The Affair at the Inn

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Findlater Jane Helen. The Affair at the Inn

I. VIRGINIA POMEROY

MRS. MACGILL

MRS. MACGILL

SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE, Bart

CECILIA EVESHAM

II. VIRGINIA POMEROY

MRS. MACGILL

SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE

CECILIA EVESHAM

III. VIRGINIA POMEROY

MRS. MACGILL

SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE

CECILIA EVESHAM

IV. VIRGINIA POMEROY

MRS. MACGILL

SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE

CECILIA EVESHAM

V. VIRGINIA POMEROY

MRS. MACGILL

SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE

CECILIA EVESHAM

VI. VIRGINIA POMEROY

MRS. MACGILL

SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE

CECILIA EVESHAM

VII. VIRGINIA POMEROY

MRS. MACGILL

SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE

CECILIA EVESHAM

VIII. MRS. MACGILL

SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE

VIRGINIA POMEROY

Отрывок из книги

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.'

.....

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.

.....