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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Affair at the Inn, by
-Kate Douglas Wiggin and Mary Findlater and Jane Findlater and Allan McAulay
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Title: The Affair at the Inn
-
-Author: Kate Douglas Wiggin
-        Mary Findlater
-        Jane Findlater
-        Allan McAulay
-
-Release Date: September 27, 2012 [EBook #40879]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ASCII
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AFFAIR AT THE INN ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-produced from images generously made available by The
-Internet Archive)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber's Note:
-
-  Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
-  been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
-
-  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
-
-
-     The
-     Affair at the Inn
-
-     by
-     Kate Douglas Wiggin
-     Mary Findlater
-     Jane Findlater
-     Allan McAulay
-
-     Gay and Hancock, Ltd.
-     12 and 13 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden
-     LONDON
-     1910
-
-     _All rights reserved_
-
-
-
-
-An account of certain events which are supposed to have occurred in
-the month of May 19--, at a quiet inn on Dartmoor, in Devonshire; the
-events being recorded by the persons most interested in the unfolding
-of the little international comedy.
-
-The story is written by four authors, each author being responsible
-for one character, as follows:--
-
-     MISS VIRGINIA POMEROY, of Richmond, Virginia, U.S.A., _by
-     Kate Douglas Wiggin_, Author of 'Penelope's Experiences,'
-     etc.
-
-     MRS. MACGILL, of Tunbridge Wells, _by Mary Findlater_,
-     Author of 'The Rose of Joy,' etc.
-
-     MISS CECILIA EVESHAM, Mrs. MacGill's companion, _by Jane
-     Findlater_, Author of 'The Green Graves of Balgowrie,' etc.
-
-     SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE, of Kindarroch, N.B., _by
-     Allan McAulay_, Author of 'The Rhymer,' etc.
-
-
-
-
-THE AFFAIR AT THE INN
-
-
-
-
-I
-
-
-VIRGINIA POMEROY
-
-     DARTMOOR, DEVONSHIRE,
-     THE GREY TOR INN,
-     _Tuesday, May 18th, 19--_
-
-When my poor father died five years ago, the doctor told my mother
-that she must have an entire change. We left America at once, and we
-have been travelling ever since, always in the British Isles, as the
-sound of foreign languages makes mamma more nervous. As a matter of
-fact, the doctor did not advise eternal change, but that is the
-interpretation mamma has placed upon his command, and so we are for
-ever moving on, like What's-his-name in _Bleak House_. It is not so
-extraordinary, then, that we are in the Devonshire moorlands, because
-one cannot travel incessantly for four years in the British Isles
-without being everywhere, in course of time. That is what I said to a
-disagreeable, frumpy Englishwoman in the railway carriage yesterday.
-
-'I have no fault to find with Great Britain,' I said, 'except that it
-is so circumscribed! I have outgrown my first feeling, which was a
-fear of falling off the edge; but I still have a sensation of being
-cabined, cribbed, confined.'
-
-She remarked that she had always preferred a small, perfectly
-finished, and well-managed estate to a large, rank, wild, and
-overgrown one, and I am bound to say that I think the retort was a
-good one. It must have been, for it silenced me.
-
-We have done Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and having begun at the top
-of the map, have gone as far as Devon in England. We have been
-travelling by counties during the last year, because it seemed tidier
-and more thorough and businesslike; less confusing too, for the
-places look so alike after a while that I can never remember where we
-have been without looking in my diary. I don't know what will come
-after England,--perhaps Australia and New Zealand. I suppose they
-speak English there, of a sort.
-
-If complete ignorance of a place, combined with great power of
-appreciation when one is introduced to it,--if these constitute a
-favourable mental attitude, then I have achieved it. That Devonshire
-produces Lanes, Dumplings, Cider, Monoliths, Clouted Cream, and Moors
-I know, but all else in the way of knowledge or experience is to be
-the captive of my bow and spear.
-
-It is one of the accidents of travel that one can never explain, our
-being here on this desolate moor, caged, with half a dozen strange
-people, in a little inn at the world's end.
-
-In the hotel at Exeter mamma met in the drawing-room a certain Mrs.
-MacGill, who like herself was just recovering from the influenza. Our
-paths have crossed before; I hope they'll not do so too often. Huddled
-in their shawls, and seated as near to the chilling hotel fire as was
-possible, they discussed their symptoms, while I read _Lorna Doone_.
-Mrs. MacGill slept ill at night and found a glass of milk-arrowroot
-with a teaspoon of brandy and a Bath Oliver biscuit a panacea; mamma
-would not allow that any one could sleep worse than she, but
-recommended a peppermint lozenge, as being simple, convenient, and
-efficacious. Mrs. MacGill had a slight cough, so had mamma; Mrs.
-MacGill's chest was naturally weak, so was mamma's. Startlingly
-similar as were the paths by which they were travelling to the grave,
-they both looked in average health, mamma being only prettily delicate
-and Mrs. MacGill being fat and dumpy, with cap ribbons and shoulder
-capes and bugles and brooches that bespoke at least a languid interest
-in life. The nice English girl who was Mrs. MacGill's companion in the
-railway train, sat in the background knitting and reading,--the kind
-of girl who ought to look young and doesn't, because her youth has
-been feeding somebody's selfish old age. I could see her quiet history
-written all over her face,--her aged father, vicar of some remote
-parish; her weary mother, harassed with the cares of a large family;
-and the dull little vicarage from whose windows she had taken her
-narrow peeps at life. We exchanged glances at some of Mrs. MacGill's
-reminiscences, and I was grateful to see that she has a sense of
-humour. That will help her considerably if she is a paid companion, as
-I judge she is; one would hardly travel with Mrs. MacGill for
-pleasure. This lady at length crowded mamma to the wall and began on
-the details of an attack of brain fever from which she had suffered at
-the Bridge of Allan thirty years ago, and I left the room to seek a
-breath of fresh air.
-
-There is never anything amusing going on in an English hotel. When I
-remember the life one lives during a week at the Waldorf-Astoria or
-the Holland House in New York, it fairly makes me yearn with
-homesickness. It goes like this with a girl whose friends are all
-anxious to make the time pass merrily.
-
-_Monday noon._--Luncheon at the University Club with H. L. and mamma.
-
-_Monday afternoon._--Drive with G. P. in a hansom. Tea at Maillard's.
-Violets from A. B., American Beauty roses from C. D. waiting in my
-room. Dinner and the play arranged for me by E. F.
-
-_Tuesday._--One love-letter and one proposal by the morning mail; the
-proposal from a Harvard Freshman who wishes me to wait until he
-finishes his course. No one but a Freshman would ever have thought of
-that! G. H. from Chicago and B. C. from Richmond arrive early and join
-us at breakfast. B. C. thinks G. H. might have remained at home to
-good advantage. G. H. wonders why B. C. couldn't have stayed where he
-was less in the way. Luncheon party given by G. H. at one. Dinner by
-B. C. at seven.
-
-_Wednesday._--Last fitting for three lovely dresses.
-
-_Thursday._--Wear them all. The result of one of them attention with
-intention from the fastidious A. B.
-
-And so on. It would doubtless spoil one in time, but I have only had
-two weeks of it, all put together.
-
-The hall of the hotel at Exeter was like all other English hotel
-halls; so damp, dismal, dull, and dreary, that it is a wonder English
-travellers are not all sleeping in suicides' graves. Were my eyes
-deceiving me or was there a motor at the door, and still more
-wonderful, was there a young, good-looking man directly in my path,--a
-healthy young man with no symptoms, a well-to-do young man with a
-perfectly appointed motor, a well-bred, presentable young man with an
-air of the world about him? How my heart, starving for amusement,
-rushed out to him after these last weary months of nursing at
-Leamington! I didn't want to marry him, of course, but I wanted to
-talk to him, to ride in his motor, to have him, in short, for a
-masculine safety valve. He showed no symptom of requiring me for any
-purpose whatever. That is the trouble with the men over here,--so
-oblivious, so rigid, so frigid, so conventional; so afraid of being
-chloroformed and led unconscious to the altar! He was smoking a pipe,
-and he looked at me in a vague sort of way. I confess I don't like to
-be looked at vaguely, and I am not accustomed to it. He couldn't know
-that, of course, but I should like to teach him if only I had the
-chance and time. I don't suppose he knew that I was wearing a Redfern
-gown and hat, but the consciousness supported me in the casual
-encounter. Naturally he could not seek an introduction to me in a
-hotel hall, nor could we speak to each other without one.
-
-His chauffeur went up to him presently, touched his hat, and I thought
-he said, 'Quite ready, Sir--Something'; I didn't catch the name.
-
-Well, he bowled off, and I comforted myself with the thought that
-mamma and I were at least on our way to pastures new, if they were
-only Dawlish or Torquay pastures; or perhaps something bracing in the
-shape of Dartmoor forests, if mamma listens to Mrs. MacGill.
-
-The owner of the motor appeared again at our dinner-table, a long
-affair set in the middle of the room, all the small tables being
-occupied by uninteresting nobodies who ate and drank as much, and took
-up as much room, as if they had been somebodies.
-
-It is needless to say that the young Britisher did not, like the busy
-bee, improve the shining hour--that sort of bee doesn't know honey
-when he sees it. He didn't even pass me the salt, which in a Christian
-country is not considered a compromising attention. I think that too
-many of Great Britain's young men must have been killed off in South
-Africa, and those remaining have risen to an altogether fictitious
-value. I suppose this Sir Somebody thinks my eyes are fixed on his
-coronet, if he has one rusting in his upper drawer awaiting its
-supreme moment of presentation. He is mistaken; I am thinking only of
-his motor. Heigh ho! If marriage as an institution could be retained,
-and all thought of marriage banished from the minds of the young of
-both sexes, how delightful society could be made for all parties! I
-can see that such a state of things would be quite impossible, but it
-presents many advantages.
-
-
-MRS. MACGILL
-
-     EXETER, DEVONSHIRE,
-     ROUGEMONT CASTLE HOTEL,
-     _Sunday, May 16th, 19--_
-
-I have made out my journey from Tunbridge wells in safety, although
-there has been a breakdown upon the Scotch Express, which is a cause
-of thankfulness. There were two American women in the same carriage
-part of the time. The mother was, like myself, an invalid, and the
-daughter I suppose would be considered pretty. She was not exactly
-painted, but must have done something to her skin, I think, probably
-prejudicial like the advertisements; it was really waxen, and her hair
-decidedly dark--and such a veil! It reminded me of the expression
-about 'power on the head' in Corinthians--not that she seemed to
-require it, for she rang no less than eight times for the guard, each
-time about some different whimsey. The boy only grinned, yet he was
-quite rude to me when I asked him, only for the second time, where we
-changed carriages next. Cecilia spoke a good deal to the girl, who
-made her laugh constantly, in spite of her neuralgia, which was very
-inconsistent and provoking to me, as she had not uttered a word for
-hours after we left Tunbridge Wells. The mother seemed a very
-delicate, sensible person, suffering from exactly the same form of
-influenza as myself--indeed many of our symptoms are identical. They
-happened to be going to this hotel, too, so we met again in the
-afternoon. I had a bad night. Exeter is small, but the Cathedral
-chimes are very tiresome; they kept me awake as if on purpose; Cecilia
-slept, as neuralgic people seem often able to do.
-
-Somehow I do not fancy the idea of Dartmoor at all. It may brace
-Cecilia, but it will be too cold for me, I'm sure. I must send for my
-black velvet mantle--the one with the beads at the neck, as it will be
-the very thing for the moor. At present I have nothing quite suitable
-to wear. There is a great deal of skirt about Americans, I see. Even
-the mother rustled; all silk, yet the dresses on the top were plain
-enough. As I had nothing to read in the train, I bought a sixpenny
-copy of a book called _The Forest Lovers_, but could not get on with
-it at all, and what I did make out seemed scarcely proper, so I took
-up a novel which Mrs. Pomeroy (the American) lent me, by a man with a
-curious Scriptural name--something like Phillpotts. It was entirely
-about Dartmoor, and gave a most alarming account of the scenery and
-inhabitants. I'm sure I hope we shall be safe at Grey Tor Inn. Some of
-the wilder parts must be quite dangerous--storms--wild cattle roaming
-about, and Tors everywhere.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-
-MRS. MACGILL
-
-     DARTMOOR, DEVONSHIRE,
-     THE GREY TOR INN,
-     _Tuesday, May 18th, 19--_
-
-I wish I had brought winter flannels with me. It is all very well to
-call it the middle of May on Dartmoor, but it is as cold as the middle
-of winter in Aberdeen. There may be something odd about the red soil
-that accounts for flowers coming out in spite of it, for certainly
-there are primroses and violets on the banks, a good many,--very like
-flowers in a hat.
-
-We met Miss Pomeroy, the American girl, in the lobby of the hotel. She
-said that her mother was resting in the drawing-room. Like me, she
-seems to suffer from shivering fits. 'I can't imagine,' I said, 'why
-any doctor should have ordered me to such a place as this to recover
-from influenza, which is just another form of cold.' The windows look
-straight out on Grey Tor. It is, of course, as the guide-books say, 'a
-scene of great sublimity and grandeur,' but very dreary; it is not
-mountain, and not what we would call moor, either, in Scotland--just a
-crumpled country, with boulders here and there. Grey Tor is the
-highest point we can see--not very lonely, I am glad to say, for
-little black people are always walking up and down it, like flies on a
-confectioner's window, and there is a railing on the top.
-
-There is a young man here, who, I was surprised to find, is a nephew
-of the uncle of my poor brother-in-law, Colonel Forsyth, who died in a
-moment at Agra. Sir William Maxwell Mackenzie used to be often at the
-Forsyths, before his death. This young man's name is Archibald, and he
-drives a motor. I sat next him at dinner, and we had quite a pleasant
-little chat about my poor brother-in-law's sudden death and funeral.
-Miss Pomeroy ate everything on the table and talked a great deal.
-Cecilia said she wasn't able to come down to dinner, but, as usual,
-ate more than I could, upstairs. Like me, Mrs. Pomeroy finds the
-Devonshire cream very heavy. The daughter and Sir Archibald finished
-nearly the whole dish, although it was a large china basin.
-
-
-SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE, BART.
-
-     GREY TOR INN
-
-I must get away from these women at all costs. People may say what
-they like, but there's no question that nothing is more destructive to
-comfort than the society of ladies. A man cannot smoke, nor wear the
-clothes nor use the language that he wants to when they are
-present,--so what is the use of pretending, as some fellows do, that
-they add to the pleasantness of life? I certainly thought that by
-coming to these out-of-the-way parts in the motor, with no one but my
-servant, I should be free of the women; but no such luck! In the hotel
-at Exeter there was a batch of them,--some Americans, of course,
-particularly a girl, so deuced lively she could not be ignored. I
-dislike the whole girl-tribe with all my heart, and I dislike the
-kittenish ones most: they're a positive pest.
-
-This is a rum sort of country,--a sort of inferior Scotland, I should
-call it; but if you were to say that to the artist chaps and writing
-fellows you meet about here, they would murder you. There is a lot of
-rot talked about everything in this world, but there's more and worse
-rot talked about scenery than anything else. For instance, people will
-yarn away about 'the blue Mediterranean,' but it's not a bit bluer
-than any other sea,--the English Channel, for example; any sea will be
-blue if the sky is blue. I suppose it earns somebody's living to talk
-and write all this sort of stuff, and get idiots to believe it. Here
-they are always jawing away about 'giant monoliths' and wonderful
-colossal stone-formations on the moor, till you really think there's
-something rather fine to be seen. And what are the giant monoliths?
-Two or three ordinary sorts of stones set up on end on a mound! What
-rot!
-
-This is a goodish hotel, and the roads so far have been all right for
-the motor; we have come along fairly well; Johnson can drive a bit
-now, and understands the machine.
-
-The country was pretty decent for a while, before reaching this;
-plenty of trees, no good for timber, though, and there was a lot of
-that rotten holly--I'd have it all up if it grew on Kindarroch. And
-the gorse, too, was very bad. There was a fellow at Exeter--a sort of
-artist, I conclude, from the nonsense he talked--who said he was
-coming up here to see the gorse,--came every year, he said. To see the
-gorse! To see a lot of dirty weeds that every sensible man wants to
-root up and burn! O Lord!
-
-This morning it was rather fine, and I was having a smoke after
-breakfast in the hall, when that American girl--the one I saw at
-Exeter--came down the staircase, singing at the top of her voice. I
-knew she was here, with a mother in the background; she had been
-fooling around the motor already, asking a lot of silly questions,
-and touching the handles and the wheels--a thing I can't bear--so we
-had made acquaintance in a kind of way. The artist at Exeter, I
-remember, asked me if I didn't think this girl remarkably pretty, and
-I told him I hadn't looked to see, which was perfectly true. But you
-can't help seeing a girl if she's standing plump in front of you. Of
-course these Americans dress well--no end of money to do it on. This
-one had a sort of Tam o' Shanter thing on her head, and a lot of dark
-hair came out under it, falling over her ears, and almost over her
-cheeks--untidy, I call it. She wore a grey dress, with a bit of
-scarlet near her neck, and a knot to match it under the brim of her
-cap. I can notice these things when I like. She has black eyes, and
-knows how to use them. I don't like dark women; if you must have a
-woman about, I prefer pink and white--it looks clean, at any rate. The
-name of these people is Pomeroy, Johnson told me; they appear to have
-got the hang of mine at Exeter; trust women for that sort of thing.
-
-'Good morning, Sir Archibald,' said Miss Pomeroy now, as pat as you
-please. 'It's a mighty pretty morning, isn't it? Don't you long for a
-walk? I do! I'm going right up to that stone on the slope there. Won't
-you come along too?' A man can hardly refuse outright, I suppose, when
-a thing is put to him point blank like this, and we started together,
-I pretty glum, for I made up my mind I must give up my after-breakfast
-pipe, a thing which puts me out of temper for the day. However, Miss
-Pomeroy said she liked smoke, so there was a kind of mitigation in the
-boredom which I felt was before me.
-
-Grey Tor, as the guide-books call it, is just above the hotel, a sort
-of knob of rock that is thought a lot of in these parts. (We make road
-metal of the same kind of thing in Scotland; I'd like to tell the
-chaps that who write all the drivel about Dartmoor.) There's an iron
-railing round the top of this Tor, to keep the tourists from falling
-off, though they'd be no loss if they did. Coach loads of them come
-every day, and sit on the top and eat sandwiches, and leave the paper
-about, along with orange and banana skins--same as they do at the
-Trossachs at home. There's a grassy track up to this blessed Tor, and
-Miss Pomeroy and I followed it; American women are no good at walking,
-and, in spite of her slight figure, she was puffing like a grampus in
-no time, and begging me to stop. We sat down on a rock, and soon she
-had breath enough to talk. The subject of names came up, I forget for
-what reason.
-
-'I like your kind of name,' Miss Pomeroy was good enough to say. 'I
-call it downright sensible and clear, for it tells what you're called,
-and gives your background immediately, don't you see? Now, you
-couldn't tell what my Christian name is without asking--could you?'
-
-'No, I couldn't,' I agreed, and was silent. I am no hand at small
-talk. She gave me rather a funny look out of her black eyes, but I
-took no notice. She seemed to want to laugh--I don't know why; there's
-nothing funny on Dartmoor that _I_ can see. We got on to the Tor
-presently, and nothing would satisfy a woman, naturally, but climbing
-all over the beastly thing. She had to be helped up and down, of
-course. Her hands are very white and slim; they were not at all hot, I
-am glad to say, as she wore no gloves, and I had to clutch them so
-often. There was a very high wind up there, and I'm blessed if her
-hair didn't come down and blow about. It only made her laugh, but I
-considered it would be indecent to walk back to the hotel with a woman
-in such a dishevelled state.
-
-'I will pick up the hairpins,' I said seriously, 'if you will--will do
-the rest.' She laughed and put up her arms to her head, but brought
-them down with a flop.
-
-'I'm afraid my waist is too tight in the sleeves for me to do my hair
-up here; it'll have to wait till I get down to the hotel,' she said
-gaily. I suppose she meant that she tight-laced, though I couldn't see
-how her waist could be tight in the sleeves. I was quite determined
-she should not walk to the hotel in my company with her hair in that
-state.
-
-'I will stick these in,' I said firmly, indicating the hairpins, of
-which I had picked up about a bushel, 'if you will do the rolling up.'
-It got done somehow, and I stuck in the pins. I never touched a
-woman's hair before; how beastly it must be to have all that on one's
-head--unhealthy, too. I dare say it accounts for the feebleness of
-women's brains. Miss Pomeroy's cheeks got pinker and pinker during
-this operation--a sort of rush of blood, I suppose; it is all right as
-long as it does not go to the nose. She is not a bad-looking girl,
-certainly.
-
-We got back to the hotel without any further disagreeables.
-
-
-CECILIA EVESHAM
-
-     GREY TOR INN, DARTMOOR
-
-If a policeman's 'lot is not a happy one,' neither is a companion's: I
-lay this down as an axiom. I have lived now for two years with Mrs.
-MacGill, and know her every frailty of character only too well. She
-has not a bad temper; but oh! she is a terrible, terrible bore! Not
-content with being stupid herself, she desires to make me stupid along
-with her, and has well-nigh succeeded, for life with her in furnished
-apartments at Tunbridge Wells would dull a more brilliant woman than I
-have ever been.
