DARTMOOR, DEVONSHIRE,
THE GREY TOR INN,
_Tuesday, May 18th, 19--_
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.'
She remarked that she had always preferred a small, perfectly
finished, and well-managed estate to a large, rank, wild, and
overgrown one, and I am bound to say that I think the retort was a
good one. It must have been, for it silenced me.
We have done Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and having begun at the top
of the map, have gone as far as Devon in England. We have been
travelling by counties during the last year, because it seemed tidier
and more thorough and businesslike; less confusing too, for the
places look so alike after a while that I can never remember where we
have been without looking in my diary. I don't know what will come
after England,--perhaps Australia and New Zealand. I suppose they
speak English there, of a sort.
If complete ignorance of a place, combined with great power of
appreciation when one is introduced to it,--if these constitute a
favourable mental attitude, then I have achieved it. That Devonshire
produces Lanes, Dumplings, Cider, Monoliths, Clouted Cream, and Moors
I know, but all else in the way of knowledge or experience is to be
the captive of my bow and spear.
It is one of the accidents of travel that one can never explain, our
being here on this desolate moor, caged, with half a dozen strange
people, in a little inn at the world's end.
In the hotel at Exeter mamma met in the drawing-room a certain Mrs.
MacGill, who like herself was just recovering from the influenza. Our
paths have crossed before; I hope they'll not do so too often. Huddled
in their shawls, and seated as near to the chilling hotel fire as was
possible, they discussed their symptoms, while I read _Lorna Doone_.
Mrs. MacGill slept ill at night and found a glass of milk-arrowroot
with a teaspoon of brandy and a Bath Oliver biscuit a panacea; mamma
would not allow that any one could sleep worse than she, but
recommended a peppermint lozenge, as being simple, convenient, and
efficacious. Mrs. MacGill had a slight cough, so had mamma; Mrs.
MacGill's chest was naturally weak, so was mamma's. Startlingly
similar as were the paths by which they were travelling to the grave,
they both looked in average health, mamma being only prettily delicate
and Mrs. MacGill being fat and dumpy, with cap ribbons and shoulder
capes and bugles and brooches that bespoke at least a languid interest
in life. The nice English girl who was Mrs. MacGill's companion in the
railway train, sat in the background knitting and reading,--the kind
of girl who ought to look young and doesn't, because her youth has
been feeding somebody's selfish old age. I could see her quiet history
written all over her face,--her aged father, vicar of some remote
parish; her weary mother, harassed with the cares of a large family;
and the dull little vicarage from whose windows she had taken her
narrow peeps at life. We exchanged glances at some of Mrs. MacGill's
reminiscences, and I was grateful to see that she has a sense of
humour. That will help her considerably if she is a paid companion, as
I judge she is; one would hardly travel with Mrs. MacGill for
pleasure. This lady at length crowded mamma to the wall and began on
the details of an attack of brain fever from which she had suffered at
the Bridge of Allan thirty years ago, and I left the room to seek a
breath of fresh air.
There is never anything amusing going on in an English hotel. When I
remember the life one lives during a week at the Waldorf-Astoria or
the Holland House in New York, it fairly makes me yearn with
homesickness. It goes like this with a girl whose friends are all
anxious to make the time pass merrily.
_Monday noon._--Luncheon at the University Club with H. L. and mamma.
_Monday afternoon._--Drive with G. P. in a hansom. Tea at Maillard's.
Violets from A. B., American Beauty roses from C. D. waiting in my
room. Dinner and the play arranged for me by E. F.
_Tuesday._--One love-letter and one proposal by the morning mail; the
proposal from a Harvard Freshman who wishes me to wait until he
finishes his course. No one but a Freshman would ever have thought of
that! G. H. from Chicago and B. C. from Richmond arrive early and join
us at breakfast. B. C. thinks G. H. might have remained at home to
good advantage. G. H. wonders why B. C. couldn't have stayed where he
was less in the way. Luncheon party given by G. H. at one. Dinner by
B. C. at seven.
_Wednesday._--Last fitting for three lovely dresses.
_Thursday._--Wear them all. The result of one of them attention with
intention from the fastidious A. B.
And so on. It would doubtless spoil one in time, but I have only had
two weeks of it, all put together.
The hall of the hotel at Exeter was like all other English hotel
halls; so damp, dismal, dull, and dreary, that it is a wonder English
travellers are not all sleeping in suicides' graves. Were my eyes
deceiving me or was there a motor at the door, and still more
wonderful, was there a young, good-looking man directly in my path,--a
healthy young man with no symptoms, a well-to-do young man with a
perfectly appointed motor, a well-bred, presentable young man with an
air of the world about him? How my heart, starving for amusement,
rushed out to him after these last weary months of nursing at
Leamington! I didn't want to marry him, of course, but I wanted to
talk to him, to ride in his motor, to have him, in short, for a
masculine safety valve. He showed no symptom of requiring me for any
purpose whatever. That is the trouble with the men over here,--so
oblivious, so rigid, so frigid, so conventional; so afraid of being
chloroformed and led unconscious to the altar! He was smoking a pipe,
and he looked at me in a vague sort of way. I confess I don't like to
be looked at vaguely, and I am not accustomed to it. He couldn't know
that, of course, but I should like to teach him if only I had the
chance and time. I don't suppose he knew that I was wearing a Redfern
gown and hat, but the consciousness supported me in the casual
encounter. Naturally he could not seek an introduction to me in a
hotel hall, nor could we speak to each other without one.
His chauffeur went up to him presently, touched his hat, and I thought
he said, 'Quite ready, Sir--Something'; I didn't catch the name.
Well, he bowled off, and I comforted myself with the thought that
mamma and I were at least on our way to pastures new, if they were
only Dawlish or Torquay pastures; or perhaps something bracing in the
shape of Dartmoor forests, if mamma listens to Mrs. MacGill.
The owner of the motor appeared again at our dinner-table, a long
affair set in the middle of the room, all the small tables being
occupied by uninteresting nobodies who ate and drank as much, and took
up as much room, as if they had been somebodies.
It is needless to say that the young Britisher did not, like the busy
bee, improve the shining hour--that sort of bee doesn't know honey
when he sees it. He didn't even pass me the salt, which in a Christian
country is not considered a compromising attention. I think that too
many of Great Britain's young men must have been killed off in South
Africa, and those remaining have risen to an altogether fictitious
value. I suppose this Sir Somebody thinks my eyes are fixed on his
coronet, if he has one rusting in his upper drawer awaiting its
supreme moment of presentation. He is mistaken; I am thinking only of
his motor. Heigh ho! If marriage as an institution could be retained,
and all thought of marriage banished from the minds of the young of
both sexes, how delightful society could be made for all parties! I
can see that such a state of things would be quite impossible, but it
presents many advantages.