From Pixie O'Shaughnessy to Bridgie Victor:
"Not a moment have I had to write to you, Honey, since the first wee
note, and I've been here a whole three days. It's the most distracting
thing in the world when you've nothing to do, and takes up more time
than you'd believe. I think of you all in the morning in the dear
little house, every one bustling round, and only longing for more hands
and legs to get along the quicker, while here we sit, the six of us,
dawdling over breakfast, with not a thing to think of but how to waste
the time until we can decently begin to eat again! It isn't energetic,
and it isn't useful, and it isn't wise, or noble, or improving, or
anything of the kind, but I won't disguise from you, my dear, that, by
way of a change, it's exceedingly agreeable to the feelings.
"In Esmeralda's language, there is no one here at present, which means
that there are three other visitors besides my important self, and, what
is more, my dear, there's a full-fledged romance being acted under my
very eyes. Here's luck! Aren't things kind to happen so conveniently
for me?
"_Heroine_. Honor Ward, aged twenty-four. Orphan. Proprietress of
Piquant Pickles Factory, Cheeving, Massachusetts, USA. Honor, who is
of fair and pleasing exterior, is spending a year in Europe visiting
various friends and connections. Honor is sensitive as to her
enormous fortune, and suspects:--
"_Robert Carr, Hero in Chief_, of being attracted thereby. Robert
Carr is a barrister engaged in climbing the ladder. He loves Honor,
but resents her attitude, and talks assiduously to:--
"_Patricia O'Shaughnessy_, youngest scion of the house. Patricia is
plain, but fascinating, and of noble disposition. She is anxious to
reconcile the lovers. The more so as she herself prefers the
companionship of:--
"_Stanor Vaughan, Secondary Hero_, a beauteous youth of fair estate.
Stanor being ardently in love with himself, does not return her
passion. He treats her with sisterly affection. Patricia hides her
chagrin beneath a mask of gaiety.
"How's that for a start, Honey? Pretty thrilling, eh? Don't be anxious
about the mask! It's so life-like that it deceives even myself into
believing that it's the genuine article, but when dramatic happenings
are around, it isn't Pixie O'Shaughnessy who will stand aside and take
no part!
"On Wednesday we went for a picnic. It was meant to be a picnic _de
luxe_, but fate was kind to us, and it turned out very alfresco indeed.
We started in the big car, Geoffrey driving, and all sorts of good
things piled up in hampers, and at an appointed place the chauffeur met
us and took possession, while we walked on through the woods. Such
woods, Bridgie; all sweet, and dim, and green, the trunks of the great
old beeches standing up straight and tall like the pillars of a great
cathedral, and sweet, innocent little primroses peeping up through the
moss, and last year's leaves crackling under foot. Those primroses went
straight to my head; I felt quite fey.
"Strictly, between me and your sisterly ear, I was _very amusing
indeed_, and they all appreciated me very much! And we laughed and
talked, and finally began to sing.
"`You have a quite too beautiful voice, Miss O'Shaughnessy. Won't you
sing to us in the drawing-room to-night?'
"`How sweet of you! Really, I shall be _too_ charmed!' (This is the
orthodox fashionable manner of speaking. Let us be fashionable or die!)
"We sang glees. Esmeralda and I took contralto; there was practically
no treble, for Honor's squeak was drowned fathoms deep; Geoffrey and Mr
Carr droned bass, and Stanor Vaughan took tenor, rather out of tune it's
true, but no man with that profile could be expected to condescend to
_bass_! We sang `Come and _see_ the daylight dawning, on the meadow far
away,' and Mr Carr said he must really make a point of going some day,
and we've planned an early walk for next week, if any one can wake up in
time. We roared `All among the barley,' until the primroses looked
quite abashed, and turned into `Good-night, good-night beloved,' to
soothe them down again, and we grew so intimate and festive, and they
all said, `What next, Miss O'Shaughnessy, what next?' Really, my dear,
I was a _succes fou_.
"But more is yet to come. It was so lovely and we were enjoying
ourselves so much, that we dallied about, and took extra little detours,
so that it was nearly two o'clock when we arrived at the appointed spot,
and imagine, my dear, our thwarted hunger and thirst, when not a vestige
of a car could we behold! It was no use _waiting_, because if all had
gone right it should have been waiting for us for an hour at least. So
we held a council of war at the side of the road.