-
-Mrs. MacGill has lately had the influenza; it came almost as a
-providential sending, for it meant change of air. We were ordered to
-Dartmoor, and to Dartmoor we have come. Now I have become interested
-in three new people; and that, after the life I have lived of late in
-Mrs. MacGill's sickroom, is like a draught of nectar to my tired
-fancy. We met these three persons for the first time in the train, and
-at the hotel at Exeter where we stopped for the night; or rather, I
-should say that we met two of them and sighted the third. The two were
-a mother and her daughter, Mrs. Pomeroy and Virginia Pomeroy by name,
-and Americans by nation; the third person was a young man, Sir
-Archibald Maxwell Mackenzie, of Kindarroch, N.B. The Americans were
-extremely friendly, after the manner of their nation; the young man
-extremely unfriendly, after the manner of his. We found that the
-Pomeroys were coming on to this inn, but the Scotchman whizzed off in
-his motor car, giving us no hint of where he intended to go. I thought
-we had seen the last of him, but it was to be otherwise.
-
-The morning after our arrival at the Grey Tor Inn Mrs. MacGill assumed
-a Shetland shawl, closed the window of the sitting-room, and sat down
-to do a bit of knitting. I sat by the window answering her little
-vapid remarks and looking out. As I sat thus, I heard a puffing noise
-and saw a scarlet motor steam up to the door of the inn. It was, of
-course, Sir Archibald.
-
-'What is that noise, Cecilia?' asked Mrs. MacGill.
-
-'It's a motor car,' I replied.
-
-'Oh, how curious! I never can understand how they are worked,' said
-she.
-
-I was beginning to try to explain some of the mysteries of motoring
-when the door of the sitting-room opened, and Miss Virginia Pomeroy
-came in. Her appearance was a delight to the eyes; tall and full
-grown, yet graceful, and dressed to perfection. She had none of that
-meek look that even the prettiest English girls are getting nowadays,
-as if they would say, 'I'm pretty, but I know I'm a drug in the
-market, though I can't help it!' No, no, Virginia Pomeroy came into
-the room with an air of possession, mastery, conquest, that no English
-girl can assume. She walked straight up to the window and threw it
-open. 'How perfectly lovely!' she exclaimed. 'Why, there's a motor; I
-must have a ride in it before very long.' She turned pleasantly to me
-as she spoke, and asked me if I didn't adore motoring.
-
-'I've never tried,' I said.
-
-'Well, the sooner you begin the better,' she said. 'Never miss a joy
-in a world of trouble; that's my theory.'
-
-I smiled, but if she had known it, I more nearly cried at her words;
-she didn't know how many joys _I_ had missed in life!
-
-'I'll go right downstairs and make love to the chauffeur,' she went
-on, and at this Mrs. MacGill coughed, moved the fire-irons, and told
-me to close the window. Miss Pomeroy turned to her with a laugh.
-
-'Why!' she said, 'are you two going to sit in this hotel parlour all
-the morning? You won't have much of a time if you do!'
-
-'I have had the influenza, like Mrs. Pomeroy,' announced Mrs. MacGill
-solemnly, 'but if Miss Evesham wishes some fresh air she can go out at
-any time. I'm sure I never object to anything that you choose to do,
-Cecilia, do I?'
-
-I hastened to assure her that she did not, while the American girl
-stood looking from one of us to the other with her bright, clever
-eyes.
-
-'Suppose you come down to the hall door with me then, Miss Evesham,'
-Miss Pomeroy suggested, 'and we'll taste the air.'
-
-'Shall I, Mrs. MacGill?' I asked, for a companion must always ask
-leave even to breathe. Mrs. MacGill answered petulantly that of course
-I might do as I liked.
-
-The motor stood alone and unattended by the front door, both owner and
-chauffeur having deserted it. It rested there like a redhot panting
-monster fatigued by climbing the long hill that leads up to Grey Tor
-Inn.
-
-'Isn't it out of breath?' cried Virginia. 'I want to pat it and give
-it a drink of water.' The next minute she skipped into the car and
-laid her white hand on the steering-wheel.
-
-'Oh, don't! Do take care!' I cried. The thing may run away with you or
-burst, or something, and the owner may come out at any moment--it
-belongs to that young man who was at Exeter, Sir Archibald Maxwell
-Mackenzie.'
-
-'I should like it very much if he did come out,' said Virginia,
-looking over her shoulder at me with the most bewitching ogle I ever
-saw, and I soon saw that she intended to conquer Sir Archibald as she
-had conquered many another man, and meant to drive all over Dartmoor
-in his motor. Well, youth and high spirits are two good things. Let
-her do what she likes with the young man, so long as she enjoys
-herself; they will both be old soon enough!
-
-
-
-
-II
-
-
-VIRGINIA POMEROY
-
-     DARTMOOR, DEVONSHIRE,
-     GREY TOR INN
-
-The plot thickens; well, goodness knows it was thin enough before, and
-it is now only of the innocent consistency of cream sauce. For myself
-I like a plot that will stand quite stiff and firm; still the Exeter
-motor is here and the Exeter motor-man is here. I don't mean the
-chauffeur, but the owner. He doesn't intend staying more than a day or
-two, but he may like it better as time goes on,--they often do, even
-these British icebergs. It is, however, a poor climate for thawing
-purposes. There are only six people in the inn all told, and two, we
-hear, are leaving to-night.
-
-I was glad to see the English girl standing at the window when we
-arrived. She brightened, as much as to say that we two might make life
-more cheerful by putting our heads together. Mrs. MacGill is a good
-companion for mamma, but could not otherwise be endured for a moment.
-I find it very difficult to account for her on any ordinary basis; I
-mean of climate or nationality or the like. The only way I can explain
-her to my satisfaction is, that some sixty years ago her father, a
-very dull gentleman, met her mother, a lady of feeble mind and waspish
-disposition; met her, loved her, married her,--and Mrs. MacGill is the
-result of the union.
-
-Her conversation at table is aimless beyond description, often causing
-Miss Evesham to blush, and Sir Archibald to raise his eyebrows. It
-doesn't take much to produce this effect on Sir Archibald's part; when
-he was born they must have been slightly lifted.
-
-Mrs. MacGill asked me, at dinner, my Christian name, not having heard
-it, as mamma often calls me 'Jinny.' Here is the colloquy.
-
-_Jinny._ My name is Virginia; it is one of the Southern States, you
-know.
-
-_Mrs. Mac._ Oh, I see! how curious! Is that a common habit of naming
-children in America?
-
-_Jinny._ Oh yes; you see it is such an enormous country, and there are
-such a number of children to be named that we simply had to extend the
-supply of names in some way. My mother's middle name, which is my own
-also, is something really quaint--'Secessia.'
-
-_Mrs. Mac._ Secessia! What an extraordinary name! Has it any
-significance?
-
-_Jinny._ Yes, indeedy! My mother was born in the early days of the
-Civil War, at the time of the secession, and her father, an ardent
-Southerner, named her Gloria Secessia.
-
-_Mrs. Mac._ Let me see, I don't seem to remember any secession; were
-we mixed up in what you call your Civil War?
-
-(Here Sir Archibald caught my eye and smiled, almost a human smile it
-was.)
-
-_Jinny._ No, but you had a good deal to do with the War of
-Independence. That was nearly a century before. (Sir Archibald was
-honestly amused here. He must know American history.)
-
-_Mrs. Mac._ I thought your last war was called the War of
-Independence, because it made the negroes independent, but I must have
-got the two confused; and you've just had another small one, haven't
-you, though now I remember that we were engaged in only one of them,
-and that was before my time. It seems strange we should have gone
-across the ocean to help a younger country to fight its battles, but
-after all, blood is thicker than water. I had a nephew who went to
-America--Brazil, I think, was the name of the town--a barrister, Mr.
-George Forsyth; you may have met him?
-
-_Jinny._ I think not; I seldom go so far from home.
-
-_Mrs. Mac._ But you live in South America, do you not?
-
-_Jinny._ I live in the south, but that is merely to say in the
-southern part of the United States.
-
-_Mrs. Mac._ How confusing! I fear I can't make it out without the
-globes; I was always very good at the globes when I was a child.
-Cecilia, suppose after dinner you see if there is a globe in the inn.
-
-Poor Miss Evesham! She is so pale, so likeable, so downtrodden, and
-she has been so pretty! Think of what is involved when one uses the
-past tense with a woman of thirty. She has fine hair and eyes and a
-sweet manner. As to the rest, she is about my height, and she is not
-dressed; she is simply clothed. Height is her only visible dimension,
-the village mantua-maker having shrouded the others in hopeless
-ambiguity. She has confessed to me that she dresses on fifteen pounds
-a year! If she had told me that her father was dead, her mother a
-kleptomaniac, and she the sole support of a large family, I should
-have pitied her, but a dress allowance of fifteen pounds a year calls
-for more than pity; it belongs to the realm of tragedy. She looks at
-thirty as if she never had had, nor ever expected to have, a good
-time. How I should like to brighten her up a bit, and get her into my
-room to try on Paris hats!
-
-She and I, aided by Sir Archibald, have been to Stoke Babbage to try
-to secure a pony, sound, kind, and fleet, that will drag Mrs. MacGill
-up and down the hills. She refused the steeds proffered by the Grey
-Tor stables, and sent Miss Evesham to procure something so hopelessly
-ideal in the shape of horseflesh that I confess we had no expectation
-of ever finding it.
-
-The groom at the Unicorn produced a nice pony chaise, well padded and
-well braked, with small low wheels, and a pony originally black, but
-worn grey by age, as well as by battling with the elements in this
-region of bare hills and bleak winds. Miss Evesham liked its looks
-particularly. I, too, was pleased by its sturdy build, and remarked
-that its somewhat wild eye might be only a sign of ambition. Sir
-Archibald took an entirely humorous view of the animal, and indeed, as
-compared with a motor, the little creature seemed somewhat inadequate.
-We agreed that for Mrs. MacGill (and here we exchanged wicked glances)
-it would do admirably, and we all became better acquainted in
-discussing its points.
-
-Miss Evesham and I offered to drive the pony back to Grey Tor, and Sir
-Archibald saw us depart with something that approached hilarity. He is
-awfully nice when he unbends in this way, and quite makes one wish to
-see him do it oftener. From all our previous conversations I have come
-away with the sort of feeling you have when you visit the grave of
-your grandmother on a Sunday afternoon.
-
-I don't know the number of miles between Stoke Babbage and Grey Tor.
-The distance covered cuts no actual figure in describing the time
-required for a drive with the new pony, whom I have christened
-Greytoria. The word 'drive' is not altogether descriptive, since we
-walked most of the way home. I hardly think this method of progression
-would have occurred to us, but it did occur to Greytoria, and she
-communicated the idea by stopping short at the slightest elevation,
-and turning her head in a manner which could only mean, 'Suppose you
-get out, if you don't mind!'
-
-Having walked up all the hills, we imagined we could perhaps drive
-down. Not at all. Greytoria dislikes holding back more, if anything,
-than climbing up. We kept our seats at first, applied the brake, and
-attempted a very gentle trot. 'Don't let us spoil the pony,' I said.
-'We must begin as we mean to go on.' Miss Evesham agreed, but in a
-moment or two each issued from her side of the chaise, and that
-without argument. Greytoria's supports are both stiff and weak--groggy
-is Sir Archibald's word. She takes trembling little steps with her
-forelegs, while the hind ones slide automatically down any declivity.
-The hills between Stoke Babbage and Grey Tor being particularly long
-and steep, we found that I was obliged to lead Greytoria by the
-bridle, while Miss Evesham held the chaise by the back of the seat,
-and attempted to keep it from falling on the pony's legs; the thing,
-we finally discovered, that was the ruling terror of her life.
-
-Naturally we were late at luncheon, but we did not describe our drive
-in detail. The groom at the stables says that the pony can drag Mrs.
-MacGill quite safely, if Miss Evesham is firm in her management. Of
-course she will have to walk up and down all the hills, but she
-doesn't mind that, and Mrs. MacGill will love it. It is bliss to her
-to lie in slippered ease, so to speak, and see all the people in her
-vicinity working like galley slaves. We shall be delightfully situated
-now, with Greytoria, Sir Archibald's motor, and an occasional trap
-from the stables, if we need other vehicles.
-
-Sir Archibald as yet does not look upon a motor as a philanthropic
-institution. There are moments when he seems simply to regard it as a
-means of selfish pleasure, but that must be changed.
-
-Item. Miss Evesham looked only twenty-nine at luncheon.
-
-
-MRS. MACGILL
-
-Last night I slept so badly that I could not go down to the
-dining-room this morning. Cecilia, in spite of her neuralgia yesterday
-seemed well and bright. I asked her to send me up some breakfast, but
-could scarcely eat it when it came; the tea was cold, the bread damp
-and tough, and the egg fresh enough, but curious. Cecilia never came
-near me after breakfast. When I came down about eleven o'clock, very
-cold, I found no one in the sitting-rooms. Hearing voices, I went to
-the door and found Cecilia talking to the American girl, who had a
-great deal of colour for that hour in the morning. Sir Archibald came
-up, grinding round the drive in his motor. It is quite unnecessary to
-have brought a motor here at all, for I observe that the hillsides are
-covered with ponies. There must have been a herd of twenty-five of
-them outside my window this morning, so a motor is quite out of place.
-The doctor here recommends me to try driving exercise, but some of the
-animals are so very small that I scarcely think they could pull me up
-these hills. Cecilia says the smaller ones are foals. Many of them
-kick, I see, so we must select with care. I wish we could procure a
-donkey. The feeling of confidence I have when in a donkey-chair more
-than makes up for the slowness of motion.
-
-Like me, Mrs. Pomeroy was kept awake by the wind--it never stops here.
-When I remarked on this, Cecilia said in her patronising way, 'Don't
-you remember Borrow's famous line,--
-
-     'There's always the wind on the heath'?
-
-'I see nothing clever in that,' I said; 'there _is_ always wind on the
-heath here, and I particularly dislike it.'
-
-When we came into the drawing-room Miss Pomeroy was saying, 'I've
-discovered a piano!' The piano, to my mind, was the largest object in
-the room, so she must be short-sighted, if she had not seen it before;
-pride probably prevents her wearing glasses. She sat there singing for
-quite a long time. She wouldn't finish her songs, but just sang scraps
-of a number of things. Sir Archibald came into the room and stood
-about for some time. I asked him several questions about his father's
-sister, whom I used to know. He replied so absently that I could make
-nothing of it. Miss Pomeroy has a clear voice. She sang what I suppose
-were translations of negro songs--very noisy. When she afterwards
-tried one of Moore's exquisite melodies, I confess to admiring it. It
-was a great favourite with Mr. MacGill, who used to sing it with much
-feeling:--
-
-     'Around the dear ruin, each wish of my heart.'
-
-What a touching expression that is for a middle-aged woman--'the dear
-ruin'!
-
-Grey Tor is certainly very bleak. The guide-books speak of 'huge
-monoliths' (I suppose they mean the rocks on the moor), 'seeming to
-have been reared by some awful cataclysm of nature in primordial
-times.' I hope there will be no cataclysms during our stay on the
-moor; the accounts of tempests of which I read in some of the novels
-quite frighten me, yet I can scarcely think there is much danger about
-this tor--'a giant, the biggest tor of all,' the guide-books say. It
-is so fully peopled by tourists with luncheon-baskets that one loses
-the feeling of desolation. Miss Pomeroy has been up to the top
-already--twice, once alone. Cecilia means to go too, though nothing
-can be worse for neuralgia than cold wind. She will always say that
-nothing hurts her like sitting in hot rooms. I should be very glad to
-have a hot room to sit in! She has got a nice, quiet-looking animal at
-last, and a low pony chaise, so I hope to have some drives.
-
-Neuralgia is one of those things one cannot calculate on. Cecilia will
-be ill all day, and then suddenly able to come down to dinner. I have
-suffered a good deal from tic douloureux myself, but was never able to
-eat during the paroxysms, as Cecilia seems to be. After having five
-teeth pulled, I once lived exclusively on soup for three days.
-
-Miss Pomeroy, I suppose, is what most people would call a pretty girl.
-Hot bread and dyspepsia will soon do for her, though, as for all
-American women. The bread here is tough and very damp. She is dark,
-very dark in hair and eyes, in spite of her white skin, and she
-describes herself as a 'Southerner.' I should be inclined to suspect a
-strain of negro or Indian blood. I heard her discussing what she
-called 'the colour problem' with Cecilia, and she seemed to speak with
-a good deal of bitterness. Yet Mrs. Pomeroy is evidently a lady. The
-girl dresses well in the American style, which I never attempt. She
-has, I suppose, what would be called a fine figure, though the waist
-seems of no importance just now. Her feet, in shoes, look small
-enough, though the heels she wears astonish me; it is years since I
-have worn anything but a simple cloth boot, neat but roomy. I have
-seen her glance at my feet several times, as if she observed something
-odd about them.
-
-
-SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE
-
-     GREY TOR INN
-
-Isn't it a most extraordinary thing that when people are in a
-comfortable house, with a good roof over their heads, solid meals
-served at regular intervals three or four times a day, and every
-possible comfort, they instantly want to go outside and make
-themselves not only thoroughly uncomfortable, but generally ill
-besides, by having a picnic in the open? Ever since I had that walk
-with Miss Pomeroy, she has done nothing but talk about a picnic at
-some beastly little village in the vicinity where there is a church
-that the guide-books tell the usual lies about. As to churches--a
-church to my mind is a place to go to on Sundays with the rest of the
-congregation. It is plainly not constructed for week-days, when it is
-empty, cold, and damp, and you have to take your hat off in the
-draughts all the same, and talk in whispers. As to picnics--there's a
-kind of folly about _them_ that it is altogether beyond me to
-understand. Why such things ever take place outside the grounds of a
-lunatic asylum, goodness only knows; they ought to be forbidden by
-law, and the people who organise them shut up as dangerous. However, I
-see I am in for this one. Miss Pomeroy wants the motor, but she won't
-get the motor without me. Heaven be praised, the weather has broken up
-in the meantime, which is the reason I am staying on here. Motoring on
-Dartmoor in a tearing nor'easter is no catch. My quarters are
-comfortable, and but for the women I should be doing very well.
-
-The worst of it is, there is a whole batch of them now. A Mrs. MacGill
-and her companion are here, and these two and the Americans seem to
-have met before. The two old women are as thick as thieves, and the
-fair Virginia (she told me her name, though she might have seen, I am
-sure, that I was simply dying not to know it) seems to have a good
-deal to say to the companion, though the latter doesn't appear to me
-much in the line of such a lively young person. There's no rule, of
-course, for women's likes and dislikes, any more than for anything
-else that has to do with them. The unlucky part of it is that Mrs.
-MacGill seemed to spot me the moment she heard my name. She says my
-father was her brother-in-law's first cousin, and her brother-in-law
-died in Agra in a fit; though what that has to do with it, goodness
-knows. It means I have got to be civil and to get mixed up with the
-rest of the party. A man can never be as rude as he feels, which is
-one of the drawbacks of civilisation. So I have to sit at their table
-now, and talk the whole time--can't even have a meal in peace. The old
-woman MacGill is on one side, the American girl on the other. The
-companion sits opposite. _She_ keeps quiet, which is one mercy;
-generally has neuralgia,--a pale, rather lady-like young woman with a
-seen-better-days-and-once-was-decidedly-pretty air about her. The
-American girl's clothes take the cake, of course--a new frock every
-night and such ribbons and laces--my stars! I'd rather not be the man
-who has to pay for them. I'm surprised at her talking so much to the
-humble companion--thought this sort of girl never found it worth while
-to be civil to her own sex; but I conclude this is not invariably the
-case.
-
-'I'm afraid your neuralgia is very bad up here,' I heard her say to
-Miss Evesham (that's the companion's name) after dinner last night.
-'You come right along to my room, and I'll rub menthol on your poor
-temples.' And they went off together and disappeared for the night.
-
-The weather has cleared up to-day, though it is still too cold and
-windy, thank the Lord, for the picnic to Widdington-in-the-Wolds. I
-took the motor to a little town about four miles off, and overtook
-the fair Virginia and Miss Evesham, footing it there on some errand of
-Mrs. MacGill's. I slowed down as I got near, but I soon saw Miss
-Pomeroy intended me to stop; there's no uncertainty about any of _her_
-desires.
-
-'Now, Sir Archibald,' said she with a straight look which made me
-understand that obedience was my _role_, 'I know what you're going to
-do this very minute. Miss Evesham's neuralgia is so bad that she can
-scarcely see, and you've got to take her right along in your motor to
-the Unicorn Inn, and help choose a pony for Mrs. MacGill. Just a man's
-job--you'd love doing it, I should think.'
-
-I wanted to hum and haw a bit, but she didn't give me the chance. She
-pulled open the door behind. 'Get in quick!' she said to the
-companion. 'Quick, quick! a motor puff-puffing this way always makes
-me think it's in a desperate hurry and won't wait!'
-
-_I_, however, was not in such a hurry this time, though there's
-nothing I hate more, as a rule, than wasting motor power standing
-still.
-
-'What are _you_ going to do, Miss Pomeroy?' I shouted above the
-throbbing and shaking of the machine.
-
-'Going right home to my mother,' she replied. 'It's about time, too.'
-
-'No, you don't,' thought I, 'and leave me saddled with the companion.'
-For if you _must_ have female society, you may as well have it
-good-looking when you are about it.
-
-'Won't you do me the pleasure of taking a ride too?' I asked politely.
