboos¹⁹.

If Stephen had been brought up in England he might have felt ill at ease at entering intoconversation with a young girl. But Stephen was a friendly soul who found it perfectly natural totalk to anyone if he felt like it.

He smiled without any self-consciousness and said:

“London’s rather a terrible place, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes. I do not like it at all.”

“No more do I.”

Pilar said: “You are not English, no?”

“I’m British, but I come from South Africa.”

“Oh, I see, that explains it.”

“Have you just come from abroad?”

Pilar nodded. “I come from Spain.”

Stephen was interested.

“From Spain, do you? You’re Spanish, then?”

“I am half-Spanish. My mother was English. That is why I talk English so well.”

“What about this war business?” asked Stephen.

“It is very terrible, yes—very sad. There has been damage done, quite a lot—yes.”

“Which side are you on?”

Pilar’s politics seemed to be rather vague. In the village where she came from, she explained,nobody had paid very much attention to the war. “It has not been near us, you understand. TheMayor, he is, of course, an officer of the Government, so he is for the Government, and the priestis for General Franco—but most of the people are busy with the vines and the land, they have nottime to go into these questions.”

“So there wasn’t any fighting round you?”

Pilar said that there had not been. “But then I drove in a car,” she explained, “all across thecountry and there was much destruction. And I saw a bomb drop and it blew up a car—yes, andanother destroyed a house. It was very exciting!”

Stephen Farr smiled a faintly twisted smile.

“So that’s how it seemed to you?”

“It was a nuisance, too,” explained Pilar. “Because I wanted to get on, and the driver of mycar, he was killed.”

Stephen said, watching her:

“That didn’t upset you?”

Pilar’s great dark eyes opened very wide.

“Everyone must die! That is so, is it not? If it comes quickly from the sky—bouff—like that,it is as well as any other way. One is alive for a time—yes, and then one is dead. That is whathappens in this world.”

Stephen Farr laughed.

“I don’t think you are a pacifist.”

“You do not think I am what?” Pilar seemed puzzled by a word which had not previouslyentered her vocabulary.

“Do you forgive your enemies, se?orita?”

Pilar shook her head.

“I have no enemies. But if I had—”

“Well?”

He was watching her, fascinated anew by the sweet, cruel upward-curving mouth.

Pilar said gravely:

“If I had an enemy—if anyone hated me and I hated them—then I would cut my enemy’sthroat like this. .?.?.”

She made a graphic²⁰ gesture.

It was so swift and so crude that Stephen Farr was momentarily taken aback. He said:

“You are a bloodthirsty young woman!”

Pilar asked in a matter-of-fact tone:

“What would you do to your enemy?”

He started—stared at her, then laughed aloud.

“I wonder—” he said. “I wonder!”

Pilar said disapprovingly²¹:

“But surely—you know.”

He checked his laughter, drew in his breath and said in a low voice:

“Yes. I know. .?.?.”

Then with a rapid change of manner, he asked:

“What made you come to England?”

Pilar replied with a certain demureness²².

“I am going to stay with my relations—with my English relations.”

“I see.”

He leaned back in his seat, studying her—wondering what these English relations of whomshe spoke were like—wondering what they would make of this Spanish stranger .?.?. trying topicture her in the midst of some sober British family at Christmastime.

Pilar asked: “Is it nice, South Africa, yes?”

He began to talk to her about South Africa. She listened with the pleased attention of a childhearing a story. He enjoyed her n?ive but shrewd questions and amused himself by making a kindof exaggerated fairy story of it all.

The return of the proper occupants of the carriage put an end to this diversion. He rose,smiled into her eyes, and made his way out again into the corridor.

As he stood back for a minute in the doorway²³, to allow an elderly lady to come in, his eyesfell on the label of Pilar’s obviously foreign straw case. He read the name with interest—MissPilar Estravados—then as his eye caught the address it widened to incredulity and some otherfeeling—Gorston Hall, Longdale, Addlesfield.

He half turned, staring at the girl with a new expression—puzzled, resentful, suspicious .?.?.

He went out into the corridor and stood there smoking a cigarette and frowning to himself. .?.?.

 

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