Designs on Life by Elizabeth Ferrars Page B

house from which it was possible to watch the trains go by.
    The most exciting train of the day was naturally the train on which her father returned from his work in the nearby town, or rather, for the first few weeks, this train had been the one that Meg had been most eager to see arrive at the station. Recently, for some reason, she had found herself forgetting to watch for it. Her father’s arrivals home had somehow changed their character and she no longer felt the same impatience and eagerness working up in her, as the day wore on, as she had at first. He had a way now, when he came home, of sitting watching her mother in a heavy silence, answering only absently and nervously when Meg tried to make him talk. Once or twice this had been so unbearable that she had started to scream in an agony of uncontrolled temper, which had had a peculiarly terrible result. No one had blamed her, no one had taken any notice of her, but her father, usually a very quiet and gentle man, had suddenly started to abuse her mother in hideous, bitter words, as if it were she who was kicking, crying and behaving disgracefully.
    At last her mother had answered, “But it’s all over—I’ve told you so again and again. Why can’t you believe me?”
    “Because I know you, I know what you are!” he had shouted.
    “Then let’s go away from here—far away—as far as you like! Will that convince you?”
    “What’s the good of going away?” he had asked. “Hasn’t it always been the same, wherever we’ve been, except that you didn’t let me know so much about it?”
    “Sometimes I think you’re crazy,” her mother had said.
    None of it made any sense to the child, but that scene was the most frightening thing that had ever happened to her, and some of the fear that she had felt then in the midst of her own helpless rage, was now projected on to the train that came snaking through the dusk every evening at five thirty-five, its windows all beautifully glowing.
    But this evening she could not think seriously about anything but the snow, and she went upstairs happily to watch for the train. The snow made everything different. For one thing, as she saw as soon as she reached the landing, it had almost completely blocked the window and she was hardly able to see out at all. Great flakes were being hurled against the glass by the north wind. A drift had thickened already along the window-ledge. A white crust had formed round the edges of each pane and a fine spray seemed mysteriously to be coming straight through the glass itself and falling in tiny crystals on the sill inside.
    Through the rapidly thickening curtain, Meg saw a flicker of lights outside in the darkness, telling her that her father’s train was arriving, but it was the wonder of the snow itself that held her tense and still. Then suddenly, with a shrill squeal of excitement, she raced downstairs.
    “Mummy, it’s snowing right into the house!” she shrieked. “Mummy—”
    As she reached the bottom of the stairs, the hall door opened. A freezing gust blew in from the garden and she saw an extraordinary figure standing there, a figure such as she had never seen before. It had a white hat, a white coat, queer bulky white boots and even bristling white eyebrows and a white moustache on an oddly grey-white face. Against the darkness it looked enormously tall. Quivering with shock at the surprise, it took the child a moment to recognise her father.
    When that happened, she could not help shouting with laughter.
    “I thought you were a snowman!” she cried. “You look just like a snowman!” Turning, she rushed on into the kitchen. “Mummy, come and look—Daddy’s come home and he looks just like a snowman!”
    Her mother was toasting some bread under the grill. She put a hand over her eyes and said in a shaky, muffled voice, “For God’s sake don’t make such a row—it’ll drive me mad!”
    Too excited to take much notice of her mother’s odd tone, the child ran