-I knew perfectly well she was dying for a ride in the motor, and I had
-turned a deaf ear to dozens of hints. But now that she wanted to do
-the other woman a good turn and walk home herself, nothing would
-content me but to have her in the motor. I know how inconvenient it is
-to be good-natured and unselfish. I am obliged to be both so often,
-against my natural inclinations.
-
-Miss Virginia's eyes gave a sparkle, but she hesitated a moment.
-
-'The front seat's much the jolliest,' I remarked, 'and it's very good
-going--no end of a surface.' She gave a jump and was up beside me in
-half a second, and we were off.
-
-By Jove--that was a good bit of going! The road was clear, the surface
-like velvet. I took every bit out of the motor that was in it, and we
-went the pace and no mistake. Miss Virginia was as pleased as Punch, I
-could see. She had to hold on her hat with both hands, and her cheeks
-and lips were as red as roses; the ribbons flew out from her neck, and
-flapped across my face, which was a nuisance, of course; they had the
-faint scent of some flower or other; I hate smells, as a rule, but
-this was not strong enough to be bad. We got down at the Unicorn, and
-though I said I knew nothing whatever about ponies, I had to look
-through the stables with the hostler, and choose a beast and a trap
-for Mrs. MacGill. There was only one of each, so the choice was not
-difficult. The two girls drove home in the turnout. I thought it was
-time to disappear.
-
-
-CECILIA EVESHAM
-
-     GREY TOR INN,
-     _Thursday_
-
-I have had a miserable thirty-six hours. Mrs. MacGill has been ill
-again--or has believed that she is ill again. I do not think there is
-much wrong with her, but the over-sympathetic Mrs. Pomeroy went on
-describing symptoms to her till she became quite nervous and went to
-bed, demanding that a doctor be sent for. This was no easy matter, but
-at last a callow medical fledgling was dug out somewhere, who was
-ready to agree with all I said to him.
-
-'Suggest fresh air and exercise to Mrs. MacGill,' I said, 'for she
-considers the one poisonous, the other almost a crime, and knitting
-the only legitimate form of amusement.'
-
-So he recommended air and exercise--driving exercise by preference.
-
-'I used to like the donkey-chairs at Tunbridge Wells,' Mrs. MacGill
-responded, 'but horses go so rapidly.'
-
-However, after the doctor had gone she began to consider his advice.
-
-'Shall I go to the stables and arrange for you to have a drive this
-afternoon?' I asked.
-
-She demurred, for she never can make up her mind about anything.
-
-'I can't decide just now,' she hesitated. 'I'll think it over.'
-
-I took up the guide-book, and was allowed to read its thrilling pages
-for some ten minutes. Then Mrs. MacGill called me again.
-
-'Perhaps if you go and select a _very_ quiet horse we might have a
-drive in the afternoon,' she said.
-
-I went and saw the horse, and arranged for the drive, then returned to
-tell Mrs. MacGill of the arrangement. She was not pleased. Had I said
-that _perhaps_ we would drive out at three o'clock, it would have been
-more to her mind.
-
-'Go back and tell the man that perhaps we'll go,' she said.
-
-'But perhaps some one else will take out the horse, in that case,' I
-suggested, cross and weary with her fidgeting. All the rest of the
-forenoon was one long vacillation: she would go, or she would not go;
-it would rain, or it would not rain; she would countermand the
-carriage or she would order it. But by three o'clock the sun was
-shining, so I got her bonneted and cloaked and led her down to the
-hall. The motor had come round at the same moment with our carriage.
-Its owner was looking it over before he made a start, and I was not
-surprised to see that Miss Virginia Pomeroy was also at the door, and
-that she showed great interest in the tires of the motor. Had I been
-that young man I must have asked her to drive with me there and then,
-she looked so delightful; but he is rather a phlegmatic creature,
-surely, for he didn't seem to think of it. Just as we were preparing
-to step into the carriage, the motor gave out a great puff of steam,
-and the horse in our vehicle sprang up in the shafts and took a shy to
-one side. It was easily quieted down, but of course the incident was
-more than enough for Mrs. MacGill.
-
-'Take it away,' she said to the driver. 'I won't endanger my life with
-such an animal--brown horses are always wild, and so are black ones.'
-
-It was vain for me to argue; she just turned away and walked upstairs
-again, I following to take off her bonnet and cloak, and supply her
-again with her knitting. So there was an end of the carriage exercise,
-it seemed.
-
-But there's a curious boring pertinacity in the creature, for after we
-had sat in silence for about ten minutes she remarked:--
-
-'Cecilia, the doctor _said_ I was to have carriage exercise--Don't you
-think I could get a donkey-chair?'
-
-'No,' I replied quite curtly. 'Donkey-chairs do not grow on Dartmoor.'
-
-She never saw that I was provoked, and perhaps it was just as well.
-
-'No,' she said after a pause for reflection. 'No, I dare say they do
-not, but don't you think if you walked to Stoke Babbage you might be
-able to get one for me?'
-
-'I might be able to get a pony chaise and a quiet pony,' I answered,
-scenting the possibility of a five-mile walk that would give me an
-hour or two of peace.
-
-'Well, will you go and try if you can get one?' she asked.
-
-'If you don't mind being left alone for a few hours, I'll do what I
-can,' I said. She was beginning to object, when Virginia appeared,
-leading in her mother.
-
-'Here's my mother come to keep you company, Mrs. MacGill,' she
-explained. 'She wishes to hear all about your chill, from the first
-shiver right on to the last cough.' She placed Mrs. Pomeroy in an
-armchair, and fairly drove me out of the room before her, pushing me
-with both hands.
-
-'Come! Run! Fly! Escape!' she cried. 'You are as white as butter with
-waiting on that woman's fads. I won't let you come in again under
-three hours. My mother's symptoms are good to last for two and a half
-hours, and then Mrs. MacGill can fill up the rest of the time with
-hers.'
-
-Gaiety like Virginia's is infectious. I ran, yes, really ran
-downstairs along with her, quite forgetting my headache and weariness.
-I almost turned traitor to Mrs. MacGill, and was ready to laugh at her
-with this girl.
-
-'She wants a pony chaise, and I'm to go down to Stoke Babbage to
-choose it,' I said.
-
-'Why, that's five miles away, isn't it?' she asked. 'You're not half
-equal to a walk like that.'
-
-'Anything--anything for a respite from Mrs. MacGill!' I cried.
-
-'Well, if you are fit for it, I reckon I am,' Virginia said, and with
-that we set off together down the road....
-
-
-
-
-III
-
-
-VIRGINIA POMEROY
-
-     GREY TOR INN
-
-'The inn at the world's end. The inn at the world's end.' These words
-come into my mind every morning when I look out of my window at the
-barren moor with its clumps of blazing whin, the misty distance, and
-the outline of Grey Tor against the sky. That 'giant among rocks
-rising in sombre and sinister majesty athwart the blue' looks to my
-eye like an interesting stone on a nice, middle-sized hill. If only
-they would dwell more upon the strange sense of desolation and mystery
-it seems to put into the landscape, instead of being awed by its
-so-called size! I am fascinated by it, but refuse to be astounded.
-
-This naughty conception of the colossus of the moor is the one link
-between Sir Archibald and me, for he has seen Ben Nevis and I the
-Yosemite crags. Geologically speaking, I admit that these moor rocks
-must be fascinating to the student, and certainly we at home are
-painfully destitute of 'clapper-bridges,' 'hut-circles,' and
-'monoliths'; although I heard an imaginative fellow-countryman declare
-yesterday to a party of English trippers that we had so many we became
-tired to death of the sight of them, and the government ordered
-hundreds of them to be pulled down.
-
-Every inn, even one at the world's end, is a little picture of life,
-and we have under our roof all sorts of dramas in process of
-unfolding.
-
-Shall I always be travelling, I wonder, picking up acquaintances here
-and there, sometimes friends, now and then a lover perhaps! Imagine a
-hotel lover, a lodging-house suitor, a husband, whom one would
-remember afterwards was rented with an apartment! But if I had found
-only Cecilia Evesham in this bleak spot I could be thankful for
-coming. She is like a white thornbush in a barren field, and she is
-not plain either, as they all persist in thinking her. Life, Mrs.
-MacGill, and the village dressmaker have for the moment placed her
-under a total eclipse; but she will shine yet, this poor little sunny
-beam, all put out of countenance by fierce lights and heavy shadows.
-To-day is her birthday, and mamma, who has taken a great fancy to her,
-gave her a long, wide scarf of creamy tambour lace. I presented a
-little violet brooch and belt-buckle of purple enamel, and by hard
-labour extracted from Mrs. MacGill a hideous little jug of Aller Vale
-pottery with 'Think of Me' printed on it. Think of her, indeed! One
-can always do that without having one's memory jogged, or jugged. Sir
-Archibald joined in the affair most amiably, and offered a red-bound
-Dartmoor Guide which he chanced to have with him. When we made our
-little gifts and I draped Miss Evesham in her tambour scarf, she
-looked only twenty-seven and a half by the clock! I wanted to put a
-flower in her hair, but she shook her head, saying, 'Roses are for
-young and lovely people like you, Virginia, who have other roses to
-match in their cheeks.' I was pleased that Sir Archibald was so
-friendly about the simple birthday festivities. I can forgive being
-snubbed a little myself, or if not exactly snubbed, treated as a
-mysterious (and inferior) being from another planet; but if he had
-been condescending or disagreeable with Miss Evesham I should have
-hated him. As it is I am quite grateful for him as a distinct addition
-to our dull feminine party. He is a new type to me, I confess it, and
-I had not till to-day made much headway in understanding him. When a
-man has positively no shallows one always credits him (I dare say
-falsely) with immeasurable depths. His unlikeness to all the men I've
-known increases his charm. He seems to attach such undue importance to
-small attentions, as if they meant not only a loss of dignity to the
-man, but an unwise feeding of the woman's vanity as well. He gave me
-the Black Watch ribbon for my banjo with as much inward hesitation and
-fear as Breck Calhoun would feel in asking me to share his future on
-nothing a year. He didn't grudge the ribbon, not he! but he was
-awfully afraid it might prove too encouraging a symptom for me to bear
-humbly and modestly.
-
-Then that little affair of yesterday--was there ever anything more
-characteristic or more unexpected! I am certain he followed me into
-the lane for a walk, and would have joined me if Madam Spoil-Sport had
-not been my companion. Then came the stampede of the hill ponies,
-which may or may not have been a frightful and dangerous episode. I
-can only say it seemed so terrifying that I should have fainted if I
-hadn't been so surprised at Sir Archibald's behaviour; and I'm not at
-all a fainting sort of person, either.
-
-Mrs. MacGill never looked more shapeless and stupid, and having been
-uncommonly selfish and peevish that day, was even less worth
-preserving than usual. I don't know what the etiquette is in regard to
-life-saving. No doubt the (worthy) aged should always have the first
-chance, but in any event I should think a man would evince some slight
-regret at seeing a young and lovely creature, just on the threshold of
-life, stamped into jelly by a herd of snorting ponies! But Sir
-Archibald apparently did not care what happened to me so long as he
-could rescue his countrywoman. I waited quite still in that awful
-moment when the clattering herd was charging down upon us, confident
-that a man of his strength and coolness would look out for us both.
-But he snatched the sacred person of the Killjoy, threw her against a
-gate, stood in front of her, and with out-stretched arms defied the
-oncoming foe. His gesture, his courage, the look in his eye, would
-have made the wildest pony quail. It did more,--it made me quail; but
-in the same instant he shouted to me, 'Look out for yourself and be
-sharp! Shin up that bank! Look alive!'
-
-Shinning was not my customary attitude, but it was not mine 'to make
-reply.' I shinned; that is all there is to say about the matter. I
-_was_ 'sharp' and I _did_ 'look alive,' being deserted by my natural
-protector. I, Virginia Pomeroy, aged twenty-two, native of Richmond,
-U.S.A., clambered up one of those steep banks found only in Devonshire
-lanes,--a ten or twelve foot bank, crowned with a straggling, ragged
-hedge of thorn. I dug my fingers and toes into the earth and clutched
-at grass tufts, roots, or anything clutchable, and ended by tumbling
-into a thicket of freshly cut beechen twigs. I was as angry as I had
-breath to be, but somehow I was awed by the situation: by Mrs.
-MacGill's trembling gratitude; by Sir Archibald's presence of mind; by
-his imperious suggestion as to my way of escape, for I could never
-have climbed that sheer wall of earth unless I had been ordered to in
-good set terms. Coming down from my heights a few minutes later,
-looking like an intoxicated lady who has resisted the well-meant
-advice of a policeman, I put Mrs. MacGill together and shook Sir
-Archibald's hand. I am sure I don't know why; he did precious little
-for me, but he had been something of a hero, nevertheless.
-
-'_Shin up that bank and look alive!_' I was never spoken to in that
-way before, in all my life. I wish Breck Calhoun could have heard him!
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-
-MRS. MACGILL
-
-     _Saturday afternoon_
-
-I have had a terrible experience, which has upset me completely and
-damaged my right knee, besides agitating me so much that I can
-scarcely remember how it happened. I have read that a drowning man
-sees his whole life before him in a flash of time. It is different
-with women perhaps. I saw no flash of anything, and thought only of
-myself,--remembering a horrible story I read somewhere about a horse
-in the Crimea that bit the faces of the enemy. Sir Archibald _flung_
-me against a gate. The intention was kind, I dare say, but even then I
-could just hear the beads ripping off my mantle as I fell against the
-bars. The lane seemed full of ponies, all screaming, as I didn't know
-horses could scream, and kicking like so many grasshoppers.
-
-'It's all right! Nothing has happened!' he called to the girl, when
-the herd receded.
-
-'I don't know what you two call happened,' I said, as soon as I could
-speak. 'We have been nearly killed--all of us, especially me.'
-
-I looked at Miss Pomeroy; so did Sir Archibald. She is an active girl,
-and at the first suggestion of danger she had scrambled headlong up a
-steep bank, where she clung to the roots of the hedge, entirely
-forgetting all about me. She now came down, and required some
-assistance in descending, although she had climbed up, which is more
-difficult, all in a moment. She was certainly pale--really pale for
-the first time since she came here, and did not seem to think about
-her hat, which was hanging half-way down her back by this time. Poor
-Mr. MacGill used always to say that when a pretty girl forgot her
-appearance there was something really serious in the air. She seemed
-to have forgotten, but I dare say she really was thinking that she
-looked nicer that way. She came up to the young man, and held out her
-hand to him, saying, 'Thank you, Sir Archibald.' Americans are very
-forward, certainly. If I had said 'Thank you,' and offered to shake
-hands with him, there might have been some reason for it, although I
-never thought of doing so; it was decidedly Me that Sir Archibald had
-rescued. This did not seem to make a bit of difference to them,
-however. He took her hand and shook it, and then I must say had the
-civility to give Me his arm, and we all walked back to the hotel. I
-felt so shattered that I went to bed for the rest of the afternoon.
-
-
-SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE
-
-     GREY TOR INN
-
-Mrs. MacGill is not the kind of person you'd associate with
-danger,--being an armchair-and-feather-bed sort of character,--yet, by
-Jingo, the old girl has had a narrow squeak to-day. She and Miss
-Virginia went out for a walk together, the companion being invisible
-with the usual headache. I thought I would follow them a little way.
-Mrs. MacGill is an interfering old person, and I have noticed of late
-that she scents a flirtation between the fair American and me. Whether
-there is a flirtation or not, I don't know (_I_ am not learned in such
-things); but if there were, she is not the person to stop it, nor any
-other old cat on earth. She has merely succeeded--I wish she knew--in
-putting it into my head that American girls are apt to be exceedingly
-attractive as well as eligible in the matrimonial market. I should
-think Miss Virginia was as eligible as any of them, and better looking
-than most.
-
-I kept the pair in sight, and it was lucky that I did. A tremendous
-explosion from a quarry where some men are blasting made me stop
-short, and as to the old girl in front, she leaped about a foot into
-the air, and I could hear Miss Virginia laugh and say something funny
-about ankles and white stockings. Just then a most extraordinary noise
-began at the top of the lane, a pounding of hoofs and grinding of
-gravel and flying of stones; and in another minute, round the corner
-of this lane, which was of the narrowest sort and nearly roofed in
-with trees and banks, as these beastly Devonshire lanes always are,
-came a herd of moor ponies--about twenty or thirty of them--squeaking
-and biting and kicking, in a regular stampede. The report of the
-blasting had startled them, I don't doubt, and part terror, part
-vice, made them kick up a shindy and set off at full gallop. There
-wasn't a moment to lose. I ran for the women, with a shout, thinking
-only of the young one, of course. But when I saw the two together,
-there wasn't a question of which I must help. Miss Virginia had legs
-of her own; if Mrs. MacGill had any, they were past helping her now.
-There was a sort of hurdle to the right; I managed to jam the old
-woman against it and shout to the girl, 'Shin up that bank! Look
-alive!' while I stood in front, waving my arms and carrying on like a
-madman to frighten the ponies. They bore down on us in a swelter of
-dust; but just when they were within about a yard of our position they
-swerved to the left, stopped half a second, looking at us out of the
-corners of their eyes, snuffed the air, snorted, gave a squeal or two
-more, and galloped off down the lane. It was a pretty narrow
-shave,--nothing, of course, if the women hadn't been there. Miss
-Virginia and I shook hands over it, and between us we got the old lady
-back to the hotel, nearly melted with fright.
-
-That night after dinner I was smoking on the verandah in front of the
-hotel. I heard Miss Virginia singing as she crossed the hall, and
-looked in.
-
-'It's rather a jolly night, Miss Pomeroy,' I said, 'not at all cold.'
-
-'Isn't it?' she asked, and came to the door.
-
-'There's a comfortable seat here,' I added, 'and the verandah keeps
-off the wind from the moor.'
-
-She came out. It was quite dark, for the sky was cloudy and there was
-no moon, but there was a splash of light where we sat, from the hall
-window, so that I could see Miss Virginia and she could see me. She
-was dressed in a very pretty frock, all pink and white, and I have
-certainly now come round to the artist's opinion that she is an
-uncommonly pretty girl; not that I care for pretty girls,--of course
-they are the worst kind, and I have always avoided them so far.
-
-'Well,' said Miss Virginia, 'you've done a fairly good day's work, I
-should think, and can go to bed with an easy conscience and sleep the
-sleep of the just!'
-
-'Why, particularly?' I inquired bashfully.
-
-'Why?' cried Miss Virginia. 'Haven't you rescued Age and Scotland from
-a cruel death? I suppose it didn't matter to you what became of Youth
-and America. But I forgive you, you managed the other so well.'
-
-I couldn't help laughing and getting rather red, and Miss Virginia
-gave me a wicked look out of her black eyes.
-
-'Why, Miss Pomeroy,' I said in a confused way, 'don't you see how it
-was? I argued to myself you had your own legs to save yourself on,
-while'--
-
-But here Miss Virginia jumped up with a little scream.
-
-'We don't talk about legs that way, where I come from!' she said, but
-I saw she was not really shocked, only laughing, with the rum little
-dimples coming out in her cheeks.
-
-'Won't you shake hands again,' I suggested, 'to show you have quite
-forgiven me?'
-
-Miss Virginia's hand was in mine, I was holding it, when who should
-come to the door and look out but Mrs. MacGill.
-
-'I think it is very cold and damp for you to be out at this hour, Miss
-Pomeroy,' she remarked pointedly.
-
-'Well, I suppose it is, Mrs. MacGill,' said Miss Virginia, as cool as
-you please, lifting up the long tail of her dress and making a little
-face at me over her shoulder.
-
-Mrs. MacGill gave a loud sniff and never budged till Miss Virginia was
-safely inside. The old harridan--I'll teach her a lesson if she
-doesn't mend her manners!
-
-
-CECILIA EVESHAM
-
-     _Friday evening_
-
-Here I was interrupted, and now something new has happened that
-requires telling, so I'll skip our adventures of Thursday afternoon,
-and go on to Friday....
-
-Well, this morning I came down to breakfast, almost blind with
-neuralgia. I struggled on till luncheon, when it became unbearable.
-Virginia (I call her that already) looked at me in the kindest way
-during the meal.
-
-'You're ill,' she said. 'You need putting to bed.'
-
-Mrs. MacGill looked surprised. 'Cecilia is never very ill,' she
-observed tepidly.
-
-'She's ill now, no mistake,' Virginia persisted, and rose and came
-round to my side of the table. 'Come and let me help you upstairs and
-put you to bed.'
-
-I was too ill to resist, and she led me to my room and tucked me up
-comfortably.
-
-'Now,' she said, 'this headache wants peace of mind to cure it; I know
-the kind. You can't get peace for thinking about Mrs. MacGill. I'm
-going to take her off your mind for the afternoon--it's time I tried
-companioning--no girl knows when she may need to earn a living. You
-won't know your Mrs. MacGill when you get her again! I'll dress her up
-and walk her out, and humour her.'
-
-She bent down and kissed me as she spoke. It was the sweetest kiss!
-Her face is like a peach to feel, and her clothes have a delicious
-scent of violets. Somehow all my troubles seemed to smooth out. She
-rustled away in her silk-lined skirts, and I fell into a much-needed
-sleep, feeling that all would be well.
-
-I was mistaken, however. All did not go well, but on the contrary
-something very unfortunate happened while I was sleeping so quietly.
-It must have been about four o'clock when I was wakened by Virginia
-coming into my room again. She looked a little ruffled and pale.