"_Esmeralda_. `I shall give Dawson notice _At Once_! He has made
some stupid mistake, and gone to the wrong place. I've no patience
with blunderers.' (She hasn't.)
"_Geoffrey_. `Something may have gone wrong with the car. Don't
blame the poor fellow till you are sure he deserves it.'
"_Stanor_. `I don't care one rap about Dawson. I want my lunch!
_With_ the luxuries! What price expectation _now_, Miss
O'Shaughnessy?'
"_Honor_. `I'm sorry to be disagreeable, but I've a blister on my
heel. If it's a case of walking back, I must bid you all a fond adieu
and take to a forest life.'
"_Robert Carr_. `What can you expect if you start out on a country
walk in ball-room slippers?'
"Honor said: `They aren't, and, anyway, I don't expect sympathy from
_you_,' and _I_ said: `Isn't there an opening into the road a little
nearer the village where the car may be waiting all the time?'
"`Mrs Dick,' quoted Geoffrey,--`your common sense is invaluable!' and
off he started in advance while we all trailed in the rear, along the
dusty high-road this time, and not by any means in a singing mood.
Esmeralda stalked, and Honor limped. She hadn't done it a bit before,
so it came on rather suddenly, and Stanor offered her his arm, and she
hung upon it, and Mr Carr talked politics to me, and I tried to quote
Dick's remarks and appear intelligent, but it didn't come off.
"It was a mile, and more. It seemed like three, and when we arrived at
the opening the car was not there. We sat down against the dusty
hedgerow and gave way to despair. Here we were stranded five weary
miles from our base, i.e. the hampers, and what were we going to do?
Every one had a different suggestion, but the object of them all was the
same--_get something to eat_. It's humiliating how greedy people become
when they are defrauded of a meal! Dawson and the car were forgotten,
everything was forgotten, and when I said that doctors were agreed that
we ate too much, and an occasional starve was the most healthy thing
that could happen, they looked coldly on me, and Stanor said doctors
might keep their theories, but give him _foie gras_! Finally we agreed
to be scouts and go forth on a foraging expedition through the tiny
village, seeking what we might devour. Geoffrey was the scout-master,
and we were to meet him at the second lamp-post and report.
"There were half a dozen cottages, one shop, and a yard where they sold
coal and fresh eggs. So that meant a cottage each, and the stores
thrown in. Our orders were to knock on each door and stand close so as
to have a good view of the interior when it was opened. If it was a
dirty interior we were to dissemble, and ask the way; if it was clean,
we were to say, `Oh, if you please, we are stranded motorists, and do
you supply plain teas?' In case of _two_ being clean, the choice was to
be left with the scout-master, who would decide between them with tact
and discretion.
"Bridgie, it _was_ sport! They were _all_ clean, and they _all_
supplied plain teas, but the astounding part was that no one could
supply milk! (Esmeralda says she has never yet raided an English
cottage where they _could_.) And they all offered the same bill of
fare--tea with tinned milk, eggs, and spring onions! We chose the
biggest and airiest cottage, ordered eggs, looked haughtily at onions,
adjourned to the village store and tried to discover some accessories
among the rope, firewood, and linoleum. There was tinned salmon, but
Esmeralda said she objected to us dying on her hands, and loaf sugar,
and treacle, and bull's-eyes in a glass bottle, and gingerbread biscuits
(but the snap had departed, and they were so soft that you could have
rolled them in balls), and some _very_ strong-looking cheese, and rows
of dried herrings packed in a box.
"It was Hobson's choice, so we bought a herring apiece, and insisted on
having each one wrapped up in paper, and carrying it across the road in
our own separate hands, and _I_ bought a pound of bull's-eyes. They are
such encouraging things on a long walk!
