June 9.
Dear Judy:
You are an awful family for an impressionable young girl to visit.
How can you expect me to come back and settle down contentedly to
institution life after witnessing such a happy picture of domestic
concord as the Pendleton household presents?
All the way back in the train, instead of occupying myself with two
novels, four magazines, and one box of chocolates that your husband
thoughtfully provided, I spent the time in a mental review of the young
men of my acquaintance to see if I couldn't discover one as nice as
Jervis. I did! (A little nicer, I think.) From this day on he is the
marked-down victim, the destined prey.
I shall hate to give up the asylum after getting so excited over it,
but unless you are willing to move it to the capital, I don't see any
alternative.
The train was awfully late. We sat and smoked on a siding while two
accommodations and a freight dashed past. I think we must have broken
something, and had to tinker up our engine. The conductor was soothing,
but uncommunicative.
It was 7:30 when I descended, the only passenger, at our insignificant
station in the pitch darkness and RAIN, without an umbrella, and wearing
that precious new hat. No Turnfelt to meet me; not even a station hack.
To be sure, I hadn't telegraphed the exact time of my arrival, but,
still, I did feel rather neglected. I had sort of vaguely expected all
ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN to be drawn up by the platform, scattering
flowers and singing songs of welcome. Just as I was telling the station
man that I would watch his telegraph instrument while he ran across
to the corner saloon and telephoned for a vehicle, there came whirling
around the corner two big searchlights aimed straight at me. They
stopped nine inches before running me down, and I heard Sandy's voice
saying:
"Weel, weel, Miss Sallie McBride! I'm thinking it's ower time you came
back to tak' the bit bairns off my hands."
That man had come three times to meet me on the off chance of the
train's getting in some time. He tucked me and my new hat and bags and
books and chocolates all in under his waterproof flap, and we splashed
off. Really, I felt as if I was getting back home again, and quite sad
at the thought of ever having to leave. Mentally, you see, I had already
resigned and packed and gone. The mere idea that you are not in a place
for the rest of your life gives you an awfully unstable feeling. That's
why trial marriages would never work. You've got to feel you're in a
thing irrevocably and forever in order to buckle down and really put
your whole mind into making it a success.
It's astounding how much news can accrue in four days. Sandy just
couldn't talk fast enough to tell me everything I wanted to hear.
Among other items, I learned that Sadie Kate had spent two days in the
infirmary, her malady being, according to the doctor's diagnosis, half a
jar of gooseberry jam and Heaven knows how many doughnuts. Her work had
been changed during my absence to dishwashing in the officers' pantry,
and the juxtaposition of so many exotic luxuries was too much for her
fragile virtue.
Also, our colored cook Sallie and our colored useful man Noah have
entered upon a war of extermination. The original trouble was over a
little matter of kindling, augmented by a pail of hot water that Sallie
threw out of the window with, for a woman, unusual accuracy of aim. You
can see what a rare character the head of an orphan asylum must
have. She has to combine the qualities of a baby nurse and a police
magistrate.
The doctor had told only the half when we reached the house, and as
he had not yet dined, owing to meeting me three times, I begged him
to accept the hospitality of the John Grier. I would get Betsy and Mr.
Witherspoon, and we would hold an executive meeting, and settle all our
neglected businesses.
Sandy accepted with flattering promptness. He likes to dine outside of
the family vault.
But Betsy, I found, had dashed home to greet a visiting grandparent,
and Percy was playing bridge in the village. It's seldom the young thing
gets out of an evening, and I'm glad for him to have a little cheerful
diversion.
So it ended in the doctor's and my dining tete-a-tete on a hastily
improvised dinner,--it was then close upon eight, and our normal dinner
hour is 6:30,--but it was such an improvised dinner as I am sure
Mrs. McGurk never served him. Sallie, wishing to impress me with her
invaluableness, did her absolutely Southern best. And after dinner we
had coffee before the fire in my comfortable blue library, while the
wind howled outside and the shutters banged.
We passed a most cordial and intimate evening. For the first time
since our acquaintance I struck a new note in the man. There really is
something attractive about him when you once come to know him. But the
process of knowing him requires time and tact. He's no' very gleg at the
uptak. I've never seen such a tantalizing inexplicable person. All the
time I'm talking to him I feel as though behind his straight line of a
mouth and his half-shut eyes there were banked fires smoldering inside.
Are you sure he hasn't committed a crime? He does manage to convey the
delicious feeling that he has.
And I must add that Sandy's not so bad a talker when he lets himself go.
He has the entire volume of Scotch literature at his tongue's end.
"Little kens the auld wife as she sits by the fire what the wind is
doing on Hurly-Burly-Swire," he observed as a specially fierce blast
drove the rain against the window. That sounds pat, doesn't it? I
haven't, though, the remotest idea what it means. And listen to this:
between cups of coffee (he drinks far too much coffee for a sensible
medical man) he casually let fall the news that his family knew the R.
L. S. family personally, and used to take supper at 17 Heriot Row! I
tended him assiduously for the rest of the evening in a Did you once see
Shelley plain, And did he stop and speak to you? frame of mind.
When I started this letter, I had no intention of filling it with a
description of the recently excavated charms of Robin MacRae; it's just
by way of remorseful apology. He was so nice and companionable last
night that I have been going about today feeling conscience-smitten at
the thought of how mercilessly I made fun of him to you and Jervis. I
really didn't mean quite all of the impolite things that I said. About
once a month the man is sweet and tractable and engaging.
Punch has just been paying a social call, and during the course of it
he lost three little toadlings an inch long. Sadie Kate recovered one of
them from under the bookcase, but the other two hopped away; and I'm so
afraid they've taken sanctuary in my bed! I do wish that mice and snakes
and toads and angleworms were not so portable. You never know what is
going on in a perfectly respectable-looking child's pocket.
I had a beautiful visit in Casa Pendleton. Don't forget your promise to
return it soon.
Yours as ever,