-
-'I've brought Mrs. MacGill back to you, Miss Evesham,' she said, 'but
-it's thanks to Sir Archibald, not to me. She will tell you all about
-it.' With that Mrs. MacGill came tottering into the room, plumped down
-upon the edge of my bed, and began a breathless, incoherent story in
-which wild ponies, stampedes, lanes, Sir Archibald, and herself were
-all mixed up together.
-
-'Did he really save you from a bad accident?' I asked Virginia, for it
-was impossible to make out anything from Mrs. MacGill.
-
-Virginia nodded. 'He did, Cecilia, and I like him,' she said.
-
-'Oh ho!' I thought. 'Is it possible that I am going to be mixed up in
-a romance? She likes him, does she? Very good; we shall see.'
-
-And then, because the world always appears a neutral-tinted place to
-me, without high lights of any kind, I rebuked myself for imagining
-that anything lively could ever come my way. 'I couldn't even look on
-at anything romantic nowadays,' I thought, 'I doubt if there _is_ such
-a thing as romance; it's just a figment of youth. Come, Mrs. MacGill,
-I'll find your knitting for you,' I said; 'that will compose you
-better than anything else.'
-
-
-
-
-IV
-
-
-VIRGINIA POMEROY
-
-     THE GREY TOR INN
-
-We had rather a nice half-hour at Little Widger to-day, Sir Archibald
-and I. Of course we were walking. It is still incomprehensible to me,
-the comfort, the pleasure even, these people get out of the simple use
-of their legs. We passed Wishtcot and Wildycombe and then came upon
-Little Widger, not having known of its existence. The tiny hamlet
-straggles down a side hill and turns a corner, to terminate in the
-village inn, quaintly named 'The Mug o' Cider.' An acacia laden with
-yellow tassels hangs over the stone gate, purple and white lilacs
-burst through the hedges, and there is a cob-and-thatch cottage, with
-a dazzling white hawthorn in front of it and a black pig nosing at
-the gate.
-
-O the loveliness of that May noon, a sunny noon for once; the
-freshness of the beeches; the golden brown of the oaks; above all, the
-shimmering beauty of the young birches! It was as if the sap had just
-brimmed and trembled into leaves; as if each drop had thinned itself
-into a transparent oval of liquid green.
-
-The sight of Mrs. MacGill being dragged by Greytoria over a very
-distant hill was soothing in itself, or it would have been if I hadn't
-known Miss Evesham was toiling up beside her. We were hungry and
-certain of being late to luncheon, so Sir Archibald proposed food of
-some sort at the inn. He had cold meat, bread and cheese, and a
-tankard of Devonshire cider, while I had delicious junket, clouted
-cream, and stewed apple. Before starting on our long homeward stroll
-we had a cosy chat, the accessories being a fire, a black cat, and a
-pipe, with occasional incursions by a small maid-servant who looked
-exactly like a Devonshire hill pony,--strong, sturdy, stocky,
-heavy-footed, and tangled as to mane.
-
-We were discussing our common lack of relatives. 'I have no one but my
-mother and two distant cousins,' I said.
-
-The sympathetic man would have murmured, 'Poor little soul!' and the
-too sentimental one would have seized the opportunity to exclaim,
-'Then let me be all in all to you!' But Sir Archibald removed his pipe
-and remarked, 'Good thing too, I dare say'; and then in a moment
-continued with graceful tact and frankness, 'They say you can't tell
-anything about an American family by seeing one of 'em.'
-
-Upon my word, the hopeless candour of these our brethren of the
-British Isles is astonishing. Sometimes after a prolonged conversation
-with two or three of them I feel like going about the drawing-room
-with a small broom and dust-pan and sweeping up the home truths that
-should lie in scattered profusion on the floor; and which do, no
-doubt, were my eyes as keen in seeing as my ears in hearing.
-
-However, I responded meekly, 'I suppose that is true; but I doubt if
-the peculiarity is our exclusive possession. None of my relatives
-belonged to the criminal classes, and they could all read and write,
-but I dare say some of them were more desirable than others from a
-social point of view. It must be so delicious to belong to an order of
-things that never questions itself! Breckenridge Calhoun says that is
-the one reason he can never quite get on with the men over here at
-first; which always makes me laugh, for in his way, as a rabid
-Southerner, he is just as bad.'
-
-There was quite an interval here in which the fire crackled, the black
-cat purred, and the pipe puffed. Sir Archibald broke the cosy silence
-by asking, 'Who is this Mr. Calhoun whom you and your mother mention
-so often?'
-
-The conversation that ensued was quite a lengthy one, but I will
-report as much of it as I can remember. It was like this:--
-
-_Jinny._ Breckenridge Calhoun is my 'childhood's friend,' the kind of
-man whose estates join yours, who has known you ever since you were
-born; liked you, quarrelled with you, forgotten you, and been sweet
-upon you by turns; and who finally marries you, when you have both
-given up hope of finding anybody more original and startling.--By the
-way, am I the first American girl you've met?
-
-_Sir A._ Not the first I've met, but the first I've known. There was a
-jolly sort of schoolgirl from Indiana whom I saw at my old aunt's
-house in Edinburgh. There were half a dozen elderly tabbies pressing
-tea and scones on her, and she cried, just as I was coming in at the
-door, 'Oh, no more tea, please! I could hear my last scone splash!'
-
-_Jinny (shaking with laughter)._ Oh, how lovely! I am so glad you had
-such a picturesque and fearless young person as a first experience;
-but as she has been your only instructress, you have much to learn,
-and I might as well begin my duty to you at once.
-
-_Sir A._ You're taking a deal of trouble.
-
-_Jinny._ Oh, it's no trouble, but a pleasure rather, to put a
-fellow-being on the right track. You must first disabuse your mind of
-the American girl as you find her in books.
-
-_Sir A._ Don't have to; never read 'em.
-
-_Jinny._ Very well, then,--the American girl of the drama and casual
-conversation; that's worse. You must forget her supposed freedom of
-thought and speech, her rustling silk skirts, her jingling side bag or
-chatelaine, her middle initial, her small feet and hands, her high
-heels, her extravagant dress, her fortune,--which only one in ten
-thousand possesses,--her overworked father and weakly indulgent
-mother, called respectively poppa and momma. These are but
-accessories,--the frame, not the picture. They exist, that is quite
-true, but no girl has the whole list, thank goodness! I, for example,
-have only one or two of the entire lot.
-
-_Sir A._ Which ones? I was just thinking you had 'em all.
-
-_Jinny._ You must find out something for yourself! The foundation idea
-of modern education is to make the pupil the discoverer of his own
-knowledge. As I was saying when interrupted, if you remove these
-occasional accompaniments of the American girl you find simply the
-same old 'eternal feminine.' Of course there is a wide range of
-choice. You seem to think over here that there is only one kind of
-American girl; but if you would only go into the subject deeply you
-would find fat and lean, bright and dull, pert and meek, some that
-could only have been discovered by Columbus, others that might have
-been brought up in the rocky fastnesses of a pious Scottish home.
-
-_Sir A._ I don't get on with girls particularly well.
-
-_Jinny._ I can quite fancy that! Not one American girl in a hundred
-would take the trouble to understand you. You need such a lot of
-understanding that an indolent girl or a reserved one or a spoiled one
-or a busy one would keep thinking, 'Does it pay?'
-
-_Sir A. (reddening and removing his pipe thoughtfully, pressing down
-the tobacco in the bowl)._ Hullo, you can hit out when you like.
-
-_Jinny._ I am not 'hitting out'; I get on delightfully well with you
-because I have lots of leisure just now to devote to your case. Of
-course it would be a great economy of time and strength if you chose
-to meet people half-way, or perhaps an eighth! It's only the amenities
-of the public street, after all, that casual acquaintances need, in
-order to have a pleasant time along the way. The private path is quite
-another thing; even I put out the sign, 'No thoroughfare,' over that;
-but I don't see why you need build bramble hedges across the common
-roads of travel.--Do you know what a 'scare-cat' is?
-
-_Sir A._ Can't say I do.
-
-_Jinny._ It's a nice expressive word belonging to the infants'
-vocabulary of slang. I think you are regular 'scare-cats' over here,
-when it comes to the treatment of casual acquaintances. You must be
-clever enough to know a lady or a gentleman when you see one, and you
-don't take such frightful risks with ladies and gentlemen.
-
-During this entire colloquy Sir Archibald Maxwell Mackenzie, Baronet,
-of Kindarroch, eyed me precisely as if he had been a dignified mastiff
-observing the incomprehensible friskings of a playful, foolish puppy
-of quite another species. 'Good Heavens,' thinks the mastiff, raising
-his eyes in devout astonishment, 'can I ever at any age have disported
-myself like that? The creature seems to have positively none of my
-qualities; I wonder if it really _is_ a dog?'
-
-'Do you approve of marriage,--go in for it?' queried Sir Archibald in
-a somewhat startling manner, after a long pause, and puffing steadily
-the while.
-
-'I approve of it entirely,' I answered, 'especially for men; women are
-terribly hampered by it, to be sure.'
-
-'I should have put that in exactly the opposite way,' he said
-thoughtfully.
-
-'I know you would,' I retorted, 'and that's precisely the reason I
-phrased it as I did. One must keep your attention alive by some means
-or other, else it would go on strike and quit work altogether.'
-
-Sir Archibald threw back his head and broke into an unexpected peal of
-laughter at this. 'Come along out of doors, Miss Virginia Pomeroy,' he
-said, standing up and putting his pipe in his pocket. 'You're an
-awfully good chap, American or not!'
-
-
-MRS. MACGILL
-
-     _Sunday evening_
-
-This day has been very wet. I had fully intended to go to church,
-because I always make a point of doing so unless too ill to move, as I
-consider it fully more a duty than a privilege, and example is
-everything. However, after the fright I had yesterday, and the
-shaking, I had such a pain in my right knee that devotion was out of
-the question, even had my mantle been fit to put on (which it won't be
-until Cecilia has mended all the trimming), so I resolved to stay
-quietly in bed. After luncheon I could get no sleep, for Miss Pomeroy
-was singing things which Cecilia says are camp meeting hymns. They
-sounded to me like a circus, but they may introduce dance music at
-church services in New York, and make horses dance to it, too.
-Anything is possible to a people that can produce girls like Virginia
-Pomeroy. One can hardly believe in looking at her that she belongs to
-the nation of Longfellow, who wrote that lovely poem on 'Maidenhood.'
-Poor Mr. MacGill used to be very fond of it:--
-
-     'Standing, with reluctant feet,
-     Where the brook and river meet.'
-
-Even if there were a river here (we can see nothing of the Dart from
-this hotel), one could never connect Miss Pomeroy with 'reluctant
-feet' in any way. She has quite got hold of that unfortunate young
-man. With my poor health, and sleeping so badly, it is very difficult
-for me to interfere, but justice to the son of my old friend will make
-me do what I can.
-
-About half-past five I came down and could see nobody. Mrs. Pomeroy
-suffers from the same tickling cough as I do, after drinking tea, and
-had gone to her own room. Cecilia was nowhere to be seen. I asked the
-waiter, who is red-faced, but a Methodist, to tell me where she was,
-and he told me in the Billiard Room. Of course I didn't know where I
-was going, or I should never have entered it, especially on a wet
-Sunday afternoon; but when I opened the door I stood horrified by what
-I saw.
-
-Miss Pomeroy may be accustomed to such a place (I have read that they
-are called 'brandy saloons' in America), but I never saw anything like
-it. There was a great deal of tobacco, which at once set up my
-tickling cough. Sir Archibald was holding what gamblers call a cue,
-and rubbing it with chalk, I suppose to deaden the sound. On a
-table--there were several chairs in the room, so it cannot have been
-by mistake--sat Miss Pomeroy and Cecilia. The American was strumming
-on a be-ribboned banjo.
-
-'O Mrs. MacGill, I thought you were asleep,' said Cecilia.
-
-'I wish I were; but I fear that what I see is only too true. Pray,
-Cecilia, come away with me at once,' I exclaimed.
-
-Sir Archibald had placed a chair for me, but I took no notice of it,
-except to say, 'I'm surprised that you don't offer _me_ a seat on the
-table.'
-
-We left the room at once, and I spoke to Cecilia with some severity,
-saying that I could never countenance such on-goings, and that Miss
-Pomeroy was leading her all wrong. 'If she is determined to marry a
-baronet,' I said, 'let her do it; but even an American might think it
-more necessary that a baronet should be determined to marry her, and
-might shrink from such a form of pursuit. Well, if you are determined
-to laugh at me,' I went on, 'there must be some other arrangement
-between us, but you cannot leave me at present, alone on a hillside
-like this, just after influenza, amongst herds of wild ponies.'
-
-Cecilia cried at last, and upset me so much that I had another bad
-night, suffering much from my knee, and obliged to have a cup of cocoa
-at 2.30 A.M. Cecilia appeared half asleep as she made it, although
-the day before she could spring out of bed the moment the light came
-in, to look at the sunrise. These so-called poetic natures are very
-puzzling and inconsistent.
-
-
-SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE
-
-There is no doubt, alas! that the weather is improving and that we
-shall soon be in for that picnic. I have promised the motor and
-promised my society. There is something about that girl which makes me
-feel and act in a way I hardly think is quite normal. She forces me to
-do things I don't want to do, and the things don't seem so bad in
-themselves, at least as long as she is there. The artist I saw at
-Exeter has turned up here, the one who comes to look at the gorse; at
-any rate he makes a man to speak to, which is a merciful variety. He
-talks a lot of rot of course,--raves about the 'blue distance' here,
-as if it mattered what colour the distance is. But I think he is off
-his chump in other ways besides; for instance, he was saying to-day he
-was sick of landscape and pining to try his hand at a portrait.
-
-'There's your model quite ready,' said I, indicating Miss Virginia,
-all in white, with a scarlet parasol, looking as pretty as a rose.
-
-'Bah!' said the artist, 'who wants to paint "the young person" whose
-eyes show you a blank past, a delightful present, and a prosperous
-future! Eyes that have cried are the only ones to paint. I should
-prefer the old lady's companion.'
-
-I felt positively disgusted at this, but of course there is no
-accounting for tastes, and if a man is as blind as a bat, he can't
-help it; only I wonder he elects to gain his livelihood as an artist.
-
-I walked with Miss Virginia to-day down to the little village about a
-mile away. It was all through the lanes, and I could hardly get her
-along because of the flowers. The banks were certainly quite blue with
-violets, and Miss Virginia would pick them, though I explained it was
-waste of time, for they would all be dead in half an hour and have to
-be thrown away.
-
-'But if I make up a nice little bunch for your buttonhole,' said she,
-'will that be waste of time?' Of course I was obliged to say
-'No,'--you have to tell such lies to women, one of the reasons I
-dislike their society.
-
-'But of course you will throw them away as soon as they are faded,
-poor dears!' continued Miss Virginia.
-
-I didn't see what else a sensible man could do with decaying
-vegetation, though it was plain that this was not what she expected me
-to say. Luckily, the village came in sight at this moment, so I was
-able to change the subject.
-
-Miss Virginia seems very keen on villages, and went on about the
-thatched cottages and the church tower and the lych-gate in such a way
-that I conclude they don't have these things in America, where people
-are really up to date. It was in vain for me to tell her that thatch
-is earwiggy, as well as damp, and that every sensible landowner is
-substituting slate roofs as fast as he can. We went into the church,
-which was as cold and dark as a vault, and Miss Virginia was intensely
-pleased with that too, and I could hardly get her away. In the
-meantime, the sun had come out tremendously strong, and as it had
-rained for some days previously, the whole place was steaming like a
-caldron, and we both suddenly felt most awfully slack.
-
-'Let's take a bite here,' I suggested. 'There is sure to be a pothouse
-of sorts, and we shall be late for the hotel luncheon anyway.'
-
-The idea seemed to please Miss Virginia, and we hunted for the
-pothouse and found it in a corner.
-
-'Oh, what a dear little inn!' cried she. 'I shall love anything they
-serve here!'
-
-I was thinking of the luncheon, not the inn, myself, and did not
-expect great things from the look of the place, which was low and
-poky, with thatched eaves and windows all buried in clematis and ivy.
-A little cobbled path led up to the door, with lots of wallflower
-growing in the crannies of the wall on each side. There was nobody but
-a lass to attend to us, and she gave us bread and cheese, and clouted
-cream and plum jam. It wasn't bad. Virginia talked ten to the dozen
-all the time, and the funny thing was, she made me talk too. For the
-first time in my life I felt that it might not be a bad thing to be
-friends with a girl as you can be with a man, but such a thing is not
-possible, of course. After a while Virginia went off to make friends
-with the landlady and pick flowers in the garden. How beastly dingy
-and dark the inn parlour seemed then, when I had time to look about! I
-felt, all of a sudden, most tremendously down on my luck. Why? I have
-had these fits of the blues lately; I think it must be the Devonshire
-cream; I must stop it.
-
-We got home all right. I carried all Miss Virginia's flowers which the
-old woman had given her,--about a stack of daffodils, lilies, and
-clematis.
-
-
-CECILIA EVESHAM
-
-     _Sunday evening_
-
-I begin to think I am what is called a psychical person, for I woke
-this morning with a strong presentiment of things happening or about
-to happen. The day did not seem to lend itself to events; it had
-broken with rain lashing the window panes and a gale of wind blowing
-through every crevice of the hotel. Mrs. MacGill did not feel able to
-rise for breakfast. As a matter of fact she was more able to do so
-than I was, but she didn't think so, which settled the matter.
-Therefore I went down to the breakfast-room alone.
-
-If the outer air was dreary, the scene indoors was very cheerful. A
-large fire blazed in the grate, and in front of the rain-lashed
-windows a table was laid for three. Virginia and Sir Archibald were
-already seated at it, and he rose, as I came in, and showed me that my
-place was with them.
-
-'We felt sure that Mrs. MacGill would not appear this morning,' he
-said, 'so we thought we might all breakfast together.'
-
-What a gay little meal that was! Virginia was at her brightest; she
-would have made an owl laugh. I found myself forgetting headache and
-unhappiness, as I listened to her; and as for Sir Archibald, he seemed
-another man altogether from the rigid young Scotchman of our first
-acquaintance.
-
-'Well, now, Sir Archibald,' said Virginia, as she rose from the table,
-'the question is what a well-brought-up young man like you is going to
-do with himself all this wet day. I know what we are to be about, Miss
-Evesham and I,--we are going to look at all my new Paris gowns, and
-try on all my best hats.'
-
-'There's always the motor,' he said.
-
-Virginia had none of that way of hanging about with young men that
-English girls have. There could be no doubt that she was interested in
-Sir Archibald, and wished him to be interested in her, but apparently
-for that very reason she would not let him see too much of her that
-morning. She carried me off to her room, and kept me there so long,
-looking at her clothes, that Mrs. MacGill found sharp fault with me
-when at last I returned to her. What had I been doing? I might have
-known that she would want me, etc.; she had decided not to get up
-until tea-time. 'It is impossible to go to church, and it is much
-easier to employ one's time well in bed,' she said. So in bed she
-remained, and I in attendance upon her until it was time for luncheon.
-
-When I went downstairs, Virginia had also appeared again, and I saw
-the wisdom and skill of her tactics; she was far more pleasing to the
-young man now, because he had seen nothing of her all morning, and she
-knew it. Sir Archibald, it appeared, had passed his time in the
-motor-shed, presumably either examining the machinery of the motor or
-polishing it up. Virginia seemed to have been writing letters; she
-brought a bundle of them down with her, and laid one, address
-uppermost, on the table beside her. It was addressed to 'Breckenridge
-Calhoun, Esq., Richmond, Virginia, U.S.A.'
-
-I saw Sir Archibald's eyes rest on it for a second, but the moment he
-realised the name he almost consciously averted his glance from the
-envelope for the remainder of the meal.
-
-Virginia was very lively.
-
-'Well, now, Sir Archibald, I'm going to hear your catechism after
-lunch; it's a good occupation for Sunday afternoon,' she said. 'You'll
-come right into the coffee-room, and recite it to me, and Miss Evesham
-shall correct your mistakes.'
-
-'I'll try to acquit myself well,' he answered, following her meekly
-into the coffee-room.
-
-'What is your name?' she began.
-
-'Archibald George,' he replied, and Virginia went on:--
-
-'I'll invent the rest of the questions, I think, so please answer
-them well. How old are you?'
-
-'Thirty-one years and two months.'
-
-'Have you any profession?'
-
-'None.'
-
-'Pursuits?'
-
-'Various.'
-
-'Name these.'
-
-'Motoring, bicycling, shooting, fishing.'
-
-'That will do; you may sit down,' observed Virginia gravely, and then,
-turning to me, 'I think the young man has acquitted himself very
-creditably in this difficult exam. Miss Evesham, shall we give him a
-certificate?'
-
-'Yes,' I replied, laughing at her nonsense. Virginia wrote out on a
-sheet of paper:--
-
-     This is to certify that Sir Archibald Maxwell Mackenzie
-     passed a creditable examination in Pedigree and Pursuits.
-
-     (Signed) VIRGINIA S. POMEROY.
-
-'Here,' she said, folding it up and giving it to the young man, 'you
-should keep this among the proudest archives of your house.'
-
-Sir Archibald put it into his pocket with a funny little smile. 'It
-shall have the greatest care always,' he assured her. 'And now, Miss
-Pomeroy, won't you and Miss Evesham come and have a game of billiards
-with me? I must relax my mind after all this effort.'
