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, 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 | | 26 of late in Mrs. MacGill's sick room, 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 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, | | 27 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 car 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, con- | | 28 quest, 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. Pome- | | 29 roy," 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 red-hot panting monster fatigued by climbing the long hill that leads up to Grey Tor Inn.

"Is n't it out of breath?" cried Virginia. "I want to pat it and give it a drink of | | 30 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!

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