Beck Center English Dept. University Libraries Emory University
Emory Women Writers Resource Project Collections:
Women's Genre Fiction Project

The Affair at the Inn, an electronic edition

by Kate Douglas Wiggin [Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith, 1856-1923]

by Mary Findlater [Findlater, Mary, 1865-]

by Jane Findlater [Findlater, Jane Helen, 1866-1946]

by Allan McAulay [Stewart, Charlotte, 1863-]

date: 1904
source publisher: Houghton, Mifflin and Company
collection: Genre Fiction

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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."

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So he recommended air and exercise—driving exercise by preference.

"I used to like the donkey-chairs at Tun-bridge 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 after-noon," 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 | | 57 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; | | 58 but he is rather a phlegmatic creature, surely, for he did n'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 | | 59 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 | | 60 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, is n't it?" she asked. "You 're not half equal to a walk like that."

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"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. . . .

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