-
-I knew that I should not consent to this proposition; Virginia knew
-that she should not; we both hesitated for a moment, and then
-Virginia, with a glance at the storm outside, made a compromise in
-favour of decorum.
-
-'Well, there doesn't seem to be much else to do this wet afternoon,'
-she said. 'I don't care if I do come and see how well you play, Sir
-Archibald, and perhaps Miss Evesham will come and applaud also.'
-
-I didn't see much difference between playing ourselves and seeing him
-play, but perhaps there was a little.
-
-'I'll fetch my banjo,' proposed Virginia, 'and I can sing while you
-have your game.'
-
-So to the billiard-room we went, and Virginia perched herself in a
-window niche. From this point of vantage she watched Sir Archibald's
-strokes, while she strummed away on the instrument, and sang delicious
-little songs in her clear, bird-like voice. I watched them both
-closely. Sir Archibald was not attending to his play; I saw that he
-was thinking far more about her.
-
-'Won't you even chalk my cue for me?' he asked her, holding out the
-chalk.
-
-She received it daintily between her finger and thumb. He stood beside
-us, looking down at her in the unmistakable way; he was falling in
-love, but he scarcely knew it.
-
-'There's your nasty chalk! See, I've whited all my sleeve,' she said,
-making a distracting little grimace. She held out her sleeve for him
-to see, and of course he brushed the chalk gently off it, and looked
-into her eyes for a moment. I almost felt myself in the way, but I knew
-that I was necessary to them just then. They had not advanced far
-enough in their flirtation to be left alone yet, so I contented
-myself. They both, I thought, were taking me into their confidence.
-'You understand--you won't betray us--we mean no harm,' they seemed to
-say to me; and I determined that this should be my attitude. I would
-play gooseberry obligingly for just so long as I was wanted, and when
-the right moment came, would equally obligingly leave them.
-
-The afternoon went merrily on. Sir Archibald sent for a whisky and
-soda, and Virginia fetched a huge box of French bonbons, and we
-refreshed ourselves according to our tastes. Virginia had just slipped
-a very large piece of nougat into her mouth, and I was just going to
-put a bit into mine, but happily hadn't done so, when the door opened,
-and Mrs. MacGill came walking in, with an air of angry bewilderment
-on her face. A billiard cue to her means nothing but dissipation, a
-whisky and soda nothing short of sodden drunkenness, so the whole
-scene appeared to her a sort of wild orgy. If she had only known how
-innocent it all was!
-
-'Cecilia,' she exclaimed, 'the waiter told me that you were here, but
-I could scarcely believe him!'
-
-I affected not to see that she was shocked.
-
-'I dare say it is nearly tea-time,' I said. 'Shall we go into the
-dining-room?'
-
-Mrs. MacGill had a right to be angry with me, but I do not think any
-indiscretion could deserve the torrent of stupid upbraiding that fell
-upon me now. Many of her reproaches were deserved. I was too old to
-have given countenance to this afternoon in the billiard-room; I
-should have known better.
-
-But when all is said and done, life is short; short, and for most of
-us disappointing. We cannot afford to put a bar across the difficult
-road to happiness. I saw two young creatures, who seemed very well
-suited to each other, in need of my friendly countenance, and I
-determined to give it. Was I altogether wrong? Well, Mrs. MacGill
-thought so at any rate, and told me so with wearisome iteration. I
-shrugged my shoulders, and took the scolding as a necessary corrective
-to a very happy afternoon.
-
-
-
-
-V
-
-
-VIRGINIA POMEROY
-
-     GREY TOR INN,
-     AT THE WORLD'S END,
-     _Monday, May_--
-
-Mrs. MacGill, inspired by the zeal with which the rest are re-reading
-Hardy, Blackmore, Baring-Gould, and Phillpotts, has finished a book of
-each of these novelists who play the 'pipes of the misty moorlands.'
-She dislikes them all, but her liveliest disapproval is reserved for
-the first and last named. She finds them most immoral, and says that
-if she could have believed that such ill-conducted persons resided in
-Dartmoor or anywhere in Devonshire, she would not have encouraged the
-Grey Tor Inn by her presence. As to the language spoken by some of the
-characters, she is inclined to think no one could ever have heard it.
-'There would be no sense in their using such words,' she explains
-triumphantly, 'for no one would understand them'; continuing the
-argument by stating that she once heard the Duke of Devonshire open a
-public meeting and he spoke in exceptionally good English.
-
-All this makes me rather wicked, so when I went down to breakfast
-to-day I said cheerfully, 'Good marnin' to you! Marnin', Mrs. MacGill!
-How do 'e like my new gown, Cecilia?--it's flam-new! Marnin', Sir
-Archibald! I didn't know 'e in the dimpsey light; bide where you be,
-I'll take this seat.... Will I have bacon and eggs? Ess fay; there'll
-be nought else, us all knows that. There's many matters I want to put
-afore 'e to-day.... Do 'e see thickly li'l piece of bread 'pon the
-plate, Cecilia? Pass it to me, will 'e? I know I be chitterin' like a
-guinea-fowl, but I be a sort o' public merryman bringin' folks the
-blessing o' honest laughter.... Can us have blind up if 'tis all the
-same to you, Mrs. MacGill? I doan't like eatin' in the dark.'
-
-Then when mamma said, '_Jinny!_' in italics, and looked at me
-beseechingly, I exclaimed, 'Gaw your ways, mother! I ban't feared o'
-you, an' I doan't mind tellin' 'e 't is so.' When Sir Archibald,
-bursting with laughter, remarked it was a fine day, I replied, 'You'm
-right theer; did 'e ever see ought like un? Theer's been a wonnerful
-change in the weather; us be called 'pon to go downlong to
-Widdington-in-the-Wolds to-day to see the roundy poundies.
-
-     "Along by the river we'll ram'le about
-     A-drowin' th' line and a-ketchin' o' trout;
-     An' when we've got plenty we'll start ver our huomes,
-     An' tull all our doings while pickin' ther buones."'
-
-By this time Mrs. MacGill, thoroughly incensed, remarked that there
-was no accounting for taste in jokes, whereupon I responded genially,
-'You'm right theer! it's a wonnerful coorious rackety world; in fact,
-in the language of Eden, 'I'll be gormed if it ban't a 'mazin' world!'
-
-Mamma at this juncture said, with some heat, that if this were the
-language of Eden she judged it was after the advent of the serpent; at
-which Sir Archibald and Miss Evesham and I screamed with laughter and
-explained that I meant Eden Phillpotts, not the garden of Eden.
-
-The day was heavenly, as I said, and seemed intended by Providence for
-our long-deferred picnic to Widdington-in-the-Wolds. Mamma and Mrs.
-MacGill wanted to see the church, Cecilia and I wanted any sort of
-outing. Sir Archibald had not viewed the plan with any warmth from the
-first, but I was determined that he should go, for I thought he needed
-chastening. Goodness knows he got it, and for that matter so did I,
-which was not in the bargain.
-
-I refuse to dwell on the minor incidents of that interminable day.
-Mrs. MacGill, for general troublesomeness, outdid her proudest
-previous record; no picnic polluted by her presence could be an
-enjoyable occasion, but this one was frowned upon by all the Fates.
-There is a Dartmoor saying that 'God looks arter his own chosen
-fules,' which proves only that we were 'fules,' but not chosen ones.
-The luncheon was eaten in a sort of grassy gutter, the only place the
-party could agree upon. It was begun in attempted jocularity and
-finished in unconcealed gloom. Mrs. MacGill, on perceiving that we
-were eating American tongue, declined it, saying she had no confidence
-in American foods. I buried my face in my napkin and wept
-ostentatiously. She became frightened and apologised, whereupon I said
-I would willingly concede that we were not always poetic and were
-sometimes too rich, but that when it came to tinning meats it was
-cruel to deny our superiority. This delightful repast over and its
-remains packed in our baskets, we sought the inn.
-
-Mrs. MacGill sank upon a feather-bed in one of the upstairs rooms,
-and my mother extended herself on two chairs in the same apartment,
-adding to my depression by the remark she reserves for her most
-melancholy moments: 'If your poor father had lived, he would never
-have allowed me to undertake this.'
-
-I didn't dare face Sir Archibald until he had digested his
-indigestible meal, so Miss Evesham and I went for a walk. Naturally it
-rained before we had been out a half-hour, and unnaturally we met Mr.
-Willoughby, the artist, again. I ran back to the inn while they took
-shelter under a sycamore. I said I didn't want my dress spoiled, and I
-spoke the truth, but I did also want to give Miss Evesham the tonic of
-male society and conversation, of which she stands in abject need. By
-the time she is forty, if this sort of conventual life goes on, she
-will be as timorous as the lady in Captain Marryat's novel who,
-whenever a gentleman shook hands with her, felt cold chills running up
-and down her back.
-
-I took a wrong turning and arrived at the inn soaked as to outer
-garments. After a minute or two in the motor-shed with Sir Archibald,
-I had a fire kindled in the bedroom; but before I could fully dry
-myself they were clamouring for me to come down and add my cheerful
-note to the general cackle, for mamma and Mrs. MacGill had ordered
-early tea. There was a cosy time for a few minutes when Miss Evesham
-gaily toasted bread on a fork and Mr. Willoughby buttered it, and Sir
-Archibald opened a quaint instrument in a corner by the fire. I struck
-the yellow keys of the thing absently. It was a tiny Broadwood of a
-bygone century, fashioned like a writing-desk with a sort of bookcase
-top to it. I tried 'Loch Lomond' for Mr. Willoughby, and then, as a
-surprise to Cecilia, sang my little setting of the verses she gave me
-the other day. The words brought tears to her eyes, and Sir Archibald
-came closer. 'More, more!' he pleaded, but I said, 'I don't feel a bit
-like it, Sir Archibald; if you'll let me off now I'll sing nicely for
-you when they've gone.' He looked unmistakably pleased. 'That's good
-of you,' he whispered, 'and I've ordered fresh tea made after the mob
-disperses.'
-
-'Don't forget that my mother is one of your so-called "mob,"' I said
-severely.
-
-'Oh, you know what I mean,' he responded (he always blushes when he is
-chaffed). 'I get on famously with your mother, but three or four women
-in a little low-ceiled room like this always look like such a bunch,
-you know!'
-
-Then there was a dreadful interval of planning, in which Mrs. MacGill,
-who appeared to think it necessary that she should be returned to the
-Grey Tor Inn in safety whatever happened to anybody else, was finally
-despatched in the motor with mamma, Miss Evesham, and Johnson; while
-Sir Archibald and I confronted, with such courage as we might, the
-dismal prospect of a three hours' tussle with Greytoria.
-
-
-MRS. MACGILL
-
-This has been a terrible day of fatigue and discomfort. I was a woman
-of sixty in the morning, but I felt like a woman of eighty-six by
-night. Danger, especially when combined with want of proper food, ages
-one in a short time. My sister Isabella, who knew Baden-Powell,
-declares that she would scarcely have recognised him to be the same
-man after as before the siege of Mafeking, particularly about the
-mouth.
-
-My velvet mantle, after all it has suffered, will never be as good
-again, and I have reason to be thankful if I escape a severe illness
-on my own account after the mad rashness of this day's proceedings.
-
-The young people (I include Cecilia, though considerably over thirty)
-had been talking a great deal about an expedition to a distant hamlet
-called Widdington-in-the-Wolds. Miss Pomeroy had, of course,
-persuaded that misguided young man to take her in the motor, although
-there can be little conversation of a tender nature in a machine that
-makes such awful noises; still young people now can doubtless shout
-anything. Poor Mr. MacGill used always to say that he could scarcely
-catch _my_ replies.
-
-Cecilia assured me that it was a short drive, so I consented to allow
-her to take me in a pony chaise. Certainly I never saw a
-quieter-looking animal than that pony at first sight; she had, indeed,
-an air of extreme gentleness. People say that is frequently combined
-with great strength--at least in dogs, and I think in men too; in
-horses it does not seem to be the case, for this poor animal had a
-very dangerous habit of putting her hind feet together and sliding
-down a descent. Several times at small declivities she seemed to slide
-forwards, and the carriage slid after her, so that I thought we should
-both be thrown out. At last, having driven many miles, meeting
-several droves of the wild ponies, which happily did us no harm, we
-came to the top of a quite precipitous hill, which Cecilia declared we
-must descend before we could arrive at Widdington.
-
-I had already warned her that I felt no confidence in her driving, but
-she is sadly obstinate, and made some almost impertinent retort, so we
-began to descend the hill. We had gone only a short distance, however,
-when the pony, curiously enough, sat down.
-
-'Is this a common action with horses, Cecilia?' I gasped.
-
-Then came a cracking noise. 'It's the shafts breaking, I'm afraid,'
-she said quite coolly, and jumped out. I got out too, of course, as
-fast as I could, and Cecilia began to undo the straps of the animal's
-harness. Again I felt I had had a narrow escape. I am not able now for
-these nervous shocks--they take too much out of me. I had been reading
-some of those alarming books about the neighbourhood, and felt I
-should be quite afraid to ask for assistance from any passer-by.
-There were none, as we had seen nothing but ponies since we left Grey
-Tor, but in several books the violent passions of the natives had been
-described.
-
-Cecilia said that she would lead the animal, so we started to go down
-the long hill, which was so very steep I thought I should never reach
-the bottom. Cecilia seemed to think nothing of it. 'You can do it
-quite well, Mrs. MacGill,' she said. 'Well,' I replied, 'if a creature
-with four feet, like that pony, can tumble so, how do you suppose that
-I, on two, can do it easily?' My velvet mantle, though warm, is very
-heavy, and my right knee was still extremely painful. It now began to
-rain a little, and the sky got very dark, which, I remember, the books
-say is always a prelude to one of those terrific storms which
-apparently sweep across Dartmoor in a moment. 'If it rains,' I said,
-'the river always rises. "Dart is up," as they say, and we shall
-never reach home alive.' Cecilia declared in her stupid way that we
-were nowhere near the Dart. 'Why are we on Dartmoor, then?' I asked.
-'I have read everywhere that the river runs with appalling velocity,
-and sweeps on in an angry torrent, carrying away trees and houses like
-straw; there are no trees, but those small houses down there would be
-swept away in no time. If we can only get down to the village, and get
-something to eat, and a carriage to take us home in, I shall be
-thankful!'
-
-Cecilia appeared uncertain as to whether we could get any means of
-conveyance at the inn, so I suggested that we should just walk on.
-'Nothing,' I said,'shall make me try to go back with that animal. Our
-lives were in danger when she sat down. I am sure that they must have
-a quieter horse of some kind, in such a lonely place.'
-
-Somehow or other we did get down, and were standing by the wayside
-when Sir Archibald's motor drove towards us, seeming to have descended
-the hills in perfect safety. Miss Pomeroy, of course, was on the box.
-She _looked_ rouged. I cannot be quite certain, as I am unaware of
-ever having seen any one whom I absolutely knew to be addicted to the
-habit, but Mr. MacGill had a cousin whom he used to speak of with
-considerable asperity, who used to be known as 'the damask rose,' and
-that was because she painted, I am sure. Miss Pomeroy's cheeks were
-startling. Her poor mother looked like leather, but was calm enough,
-in the back seat. She is a sensible woman, and when the young people
-(I include Cecilia for convenience) all began to exclaim in their
-silly way about Widdington, calling it 'lovely' and 'picturesque' (I
-must say that Sir Archibald had too much good sense to join in this),
-she remarked aside to me with a quiet smile, 'You and I, Mrs. MacGill,
-are too old to care about the picturesque upon an empty stomach.' To
-stand in a damp church with a stiff knee is even worse, as I told
-Cecilia, when she had insisted on dragging me into the building,
-which smells of mildew. The sacred edifice should always, I hope,
-suggest thoughts of death to all of us, but Miss Pomeroy appeared more
-cheerful than usual, and stood talking with Cecilia about pillars till
-I was chilled through. The cold is more penetrating in these old
-churches than anywhere else--I suppose because so many people used to
-be buried there. It seems hideous to relate that on coming out we sat
-down to lunch in a ditch.
-
-Mrs. Pomeroy is so infatuated about her daughter that she would do
-anything to please her. I insisted at first that Cecilia was to
-accompany me into the inn, but Mrs. Pomeroy gave me such an account of
-the scene of carousal going on there that, rather than sit in the bar,
-I consented to eat out of doors.
-
-The others called it a fine day, and even spoke of enjoyment. It
-showed good sense on the part of our cavalier that he, at least,
-never made any pretence of enjoying himself. He is thoroughly sick of
-that girl, but she will run after him. It makes me ashamed of my sex.
-When I was a girl I always affected not to see Mr. MacGill until he
-absolutely spoke to me; and even when he had made me a distinct
-offer--which girls like Virginia Pomeroy do not seem to consider
-necessary--I appeared to hesitate, and told him to ask papa. Of course
-if Mr. Pomeroy is dead (and her mother always wears black, though not
-the full costume--she may be only divorced, one hears such things
-about Americans), why then one can't expect her to do _that_, but I
-very much doubt if she will ever consult Mrs. Pomeroy for a
-moment--that is to say, if she can squeeze anything at all like a
-proposal from Sir Archibald.
-
-I have tried in vain to put the young man upon his guard. Give them
-hair and complexion, and they are deaf adders all; yet what is that
-compared to principle, and some notion of cooking? Miss Pomeroy asks
-for nothing if she has a box of sweets; yet only the other day I heard
-her confess to eating bread and cheese in an inn, along with that
-unfortunate young man, who probably considered it a proof of
-simplicity. He is sadly mistaken. Ten courses at dinner is the
-ordinary thing in New York, I believe, one of them canvas-back ducks
-upon ice!
-
-By three o'clock, when this horrid meal was over, Mrs. Pomeroy and I
-were both so chilled and fatigued that I sent Cecilia to entreat that
-the woman of the inn would allow us to rest for an hour in a room
-where there were no drunkards. We were conducted to a small
-bedchamber, where I lay down on the bed, while Mrs. Pomeroy had a nap
-upon two chairs. Like myself, she is always troubled by a tendency to
-breathlessness after eating--and even lunch in a ditch is a meal, of
-course. She also talked a little about her daughter in perhaps a
-pardonable strain for a mother, who can scarcely be expected to
-realise what the girl really is.
-
-A Mr. Calhoun of Richmond, a suburb of New York, appears to have paid
-her some attentions. She must have greatly exaggerated them to her
-mother, for Mrs. Pomeroy evidently believes that it is fully in her
-power to marry the young man if she likes. It will be a merciful
-escape for Sir Archibald for a while, even though they can be divorced
-so easily in New York.
-
-
-SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE
-
-I knew the moment I opened my eyes that morning that the day of the
-picnic had come. The sun was shining brightly, the birds were singing.
-Even before breakfast there were tourists sitting on Grey Tor and
-holding on to the rails. I could see them against the sky. When we
-were all at breakfast, even the old women were excited about the
-picnic, and as to Miss Virginia, there was no holding her at all. She
-pointed out that she had dressed for the picnic in a brand-new frock
-especially built by one of the smart court dressmakers for such
-occasions, for which it was about as well suited (I pointed out) as a
-ball-dress would have been. It was no good my saying anything, that
-these brilliant mornings were not to be trusted, that the road to
-Widdington-in-the-Wolds was the worst in the country, that there was
-nothing to do or see when you got there; I was overruled on every
-point, and all the arrangements were made. I must own I was not in a
-good temper anyway. A man has his ups and downs; I had had a worrying
-letter from the steward at Kindarroch. My tobacco was done and the
-fresh packet hadn't arrived with the morning post, so that my pouch
-was filled with a filthy weed from the hotel. Had our party been
-composed of only Miss Virginia and her mother, it would not have been
-so bad, for then I should have insisted on giving them lunch at a
-pothouse, and all the horrors of an _al fresco_ entertainment would
-have been avoided. But Mrs. MacGill and her companion were a part of
-the show, and the old woman actually hinted that I was to drive her in
-the pony-shay, while Johnson conducted the rest of the party in the
-motor! I showed her her mistake both clearly and promptly, and had her
-packed off about an hour before we started; except for the companion,
-who is a decent sort of girl, I could have wished her to capsize on
-the way.
-
-We got off in the motor all right--Miss Virginia on the box seat with
-me, and the mother behind with Johnson. The going was all right for
-the first few miles. Virginia did most of the talking, which was
-lucky, for I was not brilliant. It seems odd how a fellow's mood can
-be stronger than circumstances. Here was I, on a lovely day, with a
-pretty girl on the box beside me, nothing so very much as yet to have
-put me out, as black as a thundercloud. Of course the idiocy of a
-picnic (on which I have dwelt before) always puts my back up; I didn't
-want to come, and yet on this occasion, for some reason or other, I
-could not stay away. I really think that feeling more than anything
-else made me so devilish ill-tempered. I had soon good cause enough
-for ill temper, however. The road was all right at first, as I said,
-but presently it gave a dip, and then without the slightest warning we
-found ourselves on a hill as steep as the sides of a well, and about
-as comfortable for a motor as the precipices of Mont Blanc. It was
-dangerous. I hate being in unnecessary danger myself--it is silly; and
-as to being in danger with women in charge, it is the very devil. I
-jammed on the brakes, and we went skidding and scraping down, showers
-of grit and gravel being thrown up in our faces, the whole machine
-shaking to bits with the strain. It was a miracle nothing happened
-worse than the loss of my temper. The hill got easier after about a
-mile. Miss Virginia, who had been frightened to death but had kept
-quiet and held on tight, began to laugh and talk again; but I showed
-pretty plainly I was in no laughing or talking mood. I kept a grim
-silence and looked ahead. I saw her turn and look at me, once or
-twice, in a surprised way, and then she suddenly became quite quiet
-too. In this significant silence, we drew up at the village inn, where
-Mrs. MacGill and Miss Evesham had already arrived.