"It was a _delicious_ tea. The milk was rather greasy and hard to mix,
but if you didn't think about it, it tasted almost as good as real, the
eggs were fresh, and the herrings so good that Stanor ran across the
road for more, and we made time with bread and butter until they were
cooked. And we gave not a thought to the motor; it was only when the
sixth plate of bread and butter had been eaten to a crumb that we
remembered the miles between us and the nearest station. Five or six it
was, nothing to trouble ordinary people, even if they would have
preferred a comfortable car, but there was Honor! She had slipped off
her shoe under the table, and when she tried to put it on again it hurt
so badly that she could hardly hobble across the room, and there was not
a vehicle within miles.
"We all fussed and wondered what could be done, except Mr Carr, who
strolled calmly out of the house without a word, lighting a cigarette as
he went, and after that Honor's foot got so suddenly worse that the
tears came to her eyes. Five minutes later when we were still fussing
and settling nothing, back he came, and in his hands, what do you
think?--you'd never guess--a pair of men's carpet slippers! I remember
in a dim, sub-conscious fashion having seen them hanging up in drab and
crimson bunches from the ceiling of the shop, but it had never occurred
to me that they were to _wear_!"
"`You can walk in these!' said Mr Carr coolly, and without waiting to
hear Honor's reply, he went down on his knees, and began unbuttoning her
shoe. She has the daintiest mite of a foot you ever saw--it looked like
a doll's in his big, strong hand--but she wasn't a bit grateful. There
was a look on her face which sent all the others crowding to the door,
but she glared at me to stay, and, being curious, I obeyed.
"`Mr Carr,' says she,--`this is too much! It is usual in my country
for a man to ask a girl what she wants, before he takes it upon himself
to dictate!'
"He went on unfastening the shoe.
"Occasionally one meets people who don't know what they _do_ want!
"`Well, I reckon I _do_. And it don't happen to be carpet slippers.
I'd look a guy. What are you taking off that shoe for anyway? That
foot's all right!'
"`It wouldn't be right long. One flat shoe and one French heel make a
poor pair. You are going to wear both.'
"`They're miles too large. They'd fall off on the road.'
"`Oh, no they won't. I'll take care of that,' he said coolly, and took
from his pocket two strong black bootlaces which he proceeded to
criss-cross over the instep and round the ankles. She sat quite still
watching him, her eyes very bright, her hands twisted together on her
lap. When he had finished she put out her feet and stared at them--they
_did_ look boats!--then she looked down at him. He was still kneeling,
and there was not a sound to be heard in that kitchen but the tick of
the old clock and the beat, beat, beat of Pixie O'Shaughnessy's heart.
"`Don't you care,' said she softly, `a mite _how_--I--look?'
"`Not a mite,' says he coolly. `I care how you _feel_!'
"There was a look in his eyes which was not carpet slippers, far from
it, and Honor leaped up and swept to the door with what was intended to
be a haughty `sweep,' but the slippers pad-padded at each step in a sort
of shuffle, which was the unhaughtiest thing you could possibly imagine.
Then Mr Carr gathered up the two tiny brown shoes and dusted them
carefully with his handkerchief, and slipped one into each pocket of his
Norfolk coat. Honor never bothered about her shoes: I suppose you don't
when you own factories, but Mr Carr walked all the way with his hands
in his pockets as if he had got something there that he liked to hold.
"The children of the village followed us as we went, and called out,
`Hi, look at her feet! Hi, Miss, is there room for me in them
slippers?' as of course they would, bless them! And I will say for her
she took it smiling.
"Two miles along the road the car met us, poor Dawson apoplectic with
distress and confusion. The engine had gone wrong, and he had had a
terrible time getting it put right, and was distracted because he could
find no way of sending on the hampers. We tumbled in and whirled home
in peace and safety, but some of us were glad it had not come before.
"Don't you wonder how I've accomplished this mammoth letter? There are
so many times a day in this house when one has to dress in something
different, to do the next thing on the programme, and experience has
proved that I change in about a quarter the time taken by the others, so
down I sit and fill up the wait by scribbling a page or two more, and I
hope, my dear, the result will amuse you.
"I wear my best clothes all day long, eat indigestible food, go to bed
late, get up later, and have Esmeralda's maid to do my hair. You'd
think it would need an effort to change into a fine lady all at once,
but it doesn't; you just slip in, and feel like a sleek, stroked cat.
My dear, I was born to be a Society Belle!
"Pixie."