The Affair at the 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

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

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

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.'

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.