-
-Guide-books and artists talk yards about this place,
-Widdington-in-the-Wolds, but as usual there is nothing to see but a
-church, a particularly insanitary churchyard, a few thatched cottages,
-two or three big sycamore trees, and an inn, so very small as to be
-hardly visible to the naked eye.
-
-We found the Exeter artist here before us, and I walked off with him
-at once, leaving the women to themselves. Otherwise I should certainly
-have burst, I believe; it is not healthy to refrain from bad language
-too long. However, all the agonies of picnic had to be gone
-through,--lunch in a ditch, cold, clammy food, forced conversation,
-and all the rest of it. Certainly that picnic was a failure; even Miss
-Virginia was subdued. When the feeding was done, I went off with
-Willoughby, the artist, again. I don't know what the women did with
-themselves, I am sure. As I had foretold, the weather had changed;
-there had been one cold shower already, and the clouds were piling up
-in the sky, threatening a wet, bleak, and windy afternoon. I knew how
-it would be, perfectly well, before we started, but no one would heed
-me.
-
-
-CECILIA EVESHAM
-
-     _Tuesday evening_
-
-This will be a long story to tell. On Monday morning Mrs. MacGill was
-very lively, perhaps wakened up by the explosion of the previous
-night. She came down to breakfast, and was persuaded by the Pomeroys
-to undertake an expedition to Widdington-in-the-Wolds, an outlying
-hamlet famous for an old church.
-
-'It is long since I have lunched out of doors, Mrs. Pomeroy,' she
-said, 'but the doctor has so strongly recommended carriage exercise
-and fresh air to me, that I dare say on such a very fine morning I
-might make the attempt, if you are thinking of it.'
-
-Mrs. Pomeroy had been made to think of it by the fair Virginia, as I
-well knew; for the expedition was to be carried out in Sir Archibald's
-motor.
-
-'One should always make an effort to see all places of interest in a
-neighbourhood,' Mrs. Pomeroy observed, with the sigh of the
-conscientious American sightseer, and Mrs. MacGill assented. My heart
-sank. Fancy visiting places of interest in the company of Mrs.
-MacGill! But, as Browning has it, 'Never the hour and the place and
-the loved one all together!' I have noticed the curious, indomitable
-tendency of tiresome people to collect and reappear in these exquisite
-places most favoured by nature; more suited, it would seem, for angel
-visitants than for the flat-footed multitude: but I digress.
-
-The fact remained that it was in close company with Mrs. MacGill that
-I was to visit the solitudes of Dartmoor,--Mrs. MacGill in a
-bead-trimmed mantle, a bonnet ornamented with purple velvet pansies,
-and an eis-wool shawl tied round her throat.
-
-I was to drive her in the pony cart; even her fears were not aroused
-by the dejected appearance of Greytoria as that noble animal was led
-up to the door.
-
-'I am glad to see that the horse does not look spirited,' she said;
-'for though you say you are so well accustomed to driving, I always
-prefer a coachman.'
-
-With a quick twitch of the reins I raised Greytoria's drooping nose
-from the dust. She seemed surprised, but ambled off in the indicated
-direction.
-
-'The road'--to quote Christina Rossetti--'wound uphill all the way,'
-and a long way it was. We crawled along at about the rate of a mile an
-hour over that rough and stony track. The lines I have just quoted
-haunted my memory with their dismal significance--Life, life! your
-long uphill road has little promise of rest for me.
-
-We toiled on. Then the summit was gained at last, and down below us,
-in a little nest-like green valley, huddled between the swelling brown
-moors, lay Widdington-in-the-Wolds, the Mecca of our pilgrimage.
-
-'There it is at last!' I cried. 'See the quaint old church tower!' I
-actually appealed to Mrs. MacGill for sympathy, so great was my
-enthusiasm. It was a mistake.
-
-'I see little to admire, Cecilia,' she said, 'and do look after the
-pony.'
-
-Her admonition was not unnecessary. In my delight I had risen in my
-seat and let the reins slip out of my inattentive fingers. Greytoria,
-in a manner peculiar to herself, had begun the descent of the
-terrifying hill which leads down to Widdington. Clapping her heels
-together like a bowing Frenchman, she let herself slide down the
-decline. I realised this in a moment, but it was rather too late.
-There was a long, scraping slither; I put on the drag hard, and tried
-to hold up Greytoria's head. The attempt was vain; she turned round
-and looked at me, and then, without making any farther effort, quite
-simply sat down in the traces, the chaise resting gracefully on her
-back.
-
-Mrs. MacGill cried out with terror, and, indeed, I felt ready to do
-the same. Not a soul was anywhere in sight. Only far down below us,
-at the foot of the terrible Widdington hill, could help be procured.
-
-'O Cecilia, this is what comes of trusting you to drive,' cried Mrs.
-MacGill.
-
-This stiffened me up a little, and I determined to unharness
-Greytoria.
-
-'Come and sit by the roadside,' I said. 'I'll get her unharnessed, and
-once on her legs again there won't be any harm done; it's not as if
-she had broken her knees.'
-
-'I didn't know that horses _could_ sit down,' wailed Mrs. MacGill.
-
-'Well, it is an uncommon accomplishment,' I admitted, tugging at the
-harness buckles.
-
-Greytoria turned a mild old eye upon me; she seemed accustomed to the
-process of being unharnessed, but did not make any attempt to rise.
-
-I thought as I tugged at that buckle that the whole thing was
-symbolical of life for me. Wasn't I for ever tugging at obstinate
-buckles of one sort or another? I dare say such morbid thoughts should
-have had no place in my fancy at a moment of practical difficulty, but
-there are some people made in this way; their thoughts flow on in an
-undercurrent to events. So I tugged away, and my thoughts worked on
-also.
-
-It was no easy task, this, of getting Greytoria on her legs again; but
-I achieved it at last, and she stood up, abject, trembling, with
-drooping head and bowed knees, regarding the hill before her.
-
-'We must walk down to the Inn, I'm afraid, Mrs. MacGill,' I said.
-'I've got Greytoria into the chaise again, but if we add our weight to
-it she will just sit down a second time.'
-
-'Oh, what a hill to go down on foot!' cried Mrs. MacGill, but she saw
-that it was inevitable, so we began the long descent, I leading
-Greytoria, Mrs. MacGill trailing behind. Down below us the green
-valley smiled and beckoned us forward, yet like every peaceful oasis,
-it had to be gained with toil and difficulty. As we plodded down that
-weary hill, shall I confess that my thoughts turned a little bitterly
-to Virginia's side of the day's pleasuring? Why should she, young,
-rich, and beautiful, have the pleasant half of the expedition,--a ride
-in a motor with a nice young man who was falling in love with her,
-while I was doomed to trail along with Mrs. MacGill? Why did some
-women get everything? Surely I needed amusement and relaxation more
-than Virginia did, but it isn't those who need relaxation who ever get
-it; 'to him that hath shall be given,' as the Bible cynically and
-truly observes.
-
-Every few yards Mrs. MacGill would call out to me to stop: she was
-getting too tired; it was so cold; the road was so rough. But at last
-the foot of the hill was gained, and with a sigh of relief she bundled
-into the chaise again. She had, however, no eyes for the interest or
-beauty of the place we had reached with such difficulty. All her
-faculties, such as they are, were concentrated on wondering where and
-when we would get some food. As we passed the church, she looked the
-other way. I was almost glad. I flicked Greytoria, her flagging pace
-quickened, and attempting a trot, we drove up to the inn door.
-
-'I suppose we must wait for the others,' Mrs. MacGill sighed
-peevishly, 'but really after all I have gone through, I feel much in
-want of food.'
-
-'They will soon be here,' I said, 'and on the way home Greytoria will
-go better.'
-
-'Well, as she goes badly up hill, and won't go down at all, I scarcely
-see how we are to get home so well,' she retorted, with a measure of
-truth.
-
-As I looked at the hill that we should need to reclimb before we
-reached home, my heart misgave me too; but just then the motor hove in
-sight, a scarlet blot at the top of the hill, and we became
-interested in watching its descent. How it spun down! Almost before we
-could believe it possible, it dashed up to the inn door, and Virginia
-jumped out. She was in exuberant spirits. The drive had been just
-lovely; she adored Widdington; the hill only gave her delicious
-creeps; she wasn't a bit tired or cold.
-
-'Yes,' thought I, 'it's easy to be neither cold nor tired when you are
-happy and amused and young and rich! Try to drive with Mrs. MacGill
-when you are feeling ill, and can't afford to buy warm clothes, and
-see how you like it!'
-
-Mrs. Pomeroy was less enthusiastic, and Sir Archibald was dumbly
-regarding the tires of the motor, which had suffered strange things.
-
-'Hello,' he said, as he glanced up at the window of the inn, 'there's
-that artist fellow who was at Exeter. Suppose he's come to "see the
-gorse."'
-
-He nodded up at the window, took out his pipe, and began to fill it,
-directing Johnson to take the luncheon-basket out of the motor.
-
-Then the artist, Mr. Willoughby, came sauntering out of the door. I
-dare say he had had enough of gorse and solitude, for he seemed glad
-to greet even a casual acquaintance like Sir Archibald. The position
-of being the one man in a party of women had palled upon Sir Archibald
-only too apparently, for he met Mr. Willoughby with--for him--quite
-unwonted geniality, and they strolled off together down the road.
-Virginia put her hand through my arm, and drew me in the direction of
-the church.
-
-'We're not going on very well this morning, Cecilia,' she confided to
-me. 'He's so Scotch, Sir Archibald is, what they call "canny," and
-I've made him very cross by dragging him off on this expedition. All
-the tires of the motor are cut, and he hates eating out of doors. I
-can see that I've vexed him to madness.'
-
-I laughed, and so did she.
-
-'Why did you make him do it?' I asked.
-
-'I wanted to put him to some sort of test,' she replied. 'Unless a man
-will do what he dislikes for you, he isn't worth much.'
-
-'I'm afraid you are going to play with this young man's affections,' I
-said very severely, for her tone was frivolous.
-
-'Am I?' she murmured. 'I wonder!'
-
-There was a moment of silence between us. I felt all manner of thrills
-of interest and sympathy. If you can't be happy yourself, the next
-best thing is to see other people happy. If, as I now suspected,
-Virginia was not playing with Sir Archibald's affections, then I was
-eagerly on her side. Words are not necessary, however, and Virginia
-must have divined my sympathy.
-
-We had reached the lych-gate, and there, under the solemn little roof
-that had sheltered so many a coffin on its way to the grave, Virginia
-turned and gave me a kiss.
-
-'You dear!' she said. That was all.
-
-
-
-
-VI
-
-
-VIRGINIA POMEROY
-
-     GREY TOR INN
-
-Here beginneth the chronicle of the dreadfullest drive that ever was
-driven. I pitied Sir Archibald with my whole heart to be left behind
-with Greytoria and me, but what else could be done? There was a mist
-when we started which degenerated after a bit into an intermittent
-drizzle, and at intervals the wind blew a young tornado. The road was
-dreary, but fascinating in its broad stretches of loneliness. We
-passed green field and brown moor in turn, with all the trees looking
-grey in the mist, and here and there the brawling of a stream to break
-the silence. Sometimes there was a woodman working in a roadside
-copse, sometimes a goggled stone-breaker pursuing his monotonous
-task, sometimes a carrier bending beneath his weight of faggots. If it
-had not been for the flaming gorse and the groups of red cattle, there
-would have been no colour in the landscape. My spirits kept their
-normal height for the first six or eight miles, but they sank little
-by little as the hills grew in number and increased in height. Sir
-Archibald refused to let me walk, and it made me wretched to see him
-stalking beside the pony chaise, appealing to Greytoria's pride,
-courage, conscience, ambition, and sense of decency, in turn, and
-mostly without avail. We kept the best-travelled road, but it seemed
-to lead us farther and farther from Grey Tor, which had quite
-disappeared from the horizon and could not be used as a landmark.
-There could be no conversation either going up or down hill, as Sir
-Archibald was too breathless and busy. I, sitting in state, punctuated
-the ascents and descents, as long as I had strength, with agreeable
-persiflage something in this wise:--
-
-'The guide-book says, "Pedestrianism is doubtless the ideal manner of
-touring in Devonshire. Only on foot is it possible to view the more
-romantic scenery. Motors are not advised and bicycles discouraged."'
-
-Sir Archibald would smile, say something under his breath, and whack
-Greytoria.
-
-'Sir Archibald, there is a place in these parts where the devil is
-said to have died of cold; it must be just here.'
-
-'Sir Archibald, do 'e knaw I think we'm pixy-led? When Devonshire folk
-miss the path home at night and go astray, they'm "pixy-led."'
-
-If we two poor wayfarers could have sat quietly beside each other and
-chatted in 'e dimpsey light, it would not have been a bit bad, but
-there was something eternally doing. When the drag wasn't being put on
-or off, the whip was being agitated, or Sir Archibald was looking for
-a house to ask the way. Never was there such a route from one spot to
-another as the one we took from Widdington-in-the-Wolds to the Grey
-Tor Inn. If it was seven miles as the swallow flies, it was
-twenty-seven as Greytoria flew. The dinner-hour passed, and the
-luncheon baskets, with all other luggage, were in the motor. Sir
-Archibald's last information, obtained from an unintelligible boy
-driving a cow, was to the effect that we were only two miles from
-home.
-
-'She may manage it and she may not,' said my squire, looking savagely
-at Greytoria. 'If I only knew whether she can't or she won't, I should
-deal with her differently.'
-
-The rain now came down in earnest. Part of my mind was for ever
-toiling up or creeping down a hill with the pony, and another part was
-spent in keeping my umbrella away from Sir Archibald's hat, on those
-rare occasions when he was by my side. A woman may have the charms of
-Cleopatra or Helen of Troy, but if she cannot keep her parasol or
-umbrella away from a man's hat, her doom is sealed.
-
-How I hate this British climate! How I hate to wear always and always
-stout shoes, sensible clothes, serviceable hats, short skirts, looking
-like a frump in the intervals of sunshine, that I may be properly
-attired when it rains! I shed a few secret tears now and then for
-sheer down-heartedness and discouragement. I was desperately cold, and
-my wetting had given me a feverish, teeth-chattering sort of feeling.
-Hungry I was, too, and in such a rage with the beastly pony that I
-wished she had been eaten in the French Revolution; she was too old to
-be tender, even then.
-
-Now ensued a brief, all too brief, season of content on a fairly level
-bit of road. It was not over an eighth of a mile in length, and must
-have been an accident on the part of Nature. I was so numb and so
-sleepy that I just heard Sir Archibald's sigh of gratitude as he took
-his seat for a moment beside me, and then I subsided into a
-semi-comatose state, too tired to make even one more expiring effort
-to be agreeable. I am not clear as to the next few moments, in which I
-felt a sudden sense of warmth and well-being and companionship. I must
-have dropped off into a sort of dream, and in the dream I felt the
-merest touch, just the brush of something on my cheek, or I thought I
-did. Slight as it was, there was something unaccustomed about it that
-made me come hastily into the conscious world, and my waking was made
-the more speedy by a sudden stir and noise and ejaculation. We had
-come to another hill, and Sir Archibald had evidently wished for once
-to omit the walking-up process. Greytoria, outraged in her deepest
-sensibilities by the unwonted addition of Sir Archibald's weight to
-her burdens, braced her hind legs firmly and proceeded to achieve the
-impossible by slithering backward down the hill. Sir Archibald leaped
-out on the one side; I put the drag on, or off, whichever is wrong,
-and leaped out on the other.
-
-He adjusted the drag and gave Greytoria a clip that she will describe
-to her grandchildren on future winter evenings. I, with matchless
-presence of mind, got behind the pony chaise and put my shoulder under
-the back to break its descent. And so we wound wearily up the hill,
-and on reaching the top saw the lighted hotel just ahead of us.
-
-In silence we traversed the few remaining yards, each busy with his
-own thought. Silently we entered the gate and gave Greytoria to the
-waiting groom. Silently and stiffly I alighted from the chaise, helped
-by Sir Archibald's supporting arm. He held my hand a second longer
-than was necessary; held it, half dropped it, and held it again; or
-did something unusual with it that was widely separated from an
-ordinary good-night 'shake.'
-
-There was no harm in that, for the most unsentimental man feels a sort
-of brotherly sympathy for a damp, cold, hungry, tired, nice girl.
-
-But about that other--episode?... Of course if he did, I should
-resent it bitterly; but if it were only a dream I must not blame him
-even in thought.... There is always the risk that a man might
-misunderstand the frank good-fellowship in which we American girls are
-brought up, and fail to realise that with all our nonsense we draw the
-line just as heavily, and in precisely the same place as our British
-cousins.... But why do I think about it any more?... It wouldn't be a
-bit like him, so probably he didn't.... In fact it is so entirely out
-of character that he simply couldn't.... And yet I suppose the number
-of men who actually couldn't is comparatively small.
-
-
-MRS. MACGILL
-
-Well, we spent the day till five o'clock in that dreary spot, cold and
-wretched. Then Sir Archibald proposed that I should go home with Mrs.
-Pomeroy in the motor; they said we should get there quicker that way!
-He meant to drive Miss Pomeroy in the pony chaise, not being at all
-afraid, he said, of any pony, however spirited. Of course nothing
-would induce me to enter a pony carriage drawn by that animal again. A
-motor is more dangerous in some ways, but at any rate it cannot sit
-down like that pony, and they all assured us that it was both safe and
-speedy. Mrs. Pomeroy had been quite at ease in it, she said, so at
-last I consented to go. Cecilia tied on my bonnet with my grey wool
-shawl, and we set out. It surprises me that motoring should have
-become a favourite pastime with so-called fashionable people, for
-certainly one does not appear to advantage in motoring garments. The
-cold was intense, and at first everything whizzed past me at such a
-rate that I could remember nothing except two lines that Cecilia read
-to me last evening, about 'the void car hurled abroad by reinless
-steeds.'
-
-There were no steeds, of course, nor reins, and the car was not void,
-but that was quite the motion. My bonnet, in spite of the shawl and
-string, was instantly torn from my head. I begged Johnson, a very
-civil Scotchman who could understand what I said, to stop the machine
-for a few moments and let me breathe. Cecilia advised me to remove the
-bonnet and trust wholly to the shawl. My hair is not thick, especially
-on the top, and I soon had all the sensation of the head being padded
-in ice, which we read of as a treatment for brain fever.
-
-It was now beginning to get dark. Johnson drew up suddenly, and
-declared that he must have taken the wrong road. There were no
-sign-posts anywhere, and it had begun to rain heavily. We were
-standing just at the foot of a steep hill where the road lay through a
-thick wood. Above us was a tower of rock,--another 'tor,' I suppose,
-if not a 'monolith.'
-
-Johnson proposed to drive the machine on into the wood, and leave us
-under shelter whilst he went to a cottage that we saw farther up, to
-inquire about the road. This I decidedly objected to. Mrs. Pomeroy and
-Cecilia seemed to think me foolish, and could not understand my being
-afraid.
-
-'But,' I said, 'I have good reason to refuse to enter that wood.
-Indeed it will not be safe for Johnson to leave us there alone: I
-recognise the place perfectly. In one of the books by that Mr.
-Phillpotts, who, you have all told me, is most accurate in his
-descriptions, I read about this place, and he said, 'The Wolf suckled
-her young there yesterday.' Yes, Cecilia, laugh if you like; those
-were the very words, and I examined the date of the publication, which
-was not a year ago. _Yesterday_ was the word used.'
-
-'Then the cubs will still be too small to attack us,' observed
-Cecilia, who has no tact and is constantly trying to be facetious when
-she should be endeavouring to allay my nervous terrors.
-
-'He would be meaning foxes, ma'am,' said Johnson, who had been
-listening whilst fright compelled me to quote the exact expression I
-had read.
-
-'It is possible that he meant foxes, Johnson,' allowed I, 'but three
-ladies alone in a motor, in the dark, attacked even by wild foxes,
-would be in some danger; so I hope that you will drive on directly,
-and get us out of this horrid place as soon as possible.'
-
-They tried to smooth over the situation, but I would listen to none of
-them, and Johnson at last drove on. Half-way up the hill the motor
-stuck. Something had gone wrong with it inside, and I felt that we
-might stay there in the wilderness all night, which would have been
-impossible, as I had taken very few remedies of any kind with me, and
-cannot sleep sitting up. These stoppages occurred several times. How
-we at length got home I scarcely remember. My velvet mantle was like a
-sponge, my feet so cold that it was all I could do to dismount from
-the motor when it ground up to the hotel door. There was Sir Archibald
-standing smoking as if nothing extraordinary had occurred.
-
-'Why, Mrs. MacGill,' he cried, 'you are even later than we were, and I
-thought that blessed pony was going to her own funeral.'
-
-I thought that in spite of his tone he looked rather pale and
-agitated; he was of course anxious, and rightly so, about my safety.
-
-'Sir Archibald,' I said, as soon as I could speak,'I trust that I
-never again may have to enter one of those motors. Human life,
-especially mine, is too precious to be thrown away in such a fashion.
