The Affair at the Inn Part 2

_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 st.u.r.dy 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 inst.i.tution. 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 gla.s.ses. She sat there singing for quite a long time. She wouldn't finish her songs, but just sang sc.r.a.ps 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 s.e.x; 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 amus.e.m.e.nt.'