‘I am Sir Giles Marston,’ said another old man. ‘You’ve sustained some travelling difficulty?’
‘Our car has let us down – due, I suppose, to some penetration of the weather. We left it by your gates. Sir Giles, we’re at your mercy. Dankers the name is. The lady is my good wife.’ Dankers stretched his arm towards his host in a manner that might have suggested to an onlooker that he, and not Sir Giles, was the welcomer.
‘Our need is simple,’ said Mrs Dankers. ‘A roof over our heads.’
‘Some outhouse maybe,’ Dankers hazarded, overplaying his part. He laughed. ‘Anywhere we can curl up for an hour or two. We cannot be choosers.’
‘I’d prefer a chair,’ his wife interceded sharply. ‘A chair and a rug would suit me nicely.’
‘I’m sure we can do better than that. Prepare two beds, Cronin; and light our guests a fire in their room.’
Sir Giles Marston moved into the centre of the room and in the greater light the Dankerses saw a small, hunched man, with a face like leather that has been stretched for a lifetime and is suddenly slackened; as lined as a map.
‘Oh, really,’ Dankers protested in his soft voice, ‘you mustn’t go to such trouble. It’s imposition enough to rouse you like this.’
‘We’ll need sheets,’ Cronin said. ‘Sheets and bedding: God knows where I shall find them, sir.’
‘Brandy,’ Sir Giles suggested. ‘Am I right, Mrs Dankers, in thinking that strong refreshment would partly answer the situation?’
Cronin left the room, speaking to himself. Sir Giles poured the brandy. ‘I’m ninety years of age,’ he told his guests, ‘But yet aware that inhospitality is a sin to be ashamed of. I bid you good-night.’
‘Who are they?’ Lady Marston asked in the morning, having heard the tale from her husband.
‘My dear, they are simply people. They bear some unpleasant name. More than that I do not really wish to know.’
‘It’s a sunny day by the look of it. Your guests will have breakfasted and gone by now. I’m sorry in a way, for I would welcome fresh faces and a different point of view. We live too quiet a life, Giles. We are too much thrown in upon each other. It’s hardly a healthy manner in which to prepare for our dying.’
Sir Giles, who was engaged in the drawing up of his trousers, smiled. ‘Had you seen these two, my dear, you would not have said they are the kind to make our going any easier. The man has a moustache of great proportions, the woman you would describe as smart.’
‘You’re intolerant, love. And so high-handed that you didn’t even discover the reason for this visit.’
‘They came because they could move in neither direction. Trouble with their motor-car.’
‘They’ve probably left with all our little bits and pieces. You’re a sitting bird for a confidence trick. Oh, Giles, Giles!’
Sir Giles departed, and in the breakfast-room below discovered the pair called Dankers still at table.
‘Your man has been most generous,’ Dankers said. ‘He’s fed us like trenchermen: porridge, coffee, bacon and eggs. Two for me, one for my good wife. And toast and marmalade. And this delicious butter.’
‘Are you trying to say that an essential commodity was lacking? If so, I fear you must be more precise. In this house we are now past subtlety.’
‘You’ve made a fool of yourself,’ Mrs Dankers said to her husband. ‘Who wishes to know what two strangers have recently digested?’
‘Pardon, pardon,’ murmured Dankers. ‘Sir Giles, forgive a rough diamond!’
‘Certainly. If you have finished, please don’t delay on my account. Doubtless you are anxious to be on your way.’
‘My husband will attend to the car. Probably it’s necessary to send for help to a garage. In the meantime I’ll keep you company if I may.’
Dankers left the room, passing on the threshold an elderly lady whom he did not address, wishing to appear uncertain in his mind as to her identity.
‘This is the woman who came in the night,’ Sir Giles said to his wife. ‘Her husband is seeing to their motor-car so that they may shortly be on their way. Mrs Dankers, my wife, Lady Marston.’
‘We’re more than grateful, Lady Marston. It looked as though we were in for a nasty night.’
‘I hope Cronin made you comfortable. I fear I slept through everything. “My dear, we have two guests,” my husband said to me this morning. You may imagine my surprise.’
Cronin entered and placed plates of food before Sir Giles and Lady Marston.
Conversationally, Mrs Dankers said: ‘You have a fine place here.’
‘It’s cold and big,’ Sir Giles replied.
The Marstons set about their breakfast, and Mrs Dankers, unable to think of something to say, sat in silence. The smoke from her cigarette was an irritation to her hosts, but they did not remark on it, since they accepted its presence as part of the woman herself. When he returned Dankers sat beside his wife again. He poured some coffee and said: ‘I am no mechanic, Sir Giles. I would like to use your phone to summon help.’
‘We are not on the telephone.’
‘Not?’ murmured Dankers in simulated surprise, for he knew the fact already. ‘How far in that case is the nearest village? And does it boast a garage?’
‘Three miles. As to the presence of a garage, I have had no cause to establish that point. But I imagine there is a telephone.’
‘Giles, introduce me please. Is this man Mrs Dankers’ husband?’
‘He claims it. Mr Dankers, my wife, Lady Marston.’
‘How d’you do?’ Dankers said, rising to shake the offered hand. ‘I’m afraid we’re in a pickle.’
‘You should walk it in an hour,’ Sir Giles reminded him.
‘There’s no way of forwarding a message?’
‘No.’
‘The postman?’
‘He hardly ever comes. And then brings only a circular or two.’
‘Perhaps your man?’
‘Cronin’s days as Hermes are over. You must see that surely for yourself?’
‘In that case there’s nothing for it but a tramp.’
This conclusion of Dankers’ was received in silence.
‘Walk, Mr Dankers,’ Lady Marston said eventually, and added to her husband’s dismay, ‘and return for lunch. Afterwards you can leave us at your leisure.’
‘How kind of you,’ the Dankerses said together. They smiled in unison too. They rose and left the room.
Cronin watched and listened to everything. ‘Prepare two beds,’ his master had said, and from that same moment Cronin had been on his guard. He had given them breakfast in the morning, and had hoped that once they had consumed it they would be on their way. He took them to be commercial travellers, since they had the air of people who were used to moving about and spending nights in places. ‘You have a fine place here,’ Mrs Dankers had said to the Marstons, and Cronin had narrowed his eyes, wondering why she had said it, wondering why she was sitting there, smoking a cigarette while the Marstons breakfasted. He had examined their motor-car and had thought it somehow typical of the people. They were people, thought Cronin, who would know what to do with all the knobs and gadgets on the motor-car’s dashboard; they would take to that dashboard like ducks to water.
For forty-eight years Cronin had lived in the house, serving the Marstons. Once, there had been other servants, and in his time he had watched over them and over the house itself. Now he contented himself with watching over the Marstons. ‘Some outhouse maybe,’ Dankers had said, and Cronin had thought that Dankers was not a man who knew much about outhouses. He saw Dankers and Mrs Dankers sitting together in a café connected with a cinema, a place such as he had himself visited twenty-odd years ago and had not cared for. He heard Dankers asking the woman what she would take to eat, adding that he himself would have a mixed grill with chips, and a pot of strong tea, and sliced bread and butter. Cronin observed these people closely and memorized much of what they said.