-Another half-hour of it would have killed me outright. Had Mr. MacGill
-been alive he would never have consented to my going into it for a
-moment. As it is, I can scarcely hear or see owing to the frightful
-noises and the rain lashing on my face; every hair on my head feels
-pulled the wrong way, and I'm sure I shall have another bad relapse of
-influenza by to-morrow morning. Your uncle was a friend of my poor
-brother-in-law who died at Agra in a moment, and unless you take a
-warning you will have an end quite as sudden and much more frightful,
-for his was heart complaint, and you will be smashed to pieces by the
-wheels of that hideous machine.'
-
-I left them downstairs and went to bed. Cecilia tried to make me
-believe there was nothing wrong with me, as she always does when she
-has neuralgia, or _says_ she has neuralgia, herself, but I know that
-there is. What is the matter I can't exactly say, only I am certain
-that I am going to suffer in some way from this horrible expedition.
-
-
-SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE
-
-There is something soothing even in hotel tobacco, I suppose, so I was
-better, though still feeling decidedly blue, later in the day at
-Widdington, when I came up to the inn door and began overhauling the
-motor as it stood in the yard. There was nothing particularly cheering
-in finding several long cuts in the tires, and I was probing them to
-get the grit out, when I heard a little cough behind me. I turned to
-see Miss Virginia standing in the doorway, looking at me rather
-doubtfully. Now of course I had been rather short, not to say nasty,
-but somehow it's a fact that you cannot be sharp with a woman without
-at once being put in the wrong, though she may really have been the
-sinner all the time. It was Miss Virginia who had brought me out on
-this show, who had cost me about forty pounds in tires, and Heaven
-knows how much in other ways, but it was I who felt a beast now. Yet
-she looked at me in a way which seemed to say she was sorry I was
-vexed. She was rubbing her hands together and shivering a little. Of
-course she was cold in that ridiculous dress.
-
-'A nice day it has turned out, hasn't it!' I said rather spitefully.
-
-'Oh, I'll never, never ask for a picnic again!' cried she, with a
-comical look. She came and began to look at the cuts in the tires
-herself.
-
-'Oh, they _are_ bad,' she exclaimed, 'and I suppose you love that old
-motor better than anything on earth, don't you?' she inquired.
-
-'I get a good deal more pleasure out of it,' I truthfully replied,
-'than I do out of the society of most human beings.' She gave a little
-laugh.
-
-'I expect I had better go inside after that!' she said, and of course
-I felt rather a brute. I hadn't really meant to be rude or send her
-away. I hunted under the tarpaulin that covered the motor for my
-fur-lined coat, and then I followed her into the inn.
-
-'Look here,' I said, 'better put this on; you're horribly cold.' She
-seemed half inclined to refuse, but finally let me put the coat over
-her shoulders and run her arms into the sleeves.
-
-'You're pretty damp,' I observed.
-
-''Deed I am!' she shivered. 'Miss Evesham and I went for a walk and
-got caught in the rain as usual. My hair's all wet too!'
-
-'Better dry it,' I suggested.
-
-She ran off to some room or other, and when she reappeared she had two
-plaits of dark hair, as thick as bellropes, hanging down her back.
-With that and my motor coat, Miss Virginia cut a pretty queer figure.
-I cannot say she looked plain, however; her spirits had come back, and
-so had mine, strange to say, for the day was far from finished.
-
-There was a parlour in the inn, so low in the ceiling that I could
-not stand up straight in it, and was for ever knocking my head against
-the rafters. When we went in, this place was as full of women as it
-could hold, all fighting like cats,--Mrs. MacGill, Mrs. Pomeroy, Miss
-Evesham,--and all wondering how they were to get home. The place was
-simply steaming with tea.
-
-Mrs. MacGill, it appeared, utterly refused to go home in the pony trap
-unless it were driven by me. Needless to say I declined this honour
-with a firmness equal to hers. Finally it was arranged, chiefly by
-Miss Evesham's management, that the two old ladies and herself were to
-go home in the motor with Johnson, while Miss Virginia and I
-negotiated the pony and trap. This was pretty thick, considering I had
-refused point-blank to drive Mrs. MacGill, but Miss Evesham seemed to
-make it sound all right,--clever sort of young woman in her way. As
-the weather threatened to get worse immediately, the motor party was
-packed off without loss of time, and Miss Virginia and I had a
-comfortable tea by ourselves before starting for home.
-
-It was not late in the afternoon, but the little inn parlour was
-almost dark, chiefly because the church tower overshadowed the house,
-and the window was so small. Presently the bells began ringing (it was
-a saint's day, Miss Virginia said), and my word, what a din they made!
-The whole house shook and the very teacups rattled. Miss Virginia
-seemed to like it, however, and sat listening with her chin on her
-hand. She had been strumming on an old spinet sort of thing that stood
-in the corner of the room, and I asked her if she would sing a little
-before we set off.
-
-'I will,' said she, 'if you'll smoke a little,' an invitation I
-accepted with alacrity.
-
-'You deserve something,' she remarked, 'to make up for the wretched
-time you've been having to-day. It was partly my fault. I am sorry.'
-
-'Oh, don't mention it!' was all I could say, of course, and Miss
-Virginia began to sing before I could speak another word.
-
-There is a tremendous charm in her singing: her style is so simple;
-her voice is so fresh; you can hear every word she says, and she
-always sings the right songs. How this sort of singing makes a man
-think! I can't describe the effect it had upon me. As Miss Virginia
-touched the tinny, stringy old notes and went from song to song,--now
-an Irish melody, now a nigger one, now an English ballad,--I forgot
-all about the day's worries; I forgot the motor and the cut tires and
-the bad weather and the beastly picnic--it was a kind of heaven. If I
-marry, it must be some one who can sing like this. I have been
-changing my preferences for blonde women lately. No doubt they look
-very nice when young, but they don't wear well, I feel sure, and get
-purple and chilblainy in cold weather. Of course the dark ones are apt
-to turn drab and mottled, but not when they have as much colour as
-Miss Virginia. All sorts of scraps of thoughts and ideas chased each
-other through my mind as she sang. She had got on to a thing she had
-sung in the hotel several times,--a plantation Christmas carol she
-called it, the sort of thing you cannot forget once you have heard it,
-either the words or the music.
-
-     'Oh, dat star's still shinin' dis Chrismus Day,
-               Rise, O sinner, and foller!
-     Wid an eye o' faith you c'n see its ray,
-               Rise, O sinner, and foller!
-                   Leave yo' fader,
-                   Leave yo' mudder,
-                   Leave yo' sister,
-                   Leave yo' brudder,
-               An' rise, O sinner, and foller!'
-
-And there was a bit about a shepherd too:--
-
-     'Leave yo' sheep, an'
-     Leave yo' lamb, an'
-     Leave yo' ewe, an'
-     Leave yo' ram, an'
-     Rise up, shepherd, and foller!'
-
-I asked her to sing it over again. I had forgotten all about the time
-and the drive home and the beastly weather. Luckily I happened to
-look at my watch. It was nearly six o'clock!
-
-'We've got to look sharp,' I said, 'if we want any dinner at the
-hotel.'
-
-Look sharp, indeed! The woman at the inn must have been mad or drunk
-when she told us that the low road home was only two miles longer than
-the way we came. We may have missed the right turning, for Miss
-Virginia was talking and laughing at such a rate when we began the
-drive, that I confess I hadn't much attention to spare. We gradually
-emerged from the valley where the village lay, and were soon on the
-open moor and fairly lost on it before you could say Jack Robinson.
-
-I never saw such a dismal, howling, God-forsaken country, without a
-house or a hut or so much as a heap of stones to mark the way,--a
-wilderness of stubby heath and endless, endless roads, crossing and
-recrossing in a way that is simply maddening and perfectly senseless,
-for they lead to nowhere. We were three mortal hours crawling along on
-those confounded roads. It rained, of course, and a wind got up, and
-at the end of that time we were apparently no nearer Grey Tor than
-when we left Widdington.
-
-Miss Virginia kept up very pluckily for a long time, but she was dead
-tired and very cold and became more and more silent. It was about the
-most uncomfortable predicament I ever was in,--and with a girl on my
-hands, too, a thing I have hitherto always managed to avoid.
-
-And then a thing happened that really I can't account for, and yet I
-suppose it has changed the whole affair, as far as I am concerned. I
-feel a perfect beast whenever I think of it, and I hope to goodness
-Miss Virginia knows nothing about it. We had come to an interminable
-hill, and I had been walking for about half an hour. Miss Virginia was
-totally silent now, and suddenly I saw that the reins had slipped from
-her hands. She was actually asleep, huddled up in my coat against the
-back of the chaise. It was beginning to rain again, and the incline
-being very gentle at that point, I felt I had to get in and hold an
-umbrella over the girl. I did, and a sudden jerk of the wheels sent
-her almost into my arms without waking her. Her head was on my
-shoulder, her cheek so close to mine. Of course I have heard fellows
-talk about kissing: I have always thought it a disgusting habit
-myself, and discouraged it, even in near relations. But now--now it
-seemed suddenly different--she seemed meant to be kissed--and by
-me--and well, I kissed her--that's the naked truth, and the moment I
-had done it I would have given worlds not to have done it, or else to
-have the right to do it again. A man is a man firstly, I suppose; but
-secondly, at least, he ought to be a gentleman. That's the thought
-that has been spinning in my head all night. Does Virginia suspect? I
-hope not--and yet I don't know.
-
-We got home, of course, all right in the end, for the hotel turned up
-quite unexpectedly round a corner, with all the lights shining out
-across the moor.
-
-_N.B._--There has been the devil to pay with the motor and the old
-women.
-
-
-CECILIA EVESHAM
-
-I have always had an idea that events need a propelling hand every now
-and then. Somehow it seemed to me that afternoon at Widdington that
-Virginia and Sir Archibald were in need of my assistance, and I took a
-desperate resolution and helped them to the best of my power. This is
-what I did: I undertook to look after Mrs. MacGill and Mrs. Pomeroy in
-the motor if Sir Archibald drove Virginia home in the pony chaise; but
-not content with this, I deliberately sent them round by a road some
-five miles longer than the one we had come by. I happened to be
-speaking with the landlady about the roads, and she told me that there
-was another way back to Grey Tor, only that it was longer. The idea
-struck me, as the saying goes, 'all of a heap.'
-
-'Sir Archibald,' I said, returning to the parlour, where they all sat,
-'if you had seen the business I had to get Greytoria _down_ that
-hill, you would hesitate more about getting her up it. But the
-landlady here tells us that if you go round by the lower road you
-avoid the hill, and it is only a little longer.'
-
-'I don't believe in country people's distances,' he said, 'but I'll
-inquire.'
-
-I turned back, as if by accident, into the bar, and leaned across the
-counter towards the landlady. She was a genial-looking old woman with
-a rollicking eye.
-
-'The young people wish to go round by the low road,' I said, 'but I'm
-afraid there may be some difficulties made about it.' I hesitated and
-smiled at her, adding, 'It's not _much_ farther, is it?'
-
-'Happen four mile or so, ma'am,' she said, looking hard at me.
-
-'Four? As much as that?' I asked.
-
-'Happen three mile, maybe,' she corrected; 'no, two and a half.'
-
-Here Sir Archibald came out to inquire about the distance. He looked
-up at the grey skies first, and seemed uncertain.
-
-'How much farther do you call it by the low road to Grey Tor?' he
-asked.
-
-'Close on two mile, sir,' she mumbled shamelessly, and Sir Archibald
-hesitated no longer.
-
-'Two miles of level are better than half a mile of precipice. I vote
-for the longer road, Miss Pomeroy,' he said, on going back into the
-parlour.
-
-Virginia nodded and smiled. She was sitting at the old, tinny-sounding
-spinet, singing the most beautiful little wandering airs that might
-have been learned in fairyland.
-
-Suddenly she drifted into a plaintive melody we had not heard before,
-and when we had succumbed to its spell she began singing some words I
-had found in my dear mother's diary. I had given the verses to
-Virginia, and she had set them to an air of her own. It is a part of
-her charm that she sings sad songs as if she had never felt joy, and
-gay ones as if she had never known care or sorrow.
-
-     ''Tis I am a lady, now that I'm old;
-     I'm sheltered from hunger and want and cold,
-     In a wonderful country that's rich in gold,
-           (And life to the last is sweet).
-     Now in the doorway I sit at my ease,
-     And my son's son he plays at my knees
-           On little stumbling feet.
-     But my heart goes back to the days of old,
-     To a barren country where gorse is gold,
-     For oh! it was there that my love was told,
-           'Twas there we used to meet!
-
-     'They may think I've forgotten the land forlorn,
-     In the happy valleys covered with corn;
-     They may lay me down with my face to the morn,
-           A stone at my head and feet;
-     But I know that before the break o' the day
-     My soul will arise and be far away
-           (The spirits travel fleet),--
-     Away from the valleys covered with corn,
-     Back again to the land forlorn,
-     For oh! it was there that my Love was born,
-           'Twas there we used to meet!'[1]
-
-
-Sir Archibald, Mr. Willoughby, and I could have listened for an hour,
-but I felt that it was time to hurry off the elders of the party, so
-made dark allusions to the weather. These were sufficient to rouse
-Mrs. MacGill and Mrs. Pomeroy, who were in a semi-comatose condition
-induced by copious draughts of tea.
-
-We all went to the door of the inn, and Mr. Willoughby came and helped
-me to my seat in the motor.
-
-'I am coming across to Grey Tor on Saturday,' he said. 'I have some
-sketches to take over that way. Shall you still be at the inn?'
-
-'Probably,' I answered evasively.
-
-'I hope so,' said he; 'perhaps we may have another talk such as we
-have had this afternoon.'
-
-'Who knows? Talk is a fugitive pleasure,' I replied. 'Some days it
-will be good, and others it can't be captured at any price.'
-
-'I'll come in the chance of catching some,' he whispered. And at this
-moment Mrs. MacGill interrupted us and insisted that I should tie on
-her shawl. The homeward drive was begun, but it would be too long a
-story to describe its miseries. Imagination must do its work here.
-
-FOOTNOTE:
-
-[1] Mary Findlater.
-
-
-
-
-VII
-
-
-VIRGINIA POMEROY
-
-I woke this morning neither rested nor refreshed. I was determined not
-to stay in bed, for I wanted to show Sir Archibald by my calm and
-natural demeanour that I was unconscious of anything embarrassing in
-our relations. For that matter I am not sure that there is. I wore my
-pink linen, and looked paler instead of gayer, as I intended.
-Breakfast was quiet, though mamma had borne the picnic wonderfully and
-Miss Evesham was brighter than usual. Sir Archibald was baffling. He
-met my eye as seldom as possible, but I am glad to say, though he was
-absent-minded, he was not grumpy. Why do I care whether he is grumpy
-or not? Why do I like to see him come out sunny and warm and genial,
-and relax his severe face into an unexpected laugh? And why do I feel
-pleased when he melts under my particular coaxing? I have deliberately
-tried to disparage him to myself and compare him with other men,
-especially with Breck Calhoun, always to his disadvantage. He is not a
-bit handsomer than Breck, though mere beauty after all counts for
-almost nothing in a man. He hasn't, on the whole, as good manners as
-Breck, and doesn't begin to understand me as well. He is an ordinary,
-straight, simple, intelligent but not intellectual Anglo-Saxon. I have
-assured myself of this dozens of times, and having treated him as a
-kind of snow image, merely for the satisfaction of throwing
-disparaging epithets at him, and demolishing his outline, I look at
-him next morning only to find that he has put himself together again
-and made himself, somehow, into the semblance of the man I love.
-
-There are plenty of men who can manage their own moods, without a
-woman's kind offices, so why should I bother about his? If it were
-Breck Calhoun, now, he would be bothering about mine! It is just the
-time of year when dear old Breck makes the annual offer of his heart
-and hand--more, as he says, as a matter of habit than anything else,
-and simply to remind me that there is an excellent husband waiting for
-me at home when I cease running after strange hearts. That is his
-expression.
-
-I think some of the marriages between persons of different nationality
-must come off because of the fascination and mystery that each has for
-the other,--the same sort of fascination, but a still stronger one,
-that is exerted by an opposite temperament. In the friendship of a man
-of Sir Archibald's type I feel a sense of being steadied and
-strengthened, simplified and balanced. And there ought to be something
-in the vivacity of the American girl--the result of climate and
-circumstances and condition, I suppose--which should enliven and
-stimulate these grave 'children of the mist.' The feeling I have
-lately had for Archibald Mackenzie (he would frown if he could hear me
-leave out the Maxwell and the Kindarroch) is just the basis I need for
-love, but my liking would never go so far as that, unless it were
-compelled by a still stronger feeling on the man's part. I am not
-going to do any of the wooing, that is certain. If a man chose to give
-me his very best I would try to deserve it and keep it and cherish it,
-but I have no desire to fan his inward fires beforehand. After he is
-once kindled, if he hasn't heat enough to burn of his own free will,
-then let him go out! Sir Archibald is afraid of himself and afraid of
-love. Well, he need not worry about me! I might like to see the
-delightfully incongruous spectacle of a man of his type honestly and
-heartily in love, and (in passing) it would be of inestimable benefit
-to his character; but I want no panic-stricken lovers in my company.
-Haven't I enough fears of my own, about wet climates and cold houses
-and monarchical governments and tin bath-tubs and porridge and my
-mother's preference for American husbands? But I should despise myself
-if I didn't feel capable of throwing all these, and more, overboard if
-the right time ever comes.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I haven't been downstairs either to luncheon or tea, but I looked from
-mamma's window and chanced to see Johnson putting Sir Archibald's
-portmanteau into the motor. I thought this morning that he intended to
-run away. And that is the stuff they make soldiers of in Scotland!
-Afraid of love! Fie! Sir Archibald!
-
-I cannot succeed in feeling like the 'maiden all forlorn.' It
-impresses me somehow that he has gone away to think it over. Well,
-that is reasonable; I don't suppose to a man of Sir Archibald's
-temperament two weeks seems an extreme length of time in which to
-choose a wife; and as I need considerable reflection on my part I'll
-go away too, presently, and take mamma to Torquay, as was our original
-intention. Torquay is relaxing, and I think I have been a trifle too
-much stimulated by this bracing moorland air. I hope for his own
-comfort that Sir Archibald will do his thinking in a warmer clime; and
-when (or if) he returns to acquaint Virginia with the result of his
-meditations, he will learn that she also is thinking--but in a place
-unknown!
-
-
-MRS. MACGILL
-
-It is just as I feared. The trouble is in my right knee, so stiff that
-I can scarcely bend it, and exceedingly painful. Cecilia calls it 'a
-touch of rheumatism.'
-
-'Indeed,' I said, 'it's a pretty secure grasp, not a touch; were I
-what is called a _danseuse_, my livelihood would be gone, but
-mercifully I don't need to dance.'
-
-Cecilia laughed; she thinks nothing of any illness but neuralgia.
-
-'We must leave this place very soon,' said I, 'and return to Tunbridge
-Wells; life here is fit only for cannibals.'
-
-In the morning it was impossible for me to come down to breakfast, but
-with great difficulty I dragged myself downstairs about eleven. I felt
-it my duty to the son of an old friend to seek an opportunity for
-quietly speaking my mind to Sir Archibald about Miss Pomeroy, so
-decided to do it at once. I found them together, as usual, in the
-coffee-room. The girl was looking pale; she is beginning to be afraid
-that her arts are in vain.
-
-Sir Archibald was standing beside her, looking very much bored. She
-made some excuse, and left the room soon after I had come in.
-
-'I hope you are not the worse of your adventure in the motor, Mrs.
-MacGill,' Sir Archibald began.
-
-'Thank you,' said I, sitting down close to him. 'I am, a good deal. My
-right knee is excessively painful, and I have a very strange buzzing
-in the head.'
-
-'Ah, you are not accustomed to the motor; it's all habit.'
-
-'I am _not_ accustomed to a motor, Sir Archibald,' said I, 'nor am I
-accustomed to the ways of young women nowadays,--_young ladies_ we
-used to be called when I was a girl, but I feel that the phrase is
-quite inapplicable to a person like Miss Pomeroy.'
-
-'"Young woman" is better, perhaps,' he said, I thought with a smile.
-
-'No lady,' I continued, 'when _I_ was young, would talk like that or
-act like that.' 'A sweet face shrinking under a cottage bonnet' (as
-Mr. MacGill used to say) 'is better than any tulip.'
-
-Sir Archibald smiled again, and seemed about to leave the room, but I
-asked him to be so good as to hold a skein of wool for me. I had
-brought down my knitting, so he sat down to hold it, looking rather
-annoyed.
-
-I continued firmly, 'There is a freedom--I should almost say a
-licence--about American women and their ways--'
-
-'You have dropped your ball,' he said; and when he had returned it to
-me, he began to try to change the subject by remarking about the
-weather.
-
-'It is,' I said, 'extremely cold, as it has always been ever since I
-came here, but, as I was saying, there is something about Miss
-Pomeroy's singing--'
-
-Here he bent his head so low that I was unable to see his face, and
-stretched my wool so tight that I fear my next socks will be spoiled;
-it was three-ply merino, and very soft.
-
-'She sings,' I went on without taking any notice of the wool, 'in a
-way that I feel sure poor Mr. MacGill would have considered
-indecorous. I was a musician myself as a girl, and used to sing with
-much expression. "She Wore a Wreath of Roses" was a great favourite. I
-always expected to be asked to repeat it. I remember on one occasion
-when I came to--
-
-     "A sombre widow's cap adorns
-     Her once luxuriant hair,"
-
-a gentleman who stood by the piano--he was a widower--was obliged to
-turn away. But that was quite a different matter from the kind of
-expression that Miss Pomeroy puts into things. It's not proper. I
-must speak plainly to you, and say it is almost passionate, though I
-dislike to use the word.
-
-     "When I am dead, my dearest--"
-
-Are these words for the drawing-room? You are pulling my skein rather
-tight, Sir Archibald. It stretches so easily, and these light wools
-require such care.
-
-     "And dreaming through the twilight
-     Haply I may remember, and haply may forget."
-
-Remember _what_? forget _what_? The inquiry rises unbidden. Just ask
-yourself if these are words for the lips of any young woman--far less
-a young _lady_.'
-
-Here Sir Archibald coughed so violently that he had to let go my wool
-(which got all tangled) and stand up.
-
-'Excuse me,' he interrupted, 'but I have promised to speak with
-Johnson about something--'
-
-'I won't detain you more than a minute,' I interrupted, 'only just to
-say a word of warning to the son of an old friend. Foreigners who
-speak our own language are the worst of all. O Sir Archibald, your
-grandmother was Scotch, your mother was Scotch before you were born,
-and all your good aunts too. I must warn you that if you let this
-American girl, this Miss Pomeroy, succeed in her attempt--'
-
-'Mrs. MacGill,' he exclaimed, 'I cannot allow you to use Miss
-Pomeroy's name to me in this way.'
-
-'Very well,' said I, 'but if you do not take my advice and beware,
-Miss Pomeroy will have no name to mention, for she will be Lady
-Maxwell Mackenzie, and you will be a miserable man with an American
-wife.'
-
-He muttered something, I couldn't say what; the word 'Jove' was
-mentioned, and there was some allusion to 'an old cat.' I failed to
-see the connection, for no one could call Miss Pomeroy 'old,' whatever
-she is; then without a word of apology he left the room. Young men,
-even baronets, have no manners nowadays. Mr. MacGill's were courtly;
-he never used one word where two would do, and bowed frequently to
-every lady, often apologising most profusely when there was no
-occasion for it.
-
-
-SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE
-
-     CARLETON HOTEL, LONDON
-
-I came down late, the morning after that drive, having spent a bad
-night. In spite of the fact that Johnson had been out with the motor
-and the old ladies till nearly midnight, I never thought of going down
-to look at the car. It had lost interest in a way I didn't like. To
-tell the truth, I was thinking of nothing at all except of that girl.
-I had made up my mind that this was not to be endured. Since I kissed
-her--it is awful to confess it--I have wished for nothing so much as
-to kiss her again, and before I become the sort of blithering idiot
-that a man is when in love, I must and shall be off. It is not the
-girl I funk; she is a nice girl; I never wish to see a nicer, and I
-know I never shall. It is the feeling I am beginning to have about
-her. When she is not there I feel as if something necessary to my
-existence were wanting,--as if I had come off without a
-pocket-handkerchief or gone out in a top-hat and frock-coat without an
-umbrella on a showery day in town. When a man gets to feel this about
-another human being it is time he was off. I have sent orders to
-Johnson to be ready to start at any moment.
-
-I wish I had not seen Miss Virginia, though, before going. She looked
-so pale and done up. Mrs. MacGill came into the room before I had time
-to speak to her, even to tell her I was going away, though I somehow
-think she guessed it. As to that old frump, that harpy in black velvet
-and beads, Mrs. MacGill, I will not write down the things she elected
-to say to me about Virginia, when she had got me tied to her
-apron-string with her confounded skein of wool. I wish I had chucked
-it in her face and told her to go to the devil. If I'd had the spirit
-of half a man, I would have done it, and gone straight to Virginia.
-Virginia! This gave me a feeling about her that I can't
-describe,--much, much worse than the handkerchief-and-umbrella
-feeling,--a feeling that seemed to tweak and pull at something inside
-me that I had never been conscious of before. But I had an obstinate
-fit on, that I'm subject to, like other men, I suppose. I had said I
-would go, and I have gone, leaving a card of good-bye for the
-Pomeroys, and making straight for town.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-It is no use; for after a few days of struggle and doubt and misery, I
-have got to go back to that girl--if I can find her. What a wretched
-time I have had! If this is being in love I hope it won't last. I'm
-told it doesn't usually, after marriage. Perhaps it settles down into
-something more comfortable, that does not interfere with a man's meals
-or destroy his sleep. It is awful to think that your whole life may or
-may not be changed, according to the fancy of a girl whose existence
-you weren't aware of a fortnight ago! I have told Johnson we are going
-straight back to Dartmoor, and he grinned--the wretch! Of course he
-knows why.
-
-
-CECILIA EVESHAM
-
-     GREY TOR INN
-     _Thursday morning_
-
-Ended the Dartmoor drama! Gone Sir Archibald! Vanished the motor! Gone
-too, dear Virginia and Mrs. Pomeroy! only Mrs. MacGill and I are left!
-He went on Wednesday, the Pomeroys on Thursday, and I now await
-events. Virginia tells me she has taken her mother to Torquay, but
-that is a wide word!
-
-     _Saturday_
-
-I thought it would be so: a week without her was enough. Yesterday Sir
-Archibald, or what used to be Sir Archibald, appeared at the inn
-again.
-
-But what a change was here! Shall I put down our conversation without
-comment?
-
-_Cecilia._ So you have come back, Sir Archibald?
-
-_Sir A._ Yes.
-
-_Cecilia._ I hope you had a pleasant run to town, or wherever you
-went.
-
-_Sir A._ Beastly.
-
-_Cecilia._ What? Did the motor break down, or the weather?
-
-_Sir A._ Neither.
-
-_Cecilia._ What was wrong, then?
-
-_Sir A._ Everything. (Then suddenly) Where have the Pomeroys gone to,
-Miss Evesham?
-
-_Cecilia._ To Torquay, I understand.
-
-_Sir A._ Do you know their address?
-
-_Cecilia._ I do not. I suppose they will be at one of the hotels.
-
-_Sir A._ You are making fun of me. Tell me where they are. I am in
-earnest.
-
-_Cecilia._ So am I. I do not know their address.
-
-He started up, wrung my hand without a word, and hurried out of the
-room. I looked after him in the hall, but he was so intent on the
-Torquay Guide that he never noticed me.
-
-He steamed off Torquay-wards half an hour later.
-
-I have had a pleasant chat with Mr. Willoughby, who appeared this
-afternoon. He looks at life and all things much as I do. He is a
-distinct relief from Mrs. MacGill, a distinct relief; and though he
-has made no special reputation as yet, he is bound to succeed, for he
-has decided talent.
-
-
-
-
-VIII
-
-
-MRS. MACGILL
-
-My words have taken effect; it is often disagreeable to have to give
-unasked advice, but one should always do it. Sir Archibald has gone.
-It is a pleasant thought that any simple words of mine may have been
-the means of saving the young man from that designing person.
-
-She conceals her disappointment as well as she can, and is doing her
-best to look as if nothing had happened in one way or another; but I
-can see below the surface of that new hat. She has taken her mother
-off to Torquay for a few days. It is a large town seemingly, though I
-have heard that there are no men there; but as the guide-book says the
-population is twenty-five thousand, that is probably an exaggeration.
-However, Miss Pomeroy won't stay long in Torquay in that case, but
-will return to New York, where she would fain make us believe they are
-as plentiful as in a harem. They cannot all be millionaires at least,
-for she says that many American writers live on what they make by
-their books.
-
-Cecilia would like to stay on here, I think. She has been up to the
-top of a quarry looking at gorse along with that so-called artist, Mr.
-Willoughby.
-
-Miss Pomeroy has infected her, I am afraid, and the bad example is
-telling, even at that age.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-We have had several nice quiet days here alone since the Pomeroys
-left. There has scarcely been a sound in the hotel, except when the
-wind pounces upon the window-frames in the sudden, annoying way that
-it has here. Twice I have got up, to endeavour to fasten the window,
-and each time have lost a toothbrush. It shakes my nerves completely
-when the windows clatter suddenly through the night. Yesterday as we
-sat in the dining-room I heard a crunching noise.
-
-'Can that be another motor?' I exclaimed. 'I hope not. It is a class
-of people I do not wish to associate with any further.'
-
-'It is a motor,' called Cecilia, who sat next the window. 'A scarlet
-motor, too.'
-
-In another moment the door opened, and Sir Archibald Maxwell Mackenzie
-came in.
-
-'Dear me, Sir Archibald,' said I, 'what has brought you back again so
-soon? You will have a nice quiet time here now, for we are the only
-people in the hotel.'
-
-He seemed strangely put out and unlike himself, and passed my chair
-without even replying to my speech. I could see that he was thoroughly
-unnerved, very much in the same state that I was when we came back
-from that terrible drive. It is no wonder; motoring must tell on the
-strongest nerves in time.
-
-Later in the day Cecilia came in smiling. 'Sir Archibald has gone away
-again,' she said. 'He has not made a long stay this time!'
-
-'No,' I observed, 'that sort of nervous excitement grows on people. I
-know myself that if I once begin to get excited over a bazaar, for
-instance, I get off my sleep, and worn out in no time. I suppose he
-has rushed off farther into the moor.'
-
-'He has gone to Torquay,' remarked Cecilia, 'quite an easy run from
-here.'
-
-I was much annoyed. It seemed probable that he would meet Miss Pomeroy
-again there, though possible that among twenty-five thousand women he
-might fail to recognise her. I think Cecilia and I must take a day or
-two at Torquay on our way home. It would soothe me after this mountain
-air and the desolation of Grey Tor, and I could get some fresh bead
-trimming for my velvet mantle, which has been much destroyed by all
-that I have come through in this place. Our packing will be very
-easily done. Poor Mr. MacGill used always to say, in his playful
-manner, that he could stand anything except a woman's luggage, which
-is the reason that I always try to travel with as little as possible.
-So there will be only our two large boxes and the holdall and my black
-bag and the split cane basket and the Holland umbrella-case, with two
-straps of rugs and the small brown box, and the two hat-boxes, and a
-basket with some food. Miss Pomeroy's boxes were like arks. I'm sure
-if she succeeds in her design, I pity the man that has to take them
-back to Scotland; they would never go in the motor. I think Greytoria
-and the pony chaise will manage all our little things quite nicely.
-She seems the quietest animal in the stables, so I must just trust
-myself in it once more.
-
-There goes Cecilia again, walking on the gravel at the door with that
-Mr. Willoughby. We must certainly leave to-morrow morning.
-
-One affair such as that of Miss Pomeroy and Sir Archibald is enough
-for me to endure without being witness of another.
-
-One would suppose common modesty would prevent a young gentleman and
-lady from indulging in a love-affair whilst inhabiting an ordinary
-country inn; but there is no limit to the boldness of these Americans.
-I sometimes think it is a pity that they were discovered, for they
-have been a bad example to more retiring and respectable nations.
-
-
-SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE
-
-     TORQUAY
-
-That dreary week of uncertainty in London seemed more foolish than
-ever, when Johnson and I struck the familiar road from Stoke Babbage
-to the moor. What a silly ass I was, I thought, to kick my heels at
-the Carleton all those tiresome days when I might have been with
-Virginia!
-
-It all looked exactly the same as we came up the hill from the little
-town,--the bare walls of the hotel, Grey Tor with a row of tourists on
-the top, moor ponies feeding all over the place, with their tiny foals
-running after them. It was a lovely, cloudless day, with 'blue
-distances' enough to please all the artists in creation, and the hot
-air quivered over the heath as I've seen it do at home on an August
-afternoon. I seemed to hear Virginia's voice already, to see her
-standing on the step in one of her pretty new frocks, and my spirits
-went up with a bound. But when I got to the door there was no one
-there. I went into the dining-room; the tables were changed; the one
-at which we all used to sit together in the window was pushed into the
-middle of the room. At a small table on the side were seated Mrs.
-MacGill and Miss Evesham, while the Exeter artist was at another one
-not far off. Miss Evesham and he seemed to be having a pretty lively
-conversation, while Mrs. MacGill looked thoroughly out of it and
-decidedly sulky.
-
-'What!' cried Miss Evesham, seeing me, 'you are back, Sir Archibald!
-Had London no attractions?'
-
-'I hate town in the heat,' I replied.
-
-Of course I wanted to ask where the Pomeroys were, but couldn't bring
-myself to do it,--especially before Mrs. MacGill. I had pointedly
-ignored her, and had every intention of continuing to do so. After
-lunch, at the bureau, I found that the Pomeroys had left some days
-ago. I couldn't bring myself to ask for their address, with about a
-dozen people listening, so I had to hang about and wait for a chance
-of seeing Miss Evesham alone. It was after dinner before I got it. I
-could see that she was laughing at me, under the rose--confound her
-impudence!--and that she seemed to take a kind of pleasure in keeping
-me waiting. She and the artist chap appeared to be as thick as
-thieves, but at last she sent him off and began teasing me in her
-quiet way.
-
-'Are you a good sailor, Sir Archibald?' she asked irrelevantly.
-
-'Not particularly. Why?' was my reply.
-
-'The Atlantic is a wide ocean, and generally very rough, I have
-heard,' said she, with a queer look at my face.
-
-'Oh!' cried I involuntarily. 'Have they crossed?'
-
-She burst out laughing.
-
-'You're fairly caught!' she said. 'Am I supposed to know who "they"
-are?'
-
-Then of course I had to let on. I could see Miss Evesham knew all
-about it, though she did not say much, being more inclined to laugh;
-I'm sure I don't know why. The Pomeroys had gone to Torquay, but she
-either could not or would not tell me their address, or how long they
-were going to stay, or where they were going next.
-
-'Torquay is a big place,' I said, discouraged, 'all hotels and
-lodgings. How the deuce shall I find them?'
-
-'Oh,' she replied coolly, 'people generally find what they want very
-much--if they are really in earnest.'
-
-With that she nodded me good night, still laughing. I did not see her
-again, for of course I made an early morning start for Torquay next
-day.
-
-And the devil of a hunt I had, when I got there! What silly idiots
-women are! (Of course I mean Miss Evesham.) There are about one
-hundred hotels, three hundred boarding-houses, and one thousand
-furnished apartments in Torquay, and search as I might, I could not
-find the Pomeroys' name on any of their lists, or discover a trace of
-them anywhere. It was a broiling hot day, the sun beat down without
-mercy, and the glare beat up from the beastly white roads and
-pavements till I was nearly blind. I was never so nearly used up in my
-life as at the end of that day, and it was not only with bodily
-fatigue, but with utter and most cruel disappointment; for I was
-convinced that the Pomeroys had left Torquay, and that, like an utter
-fool, I had missed my only chance of being happy with a woman.
-
-At last between six and seven of the evening, I found myself sitting
-on the edge of a little sort of wood, below a garden overhanging the
-sea. The trees were cut away, here and there, to show the view, and to
-the right you looked along the coast and saw some red rocks and a
-green headland jutting out into the water. It was sunset; I was
-watching a little yawl in fall sail slipping round the headland, and
-when it was out of sight, I looked at the headland itself. There was
-one figure on the piece of green downs at the top,--a tall, slight
-figure, a woman's, all in white, with a red parasol.
-
-My heart jumped into my throat. I knew it was Virginia. There was a
-piece of white scarf or veil floating out behind her as she walked,
-and there is no woman in the world but Virginia who stands like that
-or wears a scarf like that!--O Virginia, so dear and so distant, how,
-how could I reach her, not having the wings of a bird? Long before I
-could get there she would be gone,--lost again in that howling
-wilderness of hotels and lodging-houses.
-
-A man came along the path where I was standing.
-
-'How do you get to that place?' I inquired, pointing to the headland,
-'and what is it called?'
-
-'It's called Daddy Hole Plain,' said the man, 'and you get there by
-the road. I can't direct you from here; you must inquire as you go
-along.'
-
-'Is there no short cut?' I inquired impatiently.
-
-'Not unless you can swim or fly!' said the man, with a grin.
-
-I never wished before to be a bird or a fish; mere feet seemed a most
-inadequate means of getting me to Virginia. But I set off, very nearly
-at a run. The wrong turns that I took, the hills that I went up, the
-hills that I went down, the people that I asked, the wrong directions
-they gave me,--they seemed quite innumerable. Daddy Hole Plain was
-about as difficult to get to as heaven, and when I got there the angel
-would be flown!
-
-But she wasn't.... For when at last I saw before me the bit of green
-downs with the seats facing the bay, the white figure was there.
-Virginia was sitting looking out to sea where the sun was setting,
-making a red path on the water, and the white-sailed yawl was drifting
-to the west!... I was so hot and tired, so travel-stained and dusty!
-Virginia looked so cool and sweet!... To see her there after all my
-wandering and disappointment was too much.... I could not speak. She
-heard my step, looked up and saw me coming--looked glad, I think....
-Her little feet were crossed in front of her upon the turf, and I just
-flung myself beside them, and something--so like a lump of ice, that I
-had always carried in my breast until I saw Virginia--melted entirely
-at that moment, and began to beat.
-
-
-VIRGINIA POMEROY
-
-     TORQUAY, SOUTH DEVON
-     BELLA VISTA HOTEL
-     _June 19--_
-
-If he had come the next day, or even the same week, he would have had
-a cold welcome, for on the whole I did not understand, nor did I
-fancy, his methods.
-
-But I had had time to think, time to talk it over with mamma, time to
-write Breck Calhoun that there was no use in our discussing the old
-subject, for I feared, though I was not absolutely sure, that there
-was 'some one else.' Always dear old Breck has finished by saying,
-'Jinny, there is no one else?' And there never was till now.
-
-Now there is not only some one else, but there is also in very truth
-'no one else' who counts! All is absolutely different from, and yet
-precisely like, everything that I have imagined ever since the
-foundation of the earth. In love, he is, what all good men and good
-women ought to be, something quite unlike his former self, or the
-outer self he shows to the world. He has lost himself and found
-himself again in me, and I have gone through the same mysterious
-operation. He has place for no troublesome uncertainty of mind now,
-although mamma and I have decreed a year of waiting, in which we shall
-have ample time to change if we choose. But we shall not choose; we
-were made for each other, as we have both known ever since the day we
-had luncheon together at the Mug o' Cider in Little Widger.
-
-What chapters, what books, we talked sitting in the gorse bushes on
-Daddy Hole Plain! In the evening of my days I shall doubtless be glad
-that I climbed those heights, remembering that Archibald had to exert
-himself somewhat arduously in order to ask me to marry him. I wanted
-to be alone and feast my eyes on the dazzling blue of the sea, one
-broad expanse of sapphire, stretching off, off, into eternity; a blue
-all be-diamonded with sunlit sparkles; a blue touched with foam-flecks
-wherever it broke on the rocks or the islets. Granted that any view
-has charms when one is young and in love, the view from Daddy Hole
-Plain would inspire an octogenarian, or even a misogynist.
-
-'It was in Exeter we really met, you remember,' I reminded Archibald.
-
-'I am not likely to forget it.'
-
-'Do you chance to know the motto that your virgin queen, Elizabeth,
-bestowed upon Exeter? It was _Semper fidelis_.'
-
-'That's a good omen, isn't it,' he said. 'You always do find out the
-cleverest things, Virginia! How am I ever to keep up with you?'
-
-'Don't try!' I answered, quite too happy to be anything but
-vainglorious. 'Gaze at me on my superior intellectual height, and when
-I meet your admiring eyes you can trust me to remember that though you
-are voluntarily standing on a step below, your head is higher than
-mine after all! Archibald, do you know what I am to give you for a
-wedding present?'
-
-'No,' he answered gravely; 'is it your mother?'
-
-'No, I am going to lend mamma to Miss Evesham for a little, until her
-turn comes,--dear old Cecilia!'
-
-'Do you think it will ever come?'
-
-'It's only just round the corner; Cupid is even now sharpening his
-arrows and painting little pictures on the shafts.'
-
-'Oh, I see! Well, is it Greytoria? for I don't mind saying that I'm
-quite ready to give her a stall in my stables at Kindarroch; though of
-all the ill-conducted and lazy little brutes--'
-
-'Be careful, Archibald,' I exclaimed warningly; 'you owe some few
-hours of martyrdom, but many a debt of gratitude, to that same
-Greytoria.'
-
-'I remember only one,' he said, looking at me in a very embarrassing
-way, 'and by George, she cut that one short! But I give it up--the
-wedding present; I can't guess, and I don't care specially, so long as
-you come along with it.'
-
-'I shall come with it, and in it, if the faithful Johnson will steer
-me,--it's going to be a new motor!'
-
-'Well, you owe it to me, Virginia,' he cried with enthusiasm, 'for
-mine isn't worth a brass farthing at this moment. I knew before I had
-been at Grey Tor twenty-four hours that it was going to be knocked
-into smithereens, but I hadn't the pluck to take it or myself out of
-harm's way. Now we are both done for!'
-
-'Which do you prefer?' I asked,'your old motor or me?'
-
-'You, with a new one,' he answered unblushingly. 'We'll take our
-wedding journey in it, shall we? Early this autumn would be a good
-time.'
-
-'And mamma and Cecilia and Mrs. MacGill can follow behind with
-Greytoria.'
-
-'I don't mind their trying to follow,' Archibald responded genially,
-as he lighted his pipe, 'so long as they never catch up; and they
-never will--not with that little brute!'
-
-
-     Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty
-     at the Edinburgh University Press
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Affair at the Inn, by
-Kate Douglas Wiggin and Mary Findlater and Jane Findlater and Allan McAulay
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